Arizona Jewish Living Vol.2/Issue 3

NOVEMBER 2013

The Jewish Lifestyle Magazine For Arizona

Special Sections: Seniors

Sharing Lives Through Books

Camps

It Really is Time to Reserve Your Kid’s Bunk

Hanukkah

Thanksgivukkah Makes Rare Appearance

Todd Herzog’s

Desert Gathering Unity Through Music

Seeks

The wrong Tool can do

a lot of damage

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Inside

November 2013/ Cheshvan-Kislev 5774 | Volume 2/Issue 3

Special Sections

12-17 Hanukkah A Very Arizona Hanukkah, Thanksgivukkah is coming, Gift Guide

22-29 Camps First-time campers at Camp Stein, Tradition of Camp Friendly Pines, Arizonans head to BB Camp, One Happy Camper grants, Jewish teens give kids carefree moments at Camp Swift, Do kids have a right to attend camp?

38-49 Seniors Schindler’s List survivor shares story in spoken and

written word, Lovable dog inspires author’s mitzvah, WWII music book a lifetime journey, Update on last November’s “Cover Girl,” Grandma shares family history in novel form, Caregiver burnout, Transmitting needlepoint to future generations

Oleg Bortman Oleg@TheSuitsAZ.com 602-402-2296 TheSuitsAZ.com B I LT M O R E L I F E S T Y L E S R E A L E S T A T E

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Features

30

COVER STORY

Todd Herzog’s Desert Gathering: Unity through music..........…30 UPFRONT AIPAC inspires terror-free investing ....................................................8 BUSINESS Ins & Outs of Business .......................................................................9 “New” DIJA far from industrial ....................................................…...11 FOOD A blended feast for Thanksgivukkah..............................................…18 WDJPE? The White Chocolate Grill..............................................……20

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Our expert and compassionate staff has a long history of serving people at difficult times in their lives, with 3 service locations: Central Tucson, Oro Valley & Green Valley.

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4 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

54

HISTORY Yuma’s Jewish river boat captain..............................................…………………52 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT Accessible Keyboard Conversations ..........................................……………….54 Hiding in the Open in Glendale..................................................………………..56 Judaica Hidden in the Hills..........................................................………………57 Many-cultured chanting of Pinna Joseph.................................………………….58 SINGLES Cultivate the culture of relationship..............................................……………..60 Fishing for a date...........................................................................…………...61 ISRAEL Declassified report prompts reflections on war.................................….………62 Tucson firefighters search for answers in Israel............................……………...64

64 Columns 11 Money Matters byThomas K. Brueckner 18 Chef’s Corner by Lucia Schnitzer 20 Where Do Jewish People Eat? By A. Noshman 29 FamilyTime by Debra Rich Gettleman 36 To Life by Amy Hirshberg Lederman 50 Rabbinic Reflections by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz 51 Soundbites 59 Fashionista by Kira Brown 60 Looking for Love by Ellen Gerst 62 An American in Israel by Mylan Tanzer

Connect 65 Happenings: Previews 68 Happenings: Faces 69 Happenings: Calendar

Coming Soon to MIM Music Theater Join our concert e-mail list! Sign up at MIM.org.

The Klezmatics Wed., December 4 | 7:00 p.m.

Tickets: $37.50–$42.50 The Klezmatics return to the MIM Music Theater! Taking one of the wildest approaches to klezmer, this group “can rank among the greatest bands on the planet” (Time Out New York). Although their music is heavily influenced by the recordings of Abraham Ellstein and Dave Tarras, their lyrics comment on a wide variety of political and social issues.

2013 Concert Series sponsored in part by:

COVER: Todd Herzog by Carl Schultz CORRECTION: An article in the October issue of Arizona Jewish Life included an error in the name of the actress in the Desert Stages production of “The Diary of Anne Frank.”

Rachel Redleaf starred as Anne Frank in the production

To Purchase Tickets: • Order online at MIM.org | Call 480.478.6000 • Visit MIM’s Ticket Office at 4725 E. Mayo Blvd., Phoenix, AZ 85050

MUSIC

THEATER

Located in the Musical Instrument Museum

Join MIMphx

THE JEWISH LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE FOR ARIZONA

Publishers Robert Philip and Cindy Saltzman Advertising and Editorial Director Cindy Saltzman Editor-In-Chief Deborah Moon Associate Editor Janet Arnold Advertising Sales advertise@azjewishlife.com 602-538-2955

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Ask for Gary Kravetz, Fleet Director RIGHT HONDA’s Fleet and Internet Department welcomes different buying clubs like Costco, Sam’s, all credit unions, Police and Fire Departments, Motorola, Intel, etc., so please call or email to see if your company is an approved organization.

The buying process for our fleet and internet department is done at your speed. Our Fleet and Internet Managers will use their 15 years of experience to help answer all of your questions.

This is a stress and hassle-free buying program and we are proud to help serve the local companies of Scottsdale and the sorrounding areas. Contact us today to get started.

Copy Editors Susan Moon Sally Swire Online Content Editor Kira Brown Columnists Kira Brown, Thomas K. Brueckner, Ellen Gerst, Debra Rich Gettleman, Anne Kleinberg, Amy Hirshberg Lederman, Lucia Schnitzer, Mylan Tanzer and Eileen R. Warshaw, Ph.D. Contributing Writers Ellie Barget, Joni Browne-Walders, Rich Geller, Debra Rich Gettleman, Melissa Hirschl, Lori Winkler Kesselman, Suzye Kleiner, Carine Nadel, Karen Perry, Elizabeth Schwartz and Masada Siegel

For your complimentary subscription, go to www.azjewishlife.com and click on subscriptions How to reach us: 602-538-AZJL (2955) Advertise@azjewishlife.com Editor1@azjewishlife.com Publisher@azjewishlife.com

A Prince Hal Production (TGMR18) The content and opinions in Arizona Jewish Life do not necessarily reflect those of the publishers, staff or contractors. Articles and columns are for informational purposes only and not intended as a substitute for professional advice. Although every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of our published materials, Arizona Jewish Life, and its agents, publishers, employees and contractors will not be held responsible for the misuse of any information contained herein. The publishers reserve the right to refuse any advertisement. Publication of advertisements does not constitute endorsement of products or services.

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6 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

Art Director Philip Nerat

Proud members of:

Editor’s Letter Dor l’ dor

It’s funny how connections are made when we least expect them. Even when I think our special sections will be totally unrelated, themes seem to emerge as if by magic. I thought our sections on Camp, Seniors and Hanukkah would be completely independent. Yet as I read congratulates the recipient of the the stories and looked at the pages, I realize they all deal – quite strongly – with tradition and passing traditions on to a new generation.

Studies show that youth who attend overnight camp are more resilient, independent and more likely to succeed in college.

If it’s a Jewish camp, youth also become more involved with Judaism – being more likely to light Shabbat candles, give to charity and attend synagogue at least once a month. Non-Jewish camps also instill values important in Jewish tradition including caring for others and treasuring nature. Parents who have attended overnight camp want their children to have that same experience. Dor l‘ dor, generation to generation.

Our Seniors section this month includes profiles of several seniors who want to ensure the next generation remembers the history of their family, their country and the Jewish people.

When a Holocaust survivor who had stayed silent for decades began to tell his son about the horrors of his past, he couldn’t stop talking. He has gone on to speak to schools and other groups and has written his memoirs. One writer recalls the songs and films of World War II in his book so that another generation might understand the patriotic fever that created “The Greatest Generation.” Another writer shares the story of a loving dog and asks people to use that inspiration to support veterans damaged in the current wars by giving them responsibility for a canine companion. With details made sketchy by time, one woman shares her family story in a novel about World War I refugees. Finally, our “cover girl” from last The Jewish Heritage Award is presented November returns with another award-winning book designed The Jewish Heritage Awardbyisthe presented annually b to help people overcome the kind of grief and tragedy she has annually experienced in her own life. Our story on an international Jewish History Museum - Tucson Jewish History Museum - Tucson needlework guild shows how one generation is teaching future that individual SoutherninArizona has made a p generations how to create beautiful Judaic pieces such to as challah to thatinindividual Southernwho Arizona covers. difference his/her difference community. who has made in a profound We all know that Hanukkah recalls two great traditions. The The award will be at the annual awards br in presented his/her community. great victory of the Maccabbees over the Greek/Syrian armies that were far superior in numbers and weapons inspires soldiers The award will be presented November 3, 2013 in the Israel Defense Forces to this day. The miracle of the oneat the annual brunch. day supply of consecrated oil that burned for eight days reminds new generations that miracles can happen.

Order tickets on line at November 3, 2013.

The one tradition our children won’t be able to pass on to www.jewishhistorymuseum.org Order tickets online at their children is the celebration of “Thanksgivukkah.” The rare or contact the convergence of Hanukkah and Thanksgiving won’t happen again www.jewishhistorymuseum.org for some 70,000 years.

JewishHistory HistoryMuseum Museum the Jewish So be sure to make the most of it this year! To help you out, we P.O.P.O. BoxBox 889889 have a wonderful Thanksgivukkah feast and celebration ideas in Tucson, Arizona 85702 Tucson, Arizona 85702 this issue.

TheThe Jewish History Museum Jewish History Museum congratulates the recipient of the2013 2013 Jewish Heritage Jewish HeritageAward Award

Gabrielle (Gabby) Giffords (Gabby) Giffords Gabrielle

520-670-9073 520-670-9073 jhmtucson@gmail.com jhmtucson@gmail.com

ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE | NOVEMBER 2013 7

[UPFRONT]

Terror-free investing is financially and morally satisfying

By Jane Larson

The lightbulb went on for Mark Langerman in 2007.

The Scottsdale-based financial adviser was at a Washington, D.C., symposium sponsored by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, listening to workshops on encouraging state legislatures and pension funds to divest their portfolios of investments in Iran.

Langerman heard Benjamin Netanyahu, then the opposition leader in Israel, speak eloquently about how pressure from U.S. investors could force companies to pull out of Iran and make it harder for that country to pursue agendas of terror and nuclear proliferation.

“I’m listening to hundreds of people react the same way I did, with shock, and say, ‘I’m going to call my mutual fund, and I’m going to divest,’ ” recalls Langerman, now managing director and chief executive officer of Empowerment Financial Group, LLC, in Scottsdale. “I realized right then that there’s nothing out there that people can do. If you go to a shareholder meeting and tell them to sell XYZ, who happens to be building oil refineries in Iran, they’re going to say, ‘Sorry, we’re not going to do that.’ ” When Langerman returned to Arizona, he scoured his own portfolio and that of a concerned client and found that every fund held stock or bonds in one or more companies that did business in Iran. Both men purged their holdings of Iranconnected investments.

To replace them, Langerman began looking for a mutual fund that held no investments in companies that did business in Iran.

He came up virtually empty and began working on what would become the concept of terror-free investing and the Patriot Fund.

Today the Patriot Fund has more than $12 million in assets, and its top holdings as of the second quarter included name brands such as American Express, Google, The Gap, Master Card and Qualcomm. The fund is part of the Ascendant Funds family, to which nearly every brokerage in the United States has access, Langerman says.

To get his lightbulb moment to this point, Langerman spent more than a year researching companies that operated in terrorism-connected nations and talking to investment research services about how to screen them. The more he learned, the more his scope broadened beyond Iran to include countries the U.S. State Department has deemed “state sponsors of terrorism,” or countries the department says have repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism. At that time, that list comprised Iran, Syria, Sudan, North Korea and Cuba.

Langerman broadened his scope to screen out companies with

Empowerment Financial Group 8 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

Mark Langerman and Paul Seidman

any active, non-humanitarian business ties with those countries.

“There were about 700 companies globally that did business with those countries. This is meaningful business – banking, medical, manufacturing, automobile, oil services,” he says. “Without Western businesses, their economies would likely fail, and if nothing else, it would make it much harder for them to finance their terror activities.”

By mid-2008 Langerman was screening companies and partnering with two boutique firms to oversee separately managed accounts. Persuading investors to leave their familiar brokerages, however, proved a tough sell.

In 2011 Houston-based Ascendant Funds listened to Langerman’s idea and agreed to a partnership creating the Patriot Fund. They use Conflict Securities Advisory Group, Inc., a Washington, D.C., research and consulting firm, to compile the database of publicly traded companies that have business activities in or with terrorism-sponsoring nations.

On March 1, 2012, Ascendant’s Patriot Fund officially opened for business, investing in large-cap U.S. stocks.

The fund does not invest in any of the more than 40 U.S. companies doing business in any of the blacklisted countries.

Barred from its holdings, Langerman says, are General Motors, which owns a stake in PSA Peugeot Citroen, the largest automaker in Iran; Yum! Brands, Inc., whose KFC restaurants operate in Syria; and banks that conduct financial transactions, soft-drink makers that have agreements, and manufacturers that supply medical devices and cell phones in those countries.

Even companies that have received waivers from the State Department allowing them to do business in the blacklisted countries get a thumbs-down from the Patriot Fund. “There are a lot of loopholes in the sanctions legislation,” Langerman says.

Terror-free investing, like the anti-apartheid movement in the mid-1980s and the “green” investing trend of the past 20 years, falls under the umbrella of what is often called socially responsible investing. Such investing allows people to put their money where it can “do good,” but investors often ask whether their portfolios also will “do well.”

Social action has long been part of Langerman’s life. Formerly

9375 E. Shea Blvd. Suite 100 • Scottsdale, AZ 85260 • 480-634-8890

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a member of Temple Solel and Temple Chai, Langerman is currently a member of Chabad of Fountain Hills.

Morningstar mutual fund analyst David Kathman looked at the issue of social responsibility and fund performance in a 2012 article. In theory, he noted, screening out companies should hurt performance, because it makes the investment universe less diversified. In practice, he said, academic studies over the past 20 years have failed to find a significant long-term difference in returns.

As a young fund, the Patriot Fund has just a one-year track record. In the year ending June 30, 2013, the fund’s total return was 16.71 percent, while its benchmark, the S&P 500 Index, was up 20.61 percent.

Langerman notes that terror-free investing has the added advantage of reducing global security risk, or the risk that comes with doing business in volatile economies. He maintains that terror-free investing is the right thing to do and earns a good return.

“There’s a big emotional component to it,” Langerman says.

“This gives people the opportunity to participate and actually fight in the economic war on terror and make a difference, and to feel good while they’re doing it.”

“I like knowing that I’m not only earning money from my investments, but my investments reflect my beliefs,” says retired advertising executive Noelle Baker of Phoenix. “As soon as I learned about the fund and why it was created, I did my research and knew it’s where I should put my money.”

Terror-free investing isn’t the only focus for Empowerment Financial Group. The independent, fee-only financial consulting firm also helps people plan retirement, business owners plan exit strategies and divorcing people handle the financial aspects of the process. “We’re in this business to help people achieve their financial goals,” says Paul Seidman, president of Empowerment Financial Group and a chartered retirement planning counselor.

Langerman, who is an accredited investment fiduciary, has been a financial adviser for nearly 30 years. He managed offices for Paine Webber and Wells Fargo Investments before starting Empowerment Financial Group with Seidman in 2009.

Seidman spent a career with food companies such as Mars, Inc., and as the owner of small businesses providing garage cabinets and direct marketing. “I was the guy, when I worked in the Fortune 100 companies, that if somebody needed help with their 401(k), they would come ask me because I always had an interest in it,” he says. So when he was looking to change careers in 2003, after having been a client of Langerman’s for almost 15 years, joining Mark in financial services was a natural move.

When not helping their clients sleep well at night, Langerman serves on the board of directors of America’s Mighty Warriors, a nonprofit dedicated to honoring U.S. troops, and Seidman coaches football at Pinnacle Peak High School in Phoenix.

If the countries now deemed state sponsors of terrorism manage to someday come into compliance and fall off the State Department’s list, the Patriot Fund would be a regular stock fund, Langerman says. But there is no talk of them complying any time soon, he notes.

“This is one arrow in the quiver in the fight in the war on terror,” he says. “We want to fight terrorism one informed investor at a time.”

Josh Weiss contributed to this article.

New Tucson JCC President Todd Rockoff

Todd Rockoff succeeds Ken Light as president/CEO of the Tucson Jewish Community Center.

For the past 12 years, Rockoff was the executive director of the Shaw JCC in Akron, Ohio. Rockoff began his JCC career immediately after college. For 10 years he was the youth and camping director and then program director at the Scranton JCC. Then he spent six years as assistant director and then executive director of the Calgary JCC in Alberta, Canada.

Rockoff arrived in Tucson from Ohio in July with his wife, Jenni, and four children. The three oldest are now back east in college. Ariella is a senior at Stern College in New York, Jacob is a sophomore at Ohio University and Jonathon is a freshman at Ohio State. Benjamin is a freshman at Catalina Foothills High School.

Asked why he applied for the JCC post, he says, “I have been in the JCC world throughout my career, and for the past 12 years have had the honor of serving as executive director of the Shaw JCC in Akron, Ohio. Throughout my career, the reputation for excellence at the Tucson JCC was well known. Not only had I heard about what a wonderful place the JCC was, I also heard what a great community Tucson is. Everything I had heard turned out to be true – and more!”

Of his goals at the Tucson JCC, Rockoff says, “I hope to continue to provide strong programming and help to create the feeling of community amongst our members and the entire Jewish community.

We will focus on outreach and collaboration within both the Jewish community as well as the greater Tucson community. I would love to hear people say, ‘I came here for one thing, and what I found was a true sense of community and belonging.’”

Tucson Jewish Community Center is located at 3800 E River Road, Tucson, AZ 85718; 520-299-3000

Congregation Merkaz Ha-Iyr hires new rabbi

Congregation Merkaz Ha-Iyr has hired Rabbi Erica Burech to be its new rabbi and spiritual leader.

Merkaz Ha-Iyr, which means “Center of the City,” was founded in 2008 to provide a progressive, inclusive home for Jewish life in Central Phoenix. The congregation meets for services and religious school at CrossRoads United Methodist Church at Central and Northern. Congregation Merkaz Ha-Iyr mostly follows Reform liturgy and practices, but is unaffiliated with any Jewish movement.

“We are so fortunate to have Rabbi Erica as our spiritual leader,” says Denise Jones, president of Merkaz Ha-Iyr. “We extended our search nationally, but the right candidate turned out to be right here in the Valley.”

“I feel so unbelievably blessed and honored to have the opportunity to serve as the rabbi of Congregation Merkaz Ha-Iyr, which is an absolute gem,” says Rabbi Erica.

She grew up as a member of Temple Shalom in Wheeling, WV. She graduated with honors from Brandeis University with a degree in Near Eastern Judaic studies, and holds a master’s degree in Hebrew letters as well as rabbinic ordination from Hebrew Union College.

ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE | NOVEMBER 2013 9

For six years, Rabbi Erica was the director of Jewish life at Pardes Jewish Day School. Prior to joining Pardes, she spent three years as the director of religious education at Congregation Beth Israel.

She and her husband, Craig, have two children, Yoni and Maya.

During the past two years, she took time off to be a full-time mom. congregationmerkaz.org

JNF Regional Director Ted Kort to retire

The face of the Jewish National Fund in Arizona for the past 15 years is set to retire. Ted Kort, who has served as JNF regional director in Arizona since 1998, will step down in March of next year.

“I’ve had an amazing run here with JNF,” says Kort. “JNF has been in Arizona for the past 30 years, and I’ve been proud to be a part of that tenure. The Arizona Region raised an impressive $1.6 million this campaign year, and I have no doubt that the region is poised to continue to grow and succeed after I’m gone.”

Kort has been a staple of the Arizona Jewish community. Before he retires, JNF will honor him and his son Bryan with the Tree of Life Award at the annual Arizona Tree of Life Gala on Jan. 11, 2014.

This award recognizes outstanding community involvement and dedication to the cause of American-Israeli friendship.

“It’s a great way to finish my career,” says Kort. “To walk out as a Tree of Life honoree with my son will be very special.”

Also active in the community, Kort has served as founder and president of Valley Big Brothers, a Fiesta Bowl founder, and vice president and campaign chair of the Jewish Federation.

The search for a new director is under way.

Avda David new Phoenix shlicha

The Israel Center at the Jewish Community Association of Greater Phoenix welcomes Avda David as its new shlicha (female emissary).

Avda will be in the Valley on a year-long program sponsored by the Jewish Agency for Israel’s Areivim-Young Shilchim Unit, which places shilchim ages 23-30 in communities in various countries.

Avda arrived in late September, just in time to assist with the Israeli Karaoke song night on Sept. 30. She will be working alongside Shahar Edry, the Israel Center’s director, in the many varied programs the center sponsors to provide a comfort zone for local Israelis while increasing Americans’ connections to Israel. Avda hails from Tel Aviv, where she was most recently a copy editor on a Jewish culture talk show for Israel’s leading TV station.

The Israel Center is hosting an Israeli Coffee House program on Nov. 21 at 7 pm at the JCC, 12701 N. Scottsdale Road. There is no charge to attend, but reservations are required; call 480-634-4900, ext. 1109.

Oshrat Barel to lead Tucson Israel Center

Tucson’s first shlicha arrived at the Weintraub Israel Center in August. They have had five male leaders before, but Oshrat Avitan Barel is the first woman to head the center. Her stint will be for three years, so her husband and three daughters have made the transition with her.

Oshrat received her bachelor’s degree in economics and management from the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo and her MBA from Netnya Academic College. She has an extensive background working in education and the arts. For the past five years she served as director of the Beit Shean-Emek HamaayanotCleveland Partnership2Gether. Beit Shean is the northern Israeli town where Oshrat grew up. Through that position she could see how the American Jewish community supports Israel, and she wanted to continue her work of connecting the two communities by becoming a shlicha.

The Israel Center has two events coming up. Dr. Sharon Megdal, director of the University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center, will speak on water resources management and policy at 7 pm, Nov. 13, in the Tucson JCC Ballroom. A Hanukkah Party is set for 5 to 7 pm, Dec. 2, also in the ballroom at the JCC, 3800 E. River Road in Tucson.

Chompie’s new Jewish classics menu

Chompie’s, Arizona’s NY Deli, now offers a new Jewish Heritage Classics menu. This new menu was created in honor of Chompie’s founders, Lou and Lovey Borenstein, who grew up in Queens, New York, as descendants of Jewish immigrants. It features some of their personal favorite Jewish dishes.

Lou, Lovey and the entire Borenstein family have developed an extensive menu over the last 34 years, but it was their authentic NY bagels and traditional Jewish dishes that put them on the map and earned them the award of Phoenix’s “Best Jewish Deli.” Now diners can enjoy the Jewish favorites that the Borensteins grew up with.

The Jewish Heritage Classics Menu includes the shtickels (small plates) menu with favorite Jewish classics like kreplach (beef dumplings), knishes (flaky pastry dough stuffed with meat, potato or vegetables), kishka (stuffed derma) and stuffed cabbage rolls.

For those who have a hard time choosing, there is a Jewish Heritage Classics Combination Plates menu, which includes choices like “Lovey’s Difficult Decision” cheese blintz (pan-fried crepe stuffed with cheese), large salmon tapa (smoked salmon and capers), Israeli salad and noodle kugel (egg noodles baked with a blend of apricots and cheese).

To view the complete Jewish Heritage Classics Menu, as well as Chompie’s new dining menu, go to: chompies.com/menu2.php.

10 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

No Longer Industrial, Long Since Irrelevant

By Thomas K. Brueckner

As Americans have watched the stock market advance this year, despite a myriad of

obstacles that would have derailed even a courageous investor five years ago, many have expressed amazement at the apparent return of “irrational exuberance,” Alan Greenspan’s now-infamous phrase describing his basis for the technology sector’s record growth during the late 1990s. After all, the Dow has rallied in spite of bad news again and again, even in the face of rising interest rates, political stalemate, political scandals, low volume, a slowing economy and, most recently, the potential outbreak of a multi-nation war in the Middle East.

Most recently, the committee that oversees the Dow Jones Industrial Average Index has changed its makeup in notso-subtle fashion. It has evicted Bank of America, Alcoa and Hewlett Packard, while welcoming Visa, Nike and Goldman Sachs as their replacements. To understand such a significant (three of just 30 companies is 10 percent) onetime reshuffling – and the self-serving rationale behind it – one need first understand the nature of the Dow’s “weighted average” and how its calculus can misrepresent the health of or advances in the greater market.

First of all, the DJIA is hardly “industrial” any longer.

According to Robert Stambaugh, a Wharton professor of finance, “They have tilted the index more toward financials.

It’s called the Dow Jones Industrial index, but if you look at what they’ve done, two of the companies they’ve tossed out, HP and Alcoa, actually make things and sell them. They replaced those with Goldman, Visa and Nike. Goldman and Visa are financial services firms and Nike makes stuff and sells it. This reflects that financial services firms have a bigger presence in our U.S. economy.”

Really? Then why are there no banks at all in the index, especially given that there are plenty whose share prices are higher than Goldman’s and Visa’s?

Wikipedia agrees, saying “…The Industrial portion of the name is largely historical, as many of the modern 30 components have little or nothing to do with traditional heavy industry. The average is price-weighted, and to compensate for the effects of stock splits and other adjustments, it is currently a scaled average. The value of the Dow is not the actual average of the prices of its component stocks, but rather the sum of the component prices divided by a divisor, which changes whenever one of the component stocks has a stock split or stock dividend, so as to generate a

consistent value for the index. Since the divisor is currently less than one, the value of the index is larger than the sum of the component prices…” (my emphasis).

Did you get all that? Another popular shareholder advocacy website puts it more succinctly. The Motley Fool says, “Because it is restricted to U.S.-based companies – and just 30 companies at that – the DJIA is not very diverse. …

(It) may not accurately reflect the performance of large swaths of the U.S. or global marketplace. Because it is price-weighted, it does not track the performance of the companies in a way that reflects a rational investor’s gains. To equal the Dow’s performance, an investor would have to buy the same number of shares of each company; such a strategy would force the investor to invest more money in companies with higher share prices, not a terribly rational way to invest…” (my emphasis).

So there you have it. The “index of record,” the one that our media outlets report more than the others and a name synonymous with “the market” overall, is actually misrepresentative of not only the market, but the makeup of our national economy as a whole. At a time when many investors distrust government over its release of employment and economic growth data (remember that Q1 GDP was originally released at 2.5% only to be revised to 1.1% five months later – an exaggeration of 127%), what investors desperately need from Wall Street is a restoration of that trust.

Instead, the committee’s insiders have just taken an already outdated, non-industrial and misrepresentative national benchmark, and made it even more biased in favor of those same insiders, at the expense of – you guessed it – the average and oftentimes uninformed investor. At a time when polls show that Americans (61.2%) overwhelmingly believe our nation is on the wrong track, it’s just more confirmation that their instincts may be correct.

Thomas K. Brueckner, CLTC, is president/CEO of Strategic Asset Conservation in Scottsdale, a conservative wealth management firm with clients in 18 states and 6 countries. He is a 2011 Advisor of the Year national finalist, a radio talk show host and a mentor to other advisors nationally. He may be reached for comment at go2knight.com.

ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE | NOVEMBER 2013 11

A Very

Arizona HANUKKAH

By Deborah Moon

Hanukkah Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah, Come light the menorah The first Hanukkah in 165 BCE commemorated the victory of the Jews in a series of battles against the Greek/Syrian armies of King Antiochius IV Epiphanes. The Talmud recounts the miracle that occurred when the Jews went in search of sacramental oil to light the menorah to rededicate the Second Temple. They found only one small flask, enough for one day. They kindled the menorah, and the oil lasted for eight days.

The Second Book of the Maccabees, offers an alternate reason for the eight-day duration of the holiday. Since the eight-day holiday of Sukkot could not be properly celebrated during the war, it was postponed until after the recapture of Jerusalem and the purification of the Temple.

Relighting the menorah was part of the ceremony to rededicate the Second Temple.

According to tractate Shabbat 24a, it is incumbent upon us to “publicize the miracle” by placing the Hanukkah lamp where passersby can see it, preferably by the door or at the window.

[Inside] A Very Arizona Hanukkah Thanksgivukkah is Coming Gift Guide

12 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

Mel and Ellenbett Kline welcome hundreds of visitors each Hannukah when they light their natural saguaro menorah.

Hanukkah takes on a very Arizona flair when Mel and EllenBett Kline welcome the community to the unusual menorah lighting at their home each year.

This will be the eighth year that the Phoenix couple has welcomed hundreds of people to witness the lighting of their saguaro Hanukkah menorah, which they believe to be the only such natural hanukkiah in the world.

“Hanukkah is meant to be shared with everyone and it is a true mitzvah in doing so,” says Mel. “Most Jewish families are to put their menorah in the window for all to see and share. We

just have a larger menorah than usual and have it growing in our front yard for all to see.”

When Mel planted the cactus in 1978, it was about 10 feet tall with two short arms. Over the years it grew six more arms as the center grew upward. Now the central trunk that serves as the shamash (helper candle) is approximately 35 feet tall – certainly much larger and more visible than your ordinary household hanukkiah.

This year lighting starts Wednesday, Nov. 27 and continues through Thursday, Dec. 5. Lighting is every night at 6:30 pm except for Friday night at 5 pm at the northwest corner of 46th Street and Mountain View Road in Phoenix.

“

“

The Kline grandchildren, Dana and Jay, serve their grandmother’s homemade doughnuts to visitors.

Many come back every year and some make it a tradition and others hear about it and want to see the Hanukkah ‘miracle’ in our front yard...Can you imagine sharing our Hanukkah with about 2,000 people over the past seven years and all those homemade doughnuts?

“Before starting I always light all the arms and shamash so everyone can see the full menorah in all its splendor,” says Mel. “Then I turn off all lights and start the night’s lighting, sing the prayer together, give a little Hanukkah explanation. After all the ‘ooohs & aaahs’ and reflecting on the menorah against the night sky, we offer homemade doughnuts to all.”

EllenBett says her fryer only holds four doughnuts at a time, so it’s very time consuming to make fresh doughnuts for each night’s lighting. But she says it’s worth the work because, “Everybody looks forward to them.”

Typically 25 to 50 people come to see the splendor each night during Hanukkah, with about 150 people on the last night.

“Many come back every year and some make it a tradition and others hear about it and want to see the Hanukkah ‘miracle’ in our front yard,” says Mel. “Can you imagine sharing our Hanukkah with about 2,000 people over the past seven years and all those homemade doughnuts?”

EllenBett says they get notes afterward from people from across the country who saw the menorah while visiting Arizona.

Last year a nearby senior living facility brought a vanload of residents and Sisters from the Evangelical Sisters of Mary Retreat close by come each year.

This year, with Hanukkah coinciding with Thanksgiving, Mel says he plans to share “a few words relating to the THANKfullness we have here in America.”

Happy Chanukah from Our Family to Yours!

-The Borensteins

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When

Collide

Thanksgivukkah is coming!

By Rich Geller

O

n Nov. 28, 2013, worlds will collide when the first day of Hanukkah falls on Thanksgiving Day. Due to a rare confluence of the Hebrew and Gregorian calendars, this is the last time this will happen for about 75,000 years! No doubt by then the Jewish people will have successfully colonized most of the galaxy, but until then, American Jews will have a unique opportunity to combine that most American of holidays – Thanksgiving – with that most Americanized of Jewish festivals – Hanukkah.

Thanksgivukkah is the brainchild of Norwood, MA, Marketing Specialist Dana Gitell, who came up with the quirky holiday’s name and launched a website, Twitter and Facebook page devoted to “eight days of light, liberty and latkes!” She even teamed up with moderntribe.com to create official Thanksgivukkah T-shirts. MAZON: A Jewish Response

14 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

to Hunger will receive 10% of proceeds from T-shirt sales. As she explained to JNS.org reporter Jacob Kamaras, “You can celebrate Judaism, you can celebrate America and you celebrate the Jewish-American experience on the same day, because how would this be possible if we didn’t have a country as free and as welcoming as America?”

Hanukkah and Thanksgiving have much in common. They both center on family, food and gratitude. Whether it is gratitude for our families or for the miracle of the Hanukkah lights, there is plenty to be thankful for. In addition to the traditional blessings for the candles and the blessings for the children, the Shehechiyanu (We thank G-d for sustaining us to reach this season) fits in nicely with the holiday. We can build on that sense of gratitude by helping members of the community who are in need. Volunteer to pack food boxes in your community. If you cannot volunteer, make a donation in the spirit of tikkun olam or repair of the world. If you have children,

encourage them to donate their tzedakah to buy a Thanksgiving box for a needy family.

The first Hanukkah candle will be lit on the night before Thanksgiving, right smack in the middle of what for many people is either an intense night of cooking and preparation or a night of hectic travel (think “Planes, Trains and Automobiles”). Throwing dreidels, gelt and latkes into the mix won’t make it any easier, but it will make for a memorable night. If you really want to get into the spirit of the season, you’ll want to light the candles on the traditional Thanksgivukkah menurkey! OK maybe not traditional, but definitely fun!

Designed by 9-year-old mini-mensch, Asher Weintraub of Manhattan, the menurkey is a turkey-shaped menorah intended to commemorate this goofy holiday. Gobble one up at menurkey.com.

Let’s face it, for most of us the main event of Thanksgiving is the food. When it comes to mixing and matching the two days, the sky’s the limit. Just think pumpkins and cranberries and have fun.

There are several indispensible online resources for holiday recipes, including forward.com, kveller.com and joyofkosher. com. “The Jew and the Carrot,” the food blog of The Jewish Daily Forward, has an unusual recipe for challah-pastrami stuffing for your bird. Joan Nathan’s excellent cookbook Jewish Cooking in America offers several wonderful Thanksgiving recipes. The silver lining for all those hard-working holiday chefs will be the abundance of leftovers available on Friday night. Shabbat will be a welcome respite from the tumult of the holiday.

However, if you still feel that you have not sufficiently flexed your culinary

muscles, kveller.com has a fun recipe for a turkey-shaped challah that besides being absolutely adorable is a very kidfriendly recipe. Be sure to enlist your little minions into shaping the dough balls that form the bird’s “feathers.” Or consider a pumpkin challah; the recipe can be found on the “The Shiksa in the Kitchen” blog at shiksa.com.

Other creative culinary possibilities include pumpkin latkes topped with cranberry sauce or sufganiot filled with cranberry preserves or orange-pumpkin buttercream. A recipe for the latter can be found at chow.com. Looking for something to do with that miraculous Hanukkah oil? Try deep-frying your turkey! For those readers who keep kosher, many excellent kosher birds can be found at local markets. If you have little ones, there are plenty of fun crafts and activities that can be found on the aforementioned websites. One of my favorites is the marshmallow/candy corn menorah. Use nine large kosher marshmallows and arrange them in a row as the base of the menorah and top each with a piece of candy corn with the tip facing up to create the “flame.”

Don’t expect this menorah to survive until the last night of Hanukkah! Help your kids create hand-traced turkeys with a Hanukkah twist like a kippah on ‘ol Tom Turkey’s keppela. Tryptophan kicking in? Divvy up the kid’s chocolate gelt and curl up with a double feature of “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” and “A Rugrats Chanukah!” At bedtime tuck into Turkey Trouble by Wendy Silvano and Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins by Eric Kimmel.

So what is the true meaning of Thanksgivukkah? Family, friends and gratitude. Jews have thrived in America like never before in our history. There is so much to be thankful for. As we light the candles and recall the miracle of the oil, we can rejoice in our many blessings and enjoy the novelty of this lighthearted mishmash of a holiday. And remember, unless you’re planning to have yourself placed in cryogenic suspension for the next 75,000 years, Thanksgivukkah will be a once-in-a-lifetime treat, so enjoy it while you can!

Rich Geller is a freelance writer who enjoys sharing the Jewish holidays with his wife and three children.

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DONATE AN ANIMAL ($10 to $5,000)

Heifer International offers life-changing gifts that help end hunger and poverty while caring for the earth. Hanukkah is the perfect time to pass on the lessons of mitzvot, tzedakah and tikkun olam.

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[Food]

s Chef’Corner

The Maccabees, pilgrims and American Indians will be sharing a very special meal at our table this year, and it won’t happen again until the year 79,811. Yup! Try explaining that one to your 7- and 4-year-old. I did explain this as a great opportunity to celebrate Jewry in America. Whether you celebrate Thanksgiving or not, the freedom we have been given to be Jewish in America with our unique names, our way of dressing and expressing, and most importantly, the ability to study Torah and worship in our synagogues openly is a real manifestation of what the Jewish people accomplished in the story of Hanukkah. We fought, we won, now let’s eat!

Since we will use oil to cook our foods to commemorate the miracle of the lights, it’s important to use the right kind of oils for cooking. Anytime you cook a food in oil, you run the risk of creating heat-induced damage. The oils you choose must be stable enough to resist chemical changes when heated to high temperatures, or you run the risk of damaging your health. If the oil has turned brown while cooking, it should not be consumed – it leads to vascular disease.

The healthiest oils are: • Avocado oil (my personal favorite): Avocado oil has a healthy, monounsaturated fat content (71%). Also avocado oil is extremely low in trans fatty acids. Note: There is no taste to avocado oil.

• Olive Oil: Rich in monounsaturated fat. Includes phytochemicals that can lower blood cholesterol levels and reduce the risk of cancer. Rich in antioxidants. Its storage life is longer than other oils, and it can be frozen (freezing also preserves the nutrients in the oil). Important: Refined olive oil should not be heated over 320 degrees while cooking, because it becomes toxic; use extra-virgin olive for dressings and vinaigrettes only.

• Coconut Oil: The naturally occurring saturated fat in coconut oil is actually good for you and provides a number of profound health benefits such as improving heart health, boosting thyroid, increasing metabolism, promoting a lean body and weight loss if needed, supporting your immune system. It’s also amazing for the skin when applied topically.

Special Feast for Thanksgivukkah

By Lucia Schnitzer Photos by Audrey Hirschl

These oils are recommended for high-temperature cooking and sautéing: Avocado oil has the highest smoke point of all vegetable oils – 520° when refined.

Coconut oil refined 450° Peanut oil refined 500° Sunflower oil refined 475° Almond oil refined 430° Safflower oil refined 409° Walnut oil 399° Grape-seed oil 399° Coconut oil unrefined 351° Remember healthy is key, but moderation is best. Happy Cooking!

Here are some great meal ideas for you do consider when planning for your festive meal.

Lucia Schnitzer and her husband, Ken, own Luci’s Healthy Marketplace in Phoenix. The local coffee shop and marketplace opened in 2009 in Lucia’s honor after her successful battle with breast cancer. She successfully manages her career, her growing family (four children), her personal well-being and the countless demands of the day.

For more recipes, visit azjewishlife.org.

18 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

Green Beans with Caramelized Onions and Almonds Ingredients

Deep Fried Turkey The turkey comes out juicy and moist and not greasy after frying. This method is a great way to cook your turkey in 45 minutes, but requires some equipment and can be dangerous if not done properly. (View this YouTube video to get correct step-by-step instructions to do it yourself safely: youtube.com/ watch?v=mJrMr22vefo)

Ingredients

1 (10- to 12-pound) turkey 2 tablespoons of a mixture of salt, pepper and garlic 2 tablespoons of your favorite dry rub 3 to 5 gallons peanut oil or avocado oil Cook’s Note: To measure the amount of oil needed to fry the turkey, place turkey in fryer, add water to top of turkey and remove the turkey; the water line will indicate how much oil will be needed to fry your turkey. Having too much oil can cause a fire. The pot should not be more than 3/4 full or the oil could overflow when the turkey is added.

Kosher salt 3 pounds green beans, trimmed of stem end ½ cup skin-on sliced almonds 3 tablespoons unsalted butter 5 tablespoons avocado oil 2 large onions, sliced thin 2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme leaves Freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

Fill a large, high-sided skillet with enough water to be about 1 inch shy of the rim of the pan. Place over high heat and bring to boil; add a big pinch of salt and the green beans. Cook about 5 minutes; the beans should still be crisp. Drain the beans and run them under cold water to stop them from cooking. Reserve the beans while you start the onions.

Return the skillet to a burner over medium heat. Add the almonds and toast them, stirring now and then until golden, about 3 to 5 minutes.

Remove the almonds from the skillet and reserve. Return the skillet to the heat, add the butter and avocado oil, and heat until the butter has melted. Add the onions, season with salt and pepper, and cook stirring frequently until the onions caramelize, 20 to 25 minutes. Add the thyme and cook another 5 minutes. Add the cooked cooled green beans and almonds, and stir well to combine. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Instructions

Wash bird inside and out, and allow to drain. Cut any fat around the neck and remove turkey tush. Remove any of the organs in the cavity of the bird. Make sure that the bird is completely open on both sides for oil to circulate through. Prepare turkey however you wish. Injection marinades or brining are recommended. For this method, rub turkey all over with salt, pepper and garlic mixture. Coat turkey with dry rub.

Allow the bird to sit until it is completely dry.

Heat oil in a turkey fryer or a very, very large stockpot to 350°F. Lower turkey into hot oil, very carefully, making sure it is fully submerged. Fry turkey for 3 minutes per pound plus 5 minutes per bird. Remove turkey from oil and drain on paper towels.

Apple-Cranberry Stuffed Latkes Latke ingredients

Stuffing ingredients

2 Granny Smith apples 5 sweet potatoes 1 cup of cranberry sauce 1 Spanish onion Coconut oil for frying 2 eggs beaten 1 tablespoon salt 1 teaspoon black pepper 3 tablespoons flour (or arrowroot, which is gluten free) Coconut oil for frying

Instructions

Grate the sweet potatoes and onion using a food processor or hand grater. Add eggs, salt and pepper to mixture. Then add flour or arrowroot. Put aside.

Shred Granny Smith apples and sauté apples in coconut oil for 3 to 4 minutes. Mix cranberry sauce with apples and cook for additional 2 minutes.

In a large frying pan, heat ½ inch of coconut oil on medium/ high heat. It is important to

make sure that the oil is hot enough to crisp the sweet potatoes, but not so hot that the potatoes burn.Place a heaping spoonful of latke mix into the pan. The latkes should sizzle and crisp up quickly. Once latkes are crisp, place apple-cranberry filling on top. Top with another spoonful of latke mix to completely cover the filling. Flip and fry for about a minute.

Drain on paper towels. Serve hot with nondairy sour cream.

ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE | NOVEMBER 2013 19

Where do

[Food]

JEWISH PEOPLE

By A. Noshman

Let’s get the fact that The White Chocolate Grill is a chain restaurant out of the way first. It’s true it’s a chain, but it started here in Scottsdale before spreading to other cities. Let’s also acknowledge the corporate feel, where no detail is left undone and staff scripts have been well rehearsed.

Let’s get past all that because this is a stunningly beautiful interior that overwhelms everything else. It reminded me instantly of the old Houston’s, formerly located at the Esplanade, with its rich woodwork, open kitchen and striking lighting concepts.

This restaurant has a must-see bar area with an entire wall of dramatically lit colored bottles and tiered table seating hidden in a way that creates a restaurant within a restaurant. Add the covered patio area and you realize that there are a lot of people here – and that every table is taken.

The White Chocolate Grill has a large Jewish following. The chances you know someone who raves about this place are pretty good. The name really sets you up for what is about to happen.

You are going to go on a journey of American food before arriving at your ultimate destination – dessert! Some of us, and you know who you are, have been known to start with dessert first; you can do that here with a dessert-inspired cocktail. You must save room for the final stop.

Let’s get this journey started.

Over the course of a couple of visits I tried the following:

Key Lime Pie Martini, $9

Vanilla vodka, bourbon cream, Midori, rimmed in a sweet graham cracker crust

I’m not a key lime pie kind of guy, but the description just grabbed me and I had to try it. Sure enough the glass was rimmed with sweet graham cracker crust, and the creamy drink looked so inviting. To say it went down like dessert is

EAT? an understatement, and I found myself drinking from all sides to get the crust.

As I was offered another one, I had to remind myself that eating here is a journey and that I wouldn’t save room if I dawdled at dessert-like cocktails, so I bravely pressed onward.

Trio of Dips and Chips, $8.99 Corn chips with servings of jalapeño cheese dip, salsa and guacamole

This appetizer was a special that didn’t appear on the menu. It did not disappoint. The chips were warm and freshly made, light, not oily, and three dips sat on the same plate, each waiting to be tried. Surprisingly, the jalapeño cheese dip was served cold, on purpose, and it was wonderful. I guess I was expecting the traditional heated nacho-style sauce, but this scoop of chilled creaminess had just the right texture and spice to be the dip that was finished first. The salsa was a smoky red, my favorite (I would have purchased some if it came in bottles). The guacamole was very fresh and delicious.

Fire Roasted Portabella Sandwich, $10.99

Grilled portabella with roasted peppers, sweet vinaigrette, on toasted sour dough served with Grilled Summer Corn Salad The waiter described another special, not on the menu, and being the sucker I am for roasted vegetables, I had to have this. The sandwich was nicely proportioned, juicy, smoky and savory. Roasted-vegetable fans will love it, but I am really going to rave about the side dish. Made with grilled corn and zucchini, a zesty vinaigrette, cherry tomatoes, radish, queso fresco and red onion, each forkful make my eyes roll back and think about becoming a vegetarian for life (briefly). If it’s offered, you must have it.

Spit Roasted Turkey Dip, $13.99

Rotisserie turkey shaved to order, jack cheese (hold the cheese), and mayo on toasted French roll with wild mushroom gravy for dipping, served with French fries

The White Chocolate Grill • 7000 E Mayo Blvd. Phoenix, AZ 85054 • 480-563-3377 20 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

I love rotisserie, and since you don’t see turkey prepared that way often, this was the sandwich for me. The breads here are wonderful and the sandwich was very good, but the gravy took it over the top. I dipped each bite. The French fries were slender and crisp with the skin on, and though they were served with ketchup, it soon dawned on me that the gravy would go well on the fries. Comfort food for sure.

Beautiful Design Every Time

Balsamic Rib Eye, 12 oz., $26.89

Aged rib eye cut in house, served with a balsamic reduction, mashed potatoes and vegetables.

For this dish I am with a friend, who loves balsamic and would chew balsamic-flavored gum if there were such a thing.

The steak is beautifully served, infused with sauce, with the tiniest portion of exquisite mashed potatoes. The flavor was wonderful, but the meat was a bit tough. With so many other wonderful dishes to choose from, I’ll probably steer clear of this one on future visits.

At last, the end of the journey is upon us and choosing one of their “Desserts for Two” is now the task at hand.

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White Chocolate Banana Cream Pie, $7.59

A graham cracker and chocolate chunk crust, fresh bananas and vanilla pastry cream with caramel, whipped cream and shaved white chocolate Let me describe the prettiest dessert I’ve ever seen: a stunningly beautiful dessert that was out of this world.

Childhood and decadence shared the same space as the creamy banana-rich texture is offset by the crunch of the sweet shell.

Comfort and richness, sauces and shaved white chocolate all combine, and before you know it, this dessert is gone. Journey over.

White Chocolate Bread Pudding, $7.59

Fresh croissants baked with Godiva White Chocolate Liqueur and golden raisins topped with whipped cream, caramel, and white chocolate sauces A generous and beautifully constructed portion arrived, and it was just as rich and delicious as it looked. The croissants were an interesting twist on an old standard. The sauces were fun and tasty to spoon up, and the white chocolate shavings were heavenly.

The White Chocolate Grill is a great place for a business lunch that is sure to please clients and is not a budget buster.

At night it turns into a wonderful place to bring family and friends. Remember it’s a journey and to always save room for dessert.

Contact A. Noshman at a.noshman@azjewishlife.com

ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE | NOVEMBER 2013 21

Camps Campers from grades 2 to 5 enjoy Camp Stein during the 2013 summer.

Camp is more than fun

Overnight camps help young campers learn valuable life skills that enhance their lives in college and beyond. Numerous studies have shown youth benefit from attending sleep-away camps.

An article in the February 2012 issue of Psychology Today

by Dr. Michael Ungar, PhD, explores why kids who went to summer camp are more successful in college. They have experience being away from home and making decisions in a non-family environment. Dorms are like camp cabins in that they have to live with someone who’s not a family member.

The article also points out that camp makes kids resilient.

Campers form new relationships; learn how to be proud of their achievements; have the chance to be “just kids” who interact without the baggage they carry at school; feel in control of their own lives; get a day balanced with activity, fresh air and good food; gain a sense of belonging; and acquire an awareness of culture.

[INSIDE] First-time Campers at Camp Stein The Friendly Pines tradition Arizonans head to BB Camp One Happy Camper grants Teens help out at Camp Swift Are kids entitled to camp?

22 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

First-time campers find summer home at Camp Stein A

By Deborah Moon

n impressive 70% of Camp Daisy and Harry Stein campers return to the overnight Jewish camp the following summer. Nestled in the majestic Bradshaw Forest of Prescott, Camp Stein is owned and operated by Congregation Beth Israel in Scottsdale. The forest environment provides the perfect setting for the many outdoor activities, such as mountain biking and horseback riding, that help entice campers to return year after year.

“Camp Stein is a wonderful Jewish summer camp community that allows campers and staff alike to build and strengthen their Jewish identities, live in an immersive Jewish environment and form lasting friendships and relationships in an intimate setting with all of the exciting activities that we are able to offer,” says Camp Director Brian Mitchell, who notes about 300 youth attend the camp each year.

To help attract first-time campers, last year Camp Stein partnered with the Jewish Foundation for Jewish Camp’s One Happy Camper Incentive grant program. This year Mitchell says the camp is offering its own camperships for first-time campers (email campdirector@cbiaz.org). Arizona families still can apply for the One Happy Camper to see if they qualify through partnerships such as PJ Goes To Camp for families who have participated in PJ Library (see page 27).

Whether they had a grant or not, Camp Stein’s first-time campers were hooked last summer.

Though he was attending Camp Stein for the first time last

summer, fifth-grader Max Cain had attended another camp the previous year – Camp Firefly, a camp for children with Asperger’s and other high-functioning challenges, in Wisconsin.

“His older brother Zac has attended Camp Stein for the past three years,” says Max’s mom, Elisa Cain. Since Max is on the autism spectrum, in 2012 Elisa thought the Wisconsin camp would be a good fit. “Although he loved it, it was a logistical nightmare.”

“I spoke with Rabbi (Stephen) Kahn and Brian (the camp director) regarding that our camp should be able to accommodate Jewish kids with special needs,” says Elisa.

“Especially with the Jewish focus on inclusion and community, we need to have something available. Although Camp Stein was not prepared to have the trained staff to work with a highfunctioning special needs camp group, we met with Brian, Brian met with the boys and we decided we were going to make it work. We were able to give them ‘tips’ on how to work with Max.” “When we picked up Max he was so happy,” says Elisa.

When we picked up Max he was so happy. He loved the counselors, he loved horseback riding and he practically lived at the art shack every day. He definitely cannot wait until next summer.” — Elisa Cain, who gave Camp Stein staff tips to make the experience successful for Max, who has Asperger’s syndrome.

“He loved the counselors, he loved horseback riding and he practically lived at the art shack every day. He definitely cannot wait until next summer!”

Another first-timer at Camp Stein, fourth-grader Maddie Garber, says she was excited to go to camp with friends from school and Sunday school who signed up for the same two-week camp session. And her circle of friends only grew.

“I really liked meeting new kids and becoming friends with them,” says Maddie. “I loved the services outside; I liked rock climbing and horseback riding and art. … I enjoyed all the evening programs we did – like Mission Impossible, where you had to get to one place before a counselor caught you.”

Last summer Maddie says she went to a two-week session “to get a taste” of camp; next year she plans to go for four weeks.

“It was a really fun experience, and I hope other kids can have the same experience,” she says.

Though the Garbers didn’t apply for the grant available for children attending Jewish overnight camp for the first time, Jennifer Garber says she is very glad the camperships exist.

“I went to camp on scholarship and would not have had the opportunity if that wasn’t available,” says Jennifer, adding that now the family donates to CBI’s scholarship fund. Jennifer attended a Reform movement camp in the Midwest, and her husband Dr. Stuart Garber attended a URJ camp in Texas; both wanted their daughter to have the same experience.

“Maddie came home so excited,” says Jennifer. “She embraced the whole experience.”

“Camp Stein is such a warm and wonderful extension of the Jewish community,” she says. “Kids who go create a valuable foundation for their Jewish life and Jewish identity.”

For more information, visit campstein.org.

AISM LIVING JUD OF FUN R E M M U S

LIFETIMREIES O OF MEM PRESCOTT, ARIZONA Please visit

www.campstein.org camp@cbiaz.org

A Reform Jewish Summer Camp for Children Grades 2-11

ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE | NOVEMBER 2013 23

Jewish families find good fit at Camp Friendly Pines

By Deborah Moon

Established in 1941, Camp Friendly Pines has been called “an Arizona tradition.” For Margaret “Margo” Cramer, 14, Friendly Pines Camp is both an Arizona and a family tradition she’s happy to continue. She is the daughter of Amy S. Cramer and Amelia Craig Cramer, who spent many happy childhood days at Friendly Pines more than 40 years ago.

Margo plans to return to camp for the seventh summer next year.

Located near Prescott, Friendly Pines is a residential summer camp for boys and girls ages 6-13, with some returning 14-year-olds.

Margo says she loves the people she has met at Friendly Pines and the chance to have some independence. She especially likes the variety of activities, including sewing, fencing, guitar and her favorite – vaulting on horseback.

“Friendly Pines is a warm and welcoming environment for everyone,” says Amelia. “The open-air amphitheater where a spiritual meeting takes place each week has, among other things, a Star of David sitting as a welcoming symbol amid the pine trees.”

The Cramers are active members of Congregation Or Chadash, a Reform synagogue in Tucson, where Margo is an assistant teacher in the religious school’s seventh grade. She also sings in the Friday Night Live! Choir once a month. Amelia sits on the congregation’s board of directors.

“The values Friendly Pines inculcates are the same values I cherish from the Jewish tradition – tzedakah (justice and charity); tikun olam (healing the world); the importance of each person being treated with respect, responsibility, caring, knowledge, life-long learning and more,” says Amelia, who notes that two summers ago, Margo was able to study for her bat mitzvah and practice chanting her Torah portion while at Friendly Pines.

“I feel comfortable in sending my daughter away from home for as long as a month (although I greatly miss her when she is away), because I know she is able to enjoy the cool weather and tall pine trees and fun activities at Friendly Pines Camp within an environment that is physically safe and secure, emotionally 24 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

Lainey and Riley Rendelman celebrate the day their camp T-shirts arrived in the mail.

positive, respectful of us as a family and of my daughter for who she is, including her strong identity as a Jew.”

For the Rendelman family, Friendly Pines was an accidental discovery. The former director of Chanen Preschool at Temple Beth Israel in Scottsdale, Sharon Rendelman worked at King David School (which closed in 2011) when their 6-year-old daughter, Lainey, wanted to go to overnight camp.

“I reached out to Jewish overnight camps in California and Arizona looking for a two-week program for a 6-year-old, and (at that time) not one camp offered that,” says Sharon. Rather than tell their daughter she had to wait, Sharon and her husband, Michael, looked for other options. “We were on the camp grounds for five minutes when I had that great ‘camp’ feeling that I remember from when I was a child, and I knew that Lainey had found her summer home.”

Now a fourth-grader who turns 10 this month, Lainey is getting ready for her fifth summer at Friendly Pines. Her sister, Riley, 6, enjoyed her first summer at Friendly Pines the summer before kindergarten and is eager to return for summer 2014.

I know she is able to enjoy the cool weather and tall pine trees and fun activities at Camp Friendly Pines within an environment that is physically safe and secure, emotionally positive, respectful of us as a family and of my daughter for who she is, including her strong identity as a Jew. – Amelia Craig Cramer

Sharon says her girls love the camp because of the upbeat and attentive staff and the versatile program.

“The program at Friendly Pines is that of a traditional summer camp – all the activities that can be imagined,” says Sharon, noting campers get to choose their own program. “So, a child like my Lainey (who loves drama and performing) can be in a musical, act in (and help write) a camper-made video. She’s a horse nut, and the camp has five or six different riding activities … A kid who likes art can do several artsy activities, a kid who likes sports can do different sports all day, every day; and a kid who wants to try a bit of everything can do that. For example, last summer my 5-year-old took sewing, tennis, bareback riding, archery, an adventure program that allowed her to ride a huge zip line, an art class of some sort and a pony-cart driving activity.

What a wonderland it must have felt like to her.”

The Rendelmans belong to Congregation Or Chadash, a Conservative synagogue in Scottsdale. Sharon says that Camp Friendly Pines “has taught each of my daughters to have a good moral compass, and this is precisely what we teach them at home, and what Rabbi (Micah) Caplan and his team teach them at OC. There’s a great team of trusted people who are in our lives.”

“The language at camp focuses on respect, teamwork, determination, cooperation, helpfulness, honesty, integrity, kindness, patience, loyalty and resourcefulness,” says Sharon. “So, while the words might not be in Hebrew, nor is there a direct correlation drawn to Jewish texts or prayer, the values are there, and that’s so important.” friendlypines.com

ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE | NOVEMBER 2013 25

Camp Arizonans head to BB Camp for summer

REVIS ITED

By Suzye M. Kleiner

and delivering meals, I stay out the My six years of camp were memorable milestones in way and Josh and his brother have “I love camp because my childhood. I intended to become a counselor after a there’s lots of laughter and had three years of independent fun summer in Israel, but life took me in a different direction. lots of sports.

BB Camp has and friendship at BB Camp.

Then I found myself back at camp at the age of 42. made me more responsible I too have made my own camp Though I love the independence that camp instills in as a person because I have friends, reconnected with old children, my second son Josh just couldn’t attend camp to look after myself. I’ve had friends and have felt invigorated by without me. many awesome counselors the camp spirit.

Josh has multiple severe from all around the world.

We have attempted to create food allergies that make I like the evening program a sense of normalcy on this food eating out risky and travel Dor L’ Dor where we do a allergy journey, teaching Josh to meaningful activity with a a challenge. He is allergic new counselor and reflect learn to live in the world around to five of the top eight upon the week.” him.

There have been struggles, but allergens and then some I prefer to focus on a slew of silver —Joshua Kleiner, 11, right, – basically everything in of Scottsdale, pictured with linings – two being that I have “regular kid food” and his camp buddy Alec Spiro become a creative cook and BB many key ingredients on Camp has been good for us! most menus.

Therefore, we didn’t see camp in his future.

“We love BB Camp because it keeps Then two of my friends us connected to Judaism and it’s who worked at B’nai a great way to stay busy over the B’rith Camp in Oregon summer while reconnecting with our saw a solution in a lightly camp friends. We have learned useful “My favorite thing about used house kitchen. I’m a life skills such as independence, camp is the diverse people.

Phoenix native and have confidence and leadership during our There are people from all lived here most of my six years at BB Camp.” over the country and the life.

We lived in Oregon world that come together —Briana Bayer, 15, left, and for three years during as a family to have an Samantha Bayer, 17, of Phoenix my husband’s pediatric awesome summer at BB residency and I remember Camp. The friends made at camp are friends that hearing wonderful BB change your life. I even flew Camp stories. So in 2011 I became to my friend’s bar mitzvah Suzye Kleiner resides in Scottsdale and the camp photographer and have in Salt Lake City, which loves spending her summers at BB Camp. subsequently managed the camp shows how special camp She has enjoyed the positions of camp store store. Now my husband also attends manager, photographer and writer. A native friends are.”

BB Camp where he volunteers as of Phoenix, she is a member of Temple Chai —Eric Flayton, 13, and on the board of Camp Swift. the camp doctor for one week each of Scottsdale summer.

With the exception of preparing 26 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

B’nai B’rith Campers enjoy aquatics activities such as canoeing, kayaking, wake-boarding, paddle boarding and hydro-tubing on Devil’s Lake. Located on the Oregon Coast near Lincoln City, the camp sits at the edge of the lake.

International staff at BB Camp, including world-class jump-roper Emanuela (Mani) Tancsic. add depth and dimension to BB Camp programming. The Israeli delegation of counselors (shlichim) gives campers an opportunity to learn firsthand about Israel.

Mani, 23, is from Taplanszentkereszt, Hungary, and has been sharing her jump-roping skills at BB Camp for the past three summers. In 2007 her Szombathelyi Jump Rope Club team won third place in the European Championship. Mani imparts her “skipping” skills, which involve acrobatics, agility, endurance, playfulness and spectacular choreographies, to campers who want to learn jump rope.

One Happy Camper program offers need-blind grants The challenge of passing along Jewish connection and commitment to the next generation has become one of the most important concerns of the American Jewish community. CAMP WORKS, a study by the Foundation for Jewish Camp examining the long term impact of Jewish overnight camp, shows compelling evidence that camp builds Jewish identity, community and leadership. It found that adults who attended Jewish overnight camp are 30% more likely to donate to a Jewish federation, 37% more likely to light candles regularly for Shabbat, 45% more likely to attend synagogue at least once a month and 55% more likely to feel very emotionally attached to Israel.

To enable as many children as possible to experience the power of Jewish camp, FJC has partnered with more than 70 federations, camps and camp movements, as well as the Harold Grinspoon Foundation (PJ Goes to Camp for families who have had a child enrolled in PJ Library) to provide need-blind grants of up to $1,000 to families with children attending nonprofit Jewish overnight camp for the first time through the One Happy Camper program. To date, more than 50,000 grants totaling almost $50,000,000 have been distributed throughout North America. One Happy Camper grant recipients, just like all campers, are infused with Jewish education, awareness and identity while having fun, with many returning to Jewish camp summer after summer.

Families with children attending one of over 155 nonprofit Jewish overnight camps for their first summer may receive a grant regardless of need or background. They can find camps with varying levels of observance and activities, as well as apply for grants by visiting OneHappyCamper.org.

“The Jewish summer camp experience affects children in countless ways and opens their hearts to the joy of being Jewish,” says FJC CEO, Jeremy J. Fingerman. “We are passionate about making that experience possible for every Jewish child.”

ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE | NOVEMBER 2013 27

Camp Swift kids: Sun, fun and carefree moments

By Ellie Barget

E

ver since May 30 I have felt like a new person. On that day I met my Camp Swift campers, and we immediately created strong bonds. It was amazing to watch children from broken homes and underprivileged lives explore the outdoors as carefree kids.

Camp Swift was the first time many had an opportunity to erase their worries of home life and explore new hobbies that they never had the chance to experience at home. One of my campers had six siblings and a single mom. If she were home, her summer would have been all work and no play.

And play we did. My cabin connected through name games, crafts, storytelling and loving care. This positive atmosphere continued throughout the session where some learned to make friendship bracelets and others experienced swimming for the first time.

In preparation for this experience, I attended a one-day workshop where I learned leadership, safety and programming skills. I was taught how to cope with different personalities through role-playing and camper-related scenarios. The number one thing I took from the training was that these kids were to be engaged, included and treated like regular kids, which they are.

The “Trust Fall” activity demonstrated what each girl in my cabin was like, because it revealed the anxious ones and the daredevils. Campers had to fall back and trust that someone would be there to catch them. Some campers were terrified by this activity, as I would have been when I was younger. So I helped my campers, and they all grew the strength to fall. By the end of the program, all the girls trusted their cabin mates, and I felt a sense of accomplishment.

Camp Swift provides opportunities for fun, positive and nourishing experiences. I loved seeing the shy campers scream during dance parties and seeing the hyper campers take activities seriously. I was able to watch these kids grow and experience happiness.

28 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

Ellie Barget w

ith one of the

campers.

Although the counselors create energy and fun, the campers are what really makes Camp Swift extremely special. The campers give the counselors inspiration and the gift of a life-changing summer. All the counselors leave Camp Swift with a smile on their faces, because they know they impacted someone’s life.

On the last day of camp, many tears were shed. Happy tears for the positive impact Camp Swift had on these special kids; sad tears for having to say goodbye; and finally tears of heartbreak for the tough times these children would face at home.

The girls in my cabin gave me a gift I will always treasure.

Being a counselor at Camp Swift helped me discover my inner desire to be selfless and to help people whenever I get the chance. I became so close to the girls in my cabin and found myself wishing the session were longer. I loved seeing all the campers have an amazing summer, and I will now have memories that will last a lifetime. I’ve already started the countdown to Camp Swift summer 2014!

Ellie Barget, 15, is a sophomore at Chaparral High School. She is involved in BBYO and is an active member at Congregation Beth Israel. In her spare time she enjoys hanging out with her friends and spending time with family.

Camp Swift Camp Swift Youth Foundation was founded in 1980 as a social action outreach for Jewish teens to enrich the lives of those less fortunate. Each year 450 kids are sent to camp for free thanks to generous donations and the Arizona Working Poor Tax Credit. It takes $350 and lots of volunteer spirit to send a child to camp.

Prospective counselors can find volunteer information for the summer camp and year-round Camp Swift programs on the website. Over the years Camp Swift has broadened its scope, but the Jewish teens remain the backbone of the program services.

Visit campswift.org to donate or learn more about Camp Swift.

o t T H G I AR p m a c t h g overni

[FAMILT TIME

By Debra Rich Gettleman

I remember the first time I pled my case for overnight camp to my husband, Mark. My eldest

son, Levi, wanted to go to Camp Newman in California. Mark was against it and offered the age-old rationale: “I never went to sleep-away camp and I turned out just fine.” Luckily I knew better than to dispute that statement in the heat of an argument.

Instead I stuck to the old standard justifications about camp offering a myriad of physical, mental and emotional growth opportunities. “You act like going to sleep-away camp is a right for every kid,” he rebuked, “like some sort of entitlement.”

He held fast to the brochure with the attached pricing, his expression one of unmistakable sticker shock.

I wanted to say something sensible to prove that I viewed the camp experience as a privilege, a unique and special treat, not as a necessity or “entitlement” as he had suggested. But all I could muster was, “Yeah ... isn’t it?”

Growing up in the Midwest, that’s what we did. From the age of 9 on, our parents sewed our names into every summer piece of clothing we owned, packed up our trunks and shipped us off to Northern Wisconsin or Upper Michigan where we learned how to ride horses, water ski and roast marshmallows over fires we built with our own hands. We knew how to avoid poison ivy, could tick-check our bunkmates on camping trips and were even pros at removing those disgusting lake leeches when one would suction onto a friend. While I admit I’ve found few opportunities to use these skills in my day-to-day Arizona activities, the self-confidence, strength and courage those skills taught me are gifts that I can directly attribute to my annual eight-week excursions to Eagle River, WI. Camp taught me how to live without my parents’ direct supervision, how to interact with peers and other adults in positions of authority. I learned how to confront fear, loneliness and insecurity. Everything wasn’t great all the time. But I developed ways of caring for myself from being on my own that kids who never went to overnight camp seemed to lack.

This past summer I watched videos of Levi soaring across Camp Newman on a 40-foot-high zip line and maneuvering through a treacherous ropes course many feet above the ground.

These were two activities my son had unequivocally sworn to avoid out of sheer terror. There is no greater joy than seeing your child face and conquer his demons.

Sometimes it’s hard to let go of our kids. My 9-year-old son, Eli, went to camp for two weeks this past summer. I wrote him daily, starting the week before he left so he’d be sure to receive a handwritten letter every single day he was away. He too learned how to exist without me right next to him, guiding him, cheering him on and warning him about every perilous adversity awaiting him.

Do I think every child is entitled to go to sleep-away camp? I still want to sound reasonable and give the “right” answer. But in truth, I keep coming back to “um, yeah ... I really do.”

So think about sending your kids to overnight camp next summer. There are many great options to choose from with even more scholarship opportunities to help defray costs. Plus there’s the bonus of earning some one-on-one time alone with your significant other. On the downside, the cost of sending your kids to overnight camp might impact your own romantic getaway plans. But Rocky Point is pretty cosmopolitan these days. Just be wary of the water, and that means ice cubes, too.

Debra Rich Gettleman is a mother and blogger based in the Phoenix area. For more of her work, visit unmotherlyinsights.com.

ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE | NOVEMBER 2013 29

Todd

“Casual” Jew finds self and community through Jewish music

Herzog Jewish

&

30 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

By Janet Arnold

Music Fest

T

odd Herzog grew up in a secular, casually Jewish family in Rockland City and Spring Valley, NY. That is, until his mother went to Israel when he was about 7. She came back inspired and shortly thereafter started Todd in religious school and eventually bar mitzvah training.

Todd always felt like he was playing “catch-up” with the other kids, who seemed to know so much more than he did. He worked hard to become a bar mitzvah, but after the ceremony he returned to his casual observance.

In high school he was much more interested in music than anything else. He played violin in a community orchestra and was a vocalist in a rock band. He pictured himself as a future rock star. When he got to Tufts University outside of Boston, he was enthralled with the Beelzebubs, the university’s well-respected a cappella group – he was hooked. As a member of the “Bubs” he traveled around, made recordings and bonded with the guys.

He had found his calling.

Tufts is known for its high academic standards and tough requirements. While some might have been satisfied with a degree from Tufts and singing with the Bubs on the side, it wasn’t enough for Todd. He attended both Tufts, as a philosophy major, and through a combined program, the New England Conservatory of Music in jazz/voice. The Conservatory is the oldest independent school of music in the country and regularly turns out top jazz composers and musicians.

Todd says he was nervous at the Conservatory audition. He really didn’t know much about the genre of jazz. He sang rather tepid versions of “Honey Pie” and “Summertime,” neither of which were exactly groundbreaking renditions. “I had to convince them to let me in. They could see I had the general music background necessary, and I promised I would work hard to learn the jazz repertoire if they would give me a chance.” Summoning his tenacious will, love of music and determination to succeed, he dug in and learned all the requirements to become an integral presence in the jazz program.

At the conclusion of the five-year program, he received a double degree in philosophy and jazz/ voice. Then he was off to California to become a rock star.

Todd met with some success during his years on the West Coast in both songwriting and recording.

His music and voice have been featured on TV shows such as “The Young and the Restless,” “All My Children,” “One Life to Live,” “Melrose Place” and “The Osbournes.” But he didn’t exactly achieve household name recognition. He did, however, meet

Desert Gathering Jewish Music Fest

The Desert Gathering is designed to bring us together in the spirit of being Jewish, regardless of denomination, to appreciate cultural music that sings to all of us.

WHAT:

A celebration of contemporary Jewish music, including arts and crafts and food

WHEN:

4-9 pm, Sunday, Nov. 17

WHERE: Steele Indian School Park, NE corner of Central

Ave & Indian School Road in Phoenix ADMISSION: FREE, but patron tickets available online INFO:

602-910-7472 or desertgatheringaz.com

SCHEDULE: 4:00 pm–PJ Library activities 4:30 pm –Elana Jagoda 5:00 pm –Twice Baked 5:30 pm –Todd & Friends 6:00 pm –Saul Kaye 7:00 pm –Moshav 8:00 pm –VIP reception

ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE | NOVEMBER 2013 31

Moshav will perform at the Desert Gathering Jewish Music Fest at 7 pm, Nov. 17. unequivocal success in another area.

He decided to try J-Date, the Jewish matchmaking site (think E-Yenta). By this time he was feeling only tangentially Jewish, but his roots were deep. He felt he’d have customs and values in common with a Jewish woman – and yes, he knew it would make his parents happy.

In 2000 he matched up with Karen Sonnabend, who was working as a fitness instructor at the Scottsdale JCC. Within three months, she had moved to LA to be with Todd.

Todd’s life began moving in a new direction. Karen was working in the Jewish community and had connections through which Todd got a job teaching music at the New Community Jewish High School.

“I thought I’d be teaching liturgy and klezmer music, but found the kids would really rather listen to pop and rock.

We worked together to create new sounds, rhythms and words that would help these young people be able to relate to their Jewishness through the music.”

Todd found himself feeling both creatively satisfied and enriched with the novel process. He decided to “give himself the kinds of assignments he was giving his students.”

32 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

He began to create Jewish music that is relevant to young and youngish people today.

Karen and Todd were married in 2004 in Sedona by Rabbi Albert Plotkin, z’l with just 18 people in attendance.

The small gathering in the beauty and solemnity of the red rock country fit in with their spiritual natures.

They returned to Arizona with the understanding that Karen would become Todd’s manager, and he would continue with his music. But there was a slight shift from the past.

Todd realized that he never felt as rewarded and peaceful as when he played in spiritual venues. Similarly, those were the places he was always best received. He’d sell more CDs, feel more in touch, have warmer responses and even receive fees! It made sense to move in that direction.

At this point in his life, he had a different perspective.

Jewish wisdom and text spoke to him more directly. He employed his philosophy background to help him with his writing. He found it assisted him in thinking things through, putting the music and words together, phrasing logical arguments and understanding religious texts.

Coupling his ideas with his talents, he began creating new Jewish music.

various synagogues in the Valley, then a cantorial soloist Todd had already released a CD of secular songs at Congregation Beth Israel and for the past six years the entitled “What I Wouldn’t Give.” Those songs, which cantorial soloist at Temple Solel in Scottsdale. There he he wrote after a college girlfriend had passed away, deal has set up regular family Shabbat programs incorporating with “grief, healing and transcendence.” Now he was ready to delve into a more spiritual, religious side. He has his music. He also has been a featured performer at national gatherings of the Union for Reform Judaism, released more CDs since his debut album. “Proverbs” puts Center for Advancement of Jewish Education and Hava a modern, acoustic spin on various quotes from the Bible Nashira, a Jewish songand other texts; “Bridging the Todd’s music and voice have been leader and music workshop.

Gap” expands upon his musical concept of “bridging the gap He recently was a featured featured on TV shows such as guest at the annual PJ between religion and spirituality,” and offers songs of acoustical, Library gathering, even meaningful to him spiritual pop music as well as , more new takes on ancient liturgy; these days since his son, “Everyday Blessings” is his first Sander, is 2 years old. , His largest local project is children’s CD, with each song and . coming up on Nov. 17. With representing a different Jewish the help of funding from value; and his most recent CD the “Start Me Up!” project is “A Shelter of Peace,” based on of Valley Beit Midrash, Todd is undertaking the first-ever the Friday night Shabbat liturgy (toddherzog.com).

Jewish Music festival in the Valley. “Desert Gathering: Todd’s religious participation continued to grow after Jewish Music Fest” will be held from 4 to 9 pm at Steele his days in LA. He worked more and more with text Indian School Park in Phoenix and will feature guest and liturgy and found himself first a guest musician at

The Young and the Restless, Melrose Place, The Osbournes All My Children One Life to Live

Todd and horse Boot Scootin’ Otoe ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE | NOVEMBER 2013 33

[]

artists with a wide range of musical styles.

The band Moshav comprises young men raised in Israel on Moshav Mevo Modiin, a musical village in the hills between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Now based in Los Angeles, they tour around the country, combining Jewish music with elements of folk, funk and reggae in their songs.

Saul Kaye is a soulful blues guitarist.

He intertwines Jewish history, characters and liturgy with the blues.

— Todd Herzog Elana Jagoda is a prayer leader, music educator, performer and composer. Her energetic folk-rock vibe brings an innovative twist to Jewish music.

The local rock band Twice Baked and Todd himself will also perform.

Todd envisions a gathering for all Jews to come, join together and listen to music with other Jews. He felt it was important to choose a “neutral” location, hence the city-owned Steele Indian School Park at Central Avenue and Indian School Road in midtown Phoenix.

“Holding the fest in a nondenominational setting allows everyone to attend and appreciate the music in his/her own way,” Todd explains.

“Music touches everyone in different ways, yet at the same time creates a unified community,” he continues.

He’s hoping the fest will appeal to a younger audience than might be seen at a more common klezmer or perhaps Broadway-composers type of concert.

The “Start Me Up!” project of Valley Beit Midrash was established to give seed money to new and exciting projects intended to create relevant Jewish programming.

While it’s arguable that “relevance” is subjective, VBM felt strongly that a program highlighting modern Jewish music would appeal to Jewish community members in their 20s, 30s and 40s – ages that are often overlooked in contemporary Jewish programming. Traditional programming is strong for preschool through bar mitzvah

age and again at the senior end.

Those in the middle sometimes get a bit lost. When Todd presented his proposal to VBM, they were eager to help.

“Valley Beit Midrash gave us $10,000,” Todd says. “I didn’t realize at the time how the costs would so quickly add up, though.” He has to provide transportation and lodging for the guest artists and is arranging extensive staging, lighting and sound systems for the outdoor venue.

He’s been busy with the business aspect of the event, creating partnerships and alliances with others who believe in the project and can offer services.

There will also be vendors at the event, with arts and crafts to create and to purchase, and a variety of kosher foods. The Musical Instrument Museum will bring in an interactive n, program, and the PJ Library re a K , e if w h will offer activities for young Todd wit der. children. and son, San Admission to the Jewish Music Fest is free. “We felt it was really important that no one be excluded from this event,” Todd says. However, VIP tickets are for $90; these include special options to meet the musical guests. These are available at desertgatheringaz. brownpapertickets.com.

Donations to the festival itself Todd leading a are also being accepted at youth song sess ion. desertgatheringaz.com.

Todd has already decided this is the first annual fest, indicating there will be more to come. He views the event as an opportunity to bring together Jews of all backgrounds and all ages from the far reaches of the Valley in the spirit of community through the universality of music. “Music is the gateway into our tradition. Even if you don’t understand the words, there is something innately moving about it. Sharing that experience with others brings the community together.”

“Music touches everyone in different ways, yet at the same time creates a unified community.”

34 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE | NOVEMBER 2013 35

To Life

Being Jewish is a journey, not a race Amy Hirshberg Lederman

The year was 1982 and the 12-kilometer run for Soviet Jewry drew thousands of people who cared about their plight.

Dressed proudly in my “Free Soviet Jews!” T-shirt and armed with enough water to fill a small swimming pool, I sprinted enthusiastically for the first half-mile or so, waving to friends along the sidelines like a notable in a parade. But it wasn’t long before I noticed my breath quickening, my knees hurting and the sad fact that I was falling far behind the faster, more experienced runners, who sped past me without even breaking a sweat.

My husband and I completed the race together in just under an hour. We may have been new at the running game, but the fact we finished made us happy and proud. That race taught us Rule Number One for Running: What you lack in experience and speed, you can always make up in determination and energy bars.

A race represents different things to different people. For some, it is the possibility of excelling at a sport and surpassing others; for others, it is the challenge of beating a prior personal record or running on a more demanding course. For my husband and me, that morning was a chance to make a powerful political statement about the urgent need to free the Jews in Russia who were being persecuted for their religious beliefs and prohibited from leaving the country. It was a chance for us to let others know that we cared about their freedom because we understood how precious our own freedom was – living openly as Jews in America.

Freedom to be Jewish in America is a right guaranteed to us by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. It secures the right to live as Jews without government interference – to practice our faith without fear of arrest, confiscation of property or personal tyranny of spirit. When I was growing up, I learned about the Constitution in school but never connected it to the fact that my family could go to synagogue or celebrate Passover without fear of government interference or reprisal.

In fact, since we didn’t engage in many Jewish customs, I never really thought about the freedom I had to be Jewish – at all.

In our home, my father’s idea of keeping kosher was not putting bacon on his cheeseburger. Between my father’s reluctance to practice Judaism and my mother’s lack of religious training, we muddled through events like the Passover seder, where every other page in our Maxwell House Haggadah was marked “skip.” (I was in my teens before I realized that “skip” wasn’t some long lost cousin but rather a directive to shorten the service!)

36 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

Yet even though we didn’t keep a traditionally observant home, many things in our house were Jewish to the core. Like the food in our refrigerator – sour dill pickles in jars as large as paint cans dripped pickle juice onto containers of stuffed cabbage and noodle kugel with raisins. When my friends came over, they were offered seltzer and mandel bread instead of milk and vanilla wafers.

Walking through our home, you learned something about my parents that spoke volumes about their sense of being Jewish.

Books about world history, art, literature, philosophy, finance and religion filled the shelves. My parents associated being Jewish with a love of learning and an unrelenting insistence that their children get a quality education.

Added to that was the way my parents viewed philanthropy.

No gift was too much when they saw a need, but it was always made anonymously. My father refused to let others know the amount he pledged to any campaign, yet he was the first to stand up at a synagogue meeting in October of 1973 to commit his financial support to Israel during the Six Day War, encouraging many of his reluctant friends to do the same.

What I took away from my upbringing was not the ability to recite specific blessings, but a foundation upon which I have built a Jewish life and home with my own family. My beginnings may have been meager by some standards, but they taught me a very important lesson. That being Jewish is not like being in a race. We all begin at different starting points; we all run on different paths and confront challenges along the way. It’s not so important where we begin but that we begin – wherever the place we find ourselves and at whatever age or stage in our life.

Being Jewish is not about getting to the finish line first or faster or with more medals than other runners. Being Jewish is about making the journey, about deciding to find the path and move closer – to ourselves, our family, our traditions, our culture, our ethics, our history and our people. And when we begin to do so, we can appreciate our unique destiny.

As the noted Jewish scholar and philosopher Franz Roszenweig once said: “For the modern Jew, observance is no longer a matter of the all or the nothing. One only has to start. Nobody can tell where this beginning will lead.”

Amy Hirshberg Lederman (amyhirshberglederman.com) is an award-winning author and syndicated columnist, international speaker, Jewish educator and attorney. Her stories appear in the Chicken Soup series and her book One God, Many Paths: Finding Meaning and Inspiration in Jewish Teachings won the 2009 Best Book Award from the Arizona Book Publishing Association.

ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE | NOVEMBER 2013 37

Seniors

Senior

Authors

Schindler’s List survivor Dr. Alexander White an avid speaker and reluctant author

By Carine Nadel

The Times They Are A-Changin’, And So Are Seniors’ Expectations In 2012 more than 18% of Arizonans were age 60 or older. By 2030, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that 27% (nearly a third) of Arizonans will be age 60 or older. The percentage of adults 65 and older in the Jewish population was 19% compared to 12% in the total U.S. population in 2000.

Seniors today live longer, more active lives than earlier generations. Today’s 75-year-olds are thinking about vacations, who to play tennis with and how they can participate in their community. Many take on new careers or become authors to share their life experiences.

Baby boomers’ expectations about aging differ from those of previous generations, creating many new trends in senior care. Boomers want to do things their own way; perceive themselves as youthful; expect systems to accommodate their lifestyle choices; and have very high expectations for quality.

All of those changes are creating new ways to serve seniors.

[INSIDE] Schindler’s List survivor shares story Lovable dog inspires book, mitzvah From dentist to chronicler of war songs “Cover Girl” honored for recent book Grandma pens novel for descendents Caregiver Burnout Transmitting a skill to future generations

38 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

Until the film “Schindler’s List” came out 20 years ago, 90-year-old Alexander White never knew how or why he was lucky enough to have survived World War II while most of his family perished in the death camps. He was 16 when the war began. He never knew what Oskar Schindler had done. He had never heard of the famed list.

Born in June 1923 in the shtetl of Krosno, Poland, White’s childhood ended with the Nazi invasion in 1939. Of 34 family members only White and two cousins survived. After living through the liquidation of the Krosno Ghetto, White spent a year in the Luftwaffe Labor Camp and six months in the concentration camp at KrakowPlassow before surviving the last months of the Holocaust at Oskar Schindler’s camp in Bruennlitz, Sudetenland.

How he came to be on “Schindler’s List” White could only surmise with some added information from a woman named Freda who worked in the office of the factory.

“She told me it was pure mazel (luck). But I was listed as a glazier and painter, and I truly

Paperback: 190 pages Publisher: CreateSpace Types Graphics Media (2004)

believe that’s the reason I wound up there. They had to have some skilled craftspeople in case of any real work that needed to be done. I was the youngest worker there. Most of the others were actually doctors, lawyers and other professionals.”

White has seen the movie and feels that “it was the best that Spielberg could possibly do and portray what had happened.

It was done with Hollywood schmaltz. What went on was so much worse than what the audience could ever imagine! In our town it was far more violent. There was no room for the weak and infirm. One woman who was unable to walk and was on a sled, she had no wheelchair, and was being dragged through the streets when a Nazi officer walked up to her and shot her in the head. He walked past, her blood all over his coat, without a thought. Kids were walking down the streets and witnessed this and so many more horrific incidents just like it.”

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990 W. Ocotillo Road, Chandler At the end of the war, White found himself in a displaced persons camp with a huge desire to get an education in anything he could. “I had actually applied to the school of architecture in Germany. I ran into someone who had been in the factory with me, and he said that the medical school in Munich was trying to re-open. I tore up the one set of admission papers and went to the medical school. I had such a thirst for knowledge of any kind. I hadn’t even finished high school, but I became a medical doctor within five years.”

Afterward he immigrated to the United States where he served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps. He was an associate professor of medicine at the Chicago Medical School where he had a private practice before moving to Scottsdale to continue caring for patients until his retirement.

It took 40 years before he was able to say anything. “My kids knew that something awful had happened. They had no relatives.

But they never asked,” he says. But one day while riding with his son and stuck in traffic the story began to slowly come out: “So since we basically had no place to go, we started to talk. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. My son started to tape the sessions – I

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[]

Senior

Authors went on for days. When it ended, he said I should write my memoirs.”

Even though he was very busy with his practice, White says he wasn’t much of a sleeper, so he’d get up and pen a page or two.

“I’m not a writer. I learned to speak English on the job, so I just wrote it all down the way that I talked.”

Today, thanks to the self-published book that resulted, White goes out to speak to both high school and college students to answer questions about this unbelievably inhumane scar on world history.

“One has to remember that in those days it wasn’t like now, where we know the importance of getting the returning soldiers psychological help to get through it all. We were basically supposed to just come back and pretend it was in the past. But for our children and grandchildren, our grief and pain turned into their anger.”

When going out on these speaking engagements, White has found that American students are not well-versed in what happened during those years. Questions posed to him have included: Do you have a tattoo? (For White the answer is no.)

Did the camps make you read the Bible? (To that question, White reminded the student that they weren’t in the death camps to learn religion.) And finally, what do you tell deniers?

“Those who deny are either uneducated and their brain can’t

40 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

comprehend that one human would treat another human in such violent ways, or they are educated but they feel that it’s OK to have a scapegoat for their atrocities,” says White.

White’s views about his adopted homeland reflect his love.

“Here, no matter what, we move forward. Once, when I was invited to speak in Indiana at Purdue, most of the attendees were black and I quoted Martin Luther King. I told the students that the Jewish people should thank him. He not only helped his own people, he also assisted us on being on an equal basis with others. Never could I imagine being able to talk so freely in Poland.”

Dr. White’s self-published memoir, Be a Mensch: A Legacy of the Holocaust, was published in 2004. “Be a mensch” were the last words spoken to him by his father as the Nazis led him away to Auschwitz, where he was killed that same day. Those three words turned out to be not only his legacy, but his motto in life.

Today White and his wife, Inez, live at Vi at Grayhawk, a continuing-care retirement community in North Scottsdale.

Carine Nadel is a recent and happy transplant to Arizona. In a varied career, Carine has done everything from front page features for the Orange County Register and food columns to having recipes published in major magazines and entries on her family life in Chicken Soup for the Soul books.

ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE | NOVEMBER 2013 41

Senior

Authors

Lovable dog inspires author to give

By Joni Browne-Walders

If you’re lucky enough to visit with Buddy and Gloria Stein, you’ll spend so much time laughing that your insides will feel as if they’ve been whipped up in a blender. Not only are they a delightful couple – married 64 years – but Buddy has been a successful stand-up comic for almost as long and, besides having been an artist, a teacher and a docent for the Scottsdale Center for the Arts. Gloria is his greatest fan. Both are smart, witty and together make up quite a team.

Born and raised in the Bronx, NY, Buddy started doing comedy Buddy and Molly

routines – impressions of actors – at age 15 in local amateur shows. At age 18 he met Gloria, who was then 17. They fell madly in love and soon married. To make a living he worked in his father’s window display company. In time he started his own display business. But that never stopped him from dreaming of being in show business. He loved to make people laugh.

So in his spare time he entered amateur contests. He performed on “The Ted Mack Original Amateur Hour” – and won! Over the years Buddy honed his skills and expanded his act, even adding a partner. The duo performed in clubs and hotels in the Borscht Belt, eventually landing a gig on “The Merv Griffin Show.” Finally, they were offered a contract to play the prestigious Copacabana Club, to be followed by a 40week national tour to open for singer Jerry Vale. This was his big chance! But by then, he and Gloria had children, three boys – two in high school and one in kindergarten. How could he leave home and go on the road for months at a time?

“Gloria is a gem,” Buddy confides. “I’m so lucky to have her.

I’ve been in love with her for 64 years.” So Buddy made the choice he’s never regretted. He gave up his dream of becoming a big-time, professional comedian. Ironically, he became a very successful businessman. And because he and his family prospered, he’s been able to continue his stand-up comic activities as a very satisfying hobby.

About 15 years ago a lively bichon frise entered their lives.

They named her Molly. She was a 6-week-old puppy when they bought her for their granddaughter Alexis, who lived with them.

Molly was a tiny, white blur of hair (not fur) and delightfully excitable. And it didn’t take long for all of them to fall wildly in love with her. Affectionate, cuddly and very intelligent, she wriggled her way into their hearts and became an important member of the family until the day she died, almost a year ago.

Now Buddy has written a book about Molly. He calls it Molly and Me: A Love Story. It’s a warm-hearted memoir, revealing how Molly brought so much love, companionship and joy into their lives. Although he wrote it as a catharsis to deal with his own grief at her passing, “I laced it with comedy,” he explains. “I didn’t want it to be a sad book.”

Buddy knows that many dog owners will relate to his book.

But that wasn’t enough for Buddy. He wanted to do some good – a mitzvah – to contribute in Molly’s name and memory.

“I wanted to donate to some kind of charity that has to do with dogs,” he told me. He felt Molly would have wanted him to do that. After a long search, he discovered the Warrior Canine Connection, which is affiliated with the Walter Reed

Paperback: 112 pages Publisher: CreateSpace Wheatmark (Sept. 15, 2013) 42 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

Buddy recognizes that excitable, little Molly could never have been a service dog. In fact, the WCC specifically breeds Labrador and golden retrievers for that role, because they are big and also have calm, gentle natures. Still Buddy feels that Molly would have been happy that, in her name, a mitzvah is being done for our soldiers.

To sum it all up, Buddy quotes Roger Caras: “Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.”

Buddy, Molly and the WCC are a case in point.

Joni Browne-Walders is a produced playwright, editor and freelance writer.

She can be reached at jonibw@hotmail.com.

Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C. Buddy explains that the WCC is an organization that helps veterans suffering from complex traumatic brain injury and posttraumatic stress disorder. These veterans, in turn, recover their lives as they train service dogs for physically disabled veterans.

It offers the emotionally damaged warriors a sense of mission and purpose. They know they’re helping their own buddies and, consequently, they discover they’re helping themselves.

And so … Buddy had found his “Mitzvah for Molly.”

Now he has arranged to donate all royalties from Molly and Me to the WCC. He also urges readers to donate directly, if they so choose (see sidebar).

Mitzvah for Molly All royalties from Molly and Me: A Love Story (available at Amazon.com) go to the Warrior Canine Connection, a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation.

To donate directly to the Warrior Canine Connection, visit warriorcanineconnection.com or mail check made payable to Warrior Canine Connection to: Attn: Molly Morelli Director, Dog Program Warrior Canine Connection 23222 Georgia Ave. Brookville, MD 20833

ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE | NOVEMBER 2013 43

Senior

Authors

Retired dentist’s book on WWII music has been a lifelong journey

By Lori Winkler Kesselman, J.D.

When Dr. Sheldon Winkler retired from Temple University in January 2006 as professor emeritus (where he

previously served as chairperson of the department of prosthodontics and dean of research, advanced education and continuing education) he started a second career as an author and speaker on the music of the Second World War. Dr. Winkler attended public school during America’s participation in World War II. During music classes, students learned the lyrics to war-related songs. Even if the memorization of lyrics had not been required, the continual playing of war songs on the radio, on records, in the movies and on loudspeakers inside and outside stores imprinted those songs on a generation of young people.

Dr. Winkler’s mother started teaching him piano when he was very young. He formed a band in high school that played at college dances, social functions and in Catskill Mountain hotels in New York State and Orange Mountain hotels in New Jersey until he completed college and dental school. Occasionally Dr. Winkler appeared on the radio as a soloist. While his band sometimes played music from World War II, his bandmates strongly resisted efforts to include war songs in the band’s repertoire.

Dr. Winkler’s love of music stayed with him all of his life. He started collecting information on the music of WWII a number of years before his retirement and had several articles published in World War II History magazine. His goal was to prepare a book on the music of the war years. Now a resident of Scottsdale, he achieved his goal after his retirement from academics and research.

The Music of World War II: War Songs and Their Stories was released in March 2013

by Merriam Press, a publisher of military history with an emphasis on WWII. In honor of Jewish Book Month, he will speak at Katz Jewish Community Center in Cherry Hill, NJ, on Nov. 17.

Paperback: Dr. Winkler says, “Most of the 126 pages songs described in my book were Publisher: written by Jewish composers and/ CreateSpace or lyricists.”

Independent Dr. Winkler shares this story Publishing on another notable bit of writing Platform; that combined his heritage and First Edition one of his major interests: “I first edition (March 1, 2013) visited Israel in 1958, when the current location of the dental 44 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

school in Jerusalem was an empty lot, with a sign announcing the eventual construction of a dental college. I visited the temporary dental school and wrote an article about the school for a dental journal. That most probably was the first article on a dental school in Israel to appear in an American dental journal.”

Winkler returned to Israel several times and presented guest lectures at dental schools in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. As director of continuing education at Temple University School of Dentistry, he arranged a continuing education trip for Jewish dentists to Israel and took part in the lecture series.

The majority of his writing career has focused on dentistry.

Dr. Winkler founded the journal Implant Dentistry, which he edited for six years, and is currently senior editor of the Journal of Oral Implantology. Currently the president of the American Academy of Implant Prosthodontics and executive director of the Academy, he has authored or co-authored six textbooks (including Essentials of Complete Denture Prosthodontics) and approximately 185 articles and chapters in professional journals and textbooks.

With The Music of World War II, he has shifted his writing to his lifelong interest in music. Some of the most memorable and enduringly popular music of the 20th century was written during the Second World War. The book tells the stories behind the origins of many of these musical compositions, some of which have survived to become standards and are popular to this day. With patriotism at an all-time high, the war effort became an integral part of the entertainment industry, creating

an emotional wartime dreamworld of heroes, love, remembrance, reflection and introspection.

Among the songs reviewed are “A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square,” “As Time Goes By,” “Der Fuehrer’s Face,” “God Bless America,” “Johnny Zero,” “Lili Marlene,” “Miss Pavlichenko,” “My Sister and I,” “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition,” “Rosie the Riveter,” “The Ballad of Rodger Young,” “The Last Time I Saw Paris,” “The White Cliffs of Dover” and “We’re Gonna Hang Out the Washing on the Siegfried Line.”

Stories of selected WWII movies are also recounted in the book. Among them are “Casablanca,” “The Last Time I Saw Paris,” “This Is the Army” and “The White Cliffs of Dover.”

The book discusses in detail the relatively unknown relationship of the wartime New York Office of British Security Coordination in Rockefeller Center and three popular wartime songs: “The White Cliffs of Dover,” “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square,” and “My Sister and I.” Dr. Winkler describes World War II as one of the most productive periods of American popular music and notes wartime songs were indispensable for boosting morale at home and wherever our troops were stationed overseas. He believes that “there may never be another period of time where service men and women, and their families, friends and neighbors, will be so eager to express their patriotism through popular music.”

As Dr. Winkler likes to say, “The war is long over, but the songs live on.”

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Senior

Authors

Valley Havurah as membership chair. “It’s a group of about 150 mostly Jewish people (and some people who were brought up with Jewish people and like to hang out with them),” says Ester.

Her long-term goal is to co-author 100 books. Her books can be found at wholeperson.com and Amazon.com.

“Cover girl” update After being featured on the cover of the November 2012 Arizona Jewish Life, Ester A. Leutenberg says she had “loads of reactions from people … who knew me for years and learned so much about me from the article (and didn’t realize how much they didn’t know).”

Ester, who turns 77 on Nov. 18, has worked in the mental health profession for many years as an author, publisher and advocate for those suffering from loss. She personally experienced a loss when her son, Mitchell, after struggling with a mental illness for eight years, died by suicide in 1986.

Since 1987 Ester has co-authored 61 books.

One of her recent books, The Complete Caregiver Support Guide, received a Silver Award in the category of Psychology from the Independent Book Publishers Association, the largest nonprofit publishing association in the country. Ester was given this prestigious honor at ceremonies held in New York City on May 29. Recently she joined the board of the Sun City Oro

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Grandmother pens WWI novel to give descendants sense of family history Scottsdale resident Barbara MarkDreyfuss says she wrote America at Last: A Family’s Journey from Fear to Freedom to provide her children and grandchildren with some semblance of family history.

“Very little information was uncovered during many attempts to retrieve memories from family members, so embellishment became an essential part of the storytelling,” explains this mother of three married children and grandmother of 10.

America at Last tells the story of Libby and her siblings, who were separated because of the torments of war. The book explores the plight of Jewish families in Europe even before World War II. Though their suffering in Europe during World War I was not as brutal as that endured by those who were caught in the evil of the World War II Holocaust, they still suffered and lived in constant fear. Living in America was their dream.

“This could be the story of many of the parents and grandparents of the readers,” says Barbara. “So many don’t know the history of their families. America at Last could be a connection to what could have been their family story. It has been suggested that in addition to adults, children in grade school through high school would both enjoy and learn from the contents of America at Last.”

Barbara has written two other books: Kaleidoscope, a book of poetry, and Renewal of Body, Renewal of Spirit, A Guide to Health, Hope and Healing. She is working on her next book, which will be a compilation of spiritual and healing poetry.

“It is with great pleasure that I announce that my newest book, America At Last: A Family’s Journey from Fear to Freedom, is available on amazon.com/books and Barnes and Noble.com,” says the author.

Born and raised in the Twin Cities, Barbara raised her children in St. Louis Park, MN, and now resides in Scottsdale after living in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Retired from her career as a financial advisor and her postretirement career as a sculptor, Barbara devotes her time to her family, her community, writing, public speaking, playing bridge and enjoying friends and the arts.

Caregiver Burnout

By Karen Perry Photo courtesy of Brookdale Senior Living Communities

There are certain heartfelt and unshakable promises we make to those we care most about. In the context of aging, a child promises a parent, “I will never put you in one of ‘those’ places.” The bride and groom vow to care for one another “for richer or poorer, for better or worse, in sickness and in health.”

But the reality is that in terms of physical and emotional stress, caregiving is arguably the most challenging endeavor one will ever assume. Caregiver burnout is a serious concern. And it’s not uncommon for the person receiving care to outlive their caregiver.

Let’s look at these promises a little more deeply and explore a more realistic meaning. First of all, if you promised to take care of someone and find you no longer have the strength to do so adequately, you may feel a sense of betrayal or failure for not keeping your word.

And while there is no denying the feelings you have are real, it’s important to know that they’re not justified. That’s because other options are available. And seeking another source for care is, in fact, part of your job. By doing so, you are indeed fulfilling your obligation as a caregiver and keeping your promise to your loved one.

The level of care you provide will have an influence on the amount of stress you can endure and how quickly burnout can ensue. Caring for someone who is mentally alert, but still requires physical care such as bathing, transfer assistance, feeding, dressing and incontinence management, can be physically exhausting. If the caregiver is elderly as well, the risk of back injury or falls may result in the caregiver needing a caregiver, too.

Caring for a person living with dementia, memory loss or

Alzheimer’s presents an entirely different slate of challenges, especially as it relates to behavior and the unpredictable nature of the disease.

The experiences of some caregivers of Alzheimer’s patients are particularly heart-wrenching. One man awoke in the middle of the night to find his wife rubbing nail polish remover over her entire body, resulting in third-degree burns. Another lady was found walking without shoes or a coat down a railroad track, in the rain at night, looking for a job. An elderly man, living with his daughter and her three young children, pointed a loaded gun because he believed he was facing enemy soldiers in World War II. Fortunately the situation was resolved peacefully.

Another all-too-common result of caregiver burnout is elder abuse. Caregivers can lose patience when their loved one’s behavior changes. Anger and resentment can set in. Without a proper or professional support system in place, it can become easy to lash out verbally or physically. Likewise, it is not unusual for the care recipient to become frustrated, angry and turn on the person who loves them the most.

But effective solutions are close at hand. In addition to comfortable accommodations and attentive care for all the places one’s life may go, many area assisted-living and memorycare communities offer respite care, a service that can provide a much needed “breather” for both the caregiver and their loved one. There are also options for in-home help. And quite often these services are Medicare certified. If you need support, resources, respite care or just a simple conversation with someone who can partner with you through these challenges, contact Freedom Plaza at 1-888-794-7802.

Karen Perry is director of sales marketing for Freedom Plaza Peoria, a Life Care Community located at 13373 Plaza del Rio Blvd., Peoria, AZ 85381.

For more information, call 623-876-2416 or visit brookdale.com.

ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE | NOVEMBER 2013 47

[Arts & Entertainment] seniors

Stitching L’dor V’dor

By Leah Susman

In 1981 while living in California, Barbara Esmond read in her temple bulletin about the Pomegranate Guild of Judaic Needlework, and it piqued her interest. She had recently purchased a painted needlepoint canvas, all the rage in the early ’80s, and had started working on it. She knew only one basic stitch and was quickly becoming bored with it. She yearned to increase her cache of needlepoint stitches to make her project exciting.

So she went to the San Fernando Valley (California) Chapter meeting, thinking she’d stay for one visit and learn a bit more about needlepoint stitches. She walked into the woman’s home who was hosting that gathering and literally became hooked on so many different ways to stitch. Thirty-two years later, after being connected to the San Fernando Chapter since that momentous visit, she started the Tucson Chapter of the Pomegranate Guild.

Not only did she improve her needlepoint stitch repertoire, she also learned Brazilian embroidery, blackwork, Tenerife lace embroidery, counted cross stitch, Sashiko, crocheting, you name it. She enjoyed Brazilian embroidery so much that she devoted a number of months to making a 6’ x 6’ chuppah, with four side panels, all in Brazilian, for use at her son’s wedding and subsequently used for other family simchas.

“I lived in Israel from 1991 to 2008 and thought of starting 48 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

Tucson Pomegranate Guild President Barbara Esmond gives pointers to Aida Sicheri and Felice Reiner.

a Pomegranate chapter there, but the other members didn’t live near each other. So when I moved to Tucson, I was eager to get a chapter started,” Barbara says. She is now the president of a devoted group of Tucsonans, aged 14 to their 70s.

What exactly is the Pomegranate Guild of Judaic Needlework? In 1977 a group of Jewish women, all professional needle artists and educators, got together in New York City with the desire to create and design ornamental objects for Jewish homes and synagogues. Over the years the group morphed into an international organization, now with more than 500 members of amateur as well as professional status.

They adopted the name of Pomegranate from Exodus 39, verses 24 and 25: “And they made upon the hem of the robe pomegranates of blue, and purple, and scarlet and twined linen,” describing the garments of the High Priest Aaron. The Guild’s logo, which was designed by one of the founding members, Tsirl Waletsky, is a stylized pomegranate, the stem of which is a threaded needle.

The Guild issues a quarterly publication, The Paper Pomegranate. A recent issue that emphasized the history of the organization, now in its double chai (36) year, notes: “Guild and Chapter meetings are a rich blend of needlework, culture, tradition and religious practices as they relate to Judaic textiles. … Through these efforts we hope to perpetuate our Jewish heritage for generations to come, thereby fulfilling our Judaic teaching, ‘As my father planted for me, so shall I plant for my children.’ (Talmud).”

Members of the Guild create their works for a variety of reasons. Some hope to perpetuate their Jewish heritage by teaching, l’dor v’dor, from generation to generation. In the Tucson Chapter, started in June of 2012, there is a grandmother, her daughter and her two granddaughters: three generations of continuity. Some feel the urge to replace ceremonial objects and heirlooms lost in the Holocaust. Others revel in the camaraderie of other individuals who are willing to teach and learn needlework together.

Currently chapter members have their choice of making two very different challah covers. A Tucson member designed a challah cover using Hebrew calligraphy of the words Shabbat Shalom. Now many chapter members are at work on their own challah covers, embroidering this design in satin stitches, outline stitches and French knots. Other members are at work on challah covers with fringes, hem stitching, counted cross stitch and Brazilian embroidery.

One of the first projects Tucson members tackled was Hanukkah gelt bags embroidered with Tenerife lace (also called chicken scratch). Members also are stitching a needlepoint

Rest assured.

We can help.

sampler to be used as a Mizrach for the eastern wall in their homes. This spring they will be make crocheted kippot as well as learning peyote stitch beading. The women teach each other their own skills.

The chapter meets twice a month, the first Monday evening, from 6:30 until 8:30 pm, and on the first Friday of each month, from 10 am until noon. Members can attend either one or both of the group meetings. All of the gatherings are held at the Jewish Federation Northwest, 190 W. Magee Road, Suite 162, Oro Valley, AZ. Annual membership in the Guild is $36. Members can attend meetings, learn new stitching techniques and access online archives of hundreds of projects.

There is also a Phoenix Pomegranate Guild chapter, called the Desert Cactus Chapter. Their contact person is Sharon Ziv (phone: 480-585-8420, or sziv@cox.net). Their next meeting is Sunday, Nov. 17, which will be an afternoon Hanukkah celebration in a private home. Usually the Phoenix chapter meets at Temple Chai. Desert Cactus Chapter will host a national Pomegranate Guild Convention in Phoenix or Scottsdale for three days in late spring of 2015.

To learn more about the Tucson Chapter, President Barbara Esmond can be reached at 520-299-1197 or brealjs@gmail.com.

Pattie Martin, M.Ed.

Pamela Heiman Dubin, M.D.

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Care Managers ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE | NOVEMBER 2013 49

Rabbinic Reflections Who is one of your favorite figures from Jewish texts?

Answer: Bruriah – Talmudic Scholar, Feminist Hero, Advocate for Human Potential

By Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz

B

ruriah was one of the great Talmudic scholars.

Her husband was the great sage Rebbi Meir and her father was Rabbi Hananiah Ben Teradion (one of the “Ten Martyrs” in the Yom Kippur liturgy killed by the Romans for teaching Torah).

Bruriah was known for her humor and caustic remarks, but even more so for her scholarship. It is said that she studied 300 Torah laws from 300 rabbis in one day (Pesachim 62b). She is a feminist hero who set a new bar for women’s education and scholarship at a time when it was not accepted.

Remarkably, she not only believed in her own individual potential for growth and change, but in every individual’s potential for growth and change. This can be seen from an important Talmudic passage (Brachot 10a).

There were some boors in Rebbi Meir’s neighborhood, who caused him great distress. Rebbi Meir would pray that they would die. His wife Bruriah said to him, “What are you thinking?” [He responded] Because it says, “Sin will cease.” [She responded] Does it say “Sinners?” “Sins” is what it says [End the evil, not evil doers]. “Furthermore, go down to the end of the verse, ‘The wicked will be no more.’ Since their sinning will stop, will there ‘no longer be sinners?’ Rather, you should pray that they repent, then ‘they will be wicked no more.’ ” [Rebbi Meir] Prayed for mercy upon them, and they repented.

Bruriah taught that it is not only inappropriate to pray for the death of others, but also that it is incorrect to 50 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

assume others cannot change. We must hope and pray that others can and will change and assist them to get there. The spiritual and ethical foundation of Judaism is free will, that we are all free to make choices and to change our ways.

It is through kind gentleness (prayer and kindness) that we bring light to others. Even when her own sons passed away, Bruriah was able to comfort her husband and settle his mind. For this she was described as a fulfillment of the verse, “A woman of valor, who can find?” (Proverbs 31:10), (Midrash Mishlei 31).

There are different Talmudic positions on her final days and death (some suggesting suicide out of shame, Kiddushin 80b), but it seems clear that she lived consistently with her values.

We are in need of thinkers and leaders like Bruriah today who are intensely committed to rigorous Jewish learning and to living with mercy and compassion.

Bruriah comes to remind us that each of us has immense potential to grow intellectually, spiritually and morally and to help others to do so as well. We must consider the advice of Rav Tzadok HaKohen: “Just as one must believe in G-d, so must one believe in oneself ” (Tzidkat HaTzadik, 154).

Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz is the executive director of the Valley Beit Midrash and the author of Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century. Newsweek named Rav Shmuly one of the top 50 rabbis in America.

SOUNDBITES

Who is your favorite

Jewish character from a book or story?

Meli Horowitz Tucson

I love Faye Kellerman’s books, so my favorite Jewish characters are Rina Lazarus and Peter Decker of her mystery series.

Harriet Meador Tucson

One of my favorite characters from Jewish literature is Jocheved, the subject of the first volume of the trilogy Rashi’s Daughters. Legend has it that Rashi, one the greatest Jewish scholars who ever lived, consented to teach his three daughters Torah at a time when women were forbidden from studying the sacred texts. In this work of historical fiction, set in Troyes, France, during the medieval period, Jocheved is portrayed as an intelligent, strongwilled and independent woman. Jocheved is not only a formidable scholar, but she supervises the family vineyards and wine business, while tending her young family.

Cheryl Hammerman Scottsdale

Jocheved in Maggie Anton’s Rashi’s Daughters trilogy. As the oldest, her strength of character and desire to learn Judaism in a way that was strictly limited to boys at that time truly resonates with me. Her respect and love for her family, from her parents, siblings, children and grandchildren, make her a most admirable literary figure.

NEXT MONTH

Maria Amorocho Weisbrod Phoenix

In Chaim Potok’s The Chosen, each character is striving to define and fulfill his identity and purpose in the Jewish community. Danny Saunders’ journey is so broad and poignant, and I love that he finds his way through developing his emotional intelligence.

Rachel Leket-Mor Tempe

I don’t have an absolute favorite, but Bina Gelbfish of Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (2007) is a recent new literary friend of mine. She is a smart and resourceful sort of yedene. I like her because she speaks fluent Yiddish and can get her way with a huge Mary Poppins handbag equipped for any situation; likewise, I like to imagine that my Jewish textual satchel helps me go places.

What is the best advice you ever received?

To share your reply, please send your short reply, name, city and photo to editor1@azjewishlife.com by Nov. 7.

ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE | NOVEMBER 2013 51

history

Yuma’s “Black Ike,” the Jewish River Boat Captain

By Eileen Warshaw, Ph.D.

Isaac Levy was born in France. Where exactly is a mystery, as there are reported records of an Isaac Levy in four different locations in France – Paris, Cherbourg, Reims and AlsaceLorraine – all born on the same date, Oct. 25, 1845. It is believed Isaac was from a family of itinerant vineyard workers, moving from region to region harvesting the vines and working in the wineries. However, until Isaac immigrated to the United States in 1866 at 21 years of age, little else is known about his life.

Isaac sailed to New York and then onto San Francisco via the Isthmus of Panama. Once again, little is known of his years in San Francisco. Was he working in retail as so many Jewish immigrants did? Was he a gold miner or a laborer? We simply don’t know. We do know that he arrived in the Arizona Territory in 1872. Records show he traveled part of that journey on the paddle-wheel steamer, the Mojave, arriving in Arizona City, a small river crossing settlement on the Colorado River, which today we know as Yuma.

Isaac was said to have been a very affable Frenchman, who must have spoken English as well, as he became a great friend of the captain of the Mojave, who offered Isaac the coveted job of steward on the paddleboat. There are no known photos of Isaac at this period in his life, but a published description describes him as “a rather heavy young man, weighing somewhere near 200 pounds, with the agility of a monkey.”

Isaac was employed during the next two years on several paddle-wheelers, all in competition for the fares and freights along the great Colorado. It is while he was captain of the river barge aptly named Black Crook that Isaac acquired the name that stayed with him throughout his life and legends, the name of “Black Ike.” Newspaper articles speak to the suspected sabotage, double-dealing and cutthroat tactics Black Ike employed to gain freighting contracts and “hinder the business” of competitors up and down the Colorado River.

In 1874 Black Ike was supposedly driven off the river by other barge operators who had organized to eliminate operators like Ike. Actually the rumor of the pending arrival of the railroad, which would make river freight obsolete, was the reason Ike and

Isaac “Black Ike” Levy is believed to be the man standing on the top left of the steamer Mohave.

52 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

many other river men left the waterways.

That same year Isaac became a naturalized U.S. citizen and a partner with another Jewish immigrant – an Englishman named Isaac Lyons. Together they opened a retail operation in Yuma, but their partnership lasted only one year, with the business declaring bankruptcy. Black Ike then became the well-liked operator of Yuma’s Colorado Hotel.

It is while he was captain of the river barge aptly named Black Crook that Isaac acquired the name that stayed with him throughout his life and legends, the name of “Black Ike.”

In 1878 Ike met Magdalena Casares Risse at a dance in Yuma.

Following a three-year courtship, the 36-yearold Ike married Magdalena, a 21-year-old Catholic widow from Pothole, CA. Together they moved to Clipp, Arizona Territory, where they ran a store. According to The Arizona Sentinel Newspaper, “due to his physical build, friendly nature and (because he) was able to read most things,” Ike was appointed as the justice of the peace of the small mining town.

The couple returned to Yuma in the mid-1880s and opened a general mercantile store. Black Ike became Yuma’s major retailer over the years and served as both justice of the peace and probate judge for Yuma.

In 1891 the successful merchant bought two acres of land from the estate of his first business partner, Isaac Lyons, and built a large brick building to house his growing mercantile/ wholesale business and a large home for his growing family.

The acreage also held two small buildings that Ike rented to two American Indian families, the Jose Yuma and Jose Mohave families. Along with household chores, the Yuma and Mohave families helped to care for the Levy’s nine children and acted as the children’s guardians on summer excursions to California.

Magdalena counted the Yuma and Mohave children as part of her family, and it was not unusual for children from all three families to eat and sleep at each other’s homes. The three families became very close; as young adults two of the children of the Yuma and Mohave family legally changed their names to Levy.

Isaac never lost the river boat tag of Black Ike. He became ill in 1898 and accompanied by Magdalena, who was pregnant with their tenth child, left Yuma on New Year’s Day 1899 for Los Angeles for medical treatment. Black Ike died following surgery for an intestinal disorder on Jan. 4, 1899, at Mount Sinai

Hospital in Los Angeles.

Although his wife and children were Catholic, Isaac remained Jewish. He joined the Masonic Lodge No. 2 of Phoenix, Arizona Territory, and the Ancient Order of United Workmen Lodge in the 1890s.

Both organizations were popular with Jewish men but shunned by the Catholic faith. Arizona City’s Jewish river boat captain of questionable business dealings became, over the years, one of Yuma’s most respected and loved pioneers. He was buried with Jewish rites as well as with the Masonic rituals on Jan. 6, 1899, in the Hebrew Benevolent Cemetery in the Chavez Ravine, Los Angeles.

Magdalena married the widower Ben Hyle in 1902. The 1910 census shows the Levy children as members of the Hyle family, although all 10 of the children retained the Levy name.

Magdalene lived 46 years after Isaac’s death, outliving her third husband. She is buried in the Catholic section of the Yuma City Cemetery.

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[Arts & Entertainment]

Renowned pianist Jeffrey Siegel celebrates the 35th anniversary of his popular Keyboard Conversations series at Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts in 2013-14.

Keyboard Conversations make classical music accessible and appealing

By Elizabeth Schwartz

Pianist Jeffrey Siegel is on a mission. He’s trying to get more people to enjoy classical music, and he’s going about it in a rather unconventional way. Instead of merely presenting recitals and concerts (of which he’s done more than his share during a career of 50+ years), Siegel draws his audiences in with a conversation. A keyboard conversation, to be precise.

On Nov. 23 Siegel will celebrate the 35th anniversary of his Keyboard Conversations series at the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts with a concert geared toward listeners of all ages. “Everybody is welcome, from ages 6 to 106,” he said in a recent interview. On Dec. 3 Spiegel will present a different KC featuring beloved piano classics and share fascinating facts about well-known pieces, like Beethoven’s Für Elise, that you may not already know.

Siegel was in Phoenix Oct. 13 performing tunes from great Jewish composers at the Arizona Jewish Historical Society’s Celebration of Music and Philanthropy.

Siegel’s concert-with-commentary format combines informative, entertaining remarks with world-class performances of legendary masterpieces of the piano repertoire, concluding with a lively Q-and-A session. New listeners discover an 54 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

informal, entertaining and instantly accessible introduction to the piano repertoire, while seasoned music lovers enjoy an enriched, more focused listening experience. Ongoing series of Keyboard Conversations flourish in major cities throughout the United States, including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Phoenix, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Dallas, Denver and Washington, D.C. Siegel also has a KC series in London.

“These concerts in Scottsdale are something of a milestone for me,” says Siegel. “Forty-four years ago I started doing Keyboard Conversations in Chicago, where I’m from originally, and the idea proved so popular that now I go to more than 25 cities around the United States. A wonderful couple, Dayton and Laura Grafman, attended those Keyboard Conversations years ago in Chicago. They were big supporters of the KC program, and when they moved to Scottsdale, they thought the KCs would be a good fit in Arizona. Their arrival in Scottsdale virtually coincided with the opening of the Scottsdale Center, and once we began the series there, the audiences started to grow.”

The Virginia G. Piper Theater at the Scottsdale Center Hall seats around 800; Spiegel says he averages 700-750 audience members per show. Siegel’s inspiration for the Keyboard Conversations came from Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts with the New York Philharmonic, which were broadcast live on CBS television from the late 1950s through 1972. “Bernstein had such an infectious love of music and he wanted others to love it too,” says Siegel. “The format Bernstein developed seems to be the right approach. It’s not a lecture, it’s a performance; what you say is a prelude to the piece itself.” Siegel, who was raised “proudly Jewish” and secular, also acknowledges his parents’ emphasis on the importance of education, a central component of his Keyboard Conversations.

Siegel got his start combining words with music performances

Photo: Peter Schaaf

as a Juilliard student in the 1950s. “Juilliard had recently become part of Lincoln Center, and they had a program where they’d send out students to various schools and music clubs and Rotary clubs to give a half-hour program,” he remembers ruefully. “You had to introduce the pieces you were going to play and there were no program notes. Nobody prepared us for this, so naturally I made every mistake you could make. The ability to talk about music well is not natural for a musician; it took me a long time to develop it myself.” Eventually, however, the presentations began to crystallize. One time, a musician friend came to a program and told Siegel, “These are not just for kids; what you’re doing would be of interest to everyone.” That led to the first series of Keyboard Conversations at Northwestern University, near Chicago.

The broad appeal of the KC, as Siegel has discovered, brings in knowledgeable music patrons as well as first-time concertgoers.

“Audience members will meet you at a party after the concert and say, ‘I love music, but I wish my listening experience could be more than in one ear and out the other. Can’t a musician like you enhance it for me?’ ” Siegel also mentions a KC he did at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. After the concert, “A high school kid came up to me and confided very quietly, ‘Hey Mr. Siegel, Beethoven’s not that bad!’ He just had to tell me how surprised he was. That kind of thing gives me hope.”

Siegel spends the majority of his performing life presenting KCs, but he does not think all musicians should be expected to talk about music the way he does. “It would be great if Leonard Bernsteins grew on trees, but there are very few musicians who can speak in an engaging way to a wide audience with the right terminology,” he acknowledges.

For Siegel, returning to the Scottsdale Center is like reuniting with an old friend. “It’s a beautiful hall and a wonderful place to hear music. It’s also the only hall I know of where they have a “keyboard in the sky.” An overhead camera shoots video of Siegel’s hands as he plays and projects the image on a huge screen behind the piano. “There’s no such thing as keyboard side seats anymore, because everyone can see my hands, no matter where they’re sitting.”

Jeffrey Siegel’s Keyboard Conversations

WHEN: Nov. 23 and Dec. 3 WHERE: Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts TICKETS: scottsdaleperformingarts.org or 480-499-TKTS (8587) ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE | NOVEMBER 2013 55

[Arts & Entertainment]

By Debra Rich Gettleman

B

etween 1939 and 1945, two Jewish women in Nazi-occupied Europe took on false Catholic identities and secured work in a Nazi hotel where they lived in constant fear of being discovered. Their thrilling story of intrigue, deception and survival, based on Sabina Zimering’s memoir, Hiding in the Open, will be performed Nov. 8-9 and 14-16 at a rather unusual venue: WHAT: Glendale Community College.

“Hiding in the Open,” “Glendale is not known for its Jewish population, so I (am) certainly concerned about its marketabilbased on the ity,” says David Seitz, program and artistic director memoir of Sabina of GCC’s Theatre Arts and Film Department. But Zimering, adapted by he hopes the community will show up “to see all Kira Obolensky.

The story of two Jewish the great professional, award-winning work our students have achieved.” sisters from Poland Seitz hopes the play will give audiences a window who assume Catholic into the evil and brutality of that era. He insists he identities to escape didn’t choose “Hiding in the Open” simply because Nazi persecution. of its Jewish theme. “I have always been drawn to WHERE: stories about the Holocaust,” he admits, “but I see this as a universal story of survival and determinaGlendale Community tion, of risk and humanity.”

College While most of Seitz’s students have little knowlWHEN: edge about the Holocaust, Seitz says, “This play is Nov. 8, 9, 14, 16 based on a true story, so it is a way to expand their DETAILS: knowledge of what came before, how to relate to david.seitz@gccaz.edu today’s world and how to prevent it from ever happening again ... to anyone.” or 623-845-3720 Seitz’s background and professional achievements are impressive. He holds a National Board Certified Teacher certificate with a theater and humanities bachelor’s degree, a Master of Fine Arts degree in cinema-television production from 56 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

the University of Southern California and a postbaccalaureate in secondary education from Ottawa University.

GCC theater students range from age 17 to 60 and come from all walks of life. Seitz seeks thought-provoking projects that can be presented in an entertaining way. “I want my students to be able to explore different theatrical styles and discover the influence that theater can have on a community,” he says.

Seitz grew up in Arizona, returned to the state 19 years ago and has been at GCC since 1998. He has also taught theater in the Cave Creek School District and Paradise Valley School District, and has owned and operated a private acting school, “Actors Academy,” in Scottsdale for several years.

Raised in a Jewish household, Seitz remembers his early years: “It was difficult as a Jew in Arizona back in the day. We were like foreigners to the majority of the population when I was growing up.” With few synagogues around, Seitz’s family observed the holidays and hung out a lot at Chompies.

Seitz and his wife, Robin, a preschool teacher at the JCC, raise their children to observe Judaism and are long-time members of Temple Chai.

Having one great Jewish teacher in the Theatre Arts and Film Department at GCC is quite an achievement. But this year, GCC brought on another impressively credentialed Jewish addition to the faculty, Layne Racowsky. Layne received her MFA in New York City working with artists such as Austin Pendleton, Ron Leibman, Christopher Shinn and Ellen Barkin. Originally from Arizona,

Layne attended graduate school at the New School for Drama in New York and returned to Arizona in 2009. Prior to joining the faculty of GCC, Layne was the theater director and head of the performing arts department a Paramount Academy Charter School. She also ran the education department at Curtain Call, a division of Arizona Jewish Theatre Company (which has since closed). She also directed several AJTC main-stage productions as well as some of their Curtain Call and camp productions.

Layne grew up in a Conservative Jewish family where she attended Sunday school and celebrated all the Jewish holidays.

She continued to practice Judaism after becoming a bat mitzvah

Judaica Hidden in the Hills Ari Plosker’s “The Mittens”

By Deborah Moon

by going through confirmation and joining United Synagogue Youth. Her connection to David Seitz began in 2004 when the two met as co-directors of AJTC’s Curtain Call Camp. Seitz took over the camp when Layne moved back to New York for graduate school. Their long-time friendship and past work together make their current partnership productive and supportive.

“I think we worked so well together because we both had similar goals, yet came at it through different approaches,” Layne explains about their earlier teaching experience. “There is a mutual respect for the other person’s perspective and talent. We were a team, and I think that’s what we bring to GCC ... I think we have a great partnership.”

While Layne’s current contract at GCC is OYO (one year only), she has ambitious plans to expand the program by bringing more contemporary and new works to GCC. “It’s important for students to learn the classics, but it is equally important for them to know what’s happening now.” Long term, Layne hopes to establish a New Play Development Program and help grow the directing program.

When asked about “Hiding in the Open,” Layne says, “The play works on multiple levels.” Due to current theater renovations, they needed a play that could work in a simple black box space. “Second,” she continues, “we’re an educational institution, and this play offers learning opportunities across the curriculum.”

“I believe this play is universal,” says Layne. “In my perspective, I think having a Jewish background helps, but I don’t think that only Jewish spectators will be able to appreciate and connect emotionally to the play. I think the story needs to be told, and regardless of your descent or background, you will be able to connect to the themes being presented.”

Ari and Lea Plosker are among 165 working artists at 46 open studios participating in the Sonoran Arts League’s 17th Annual Hidden in the Hills Artist Studio Tour & Sale. The self-guided tour throughout the picturesque Sonoran Foothills of Cave Creek, Carefree and North Scottsdale will be Nov. 22-24 and Nov. 29Dec. 1. Attendees can visit the 45 studios and purchase original artwork between the hours of 10 am and 5 pm.

Lea creates delicate glass works including beautiful menorahs and seder plates, which she says are her two favorite pieces of Judaica to make. Ari is an awardwinning landscape and architecture photographer whose photos have appeared in Friends of Arizona Highways and COLOR magazine. He is one of four artists featured on this year’s Hidden in the Hills directory cover.

Lea says as an outdoor photographer, Ari “shows how beautiful our country is” and his photos reflect a Jewish love for nature.

The Scottsdale couple attended the Bureau of Jewish Education’s Baby University before the birth of their daughter, Sophia, now 2. Now the family enjoys the free Jewish books and music provided by PJ Library. “It’s absolutely the perfect way to have a little extra information on Judaism come into the house every month,” says Lea. The Ploskers’ work will be at studio number 15 on the tour map: Susanne Flowers’ Studio, 30807 N Rancho Tierra Dr. in Cave Creek.

Sponsored by National Bank of Arizona, this Sonoran Arts League tour features a variety of artistic genres and mediums – acrylic, ceramics, jewelry, photography and many more.

“The Hidden in the Hills Studio Tour is an opportunity for art enthusiasts, collectors and the general public to connect and converse with working artists and gain insight into the creative process,” says Sonoran Arts League President Karen Smith-Lovejoy, in a press release. “The event brings enrichment and artistic awareness to all who attend.”

The 2013 Hidden in the Hills Artists Directory is available for $5 at hiddeninthehills.org or by calling 480-575-6624.

ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE | NOVEMBER 2013 57

[Arts & Entertainment]

Pinna Joseph’s chants a many cultured thing Story by Melissa Hirschl Photos by Audrey Hirschl

A

n accomplished singer, poet, art therapist, chantress and cantorial soloist, Scottsdale resident Pinna Joseph leads a multifaceted life steeped in artistic expression.

Enchanted with music since she was a child, Joseph has taken voice lessons with a variety of teachers including Valley jazz artist Charles Lewis and Silvia Nakkach. The latter is an international singer, teacher, musical therapist and founder of the Vox Mundi Project, a school with a cross-cultural application of music for singers, teachers and therapists.

Joseph has also earned a certificate in “Yoga of the Voice,” an international organization developed to teach and preserve the richness of indigenous musical traditions, combining music and spiritual practice. Her monthly chanting workshops at Tempe’s

Changing Hands Bookstore combine her love for sound, breath and rhythm in addition to reflecting the multicultural dynamics of chanting.

Currently the bookstore’s community programming director, Joseph is also the cantorial soloist at Congregation Rauch Hamidbar – a Jewish Renewal community in Scottsdale, where her voice resonates at the once-a-month Shabbat services and High Holy Days.

To expand her repertoire, Joseph has traveled to many countries, including Greece, Brazil and Hawaii, to learn Tibetan, Afro-Brazilian, Hindu and Sanskrit chants. During Joseph’s workshops, participants can not only experience deep relaxation, they can release tension and clear deep emotions while moving through sounds and connecting with their deepest feelings.

In her workshops she uses a Shruti, a small portable wooden box similar to an accordion. Joseph’s voice becomes the conduit for deep and relaxing rhythmic expression, as participants begin

to focus on the sounds, mantras and music. She typically begins with an invocation, a prayer used in many cultures to seek God’s presence or assistance.

“It’s a spontaneous chanting that connects me with the feeling of the chant, a deeper sense of myself and ultimately with God,” she says. “Some people do meditation to quiet the mind. My meditation is through singing and chanting. It’s like massaging yourself with your own voice.”

“Call and response” is a method Joseph frequently uses to engage participants. It is a technique shamans have used from the beginning of time to reflect a sacred unity with nature that heals the body, mind and spirit. “These are spontaneous sounds that can be wordless melodies or words of a particular chant,” explains Joseph. “I call them out and the class repeats them back, helping to learn without the written word. The melody is determined by feelings that arise from connecting with a higher sense of self.”

Joseph’s fascination with chanting began with a children’s book; in her 20s, she read How to Start a Day, a book depicting how people in different cultures start their day. “Some watched sunrises, others did drumming,” she says. “I felt the rhythm of the words very strongly. That connection led me to start stomping around a tree in my backyard and start chanting wordless sounds that matched that rhythm.”

Fifteen years ago Joseph discovered a teacher who would add a more mystical and deeper dimension to her musical career – Philadelphia-based singer and chantress, Yofiyah (Susan Deikman), who created the Kabbalah Kirtan. Consisting of Hebrew words with the underpinnings of East Indian music, the Kirtan is based on the chanting of sacred Hebrew texts and names of God. “Yofiyah will take the words from the Bible’s Song of Songs and create a beautiful chant out of it,” says Joseph. “The Kirtan has a strong tie with Judaism. For me, religion is about binding back to the source, and for me, chanting helps me do that.”

“Of all the aspects of music I am involved with, one of the most important parts is invocation,” says Joseph. “That is really my specialty. It helps me get more in touch with my intuitive self. It’s also a gateway to contemplation. I also feel very strongly that the singing and sounds are healing.”

Chanting workshops and private lessons: Changing Hands Bookstore, 6428 S McClintock Road, Tempe | 480-730-0205 | changinghands.com 58 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

[FASHION]

Know your style to minimize spending, maximize “fabulosity”

By Kira Brown

I recently read the results of a survey on how much women spend on their clothing and was taken aback. On average, women spend $125,000 in their lifetime on their style! Roughly, the report continued, that works out to between $180 and $480 per month. That’s a lot of money each month!

But that’s not what shocked me. Here’s what I find astonishing: some women (and I used to be one of them) are willing to spend about a car-payment’s worth of money each month on looking good, without knowing their body, style, best colors and the basics of fashion.

There are very simple rules of fit, color and style that can benefit each woman to maximize her best features and maximize her best self. These can be taught by a professional stylist in just one easy session. Measure your body for best fit and body type, train the eye for your best assets and ways to minimize challenging body areas, and assess what colors are best for you – these are the baseline assessments that should be considered before swiping that credit card. It will help you maximize wear, functionality and fabulosity.

Glamorous stylists such as Rachel Zoe highlight celebrity style and the over-the-top style of the mega-rich, which makes it seem that stylists are only for the top 1%. However, even if

your need for a custom-fit Oscar de la Renta is nil, I would encourage 100% of women to spend your fashion cash wisely on yourself, what fits for you and what makes you feel fantastic.

After one session, I have seen that my clients see themselves a little more objectively and start to see how easy it is to highlight their best features. Also, many clients reduce their emotional shopping (that $100 spent at the mall after a breakup) or the boredom shopping (that other $100 spent on items you don’t need and for no reason). We’ve all done both, but there’s a better way.

Before you go shopping or spend another dollar, see a personal shopper. Take an hour to figure out your shape, best colors and best features and start focusing on them all. I’m sure you’ll start to see yourself in a better light, stop spending unnecessarily and, hopefully, start looking and feeling better every day!

Kira Brown is a certified personal stylist and fashion writer. Kira has interviewed many fashion icons including Tim Gunn, jeweler Neil Lane, international makeup artist Jemma Kidd and Ken Downing of Neiman Marcus. Kira also offers virtual style consultations for women and men.

Contact her at kira@fashionphoenix.com.

ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE | NOVEMBER 2013 59

[Singles]

Looking for Love

By Ellen Gerst

Culture: (noun) A set of shared attitudes, values, goals and practices that characterizes an institution or organization.

Just as you might experience a corporate culture in your professional life, your relationship also has a culture, which is developed and further refined by the actions of the participants.

Here are six ways to develop the culture of your relationship, so it becomes a healthy breeding ground for friendship, love, respect and honor.

1. Choose well. This is the most important factor. Take the time to choose the right partner. Don’t rush into a relationship because you’re lonely or want to be rescued from the circumstances of your life. In truth, you must “rescue” yourself.

Learn to be happy on your own and then seek a partner who can enhance your already wonderful life.

2. Practice your communication skills. You were given two ears and one mouth. This is your first tip-off that you should listen twice as much as you talk. Practice active listening instead of just waiting for your turn to jump in and express your thoughts.

3. Don’t let little annoyances fester. If you find yourself continually clamping your mouth shut over a behavior that really sets you on edge, this initial little annoyance can turn into something bigger than it needs to be. Courteously, ask your partner if he or she would have time to discuss something. In this way, you’re not cornering him/her without any warning.

When in a calm state of mind, discuss your grievance and provide alternative ways of handling the same issue. This turns a potential argument into a productive session where partners can reach a compromise. When resolutions are jointly reached, it reinforces the idea that you’re a great team who works well together.

4. Find the balance between your personal and professional lives.

Often, every part of your life demands attention and equal time.

Unfortunately, there is no “equal” time. At times you must devote all your energies to your job – for example, when you have a big presentation with a short deadline looming in front of you. At other times you must forego work to attend your child’s athletic game or school performance. As with all circumstances in life, you need to get your priorities in order and decide which area will get your focus at what time. Family members need to be accommodating and flexible. If you’re a family unit, you have the same goals and each person needs to do his/her own job, which, at times, may include being a support person who picks up the slack.

5. Honor your differences. I’m not a big fan of opposites being in a relationship, because it seems to make everything twice as hard. However, I also don’t believe you need to be clones of each other, because then one of you would be unnecessary!

With core values in common, along with a shared rhythm of life, each partner can venture out into the world and bring back 60 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

Six Ways to Cultivate the Culture of Your Relationship interesting information to share. Sometimes one will be the teacher and the other the student, and, at other times, vice versa.

Balance is all about shifting the focus back and forth, and this creates the fabric of your life.

6. Learn from the past, focus on the present; keep an eye on the future. Rather than repeating ingrained patterns that have not served you well in the past, glean the lessons to make beneficial changes. Enjoy the present by living in gratitude for what you do have versus what you feel is missing. The act of always wanting more leads to discontentment in the present. While it’s important to keep an eye on the future and plan accordingly, the present is all you really have. Appreciate the one you’re with while you have the time to do so. Learn to love and accept your partner’s love unreservedly. That’s the answer to why we are here on Earth: to love and be loved.

Question and Answer

Question: I met someone special and need some ideas on how to create a great first date.

Answer: You’ve already taken the first step by making a conscious decision to create something special. Now you can transform your desires into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Here are four suggestions: 1. Create an atmosphere that is a balance of activity with some quiet time. This provides an opportunity to get acquainted.

Consequently, a movie, a loud concert or another venue where talking is frowned upon are probably not good choices. You might try a museum, a botanical garden display or an easy scenic hike that includes a picnic. These venues give you fodder for conversation.

2. Creating an atmosphere of safety allows your date to be relaxed. You might feel an intense connection, but you’re still a stranger to your date and vice versa. Don’t take offense if your date feels uncomfortable coming to your house or hesitates on giving you a home address.

3. Plan a finite time to spend together versus an entire day of activity that may take you far from home. No matter how you feel, your date may not feel the same – or you could realize you’ve overestimated your feelings. Consequently, you want to avoid trapping either one of you in an uncomfortable and prolonged situation.

4. A great date doesn’t need to be an expensive one. Rather than trying to impress a date with money, be thoughtful, kind, polite and respectful. Those are traits money can’t buy.

Ellen Gerst is a relationship coach, author and workshop leader. Visit LNGerst.com. To ask Ellen a question to be answered in a future column, email her at LNGerst@LNGerst.com.

[Singles]

Finding the right spot to go fishing is all about being lucky. Sometimes people know the patterns of the fish, but other times it is simply about being in the right place at the right time.

Dating is similar. How many stories have you heard about people meeting in a parking lot, or while one person was walking into a party and the other leaving and they end up meeting their beshert and getting married. Sometimes it is simply a matter of luck being in the right place at the right time.

We were out on the open ocean and the water started to get rough. I smiled weakly while I was slowly turning green to match the floating seaweed.

My date looked concerned as I leaned over the side of the boat, not exactly the most romantic way to start a date.

However the fish did not seem to mind!

By Masada Siegel My date came to my rescue right away. He brought over a ginger ale and held my hand.

Dating is like fishing. All the elements need to be in place for Timing is also key in dating as it is in fishing. In a success. It is about the excellent weather conditions, luck, timing recent conversation with my father, we talked about life and placing oneself in the right location to reel in a catch. and opportunities.

He mentioned to me that life presents The sky was filled with puffy white clouds, and this opportunities at various times, and it’s important to realize and exceptionally attractive man seemed to look into my soul with take them if you are interested. his piercing blue eyes. But I felt calm – his relaxed demeanor That’s where timing is so key. For me it is about being in the and his warm smile melted away my worries. right place in my mind, knowing what I am looking for and My date decided to take me fishing. It was definitely different recognizing an opportunity when it appears. and an extremely creative way to get to know one another; it So often a great person or several people appear in your world, made me think about dating with a different perspective. and yet you are not in a sunny place in your head so you let them Dating and fishing have a lot of similarities, starting with the go by, when they might have been perfect for you. weather. When the weather is calm, often the water is still and Sometimes, depending on what is going on in your world, it is much easier to see through the water. If you are going deepit can be hard to get to a positive place in your mind. But I say sea fishing, then calm waters make it an easier experience to get fake it till you make it your reality. to your desired fishing location.

Studies have shown that when people smile into the phone, Sunshine also makes fishing more fun, especially if it is not they get more positive responses, as the person on the other end too hot or too windy. Part of the reason people love fishing can sense the good energy. is because they find it relaxing. Others love the challenge of Just like fish are attracted to shiny hooks with food, people fishing. Whatever the reason, most people who love to fish also follow and want to be with and around happy successful people. love calm waters and beautiful views, and are looking to have a One of the most important aspects to fishing, dating and life happy experience. is to be patient.

You can lure the fish, but you can’t make them Translate weather to dating. People generally are looking to be bite.

You can do your best to always be out there, but everything with someone who is calm. Sure they want someone who is fun needs to somehow fall into place. Sometimes you catch a fish, and exciting, but most people have enough drama in their life, so but can’t hold on. they are looking for a stable life partner.

But don’t worry. If you let one go, there are plenty of fish in Some people want a deep and meaningful relationship that the sea and plenty of people who are looking for their beshert. leads to marriage, while others are looking just for a fun time.

It’s just a matter of time before everything comes together, so Whatever the situation, it helps when dating to always put on enjoy the ride, and hopefully it is a calm one. your happy face.

As for me, rough oceans proved to be You might be struggling with work in my favor. My blue-eyed guy who lent or having a rough time with a friend, Young Adults & Singles: me a hand, and liked me even when I but when you first meet someone, it’s was green, well, I’m still holding on. He best to keep cool and calm. certainly is a great Let’s be real. Me waking up at 4 am If you have an interesting story to catch. for a date is not my ideal situation, share, contact Masada Siegel via but it sounded interesting, challenging masadasiegelauthor.com. and even romantic, as we would be out on the water in time to watch the sun rise.

The weather was hot, but I was cool and calm, and yes quite Masada Siegel, author of Window Dressings, sleepy. But two relaxed people going out on a date is never a bad can be reached via masadasiegelauthor.com way to start off.

for a

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ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE | NOVEMBER 2013 61

ISRAEL/AN AMERICAN IN ISRAEL

Recently declassified report on Yom Kippur War stirs painful memories

By Mylan Tanzer

Y

om Kippur is always a challenging day, although I am not sure that all the reasons I find it challenging are the traditional ones. The rigors are many: fasting, going to the neighborhood shul for Kol Nidre, Yizkor and Neilah while trying to keep an eye on my kids, who, like most other secular children, enjoy the mass bike- and trike-athon that takes over Israel’s vehicle-free streets and highways on this day.

But there is more melancholy felt here each Yom Kippur. I cannot escape the oppressive feeling that hovers in the air due to the trauma of the Yom Kippur War. On Yom Kippur I cannot help thinking about the thousands of young Israelis who either woke up for the last time on Yom Kippur 1973, or who saw their home and families for the last time before racing to join their frantically mobilizing reserve units. I was a 15-year-old living in the states at the time, but I still have a vivid memory of overhearing a conversation in the shul’s foyer during Yom Kippur services between two of my late parent’s contemporaries. I recall overhearing them saying that the Arabs have launched a surprise attack and the situation is not good. I will never forget that sentence and the distress in their voices, because it was so alarming and in such brutally stark contrast to my image of Israeli invincibility.

This year the somber feeling was more pronounced as we mark the 40th anniversary of the war. Israelis have been “commemorating” the most traumatic conflict in Israel’s history with reunions of army units and TV and radio programs offering new revelations about those terrible days in early October 1973. Additionally, riveting testimony by Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan and others to the Agranat Commission, which in 1974 deliberated to determine the causes behind Israel’s lack of preparedness at the outset of the war, was recently declassified and published. That lack of preparedness made Israel’s eventual overwhelming victory so much more costly in lives than it needed to be and shattered the Israeli psyche so severely that the effects are still noticeable today, despite the ultimate formidable military achievements.

Meir’s testimony reveals how the military leadership belittled Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and illustrates Meir’s absolute confidence in the erroneous assessment of the head of IDF intelligence, Major-General Eli Zeira, that an attack was highly unlikely. None of the ministers nor military chiefs proposed calling up the reserves until war actually broke out. Perhaps most importantly, her testimony reveals how she, as prime minister,

was unable to exert her authority over the minister of defense and chief of staff to order a mobilization prior to the attack as evidence piled up of an impending assault.

Perhaps the most revealing testimony came from the Woodrow Wilson Institute in Washington, which publicized reports from the emergency meetings that took place in the first days of the war. The IDF was barely holding on in the Sinai and the Golan with the battered, but heroic, remnants of the badly outnumbered regular units until the reserve units could be mobilized and equipped to enter the battle. It shows just how bleak the initial situation was. According to Arnan Azariyahu, the chief aide of cabinet minister Moshe Galili, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan was purportedly desolate with an understanding that Israel was on the verge of being overrun.

Dayan, the hero of 1967, epitomized the worst of the post-67 hubris – dismissing both the Arab military threat and potential peace overtures, while cultivating almost a cult of personality

The unparalleled bravery and sacrifice of the simple soldiers and junior officers literally saved the nation with their bodies and souls.

62 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

in the hedonistic heyday that infected Israeli society between the wars. According to Azariyahu, Galili told him that Dayan said “it took us 200 years to establish the third commonwealth, and now we’ve squandered it in 25 years.” Galili recounts that Dayan even raised the option of revealing Israel’s alleged nuclear capabilities, which would stop the Arabs in their tracks or motivate the Russians to stop them. Golda Meir, probably realizing where her reliance on Dayan had led, told him to stand down. Israel does not officially acknowledge or comment on its alleged nuclear arsenal, and any Israeli who does so can be prosecuted for jeopardizing Israeli security.

The IDF did indeed turn the tide, with the help of the American airlift. The unparalleled bravery and sacrifice of the simple soldiers and junior officers literally saved the nation with their bodies and souls. Perhaps only the cease fire prevented Israel from entering Damascus in the north and from completely annihilating one-third of Egypt’s armed forces, who were surrounded on all sides. Israel’s Yom Kippur counteroffensives are hailed and taught in military academies.

This brings me to my other vivid memory of the war, which

occurred in my first moments in Israel. In May 1974, my parents organized a tour for friends and relatives around the bar mitzvah of my younger brother. They flew over a few days before me. When I landed, my mother and my former Hebrew school teacher picked me up at what was then Lod Airport. As we traveled the old highway to Tel Aviv, I was astonished at the sight of hundreds, maybe even a thousand, captured Russian tanks, armored vehicles and trucks parked on the side of road along most of the 10-mile route.

Despite the victory, the trauma of the surprise coupled with the deaths of 2,600 soldiers and the injury and maiming of 8,800 changed Israel forever. To understand the true impact on the population, an Israeli-based blogger with a background in studying the impact of casualties on unit cohesion and combat effectiveness calculated what Israeli losses from the war looked like in an American context. The calculations are shocking.

Killed: 179,200; wounded: 563,400. He added: “Americans killed in action in Vietnam totaled 58,286, with more than 57,000 of these over an eight-year span. In American terms, the Yom Kippur War was as if America had experienced all its losses in Vietnam within a single week, with one further difference.

Vietnam was halfway around the world. North Vietnam had not declared war on America or vice-versa and they were not in the business of killing ordinary Americans going about their business at home. “ For Israelis, it was more than just a loss of innocence. The tried and proven Israeli security doctrine formulated by David Ben-Gurion of advance warning, pre-emptive attack and creating deterrence collapsed because the first condition was nonexistent. The result was as Avner Hopstein of Walla.co.il wrote: “A psychological scar that will never heal. The limp that one tries to hide…this doesn’t relate to the military humiliation of the first days, because that has received plenty of catharsis through successful operations since and the end of the war was a resounding military victory emerging after a disastrous failure. Nor does it relate to the intelligence failure which actually has some benefits such as reducing hubris, improved advance warning and an understanding that saying ‘not a chance’ shouldn’t be given a chance. ... So maybe we should embrace the memories and conclusions of that war. Not the early fiasco or the end result, but simply an acknowledgment that this scar might never heal and we should just concentrate on insuring it doesn’t re-open.”

It is this scar and the war’s lessons, along with the timing of the dramatic alleged nuclear revelation declassification, precisely when Iran has launched its charm offensive at the UN to try to lift economic sanctions while continuing to build a nuclear bomb, that converge to illustrate Israel’s never-ending struggle on multiple fronts.

The Yom Kippur War was responsible for the greatest number of Jewish deaths since the Holocaust. Being an Israeli for 32 years, I believe I know this nation. Between 1967 and 1973, I believe the vast majority of Israelis (not the military and political elite) had a genuine feeling that the 1967 war was the last war that would need to be fought, that Israel’s survival, something which all Israelis were not certain of prior to 1967, was now ensured and would no longer need to be proven in war. It was a gigantic and collective sigh of relief and letting down of one’s guard. That view was shattered in 1973. In many ways the Yom Kippur War proved that Israel could not be defeated militarily;

the Arabs had us bloodied and on the ropes, yet we prevailed decisively. Tired of bearing the brunt of the burden of the fight, Egypt turned to diplomacy, leading to the Camp David agreements. But our enemies are determined and have turned to less conventional ways to fulfill their vision of a Middle East without Israel. Syria turned to chemical weapons and missile development, the Palestinians increased terrorism and Iraq and Iran began their nuclear development. The Iranian nuclear threat and the alleged Israeli nuclear program will be the subject of my next column. I raised this issue here due to their implications on Israel’s Yom Kippur scar.

In the Agranat protocols, when asked why she didn’t trust her instinct and overrule Dayan and then IDF Chief-of-Staff David “Dado” Elazar and order a mobilization, Meir said she was scared of angering America and jeopardizing aid. Yossi Klein Halevi writes in the Wall Street Journal about this predicament: “Meir’s restraint was vindicated by an American airlift of military aid during the war. Yet her decision not to order a strike, along with the army’s failure to respond to earlier intelligence warnings by drafting reservists, almost resulted in Israel’s first military defeat….Like Golda Meir, Netanyahu has so far pulled back from ordering an airstrike, in part because he has feared alienating the American president. But with growing questions about America’s position in the Middle East, this time the Israeli government may well conclude that the danger of not pre-empting outweighs all the other dangers – including a strained relationship with the White House.”

I write this article exactly 40 years to the day of the outbreak of the war. In Cairo, huge victory celebrations are taking place.

In Israel, the most prominent event is a symposium at the Center for Defense Studies at Tel Aviv University; the two featured speakers are the now 85-year-old Ze’ira and 89-yearold Zvi Zamir, who was the head of the Mossad in 1973.

They became the bitterest of rivals during the war, with Zamir blaming Ze’ira for ignoring crucial intelligence that could have caused the government to mobilize the reserves before the attack. They are old and weathered and refuse to acknowledge each other, but are still lucid and sharp. They should also be admired for continually appearing in public to explain their version of events.

There is something good about the Egyptians celebrating.

Only through negotiations did they achieve their declared war aim of returning the Sinai. I wish the rest of the Arabs could learn from this. I am also glad that we have the strength to continue to critique ourselves so thoroughly, despite the years and the pain. We don’t celebrate military victories, especially this one. We remember the fallen and draw conclusions. Quite a contrast, but this is one of the reasons that we survive and thrive in this danger zone.

Born in America, Mylan Tanzer moved to Israel in 1981. He was the founding CEO of the first Israeli cable and satellite sports channel. Since 2005, he has launched, managed and consulted for channels and companies in Israel and Europe. Tanzer lives in Tel Aviv with his wife and five children. He can be reached at mylantanz@gmail.com.

ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE | NOVEMBER 2013 63

ISRAEL

Tucson firefighters travel to Israel for first-responder insights

Without Borders

By Deborah Moon

Seven Tucson-area firefighters from five regional fire districts headed to Israel in late October to see firsthand how their professional counterparts deal with mass casualty incidents.

Firefighters Without Borders is a unique project of the Greater Tucson Fire Foundation.

The Tucson firefighters, including a member of Anshei Israel, are being hosted by Israeli fire service personnel and other first responders throughout the country, including Tel Aviv, the Gaza border region, Haifa and Jerusalem. The seven fire officers are from five regional agencies: Tucson Fire Department, Rincon Firefighter Mark Lytle Valley Fire District, Green Valley Fire District, Tucson Airport Authority Fire Department and the Northwest Fire District. management perspectives.

“This is not a diplomatic delegation – it is a fact-finding “As a Jew, I have read the Torah, read stories about the mission,” said Golder Ranch Fire District Chief Randy Karrer, Maccabees to my children, learned about the formation of who is also a foundation trustee.

Israel and have read the accounts “Israeli first responders are of past and present struggles the internationally recognized and Israelis face, but going there is respected for their knowledge another matter entirely,” says and techniques that protect Lytle. “It is one thing to read Patty Vallance, a Jewish volunteer with the Greater their civilian population. … about the Kotel, and another thing Tucson Fire Foundation, says the concept for The Israeli first responders to stand before it. It is interesting the fact-finding trip to Israel was initiated by have extensive experience in to read about Israel’s struggle for Richard Johnson, Tucson fire training captain, who preparing for, responding to and independence, but seeing where expressed a personal interest in understanding how recovering from several types of Ben-Gurion proclaimed the State first responders react in real world scenarios. mass casualty incidents. Israeli of Israel mends that disconnect.

“Captain Johnson brought up the idea of traveling firefighters not only respond Watching a 15-second clip on to Israel during a casual conversation, and my to incidents our communities the news about a rocket attack or response was ‘why not?’ … A request for developing face on a daily basis, but are also border skirmish doesn’t provide this delegation/trip/mission is very much in line trained to respond to events any clear insight into these issues, with the mission and the vision of the foundation that might occur due to regional but talking to the people who (embracing the present – engaging the future) conflicts or terrorism threats and experience these issues does provide to increase that knowledge and exposure to activities.” that insight.” contemporary and progressive vital first response.”

Before departing for Israel, “As a firefighter, I am excited to Patty says she volunteers to help the foundation Green Valley Fire Captain Mark learn how the Israeli Emergency because, “I believe that as Jews it is our obligation S. Lytle, who is a member of Services operate from the moment to find the opportunities to be of service. I try to Congregation Anshei Israel, said an emergency call is generated live that – daily.” he was very excited to see Israel to the time a patient receives from both Jewish and emergency definitive care in a hospital,” he

An Idea Ignites Action

64 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

[Happenings ]

Sedona Jewish Film Festival Nov. 2-6 The Sedona Jewish Film Festival showcases a variety of international award-winning films Nov. 2-6 in a collaboration between the Sedona International Film Festival and the Jewish Community of Sedona and the Verde Valley.

“We are proud to partner with the Jewish community of Sedona and the Verde Valley on our second annual Sedona Jewish Film Festival. We have such an exciting lineup of the best Jewish films from around the world. Plus, we will have filmmaker conversations and panel discussions following most films – a truly immersive experience,” says Festival Executive Director Patrick Schweiss.

All films will be shown at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre 2030 W. State Route 89-A in Sedona. Here’s the line-up: continues. “We want to see how police, fire and emergency medical services (EMS) come together and support each other’s roles during a crisis. We want to see what we can learn from the Israeli approach to wildland fires, structure fires, hazardous materials incidents, terrorism, technical rescue and mass casualty events. Our delegation will also be sharing how we approach these types of events.”

Personally Lytle says he looks forward to connecting with the people and places of Israel. “Televised clips won’t form the bonds that sitting down and sharing a meal provides. Reading about the places detailed in the Torah doesn’t establish the same connection as having actually smelled the air or walked on the same ground as your ancestors. These are the personal memories I hope to take home from Israel.”

Professionally he hopes to learn how Israeli fire and EMS personnel respond to violent events such as terrorist attacks, active shooter situations and other large-scale emergencies.

“Unfortunately, these are scenarios that firefighters and paramedics continue to encounter with greater frequency here in the U.S. If we want our response to these events to be more effective and increase the survivability of our patients, then we need to talk to the people that have encountered these types of events before. Hoping that these events don’t occur in our area is not a strategy, so preparing for that day is crucial.”

Karrer agrees: “Post 9/11/01 absolutely plays a role, however we have seen more and more domestic-type events that have the same outcome. Therefore, our quest to learn about the specific procedures that could help us manage these types of events will be a priority. “Additionally, we are looking at specific procedures that can be valuable to treat patients while on the scene. This information will not only be shared with the participating delegations and their departments, it is the mission of the GTFF to provide for the safety of all agencies in the Greater Tucson area.”

The delegates are sponsored by the nonprofit Greater Tucson Fire Foundation, with supportive funding provided by the Jewish Community Foundation and the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, as part of their Compelling Needs Grants Program.

Nov. 2 7 pm: Paris-Manhattan; Preceded by the short film Woody Before Allen Nov. 3 2:30 pm: Hava Nagila (with filmmaker in attendance) 5:30 pm: Live from NY’s 92nd St. Y: Piers Morgan with D. Gail Saltz 7:30 pm: The Zig Zag Kid Nov. 4 4 pm: Life In Stills and The Kalusz I Thought I Knew 6 pm: Live from NY’s 92nd St. Y: Alan Dershowitz and Jeffrey Toobin 8 pm: All In Nov. 5 4 pm: Lea & Darija 7 pm: The Prime Ministers (with panel discussion) Nov. 6 4 pm: Aftermath (with panel discussion) 7 pm: Dorfman In Love (with filmmaker in attendance) While the Sedona International Film Festival will be Feb. 22-March 2, 2014, the organization presents films and programs throughout the year. They broadcast live the 92 St. Y Series of speakers, including these November talks: Ari Shavit and David Remnick: The Tragedy and Triumph of Israel, 6:15 pm, Nov. 19. Haaretz senior correspondent Ari Shavit joins New Yorker editor David Remnick for an incisive analysis of the Jewish state’s fraught history – and its prospects for the future.

Meeting of the Minds: On Compassion, 6 pm, Nov. 26.

Interfaith scholars and historians Karen Armstrong and Thomas Cahill with Rabbi Jennifer Krause in a lively and provocative conversation about compassion and its crucial place in both modern and ancient times.

Film showings are at several locations around Sedona. The 92nd St. Y programs are at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre. sedonafilmfestival.org or 928-282-1177 ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE | NOVEMBER 2013 65

[Happenings ]

VOSJCC Book Fair returns with six author events The Valley of the Sun Jewish Community Center is bringing back its Jewish Book and Cultural Arts Fair, but with a new look and feel. Six extraordinary authors will present programs Nov. 3-10. The authors will appeal to a broad spectrum of individuals and families in the community.

Kicking off the week will be the annual Women’s Symposium, co-sponsored by the Bureau of Jewish Education in partnership with The Center for Judaic Studies at Arizona State University, Brandeis National Committee, Hadassah Valley of the Sun, National Council of Jewish Women, Women’s Philanthropy of the Association, The Women’s Jewish Learning Center and Na’amat USA. This daylong symposium features author Patricia Gottlieb Shapiro speaking on Loving, Letting Go, and Leaving a Legacy. For information or registration, contact the BJE at 480-634-8050 This year’s Book Fair will include two children’s programs – one at the JCC, co-sponsored by PJ Library, and one for students at Pardes Jewish Day School.

Author Erica Perl will speak about her two books – When Life Gives You O.J. and the sequel, Aces Wild. The books’ themes include Hanukkah and tzedakah.

The program at the JCC will include an interactive arts and crafts project.

for Glamour magazine, will bring her tips and tricks on how to achieve buttery highlights, luminous skin and flawless makeup, all on a budget.

The week concludes with a program for young adults in their 20s-40s.

Living Jewishly: A Snapshot of a Generation, edited by Stefanie Pervos Bregman, is an anthology of personal memoirs and essays by Jewish 20- and 30-somethings from across the country.

Each contributor shares his or her selfdefining Jewish story.

Book Fair information and registration (except Women’s Symposium): 480483-7121, ext. 1230.

VOSJCC: 12701 N. Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale, vosjcc.org

Be a Super Hero this holiday season Jewish Family and Children’s Services invites families, organizations or businesses to adopt a family for the holidays. JFCS identifies families in need and gives their wish list and family profile to the adopting group.

The extended Shcolnik family of the Valley and Tucson has been adopting a family for about the last eight years.

Recognizing that no adults in the family need another tchotchke, they pool their money and divvy up the shopping and wrapping. Barb Bateman, part

of the second generation of the fourgeneration family, is the “organizer.”

“We really enjoy shopping for the adopted family, “Barb says. “The kids in our family love picking out gifts for the kids and feel like they are making a difference in someone’s life. They get really excited about it!” Shcolnik family children still receive gifts and the adults have a “white elephant” exchange at the family Hanukkah gathering.

To adopt a family, contact JFCS: 602452-4627 or jfcsaz.org Sponsors can register for “It’s a Wrap” Holiday Luncheon 11:30 am, Nov. 19 at the Valley of the Sun JCC, 12701 N. Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale. Get together to wrap the presents over lunch for $18.

MIM explores Diversity in Jewish Music of Eastern Europe Just in time for Hanukkah, Musical Instrument Museum Curator Kathleen Wiens invites you on an exploration of lesser-known music from Jewish communities in Eastern Europe. Jewish music in Europe includes a range of vibrant, diverse traditions. Leaving the better-known styles such as klezmer and Sephardic ballads behind, she will venture into often-ignored types of celebration and ritual music.

Come join the journey Sunday, Nov. 24 from 2:30 to 3:30 pm, then stay and

For the community read, author Jessica Soffer will bring her sweet, yet poignant, story that she wrote about in Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots. Soffer speaks at 10 am, Nov. 4 at the JCC. Larry Ruttman will speak on American Jews and America’s Game, 6:30 pm, Nov. 6 at the JCC. For the sports lovers interested in baseball and Jewish American history, this is the event for you! Ballpark-style food will be served.

A revamped Girls Night will feature vendors, food and lots of fun at this intergenerational program. Andrea Pomerantz Lustig, the “beauty sleuth” 66 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

Last year’s Merkaz Marketplace attracted a crowd of buyers perusing a host of homemade crafts.

This year the event on Nov. 24 includes Hanukkah-related games, latkes and kosher hot dogs.

[Happenings ] tour the museum.

Tickets: Free with museum admission or $7 for lecture only; free for Circle of Friends donors Free with museum admission or $7 for lecture only.

The following month, klezmer is at MIM in full force, when MIM hosts The Klezmatics Dec. 4 at 7 pm. The Klezmatics take one of the wildest approaches to klezmer, the traditional dance music of Eastern European Jews. Although their music is heavily influenced by the recordings of Abraham Ellstein and Dave Tarras in the 1940s and 1950s, their lyrics comment on a wide variety of political and social issues and have led the group to be labeled “the planet’s radical Jewish roots band.”

Concert tickets are $37.50-$42.50.

The Musical Instrument Museum is located at 4725 E. Mayo Blvd, Phoenix.

For more information call 480-4786000 or visit mim.org

Merkaz Marketplace returns Nov. 24 The third annual Merkaz Marketplace will feature Hanukkah-related games such as the Potato Latke Toss, the Menorah Ring Toss and of course, the quintessential Dreidel Game from noon to 4 pm at Crossroads Methodist Church, 7901 N Central Ave. in Phoenix. In addition, there will be homemade potato latkes and sweet potato latkes as well as kosher hot dogs available for purchase.

Local vendors will be selling handmade crafts, including jewelry, pottery, soaps and much more. Several of the congregation’s young people will be selling items they have created with their proceeds going to charities they’ve adopted for their bar/bat mitvzvah projects.

Chair person Karen Bayless Feldman is very excited about this year’s assortment of food, games and crafts.

“Our men’s group makes the latkes and they’re to die for!” she boasts.

“Each year we hope to grow the event a little more.” To check if there is still room for additional vendors, contact Karen at merkazmarketplace@ congregationmerkaz.org. Vendor fees are $25.

Proceeds support the work of Congregation Merkaz Ha’Iyr (Center of the City), a Reform congregation that holds most of its services at Crossroads. They bill themselves as a “home for liberal, progressive Judaism in the heart of central Phoenix.” For more information call 480-414-5213 or visit congregationmerkaz.org

Check out book club bounty during Jewish Book Month Jews are considered the People of the Book. Most traditional Jewish homes have bookshelves filled to bursting with books of all kinds: secular and religious, fiction and non-fiction. As the paper and ink book’s popularity is starting to wane, Jewish homes still have a “Kindle” or at least an “app” that allows the perusal of written words. And listening to audio books is a favorite while working out on the treadmill.

There is no shortage of Jewish authors or those writing about topics of particular Jewish interest, and there has been an abundance of book clubs arise in the last 10 or so years (perhaps encouraged by Oprah?).

There are few things Jews like better than getting together to discuss – and argue – over ideas, so it was a natural outcome that many of our local synagogues and organizations now provide these discussion outlets.

Here are just a few book clubs around town: Chabad of the East Valley. Open to all women. Meets at Barnes and Noble at Chandler Fashion Mall on varied Wednesday evenings. No fee. November book: The Innocents

by Francesca Segal. December book: Perfect Is Overrated by Karen Bergreen. franikins@cox.net

Brandeis National Committee, Phoenix Chapter. Most Brandeis book groups, which meet at members’ homes monthly, are for members only and include a registration fee.

However, the Arizona Authors’ Speaker Series is open to the public. The authors’ series meets at 12:30 pm, the third Monday of every month (October-April) at the VOSJCC, 12701 N. Scottsdale Road. The speaker is announced at the beginning of each month. Fee is $5 per session for nonmembers. info@brandeisphoenix.com Congregation Anshei Israel. Open to all. Meets once a month (October-May) in CAI’s Epstein Chapel, 5550 E. 5th St. in Tucson, with discussions taking place Shabbat afternoons following Kiddush (about noon). No fee. Nov. 2: The Lady in Gold by Anne-Marie O’Connor; moderator: Susan Wortman.

Dec. 7: The Lawgiver by Herman Wouk; moderator: Rabbi Robert Eisen. 520745-5550 or info@caiaz.org Or Adam Congregation. Meets bimonthly at members’ homes on either Saturday or Sunday afternoon.

Guests are invited to attend once. No fee. November: Fault Lines by Nancy Huston. Daniela at azpajaros@cox.net Arizona Jewish Historical Society.

Open to all. Meets at 7 pm one Thursday each month at the LeverantFirestone Family Learning Center adjacent to the Cutler-Plotkin Heritage Center, 122 E. Culver St. in Phoenix.

No fee. Nov. 21: Surviving the Reich: The WWII Saga of a Jewish-American GI by Ivan Goldstein; discussion led

by Rabbi Reuven Mann. Dec. 12: The Sons of Pigs and Apes: Muslim Anti-Semitism and the Conspiracy of Silence by Neil J. Kressel; discussion led by AZJHS Executive Director Lawrence Bell, Ph.D. 602-241-7870 or azjhs.org We encourage book club leaders to post their open meetings on our online calendar at azjewishlife.com.

ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE | NOVEMBER 2013 67

[Happenings | Faces]

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BEIT MIDRASH LOOKS TO FUTURE – More than 300 people attended the 2nd Annual Seymour Sack z”l Memorial Lecture on Oct. 9, the kickoff event for this year’s Valley Beit Midrash programming. New Executive Director Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz (left) interviewed Jerry Silverman, CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, with questions on The Future of American Judaism: Challenges & Opportunities in the 21st Century. Photos by Joel Zolondek

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CREATIVE PASSONS – Doug and Rachel Passon have always been creative. In September of 1997, Doug surprised Rachel by proposing to her on the set of “Fiddler on the Roof,” where Rachel was playing a villager in Arizona Jewish Theatre’s production at the Herberger Theater. Sixteen years later they worked together on the World Premier showing of Doug’s movie, “Road to Eden: A Rock and Roll Sukkot,” which he filmed and edited. Rachel helped promote the viewing, which brought in a sold-out crowd of 300 people at the Valley of the Sun JCC on Sept. 21. The movie received rave reviews from all in attendance and was followed by a rollicking concert by Dan Nichols and his band, Eighteen, who were featured in the film.

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BLESSING OF THE PETS – Congregation Or Chadash’s Blessing of the Pets service on Oct. 5 brought dozens of dogs of all breeds, a pet pig and a tarantula.

Stuart Turgel holds his Maltipoo, Emmie, as all creatures great and small were blessed

by Rabbi Micah Caplan and Cantor Melissa Berman. The pet blessing was held during the havdalah service that concludes the Shabbat when Jews everywhere read the Torah portion Noach.

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PUPPET FAN – Rose Glassman (age 3) aka “Rosie the Recycling Duck” outside the Great Arizona Puppet Theater in Phoenix for the premier of Jeremy Jackrabbit Recycles the Can held Sept. 15 as a fundraiser to benefit Congregation Or Chadash. Rose is the daughter of Rodney and Sasha Glassman, authors of the Jeremy Jackrabbit books on which the play is based.

The couple is currently working on the third book in the series (Jeremy Jackrabbit Captures the Sun), which will be distributed free to more than 50,000 Arizona kindergartners in the Spring of 2014.

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NOVEMBER CALENDAR Through Nov. 9 (in Tucson) Nov. 14-Dec. 1 (in Phoenix) The Mountaintop re-imagines the events on the eve of Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination. In Tucson at Temple of Music and Art, 330 S. Scott Ave., 520-622-2823; in Phoenix at the Herberger Theater Center, 222 E. Monroe, 602-256-6995, arizonatheatre.org

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LIGHTING THE J’S WAY – More than 250 people turned out for the Oct. 12 dinner to honor Ken Light as he retired as CEO of the Tucson JCC after 27 years. Friends, colleagues, past board chairs, family and Mayor Jonathan Rothschild came to wish Ken well. The Mayor signed a proclamation stating that Oct. 12 is Ken Light Day in Tucson. Ken, at left, is joined at the celebration by his family (from left) sister-in-law Barbara Dartt, daughter-in-law Elana Light, wife Marcia Light, son Brandon Light and daughter Kim Boling.

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SPIELBERG AT THE SYMPHONY – Phoenix Symphony’s benefit concert conducted by John Williams with special guest Steven Spielberg raised more than $600,000. The Sept. 28 performance benefited The Phoenix Symphony’s Education and Community Engagement programs. More than 2,200 attendees in the sold-out Symphony Hall enjoyed a concert featuring selections from some of Williams’ most popular scores including Star Wars, Harry Potter, Jaws and Schindler’s List.

Spielberg presented the magic of music and cinema along with a selection of film clips projected over the orchestra with clips from Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Indiana Jones. Photo by Jared Platt.

SHOWBIZ 2 SHABBAT – Jewish Women’s Circle hosted Molly Resnick: From Showbiz 2 Shabbat! Oct. 13 at Chabad of Phoenix. About 50 attendees were entertained and inspired by Resnick’s personal account on how she found G-d and became a practicing Jew while working as a producer for NBC. Molly Resnick, left, visits with Albina Sukhodolsky. The next Jewish Women’s Circle event will be Hanukkah cooking on Nov. 17. RSVP: Women@ChabadAZ.com 602-944-2753.

Through Nov. 10 Mrs. Klein, a drama based on the life of mid-20th century psychoanalyst who was a major influence on the theory of psychoanalysis. At Theatre Artists Studio, 4848 E. Cactus Rd, #406, Scottsdale $15-20. 602-765-0120 or thestudiophx.org

Through Nov. 17 Ragtime the award-winning musical, features music from ragtime rhythms of Harlem to the Klezmer of the Lower East Side. At Theater Works, 8355 W Peoria Ave, Peoria,623-815-7930, theaterworks.org

Nov. 1-12 Driving Miss Daisy, at Desert Stages Theatre, 4720 N. Scottsdale Road, explores the lives of Jewish widow Miss Daisy and her African-American chauffer-turned-friend Hoke. 480-483-1664, desertstages.org

Nov. 2 Council for Jews with Special Needs Annual Fundraising Dinner and Auction, 7 pm at The Clayton on the Park, 7343 E Scottsdale Mall. 480-629-5343, info@cjsn.org The Lady in Gold by Anne-Marie O’Connor is the book to be discussed this month at Congregation Anshei Israel, in CAI’s Epstein Chapel, 5550 E 5th St., Tucson. At noon following kiddush. Free. 520-745-5550, info@caiaz.org

Nov. 2-6 Sedona Jewish Film Festival (see page 65).

928-282-1177, sedonafilmfestival.org

Nov. 3-8 Book Fair at the VOSJCC. (see page 66).

480-483-7121 ext. 1230 or vosjcc.org

Nov. 3 Former U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords receives the Jewish History Museum Jewish Heritage Award, presented to an individual in southern Arizona who has made a profound difference in his/her community. $75 for brunch. 9 am at University Park Marriott, 880 E 2nd St., Tucson. 520-670-9073, jewishhistorymuseum.org EVJCC Scholastic Book Fair kickoff: kids’ activities, art show and books. Proceeds benefit the Early Childhood Learning Center, at 908 N Alma School Road, Chandler.

Pam@evjcc.org or 480-897-0588

ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE | NOVEMBER 2013 69

NOVEMBER CALENDAR Rose, a one-woman play in commemoration of Kristallnacht at Beth El Synagogue, 1118 W. Glendale Ave., Phoenix at 2 pm. Free. 602-944-3359 ext.113 or rjoffe@bethelphoenix.com On the Cutting Edge….Today’s Jewish Woman: seminar to advance your mind and enhance your well being, sponsored by ASU’s Center for Jewish Studies. 8:30 am-1 pm at the Ina Levine Jewish Community Campus, 12701 N Scottsdale Road. Speakers and kosher lunch. Prices vary. 480-634-8050 or jewished@bjephoenix.org

Nov. 4 Valley Beit Midrash presents Bible scholar Judy Klitsner on “Inside-Outside: Biblical Leaders and their Non-Jewish Mentors.” 7 pm at Congregation Beth Israel,10640 N 56th St., Scottsdale. Free. 602-4453112, valleybeitmidrash.org

Nov. 5

299-3000, tucsonjcc.org

Nov. 14 You Gotta Have Heart: Art, Goods and Services Auction to benefit the Jewish Federation Northwest, a division of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona. 5:30 pm at 190 W. Magee Road, Suite 162, Oro Valley. Dr. Ted Goldfinger, cardiologist, on heart benefits of red wine.

Heart healthy hors d’oeuvres and wine. $18. RSVP: Anne Lowe, 577-9393 ext. 130 or alowe@jfsa.org

Nov. 15-24 Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Cactus Shadows Fine Arts Center, 33606. 60th St., Scottsdale. Presented by Desert Foothills Theatre.

480-488-1981, desertfoothillstheatre.org

Nov. 15 7th Annual Comic Pain Relief features Joan Rivers.

7pm at the Chandler Center for the Arts, 250 N Arizona Ave., Chandler. Benefits Power of Pain Foundation. $55-$100. 480-882-1342, chandlercenter.org

Jerusalem Jones and the Mystery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a one-man show presented by Ken Hanson, who deftly portrays the many characters involved in the miraculous story of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Copresented by Yavapai College and Prescott Center for the Arts, 7:30 pm at the Yavapai College Performing Arts Center, 1100 E Sheldon St. in Prescott, tickets $12-$18. 928-776-2000, ycpac.com

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The Desert Gathering Jewish Music Festival. Free (see page 31). 602-910-7472 or desertgatheringaz.com

Phoenix Holocaust Survivors Association presents second generation survivors Evelyn Levine and Henry Goldberg. 7 pm at VOSJCC. Open to children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors. RSVP to hgold52@aol.com Controversially Kosher, a 3-part workshop on halachic issues in the contemporary world. Nov. 6, 13, 20.

Sponsored by Jewish Enrichment Center and Greater Phoenix Vaad Hakashruth, 7 pm at Phoenix Hebrew Academy, 515 E Bethany Home Road, Phoenix. Free.

Registration required: info@phxjec.org

Nov. 8 Teens Shabbat is a fun and inspiring evening filled with Kiddush and games for teens at 5 pm at Chabad of Phoenix, 2110 E. Lincoln Drive. Followed by delicious 4-course dinner. Suggested dinner donation $10.

RSVP 602-793-0152 or CTeen@ChabadAZ.com

Nov. 9 Top Hat: Handmaker 50th Anniversary Jubilee, celebrating 50 years of the Jewish senior residence in Tucson. 7:15 pm at the Westin La Paloma Resort and Spa. Black Tie. 520-322-7035, handmaker.org Dinner and a Movie at Temple B’rith Shalom: Broadway Musicals: A Jewish Legacy. Pizza, salad and wine for $12.50. At 6 pm at the Temple, 2077 Brohner Way in Prescott. 928-708-0018 or brithshalom-az.org

Nov. 10 Meet the Author: Robert Parson, author of Every Word You Write: Vichy Will Be Watching You. At 3:30 pm at the Jewish Heritage Center on the Tucson JCC campus, 3800 E River Road, Tucson. 52070 NOVEMBER 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE

Valley of the Sun Jewish Community Center 60th Anniversary Gala at the Arizona Biltmore Resort, 2400 E Missouri Ave., Phoenix. A Time to Share Stories and Celebrations, featuring actor/comedian Kevin Pollak and emcee Mark Curtis.7 pm,$150-$250. 480-6344900 ext. 1131 or aquen@jewishphoenix.org

Nov. 17

Temple Kol Ami Golf Klassik: 7th annual tourney at McCormick Ranch Golf Club, 7505 E McCormick Parkway, Scottsdale. Dinner and silent auction. Registration at 10:30 am, shotgun start at 12:30 pm. $150. templekolami.org or 480-951-9660

Nov. 19 It’s a Wrap holiday luncheon (see page 66) Orthodox Stance: documentary of Dmitriy Salita, a Russian immigrant, a professional boxer and a religious Jew. 7 pm at the Cutler-Plotkin Jewish Heritage Center,122 E Culver St. in Phoenix. Free.

RSVP: 602-241-7870 or azjhs.org National Council of Jewish Women hosts a panel discussion about being Jewish and homosexual 6:30 pm at Temple Solel, 6805 E McDonald Dr., Paradise Valley. Free. 602-371-8563, deb612nf@cox.net

Nov. 20 Truths & Myths: What Do We Really Believe In? 3-session class from Valley Beit Midrash. Delve into surprising facts, myths and mysteries. 7 pm at Temple Chai, 4645 E. Marilyn Road, Phoenix. $18.per session.

602-330-2335, valleybeitmidrash.org

Nov.21 Surviving the Reich: The WWII Saga of a Jewish-American GI is the book to be discussed at the Arizona Jewish Historical Society. 7 pm at the Leverant-Firestone Family Learning Center adjacent to the Cutler-Plotkin Jewish Heritage Center, 122 E Culver St., Phoenix.

RSVP: 602-241-7870 or azjhs.org

Coffee House sponsored by the Israel Center at 7 pm at the VOSJCC. Is Israel a part of you or your life? Free.

RSVP to 480-634-4900 ext. 1109 or shahare@vosjcc.org

Nov.23-24 Valley Beit Midrash hosts Rabbi Ysoscher Katz for scholar-in-residence weekend. Saturday: Satmar and Lubavitch: Enemies, a Love Story at 10:30 am at Congregation Beth Tefillah, 10636 N. 71st Way, Scottsdale; Christianity and its Founder in the Eyes of the Jewish Tradition & Christian Influences on Jewish Enlightenment, at 7pm at Temple Kol Ami,15030 N 64th St, Scottsdale; Sunday: Rabbinic Pluralism at 10 am at Temple Solel, 6805 E McDonald Dr., Paradise Valley. Free. 602-330-2335, valleybeitmidrash.org Jeffrey Siegel’s Keyboard Conversations (See Page 54)

Nov. 24 MIM: Diversity in Jewish Music (see page 66) ABBA MANIA CONCERT, with the original London cast, to benefit the Jewish Community of Sedona and the Verde Valley in partnership with Studio Live, at the Sedona Performing Arts Center, 995 Upper Red Rock Loop Road in Sedona. 7 pm. $35-$50, VIP packages $85-$100, 928-282-0549, studiolivesedona.com The Greatest Hanukkah on Earth XV by Temple Emanuel features menorah lighting, music, dance and drama.

4:30 pm at Temple Emanu-el, 225 N Country Club, Tucson. Free. RSVP for 6:15 pm dinner: 520-3274501 templeemanueltucson.org Merkaz Marketplace food and craft fair. (See page 67) Phoenix Holocaust Survivors’ Association Cafe Europa Luncheon at 1 pm at Beth El Congregation, 1118 W Glendale Ave., Phoenix. RSVP: Edie Wade 602-9448809 or ewade410@cox.net, phoenixphsa.org

Nov. 30- Dec. 21 Xanadu, the smash Broadway hit, is produced by Arizona Theatre Company. Temple of Music and Art, 330 S Scott Avenue, Tucson, 520-622-2823. In Phoenix Dec. 31-Jan. 19. arizonatheatre.org

Dec. 1 Har Zion Hanukkah Dinner. 5pm at 6140 E Thunderbird Road, Scottsdale. RSVP by Nov. 24: 480-9910720

Dec. 2 Chabad of East Valley hosts a Hanukkah Menorah lighting at the Chandler Heights Marketplace, 4960 S Gilbert Road, Chandler. 5 pm. Music, Hanukkah gelt, Judah the Macabee and gifts for the entire family.

480-855-4333, chabadcenter.com VOSJCC is the Valley of the Sun Jewish Community Center at 12701 N Scottsdale Road.

If you like to:

Travel, Meet New People, Eat Good Food, Enjoy Great Music and Participate in Humanitarian Projects, join us for our Holiday Fiesta at Phil Ferranti’s

El Cisne, on Sunday, December 8, 2013, at 11:00 a.m. To make reservations: info@tucsonmexicosistercities.org $25.00 (members), $30.00 (non-members), includes Mexican combination plate and fiesta!

1-520-548-8881 www.tucsonmexicosistercities.org

Phil Ferranti’s 4717 E. Sunrise Dr. Tucson, AZ 85718

(520) 638-6160

HOME & GARDEN

SHOW

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SUPER ex o FALL Saturday, November 2 10 am – 5 pm Sunday, November 3 10 am – 4 pm

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First 1,000 attendees each day have a chance to win $100 shopping spree at Tanger Outlets Westgate.

ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE | NOVEMBER 2013 71