Celebrating Women and Mother’s Day
Supplement to Jewish News April 26, 2021 jewishnewsva.org | April 26, 2021 | Women | JEWISH NEWS | 13
Women Dear Readers, This will be my first Mother’s Day without my mom. R I S T O R A N T E
As much as I miss her—it’s been just three months—I remind myself often how fortunate I was to have her for so many Mother’s Days and birthdays and every days.
I N S P I R E D
B Y
I T A LY
I don’t recall when she started the habit, but on Mother’s Day, my mom would give me gifts, and eventually, also my daughters. She always wanted to share—and besides, she would say, I made her a mom and my daughters made her a grandmother. So, why not? In addition to how she observed holidays, my mom had her own special perspective on so many things. For instance, she always reminded me that there were ‘three sides to every story—her side, his side, and the truth.’ When planning an event, she told me, ‘people won’t remember what you served, but they’ll remember if they weren’t invited.’ During my dating decades (she thought I’d never get married), she always told me, ‘don’t marry for money. It’s the hardest money you’ll ever make.’ I could go on and on with examples of her philosophies in her trademark one-liners, but I’ll save some for another time. Still, I’m sure you get the idea. Those are the real gifts she gave—gifts that I cherish and live by each day. So, I plan to celebrate this Mother’s Day focusing on some of my favorite memories of my mother, thinking about the love she shared, her practical wisdom, and the cookies she baked. And like she did, I’ll celebrate my daughters who made me, I’m certain,
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Terri Denison Editor
Women Tovah Feldshuh Gets Deep About Jewish Motherhood Emily Burack
(Kveller)—Being Jewish, Tovah Feldshuh writes, is all about schmoozing, suffering, and guilt. But to her, it’s not just those three things—it’s so much more. Being Jewish defines her, and it’s simply everything. “My Judaism is like a third leg that goes down deep into the earth that lies between my two legs. It’s a ballast. It’s an anchor. It’s a shortcut to be intimate with millions of other people, particularly Jews,” Feldshuh explains. “I love being Jewish. And one of the reasons I love being Jewish because my father loved being Jewish and I loved my father. He loved it. I loved it.” “What it means for me to be Jewish? A man just passed with Hebrew on the back of his T-shirt—it means that I could have a conversation with a stranger,” she adds.
The actress, 68, spoke to Kveller as she sat on a bench in New York’s Central Park. She often paused in order to say hello to a nearby child, comment on the happenings of the New Yorkers around her, or, to my delight, break into song. (If you want Tovah Feldshuh to sing to you, too, download the audiobook of her forthcoming memoir.) A career actress, she is known for her iconic Jewish roles on stage and screen. She originated the role of Yentl on Broadway in 1975; played Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in Golda’s Balcony, which became the longest-running one-woman play in Broadway history; portrayed fictional Jewish partisan Helena Slomova in Holocaust, the Emmy-winning miniseries (that also starred Meryl Streep); and played Jessica Stein’s mom, Judy, in Kissing Jessica Stein. More recently, Feldshuh appeared as Naomi Bunch, the
Jewish mother in Rachel Bloom’s musical comedy Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and politician Deanna Monroe in The Walking Dead, the role she is most often recognized for. To list all her credits, we’d be here for hours. Feldshuh’s new memoir, Lilyville: Mother, Daughter, and Other Roles I’ve Played, touches on her career, but is not the type of book you would expect from a legendary actress. It’s a moving and at times laugh-out-loud funny story of mother and daughter. (But yes, there’s some classic Hollywood memoir details: If you’re a theater fan, you will be delighted by the anecdotes of Barbra Streisand, Broadway auditions, and Tony parties.) “What hit me, on the heels of the death of my mother at over 103, was: I’d like her to live forever, like any child who loves their mother. And, she was hilarious, caustic, and wise. That caustic, unique, hilarious humor and wisdom
should get out into the world,” she says. “I’m hoping that Lilyville, in part, hits the river of common human experience. And I certainly trust it will hit the river of common Jewish mother experience.” Feldshuh’s relationship with her mother was not always easy, though. “She did not express her love with words. She never told me she loved me. And I would say that created a slight black hole in my early socialization and influenced my whole life. And she meant well, it just wasn’t her thing,” she says. “I found it very difficult. So, I went into the theater. How lonely could you be in a play where you know the story beforehand?” She made her Broadway debut in 1973, early after graduating from Sarah Lawrence College and won the McKnight Fellowship to study at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. However, Tovah Feldshuh continued on page 20
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Women Federation Women’s Division: Hard at work, even during a pandemic Amy Zelenka
T
he past 12 months have been unlike any before them in myriad ways. No one can argue with that. However, in other ways, it’s been business as usual for United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s Women’s Division—with creative programming and fundraising. This year’s Women’s Cabinet, chaired by Mona Flax, made calls, sent letters, texts, and emails, and in some rare cases, met face-to-face with donors throughout the community, asking for gifts of support for the Community Campaign, as well as the COVID-19 Emergency Relief campaign. And those efforts paid off! On April 16, 2021, the UJFT Community Campaign stood at $4,576,200 from 1,232 individual gifts of support (just $123,000 from its goal of $4.7 million), and the Women’s Division accounts for $1,414,100 of that total. In addition to the $4.5
million+, more than $300,000 came in for COVID Emergency Relief. What an incredibly generous community! While the central purpose of the Women’s Division is to raise funds from
area women, there are also plenty of opportunities for fun, education, and social programming. And, even during a pandemic, those opportunities abounded. Back in July, at the very start of the
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campaign year, the Women’s Cabinet kicked off with a virtual (online) mission to the Jewish communities of Minsk, Belarus and Sofia, Bulgaria… all through the magic and brilliance of UJFT’s overseas mission host (and service delivery partner), the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (the JDC). Throughout the course of the three-part mission, participants “met” with elderly homebound Jews receiving services from JDC through food delivery, on-line fitness classes, on-line and over-the-phone counseling, and regular welfare checks. It was the teen volunteers in the community who delivered their meals, bringing with them not just food, but energy and hope to what might otherwise have been a beleaguered group of seniors, feeling isolated and alone. Mission participants met those Active Jewish Teens (AJT) finding ways to build community during isolation and engage in meaningful volunteerism. The AJT kids inspired participants beyond belief, showing that there is every reason to hope for a successful future for the Jewish communities of Belarus and Bulgaria. Despite the mission taking place online, participants engaged in real-time, interactive programming throughout, which included a short work-out session with the community’s fitness trainer (who does the same exercises with his homebound seniors) and sewing face masks with the teens. The group also met with Jewish community professionals and lay leaders in both countries to learn about the unique challenges facing each community and how they are addressing them head on. The mission was followed by a couple of outstanding women speakers—The Women’s Ruby Lion event, co-chaired by Karen Lombart and Annie Sandler, was a true celebration of Tidewater’s Jewish community—this “place we call home.” It welcomed guest speaker Marina Yudborovsky, chief executive officer at Genesis Philanthropy Group to the community (live via Zoom). Marina talked about her childhood in Russia, and how resettling in America planted the seeds
Women
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for her journey to Jewish philanthropy, and her eventual position at Genesis. The Lion-TikvaChai Lunch (also on-line) brought guest speaker Meredith Jacobs to the screen. Jacobs is an award-winning journalist and best-selling author, and she is CEO of Jewish Women International. Jacobs talked a good deal about Jewish life on campus and about the role that young Jews can play in strengthening each other against the slings and arrows that “life” throws at them, especially as young people, young women, and young Jews. This year’s hybrid Super Sunday event, held in September, saw great success, thanks in large part to the women volunteer solicitors calling from the Sandler Family Campus and from home. They conveyed their passion for the Jewish community and the imperative for supporting the campaign this year in particular, with every call they made. The women also took center stage in helping to decide which authors would visit Tidewater this year, as they attended the Jewish Book Council Conference in droves. And what an amazing job they did, working with UJFT/Simon Family JCC’s Cultural Arts department to come
Mom may have had a hard time recalling names when you spoke with her over the phone the last few times, but you weren’t prepared for what you found during a recent visit. While you were happy to see her again, you were concerned. It was clear the carpets needed vacuuming and the bathrooms had not been scrubbed in some time. Most worrisome, however, was Mom’s appearance. She looked like she’d lost a lot of weight.
sadness can be staggering. Now is the time to make a plan and find a senior living community that you would both feel comfortable with, rather than being forced to make a choice in an emergency.
Here are some tips for discussing your concerns with your loved one: • Remind Mom or Dad that you love them and are worried about their wellbeing. • Ask what he/she would need to happen for them to decide it was time to move. • Discuss his/her concerns about senior living and what he/she would like to see in a community.
to consensus on which authors would provide the wow-factor here in Tidewater. The Women’s Division will close the 2021 Campaign with a Women’s Cabinet Installation Lunch in May, featuring the return of one of its favorite guest speakers, Michal Barkai Brody. An Israeli, Brody is a women’s advocate, activist, and social entrepreneur. The Women’s Cabinet is bringing her “back” to Tidewater (this time via Zoom) by popular demand. This year’s Women’s Cabinet Spring Lunch will welcome new cabinet members and thank and recognize those completing their terms of service. As the 2021 campaign winds down, the Women’s Division can look back on their many successes in the face of extraordinary challenges. So maybe it wasn’t exactly business as usual.… Perhaps it can better be described “business as… meaningful, productive, and a lot of fun.” Amy Zelenka is United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s campaign director.
For many families, sheltering in place due to COVID opened their eyes to the side effects of isolation. You may wonder if Mom is safe? Is she happy? The combination of guilt, fear, and
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Women FIRST PERSON
Motherhood reflections on shared traditions Naomi Limor Sedek
W
hen I was in college, I remember saying to my friends that I did not want to be a mother. It came with responsibility that I did not want. As a mother, you are given a precious gift, yet it comes with no instruction manual and no way to know that you’ll get it right. And, I always wanted to get things right (type “A” here). Three years after that conversation, I was married and gifted my first child. Five years later, we were a family of five. My heart was full and I had learned that there was no right way to raise a child. This precious gift of motherhood comes with awesome power, responsibility, and promise. A legacy to our lives. As a grandchild of four Holocaust survivors, I didn’t have a legacy of cherished items like photos or candlesticks to pass down to my children as reminders of where they came from. Rather, we had more intangible gifts to share between the generations; stories, values, hopes, dreams, and philanthropic aspirations as part of my legacy that I wanted to share with my children. In honor of Mother’s Day and celebrating the influence of women this year, I wanted to talk about creating a shared tradition of philanthropy across generations. As parents, we can influence, engage, and empower our children specifically around the values of tzedakah and repairing the world. Role-modeling and conversations about giving to charity will affect children as they develop into adulthood. Our children have watched us attend fundraising dinners for organizations we support and watched us when we rolled down our car windows to buy the paper that gives a livelihood to the homeless in our community. They’ve participated in their own giving when we send them to school with their own tzedakah, put coins in the pushka before we light candles for Shabbat, or when they open a B’nai Tzedek Fund at the time of 18 | JEWISH NEWS | Women | April 26, 2021 | jewishnewsva.org
their Bar/Bat Mitzvah. Parents play an important role in preparing their children to become charitable adults. We should talk and role-model charitable giving with our children throughout their adolescence and share the values from which our philanthropic actions spring. Parents need to ask themselves, “Do my children know that I give to charity? Do they know which charities I give to? Do they know why I give, and why I give to those specific charities?” We can communicate these values purposefully with our children. I have personally found the best time for these conversations was during carpool rides or around the dinner table. Open dialogue, thoughtful conversations, and age-appropriate explanations about giving are helpful strategies for raising charitable children and future leaders in our community. This is a life-long conversation—it should continue even when our children become adults. My children are now 18, 21, and almost 23; two girls and a boy in the middle. We spend time talking about their charitable interests as well as ours. Sometimes we come to a consensus and sometimes we each have our specific areas we want to impact. Almost always at this point, we agree that we have an ongoing responsibility and commitment of support to the Jewish community where we are and where we hope it will be. The ongoing intergenerational wealth transfer has deepened interest from parents and scholars alike in understanding more about how the transmission of generosity occurs. For philanthropy, this unprecedented transfer opens up tremendous possibilities. The Jewish community is no different and engaging in these types of conversations with our children in their 20s, 30s, and upwards is critical to ensuring the future of the Jewish community. Right now, there is an unprecedented opportunity to secure the funds necessary for a vibrant Jewish future. Over the
Women next 25 years, a mind-boggling $68 trillion will transfer to the next generation, with $6.3 trillion allocated to charity. We estimate that 20 percent of this allocation, or $1.26 trillion charitable dollars, will be given from Jewish donors. This is why the Jewish Future Pledge exists and why the Tidewater Jewish Foundation is engaged in the process, partnering with United Jewish Federation of Tidewater and Naomi Limor Sedek (second from right) and her family. all of our LIFE & LEGACY partners. This will help address the need for these But whose values and whose charities multi-generational conversations to take are questions that can disrupt family harplace and enable us to articulate our own mony. These questions can be difficult and “whys” and engage in the conversation with do not happen organically, particularly our adult children to pass on the “giving when multiple generations are involved. mantle.” Together we can do our part in our Families can make choices with their community to help ensure that more than philanthropic resources; they may allocate $600 billion is set aside for Jewish causes a portion of the funds for each member’s when wealth is transferred from this generinterests, or they may create a family philation to the next. anthropic mission statement that is broad Parental giving matters for the interenough to encompass them all. Parents generational transmission of generosity. may choose to endow specific areas of However, sons and daughters are receivinterest and then pass philanthropic ing different messages—or responding resources to the next generation for them to those messages in different ways. to make their own decisions. This is the Heightened awareness about the gap in avenue we have chosen for our family. I charitable giving between sons and daughhave endowed my gift to the Federation ters suggests opportunities to increase Annual Campaign, made legacy gifts to awareness and develop traditions around organizations I care about, and am setting giving intentionally. up donor-advised funds for my children We should engage children in philthrough the Bnai Tzedek program. We at anthropic practice year-round, not just TJF can help facilitate these conversations around the holidays and special occaaround family philanthropic planning. sions like Bar/Bat Mitzvahs or other For families, philanthropy can serve as happy occasions. As my children grew the tie that binds. Transmitting the “genup, watching us as parents give wasn’t erosity gene” from one generation to the enough. The transmission of the philnext is the first stepping-stone to creating anthropic spirit required a deep-seated a strong foundation for the continuity of connection to influencing the world and family giving and volunteering. supporting causes that not only we, as Intentionality and open communiparents, care about, but also incorpocation are key to the intergenerational rate the values and experiences that our transmission of generosity. Think about next generation has grown to care about how you share your passion for giving as well. Incorporating discussion about with your children and grandchildren. Do caring for and helping others at family you talk about your giving and volunteermeals and gatherings, reading books ing candidly? Do you explain why caring that illustrate philanthropic values and for others is important to you? describing our charitable activities, and Here are a few starter questions on why we are involved, are purposeful and how to open a dialogue with family memdeliberate strategies to ensure that the bers about philanthropy: transmission of values occurs from one • How did you learn about generation to the next. philanthropy?
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• Who were your role models? • What are the traditions you had in your family around giving and volunteering when you were growing up? What traditions have you instituted in your own family? • What do you value, and how do you apply those values in your philanthropy? • How can we as a family make a difference in our community and the world? What causes can we support together to effect that change? Advisors at Tidewater Jewish Foundation are available to help facilitate
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discussions on topics such as what causes you are passionate about, what charities you want to support, or more importantly, what impact you want to make and what legacy you want to leave for future generations. I hope I get the chance to engage in these meaningful conversations with your family just as I have with my own. Our future is depending on it. I look forward to getting to know members of this community better. Do not hesitate to reach out. Naomi Limor Sedek is Tidewater Jewish Foundation’s president and CEO. She may be reached at nsedek@ujft.
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Women continued from page 15
was, quite literally, not always Tovah Feldshuh. Born Terri Sue Feldshuh, she changed her name after graduation. Her mother’s reaction? “We didn’t come to this country for you to change your name to Tovah!” It was Michael Fairchild, a college love of Feldshuh’s, who said, “Terri Sue doesn’t fit you at all. Were you called anything else?” To which she replied, “I was called Tovah in Sunday school.” Fairchild replied, “Tovah! Now That’s a name!” Her first role on Broadway was in Cyrano, which starred the late Christopher Plummer. “He was very kind to me,” she says. “He liked me very, very much. And not just because I was young and pretty, but because I did my work and never let him down. I had one scene with him. I had the first line of my first show on Broadway—I opened the show [singing], ‘oranges, pomegranates. lemonade.’” And with that, she hit the ground running 18 months later she landed her breakout role in Yentl, a role she believes she got, partly, thanks to her name. For Lily, Feldshuh’s best roles had nothing to do with the quality of the performance—it was how she appeared in character that mattered. “I rate your parts by how you look: Dolly Levi is a 10, Golda Meir, zero,” Feldshuh says, channeling her mother’s thick Bronx accent. “If you’re pretty, great. If you’re ugly, what do I need to look at this for?” As she details in Lilyville, much of Feldshuh’s relationship with her mother was fraught. “My mother did not answer my fondest wish as a child, which was to tell me she loved me.” And here, Feldshuh, who has, until now, been talking a mile a minute, pauses. “It’s interesting, at my wedding, it just hit me. I’ve never said this to anybody. At my wedding, I sang a song that goes, ‘Tell me please. Does anybody love you? Do you have a secret love affair? Someone who worries about you? Who’s always true, and tender too, and waits for you somewhere? So please say, does anybody love you? For by some lucky chance, the answer is no. And you don’t have anyone to love you. Then do you mind if I do? Because I love you so.’ I actually sang
that at my wedding to my groom. But I realized, why did I choose that lyric? Why did that lyric move me so much? Because there was an absence of those three words from my mother.” Feldshuh, now a mother and grandmother, believes in a different method of parenting, one more rooted in unconditional love. “My greatest advice to anybody who’s parenting is: Put in your child what you hope for your child. When you put that child to bed, you say, ‘I am the luckiest mother in the world because I have such a kind, good empathic child.’ I remember [my daughter] Amanda used to say, ‘what em-pa-thic, Mama?’ And I would say, ‘to feel with people.’ And I kept putting these virtues into them. Likewise, if you’re constantly manifesting your love by fixing people, and correcting and correcting them, the real message is they’re not good enough. They’re not measuring up. I got a lot of that. It is very disempowering.” “You will have to be a great listener as a parent to see what’s wanted and needed in the space of the child,” she adds. “And more than that, [the] only place you get unconditional love in this world is from immediate family. When children go out of the house, they need to be equipped with an abundance of love to take forth into the world.” In her role as Naomi Bunch on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, she played that constantly correcting, tough-love type of Jewish mother—and although some may view Naomi as a larger-than-life stereotype, Feldshuh can understand where she’s coming from. “Preserve and protect is the motto of the Jewish people. It’s that old cliché, ‘They tried to kill us, they failed, let’s eat.’ Therefore, to protect the child, you have to make sure the child’s on the right path. So, you correct the child to protect the child, thinking that this is your one obligation to teach. But too much correction is so disempowering.” Ultimately, she hopes people who read Lilyville leave hopeful. “There is no relationship that cannot be worked out,” she says. “It can be worked out. There’s a saying that a branch, in order to bear fruit, must learn to bend. So, my mother and I bent toward each other.”