L'Chaim Magazine October 2018

OCTOBER 2018

A DECADE OF FUN AT LA JOLLA

FESTIVAL

PLUS: SENIORS BUTTERFLY PROJECT UPDATE

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L’CHAIM SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE • OCTOBER 2018

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contents

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October 2018 • www.lchaimmagazine.com

COVER STORY A decade of fun at La Jolla Art & Wine Festival.............................................................................

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1000 WORDS ‘Girl Meets Farm’: Food Network to feature urban-country cuisine from Jewish-Chinese chef..........................................................................................................

FOOD "The Gefilte Manifesto" A love letter to Jewish food.................................................................

SENIORS

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ART AND WINE

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With interfaith marriages on the rise, Jewish seniors adapt to new realities............

Something About this Place; LFJCC Senior Services................................................................

Zest for Life: Marjie Du Berchin..............................................................................................................

On the Go with JFS........................................................................................................................................

I "HEART" JEWISH FOOD

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FEATURES What's Your Legacy? Estate Planning with Gabriel Katzner................................................

The Mexican Food Diet with Maru Davila.........................................................................................

The Butterfly Project gets an update................................................................................................

COLUMNS Torah: Of the Book..........................................................................................................................................

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Mazel and Mishagoss....................................................................................................................................

PUBLISHERS Diane Benaroya & Laurie Miller

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Laurie Miller

CONTRIBUTORS Daniel Bortz, Donald H. Harrison, Steve Horn, Stephanie Lewis, Salomon Maya, Mimi Pollack, Sharon Rapoport, Eva Trieger, Deborah Vietor, Chana Jenny Weisberg

ADVERTISING & SALES Diane Benaroya (dianeb@lchaimmagazine.com), Sharon Buchsbaum (sharonbux@gmail.com) 4

L’CHAIM SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE • OCTOBER 2018

ZEST FOR LIFE

L’CHAIM SAN DIEGO, LLC (858) 776-0550 San Diego, CA 92127 EDITORIAL editor@lchaimmagazine.com

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Alanna Maya

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TORAH l BY RABBI DANIEL BORTZ

of

the book The Struggler

W

e’ve just left summer and the High Holidays behind and are now entering the darker, colder fall and winter seasons. For most this means more work or school that include more challenges both outside and inside. What are our goals to be better this year? With the inspiration of the High Holidays, are there areas within ourselves we wish to change? To be more patient, caring, selfless, courageous, or kind to others? Trying to improve our characters can feel like an exercise in futility.

At times we feel more refined and genuinely inspired, only to immediately fall down into unsavory, negative desires and actions. Why must we deal with such strong negative impulses? There’s an ancient Chinese tale that sheds light on this: There once lived an elderly woman who, every morning, would carry two buckets to the river to retrieve water. One bucket was whole, while the other was full of cracks and holes. The cracked bucket began to feel terrible, and it cried to its owner: “I’m such a failure! I’m such a loser! Every day when you return, I barely have a third of the water of a regular bucket!” The elderly lady replied: “Tomorrow on our walk, I want you to pay closer attention to your surroundings.”

The next day, the lady ventured off to the 6

L’CHAIM SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE • OCTOBER 2018

river as usual with her two buckets, but this time, the imperfect bucket looked around, and noticed a vast array of beautiful flowers.

“Wow! These flowers are incredible!”

She turned to the bucket with a smile. “It’s because of your holes that these flowers have been watered and blossomed.”

In 1797, an integral book of Jewish Mysticism was published in Russia, called Tanya, written by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, founder of the Chabad movement.

This book revolutionized the way we should view our daily struggles with our negative impulses. Before learning Tanya, it’s easy to think that we have a split personality; how is it possible to sin only minutes after feeling so inspired and spiritually uplifted? A minute ago we were feeling so positive and selfless, and now we’re driven by selfish passions.

What’s the point of trying to improve ourselves if we’ll never attain perfection? The Tanya’s answer is simple.

Who said G-d wants you to be perfect? G-d desires the struggle! Be a warrior. Humanity’s hero is the struggler, not the saint. Don’t view your imperfections, blemishes, negative impulses and desires as curses. By struggling and working to overcome your challenges, albeit not every time, you bring incredible light into the world. These are our beautiful

flowers, derived from the occasional victory over our inner darkness.

Just as a candle’s light appears more powerful when lit in darkness, our good deeds in this world of spiritual concealment have a powerful effect. If we only focus on what’s wrong with ourselves, it’s easy to become despondent. We must realize that we were meant to have negative tendencies and to struggle with and use them for the good.

The Sages teach that the righteous King David and wicked Esau had very similar potentials: One channeled his explosive energy positively, the other negatively.

The important thing is to never become complacent, but to always work on our selfish and destructive sides through selfless deeds and a positive attitude. Those who step on the field to compete are to be admired. Just entering the battle to attempt to be better is a heroic endeavor.

This year may we forge ahead on life’s journey of growth, not becoming overly despondent in our failures, and celebrating every moral victory along the way.

RABBI DANIEL BORTZ IS THE DIRECTOROF JTEEN SAN DIEGO (JTEENSD.COM) AND FOUNDER OF THE TEEN SUCCESS ACADEMY. WATCH HIS VIDEOS AT RABBIBORTZ.COM.

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L’CHAIM | SHIRYN SOLNY | jns.org

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L’CHAIM SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE • OCTOBER 2018

L’CHAIM

A THOUSAND

WORDS

‘GIRL MEETS FARM’: FOOD NETWORK TO FEATURE URBAN-COUNTRY CUISINE FROM JEWISH-CHINESE CHEF, MOLLY YEH

A

new Food Network show that premiered in June stars best-selling cookbook author, food blogger and chef Molly Yeh, whose one-of-a-kind recipes are inspired by her Jewish-Chinese roots, the Midwest and farm life.

In the seven-episode show, “Girl Meets Farm,” viewers are invited inside her farmhouse on the Minnesota-North Dakota border, where she lives with her husband, Nick Hagen, a fifth-generation farmer whom she described as a “mensch.”

“We put together such a fun colorful lineup of recipes that each tell a story and that I care about a lot,” says Yeh, 29. “My dad comes for an episode, and we make Chinese food together, and my mom comes for an episode, and we make her brisket together, so there are a lot of personal aspects to it.”

Yeh, whose father is Chinese and whose mother is Jewish, grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. She always loved food, even though she apparently was a picky eater when she was younger. She says she used to eat only brown, white and yellow foods — like macaroniand-cheese and matzah balls. Still, her love for food started at home and stayed with her even when she left.

“My mom is an amazing cook and baker, and my dad is a human garbage disposal, so I grew up around food lovers and just thought that everyone loves food as much as we do,”

says Yeh, whose sister, also a chef, works in Chicago. “It wasn’t until I moved to New York that I got inspired to try new foods. I made up for lost time and jumped at every opportunity to try new things; it was a very delicious time.”

Post-high school, Yeh moved to New York and attended the Julliard School, where she studied percussion. She moved from Brooklyn to a Midwestern farm with her husband five years ago, and says that the transition has been amazing.

“I was ready for it, and I love life on the farm with my chickens and farm cats and rhubarb patch,” she says. “There were a few things about the transition that were rocky, like suddenly being very, very far away from good bagels, but then I learned to make them, so I’m OK now.”

Moving also opened Yeh’s eyes about her Jewish roots and what she had assumed, for the longest time, to be the normal way of life.

As she explained, “Something I didn’t realize that was particularly Jewish until I moved to an area filled with Scandinavian descendants is how we’re encouraged to speak our minds, have strong opinions, discuss, argue, etc.

Growing up in Chicago and New York, I just thought that was the way.”

“Then when I moved to the Upper Midwest, I learned about this new way of interacting with people which is very polite.

Things always start on time here, people don’t speak their mind upfront; it’s a totally different world. It’s not better or worse; it’s just this totally different new thing that made me realize that this particular aspect of Jewish culture is in fact unique and great.

Every week, I listen to my favorite podcast Unorthodox, which is like comfort food for my brain.”

Jewish cuisine is one of the biggest influences in Yeh’s cooking, she says. One reason is that because she lives on a farm, she no longer has the luxury of going to a local store and buying herself a Jewish-inspired meal. If she wants one, she must make it from scratch.

“And I love doing that because it opens up opportunities to put homegrown ingredients in my favorite comfort foods,” she says, “like adding potatoes from the garden and eggs from my chickens to my challah dough, or topping my babka French toast with rhubarb from my patch. My Chinese background also plays a large role in how I cook on an everyday basis, and the two cuisines tend to overlap nicely, [like] between kreplach and pot stickers. They both have the best dumplings, that’s for sure.”

INFUSION OF MIDDLE EASTERN TASTES AND INGREDIENTS

Yeh often shares recipes and pictures on WWW.LCHAIMMAGAZINE.COM

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L’CHAIM

PHOTO COURTESY FOOD NETWORK/MOLLY YEH

Instagram of dishes that are connected to the Jewish holidays, including Passover, Chanukah, Purim, Shavuot and Tu B’Shevat.

Although not all her ingredients are kosher, she uses many Middle Eastern items in her dishes. She even told Food Network that tahini is one ingredient that is always in her pantry.

Among her numerous creative recipes are ones for maple-tahini cupcakes with labneh frosting; kale matzah pizza; cardamom macaroons with a rosewater raspberry glaze; onion jam and za’atar sufganiyot (“doughnuts”); marzipan challah; French yogurt malabi; molten halvah lava cakes; a saffron, cardamom and rosewater tiramisu; challah-crusted schnitzel; falafel sliders; and salt-and-vinegar potato “knishentaschen,” which is like a marriage between a knish and a hamantaschen—those delicious tricornered filled pastries eaten at Purim time.

So many of her ingredients are pulled from her garden and what she can find locally. She once shared with her Instagram followers a 12

L’CHAIM SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE • OCTOBER 2018

picture of her “l’chaim-ing into the weekend” with a pistachio-rimmed frozen cocktail that includes strawberries, cream, cardamom and local Minnesota vodka.

DOING SO MUCH WITH DOUGH

Over the years, Yeh has received a lot of recognition for her craft. She was named “Blogger of the Year” in 2015 by the gourmet, food, wine and travel magazine Saveur, and in 2016, she was dubbed “one of the most popular food bloggers in the game” by Bon Appetit magazine. That same year, she dropped her first cookbook, the International Association of Culinary Professionals awardwinning Molly on the Range.

She was on Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list in 2017 and published a book on yogurt this year. She’s been featured in Food & Wine magazine, among other publications, and some of her favorite Passover recipes were published in the April 2018 issue of Rachel Ray’s magazine. She also reported on arts and culture for the Olympic Channel live

from South Korea during the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang.

Yeh says that inspiration for her food stems from her Jewish-Chinese heritage, but also her travels, the 1990s, the Upper Midwest, foods she misses from New York, her love for “savory things” and “a desire to make savory versions of sweet things.” Savory sufganiyot are her favorite kind of doughnuts.

In fact, her favorite thing of all to make it challah dough.

She says: “Whenever I make challah dough, I usually make one regular loaf and then use the other half of the dough to play with. It’s such a versatile, delicious dough. I like frying it into doughnuts, flattening it out to make pizza, dipping it in a baked baking soda bath to make pretzels, waffling it … the options are endless.”

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COVER STORY

A DECADE OF FUN La Jolla Art & Wine Festival's 10th Year

BY DEBORAH VIETOR

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COVER STORY

Y

ou are cordially invited to attend the 10th anniversary of the La Jolla Art & Wine Festival (LJAWF), October 6-7, and the best part? The entire festival, including all of the activities in the children’s sections is free to the public.

Described as one of the most prestigious art and wine festivals in Southern California, there is something for everyone at the LJAWF. Reviving and revolutionizing the tradition of art in the La Jolla community, the LJAWF is a 2-day juried art show and fundraiser. Created as a non-profit 501c3, the event has raised about $1 million over the years for underfunded programs such as art, technology, music and science for local La Jolla schools.

Birdrock Elementary, Torrey Pines Elementary, (which sponsors a Science Day during the festival with hands-on science experiments), La Jolla Elementary School, and Muirlands Middle School are all beneficiaries and will demonstrate

Robotics creations along with area award-winning schools.

Created by Festival Founder and local La Jollan Sherry Ahern, the event has grown exponentially under her expertise over the years. She also founded the La Jolla Farmer’s Market and serves the community as a full-time volunteer for many causes near and dear to her.

The LJAWF features over 150 artists from across the U.S. and Mexico. Multiple mediums are available for even the most discriminating of art collectors and includes: painting, sculpture, jewelry design, glass, ceramics, woodwork, mixed media and photography. Each category is judged yearly with participating artists awarded “Best in Show.” There is an art contest for children from each of the schools represented as well, held in the Geppetto’s Family Art Center + Lab. Liv Kyle, a third-grade student at La Jolla Elementary is an exceptional artist and cancer survivor, who will be painting live in the Family Art Center + Lab. Her work will be on display and available for purchase, supporting Rady’s Children’s Hospital.

Also in the Family Art Center + Lab, budding artists will

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COVER STORY

be able to create their own innovations; with interactive demos, hands-on experiments and an assortment of arts and crafts for children of all ages.

The 10x10 Exhibition will feature 10 items celebrating 10 years of art making from each of the schools on display. The 10th Birthday Student Showcase will exhibit a time capsule called 10 years forward with items contributed from local schools to be kept and in the future, unearthed from the La Jolla Riford Library.

Kids will be excited to paint a car, learn about 3-D printing, test their gymnastic skills on the gymnastics obstacle course, choose face painting and much more.

Ahern hopes the festival is here for many years to come. She would like to continue to grow the unique wine, beer and spirits garden in addition to increasing revenue for local La Jolla elementary and middle schools.

“Each year we continue to find and launch new and up and upcoming artists. We continue to help our beautiful Jewel and the merchants of La Jolla do well on the Festival weekend,” she says. “[Additionally], without a small group of volunteers, the event would not have been possible.”

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In addition to creating much needed revenue for local La Jolla schools, children have benefited in other ways. Funding has enhanced local school programs and through attendance of the LJAWF. Children throughout San Diego County and beyond experience fun through music, dance and creativity.

Among the many on-site artwork being created, urban/beach muralist Carley Ealey will lead a related mural sized collaborative canvas for all festival goers to contribute; painter Chantal Wnuk from Artist & Craftsman, currently exhibiting at MCASD and SDAI will sponsor geometric artmaking, with activities for all ages; publisher Mathew Timmons will offer a related collaborative artmaking experience at the La Jolla Museum of Modern Art (LJMOMA); and visual artist Mieko Anekawa will guide families, creating paper collage at the LJMOMA table as well.

Festivalgoers will also enjoy dancers and street performers.

An artist and body painter will draw a picture on your back and transfer to a canvas; chalk artists at stations located at Torrey Pines, Prospect and Girard will create works on 8x8 blackboards that will be offered for auction once completed; a roving playable and paintable piano is available this year. In addition, Art Me & Misfit

COVER STORY

“Each year we continue to find and launch new and up and upcoming artists.

We continue to help our beautiful Jewel and the merchants of La Jolla do well on the Festival weekend,” festival founder Sherry Ahern says. will be available for crafts and videos.

Other attractions include the Shephard YMCA Firehouse obstacle course, crafting with the Girl Scouts of La Jolla, La Jolla Social painted limo, “the photo booth in a VW Bus”, and face painting, which is always a hit with the kids.

Visit the iconic Wine, Beer and Spirits Garden and sample international wines from locations such as France, Valley de Guadalupe, California and more. Allow libation specialists to take you on a guided tour for your taste buds to some of the world’s finest beverages. Enjoy live music in the garden, where local youth bands including HalfBlood and the 606 will rock out at 2 p.m. each day.

The gourmet food court includes many favorites, including Cousins Lobster truck. With all this and more, there really is something for every art and wine lover at LJAWF. Valet parking is available on Kline and Girard with additional parking at the Bank of America parking structure on Kline and Fay for free. For more information regarding the La Jolla Art & Wine Festival, visit ljawf.com.

LA JOLLA OPEN AIRE MARKET: HELPING KIDS FOR 20 YEARS

The La Jolla Open Aire Market is different than other farmer’s markets in that all proceeds benefit La Jolla Elementary (LJES), a public school. The proceeds from the market fund various initiatives including school improvements and programs such as art, music, library, technology and additional classroom teachers to lower class sizes.

The market was started by former La Jolla Elementary School mom and La Jolla community supporter, Sherry Ahern. In 1996, Sherry had two children enrolled at LJES and was on the Friends of La Jolla Elementary, Inc. Board, the school’s nonprofit education foundation. The original motivation for the market was to help fund a library and librarian. At the time, the school’s “library” consisted only of a small collection of books in the back of the auditorium The first market was held on October 25, 1998, with 14 farmers and one artisan. The market has continued to grow and in addition to helping the children, the market has become a vibrant weekly community event and gathering place for the entire La Jolla community with over 120 vendors every Sunday, 20 years and counting.

The market carries local organic and conventional produce, eggs, breads, cheese, grass-fed beef, seafood, almonds, jams, smoothies, olive oils, guacamole, hummus, baked goods including a variety of gluten-free options, chocolate, kettle corn, coffee, and more. Our international food court features cuisine from the Mediterranean, France, Germany, Latin America, Mexico, Italy, Japan, Korea, China, and the USA. Vegetarian and vegan options are also available in our gourmet food court. We have over 60 local artisans for unique items and handcrafted goods and an abundance of locally grown flowers.

With free weekly entertainment and dog-sitting services, the La Jolla Open Aire Market is open every Sunday from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., rain or shine, on the La Jolla Elementary School upper playground on the corner of Girard Avenue and Genter Street.

Supporting the market is not only enjoyable but it’s an easy and fun way to contribute to our community every week.

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FOOD | BY ROBERT GLUCK | jns.org

'GEFILTE MANIFESTO' MAKING CLASSIC JEWISH FOOD GREAT AGAIN Matza ball soup and other Jewish classics are given new life in The Gefilte Manifesto.

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FOOD

H

aving paid their dues on the Brooklyn food scene, emerging young chefs Liz Alpern and Jeffrey Yoskowitz are on a mission to reclaim and revolutionize Ashkenazi cuisine. The millennial duo’s mission starts with their book, The Gefilte Manifesto: New Recipes for Old World Jewish Foods.

Alpern and Yoskowitz, who were featured in Forbes’s “30 Under 30” list for food and wine in 2014, are drawing praise from prominent chefs. Mollie Katzen — a bestselling author-illustrator of vegetarian cookbook classics such as The Moosewood Cookbook, The Enchanted Broccoli Forest, and The Heart of the Plate: Vegetarian Recipes for a New Generation — says the cookbook from Alpern and Yoskowitz “beautifully manages to frame traditional Ashkenazi cuisine with perfect twists and newness.”

“It’s no small feat to retain the character of an old, emotionally held culinary culture while imparting fresh life to the standards,” Katzen says. “Jeffrey and Liz nailed it, not only with outstanding recipes but also with history and stories and context, impeccably written. The passion of yet another generation carries it forward; we Jewish mothers can be collectively entranced, inspired, and proud.”

The Gefilte Manifesto includes recipes for pantry staples, pickles, breads, soups, dumplings, lighter side dishes, deli sides and specialties, main courses, desserts, and beverages, as well as a chapter on “choosing your own leftover adventure.”

In 2011, Yoskowitz, Alpern, and Jackie Lilinshtein founded The Gefilteria, a food venture whose mission is to adapt classic Eastern European Jewish cuisine to the values and tastes of a new generation. The initiative launched a reimagined brand of gefilte fish and started hosting pop-up dining events.

“For us, it all started with gefilte fish,” states The Gefilteria’s website. “We took the

classic dish and reimagined it, making it colorful, gluten free and responsibly sourced (with non-GMO olive oil and the highest quality fish). And we also made sure it tasted really great.”

Published five years after The Gefilteria’s founding, their book is essentially the food venture’s playbook.

HOW THE AUTHORS CROSSED PATHS

As an undergraduate student at McGill University in Montreal, Alpern baked challah out of her home and sold it because there was no kosher bakery in her neighborhood.

“I fell in love with baking and cooking big meals and Jewish holiday cooking, and after university I worked on a magazine and then got a job working for [cookbook author] Joan Nathan,” Alpern says. “I did recipe testing for her, and she got me a job in a pastry kitchen and on a food truck. Then I crossed paths with Jeffrey and we both were super on fire about Jewish foods.”

After hitting it off, Yoskowitz and Alpern would go on to launch The Gefilteria.

Raised in New Jersey by parents who loved Ashkenazi culture, Yoskowitz attended a Jewish day school and became well-versed in traditional Jewish cuisine from a young age.

“My dad took me to the Jewish delis and kinisheries and the Jewish food institutions of New York when I was a child,” he says.

“I was always interested in food and even studied the kosher food industry for my senior thesis [at Brown University]. When I graduated I became a farm fellow and moved to Adamah Farm, a Jewish organic farm.”

At Adamah, Yoskowitz became a pickle apprentice, falling in love with the art of lacto-fermentation — a style of pickling and preserving that does not involve vinegar and is the classic style of making the Jewish deli pickle.

“It’s no small feat to retain the character of an old, emotionally held culinary culture while imparting fresh life to the standards.”

Pickling helped Yoskowitz discovered the wisdom that is inherent in Jewish cooking.

“Not only does the pickle have a lot of flavor, the method of making it relies on a natural occurring bacteria — acidophilus, what’s in yogurt — which is very good for your digestion and is probiotic,” he says.

“Growing up eating a pastrami sandwich with a full sour pickle next to it, wow, it’s the best way of helping digest that fatty pastrami sandwich. That’s when I learned this tradition has a built in wisdom to it.

This inspired me.”

“It was an awakening, where food comes from, the experience creating it,” Yoskowitz adds. “Then I got into writing.”

Now an entrepreneur, consultant, cook, and public speaker, Yoskowitz’s writings have been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Gastronomica.

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SENIORS

BY SEAN SAVAGE | JNS.ORG

ON THE RISE:

INTERFAITH MARRIAGES

CAUSE JEWISH SENIORS TO ADAPT TO NEW REALITIES

O

ne of the most significant trends within the American Jewish community over the past few decades has been the continued rise of intermarriage. For many Jewish seniors who were raised during a time of strong antiintermarriage messages from the Jewish community, the growth of intermarriage

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L’CHAIM SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE • OCTOBER 2018

PHOTO COURTESY INTERFAITH FAMILY

A rooftop chuppah with the Israeli city of Jaffa in the background.

With interfaith marriages on the rise in America, Jewish seniors are adapting to new realities. Photo: Oren & Assi Eitan.

presents a direct challenge to the values they were taught.

New programming from synagogues, Jewish federations, and nonprofits seeks to help Jewish seniors adapt to these new realities while still maintaining the values they wish to pass along.

“People who are becoming grandparents

now grew up at a time when they heard a strong anti-intermarriage message coming from most Jews and the Jewish community,” Ed Case, CEO of Interfaith Family — a Boston-based national interfaith organization that provides information and assistance to interfaith families — says.

According to the Pew Research Center’s “A

Portrait of Jewish Americans” survey from October 2013, a clear majority of Jews — 58 percent — marry outside the faith. This is up from 46 percent in 1990 and 17 percent before 1970, when many of today’s Jewish seniors came of age.

At the same time, much like the American population as a whole, the proportion of seniors in the Jewish community is growing — nearly a quarter of Jews are now 65 or older. This creates a new demand for programming that will help Jews seniors handle their increasingly diverse world.

A new program seeking to reconcile the ongoing Jewish demographic changes is GIFTS: Grandparents Sharing Gratitude, Inspiration, Family Tzedakah and Service, a curriculum put together by Interfaith Family and the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago with a grant from the Covenant Foundation, which helps grandparents share their values and personal legacy with their grandchildren.

Rabbi Ari Moffic, a rabbi based in the Chicago area who works with Interfaith Family, has helped develop and teaches the GIFTS curriculum at several local synagogues.

“A component of [the class] is specifically geared towards how grandparents can share their traditions and pass on their values when their grandchildren are being raised in interfaith families,” Moffic says.

Moffic explains that there are several varieties of interfaith families she has come across.

“Some families have children who marry out of the faith, but raise their children Jewish, while others are raising their children as nothing, and the grandparents aren’t sure if their adult children want religion or not,” she says. “That can be very difficult.”

“Sometimes interfaith children have chosen another religion entirely, and that can be even harder,” Moffic added.

In many cases, grandparents are looking for a forum to either gain tips about how to deal with their interfaith families and connect with their grandchildren, or just vent their frustrations.

Moffic says that many times, grandparents will simply say, “All I want is Jewish grandchildren.”

“We try to break that feeling down for them [during the class] and explore where it comes from. … Is it because they just feel it is a rich and wonderful way of life? Or is it because of social peer pressure from their friends, who go to their grandkids bar/bat mitzvah, and they feel isolation and pain because they aren’t having those experiences?” she says.

“Sometimes it is even just shame,” says Moffic. “They feel the guilt that they didn’t do enough to instill Judaism in their own children.”

Sharon Morton, a retired Jewish educator at Am Shalom Synagogue in Glencoe, Ill., is the founder of Grandparents for Social Action, an organization dedicated to helping Jewish grandparents and seniors who are seeking to share their roots in social action with their grandchildren.

Morton is also working with Moffic and the Chicago Jewish federation in developing and teaching the GIFTS curriculum to Jewish seniors. She says that one of the reasons she started the organization to help other Jewish seniors was her own experience dealing with her daughter’s marriage to a Christian man, and the couple’s decision to raise her grandchildren in a Christian home.

“When my grandchildren were young, I taught them about Jewish values like philanthropy, tikkun olam (repairing the

world), and being a mensch,” Morton says.

“They all thought being a philanthropist was a law at 7 years old,” she joked.

Morton says she now travels around the country helping other Jewish seniors communicate the values they think are important.

“I have spoken to a lot of people whose kids are in interfaith homes and whose grandchildren are Christian, and they want to know what to do and how to deal with it,” she says. “What do you do when your dream is not what you expected it to be?”

In many cases, Morton explained, the parents’ or grandparents’ process for handling an interfaith marriage of children or grandchildren is similar to the process for grieving.

“I talk to other people about that all the time. I tell them it is a process; there is a time for grieving, denial, and then finally acceptance. … This is the process I went through with my daughter,” she says, explaining that today she shares a strong relationship with her daughter based on mutual respect for Judaism and Christianity.

Moffic echoed that sentiment, criticizing some Jewish organizations that encourage grandparents to “subversively” try to get their grandchildren to be Jewish by filling their house with Jewish objects or bringing them to synagogue without parents’ knowledge.

She says such an approach “leads to more hurt and distrust.”

“It’s about communication and figuring out ways your grandchildren can embody Jewish values like tikkun olam or tzedakah,” says Moffic. “Certainly you can encourage grandchildren to do all those things, even with Jewish vocabulary, no matter how they are being raised.”

WWW.LCHAIMMAGAZINE.COM

23

SENIORS

THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT THIS PLACE

T

he Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center, JACOBS FAMILY CAMPUS (JCC), provides a rich array of stimulating programs to enrich the quality of life for seniors.

One participant was overheard explaining at a newcomers’ meeting that she needed a place to retire to after retiring from her career.

The JCC offers such a place as she is exploring a variety of interests she wants to pursue such as taking classes in nutrition, current events, and music appreciation, just for fun to keep her brain active.

A Holocaust survivor, Hanna M., said she used to come all the way from East County to swim at the JCC, even though there were pools in her area, because this was her community and she considers this her “second home”. She also loves to attend the Jewish holiday celebrations organized by the JCC’s Senior Department as the retirement home in which she resides does not have any.

Studies conducted by the California

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L’CHAIM SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE • OCTOBER 2018

Commission on Aging and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania conclude that “successful aging is more likely when individuals are actively engaged in life. Senior centers are one of the most accessible, friendly and inexpensive places that offer programs and services that promote active engagement and enjoyment of life by older adults.” Activity participation is essential to quality of life, and has important life benefits such as reducing the risk of depression and global cognitive decline, and enhancing social connectedness.

“I’m not even Jewish and I feel like I belong at the JCC. My wife and I were coming for many years, and when she passed away, this became my family. I started volunteering for various programs, and I enjoy taking classes, swimming and going to theater and other outings that I wouldn’t normally go to alone”, said Peter S. The Senior Department, headed by Melanie Rubin who has been working at the JCC for 23 years, serves “basically anyone

who has time on their hands during the day” whether newly retired or 90+. Seniors have numerous choices on how to spend their leisure time: such as participating in intergenerational programs like reading stories in the library to preschoolers, or getting technology questions answered by teenagers who tutor them on their devices, signing up for cultural outings, enrolling in free classes offered at the JCC by the San Diego Community College Continuing Education’s Emeritus program in music, art, current events, literature and more, or having a home away from home to celebrate Jewish holidays, attending workshops to prevent becoming a victim of scams, taking a fitness class, receiving legal advice at a free legal clinic, or even volunteering to feel a sense of purpose.

Kathy Sullivan, Executive Director of the West Chester Area Senior Center in West Chester, PA describes the role of senior centers as “a place for older adults to meet for services and activities that reflect their experience and skills, respond to their diverse needs and interests, enhance their dignity, support their independence and encourage their involvement in the center and community.”

“There’s something about this place” describes the Lawrence Family JCC for many age groups, but especially for senior adults. For more information about the JCC Senior Department’s programs and services, call (858) 362-1141 or visit lfjcc.org and check out the Shofar newsletter under Senior Adults.

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25

SENIORS

BY STEVE HORN

ZEST FOR LIFE MEET MARJIE DU BERCHIN

J

ewish and East Asian culture don’t generally receive mention in the same breath, with two distinct cultural and geographical histories. And yet, there’s always an exception to rules.

That is Marjie Du Berchin in a nutshell, a 73-year-old resident of San Diego’s Del Sur community who has spent a lifetime cutting against the grain. Du Berchin spent a decades-long career as a successful estate planning attorney based in San Diego’s 26

L’CHAIM SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE • OCTOBER 2018

North County. But making textiles and jewelry has always been her first love, on par with her interest and self-described “affinity for Asia,” with the two interests colliding in the form of her artistic output.

Born and raised in West Los Angeles as the child of Jewish immigrants from Poland, Du Berchin’s fashion and jewelry has an East Asian flair, inspired by the years she spent traveling and teaching English abroad in Japan during the 1960s while a college

student studying fine arts with a focus on textiles at California State UniversityNorthridge. In a sense, sojourning to that area of the world — as opposed to Europe, where most of her friends went after graduating from high school – was a version of doing things differently and seeing the world from a different lens for Du Berchin.

“I was one of those contrary kids where I decided I should go the other way and went to East Asia,” says Du Berchin.

That journey to that area of the world during that point of time in history also took her to Southeast Asia and in particular, Japan, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, both at the apex of the Vietnam War. Du Berchin says she had a sense of youthful “invincibility” at the time to explain her lack of fear, though seeing what she saw made her cynical about humanity and its cruelty.

“It was horrible. Seeing peasants running across the border with their dead baby wrapped in plastic because they didn’t even have a place or time to bury the child,” says Du Berchin. “You hear the phrase ‘War is hell,’ but you can’t really even begin to comprehend what that means until you hear peoples’ stories and see its consequences firsthand.”

Though she would proceed to marry and for a short period of time become a housewife, Du Berchin would eventually divorce and go to a law school at night while also holding down a second job: that of a single mother to her daughter, Faithe. Actually, Du Berchin also had other part-time jobs during this point in her life, as well, three to be precise.

“So, I go to my three part-time jobs and law school and I’m the last to pick Faithe up at night from day care many times,” explained Du Berchin. “I come there and she’s got her fingers on the wire fences and her little nose is sticking through the thing.

And I start to cry because she was paying the price of all of this.”

Upon completion of her non-traditional law school experience – in which she finished 12th in her class – Du Berchin worked as a lawyer for a couple years at General Atomics in La Jolla in the late-1970s. She then proceeded to open her own legal practice, which she managed and owned until her retirement about a decade and a half ago.

During her time as a lawyer, Du Berchin sat on the Board for Temple Solel for seven years, helping the synagogue to grow.

Though not religiously Jewish and nor were her parents – with her dad being a Holocaust survivor – Du Berchin felt it was important

for the Cardiff-and Encinitas-area to have a synagogue in place as a social center for the reform Jewish community in that neck of the woods.

“I didn’t want to go to it, I wanted it to be there,” explained Du Berchin.

She also noted that she was particularly proud of getting an organization called Visiting Nurses off the ground during her years spent as a lawyer. As a child of parents who had children later in their lives, Du Berchin says she had developed a soft spot for the elderly and felt it was important that they have the nursing and broader community support.

“I think of myself as a maker and when you are a maker it’s the process of creating and making that’s interesting," Du Berchin says.

Though the organization lasted for several years, it ceases to exist today. Visiting Nurses was essentially a non-profit in which nurses made home visits to the lower-income elderly so that they could age in place, as opposed to as an assisted living facility or other elderly care center.

“They were the only ones who stood as a bulwark between a poor senior and getting shipped off to a nursing home,” says Du Berchin.

Today, though not a regular synagoguegoer, Du Berchin maintains her sense of Jewish identity by going to Israel frequently and studying the cultural history of the Jewish people.

And, now retired and with more time on her hands, Du Berchin has a full studio at her new Del Sur home dedicated to her textiles and jewelry art-making. Generally speaking, going above and beyond her art, Du Berchin says she identifies herself as a “maker.” That includes making food, a garden, her art and other things, a trait Du Berchin says she inherited from her father.

“I think of myself as a maker and when you are a maker it’s the process of creating and making that’s interesting. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a garden that you’re making or setting the table or making food or clothing,” says Du Berchin. “It’s a mindset and there’s different kind of makers: there’s inventive makers and there’s aesthetic makers. I think of myself as an aesthetic maker, that the picture which you look at, whether it’s a piece of clothing or a table you’re setting, should have some art to it to try to inject beauty into your life and the viewer’s life as a gift.”

That mentality, says Du Berchin, came from her many trips to Japan, a country with few natural resources which she says makes the most beautiful and aesthetic objects and gardens. Du Berchin has traveled to Japan now upwards of 30 times, also going to Hong Kong nine times, Israel four times and China eight times. In total, she has visited some 115 countries, by her count.

So, while Du Berchin may be getting older, she maintained that her motto remains, “If not now, when?” It’s an ethos which has prevailed throughout her liveliest of livelihoods, which at times has bucked tradition, but has remained rooted in various degrees of Judaism.

WWW.LCHAIMMAGAZINE.COM

27

SENIORS

BY ALANNA MAYA

SENIORS GET GOING! JFS'S ON THE GO PROGRAM

I

n San Diego, there are more than 50,000 seniors who lack access to reliable transportation. The American Public Transportation Association reports that compared with those who still drive, older non-drivers make 15 percent fewer visits to the doctor, 59 percent fewer outings to shopping and restaurants, and 65 percent fewer trips to social, family, and religious activities.

Grocery trips, doctor’s appointments, religious services and social programs are hard to get to without a ride. But thanks to Jewish Family Service’s On the Go program, seniors can secure a reliable ride when they need it most. The volunteer-based transportation service couples drivers with seniors in need

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L’CHAIM SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE • OCTOBER 2018

of rides throughout San Diego county. In fact, newly retired seniors have become the program’s most faithful and dependable drivers for the program.

Volunteer Driver Michael Hess volunteers in Northern San Diego and spends about 9 hours a week driving seniors to medical and personal appointments.

“Now that I am fully retired and have the time, I wanted to do something nice for the community,” he says of his decision to drive with On the Go. “I like the program because it’s really easy for me. I can pick and choose the rides I want to take and the amount of time that I want to drive. It’s really convenient way to volunteer,” he adds.

Hess says he has taken riders to play bridge, to medical appointments, and grocery stores over his 18 months volunteering with the program and has even made a few friends along the way.

“I have three ladies who I pick up every week [to drive to appointments] and they have become like my friends,” he says. “I take them to the same places [each week], and we chat and its always really enjoyable to help people who don’t drive anymore and it’s an excellent, very well-organized program. I just enjoy it; volunteering to help the community in this way.”

On the Go serves 26 zip codes across San Diego and is open to drivers and riders of all faiths. Individual ride options include: On the Go Navigator —access on-demand transportation anywhere in San Diego County, delivered in partnership with ride-sharing services; On the Go Silver — premium individualized transportation for personal errands and social activities; and Rides & Smiles® — individual door-to-door transportation provided by volunteer drivers to medical appointments and personal destinations. Group shuttle options are also available.

Of the many benefits for drivers, they choose who, when, and where they drive; JFS provides secondary insurance and reimburses every mile of driving; and rides are scheduled via a convenient, web-based scheduling system.

If you’re interested in volunteering with On the Go, call (858) 637-3050. To learn more, visit jfssd.org.

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29

NEW ROLE FOR JNF SAN DIEGO BOARD OF DIRECTORS

T

he gavel is being passed on at Jewish National Fund’s (JNF) San Diego Board of Directors as Shari Schenk assumes the position of president. Schenk took on her new role at the start of the 2019 fiscal year, October 1, 2018.

Schenk is originally from New York and grew up in Atlanta. She moved to San Diego in 1985 and two months later met her husband Frederick (Fred). For the past 20 years she has been the director of business development at CaseyGerry, a plaintiff’s law firm with 20 lawyers and where her husband is a partner.

The Schenks’ involvement with JNF began in 2006, after they were the recipients of Jewish National Fund’s Tree of Life™ Award. This prestigious humanitarian award is given in recognition of outstanding community involvement, dedication to the cause of American-Israeli friendship, and devotion to the peace and security of human life.

From that point on, they were integrated into the JNF family, learning about how the organization positively affects the lives of Israelis and

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is instrumental in building a prosperous future for the Jewish State.

In 2013, Schenk’s brother in law, C. Hugh Friedman, sadly passed away and his wife, Congresswoman Lynn Schenk, decided to dedicate a music room in Jewish National Fund’s Sderot Indoor Recreation Center in his name to honor his memory. In 2017, Shari and her husband were part of the Jewish National Fund mission to Israel during which the room dedication took place. The music room was donated by friends of Congresswoman Schenk and by JNF USA President Dr. Sol Lizerbram and his wife Lauren. As luck would have it, after the beautiful ceremony, the Schenks received notification from British Airways that their flight home the next day was canceled. So they called the Lizerbrams, who were still in the country, and joined them for a day of JNF activities in Northern Israel.

“This turned out to be the best day of our trip,” said Schenk. “We went wine tasting in northern Israel, saw a Special in Uniform beret ceremony, met Lt. Col. (Res.) Tiran Attia, and deeply fell further in love with the JNF family.”

“We are thrilled that Shari will take over as president of the JNF San Diego Board of Directors,” said Dr. Sol Lizerbram. “She is passionate about the work we do and active in the San Diego community. Her expertise and hard work will be invaluable as we continue our efforts to connect San Diego and Israel.”

Schenk, who has been on the JNF board on and off for several years, is looking forward to increasing the visibility of Jewish National Fund in San Diego. “I want more people to know JNF and the incredible work we do; that we are more than just trees and water. I look forward to empowering young people and really getting the JNFutures (JNF’s young professionals) off the ground in San Diego. And I want to take as many people as I can to see our amazing work firsthand on the ground in Israel.”

Schenk is very involved in the San Diego Jewish community. She has been president of the Agency for Jewish Education in San Diego and Chair of the Board of Trustees at the San Diego Jewish Academy. She is a graduate of Tufts University (B.A.), San Diego State University (MBA) and the Wexner Heritage Foundation leadership development program.

Shari and Fred have three kids, Benjamin, Michaela, and Sydney.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT JEWISH NATIONAL FUND IN SAN DIEGO, PLEASE CONTACT JAMES KIMMEY AT JKIMMEY@JNF. ORG OR 858.824.9178 X988.

FAMILY | BY CHANA JENNY WEISBERG

jewish

mom.com The cup of sugar that made Sivan Rahav Meir Religious

S

ivan Rahav Meir is a religious mother of 5 as well as an awardwinning journalist and primetime news reporter here in Israel.

But very few people know the surprising story behind Sivan’s decision to become a religious Jew at the age of 16. Last week, Sivan spoke at my neighborhood community center, and this is what she shared with us: “I often get calls with requests to come speak about how I became religious. These people think I must have a really juicy story to share. But I explain to them that I truly don’t.

“First of all, I didn’t have a wild life before I became religious. The craziest thing I ever did was break the library rules by signing up for 2 library cards at the same time from 2 different libraries so I could satisfy my bookworm tendencies.

“And the story of how I became religious isn’t interesting either.

“I was a teenager, growing up in Herzliya, and had never met a religious Jew before. At the age of 15, I met some religious girls from Beersheva, and they invited me to come spend Shabbat with them.

“I went once, and had a nice time. But when I came back home, it didn’t occur to me to change anything about the way I lived.

“Then, when I was 16, the girls from Beersheva invited me for Shabbat again.

During Shabbat lunch, I was sitting with the family that was hosting me, and one of the daughters presented the following dilemma: “‘Olga, the downstairs neighbor came by this morning to borrow a cup of sugar. I gave it to her, but maybe I shouldn’t have?”

“One brother insisted, “She needed that sugar to bake something! She was going to use it to break Shabbat, you shouldn’t have given it to her!”

“Another sister protested, “It’s possible she needed the sugar for guests to sweeten their tea. And that is fully permissible on Shabbat!”

“And the debate raged on and on for a long time, with the various family members debating whether it was permitted to have lent Olga the cup of sugar or not (in case you are wondering, this actually is halachically permitted).

“At first I thought these religious people were completely nuts. Why were they getting so hot under the color about lending a cup of sugar to a neighbor?

“But on the bus-ride home, the family’s debate got me thinking.

“Here were people who cared deeply about living ethical lives with greater meaning, profoundly connected with the Jewish tradition, and the entire Jewish people, even Olga the downstairs neighbor, and the cake she might have baked on Shabbat.”

This experience opened Sivan’s eyes to a different way of living, and made her want

to explore these curious people and what makes them tick. And eventually she chose to become one of those curious people herself.

The Ohr HaChaim teaches that every single day of our lives we get a new part of our soul. When we sleep, yesterday’s soul-part leaves, and when we awaken and recite “Modeh Ani,” that day’s new soulpart enters our bodies. This beautiful idea reminds me — Even though I might feel stuck. I might look at the broken parts of my life and think: “This is the way I’ve always done things, this is the way I’ve always been.

An old Chana Jenny can’t learn new tricks.”

But that view of myself is false. Since every day I get a new soul. Every day, in a sense, I’m reborn. And like Sivan, and the controversial cup of sugar that inspired her to change around her life, I can too.

CHANA JENNY WEISBERG, THE CREATOR OF JEWISHMOM.COM, IS A STAY-HOME MOTHER OF 8 CHILDREN LIVING IN JERUSALEM WITH HER HUSBAND, RABBI JOSHUA WEISBERG. ORIGINALLY FROM BALTIMORE, CHANA JENNY HAS DEVOTED HER NON-MOM TIME OVER THE PAST DECADE TO PROVIDING INSPIRATION AND ENCOURAGEMENT FOR OTHER JEWISH MOMS THROUGH HER POPULAR BOOKS EXPECTING MIRACLES AND ONE BABY STEP AT A TIME.

WWW.LCHAIMMAGAZINE.COM

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FEATURE STORY | BECKY KRINSKY

WHAT'S YOUR

LEGACY?

Estate Planning with Gabriel Katzner

G

abriel Katzner had a good life in New York City, until the big apple had to let go the senior and most experienced lawyers from their corporate firms. Money was short and Corporate America was changing. Katzner had to move on and find a new path of life.

So, Katzner and his wife moved to California and had their first son. Parenthood brought a new meaning and different interest.

He recognized that the need to be responsible and to protect his legacy and the future of his first born. Knowing his trade, he searched around for a law firm that could provide him with the estate planning guidance he needed.

Soon he discovered that every lawyer he visited was interested mainly in “financial wellness”.

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L’CHAIM SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE • OCTOBER 2018

Katzner, however, was concerned with the core values of his family. He worried about what would happen with his child’s education in case he and his wife couldn’t be around to help him grow? He had doubts about the limited personal knowledge of the guardian the attorneys were appointing in the legal papers. He felt that this person was only a formality authorized in the lawyer’s paperwork, but not true interested in the fine aspects of the everyday life of the child.

Katzner identified a true guarantor, as a person of total trust, that needed to be mindful of all the important facts and small details of everyday life.

Since he couldn’t find what he was looking for, opening an office and providing the service he needed was a good choice. Coming

from a family of lawyers and successful selfemployed professionals, he understood that his time to become independent has come.

Rapid success came to his new firm. With the experience in corporate law, and the thoughtful understanding of what had to be done, Katzner found a new mission and a strong calling by living in California, raising a family and helping others with their estate planning.

Gabriel Katzner’s estate planning law firm puts families first by providing services in estate planning, asset protection, probate / trust administration and Medi-Cal planning.

Katzner brought a unique service and a good reputation for working hard, passionately, and compassionately on behalf of individuals and families who need assistance with their estate planning.

The clients of his firm are young responsible parents, that just like him, live with the commitment and the vision to have a good, heathy, long and happy life. They understand that things can happen and know that it would be better to secure the future of their families, knowing that life will go on and their children will always be taking care.

Katzner feels blessed and is grateful for his life. He lives with his wife and two children.

His firm has two offices; in California and New York. He is always open to share is knowledge with others, by giving free consultations, presentations, seminars and creates friendly workshops to educate people and talk them about legal rights, commitments and how to protect property, taxes, trusts and the most important thing, how to preserve the family values.

Katzner is always ready to support and to help others. He is not afraid to ask uncomfortable questions and to open the communication with the hard topics one need to have to have a a proper estate planning and a clear, peaceful mind.

WWW.LCHAIMMAGAZINE.COM

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FEATURE STORY | BY MIMI POLLAK

MARU DAVILA

HOW TO EAT GOOD FOOD AND STAY HEALTHY

M

aru Davila is a slim woman with lustrous skin who radiates health and confidence. To look at her, one would never guess that she once was almost 60 pounds overweight and struggled with her health. She suffered from many chronic problems, including serious kidney infections, and digestive issues. Today she is the picture of health, but the journey getting there wasn’t easy. She had to learn a 34

L’CHAIM SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE • OCTOBER 2018

whole new way of eating. Fortunately for us foodies, she has developed recipes that make healthy and delicious meals and snacks.

Many of those recipes can be found in her book, The Mexican Food Diet.

Many people think Mexican food is all about eating rice, beans, cheese, tortillas and high fat food, and in some cases, that is true. However, Mexican food is so much more than that and Davila is out to prove

that Mexican food can still be tasty while also being very nutritious.

In her cookbook, Davila has modified recipes-many taken from her mother and grandmother-and turned them into satisfying, and good for you meals and snacks. For example, there is a recipe for guacamole made with baked jicama chips.

The guacamole contains onions, garlic, cilantro, lime juice, hot peppers, and olive

FEATURE STORY

oil, all known for their health benefits. The jicama chips are a tasty substitute for tortilla chips.

Davila was born in Mexico City. Her father was an engineer and her mother a homemaker who later became a chef. It had been Davila’s dream since she was 12 years old to attend Harvard Business School. She was successful in achieving that goal and graduated from there in 1997. She moved to San Diego after graduating. She came here hoping to be an investment banker. However, she was not in good health and began to feel torn between becoming a successful investor or dedicating some of that time to finding a husband and having children. She also had to decide if she wanted to pursue her career in San Diego or move to New York City. She ended up staying and she met someone and got married. She also began working at a consulting company, but still had lingering doubts about not going to New York.

In addition, the health problems she had experienced most of her life began to get worse. She was feeling stuck and depressed, and reaching the end of her rope. Her career was going well, but she didn’t feel healthy, and her marriage was suffering too. She decided to take a break and went to live in Paris for awhile.

Although raised a Catholic, she never felt it was the right fit for her. In Paris, she lived in a Jewish community and it was amongst that group that she found her “home”, so to speak, as she felt very connected. She had a close group of friends and she began to observe the Sabbath. When she returned to San Diego she decided to convert, so she studied with Rabbi Efraim Warshaw and Rabbi Moshe Levin. She did her conversion and Mikvah in Los Angeles. She went the conservative route and even became kosher for a few years. She discovered that her mother was a descendant of Sephardic Jews.

She was active in the Jewish community and felt Judaism enriched her life and made her

happy. However, she continued suffering from health problems and didn’t like being on so many medications. Her first marriage also ended in 2000.

Then, in 2008, a series of events happened that began to turn her life around. First, she met Andrew Dumke whom she later married.

In 2010, her daughter, Charlotte, was born.

All her life she had been a runner and athlete, so she decided to begin competing in triathlons. This in turn exposed her to a different type of eating. She noticed that eliminating certain foods had a big impact on her physically and it also affected her chronic conditions. A light bulb went off, and she started to connect the dots of how nutrition and how you eat can affect you physically, mentally and emotionally.

She decided to study at The Institute for Integrative Nutrition and took classes online.

She got certified as a health coach. She also got herself tested and found out her body had issues with the protein in dairy products and digesting gluten and certain other foods.

Years of taking antibiotics for many infections had ruined the flora in her digestive system and her body was out of balance.

After so many years of dieting [she had three sets of clothes in her closet of various sizes], she knew she had to come up with a healthy lifelong plan of eating. Thus, she developed her Flaca Forever plan [www. flacaforever.com]. The plan has three parts.

The first part is a two week detox. The second part is to stop dieting and change that mentality by following a lifelong plan of eating. The third part is to control cravings.

She started surrounding herself with experts to help with the above plan, so she herself and others who followed could develop a different and healthier lifestyle.

The detox was to help the body get rid of damaging toxins. To stop dieting and control cravings, there needed to be the correct ingredients and whole foods. She also felt [as do many experts] that taking out dairy

“It is important to make every bite count to feel healthy and in turn, look good," Maru Davila says. products and gluten was important. Finally, natural supplements were also added. As she was working on all this, she realized that Mexican food had many detoxifying elements which could be used to make healthy meals that taste good, too. She founded her website, Flaca Forever, in 2013.

After developing and experimenting with different recipes, her cookbook, The Mexican Food Diet was published in 2017.

She wanted the cookbook to contain healthy, but delicious recipes and tips, so one would feel like they were eating in a tasty and satisfying way without the deprivation that strict dieting can cause.

Today, she is a successful mom, author, healthy chef, integral nutritionist, and weight loss expert. As Davila says, “It is important to make every bite count to feel healthy and in turn, look good."

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FEATURE STORY | MIMI POLLAK

BUTTERFLY

PROJECT

Art and a meaningful lesson

T

here is something special about an artist who finds an expressive way to teach both children and adults about a moment in history that should never be forgotten. That artist is Cheryl Rattner- Price, who co-founded The Butterfly Project with educator Jan Landau in 2006. The Butterfly Project or Zikaron V’ Tikvah is a non-profit organization that uses art and education to remind and teach others, especially students, about Holocaust remembrance and the horrible tragedy that hatred and intolerance produced. This can lead to healing discussions about anti-Semitism, racism, and bullying, an important message in today’s environment.

For Rattner-Price, an artist who came to San Diego form the east coast in 1998, the Butterfly project is now her life’s work.

While living in New Jersey and New York, she had her own business and later opened up a studio where she created ceramics, tiles and mosaics. Although she was successful, it had been her dream since she was 15 to move out west. She arrived in San Diego in March 1998 with her one year old daughter and then husband, Michael Price. They had another daughter here. Rattner-Price is very proud of her daughters Emily, who is now 21, and Julia who is 18. The girls went to the San Diego Jewish Academy.

When she first came, Rattner-Price opened up a studio in Del Mar, but later decided to close it to spend more time with her family.

She became more involved with SDJA, and this led them to ask her to be their artist in residence. She helped the academy to create a very large free standing menorah —part of community work — on campus that represented the seven values of the school. It

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L’CHAIM SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE • OCTOBER 2018

was art with a message. She then teamed up with Landau, a former SDJA principal. The Butterfly Project, more art with a message, was born This non-profit is called the Butterfly Project because rather than deliver the lesson in a dry, conventional lecture, it is brought alive by painting ceramic butterflies.

The lessons are also made more relevant to the students by having actual survivors or children of survivors come and talk. For example, Sonia Fox-Ohlbaum, part of the education team, often shows the camp prison clothing that her father wore. It is a way of making the abstract more concrete and real.

Finally, there is something symbolic about a ceramic butterfly going through fire and being reborn. This is the kind of experience that stays with you. There are some beautiful butterfly installations in various locations, including San Diego Jewish Academy, along with many local schools and synagogues.

Rattner-Price and Landau created the Butterfly Project after being inspired by “The Paper Clips Project”. Students in Whitwell, Tennessee collected over six million paper clips to represent and honor the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust. The Butterfly Project wants to memorialize the 1.5 million children who perished in the Holocaust by having students of all ages paint ceramic butterflies. As Rattner-Price says, “the sweet spot is middle school students”.

The goal is to paint 1.5 million butterflies.

So far, they have visited classrooms in many parts of the United States and around the world, including Canada, Mexico, Israel, Australia, France, Tanzania, Cuba, Morocco, and Poland. They have also been to almost every synagogue in San Diego. They want to

permanently display the painted butterflies as symbols of resilience and hope.

On their website, they say that the project drew on inspiration not only from the Paper Clips project, but also from The Diary of Anne Frank and especially from the haunting poem, “The Butterfly” written by Pavel Friedmann while he was in Theresienstadt, as the Germans called it, or the Czech ghetto of Terezin. The last line of the poem is, “Butterflies don’t live here in the Ghetto”.

Friedmann died on April 6, 1942.

The Butterfly Project has grown and includes three members on the staff headed

by Rattner-Price, four members on the education team headed by Landau, and eight members on the Board of Directors. Together, they have made the Butterfly Project more successful in getting an important message out there, as they build larger networks.

The project now has an award-winning documentary about their work entitled, Not the Last Butterfly. This powerful film is another way of reaching out to the world.

They also have butterfly kits available to the public for $180. However, because of generous donations, they have kits exclusively for teachers and schools for $72. These kits include 36 ceramic butterflies for painting or glazing, glazes in various colors (acrylic paints are available for those who do not have access to a kiln to fire glazed butterflies), paintbrushes, and 36 unique bio cards that tell the story of an individual child who died in the Holocaust.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE BUTTERFLY PROJECT, VISIT THEBUTTERFLYPROJECTNOW.ORG.

BY STEPHANIE LEWIS | HUMOR

mazel

& mishagoss The (Jewish) Show Must Go On!

I

made a deal with a Broadway producer that I tweak famous shows (making them more Jewish) if he modifies Fiddler on the Roof to make it more gentile. Seemed a fair trade, right? Here’s what I did: Katz — Explores the nine lives of petty (or shall we say catty?) females (all married to men with Jewish last name ‘Katz’) discovering how they always manage to land on their feet.

But by the end of the 2nd act, Curiosity killed the Katz and the cast!

Blessed Side Story — Jewish grandkids with terrible allergies listen to their relatives singing, “G-d Bless You!” in Hebrew, Yiddish, German, Polish, and Russian whenever they sneeze. Gesundheit much?

The Music Man-ischewitz — Owner of the famed Kosher food company quits to become a musician. Forget 76 Trombones — 613 Piano keys anyone?

Miriam Poppins — Israeli nanny floats from the sky holding oversized Shabbos candlesticks, coaxing two tots into downing their medicine with a spoonful of shakshuka.

The Sound of Mitzvahs — Zero nuns so there’s nobody to solve the problem of Maria.

But the hills are alive with the sound of mitzvahs.

The Pushke of the Opera — This phantom Tzedakah box wears a white mask, but the scarier thing is … you don’t get tax deductions.

Brei Brei Birdie — Jewish ornithologist

discovers a rare species that (during Passover!) hatches eggs in nests already scrambled with Matzo.

Ima (Mama) Mia — Jewish moms sing songs written by devoted husbands who formed a popular 70’s band called “Abba” — because that’s what their children call them in Hebrew, of course!

Les Mashuganables — Nutty people dress in rags thinking the sadder the show and the more people who suffer and die, the more awards they’ll win. Correct!

Beauty and the Brisket — Be our guest at this delectable dinner with gorgeous side dishes. With lyrics like, “Try the kosher stuff, it’s delicious. Don’t believe me? Ask the fleishig dishes!” — it’s sure to be a real mashgiach crowd-pleaser.

Little Shop of Haggadahs — store selling easy to follow pamphlets making it simple to lead a Passover Seder with everyone literally on the same page.

Hello Bialy! — The “hole” premise of this show can be summed up as “what’s the difference between a bagel and a bialy?” And if you know the answer then sing along – “Well Hello Bialy, you’re looking swell, Bialy! It’s so nice to have you back where you belong!”

Note: Originally “Hello Deli!” but my fave restaurant refused to serve me corned beef on rye if I stole their name for my musical.

Shalomalot — Spoof on Spamalot which was a spoof on Camelot which means nobody in the show knows whether they’re coming

or going since Shalom means both hello and goodbye.

Annie Get Your Gelt — A poor Jewish cowgirl celebrates Chanukah wanting a new horse, but only receives gelt. And 8 pairs of new socks.

Man of La Mensch-a — Still working on a good plot, err plotz!

You’re a Big Macher, Charlie Brownberg — “Good Grief” replaces “Good Shabbos!”

The Rocky Haftorah Picture Show — It’s a rocky start but can the Bar Mitzvah boy make it through his Haftorah before pelted with candy?

The Wizard of Oy! — If I only had a brain, I could think up something far better than, “I don’t think we’re in Tel Aviv anymore, Toto.”

Here’s what the Broadway Producer did: Fiddler on the Spoof — Tevye is dressed in a red Santa suit high atop a roof (and not because Fiddler is giving him a violin lesson up there!) about to slide down the chimney laden with gifts.

Uh, I don’t think so …. the deal’s off … But that’s show biz, folks!

STEPHANIE D. LEWIS CONTINUES TO WRITE COMEDY FOR THE HUFFINGTON POST AS WELL AS PENNING HER OWN HUMOR BLOG AT ONCEUPONYOURPRIME.COM

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Y SUNDA 21st

ER OCTOB

B’Nai Mitzvah Bash October 21, 2018 Hilton San Diego Resort on Mission Bay

er Carol Leif

Todd Kobernick

Entertainment by Carol Leifer Comedian, TV writer and author Honoring camp cofounder Todd Kobernick

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L’CHAIM SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE • OCTOBER 2018

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