Vol. LXXXVI No. 29 Omaha, NE
Celebrating 86 Years of Service to Nebraska and Western Iowa
11 Nisan, 5766 March 30, 2007 3 Sections
Page 2
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
March 30, 2007
The Blumkin Home at 25: a New Beginning Several years ago, a small committee formed by Jewish Senior Services and the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home met to begin an investigative process that would eventually lead to a decision to rebuild, remodel, renovate and expand the current facility. Quietly and with little fanfare, decisions were made: about quality of life for residents, the need for meal preparation, delivery, dining and storage, space for visitors and families, the needs of short-stay rehab patients and residents with dementia, as well as space for staff for counseling, physical therapy, activities and the like. Then came the hard part: raising funds. A major portion of this, too, was undertaken with class and dignity. And now, just six weeks from the kick-off of the community campaign for “A New Beginning” on May 6, the Jewish Press presents its own salute to the 25th anniversary of the Blumkin Home. Some issues are easier than others to compile. This is one of them. The cooperation from the staff and volunteers at the Home was (and still is) so generous and unfailing, that the question, “What can we do for you?” must be, we assume, a part of the Home’s lexicon. Of course, even in an issue this size, it is impossible to cover every aspect of 25 years at such a respected institution. What we’ve tried to accomplish in these pages, is a “taste of life at the Home” throughout this past quarter century, from interviews and lots of photos of residents and staff to profiles of the steering committee, and historical perspectives. We’ve also included articles on important auxiliary organizations -- like L.O.V.E., the League Offering Volunteers for the Elderly, and the Home’s relationship to the National Council of Jewish Women-Omaha Section.
And, of course, readers will learn about the devotion of volunteers to such longtime programs as the Singalong group and the Shabbat service leaders, among others. But, no, we could not cover it all. The large group of dedicated nurses, some of whom have been here practically from the beginning, will get their own special feature in our July 13 Health & Wellness issue, and, as the “New Beginning” campaign proceeds, we’re sure to publish profiles of more volunteers and staff associated with this venerable institution. We do want to extend a special thank you to a few people, without whom this issue would not be possible: • Mike Silverman, executive director of the JSS/RBJH, continues to be the leader of the “what can we do to help” school, along with staff members Phyllis Gentry, Maggie Conti, Lois Wine, Shelli Fox, Shane Kotok, and others, as well as writers Andrea Bartman and Ozzie Nogg; • Bob Belgrade, Joanie Bernstein, Bob Lepp and Howard Kooper, who, as members of the steering committee along with the late Harlan Noddle, gave us behind-the-scenes information on the “who, what, where, when and why” of this project; • freelance writers Leo Adam Biga, Gloria Shukert Jones, Bert Lewis, Joan K. Marcus, and our college intern Anne Muskin, who dropped everything to schedule interviews and write the many stories in this large issue; • the Nebraska Jewish Historical Society staff, who gave us unfettered access to their archives; • the Press Committee, which debated many topics before giving the green light to this one without hesitation; and
Front cover, from the top: artist’s rendering of the soon-to-be rebuilt Rose Blumkin Jewish Home’s west entrance; photo of the cornerstone dedicated to Rose Blumkin and her children when the original Home opened in 1982; artist’s rendering of the 1982 Home’s east entrance and synagogue; photo of Blumkin Home resident Kiva Hornstein, used in the dedication ceremony of the Home in 1982.
• the many, many advertisers who support the Jewish Press because they know our readers are loyal and will support them in turn. Of course, the staff of the Jewish Press deserves a special mention, starting with Advertising Manager Allan Handleman and Advertising Executive Terri Greenwood, who outdid themselves in both number of ads and revenue for this issue, and Managing Editor Richard Busse, who not only created and recreated fabulous ads, but made color separations and updates, organized and electronically transmitted our pages to our printer, Suburban Newspapers, Inc. Additional thanks go to Lori Kooper Schwarz, Assistant Managing Editor, for her dedication to transforming rough copy into finished pages, scanning photos, and making corrections; and to Barbara Kirkpatrick, who is currently inundated with updating invoices for this issue which she’ll have to input next week. (And it’s a short week, as we’re closed Tuesday and Wednesday, April 3-4, for the first two days of Passover.) Finally, volunteers Dottie Rosenblum and Suzanne Singer deserve special recognition for their constant devotion to this newspaper. Not a week goes by that they don’t stop in to ask - like the mantra at Jewish Senior Services, “What can I do for you?” Their suggestions and assistance to the Press staff are invaluable. We hope you enjoy this salute to the Blumkin Home and will read it and re-read it. And finally, we wish you a happy, healthy, prosperous and peaceful Passover! Carol Katzman, Editor Howard K. Marcus, Chairman
EARLY DEADLINE NOTICE Because the Press is closed for the first two and last two days of Passover, the deadline for the April 13 issue is Monday, April 2, 9 a.m.
(Founded in 1920) Howard K. Marcus Chairman Carol Katzman Editor Richard Busse Managing Editor Allan Handleman Advertising Manager Lori Kooper-Schwarz Assistant Managing Editor Terri Greenwood Advertising Executive Barbara Kirkpatrick Bookkeeper Anne Muskin Editorial Intern Jewish Press Committee Bobbi Leibowitz, Vice-Chairman; Stan Mitchell, Secretary; Scott Meyerson, Treasurer; Michael Siegel, Finance Chairman; Joanie Jacobson, Immediate Past-chairman; David Herzog; Susan Lehr; Jamie Meyerson; George Quittner; Melissa Schop; Michael Sigmond; Jim Simon; Nancy Skid; and Dorothy Spizman. The role of the Jewish Federation of Omaha is to involve Jews in meeting Jewish communal needs locally, nationally and in Israel. Centers of Excellence of the Federation are: Community Relations, Jewish Community Center, Center for Jewish Education, Jewish Family Service, and Jewish Senior Services. The Jewish Press is a constitutional committee of the Jewish Federation. Editorials express the view of the writer and are not necessarily representative of the views of the Jewish Press Jewish the Committee, Federation of Omaha or the Omaha Jewish community as a whole. The Jewish Press reserves the right to edit signed letters and articles for space and content. The Jewish Press is not responsible for the Kashrut of any product or establishment. Editorial The Jewish Press is a Constitutional Committee of the Jewish Federation of Omaha. Deadline for copy, ads and photos is: Thursday, 9 a.m., eight days prior to publication. E-mail editorial material and photos to: ckatzman@jewishomaha.org; send ads (in .TIF or .PDF format) to: rbusse@jewishomaha.org. Letters to the Editor Guidelines The Jewish Press welcomes Letters to the Editor. They may be sent via regular mail to: The Jewish Press, 333 So. 132 St., Omaha, NE 68154; via fax: 1-402-334-5422 or via e-mail to the Editor at: ckatzman@jewishomaha.org.. Letters should be no longer than 250 words and must be singlespaced typed, not hand-written. Published letters should be confined to opinions and comments on articles or events. News items should not be submitted and printed as a “Letter to the Editor.” The Editor may edit letters for content and space restrictions, but should be printed as soon as possible to ensure timeliness. Letters may be published without giving an opposing view. Information shall be verified before printing. All letters must be signed by the writer, but the name can be withheld at the writer’s request. No letters should be published from candidates running for office, but others may write on their behalf. Letters of thanks should be confined to commending an institution for a program, project or event, rather than personally thanking paid staff, unless the writer chooses to turn the “Letter to the Editor” into a paid personal ad or a news article about the event, project or program which the professional staff supervised. For more information, contact Carol Katzman, Jewish Press Editor, 402.334.6450. Postal The Jewish Press (USPS 275620) is published weekly on Friday for $33 per calendar year U.S.; $40 foreign, by the Jewish Federation of Omaha. Phone: 402.334.6448; FAX: 402.334.5422. Periodical postage paid at Omaha, NE. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: The Jewish Press, 333 So. 132 St., Omaha, NE 68154-2198 or e-mail to: jpress@jewishomaha. org.
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A good match for a “New Beginning” when the Home was first built in 1981-82.” by CAROL KATZMAN Belgrade’s attachment to the Home is obvious, said Editor of the Jewish Press It’s just shy of five years that Michael Silverman, his Silverman. “Bob’s been an amazing president,” he said. wife, Mimi, and their two sons, Adam and Jeremy, “I remember calling my wife when I interviewed here arrived in Omaha, but what a whirlwind it’s been since! and telling her that this young guy had given me a tour In addition to the “New Beginning,” the major reno- of Omaha. ‘He’s so nice,’ I told Mimi. ‘If everyone in vation, remodeling and rebuilding of the Rose Blumkin town is like him, what a fantastic place!’” But the two leaders, Silverman on the staff side and Jewish Home on which he, his staff and a cadre of dedicated volunteers have only recently embarked, Belgrade on the volunteer side of the partnership, don’t Silverman set about to accomplish several other major challenges. In an interview between meetings and more meetings, the executive director of Jewish Senior Services/the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home explained. “The most significant change is that the Home’s rehab visits have grown exponentially,” he said candidly. While post-hospital rehabilitation or “shortstay” residencies do mean “intense paper work and nursing coverage,” the average number of rehab patients has doubled, and in Meeting each Thursday to review progress on the Home’s “New Beginning” are: Tom Lindstrom January, tripled, what the of Hawkins Construction, right, architect Mike Purdy of Purdy & Slack, Mike Silverman, execHome originally budgeted. utive director of JSS/RBJH, David Pitlor of Pitlor & Sons, Bob Bloechle, also of Hawkins, Ray The fact that the “New Jack of Hiller Electric, and Mike Collier, Jewish Community Campus manager. Other staff meet Beginning” steering com- with the group too, like Kimberly Overton, Director of Interiors for Leo Daly. mittee recognized that trend is a tribute to its members, according to this young exec. “What’s happening nationally isn’t always what’s best for Omaha,” he explained. “Other communities were building assisted living facilities on the grounds of their nursing homes, cottages, even greenhouses, but we looked around at the good job already being done by assisted living facilities here in Omaha and decided that wasn’t going to be our niche.” Joanie Bernstein, who as board president, helped Silverman make the transition, says his task was two fold: “We wanted him to refine our operations and build a new Home.” The committee did consider assisted livBob Belgrade Michael Silverman ing in the beginning, but she, Bob Belgrade, Howard shy away from controversial Kooper, Bob Lepp, and Harlan Noddle items. “We talk tough top(who died in 2005) soon realized that the ics,” Silverman noted. “But Home was literally breaking new ground. there are no road blocks. The buzz words sound great, Silverman The board is willing to listen says, “but when outsiders tell us what to and debate and in the end, do when we’re all grown up, I tell them, they appreciate what I’m ‘We are grown up!’”He says this commutrying to do.” nity “is smart enough to decide what it Belgrade added that “We wants for itself.” are fortunate that the right He also noted that this is one of the few pieces have converged at the communities where out-of-town children same time to allow us to call call the social workers at JCC/RBJH undertake our new major to request they check up on their elderly challenge.” But he insists he parents. There’s no charge to do that, is just “a member of an Silverman says, reiterating his statement in incredibly outstanding a 2002 interview, “Of course, the board of directors. My role Blumkin Home supports the Jewish elderduring construction is really ly in our community, regardless of their the same as any other time; ability to pay.” Eddie Belgrade, Bob’s father, served on the there are always challenges This short-stay, post-hospital recovery construction committee when the Home was and the building project is trend “is here to stay,” Silverman added. first built in 1981-82. certainly a significant underWe’ve all seen what has happened in health care, so we’ve adjusted to it.” The “New Beginning” will taking,” he added, “but philosophically, our board is have 24 beds solely devoted to rehab, and located in its consistent in providing the best circumstances in which the professional staff can excel.” own wing. “It’s a big deal for us.” Silverman might counter that his board does far more. And his board president, Bob Belgrade, agreed. “Mike has put the business operations of the Home in “You need some good characteristics to be a responsible very solid condition,” he told the Jewish Press. “The board member; our board listens, debates without getHome, and JSS, are very focused on our primary mission ting personal, and steps up when we ask. Bob’s mantra is ‘What can I do to help?’ And it’s usually anything I to serve Jewish seniors in our community.” Belgrade comes by his role as board president natural- ask,” he grins. Belgrade and Silverman just returned from the annual ly. He’s held several other high-level positions, including serving on the Federation board, its Budget and American Jewish Aging Services conference in New Allocation committee, the Jewish Community Center Orleans, where that community unveiled its rebuilt board and as president of the Nebraska Jewish Historical nursing home, following the destruction of Hurricane Society. And he’s a 1997 winner of the Federation’s Katrina. Silverman was elected vice chairman of AJAS. Now it’s back to more construction and the kick-off of Young Leadership Award. But it’s the legacy from his family that proves that con- the Community Campaign on May 6. “People give to successful projects,” Silverman said of tinuity is alive and well here. “My grandfather, Eli Zalkin, served as president of the Bureau for the Aging the “New Beginning” campaign. “They know this is a (the forerunner of JSS),” Belgrade said, “and my father, phenomenal community; they’re going to give time and Eddie Belgrade, chaired the construction committee money to do what’s best for our Jewish elderly.”
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 3
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March 30, 2007
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beautiful, modern structure -- which cost by BERT LEWIS If we’re going to brag about how great $225,000 -- was debt free, thanks to the the last quarter-century has been for our generosity of the small but very caring residents at the Rose Blumkin Jewish Jewish community of Omaha. A mind Home, I believe it behooves us to back boggling sidelight when speaking of up a little and perhaps give some credit money: the estimated cost for maintaining a resident was $4 per day. where credit is due. As early as 1961, the families of Mr. and To be fair, we need to back up more than a little -- we must go all the way Mrs. Louis Cherniak donated the funds back to 1917. That was the year the for the addition of a new wing, as a memoJewish community took the first steps rial to their parents. Known as the toward understanding its older citizens Cherniak-Chapman Pavilion, it had 12 sometimes required assistance from out- private rooms in addition to lounges and side the family. Remember, at that time if gardens, and was intended for the use of a mother or father was unable to maintain folks well enough to be fairly independent. Further expansion was realized with a private residence, the obvious answer was to move in with a married adult gift from Mr. and Mrs. Hymie Milder, child. Today, we know that wasn’t neces- which paid for the construction of the hospital wing, extending the already sarily always a wonderful arrangement. Having said that, I must wonder who excellent services available at Sher. This beautiful Home was the pride of was wise enough to gather a caring, intelligent group of citizens together, to dis- the community and served very well for cuss what must have been seen as a prob- the next decades. Many pages could be lem. I cannot name any one leader, but I can confirm that a group of women identified as the Daughters of Israel Aid Society adopted the project. They were the auxiliary of B’nai Israel Synagogue and while I can’t swear to this, in my heart I know none of them held graduate degrees in Gerontology or the Psychology of Human Behavior. I suspect they were simply good, caring Above: Jule M. Newman, left, and Herb Goldsten, were two Jewish ladies who saw a need major donors to the Blumkin Home who participated in the and felt compelled to groundbreaking in 1981. Below: Harlan Noddle, Chairman address it. of the Home’s Building Committee, speaks at the 1981 They raised the necessary groundbreaking in the JCC Auditorium. funds to purchase a simple frame house on 25th and Charles, with the all important mikvah (ritual bath) near by. They created what we today call a facility, but what was then thought of as an “Old People’s Home.” Furthermore, they supported and maintained this Home for its usual complement of five or six elderly residents for the next 20 some years. It wasn’t much, especially by modern standards, but it was truly the beginning -- the first step taken in what was to become a community obligation to care for the elderly. Think of it, a too small, understaffed, poorly located sub-standard old house--that was Chapter I in our story. Again, some members of the Jewish community must have begun to pay attention to the condition of this house, in addition to the issue of its less than ideal location. As a result, somewhere around 1940, there appeared to be some interest in doing something about a replacement. A building fund was created but never reached its goal, because World War II appeared to be imminent. Naturally, everything was put on hold for the next few years. Skip ahead to 1944 when the Jewish Federation got behind the unrealized dream and allocated $10,000 for the construction of a new Home for the Aged. A building fund was established and the movers and shakers of Jewish Omaha Dan Gordman was one of the many Jewish joined the effort. One of the most diligent was the community leaders who wielded a shovel for beloved Dr. Philip Sher, who was known, the 1981 groundbreaking ceremony. respected and loved by everyone. His filled, recounting the humanitarian work constant efforts advanced the cause accomplished and the loving care given in immeasurably. The necessary money was addition to providing a hamishe, confortraised and a site was purchased near 52nd able environment for many folks to live and Ames. The result? It took just 15 out a safe and secure life. months for completion and when the Those of us who research facts about doors opened, 35 elderly Jewish mem- such places know with certainty that until bers of the community moved in. 1981 the Dr. Philip Sher Home filled a At the formal dedication, the Home special need for countless elders. was named in honor of Dr. Sher. This Continued on page 5
March 30, 2007
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 5
In the beginning... Continued from page 4 Let’s skip to what may be called Part III, Home History: The Rose Blumkin Jewish Home, a facility known as probably the finest skilled care nursing home in the city. This wonderful building was state-of-the-art for its time when it opened in November of 1982, thanks to the initial generosity of Rose Blumkin and her family, By then, the professionals -- with Eugene Brandt as executive director -- who understood the needs of geriatric citizens, felt that our Jewish community really required a skilled nursing home, rather than the former concept of an “old peoples home.” That’s what was planned and built, and while it took the better part of a decade for people to stop calling (and thinking of) it as an “old folks home,” now it’s easily called the Blumkin Home and I think all know what it is. Since the day it opened, the Blumkin Home has undergone many changes, including the addition of an entire new wing, thanks again to the generosity of Mrs. B. Laws which govern the operation of such a care facility have dictated various other changes, but without exception the high quality of care and the expertise of the professionals has been a constant. Today, as on the day the first new resident applied for admission, the interviewer is apt to hear “My doctor says this is the best and he wanted me to come here.” All who are connected in any way to the RBJH listen with pride to these words. Eugene Brandt was an outstanding Executive Director until his health caused him to retire. His shoes were not easy to fill, but the gods of professional employment smiled on the Home, and Barbara Gottlieb came to take up residence in the executive director’s office in 1996.
Gottlieb was one of those professionals who hit the floor running. In an article written about her in September of 2000, it was said “She’s seldom still, always on the run, knows exactly what’s going on at all times in every corner of the building. In addition, she’s respected and loved by staff, residents and volunteers alike.” The accomplishments of this excellent exec were many, and as often happens, in 2002 she was tempted by a job offer elsewhere. An offer she couldn’t refuse, as the old saying goes. Again, however, we were incredibly fortunate to replace her with another pro, who soon The author, Bert Lewis, “breaks ground” in 1981, as other dignataries -- Saranne Gitnick, demonstrated he was at the top Eugene Brandt, Don Klein, Jim Farber and Jerry Milder -- wait their turns. of his game. With Mike Silverman at the helm since July of 2002, the Home runs care. Such is the kind of care people at the RBJH get. This is a somewhat abbreviated version of the history smoothly and well, and with great change in the near of the Home, in the Jewish community of Omaha, future. The plans for all the improvements, additions and total Nebraska. Since 1917 those who remember the Jewish refurbishment are well under way. Ultimately, when the adage “we take care of our own” have served in many Home construction is finished and the new look is in capacities. I believe it’s reasonable to wonder how much place, once more the Jewish community will know we would have been accomplished without the many, many have the very best for our seniors. Every need will be volunteers who worked through the years -- the people met, no matter what kind of specialized attention is who helped turn dreams into real estate. We need to thank them all, starting with the required. As the older population lives longer, health care pro- Daughters of Israel Aid Society. They knew “we take fessionals are called upon to truly practice state of the art care of our own” was more than just an expression.
Photos from left: Mary Fellman, who organized Shabbat afternoon onegs for Blumkin residents, breaks ground for the new Home in 1981, followed by Art Goldstein. Above: Mickey Sturm pins a corsage on Rose Blumkin -- Mrs. B -and her sister, Rebecca Friedman.
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Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
March 30, 2007
Attending the “Mrs. B. University” by JOAN K. MARCUS Rose Blumkin told her grandson Bob Batt, that she wanted all old people to have a nice place to live. It didn’t matter to her if they were rich or poor. She wanted it to be possible for everyone to live out his or her years in a good home with loving care. Batt, sitting in his “plain label” office at Nebraska Furniture Mart, spoke to the Jewish Press about growing up in the Blumkin/Batt family. Born in Omaha in 1948, he lived at 3824 Franklin St with his parents, Norman and Frances Blumkin Batt, and brother, Larry. His sister Ellie was born later. In 1951, the Batt family moved to 7001 Famam St., until the home was sold following the death of his mother in 2005. The children all graduated from Central High School. Bob smiles when he says, “In 1956, at Hebrew school, I met and became friends with Richard Jacobson. We just celebrated the 50-year anniversary of our friendship. We caused all kinds of trouble -- got thrown out of Hebrew school together -- but we’ve always been friends.” Bob remembers two diverse sides of the family. Says Batt, “My grandmother Bertha Batt was a traditional, stay-athome bubbe. I never had any Jewish food that wasn’t homemade until I was 35years-old.” On the other hand, Rose Blumkin was all business, he says. “She was all about ‘making a deal!’ She was the only woman in the family who worked at the Mart because she wanted her daughters to be traditional mothers. I thought all kids had one grandmother who cooked and another one who was only four foot, 10
inches tall, and yelled!” the business successful!” His mother had several projects in her Tzedakah was always life. One was managing Rose Blumkin stressed in the Batt houseand her affairs. The other was keeping hold. He remembers the every piece of history from the Blumkin pushke -- the tzedakah box family. -- on the top of the refrig“She began keeping history in the erator; he was taught that 1920s and ’30s and kept up until the day it was an obligation to she died in 2005,” he said. “I found all give charity, and that it is my report cards and records from school. the duty of every Jew to We have thousands and thousands of act justly and generously. photographs and papers that span more “My grandmother gave than 70 years.” money to various projects Batt reminisces that his mother, a child and programs in Israel at of the Great Depression, never forgot a very early time. She Bob that she had lived through bad financial planted a whole forest in years. No matter how much money she later had or how old she was, she never forgot the depression years. “When there’s no money, you can still have a lot of fun, but it’s still a tough way to grow up. My parents were both raised that way. If my grandmother needed to make more money and it meant selling furniture from our house, that was what happened.” Bob can remember Renee Kazor, left, assists Rose Blumkin (also known as ‘Mrs. B’) coming home one seated, to an event at the Home in her honor, accompanied by night and his bedroom Frances Batt, Mollie Franklin and Anne Rosenblatt, Mrs B’s sister. set was gone. “My mother said that Grandma Rose had a Israel and her philanthropy goes back a customer for it. Rose always left the price long way in different forms,” he said. tags on her own furniture in her home, “She understood publicity,” he added, even until she died -- just in case she had “but she didn’t do it for that. She just a customer for it! The object was to make gave.”
Mrs. B. gave money to everyone who was an immigrant. It didn’t matter to her if you came from Sicily or from Poland. “I still hear stories today from people whom she staked when they got here,” Batt says. “She gave them credit when nobody else would, and often a job at the Mart.” There are a number of Jews who escaped right before World War II Batt broke out, survivors of the Holocaust and Russian refugees who owe their livelihoods to Mrs. B. In 1961, Bob went to work at the Mart, too. He was the ripe old age of 13 but was expected to work. “We sold toys in those days. After that, I learned about mattresses. Of my generation, there are 12 cousins. We all worked in the store however, only three of us, Ron and Irv Blumkin and I stayed,” he explained. “My cousins and siblings left to take on other challenges.” Although Batt holds a degree in business law from the University of NebraskaOmaha, he says that his real education came from “Mrs. B. University.” “I used to take my grandmother Rose to work everyday and she would lecture to me in the car,” he smiles. “Her grandchildren were held to a standard that was five times as high as her children. Her children: Louie, Frances, Cynthia (Schneider) and Sylvia (Cohn), were all perfect, but the grandchildren were a different story.” Continued on page 7
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Mrs. B. University Continued from page 6 Later, he sent for Rose and she came to “As we drove to school, she taught me America not knowing any English. Her all of the fundamentals that I needed to neighbors told her that their father had know for my life. It was implied that we died to which Rose said, “That’s all needed to be honest. But, in addition to right!” When she realized what she had that, she said that the best friend I would said, she announced that she was coming ever have in my whole life was my moth- to a big city where they spoke her laner. She was right, and I spoke about it at guage. That was when she uprooted her my mother’s funeral,” Bob added. family and moved to Omaha. “After I was old enough to drive, my Schneider recalls, “My mother sent us grandmother would also commission me to Lake School when we first came to to take her for rides on Sunday. I would Omaha. When my sister Frances went, pick her up with her sisters and we would she came home and asked, ‘What kind of drive all over. One day, we were driving a stupid school did you send me to? My by the Dr. Sher Home and she told me teacher can’t speak a word of Yiddish!” that some people when they were older (never her) needed a ‘first class’ place to live. (Especially if their children dropped them off on the doorstep!)” “She thought that The Sher Home was “over the hill.” Everybody knew that she was right and the campaign for money started. That is when she said, “I’ll give a million dollars and some endowment funds.” He says her donation Above: Louie Blumkin, left, joins his mother, Rose Blumkin, Aunt was the biggest gift but Rebecca Friedman, and daughter-in-law Susie Blumkin for the supported only part of the groundbreaking of the new Rose Blumkin Jewish Home in 1981. building of the new Rose Below: ‘Mrs. B’ and her daughter, Frances Batt. Blumkin Jewish Home. In the days before Medicaid, his grandmother anonymously paid for poor people to live in the Home. “When people came to her for help, she didn’t ask any questions or require any applications. She always said that America had been good to her and she needed to repay someone,” Batt commented. “Business and making She laughs and adds, “My mother learned from all of us and she did learn to read a newspaper and always knew numbers. All the Jewish immigrants came to Elmwood Park on Sundays. One Sunday, when we got home, a lady named Mrs. Fisher called and asked my mother if she had forgotten something at the park. My mother exclaimed, ‘Oh my Cynthia front, and Frances outside the Davenport St. home G-d! I forgot my Louie!’” from which their mother, Mrs. B, often sold their household Mrs. B also taught her furniture. Right: Cynthia Blumkin Schneider. children that they weren’t money was always a game with my grand- “big shots,” she added. “Even though mother. She could have lived on her she did well and we had plenty, we were Social Security, but it was important that never to let it go to our heads, and we she succeed in America and that provide were always supposed to share what we for her family. My grandfather, Isadore had. She told us we could lose everything Blumkin, died in 1950 and he had run a or that we could get sick.” ‘jewelry and loan company.’ Actually, it Cynthia confirms the family stories was a pawn shop!” Batt said. related by Bob about the sale of the fur“The company always provided a good niture. “When I was 14, my mother had living for the whole family and Mrs. B. a ‘cash flow’ problem. When I brought could read a balance sheet. She always some of my friends home to see our new knew exactly how much money she had house on Davenport Street, I found that and she was always there to give some of Rose had sold all of the furniture. I cried it away,” noted Bob. because I didn’t understand that she “In 1951, she borrowed $50,000 to needed the money,” Cynthia smiled. buy merchandise. It was during The Blumkin family members report that at Korean War when it was hard to get mer- every family party, they were required to chandise, and we had to pay cash. She sing “God Bless America” because Mrs. borrowed that money and then it made B. was so happy to be an American. her crazy until she could pay it back. Cynthia noted, “The first priority on holThat’s when she rented the Omaha City idays was to sing. In the olden days, there Auditorium and sold everything that she were probably more than 100 Blumkin could in order to pay back the money so family members and we sang before the that she could sleep.” parties started!” Cynthia Schneider recalls hearing the Mrs B. is gone, and so are Bob’s parstory about her father coming to ents, Norman and Frances Batt. But their America, settling in Fort Dodge, Iowa, legacy lives on -- at the Rose Blumkin where they were in the junk business. Jewish Home.
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Bringing passion to their work by ANDREA BARTMAN for JSS/RBJH The activities staff at the Blumkin Home knows how to keep busy. Their role is to keep the residents of the Home in heavy supply of interesting and engaging programs and to make sure that the programs are tailored to individual needs. From the time one enters the building, you realize this is not the average nursing home. This skilled nursing facility is alive with events in which residents can participate. According to Maggie Conti, the director of Activities and Outreach Programs, “No other home has an activities staff like this one. Our ratio of staff to resident contact is invaluable.” Her staff includes three Activity Directors and two Activity Assistants who are busy daily with the business of entertaining and engaging the residents of the Home. Under the supervision of Conti, Colleen Busk, Cathy Carroll-Moriarty and Linda Fitzgerald operate as Activity Directors for the Home. Each of these motivated women spends her days interacting with residents and finding ways to enhance their lives. “For me, personally, to play a small part in enriching the lives of our beautiful residents is truly one of the greatest blessings of my life. To see their smiles and to fill their lives with some joy, understanding and compassion goes far beyond
Conti, who’s been with the RBJH for 17 years, is conscious of the merits of each individual on her staff. She praises Carroll’s recent Masters Degree in Social Work. She also commends Fitzgerald’s determination to “dig deeper” and explore the hidden passions of each of the residents she works with. Specifically, she tells how Fitzgerald will spend time with a resident talking and visiting about their past and their background until she finds what they’re passionate about. Conti has several examples of residents who were not participators in any events at the Home until approached by Fitzgerald. She was able to find what really moved them and encourage them to participate in their chosen area. “It’s magical and inspiring to see how they respond to her,” says Conti of Fitzgerald. “I, myself, have learned so much from watching her.” Busk is also a member of the staff who’s filling a specific niche. With the title of Certified Therapeutic Recreational Specialist, she’s been trained and certified in techniques to engage special needs groups, those with disabilities or mental health issues. She’s trained to adapt equipment and physical environment to better meet the needs of these groups. Busk will be assigned to the new Special Care Unit when renovations to the RBJH are complete. Conti cites her expertise in meeting the needs
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Above: RBJH Activities Staff members: Linda Fitzgerald, left, Mary Ann Blair, Rick France, Maggie Conti and Colleen Busk. Right: Activity Director Cathy Carroll Moriarty enjoys a day at the Henry Doorly Zoo with Faue Gendler, seated, and Mollie Franklin. mere words for me to describe,” says Fitzgerald. Conti is specific in her praise of this staff. “They care so much and are really kind people,” she says. “I think the ‘one-on-one’s’ are so important. They are really indicative of the time and quality this staff gives to the residents.” When Conti mentions the “one-on-one’s,” she’s speaking of the individualized sessions that each Activity Director spends with every resident of the Home. “Oneon-one” sessions are tailored to an individual’s interests and activity level. A resident who enjoys crafts or music but doesn’t want (or is physically unable) to participate in a large group setting may very much enjoy a visit from one of these staff members to discuss or take part in their chosen hobby or area of interest. Conti points out Carroll-Moriarty’s expertise in these sessions by saying; “Cathy is going on her ninth year of employment at the Home. Where Cathy most excels is working one-on-one with residents. She takes them under her wing and spreads her kindness to each resident she visits. You can often find Cathy reading a novel, putting music in their room or bringing a resident out for some fresh air. She builds a relationship with those who might seem unreachable and challenging.” Upon admission to the RBJH one of the Activity Directors conducts an “initial assessment” with every new resident. This initial meeting is for getting to know the new resident and making them feel welcome. It’s also to gather some information about that person’s past and current interests, what they like to read or listen to and what motivates or inspires them as a person. This first conversation leads the way for the activities staff to formulate a “care plan” for every resident at the Home. Care plans change and evolve constantly through the upkeep of the Activity Directors. They track what events each resident is attending and make sure to note any changes in attendance. If a resident who normally enjoys participating falls off in their interest or attendance of a specific event, this staff is ready to assess what might have changed. These dedicated people, including the two Activity Assistants, Mary Ann Blair and Rick France, are ready to step in and spend some extra time finding out just why a resident might be spending more time alone. “We work very well as a team,” says Busk of her teammates.
of these residents and is quick to point out “how lucky we are to have her.” Conti also notes the team mentality of this group and specifically the Activity Assistants, noting that “Rick and Mary Ann are both self-motivators and are present throughout the day doing an assortment of work. Not only do they help transport residents to and from meals and activities, but they also deliver the daily mail and newspaper, assist in all programs, ceramics, walking club and one-on-one visits. Rick even tilled the courtyard garden while maintaining the garden all season. He took it upon himself to clean and organize the auditorium, the ceramic kiln area and the activity storage. He can find anything that is missing and knows the location of the decorations, craft/art supplies and music CDs and videos.” Weekly and monthly activities at the Home include sing-alongs, Pokeno games, special entertainment, bingo, tea time, holiday celebrations and much more. These “in home” activities are topped off by outings to the casinos, local theater events, museums, local gardens, and others. Each member of the activities staff brings their own background and passion to the events. Fitzgerald, specifically, has a background as a music instructor. She’s organized many musical events for residents and is currently putting together an ensemble of musicians at the home called “The Classics.” She says, “I see what they get out of it by their smiles, their tears, their words of joy and their body language that says ‘I am excited about this activity...I want to learn about this activity.’ Or, ‘you’ve got to be kidding; I don’t want to do this activity!’” Conti is there to oversee the many daily activities of the Home and so much more. She acts as the Home’s liaison with the Nebraska Arts Council and the Nebraska Humanities Council. She works with the Rose Theater, Opera Omaha and others to bring interactive programs to the RBJH. As the Director of Outreach Programs she organizes and manages the groups Y.E.S. (Young Energetic Seniors) and VISIONS (a group for recent retirees) as a way for Jewish Senior Services to reach all seniors in the community, regardless of age or any physical need. There are so many ways that Conti and her staff serve the residents of RBJH. One thing is for sure; they’re very busy keeping this an active place where people’s life passions live on.
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Bringing legal expertise to the RBJH by JOAN K. MARCUS Robert L. Lepp, an Omaha attorney involved in long-term care, grew up very differently from most Jewish kids. His father, Harry, was a jazz trombonist and his mother, Eleanor, a dance band vocalist. They met while playing at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago. In 1952, Bob was born in Chicago and was raised in the Skokie/Highland Park area. Harry, in addition to being a musician, was also a commodities trader on the Chicago Board of Trade. “My father played in the orchestra pits when shows like ‘Bye, Bye Birdie’ and ‘Oklahoma’ came to town. He also played with artists like Frank Sinatra, but unfortunately, he doesn’t play anymore,” Lepp says. “Dad was a professional musician (not just a guy who played music jobs for extra money) and my mother was a professional singer. She traveled all over the country singing with her own little group and can still wail quite a tune,” he adds. “I remember sitting in the orchestra pit with my father and watching performers like Dick Van Dyke and Yul Brynner. The pit went up and down and I thought it was fascinating.” The Lepp family observed what Bob calls “conservative-orthodox” Judaism. In later years, the family joined a Reform congregation. “My mother, in addition to her singing, was always involved in a lot of volunteer activities. She became active in various organizations and was always using her musical talents to help put on plays.” Bob and his two sisters, Joan (Kahn) and Laurie (Minkow), didn’t inherit their parents’ musical abilities. However, they
all learned that Judaism and helping othintensive environments. “Because of the ers was important. nature of long-term care facilities, I do a Lepp went to the University of Iowa lot of work in that area. I try to negotifor his undergraduate work. After graduate any disputes that they have in regard ation, he decided to enter law school at to termination, discipline or any other Creighton University, and since he liked kind of a legal issue. I deal with anything Omaha, he began clerking for Federal that concerns the nursing home against Judge Robert V. Denney. He earned his the employee,” he explains. Juris Doctor in1978. Nursing homes used to have to get perIn 1976, Lepp met and “fell madly in mission in order to build in a certain love” with Karen Anderson, a young area. Lepp has represented clients who woman who was working for a law firm have wanted to build homes in cities where he was clerking for the summer. across Nebraska. “That was always a “She was working for Warren major fight because the home already in Zweiback’s law firm as a receptionist and that city didn’t want anyone else to come secretary. I walked in and saw her and in and compete for their clients. It used that was it!” to be a big part of my practice but now, Karen and Bob were married in 1979 it is smaller because the number of beds when he graduated from law school. Bob Lepp, president of the Bureau for the Aging in in Nebraska is established and the state They have three children, Allison, 22, a 1995, accepts a $10,000 check from Vicki doesn’t really want a lot more.” law student, Dustin, 19, a college stu- Sanford, then president of the National Council of Late in the 1980s, Lepp got involved at dent in Omaha and Kelsey, 17, a senior Jewish Women-Omaha Section, to be used for a the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home. Gene at Millard North and a dancer. She new phone system. Brandt, then executive director of the aspires to be a health care professional. state and federal government. Everything Home, approached Lepp and asked him It was also in 1979 that Bob began they do is scrutinized. Nursing homes to bring his legal expertise to the RBJH. working for his present law firm. “They also are surveyed annually by the “In 1988, an addition was planned and had nursing home clients, and they need- Department of Health. Sometimes issues I helped get the permit to build. Gene, ed someone to help them in that area. come up during those surveys and the Jerry Milder, and I made a presentation That was when my interest in long-term homes need attorneys to represent them. as to why we needed an addition,” he care began. Beginning in 1980, I kind of It is very important because they can be recalls. “That’s when I got on the board learned on the fly.” shut down if they don’t pass inspections.” of what was known then as the Bureau for Lepp deals with nursing homes, assisted Since nursing homes derive part of their the Aging. I think that the communal living facilities, surveys and certification, income from the Medicaid program, involvement, and the fact that it is a Medicaid reimbursements, licensure, accountants perform “cost reports” that Jewish Home, makes it unique. It’s not labor and employment, and family issues. entitle the homes to be reimbursed for that all of my other clients don’t care Many times families need representation people who qualify for the benefits. about their facilities. It’s just that this when they feel that a relative is not being According to Lepp, “Sometimes, the community’s heart is in the RBJH.” properly treated. Other areas in which he homes don’t get the reimbursement theyLepp served as president of JSS/RBJH practices include malpractice, resident think they should. That’s when I come in and is now President-elect of the Jewish rights and guardianships. Federation of Omaha and serves on its to assist them.” “Nursing homes have extensive legal Another reason for legal services is the executive committee. issues because they are regulated by the fact that nursing homes are “heavy labor- Continued on page 11
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NCJW and RBJH: a letter-perfect match these gifts, Ruth Venger by OZZIE NOGG and Ann Margolin had This past January, foltheir ears to the ground, lowing anterior and posand Council often conterior fusion of her lower nected a private donor back, Lois Friedman with a particular need at spent several weeks in the Home, that sort of physical therapy at the thing. One year, Council Rose Blumkin Jewish did raise funds on its own Home. “I wasn’t up for to pay for a washer and company during that dryer for the Sher Home. time,” Lois said, “but That might have been when I returned to my our first official contribuapartment, people starttion,” she smiles. Thirtyed calling to see how I five years ago, Lois was, and when I replied, became co-chair with Rae ‘Better, thanks,’ they’d Brodkey of the Molly ask, ‘Are you writing your Schimmel Fund, which cards yet?’ And I’d say, ‘Of course, I can’t lose Rae Brodkey, left, and Lois Friedman, Co-chairmen of the NCJW - was eventually renamed Blumkin Home Fund turn over a $10,000 check to Harold Farber, the NCJW Project Fund the business.’” You’ve all sent -- or president of the Bureau for the Aging in this undated photo, to be for the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home. Lois and received -- the cards to used for improvements at the Home. which she referred. Blue and white, they bear the dis- Sue Meyers have served as co-chairmen of this fund for tinctive National Council of Jewish Women logo on the the past 21 years. “Council tries to concentrate on one big project a year front, a rendering of the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home on the inside along with the message: A contribution has for the Blumkin Home,” Lois said. “We never hand been made to the NCJW Project Fund for the Rose them a check. We always give a specific gift, and if anyBlumkin Jewish home in honor of -- or wishing you a one suggests we borrow from the Blumkin Fund and use the money for other Council projects, that idea is shot speedy recovery -- or in memory of. And the ‘business’ Lois wanted to hold onto -- even down fast. We never use the Blumkin Fund for other when she was still laid up -- is the revenue generated projects -- never.” One of the more recent gifts -- a Vital Signs Monitor every time one of those cards is mailed. “I’ve been chairman of the tribute cards for 47 years,” Lois said, “so I’m - was supported by the friends of Sue and David Meyers certainly familiar with the support the monies give the in honor of their 50th Anniversary. The user-friendly Blumkin Home. And during my rehab experience, I got monitor wheels from room to room and allows Blumkin Home nurses to take residents’ blood pressure, temperaan inside look at Council’s gifts at work.” The NCJW-RBJH connection began in 1981, when ture, pulse rate and oxygen levels in one digitized action. According to Blumkin Home Director of Nursing, the Omaha Section donated $25,000 to the Blumkin Home Building Fund. From 1989 until today, the dol- Shelley Cash, “These tasks had to be done manually, lar amount of tribute cards written on behalf of the before. Now we just push buttons, which makes tending NCJW Project Fund for the Rose Blumkin Jewish to resident needs more efficient and much easier.” In his Home totals approximately $400,000, and their specific thank-you note for the monitor, Mike Silverman, allocations includes: two vans, three large screen TV Executive Director of the RBJH wrote, “The National sets, 24 ceiling fans, two patient hydraulic lifts, a Council of Jewish Women-Omaha Section has always portable phone system for the nursing staff, cable TV been a strong supporter of the Rose Blumkin Jewish service to residents, a $45,000 bus, $40,000 mini-van, Home. Over the years your organization has conplus a $10,000 donation to the Blumkin Home tributed a variety of purchases that have enhanced the lives of our residents and Jewish community seniors. I Endowment Fund. In 2001, Omaha Section received the RBJH can’t imagine where we’d be without your continued Volunteer of the Year Award in recognition of their 49 support.” And where would the Omaha community be without years of support. Friedman’s part in that volunteer work spans all but two of those years. She was acting president the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home? from December, 1954 to May of 1955, president from “When I was actually there, I thought to myself, ‘I’ve 1955 to 1957, and now serves as Honorary Vice been working hard raising money for the Home for all President. Through the years, NCJW ‘blue cards’ have these years and now I’m on the other end,’” Lois said. remained her baby. “I was so warmly welcomed by the staff. They know “Back in 1960 I worked part-time at the Omaha your name, who you are, what you do, what you’ve Jewish Community Center,” she said, “and my respon- done. But I wasn’t treated differently from anyone else sibilities included doing the books for the Dr. Philip -- every resident is treated that way, treated personally. Sher Home. Nate Nogg and Art Cohen were chairmen Yes, I was in some pain, but my stay was pleasant. I think of the Home; they were my mentors, and I learned how that’s because the staff at the Home is so loyal to the this community works from those two men. In those place -- most have worked there for years -- so there’s a days, the Sher Home received many private gifts. Elmer, consistency to the care. Lornie and Jerry Gross and their sister, Sally Malashock, Lois adds, “In a hospital you never know which nurse added a sunroom to the facility. The Cherniack/ or physical therapist is going to be with you from one Chapman wing was a family gift. Eddie Schimmel was day to the next. At the Blumkin Home, your caregivers very generous and set up a named fund in honor, and know you. We Omahans are so lucky. I don’t know then in memory, of his mother -- the Molly Schimmel another Jewish community that has anything like this Fund, of which Rae Brodkey served as chairman.” kind of facility or campus. There’s nothing out there And even though NCJW wasn’t directly involved in that can compare to what we have.”
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Legal expertise Continued from page 10 board and hopes to some day be president. He continues to work with Mike Silverman, executive director of the RBJH on issues as they arise. “Because of the passion of the people who work at the Home -- the volunteers and the communal involvement -- there is a homey kind of feeling when you walk in. The major rebuilding will make it even nicer. Medicaid generally does not cover the cost of a resident’s care, and some facilities do not even take Medicaid patients. If a facility has a heavy Medicaid mix, it can be a tough business,” Lepp explains. “You have to understand that spending a lot of money and doing this kind of a rebuilding is unique and shows the strong belief and desire to make sure that we give our best. Many people who used to go to nursing homes
are now in assisted living facilities. Business is a lot tougher and we now serve different kinds of clients.” People don’t go into nursing homes until later in life and they need a much higher level of care, according to Lepp, who sees this firsthand through his legal practice. “It’s very difficult to put money back into a facility. The RBJH was very well built in the first place and it has been very well kept. The concern of Jews in Omaha for making sure that our elderly live in a dignified environment has caused us to make sure that facility always looks its best and exudes warmth.” Lepp adds, “I have a great admiration for our Omaha Jewish community. We are giving, involved and the spirit is amazing. I just don’t see the volunteer spirit anywhere else like I do at the Blumkin Home.”
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Still sweethearts after all these years by JOAN K. MARCUS Marge and Norman Lincoln still share a room, but now it’s at the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home; they enjoy everyday they can spend together. Although they are both 86-years-old, they insist they’re lucky they found each other. Norman says, “We’ve helped one another and that is the way that we’ve survived.” Their marriage has survived for 64 years -- through several wars, Norm’s massive heart attack in 1967, and the death of a daughter. They dated for a while when they were very young and then went their separate ways. Norm went to fight in World War II and Marge moved to California. Margie Lipp was born in North Platte, NE, where there were about seven Jewish families. They didn’t have a synagogue but her father, Louis, a junk dealer and a homesteader, always came into Omaha to observe the High Holy Days. “He would bring back all the things that we needed in order to observe the holidays,” she recalls. “When he got back Omaha, we from observed the holidays with my mother, Celia cooking all of the traditional dishes,” she adds. “We had services right in our dining room and we always knew that we were Jewish. Although we weren’t interested, they would read us parts of the Jewish newspaper.” Margie remembers a slow life and it wasn’t the money they made that left an impression, but what they saved. But, she doesn’t remember “doing without” during the Great Depression. She had two step-sisters and a step-brother. Margie and her brother, Morrie Lipp, joined the family later. In 1939, Margie attended the University of Nebraska for one year and then decided to make her way back through North Platte to California. “My friend Genevieve Stein Bornstein and I went to California. When we arrived there, I stayed with my niece and nephew, Bernie and Shirley Altsuler. I went to business school and then worked for the gasoline rationing board.” Margie and Norm reunited and were married in 1943. “Because Margie went to work at a camp,” he recalled, “we could rent a trailer for $30 per month. It was brand new, but we had to carry our water, kerosene and ice. We shared bathrooms and once Margie tried to wash a chenille bedspread by hand! It was soaking wet and Margie couldn’t lift it out of the tub.” When Norm was sent overseas, Margie returned to Los Angeles to work for the rent control board. She was lonely and decided to move back to North Platte until the war was over and work there. “Other than worrying about Norm, I didn’t have many cares because I was living with my family again.” Norm was born and raised in Omaha. His father. Jack Lincoln, was a car dealer and the family lived in a Catholic neighborhood around 36th and California. His mother Ruth stayed at home and took care of her large family of 11 children. After graduation from Central High School in 1939, Norm attended college and was a pre-med major. His college career was cut short when he was drafted during World War II in 1942. He was sent to Camp Roberts in California for 18 months and then shipped to New Guinea, the Philippines and Japan. He says that the war years were lonely but interesting. “Because of the progress we made while the war was going, we moved quickly. I came home from Leshima -- right off the coast of Japan where Ernie Pyle got killed. Originally, I was in the adjutant general’s department and when we shipped over, they changed our
orders to the Air Force.” Norm added, “I was in the Jolly Rogers, a B-24 outfit in the Pacific. There were only two heavy bomb groups over there and I was in one of them. We bombed Manila, China, Burma and India. I went through three typhoons and never got hurt -- guess I was lucky. The only thing that happened was that I got hepatitis and I had to be hospitalized for about a month; then I went back to my outfit. I didn’t want to go home because the war wasn’t over yet.” When Norm returned home in 1946, he went into
Photos from top: Norm and Margie Lincoln -- sweethearts of the Blumkin Home. Left: Norm Lincoln assists his brother Irv, who lived in the Home from 1992-98; Marge gets a Purim mask and Shaloch Manot earlier this month from Elianna Schuller, a student at Friedel Jewish Academy. Margie is a regular user of the Home’s computer stations. the automobile business. The Lincolns lived at the Morris Hotel in Omaha for a year because it was impossible to find housing. There was a tremendous shortage of post-war housing when all the GIs returned home. They finally bought a home at 6132 Pierce and later moved to 9233 Davenport. Later, they moved to the Richland Park Apartments where they lived for 33 years. In 1963, Norm retired because of a heart attack. He says, “I walked for miles after I was sick. I still walk for exercise around the halls here at Blumkin.” Margie and Norman credit their long lives to the fact that they have always worked together. They had two daughters, Judy Robinson and Susan Bickford, four grandchildren and one great-grandson. Judy died suddenly about a year ago from a ruptured aneurysm and that loss has left a big void in their lives. The Lincolns moved to the Blumkin Home three years ago. As a result of a fall, Margie broke her pelvis, cracked three ribs and punctured a lung. “This was a good place for us at that point in time, Norm says. “We couldn’t be in a better place, and we think that everything here is wonderful.” Margie adds, “Everybody knows us by name from Mike Silverman to the cleaning staff. We can’t complain about the food because sometimes when I cooked, the food wasn’t so hot either! There’s always something you can eat, and you don’t lose weight here.” They participate in many activities: they help manage the gift shop and both enjoy creating ceramics. They agree, “There’s always something to do and it’s surprising how the days go by. Living in the Blumkin Home should never be dreaded.” The Lincolns insist they have wonderful care. “Our aches and pains are tolerable,” Margie adds, “but you have to work at having a good life.”
March 30, 2007
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 13
Photos above left: Purim queen and king, Helen and Morris Lipp, 2001; Gertrude Forbes holds her great-granddaughter Cathy Kully; Fannie Chunovic with granddaughter Aviva Schwab and great-greatSarit granddaughter, Schwab, 2006; Martin Kolnick holds his granddaughter Molly Kudym on his lap, 1994.
Purim kings and queens over the years, from top: Helen Soiref and Harry Paskowitz; David Weiss and Mollie Franklin; and Sylvia Stein and Eddie Rosen. At right: Ida R. Forbes, 1997; Ethel Bleweis, 1991; Frieda Krizelman, and Sally Marer Jonisch and her mother, Rose Marer, 1993.
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Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
March 30, 2007
Great Depression has an affect on Blumkin elders by JOAN K. MARCUS Dave Dvorkin sits and reads in his room at the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home. Pictures of his daughters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren surround him. Although he says that he would rather not be in a nursing care facility, he likes it at the Home The mild-mannered man was born in Sioux City, Iowa, in 1914. He was one of nine children and declares that he was “fourth from the bottom!” He was the first of his siblings to be born in America. Although his father had been a carpenter in “the old country,” as he calls it, he ended up working for the stockyards in Sioux City. “With nine children who were two years apart, my parents managed,” Dvorkin recalls. “In order to make a little extra money, my mother would pluck chickens at the kosher meat market across the street from Dave Dvorkin at the Home. where we lived. For services, we attended one of the Orthodox synagogues on the west side.” He says, “I thought I knew more than the teachers so I quit school during my senior year of high school in order to go to work. The teachers made me take things like Latin and I couldn’t see what good that would do me. So, I quit school and my parents told me I had to go to work.” During the Great Depression in 1929, he and his brothers did manage to have jobs. When President Franklin Roosevelt came into office in March of 1933, the WPA (Works Projects Administration) began putting more of the unemployed to work. “We made enough to take care of us and we never missed a meal,” he said. “When I began working for the Gilinsky Fruit, I drove a truck with my older brother and we delivered from town to town, but I didn’t care for that kind of work. I had two other brothers who worked in the Sioux City Bakery and that appealed to me a little more. I became a baker and did that until I came to Omaha.” Dave had an older sister who lived in Omaha and they always tried to “fix him up” with dates. When he met Jeanne Glaser in 1937, he knew she was the girl he wanted to marry. “A week or so after I left Omaha and took the train back home, I was visiting my cousin and I told him I had met the girl that I wanted to marry. So, my cousin said, ‘Go ahead and call and ask her!’” he said. “I had only known Jeanne for a week or 10 days but I called to ask her to marry me. And, she said, ‘Yes!’”
In July, 1998, Dave and Jeanne Dvorkin celebrated their 60th anniversary. Jeanne and Dave decided they didn’t want to live in Sioux City. Their choice was to live in Omaha and that was when Dave began to work for Forbes Bakery for the “huge salary” of $25 per week. A year later, Dave, already a member of the baker’s union, got a call to begin work at Butternut Baking Company. He was asked to work for two weeks and he stayed for 10 years. Later jobs included working in grocery stores and then he bought his own store at 16th and William. After the closing of his own store, Dave went to work for Abe Schloff at his grocery store on 30th and Bristol. “I named a ridiculous amount of money and some things that I wanted Abe agreed to. That was the beginning of a long friendship that still continues,” Dave added. He worked for Abe from 1953 to 1982. After retirement, Jeanne and Dave began taking trips with Molly Delman, the first director of the Golden Agers Club, which eventually became the Y.E.S. group (Young Energetic Seniors). The couple enjoyed their years together until Jeanne died in 2006. Prior to her death, Dave took care of Jeanne until they moved to the Blumkin Home. Even with the help of the Visiting Nurse Association and a cleaning service, they decided they needed more help. Dave says that he needs very little care. However, he does get assistance from the nursing staff with his medications. “When you’re 92 and still moving, you’re healthy!” he laughs. “I quit driving when I was 90, but I still have the car here for my family to drive when they
come to visit.” Dave adds, “I’m satisfied living at the Blumkin Home. However, when they build the new Home, it will be easier to mix with people. Sometimes I get lonely, but I find things to fill my time. I belong to the food committee and I keep a little black book filled with reminders of things to do that I like.” In addition to that, his “three angels” come to visit from the Temple Israel Caring Committee: Bonnie Pfrenger, Lisa Epstein and Judy Josephson. “I love them and they come every Friday. They even convinced me that I should read to some little children. So, I read stories to four and five year olds every Thursday,” Dave said. “The little kids and their teachers bring their own books and then I give them candy when I finish reading. I enjoy it as much (or more) as they do.” That lead to his friendship with Gary Katz, director of the Kripke Federation Library. “I began reading again after 10 years. I tell Gary what kind of books I want and he brings them. Then I call him when I’m ready for more books. It passes the time for me and I hardly ever watch television. I’m satisfied with the things that I do and it makes me forget how much I miss Jeanne.” Dave enjoys visits with his daughters and their husbands, Marilyn and Marty Warren, and Lois and Mel Epstein. In addition to them, he has five grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren who visit him often. Despite the hardships of the Great Depression, “It was kind of a rough time, but we got through it with no problems,” he said. Lucky man, lucky family.
Blumkin resident Eddie Berkowitz, seated second from left, gets a visit from relatives in 2005, including his brother Morris Berkowitz, left, great nephews, Max and Josh Polack, sons of Susan Polack (Eddie’s niece); back row: Holly and Dan Berkowitz (Eddie’s nephew) and their children, Ben and Shelly; Lois Berkowitz (Morris’ wife) and their daughters, Carole Mumford and Sharron Bradley.
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Sharp as a tack Banker’s Life of Iowa, an insurance company now known as the Principal Group. She was lucky because jobs were at a premium in those days. Her starting salary in the steno pool was $40 per month. “I received two automatic raises and within six months was making $60,” she recalled. “After that, raises were few and far between.” Rose stayed for 20 years and her “matchmaking friends,” Betty and Stanley Shapiro, invited her to come to Omaha to meet their bachelor friend, Nathan Fine. For many years, Fine had worked at Nebraska Clothing Company and then began selling liquor. “I remember walking down the steps and seeing him. He literally swept me off my feet and he wanted to get married right away,” she laughs. “When I left to go back to Des Moines after that first date, he came to the train station with an orchid. He was a wonderful man, a beautiful dancer and the only one I ever wanted to dance with. He was the love of my life and it was Above: Rose Fine, 97, holds a photo of herself taken when she mutual.” was 20-years- old; it’s one of many treasures in her collection of Rose says they had an memorabilia. Below: Seated to the captain’s left, she lunches unusually good marriage with JSS/RBJH Executive Director Mike Silverman at a L.O.V.E.- and were together for 34 sponsored week of events. years, “not long enough! old and she realizes that they now are part of history. During World War I, her brother, 16 years her senior, was drafted. However, he didn’t see battle because the war ended the day he was supposed to go to the front. “I remember Armistice Day, Nov. 11, 1918. People were overjoyed. Kaiser Wilhelm was a villain and people hated him. He was a counterpart of Adolph Hitler in World War II, she says. She read the papers voraciously. Eventually stories began to We went to the symphony, opera and the appear in the press about the concentra- playhouse; we loved music and concerts. tion camps, and as Rose recalls, “horren- We loved travelling and covered a lot of dous things being done to our people. territory -- border to border.” No one believed it, it was so horrible!” Nate died in 1984; she still mourns The events of the war years touched her him. deeply, as they still do today. “Clearly, to Although Rose worked off and on us as Jews, World War II and the throughout married life, she stayed at Holocaust are synonymous,” she adds. home when her mother came to live with Rose was born in in 1909 to Ida and them. “Later, we couldn’t take care of Joseph Press. Although she was a good her and she went to live at the Dr. Philip student at East High School, she had to Sher Home (the forerunner of the Rose turn down a scholarship to Drake Blumkin Jewish Home),” Rose says. University. “It was more important to “Nate and I went to see her every day for get a job in 1927,” she says. “Girls didn’t five years. He became a volunteer whom the residents loved. They recognized his go to college as they do today.” Most of her friends had parents who footsteps and would call out, Nate, came from Europe, but her mother had Nate!’” Rabbi Kripke even told her, been born in Des Moines and was “well “Nate did everything with a smile.” Life was very difficult for her in the years Americanized.” Her father came from Europe when he was nine and spoke with- after Nate died. “I had to start a whole out an accent. Joseph Press ran a grocery new life, “ she says quietly. “I began going store and Ida helped keep the books. The to Beth El every Shabbat. Many of my family was always surrounded by music. women friends were widows and we tried Rose’s sister was a fine pianist and she to do a lot of things together.” In 2004, Rose came to live at the played the violin; the two often perBlumkin Home. The bright spot of her formed duets together. Religion, too, was a big part of their week is Friday when Lisa Epstein, Judy kosher home. Although her mother Josephson and Bonnie Pfrenger visit cooked many Jewish foods, the level of from the Temple Israel Caring Committee. “Those girls are my angels observance was up to her father. During the Great Depression, banks and my family. Since I have no family, were failing and her parents lost the money they have adopted me and I do so look they had saved. “That was a bad time in forward to when they come.” Looking back, Rose said wistfully, “I our lives, but today it would be a pittance. I was impressionable when I heard them think I’ve had a good life, with a good childhood, good parents -- and the love speaking about money problems.” After high school, she went to work for of a good man.” by JOAN K. MARCUS Rose Lillian Press was given a double name at birth in memory of her two grandmothers; at her mother’s insistence, she remained Rose Lillian throughout her childhood in Des Moines, IA. Once she graduated from high school, however, she decided she had had enough and became simply, Rose. Her vision may be a little bit dimmed, but her mind and memory are as sharp as they can be. Rose has vivid memories of the first and second world wars and everything in between. She cherishes clippings from the newspaper announcement of her parents’ wedding in 1892 in Des Moines, IA. The clippings are 115 years
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 15
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March 30, 2007
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Shabbat and Holiday services? At the Blumkin Home, the leaders are volunteers by GLORIA SHUKERT JONES day. The attendance has increased draOne of the things most meaningful to matically on the Friday nights when he the elderly residents of the Blumkin and Rips do services. Home are Shabbat and holiday worship When asked how he got started conservices. They love a Jewish-oriented pro- ducting services at the Home, he stated, gram as it fulfills their spiritual needs. “I said to Carole, ‘I want to do someThey enjoy having the rabbis come to thing like this, but I don’t exactly know visit, and also look forward to Saturday how.’ The very next day, I received some morning services conducted by lay lead- pamphlets from the Home, and there it ers. Since it is not physically feasible for was on the back page, asking for volunmost of the residents to attend services at teers to conduct services!” local synagogues, the next best thing is to I couldn’t help but think that could have the services come to them. qualify as one of the “A-ha! moments” in Lois Wine, Director of Jewish Senior Greenberg’s personal pursuits. Services, schedules volunteers on a rotatHe’s been described by one of his ing basis, to come on Saturday mornings peers, as “the premiere service leader,” a to conduct Shabbat services in the well-deserved title due to his dependabilHome’s chapel. “The Minyannaires orig- ity, enthusiasm and “cantorial presence,” inally started Shabbat services at the Sher He has a great singing and speaking Home and we have continued them voice, and residents refer to him as here,” Wine reported. Some of the service leaders also make an appearance for certain holidays, like Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Passover. Occasionally on Friday nights, two of the volunteers, Andy Greenberg and Nancy Rips, team up to lead Kabbalat Shabbat services, using the two dining rooms and the tea room, and also visiting residents’ rooms, reciting prayers Rabbi Maximo Shechet, left, assists Rabbi Myer Kripke with and singing. They also services at the Home. light candles and recite the kiddush. “rabbi.” He is also active in other areas of Wine has a volunteer scheduled on the the Jewish community. calendar for every week, but if the indiPhyllis Hoffman was born in vidual assigned to a certain Saturday can- Minneapolis, and states, “When I was not make it, there is always another lay growing up, all Jewish children attended leader to substitute. On the rare occasion Talmud Torah. I was raised in an when no volunteer is available on a cer- Orthodox home, learned Hebrew, joined tain date, Rabbi Myer Kripke, a resident USY, and married my high school sweethimself, will come to the rescue. heart, David, who is a dentist. After he With the exception of Rabbi Maximo graduated, he went to Viet Nam.” The Shechet, the volunteers are experienced Hoffmans have also lived in Spain and lay people who have either participated Guam. David’s last assignment was here with services in their respective syna- at Offutt Air Force Base. gogues, or have a knowledge of Hebrew Hoffman has four grandchildren of and the Torah, and a strong commitment whom she is justly proud. She has taken to serve the elderly. Most have conducted them to Beth El, and speaks highly of services at the Home for many years. Rabbi Kripke, who mentored her second I had a brief interview with each of the grandchild in leading a service in preparaservice leaders, and actually attended one tion for his Bar Mitzvah. of the Shabbat services, led that week by When Hoffman called for volunteers to Andy Greenberg. The profiles of each of read the Haftorah during one of her servthese dedicated people are worthy of ices, one resident told her, “I’ll do it,” pages of recognition instead of the mere and went to the bima and gave the blessparagraphs that follow: ings and Haftorah. Afterward, this resiAndy Greenberg attended a yeshiva in dent said, “I was a Holocaust survivor New York, and originally intended to be and I always wanted to do this.” a cantor. He lived in Queens, Los Hoffman’s husband accompanies her Angeles and in Manchester, New when she conducts a service. Due to a Hampshire, before making his residence back problem, she can’t lift the Torah. in Omaha. “He carries it around the room for me, “When I came here, Lois Wine was the Then we all make kiddush together,” she first Jewish person I met, and she got me said. Referring to her part in leading the acquainted with the community; showed services, Hoffman concluded, “We get me where everything was, and intro- much more than we give.” duced me to people,” he said. Greenberg Marty Shukert is no stranger to the formerly worked for 241/2 years as a mar- Jewish community or the City of Omaha keting executive, and is now putting at large, having been in the media spottogether a training course in public light many times throughout his career. speaking, motivation and sales training, He was formerly the Planning Director entitled, “Experience the ‘A-ha!’ and for the city, under Mayors Mike Boyle ‘Wow!’ Moments in Life.” He also has and Bernie Simon and is now a principal produced a motivational video called, at the RDG Company. “Your Personal Coach.” Shukert was born in Omaha, but lived Greenberg not only conducts Shabbat in Austin, Texas, in the ’70s. There was services, but also does one on the first no rabbi, so he and one of his friends seder of Passover, along with his wife, conducted services at the synagogue Carole, as well as services on Rosh there. He is an active member of Beth El Hashanah, Kol Nidre and Yom Kippur Continued on page 17
March 30, 2007
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 17
Shabbat and Holiday services Continued from page 16 Shukert says, “Judaism appeals to me intellectually. I like its liturgical base and skills.” His hobbies are art, photography, reading and music, but indicates his work is his favorite hobby. Shukert is also an avid bicyclist. When he worked at the Civic Center, it was not uncommon to see him riding to work on his bike in all kinds of weather. He says he’s been conducting Shabbat services “forever,” and does a traditional service at the Home and indicates it is very enjoyable for him. He also likes conducting his own family seders at Passover. Marti Nerenstone is affiliated with Beyt Shalom congregation and has been a lay leader there for a number of years. When conducting services at the Home, Nerenstone is often accompanied by members of the small Reconstructionist congregation who also take part. She says she is not limited to conducting Shabbat services, as she also participates at other holidays and leads a seder. “We sometimes do a three-generation service. We not only worship with them, but there is more interaction on the part of the congregation,” she said, “and it’s good for us also.” Nerenstone then added, “I think I’m the only service leader who plays the guitar during a service.” Nerenstone is an attorney, and has a private law practice. She likes horseback riding, her dog, and plays the banjo in her leisure time. Nerenstone expressed enthusiasm about the chapel renovations. She exhibits the same kind of caring attitude that exemplifies all the volunteers. Nancy Rips always wanted to be a can-
Shabbat service leaders are: Andy Greenberg, left, Nancy Rips, Rabbi Myer Kripke; back row: Steve Riekes, Alan Shulewitz, Miles Remer; not pictured: Phyllis Hoffman and Marty Shukert. tor. She says, “This is a way for me to sort of be a cantor, and I love bringing Shabbat and Shabbat melodies to the residents. It gives me great joy, and they appreciate it so much.” She added, “I used to give a 30-minute Kabbalat Shabbat service at the Home,” she continued, “but I noticed the residents weren’t going to the chapel. They would go back to their rooms after dinner or stay in the dining room to play cards. This wasn’t working. I said to Lois, ‘Let’s bring the service to the residents, in the dining room.’ So I got my friend Andy Greenberg, who’s a great singer, and said, ‘Let’s go to the two dining rooms and
the tea room.’ We would make kiddush, light candles, and sing Shabbat melodies, like, ‘Shalom Aleichem,’ and walk around and shake people’s hands and say ‘Good Shabbos’ to every single person. Then we’d go to the next dining room.” She laughed and said, “Somebody said it was like caroling. We’d walk into the dining room, and their eyes would light up. I even heard one lady say to her friend, ‘We had entertainment Friday night. It was like being on a cruise.’” Rips said she and Greenberg go to each resident’s room, light candles, say a prayer and sing a Shabbat song. She noted, “Even a resident who doesn’t
seem to be paying attention, suddenly will sit up, and from deep within will sing out ‘Adon Olam!’” Rips is the book maven of Omaha. She works at the Bookworm, has a regular spot on KPTM, where she promotes some of the latest best-sellers and new books. She is a past president, and still very involved in the Kripke Library, and is also on the board of the Omaha Public Library. She’s on the radio, is active in Beth El, and chants Haftorahs. Rips’ other favorite pastimes include weightlifting, jazzercize, and at the time of this interview, she had signed up to take a tap class at the JCC. A busy lady, indeed, whose bubbly enthusiasm is contagious. Where does she gets all that energy?!? Miles and his wife, Eileen, are the current co-presidents of the L.O.V.E. organization. He is also a certified public accountant, who operates from his home, and as such, is in the midst of the busy tax season. Between the CPA and L.O.V.E. commitments, he doesn’t have a lot of free time. Therefore, Remer is a “fill-in” or substitute service leader whenever one of the others is unable to keep an appointment at the Home. He is always happy and eager to do this whenever his schedule allows. Alan Shulewitz also works as a tax accountant. He volunteered to be a service leader after receiving a notice from Jewish Senior Services asking for volunteers. He’s been doing this at the Home for quite a while. Other than helping his son prepare for his Bar Mitzvah, Shulewitz had not had any prior experience leading a service. He has a good rapport with residents. Continued on page 18
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Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
March 30, 2007
Shabbat and Holiday services Continued from page 17 Shulewitz feels he is doing something worthwhile for the residents, and at the same time it has proved to be very rewarding for him. He said, “I feel privileged to be able in my small way to do this for them.” Steve Riekes has been a service leader for so long, he couldn’t even remember when he had started. He indicates he tries to keep the length of his service to an hour, because the attention span of the residents is somewhat limited. He also noted there are varying degrees of observance among the people, some knowing a lot of Hebrew, and some not familiar with it at all; some being more observant than others, and some less, so he tries to make the service one that will appeal to all residents. For the Torah service, he says he tries to keep things simple, by having four aliyot instead of the traditional seven. “I found it helpful to have somebody help me, because even though it’s a simplified service, sometimes the residents don’t know where we are in the book, or they will have trouble with the tallit slipping off while I’m trying to conduct the service, so I found a high school student or young adult to carry the Torah around and assist the residents,” Riekes explains. “At times, some of the residents look like they may be sleeping, but they still want to touch the Torah. I want to give those young people credit for helping me out. After the service, the people are anxious to have their wine and cookies. Some people want wine, others want grape juice, some can’t have either, and it gets pretty hectic at that time, but the young people help move the wheelchairs and assist residents during Kiddush. So I’m very impressed with the high school students.” Riekes also praised Judi Yoo, a recently named Volunteer of the Year, for her help in transporting patients and assisting them during the service. He also recalled, “When I first started, I noticed Rabbi Kripke had a very good voice, so I complimented him, and said, ‘Rabbi, you should have been a cantor.’” Jokingly, Rabbi Kripke responded, “You never say that to a rabbi!” “It’s always a pleasure doing this,” Riekes, concluded. “I always thank everybody for the privilege of having the Shabbat with them.” Riekes is an attorney at Marks Clare and Richards. He very involved in Jewish education, and thinks it’s important to be active in the Jewish community. He works out a lot at the ‘J’ and is a member of Beth El. Rabbi Maximo Shechet says his real name is Mordechai. However, he was born in Cuba, and uses the Spanish equivalent. His father was a Tchorkover Hasid, and his mother was Stolin-Karlin Hasidim, “I’m a mixture,” he quipped, “from a mixed marriage!” He is a 10th-generation shochet, a ritual slaughterer of kosher meat. Generations ago, people were often given
surnames reflecting their occupations...hence the name Shechet! “I came to Sioux City, Oct. 12, 1955, Columbus Day, to work as a shochet, for kosher supervision in the Sioux City packing plant,” he said, “and I was sent for by Eliezar Silver, an Orthodox rabbi. I came to work for someone who went to the same school with my father in Europe, and he sort of adopted me as a son.” Shechet stayed and married a woman in Sioux City, Iowa; they had two kids, and 28 years later, she died. “Then I met a local lady, Jeanie, originally from Sioux Falls, and we’ve been married more than 18 years. I have two sons, and she has a son in the Air Force and a Marti Nerenstone is the only daughter in San Antonio. leader who brings a guitar. My boys are in Sioux City.” “When I came to Sioux City, the gentleman I worked for had a friend who lived here in Omaha. I got to know a lot of people in Omaha, so I came to visit every so often. To me, Omaha is a suburb of Sioux City,” he said. At first, this statement might cause a few raised eyebrows, but the word, suburb, literally means below a city. Shechet tells it topographically: “ I come down here from Sioux City, so when I go back I go up from Omaha, and when I go to Omaha, I go down from Sioux City. If you look at the map, you will see that it’s not just a play on words,” Shechet explained, demonstrating a penchant for humor. He continued, “I came here as a shochet and worked the whole territory around here. We had plants in Omaha, Sioux City, and Fargo, North Dakota. If they needed someone, they sent me because I was the youngest, and I traveled the fastest. I worked as a shochet for years and years, and I used to daven in the Orthodox shul in Sioux City until 1959 or 1961. Then when I married Jeanie, and moved here, I started going to the Chabad House. It’s a Hasidic movement and closer to my roots. I mean a Jew is a Jew wherever he may be,” Shochet observed, philosophically. Then he mentioned whenever he would pass 52nd Street, and go by the old Dr. Sher Home, he felt a calling. “My father always taught me to respect the elders. When I used to go by the Sher Home, I always wanted
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to daven there,” Shechet recalled. “Then the Sher moved and Home became the Blumkin Home, so I came here to do Shabbos and Yom Tov services. He added, “The folks appreciate when I come here, and I have great regard for the other volunteers who do this,” Shechet noted. “I love these people and I love to see them laugh. They like my voice -- because it is loud. Incidentally, I never use a microphone and I don’t drive a car on Shabbos. I walk here. It’s a 45-minute walk,” he said. When I expressed amazement, he added, “That’s nothing. In Sioux City I walked two and a Blumkin Home volunteer service half miles. From the Blumkin Home, I walk to the Chabad House, and then I go home, and I walk all that way. The only problem is the traffic, as there are some places where there are no sidewalks.” Lois Wine told me she doesn’t schedule Shechet in the winter months, because she is afraid he will slip and fall on the ice. Near the end of our interview in the conference room of the Home, a resident peeked in the doorway. Shechet invited her to join us. The lady spoke mainly Yiddish, so she and the rabbi had a very animated conversation in that language. Then, with encouragement from the rabbi, she serenaded us with Yiddish songs. Such a delightful, though unplanned, conclusion this was to the interview. Expect the unexpected, and the result can often be a pleasant surprise. There was obviously rapport between the rabbi and this little lady. “If you want a good endorsement for me, she’s sitting right next to me,” Shechet said,” and added, “Now you know why I come here. One of the reasons I love these people so much, is because I never knew my grandparents, either on my mother’s side, or my father’s side. They were killed by the Nazis.” Shechet remarked that this community helped him get his rabbinical degree, and named several rabbis instrumental in getting him into the rabbinate. “And that’s my story,” he concluded. Continued on page 23
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Central math teacher familiar to many by BERT LEWIS There has always been a connection between the Jewish community of Omaha and Central High School. Going all the way back to the 1920s and ’30s, economic necessity often meant a job after graduation. Still, in spite of that, education has always been a primary requisite of Jewish parents and Central was a college preparatory school with a reputation for excellence. As a result, this school seemed to get the lion’s share of Jewish kids, whether or not college was in their future. As the poet said, “twas ever thus...”
Virginia Lee Pratt Is it any wonder then, when a math teacher who served on the faculty from 1941 until her retirement in 1982 came to the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home for some post-surgical rehab, her name struck a chord with many? Numerous members of our community who have business of any kind at the Home, are Central grads, whether on staff, or visiting, or maybe as residents. And, when the newest resident was introduced as Virginia Lee Pratt, the first question heard was, “The math teacher from Central?” The next remark was often, “Oh, I’d love to meet her and ask her if she remembers me!” That’s when the 80+ resident usually added, “I guess she wouldn’t recognize me now.” The lovely lady is indeed the well remembered math teacher from Central. She graciously consented to an interview, though she modestly wondered who would be interested in hearing about her. While I didn’t have statistics, it appeared that every Jewish student at Central during her tenure was taught math by Miss Pratt! Furthermore, many of those same students were now among the folks she was seeing daily at the Blumkin Home, and many more would be reading her story in the Jewish Press. Her response was to laugh, “Well, alright. I’ll do it.” I wasn’t lucky enough to be one of her math students, but I was the lucky Central graduate (Class of ’43) who listened to her story. This is what she told me about her life and how she came to be the very well known Virginia Lee Pratt, the math teacher from Central. Her earliest school experience was as a student at Field Club School. Because she read with unusual proficiency, when she was in the first grade she skipped over the next grade. Somehow, this excellent reader must have missed certain areas of study as she said, “My report card read A in reading and D in arithmetic!” Her father decided that was unacceptable and while she didn’t explain his role in changing things, somebody must have done a lot of tutoring. She never received such a low grade in math again, and instead became very
comfortable in the world of numbers. That’s how she became a math teacher. From Field Club School, Virginia went to Central High and after graduation went to Randolph Macon College in Lynchburg, Virginia. After four years acquiring a higher education, she graduated and returned to her parents’ home in Omaha. She knew she had to work and found a clerical position with Mutual Benefit, but in a short time realized that it wasn’t for her. After hearing there was a vacancy on the faculty of Central, she boldly, without credentials, teaching applied for the job. To her surprise, she was hired. Because of the lack of a teaching certificate, she was hired with a provisional certificate and the understanding she would acquire the proper credentials as quickly as possible. She did, by studying at “night school and summer school and any other place” that would help her attain the certification. I asked what it was like to teach at the very same school from which she graduated only four years earlier. She told me she liked it well enough, that she was comfortable with the other teachers, but was made to understand that she was expected to prove herself. She was paid a salary of $60 a month and was given a class of what she called, “low achievers.” Even for 1941, the pay was extremely meager but she told me it had to do with her (temporary) lack of proper certification. All of that notwithstanding, Virginia Lee Pratt was a member of the faculty of Central High School Math department. When asked if she ever taught at any other school, she smiled and told me she went to Benson High for two years, “just to see how it was at other schools,” but came back to Central, which was where she must have felt most at home. She added quietly she was offered the post of Head of the math department before she left Benson. Clearly, the math department at Central and the name Virginia Lee Pratt were synonymous for the years she taught. One of the things she told me with no small evidence of pride, was that “Central won Nebraska State Math contests for 20 years.” School, students and math haven’t made up her entire past however. The lady loves to travel and took driving trips during her free summers throughout the years. On alternate years she traveled and on the years in between, she studied. The study years are a fascinating example of how a teacher strives to be the best she can be. Miss Pratt made a careful search of the best colleges and universities for excellent math departments. Then she would go to that school for the graduate classes most important to her math studies. She attended 10 or more graduate schools over the years, picking and choosing those with the highest reputation for excellence. Her message seemed to be that to be a teacher, that person should do everything in his or her power to never stop learning, to never stop sharpening skills. Her attitude regarding the way to be the best teacher she could be, is nothing less than inspiring. Continued on page 20
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 19
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Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
March 30, 2007
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Math teacher familiar to many visit, I felt as though I’d spent the time Continued from page 19 During the “off years,” when summer with a dear old friend. It was hard to say vacation meant taking a trip, Miss Pratt goodbye, and I wanted to stay a little frequently took along one or two of her longer. She was able to go home soon five nephews. She described driving after our meeting, all healed and ready to across the entire country, more than resume her life. I know the folks at once, and made it a point to visit all 50 Blumkin missed her when she left howevstates before she ventured outside er ... they seemed to have “adopted” her American borders. The trips with the as the staff does with many who pass nephews were mostly when they were lit- through their doors. tle boys, and I have to think these (now) grown men must have some wonderful memories to call on, when they think about “traveling with Aunt Virginia.” There were unforgettable trips with some of her colleagues, too -- a car full of teachers sightseeing and enjoying all those wonderful American landmarks. When she speaks of those carefree summers, it’s obvious they represent some of her favorite memories. Today Virginia Lee Pratt leads a quieter life, living in a lovely apartment at Crown Pointe senior living community. When she first retired she told me she did some volunteer work for a while, but that’s become a bit difficult these days. She said “I always liked to help people.” Front page of the April 9, 1937, Central High Register, showShe does, however, still ing Virginia Lee Pratt crowned “Miss Central III.” like to know what’s going on and tries “to keep up with things.” Omaha’s Jewish teens go to different She enjoys reading and in fact, the day I high schools around the city today, but visited with her, still in rehab at the Central still enjoys a loyal popularity with Blumkin Home, she had a current novel many. And going all the way to the other on her lap -- a book young people are end of the spectrum, many octogenarians currently reading. She tells me she’s 87- (and older) remember with great fondyears-old, but although she is not as ness, their years at “the big school on the mobile as she’d like to have be, her mind hill” -- the school where Virginia Lee and conversation are certainly agile. Pratt taught math. When I left her after we finished our
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Photos from top left: Joe Taylor dances with Eudice Canar on Switch Day, 1998; Phyllis Roffman and her mother, Helen Bernstein, 1973; Dorothy Eirenberg and Emma Briggs; Rachel Rosenberg dances with Betty Weissman in 2000; Jerry Dann, left, and Gene Brandt demonstrate a lift, donated by L.O.V.E.
March 30, 2007
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 21
Recalling “the olden days” by GLORIA SHUKERT JONES Sara Lohrman not only agreed to be interviewed, but was actually eager to visit with me. Originally, she was scheduled for the previous week; however, a late-winter storm prevented me from keeping that appointment. When I showed up the following week, she seemed disappointed I had missed her. I met her in the hall, just as she was leaving to go to lunch, but I assured her we could postpone the interview for later that day, since I had other business at the Home and would still be there. At the appointed time as I headed toward her room, she was coming out the door. I asked if she had something else she needed to do, and she said brightly, “I was just going to look for you.” Sara Lohrman was actually a former neighbor back in the early 1950s. One of her sons was a childhood playmate of my brother. The Lohrmans lived in the corner brick house on 55th and Pacific Street, later occupied by former Mayor of Omaha P.J. Morgan in his boyhood days. The first time Sara and I were reacquainted after all those years was during a Singalong session I attended in order to gather material for that article. I was sitting next to her, and we shared a few moments of recognition and nostalgia on that occasion. Sara and her husband, Bill, are both residents of the Home. Bill has been there for 12 years, after having suffered a stroke. Sara is a three-year resident. “Bill graduated from Tech High, and then went to work for Carl Lewis as an assistant buyer until he went into the
Army,” Sara reported. “He lost his father when he was only a year old, and his mother died when he was 16. He had a sister, brother and two step-sisters. As an
machine had a round window in front, where you could actually watch the clothes go through the various cycles. Sara and I laughed about that!
Sara and Bill Lohrman enjoy a dinner with other Blumkin residents and their families, a regularly scheduled event by the Blumkin staff at the Jewish Community Center auditorium. Army veteran, Bill worked for the PX for four years.” When we lived in the neighborhood, Bill Lohrman worked in the House-wares section of the former Phillips De-partment Store in South Omaha, where Sara indicated he had leased some space. In fact, I recall he sold my mom a Bendix clothes dryer, and a Westinghouse Laundromat, one of the first front-loading automatic washing machines. These were such exciting innovations compared to the old wringer washers. The new
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Sara did not recall many events within the Jewish community during the early days of her marriage, but stated, “When Bill and I got married, we joined Temple Israel. Then when our kids were preparing for their bar and bas mitzvah, we went to Beth El.” Lohrman said. They then rejoined Temple some time after that. Their children are sons, Bobby, Johnnie, Jerry, and daughter, Joni. Sara indicated she enjoyed services and special events at both synagogues. “I helped set tables and volunteered during
those days,” she said. Sara worked at Wolf Brothers for about six years and also at Hovland-Swanson, a Lincoln-based firm in Omaha, that also had a beautiful store in Regency Plaza. It closed about 25 years ago. Her hobbies then were playing tennis and golf at the former Highland Country Club, a pastime she and her husband both enjoyed together before he had his stroke. Sara takes part in the many activities at the Home, especially the Singalong and Shabbat services which she and Bill both attend. However, she regrets that he is not able to participate in many of the activities with her. She misses the companionship they mutually enjoyed as a couple, but tries to make the best of things the way they are now. “Bill and I had a wonderful life together,” she said, wistfully. At the time of our interview, Sara had recently been hospitalized and was recovering from a bout of pneumonia. However, she looked very stylish in her blue, three-piece outfit and keeps up her appearance very well. She has a certain elegance about her, which time and troubles have not erased. My visit with Sara brought back an earlier era when life seemed easier, problems were fewer and optimism prevailed. However, when the rebuilding is complete, the change of scene and spacious surroundings will help to keep spirits bright for both Sara and Bill Lohrman and their many companions at the Home. She and I look forward to other visits, at the “New Beginning” of the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home.
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Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
March 30, 2007
Bridging the gap by ANNE MUSKIN Jewish Press Editorial Intern Bob Hope once said, “I’ll tell ya how to stay young: Hang around with older people!” Most, who have spent time at the Jewish Community Center, have seen the buggy pass by filled with toddlers from the Pennie Z. Davis Child Development Center (CDC), rolling and laughing down the hall. According to Bettie Adams, who’s been a teacher at the CDC for 20 years, they have been visiting the residents at the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home at least that long, if not longer. The CDC takes infants in buggies, and the four-year-old class walks over to the Blumkin Home. It’s not a short walk, either. With the move of the CDC from the north side of the JCC six years ago to its own, free-standing building in 2000, the jaunt takes about 15-20 minutes. From the CDC, the pre-schoolers walk up the ramp behind the JCC’s Fitness Center, up the stairs passed the racquetball courts and around the corner and down the long hallway through the JCC Gallery. From there, it’s around two more corners, past the Jewish Press office and the dance studio, where the tots finally arrive in the Blumkin Home. (The toddlers in buggies get to go up the elevator in the Fitness Center!) Adams tells her students, “We are performing a mitzvah.” Stroll through the ‘J’ in a different direction, and you’ll see Friedel Jewish Academy. Cookie Katskee has been the Principal for five years, and says that Friedel has a very active relationship with the Blumkin Home too.
Katskee said, “We have been going for Home, and on their long walk through- out the JCC. They make a point of seeing bubbies and zaydes, and a long, then the kids get to introlong time. duce their grandparents to It wasn’t their friends. my idea, Adams and Katskee, both but I’d like spoke of the unique opporto say it tunity that the Home allows was!” All in terms of proximity. “The ages parintergenerational thing is ticipate in very special,” Adams said. visiting Katskee agreed, “It’s a big and bringthing for these children. ing cards Some of these kids don’t to the resigrandparents in have d e n t s . Omaha. They don’t have She calls that experience of caring for their relasomeone different.” tionship Friedel has participated in with the decorating for holidays, a Home a Purim talent show, and “win-win incorporated the Blumkin situation,” Above left: Corey Kirshenbaum, director of the JCC’s Child Development Center, leads a parade Home in an art project. The and elaboof preschoolers through the Blumkin Home just four weeks ago during Purim. Right: Ann students had to take pictures r a t e d , Noodell wheels the “six-pack” to the Home for Purim on March 14, 2003. Below: In 1987, for an art class, and inter“You canPhyllis Wasserman, a veteran CDC teacher, brings pre-schoolers to the Home for Purim, someview residents’ about their not replace thing the JCC’s CDC has been doing since the Home opened in 1982. lives for a language arts the experiassignment; the stories were ence of doing for others. It becomes a later compiled into a book habit.” and shared with residents. I spoke to Bettie, her students, and Also, they regularly particiCookie about their special connection pate and enjoy activities with the Blumkin Home. Adams’ class planned by Maggie Conti, visits once a week. She explains to her Activities Director at the students that the Blumkin Home is the Home. residents’ home, and that they (the pre“We teach our children to schoolers) are visitors. She also stresses be kind and respectful. And, the importance of “kavod,” or respect, how your body changes as and told me that visiting the Blumkin you grow older.” Katskee Home is like exploring for the kids. “The said. They develop their JCC is very big to them!” relationship through the Since it’s so big, Adams works with the Chesed (kindness) Program. kids on how to behave in the Blumkin
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Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
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Continued from page 22 of giggles! Tikkun Olam (repairing the world) through a Jewish So, next time you see toddlers sailing down the JCC lens. This allows them to build activities with the halls on their way to the Blumkin Home, you might Blumkin Home into their curriculum. want to join ’em; I hear it’s fun! “Kids need to respect and love, and learn to care and nurture someone other than themselves,” Katskee added. This type of programming allows them the opportunity. Bettie Adams’ students at the CDC were excited to tell me all about their visits. One of her preschoolers, Julie (age 4), said, “I like to hug them.” Jeremy (age 4) volunteered, “My dad works there, and I like to see him.” Julie also said that they Photos from top left: Bettie Adams, left, and Wendy Manvitz lead a Purim parade of CDC sing songs for the residents preschoolers to the Home in 2004; the CDC’s Raisa Vinokurov leads the “buggy brigade” and put on shows. Bettie through the Home for Purim, March 5, 2007. Below left: Friedel student Max Weiner joins offered, “Yenta the parrot Mollie Weiner (no relation) for lunch, as do Alena Senik and Lilly Phillips, who lunch with sits on the residents heads Blumkin resident Bill Haber, March, 2003; Friedel student Brent Saltzman and Blumkin reswhen we sing.” Her stu- ident Rhoda Guggenheim paint together in a 1999 art project; in this undated photo, Helen dents verified that with a lot Epstein leads storytime at the Home as pre-schoolers and resident Fannie Medlov listens.
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The Face of Friedel Shabbat and Holiday services Continued from page 19 The foregoing are the fine folks who regularly bring Shabbat and holiday services to the residents. They deserve many thanks for all they do, and for sharing their experiences with us. What is it that compels these outstanding men and women to perform such mitzvot? While they follow the Judaic tradition of honoring the elders, it is neither ephemeral, nor obligatory, but rather, ongoing and comes from the heart. Without exception, each volunteer had been leading services at the Home for such a long time, they could scarcely remember when they had started, and every one of them used the word, “rewarding” in describing the experience. The ways in which they conduct services, are as varied as their personalities. For example, some are traditional; others are more innovative. Some conduct a solo service; others are family affairs, where spouses accompany them; still others bring along members of their synagogue congregations, or student volunteers. However,
all the leaders share a common denominator -- a desire to do something meaningful for the residents of the Home to help them stay connected to their Jewishness. So for everyone involved, each Shabbat or holiday service is a simcha! Both volunteers and residents are looking forward to the new chapel when the rebuilding is completed. According to Wine, it will hold more people and there will be a beautiful display area for lighting Shabbat candles and turning on yahrzeit (memorial) lights. Those who visit the new chapel will find it more accommodating. There will be an area for the Oneg Shabbat, and the chapel will be more prominent, as its location will be adjacent to the entrance of the new Home. Meanwhile, as the rebuilding proceeds, Shabbat services will continue as usual. Soon, the observance of those time-honored traditions will combine with the celebration of the “New Beginning” to create for residents and their families, volunteers, staff, and Omaha’s Jewish community, the best of both worlds!
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Page 24
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
March 30, 2007
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March 30, 2007
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
V’Hadarta P’nai Zaken Each Passover we retell the story of the exodus from Egypt and speak of the journey our people took toward their new home in the Promised Land. This Passover we also tell the story of the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home and speak of the twenty-five years that now lead to a New Beginning and a new home for the elderly in our community. Each generation is part of the story. In this season of remembering, we begin the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home Community Campaign. Together with our young and old, our sons and daughters, we will go and contribute to the work. May the work be blessed.
Jewish Senior Services THE ROSE BLUMKIN JEWISH HOME
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Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
March 30, 2007
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L.O.V.E. letters to the community by OZZIE NOGG Many old-time newspaper reporters made names for themselves by dishing the dirt on celebrities and café society antics. Irv Kupcinet at the Chicago Sun Times. Walter Winchell at the New York Graphic. Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons at Variety and Photoplay Magazine. Annie Belmont at the Omaha Jewish Press. Okay, the comparison may be a stretch, since the big shots got their scoops at Lindy’s, the Stork Club and Brown Derby (and earned large salaries) while our gal Annie drew inspiration for her weekly LOVE columns by observing the action at the Dr. Philip Sher Home and the Rose Blumkin Home -- and did it as a volunteer, to boot. Still, Annie was a fine little reporter, but don’t take my word for it. Take hers. April, 1980: If you were one of the 46 guests at the Sher Home on March 18 for the Hawaiian Night, you really had a ball. This was one night to remember. Hilda Hoffman and Millie Fogel looked gorgeous in their muu-muus. I wish to mention a lovely couple, Jack and Yetta Saylan. They are regular visitors to our Home, and it always is a joy to have them. Jack is always ready to entertain with a song and dance -- we love you. On a recent Thursday, the day set aside at the Dr. Sher Home for volunteer Mary Wine to conduct her busy sewing group, she shared more than her usual time and effort. She and her husband, known more formally as Mr. & Mrs. Jake Wine, shared the celebration of their 60th anniversary with the residents by hosting a lovely tea. It was a festive afternoon for all. On Fridays, early in the morning, you always see a man run into the Home, happy, happy, face, blue tennis shoes, and he says, ‘Let’s go.’ Our LOVE man, Sam Zweiback, drives a group of residents on our Love Bus to Lucas Hall for ceramics class. Getting the residents into the mainstream of the community is what it’s all about. Back in the 1980s, Annie’s affectionate reports were a popular addition to the Jewish Press. “Lee Jane Parsow started the LOVE column,” Annie said, “and then turned it over to me. The intention was to let the community in on the Who-What-When-Where of the Sher Home, to give the readers a peek at what was going on there. My mom, Belle Shrago, was a resident, and whenever I visited her I’d jot down things she and her friends said. News about their kids. Who was having a birthday.” Belmont remembers one resident, she added, “Mrs. Rundell, would spread out a big white cloth on her bed and make noodles. So whatever I heard or observed, I’d go home and type it up.” Annie’s columns were a mix of news, generous thankyous to her fellow LOVE volunteers, and invitations to “Come out and visit our residents.” Summer, 1980: Many thanks to our LOVE volunteer, Lucille Brodkey, for doing such a great job with Bingo -this is always loved by all. Thanks, also, to Liberty Faier and Shirley Fogel who have volunteered to lead songfests once a month. To kickoff Volunteer Week, there will be a style show with our leading models -- Molly Parsowsky, Belle Shrago, Dora Aster, Sarah Epstein, Millie Fogel and Sylvan Block. Our romeo, Sam Zweiback, and our favorite children, Courtney and Phillip Nogg, will model, too. Libby Sachs will be our narrator. This will be a fun evening. Everyone enjoyed ice cream and cake for Helen Papier’s birthday party hosted by her children. Looking at Helen, we don’t age at the Home -- our residents are getting younger. Sally Appel, our LOVE lady, had a beautiful day on June 24, when she was hostess at her home for fifteen residents. Sweets and punch were served on the patio, and enjoyed so very much. Thank you, Sally. You are loved by all. Last week Ruth and Sophie Potash, Sylvan Block, Keva Hornstein, Abe Slutsky, Belle Shrago and Jenny Turkel went on an impromptu picnic to Benson Park. Many thanks to Sam Shyken for bringing delicious sandwiches from the Henry Monsky B’nai B’rith meeting. We are always happy when our residents are thought of. JCC preschoolers visited and the residents helped the children make egg-carton gardens. So you see, it’s been a busy season. When you have a free afternoon or evening, please come and visit. You will leave the Home with JOY in your heart. The welcome sign is always up. A conversation with Annie Belmont is a fast-forward, then shift-into-reverse ride between nostalgia for the Sher Home and her attachment to the Blumkin Home. “I can’t explain it. I just have a love for old people. Years
ago most of the residents spoke Yiddish -- that’s not the case now -- but I always spoke Yiddish with my mother.”
Volunteers and staff at the Blumkin Home meet to discuss LOVE projects: Helen Shukert, left, Doris Koom, Doris Shukert, Celia Blank, Ann Belmont, back row: Helen Rifkin (Chorney), Shane Kotok, Sharon Conlon, and Nancy Pearlman. The memory propelled Annie into a story that never appeared in print. “One morning my mother called from the Sher Home and said, in Yiddish, ‘I don’t have my teeth.’ And I said, Ma, what do you mean you don’t have your your teeth? And my mother said, ‘I put them in a glass before I went to bed but now I don’t have my teeth.’ So I drove to the Sher Home, thinking maybe my mother’s roommate, Molly Parsow, knew what had happened, and when I got to the Home all the nurses were looking everywhere -who’s got her teeth?” Annie smiles, “As it turned out, Rube Lippett’s mother had come into my mother’s room in the middle of the night, saw the teeth in the glass, thought they were hers and wore them to breakfast. My mother just washed them and put them back in her mouth. It was nisht gehfairlach -- no big deal. Don’t you love that story?” February, 1980: Isn’t he a handsome young man, so educated, what an experience he had. Those were all the beautiful remarks David Duitch received at Hadassah’s Oneg Shabbat at the Sher Home. David spoke on his recent trip to Egypt and Israel. Our hostesses for the afternoon were Ronnie Jacobson, Rhoda Davis, Jennie Bear, Sarah Saltzman, Eva Davis, Thelma Lustgarten and Marilyn Pred. It is so gratifying to see all the smiles and thank-yous from our residents. Read this, all you young people. Keva Hornstein and Benny Meyerson had a great fun afternoon bowling at the Ames Bowl. Faye Abrams, Ida Ontman, Sylvan Block, Abe Diamond and Helen Papier were outstanding cheerleaders. More than one Hadassah Oneg Shabbat was the focus of a LOVE story. “Mary Fellman and I did those Oneg Shabbats for 20 years. We’d talk on the phone every week and decide on the refreshments and who we’d get to entertain the residents, usually local entertainers like Stan Widman or Jeff Taxman and his kids. Somehow, we always got people to volunteer their talents.” June, 1980: You are missing a lot by not attending the Hadassah Oneg Shabbat. We have three lovely ladies -Bessie Witkin, Helen Papier Mary Fellman and Bertha Chernicoff -- who entertain with their lovely voices. So come out for the afternoon to meet the ‘The Sher Sisters.’ You will enjoy the tea and entertainment and the visit. It will make your day. According to Annie, her LOVE connection “goes way back to the night I went to the first LOVE Banquet at the Highland Club. I remember walking in with my husband and my mother and I was delighted -- overcome -- to see what they were doing for the residents at the Sher Home, and I decided I had to do something for them, for LOVE, and from then on I got involved and haven’t stopped.” When LOVE celebrated it’s 10th Anniversary in October of 1981, Annie Belmont and Sandy Nogg chaired the banquet. Future plans for the Jewish elderly in the Omaha community and a front page article in the Jewish Press said, “The new Rose Blumkin Jewish Home will be bigger than the present facility, and there will be more programs and more volunteers will be needed.” Continued on page 27
L.O.V.E. is a volunteer organization formed in 1971, originally to provide programs and activities for the residents of the Dr. Philip Sher Home. Today, L.O.V.E. continues to bloom at the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home. As a caring Jewish community, we can meet that responsibility together...with L.O.V.E.
March 30, 2007
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 27
L.O.V.E. letters Continued from page 26 In her column Annie wrote: Our LOVE Banquet was a huge success. This was the time all LOVE volunteers were recognized for their hours of giving. Lottie Fogel delivered the invocation. Keva Hornstein recited the Motzi, Ben Garelick chanted the Birkat HaMazon and Fannie Stein lighted the candles on the birthday cake. Residents presented a musical program -- We Come To America. They received a standing ovation. Cornhusker B’nai B’rith did Sukkot services on Sunday. They also served tea and goodies. Our sukkah was decorated under the direction of Mary Wine and Jean Epstein. Many members of Bikur Cholem helped. Our residents wish you a healthy, happy New Year. For the New Year, put a little LOVE in your life. During Blumkin Home construction, activities at the Sher Home continued. “Mel Linsman came and showed movies,” Annie recalled. “Adorable resident Keva Hornstein watered his tomato garden in the backyard. LOVE volunteers helped with craft projects. I still have things my mother made, figurines and plates she painted. And I remember one particular style show -- Helen Shukert and Gerre Hoffman were the chairmen -and eight ladies modeled hats, who knows where they came from, the Goodwill probably. Sam Zweiback was there. He was such a great volunteer, he was a riot, so much fun. One of the models was my mother ... if you think that was cute ... it was something else.” March, 1982: Song-A-Long is every Thursday afternoon. LOVE ladies Nancy Pearlman and LeeJane Parsow knock on
every door to get the residents to join in. Millie Fogel, Sam Nearenberg, Lottie Makofsky, Dave and Bess Bernstein and Sylvan Bloch went to Joslyn for Bagels and Bach. Iz Wintroub, Helen Papier, Sam Nearenberg, Sylvan Block, Fay Abrams, Ruthie Potash and Bessie Margolin attended the Pops Concert at the Orpheum. Many residents visited Roncalli High School to see their production of The Sound of Music. These outings are so rewarding. Evenings have been spent stuffing kits for
the March of Dimes Walk-a-Thon. Residents working on the project are Keva Hornstein, Dave and Bess Bernstein, Lottie Fogel, May, 1980: I wish to recognize two ladies -Mary Wine and Ida Potash. Every Thursday, rain or shine, they are there to instruct sewing and many other crafts. Even though they are old standbys, they are thought of at all times and loved by all. And to top off their afternoon, they always serve home baked goodies and tea.
At a L.O.V.E. banquet in May, 1993, co-chaired by Joanie Bernstein, left, Sol and LeeJane Parsow and Marian and Irving Nogg were honored as Volunteers-of-theYear. June, 1982: Residents of the Sher Home are planting flowers on the patio. Our green thumb people are Marie Dloogoff, Jerry Maltz, Bertha Morris, Keva Hornstein and Sylvan Block. We’re all hoping for a beautiful day June 20. We will have an ice cream social on our front lawn in honor of Father’s Day. This is our third year of watercolor painting. The response from our residents has been tremendous. Participating are Sylvan Block, Chuma Weinroth, Sarah Gelbart, Bessie Margolin, Bertha Morris, Libby Rifkin and Eva Schwartz. Big thank-yous to our LOVE volunteers -- Adele Hornstein, Helen Rifkin and Sandy Nogg for all their help. Instructor Mary Ann Aupperle brought out the hidden talents in our residents. They were so thrilled with their painting, many have been framed. Grandma Moses has nothing on us.
Marie Dloogoff, Jerry Maltz, Sara Gilbert, Helen Papier and Richard Wright. In the fall of 1982, Nancy Pearlman took over the LOVE column. When the residents of the Sher Home moved to the Blumkin Home in November of that year, Annie Belmont was among the volunteers who helped with the transition, sewing name tags on clothing, packing and unpacking belongings, guiding the residents around the building. “It was so much fun, seeing the residents in their new rooms. They were so excited, they kept saying ‘Hi, hi’ to all the volunteers. Of course my mom moved there, too,” she said. “Six months later she passed away. It seems like yesterday.” For Annie, the Blumkin Home is still an emotional magnet. She’s there every Monday to relieve DeeDee Sortino, the receptionist, at lunch time, but other visits are frequent and spontaneous. “I stop in to see a resident whenever I can, and it’s usually a long time before I’m out of the building,” she said. “So many people have never visited the Home. Never walked in the door. I don’t know why. Maybe they’re afraid of the future. For me, it’s what I’ve done since my mother was at the Sher Home, and I just keep coming back to the Blumkin Home because I love to be company for the residents. To hear their stories and laugh with them. I could stay all day. And when I do finally leave, it’s with a warm feeling.” April, 1982: Last week, Ida Ontman, Arthur Meyerson, Dora Astor, Faye Abrams, Millie Fogel, Iz Wintroub, Lottie Makofsky and Dave and Bess Bernstein visited the Matza Bakery at the JCC. The residents of the Sher Home wish all a happy Passover.
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Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
March 30, 2007
A tale of L.O.V.E. by GLORIA SHUKERT JONES acronym, L.O.V.E. It was a catchy name, and described they had company, and I decided I would use that room This is a L.O.V.E. story. It’s all about the League what we were going to do.” for my own. Mrs. Fogel, one of the residents at the Offering Volunteers for the Elderly, and the outstanding Simon called for volunteers. She emphasized that vol- home, whose son was a partner at All Makes, gave us a individuals who, not only have made it possible, but unteers would have to make definite commitments as to file cabinet. I set up the card table and that was my have continued throughout the years, to help change the the times they wanted to serve, and that it was not meant office. Dave Orkow was not happy with me at all. One perception of a home for the aged from a dismal atmos- to be a hit-or-miss sort of thing. lady came to the entrance of the room, and said, ‘We phere of boredom and loneliness, to a place where peo“We wanted to have an orientation. The first one was don’t use this room.’ When I was there at the luncheon ple can spend their golden years happily engaged in life- on a Sunday afternoon at the Home,” Simon recalled. before I even started, this same lady had invited me to enhancing and creative activities. L.O.V.E. brings a little “It was exciting, because there was standing room only. her room for some candy. This illustrated to me how of the outside world inside, and offers new perspectives Many people had a soft spot for the Home, because at lonely these people were.” and opportunities to our beloved elders, as well as many one time they had a relative or friend there. So I had a “Then the volunteers who had signed up after the orineeded services and items they require for care and questionnaire I had them fill out in order to volunteer, entation, started to come,” Simon added. “I had badges recreation. with their names, and a card file for each, The organization actually began at the Dr. and in the beginning I was there every day, Philip Sher Home, and was first initiated by keeping track of people and planning what its founder, Miriam Simon, a woman who, we were going to do. One of the nurses had when she sees something that must be done given me a mimeographed sheet of paper or needs fixing, does not rest until the job is with exercise illustrations for elderly people, completed. As in the old children’s game, so I started an exercise class each morning, “Simon says,” when Miriam Simon says with some of them sitting, and those who something, people listen and spring into were able, did them standing. I was still action. Such was the case back in 1971 when there every day, Monday through Friday. I Simon visited the Sher Home. Immediately, originally wanted to make the hours from 9 she noticed something was missing. Where a.m. to noon, and then after lunch, from 1 were the residents? to 5 p.m. Eventually, I eliminated Fridays At that time, Alvin Abramson and Donald because everyone wanted to get their hair Nogg were co-chairmen of the Sher Home. done, and nobody wanted to come that day, “I got a call from one of them, asking me to “ Simon recalled. serve on the Board, and I agreed,” Miriam “I needed someone to chair each day of the said. “I visited the Home occasionally, as my week, since I couldn’t do it every day, so I husband had an aunt there, and my father got my friends involved. I called Lee Jane had a cousin there at one time, and I didn’t (Parsow), who was a very good friend, and Celebrating the groundbreaking of the new Rose Blumkin Jewish Home in 1981 are: go that often. But the Board had a meeting asked her to be the Tuesday chairperson, and Miriam Simon, left, Andi Kavich, unidentified, Barbara Frankel, and Ellie Penner. there once a month, and I would walk Phyllis Friedel, who became the Monday through the halls and not see very many residents. and they had to make a commitment as to when they chairman.” Simon, added, “Bert Lewis’s mother, Mary Except for the staff, the reception area and halls were would come and how many hours they could serve. It Wine, was active in Bikur Cholom, and had a side-kick. empty. The residents mostly stayed in their rooms, only didn’t have to be every day, or every week.” They used to go to the Home on Thursdays, and did knitcoming to the dining area for meals, and then going Before the volunteers had signed up, Simon went to ting or sewing, or something of that nature, so Mary was right back to their rooms.” the Home every day and was the only one at that time. in charge on Thursday. I don’t remember who was on This was of considerable concern to Simon. “The residents looked at me, and wondered what I was Wednesday. Sis Turner may have been chairman tem“It was a very quiet place with nothing going on in the doing there,” she said. Dave Orkow, was the director of porarily. Anyway,” Simon continued, “the morning peoway of activities,” she continued. “Oh, I knew they had the Home, and he was not excited about my doing this. ple would conduct the exercise classes.” visitors occasionally, but that was about it. So I said to I think I was a threat to him, because he was the one Simon then described how the Singalong got started. Alvin and Donald, ‘Why isn’t anything going on here?’ who did everything. I asked him if he had a bingo set, “I needed someone to play the piano, so I called my I think they had in mind that I would do something and he told me there was something down in the base- friend, Liberty Faier. I knew that Liberty played by ear, about it, and that was my intention. It took some plan- ment. So I went down and looked for it, and there was so I asked her if she would come and play the piano on ning, but the idea was to get people to come there. And this cage they put the numbers in. I checked to see if all Tuesdays. She agreed, and I remember telling the staff finally, I think we publicized in the Press, that we were the numbers were there. I announced at lunch that we we were going to have this program -- I didn’t call it a going to organize a volunteer program.” were going to have a bingo game, and that was the first Singalong at that time-- but the residents all came. They Then Simon described how the name “L.O.V.E.” one. I ended up staying all day, and I was still the only were so hungry for something to do. I remember saying, originated. “We were at a board meeting. First, the one, thus far. That was the start of the bingo games.” ‘Liberty, play -- whatever.’ I would start singing and they name ‘LIVE’ came to mind. Then there was something “I then decided I needed an office,” Simon continued. would sing with me. Eventually, it became a regular like, ‘League of Volunteers’. What finally materialized “There was this one beautifully furnished sitting room. Tuesday activity.” was, ‘League Offering Volunteers for the Elderly’, or the The residents never went in there by themselves, only if Continued on page 29
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March 30, 2007
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 29
A tale of L.O.V.E. Continued from page 28 “Then,” Simon continued, “I remember asking them if they had a projector, so the residents could maybe watch movies. I believe Don (Nogg) was able to find one. I got my husband involved. I tried to get people to come in the evening. My husband, Ervin, was a rock hound, and I don’t mean rock music -- I mean rocks,” she laughed. “We had machinery and he would cut and polish rock, and make cabochons and jewelry.
Ervin and Miriam Simon She got him to come Thursday evenings, and the residents would make projects. There used to be an open house at the Sher Home. It advertised in the Press, and the community was invited. “There would be a sale of items made by the residents, some in Erv’s class, and some in Mary Wine’s class, and it was fun and exciting,” Simon recalled. A few months after L.O.V.E started, Simon prevailed upon the board to hire an activities director, since she felt she couldn’t continue this forever. She indicated it was becoming her whole life. “I remember going to one of Erv’s National Association of Meat Purveyors conventions, and wondering how I would leave,” she said. “At the time, I had some reliable chairmen like Lee Jane, but they didn’t plan the activities. Then I got Sally Appel to come to the Home, and asked if she could take over occasionally to oversee the volunteers’ scheduling when I had to be gone.” Since Miriam had also agreed to be chairman of the Women’s Campaign, she couldn’t do both. “I said we had to hire a permanent activities director. I think it was only part time. After that, there were a variety of chairpersons, some good, and some not so good, but eventually Sally became the chairman after I had been there for a year.” Simon recalls at the end of the first year, a banquet was held at the Highland Club for residents, volunteers, and others. The L.O.V.E. banquet, as it was called, became an annual event, always held on a Sunday afternoon. The entire community was delighted to learn of all the activities at the Home. “I think they have something similar now,” she observed, “like the Volunteer Recognition Day. We recognized volunteers and kept a record of the number of hours each one worked.” Simon is now a resident of Palm Coast, Florida, which she states is, “The fastest growing county in the United States.” But prior to that, she and her husband would spend part of the winters there from 1994 until 2001, when they actually made Florida their home. “And a month after we moved, my son
died,” Simon reported. “He had multiple myeloma, and we were hoping he would be able to have a stem-cell transplant. But that didn’t happen. Ten months later, my husband died.” Since moving to Florida, Simon has made several trips back to Omaha. “I came back four years ago because I wanted to. Then I came back two years ago last May, but only for a day and half. They were having the centennial celebration at Dundee School. My older sister and younger brother and I, had all gone to Dundee, and my children went to Dundee as well; I was the president of PTA there, so it played a big part in my life,” she explained. Last October, she was also invited to attend the Ak-Sar-Ben coronation, dinner and ball, honoring friends Shirley and Buddy Goldstein. Her daughter encouraged her to make this trip, which was the most recent one. There were people she wanted to see at the Federation and the Blumkin Home. One of the things she accomplished was to set up an endowment fund. While living in Omaha, Simon had been active in the Jewish community. She was president of Hadassah, and Beth El’s Sisterhood, and was also president of a women’s club, The Federation of Jewish Women, a now-defunct organization. “I came a long way,” she said. Simon takes satisfaction in knowing that many of the activities she started at the Sher Home are still going strong today at the Blumkin Home. She maintains that people go to the Blumkin Home to live and not to die. “These are people who are still interested in activities and other people. And just because they can no longer take care of themselves, they still want to have a life, and it’s great that they have a place where they can be taken care of and still enjoy,” she observed. She also speaks highly of the Blumkin Home staff, and had many words of praise for Shane Kotok, whom she considered to be extremely helpful, especially when Simon’s husband’s aunt, Pearl Seiders, of Los Angeles, eventually became a resident there. Simon further reported that historian Ben Nachman had completed an oral history about her life and her parents. She said she talked for three and a half hours, which filled three DVDs. Nachman alerted Simon to the possibility that when she viewed the DVDs, she would be disappointed because she’d likely remember leaving some things out. She found this to be true, and added, “When you’re trying to cover 80 years, it’s understandable.” My interview with Simon was conducted via long distance telephone. She spoke of many things -- Omaha people, places, and events. I was amazed at the strength and fortitude of this lady. I asked her what she does now in Florida. She replied: “What do I do? I don’t do as much here as I did in Omaha. But before we moved here, I called the Director of the Jewish Federation of Volusia and Flagler Counties, Gloria Max, and asked if she needed a volunteer. The area is very active, and there are always things to be done.” Simon added, “Gloria has become one of my closest friends. When we brought my son here, she found an oncologist for him, a wonderful doctor who was able to take him, even though he had a lot of other patients. He wrote us a note afterwards, apologizing for not being able to do more for him.” Continued on page 30
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Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
March 30, 2007
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A tale of L.O.V.E. was just a trickle of Jews getting out of the Soviet Continued from page 29 Simon was invited to serve on the Federation Board in Union. It was very clandestine. When we came back, we Florida, the year before she moved there. She couldn’t felt that Omaha had to do something. So we organized understand how the Director operated with only one the Free Soviet Jewry Movement. Goldstein was the chairman; in fact, she became active paid assistant, and without volunteers, and didn’t approve of sending out cards for the Annual Campaign, in the national organization and Simon was her assistant. “I went to the Omaha Federation Board, and told them instead of calling the people in person. In her opinion, “You get stuff in the mail every day we should be allocating money to bring some of these asking for donations. People will fill out the cards, but people to Omaha. They have to go somewhere, I said at don’t send as large an amount as they would if you had the meeting, and we should be doing our part,” she talked to them personally.” However, Simon feels the urged. She served on the Jewish Family Service board, solicitations are the volunteers’ responsibility, and not and became chairman of the Soviet Jewry Resettlement the director’s. She indicated, “I wrote a speech that I Committee, which was another part of her life. Simon still keeps in touch with gave at the Board meeting, June, 1982: Our darling LOVE girl, Rosie Zweiback, some of the former Soviet expressing these thoughts, families she helped and tries and said it should be run by will soon be leaving for college. She’s been doing the volunteers, and not by manicures for our residents and has been so disturbed as to see them whenever she’s in Omaha. mail, but face-to-face. They to who will take over her job. We’re happy to tell the Not surprisingly, Simon applauded, and said I ought residents that Rosie’s mom, Heremine, and friend Joie continues to gain recognito be chairman. So I became Simon, will come to the Home each week and give tion in her Florida commuchairman of the campaign, manicures. How lucky are we!” nity, just like she did in and in the three years since I took over, we have raised more money than ever Omaha. “We usually have a community-wide Shabbat every year, which includes five synagogue congregations before.” Since moving to Florida, Simon has survived pancre- from the two counties. Last September, I was honored atic cancer surgery and chemotherapy. Shortly after for being the Volunteer of the Year of 2005.” Simon hopes to return to Omaha, one more time. “I recuperating from 10 months of chemo, she was rushed to the ER with congestive heart failure, which according take a million pills,” Simon said, “but if that’s what it to her doctors, may have been brought on by the takes to keep me going, I’ll keep on doing it.” Simon was a visionary who foresaw the great potential chemo. She has successfully overcome both life-threatfor activities at the then Sher Home. She is living proof ening conditions, and says she feels very well. And at 85 years of age, that is truly phenomenal. “I that the key to health and longevity is having a goal and was very fortunate,” she said, “as most people with pan- purpose-filled life. This is something she wanted to creatic cancer don’t live long enough to talk about it.” impart to the residents, and with perseverance and dedHowever, Simon continues being active in her organiza- ication she has achieved that goal through the impletions, but admits she needs to take things easier and mentation of group activities and special events in both doesn’t take on any responsibilities she can’t fulfill. But the Sher Home and the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home. Though there have been many other dedicated people all in all, she is unstoppable. She still managed to make a trip to Omaha, and to Israel to visit her daughter, not involved in the L.O.V.E. organization throughout the years, Miriam Simon is the one who got the ball rolling, too long after her amazing recovery. Simon is probably best known here, along with Shirley and it has never stopped. Words like “pacesetter”, “pioneer” and “philanthroGoldstein, for joint efforts regarding the Free Soviet Jewry Movement. “We were on a trip together to the pist” are used to describe this one incredible woman Soviet Union,” she explained, “And at that time, there who has made a difference in the lives of many.
Lois Wine, left, who staffs L.O.V.E. as the Home’s director of volunteer services, works with Judy Brookstein.
Helene Shrago, left, Edith Rogert, George Schapiro and Joanie Bernstein distribute balloons at a L.O.V.E. banquet.
More about L.O.V.E. by GLORIA SHUKERT JONES While L.O.V. E. was first just a volunteer organization, Helen Shukert was president. In 1997, L.O.V.E. was headed by Steve and Patty Nogg. This was the same year in which the organization became an auxiliary of the Blumkin Home. Hyman and Marlene Sukiennik were next in succession, followed by Miles and Eileen Remer, who became the leaders in 2002, and are the current copresidents of L.O.V.E. The Remers initiated the revision of what were formerly by-laws, to what is now known as “Operating Guidelines for L.O.V.E.” They composed and issued annual letters to the local Jewish community, as well as the Life Members. What they strive to do and have accomplished, is not to change anything, but continue to help the organization grow and maintain its purpose. According to Eileen Remer, “Our specific duties as copresidents are to see that the L.O.V.E. organization runs smoothly, and that we continue to serve the residents of the Blumkin Home.” They conduct board meetings the last Thursday of the month, and assist the board members in every way possible, including fundraising projects and special events like Grandparents’ Day. “We are also responsible to Michael Silverman, as Executive Director, and the Jewish Senior Services board, who also assist with the basic operation of and decisions for the Home,” she added. “Our membership has increased to over 349 regular members, and 76 life
members.” She expresses appreciation for the response to all the membership drives, and other fundraising efforts and reports, “We were able to refurbish the north and south lounges, purchase new wheelchairs, fix the chapel and put in beautiful new needlepoints for the Torahs in the Aron Kodesh, and last, but not least, in 2006, our gift to the Blumkin Home was a check for $20,000 to purchase a new SUV.” The organization has also purchased musical clocks throughout the Home, which provide familiar melodies on the hour. A Quilting Group has been making beautiful quilts for the rehabilitation wing and other areas of the Home, and carrier quilts to put on walkers, enabling residents to carry their belongings with them. Each new resident is provided with a welcoming basket, which is also supplied by L.O.V.E. One of the continuing functions of L.O.V.E. has been the sale of cards in honor of and in memory of relatives and friends. The cards sell for $10, $5 and $3. “We’re happy to report that this year, the money raised from our membership drive went towards upgrading the large dining room in order to enhance the experience for the residents. At Michael Silverman’s request, each resident room now has a mezuzzah, and funds have been allotted for a massage program,” Remer indicated. Continued on page 31
March 30, 2007
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 31
More about L.O.V.E. and effort. All our board members have dedicated themContinued from page 30 “L.O.V.E. has also paid for new comfort mattresses for selves to the success of L.O.V.E.” However, she continued, “there is one person who is each resident room,” Remer said, and added, “Additionally, L.O.V.E. donated $10,000 this year for an ex-officio member of our board, who helps L.O.V.E. the Home’s purchase of a ‘Bladder Scan’, which the and serves as a liaison to L.O.V.E., who has contributed nursing staff requested and indicated they had a dire substantially to the success of all we do. Lois Wine, need for, in order to make the care of residents more Director of Volunteer Services for the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home, deserves special recognition for her willeffective.” “All of the things being done are on a suggested wish ingness to assist L.O.V.E. in every way possible.” Remer added, “We know that L.O.V.E. will continue list are things that can and will be used once the projected rebuilding of the Home becomes a reality,” its services and financial support during the very exciting Remer stated. “ The list of needs for our residents seems and busy times throughout the rebuilding. Everything that L.O.V.E. to grow all the time, and accomplishes is L.O.V. E. is happy to be done -- with able to supply these love -- for the requests through the genbenefit of the erosity of our members residents and and others who constaff of the tribute.” Rose Blumkin Every year in June, at Jewish Home.” the Volunteer Recogthe That’s Day and nition L.O.V.E. story Installations, L.O.V.E. from its earliest presents Jewish Senior beginnings to Services with a large its current sucdonation to meet the cess. As we needs of the Home. look to the In addition, funds future, even raised by L.O.V.E. supgreater things port ongoing programs at Eileen and Miles Remer represented L.O.V.E. at a conference of the lie ahead: In the Home, such as enterAssociates of Jewish Homes and Services for the Aging in 2003. addition to the tainment, birthday parties, Singalongs, bingo, manicures, discussion groups, beautiful, expanded and renovated building, complete pokeno, tea time, the operation of the gift shop, movies, with amenities unheard of a generation ago, we look arts and crafts, holiday parties, current events, and many beyond the spacious new areas and resident rooms, to other special projects that help ensure that the residents recognize and thank all the dedicated leaders, volunteers, board members, participants and donors who have always have something interesting to do. Eileen Remer says, “Everything we’ve done since we been instrumental in making the L.O.V.E. organization took over as co-presidents has been inspiring and note- what it is today -- a veritable hub in the wheel of activiworthy. To watch the organization grow and thrive has ties and fund-raising efforts designated solely to enhance been an honor. Every board we’ve had the honor of the lives of the Blumkin Home residents. In its simplest terms, L.O.V.E. will always be-- as it has serving with has done a remarkable job. We can’t begin to mention all the people who have given of their time in the past-- generated by love!
Joanie Jacobson, left, and her mother-in-law, Edith Jacobson, visit with JCC/RBJH Executive Director Michael SIlverman at a New Year’s Eve dinner at the Home for residents and their families.
Rose Rosenberg
Mollie Franklin
Larry Katzman visits his grandmother, Bertha Chernicoff at the Home in 1983; she was one of 10 residents who moved from the Dr. Sher Home in 1982.
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Page 32
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
March 30, 2007
Made with L.O.V.E. Goldberg, Shirley Goodman, Ilse Kahn, many residents and outpatient rehabilitaby ANDREA BARTMAN for JSS/RBJH Wendy Manvitz, Sandy Passer, Karen tion patients require a walker to get Sorensen and Judi Yoo. These women around. These bags are constructed to They get together once feel good about the contribution they are hang on the front of the walker to proa month to work, to talk, making to the elderly of their communi- vide a place for residents to carry eyeto do something positive ty. They also reap the rewards of building glasses, books or any other personal items for the needs of others in ties with one another and forming new they require when attending events, their community. Some rehabilitation at the Home or meals in friendships. of them are experienced Membership dues from L.O.V.E., as the dining room. The bags also lend to quilters. Some are helpful well as donations from individuals, pro- safety for the residents, as they provide a volunteers who do work vide the funding for this continuing proj- place for belongings and free up both such as cutting and pinect. And unlike many other causes, this is hands for use on the walker. The bags are ning. They all know that one where all donations directly benefit available at the Home to any resident or their efforts directly benthe intended recipients. The initial four rehabilitation patient who requires one. efit the residents of the “I think this effort is especially imporquilts were completed by mid-2006 and Blumkin Home. were given to the Home for the hospice tant now that the Home is branching out The L.O.V.E. (League patients who needed the extra warmth. into different services including hospice Offering Volunteers for Then the group moved on to other proj- care, outpatient rehabilitation and special the Elderly) quilting project began in the summer Doris Alloy, left, and Wendy Manvitz, work together on the ects they thought would benefit resi- needs. We are trying to address comfort issues in each area,” says Bresel. dents. of 2005 with a request to assembly of quilt sections during a recent work session. Walker bags were the next item. So Continued on page 33 Marge Bresel, an experienced quilter, would like to get together and do this from Lois Wine, Director of Volunteer work for a good cause.” Wine knew that Bresel was the Services for RBJH. “Would you be willing to gather a group to create quilts for right woman to organize the effort, along with Doris Alloy, a the hospice beds at the Home?” Wine was familiar with Bresel’s work seasoned volunteer and a board from a previous show at the Jewish member of L.O.V.E. Together, Community Center. “When some of the they found a group of around L.O.V.E. Board members saw her 12 women who gather to work (Bresel’s) work they were so impressed on sewing projects for residents; with her,” says Wine. “They suggested usually at a group member’s that L.O.V.E. fund the hospice quilt home where the machines and project. Several board members volun- tools are available, or sometimes teered to work on the quilts. The rest is at synagogues or the RBJH. The group is always interested history so too speak!” This began an effort that continues and in new members who are willing evolves with every new need of this type to lend a hand; sewing experiat the Blumkin Home. Two goals were ence is not required. The curestablished for the project at that time. rent group, in addition to Bresel The first was to produce the quilts; the and Alloy, consists of Enid other, according to Bresel, was to “bring Blumenthal, Esther Bogdanoff, Some members of the group display the completed hospice quilts: Judi Yoo, left, Enid Blumenthal, Doris together women in our community who Sandee Friedman, Jennine Alloy, Marge Bresel, Karen Sorensen, Shirley Goodman and Esther Bogdanoff.
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Music hath charms at the Singalongs by GLORIA SHUKERT JONES There was an air of hushed expectation in the auditorium of the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home on the Tuesday afternoon I sat in on one of the Singalong sessions. Seated at my left was Selma Tretiak, visiting her husband, Isadore, a resident, seated next to her on the left, and to my right was resident Sarah Lohrman, a former neighbor when I lived on 55th and Pacific Streets during my high school days. It had been quite a long time since we had seen one another, but Lohrman remembered me. Her son and my younger brother were playmates when they were both about nine years old. That’s how long ago it had been. However, nostalgic reminiscing seemed to fit in appropriately with the musical selections of yesteryear, often referred to as “golden oldies”. Soon, Joanie Bernstein, followed by Bernie Altsuler, Florence Brody, Stan Widman, and Terry Bernstein, entered the front of the auditorium. “What do we do here?” Bernstein called out. “We sing!” the eager audience shouted, in unison. And sing they did-- “My Darling Clementine,” “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” and “Jada,” to name just a few. The lyrics in large print were in the distributed song books, and each tune was preceded by an introductory anecdote from the pert and peppy Joanie Bernstein. Midway through the songfest, we were treated to
have two new books to add variety for the residents.” “The residents like a lot of variety, so in addition to the Singalong, we have outside talent that comes in and entertains occasionally,” Bernstein said. “Eve Handleman was a volunteer piano player, and she brought her daughter, who is an outstanding opera singer. Ernie Wintroub, who alternates with Altsuler as comedian, is the longest-tenured volunteer in the group.
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
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Terry Bernstein, left, Stan Widman, Bernie Alsuler, Florence Brody, pianist Debbie Jennings, Tootie Simon, Kathy Weiner, Bea Karp, and Joanie Bernstein. (Not pictured: Ernie Wintroub). some impromptu dance steps by Widman, as he sang, “Swanee,” and a few jokes by Altsuler. The song, “Hello, Dolly,” was paraphrased, “Hello, Molly,” in tribute to the longest-tenured resident, Molly Franklin. Then, with help from Brody, Franklin stood and swayed back and forth to the rhythm of “her” song. Then there was more community singing: “A Bicycle Built for Two,” “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” and “Sidewalks of New York.” For some, these refrains bring back memories of childhood and early days of romance. Altsuler explained, “We found some old song books with Jewish, patriotic, rock and roll, and country western songs that were easy to sing and upbeat. With the help of Deb Jennings, our current piano player, we now
We’ve even had groups here from Israel.” In fact, Bernstein mentioned she was approached by Florence Brody who suggested it would be fun to have a country western day. So she and pianist Jennings, put together a book of country western songs. Then Brody and her daughter, Jan Goldstein, sang a duet on Country Western Day. As of this writing, the group is planning to have a “Gilligan’s Island” theme for the next Singalong, with the theme song from that show, and the staff people dressed in costumes. This will be in keeping with the staff’s idea of “Cruising Through Winter,” their way of making it easier to cope through the inclement winter weather, as they look ahead to spring. Continued on page 38
Made with L.O.V.E. Continued from page 32 Special care is taken by the group in selecting materials. Softness, warmth and laundering ability are of the utmost importance. Alloy mentions one particular resident who requested a particular color of basket liner for her walker. “It’s a special thing for a special lady. I think it will really make her happy because she loves to dress beautifully and these are her colors.” The group has completed wheelchair lap blankets for residents who are cold, as well as polar fleece shawls with pockets. The group is also completing a fifth hospice quilt. Bresel and Alloy are quick to point out that it takes the efforts of many people in cooperation to facilitate the project, “like Judi Yoo,” says Bresel, “She comes and she works here with us and she’s our liaison because she gives us input directly from the residents” on what the Home needs and any adjustments that need to be made
to the sewing projects. “Judi is really our point person.” They also credit the effort of Darlene Golbitz, a RN at the Blumkin Home. Says Wine, “We appreciate the input from Darlene in regard to lending her knowledge about the type of fabric, the size, etc., that our residents would like in the quilts.” These people truly care about the needs of residents and are there to hear what they really need and want. “This has turned out to be a wonderful cooperative project for L.O.V.E. and our Home,” says Wine. “We thank Marge for her interest in expanding the original quilt project to include the shawls and walker bags.” Blank note cards with pictures of the completed quilts are available for purchase from any group member or from the Home by contacting Wine. Those who are interested in joining L.O.V.E. or the quilting/sewing group can contact her as well at 330.4272.
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Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
March 30, 2007
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by ANDREA BARTMAN oil and how much salt. “They can’t have for JSS/RBJH too much salt.” After the showing, he His efforts are applauded by everyone stays on to clean the machine and put around him but he doesn’t care much everything away. about having his name in the newspaper. “Elliott has been popping corn for as When approached about an interview, he long as I can remember,” says Maggie was hesitant until persuaded that his story Conti, Director of Activities and might inspire others to do some of the Outreach Programs for the RBJH. “I same. Elliott Banner is a dedicated volun- know that the residents and staff look forteer for the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home, ward to the deliciously warm popcorn on and he does it for his own reasons. These Wednesday afternoons. When we don’t reasons don’t include acknowledgement have a movie, everyone asks about the or accolades; however this is what he gets popcorn. It is a special treat for all of us.” from everyone who is familiar with his Elliott tries to encourage a good turnout work. When Elliott retired from AT&T in 1989, he was more than ready to leave the working world behind; however, his work didn’t end there. His wife had been volunteering at the RBJH for years and as he says, “It gives me something to do.” It’s obvious in speaking with him that a man like this is completely incapable of doing nothing at all. He just cares too much. Elliott and his wife, Ida, assist the residents of the RBJH in a myriad of ways. Ida serves as a Elliott Banner prepares his popcorn on a recent “Movie Day” mashgiach in the kitchen, at the RBJH. supervising the kashrut status of the food deliveries and their proper storage. They both volunteer to help out on trips to the casinos, the Lauritzen Gardens, the Joslyn Art Museum and many other outings. These trips, arranged by the Activities Department, are a big undertaking for staff and volunteers; assisting 12 or 15 residents with wheelchairs and help on and The Blumkin Home’s “Movie Day” draws a crowd in 2001. off the bus, helping them with lunch and by announcing the film several times returning them to their rooms when they before showing and by providing subject return. matter that residents will be interested in. “If you have 15 or 20 to go to the casi- “You’ve got to get around and try to no, you need 15 or 20 volunteers,” he interest them. I have them announce it says. “You have to stick with them.” The several times. I’ll put on something that trips are extremely important for resi- will intrigue them to come, to want to dents who still want to get out and be a come. I started showing these old musicals part of the world and the surrounding from the 40s and 50s,” he says. culture available to them, and Elliott He’s been doing “Movie Day” for understands just how much. about 10 years and has around 12 or 15 “To look at the four walls, or to watch residents every week. He laughs as he television, or to sleep... is no life,” he recalls one resident who mentioned she’d says. It’s worth all of the effort to him. already seen a particular film he was Elliott seems most to enjoy just giving showing: “This was say, like in the 90s; a residents someone to pass the time with. resident said ‘I’ve seen that movie “The nurses and the aides do sit down before!’ And I said, ‘How long ago? and talk to them, but they have their own Maybe, 40 or 50 years ago?’ She said ‘I jobs to do,” he says. “They do a very think so!’” According to Elliott, comegood job, but they can’t stay for a great dies and musicals from their era are what length of time. Things couldn’t run with- the residents enjoy most, so that’s what out volunteers. It’s satisfying. I look for- he brings for them. ward to it and they look forward to seeElliott believes that volunteerism ing me.” should cross all economic and social According to Lois Wine, Director of boundaries. It’s about helping out others Volunteer Services for the RBJH, “Elliott who need you. He recalls volunteering is always ready to assist with any project. for the Salvation Army during his workHe is ready to step in whenever he is ing years, serving Thanksgiving meals to asked and never mentions what he does those less fortunate. A man he was workto anyone. When they coined the word ing next to seemed familiar. This man was ‘volunteer’ they must have been thinking pitching in and serving meals along with of Elliott Banner.” everyone else. It was the plant manager “Movie Day” is Elliott’s biggest of AT&T. responsibility, and perhaps his biggest “If it’s good enough, dignified enough pleasure. It’s obvious he takes pride in for him. It’s for everyone,” says Elliott. providing entertainment and enjoyment It’s important to remember that we’ll for the residents. Every Wednesday he all be in need of assistance at some point shows up early to set up the chairs, televi- in time. Elliott Banner is taking steps sion and popcorn machine. He’s quite right now to show just how much he protective of the cleanliness of his cares. machine. “I make a very good popcorn,” If you are interested in volunteer he smiles. opportunities at the Blumkin Home, His care shows in preparing it just please contact Wine, at the Home, at right. He’s particular about what type of 330.4272.
March 30, 2007
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
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A giant in the nursing home industry now a senior himself! and we went on -- but we didn’t do so well in the meet!” There, I joined Omahans Leo Eisenstatt and Morrie by JOAN K. MARCUS After graduation, Milder went to the University of Lipp and 90 days later, I was an officer with a shaven Jerome J. Milder will celebrate his 90th birthday in July. However, it would be hard to guess his age. Nebraska at Lincoln where he majored in Business head!” He was later transferred to Air Corps Although he is slightly slowed by a stroke, he could be Administration and graduated in 1939. “It’s hard for me Intelligence. Milder was discharged from the service as a described as “dapper” and “handsome.” He walks with to understand parents who want their children to decide captain. a cane that only adds to his charisma, and his full head what they’re going to do with their lives. All I knew was Jerry began dating Frances (Fran) Osoff after he of white, wavy hair signals there is much knowledge that I wanted to make a living. I had no idea what that returned home from the war in 1945. They became meant.” inside that head! engaged on New Years Eve and they were married at Jerry was student manager of the football team and Beth El Synagogue in March of 1946. Milder was president of Temple Israel and treasurer and president of the He gained his business knowledge through the ownNebraska Nursing Home ership of many businesses -- from Jerome’s Gifts to Wee Association; he also served Moderns in Lincoln to Osoff’s Hardware to the Ranch as president of the Bureau Bowl. He also was a general contractor building homes for the Aging (which later and swimming pools (including the one at Camp Esther became Jewish Senior K. Newman). Services), as well as the Rose In 1964, Milder acquired a parcel of land in Lincoln Blumkin Jewish Home. He to build apartments. However, after not being able to also was a member of the get zoning for apartments, he received approval to build search committee that cula nursing home. He had no prior nursing home experiminated in the hiring of ence but went into the venture anyway. “We decided to Rabbi Aryeh Azriel. call it ‘Milder Manor’ a play on words -- rather than my Jerry’s birth and early name.” years were filled with Milder adds, “I took a class on nursing home admintragedy. He was born in istration and received guidance from some of the adminOmaha in 1917. A twin sisistrators and nurses who were there at the time.” ter died at birth and his When Milder Manor opened its doors in 1965, it was mother, Esther Bushman capable of serving 100 people and it was well received by Milder, died during the In 1964 Jerry Milder opens the door to Milder Manor -- still the only Jewish-built, privately- the other nursing homes in the community. Later, he influenza epidemic in 1920. owned and administered nursing home in Nebraska. added another building to the first, enlarging the home Harry B. Milder, his father, died when Jerry was only 16 recalls being dressed in a shirt, tie and jackto 154 beds. years old. et when he went to classes. He was a memMilder got to know “I grew up in five different homes and went to four or ber of Zeta Beta Tau, one of two Jewish the residents and their famifive different grade schools,” he said. “I lived with some fraternities. lies. His nurses were “particaunts and uncles and then some cousins. I was lucky that After college, Milder went to work for ular about how they and the I had a good childhood in spite of not having any par- Micklin Lumber as advertising manager aides cared for the resients.” and then later, he began a small advertising dents,” he added. “I liked The longtime Jewish community leader still wears his agency called Advertising Services, Inc. He the elderly people and I mother’s wedding ring on his pinky finger and is quick was employed by F & F Cough Drop respected them.” to show pictures of her holding him as a baby. Although Company, covering the East coast when he Milder says, “In those days, he doesn’t remember her at all, his voice softens when was called to serve in World War II. you didn’t have to have a “It was 1942 and I went in as a private,” he speaks of her and shows her picture. license to be an administraHe graduated from Omaha Central High in 1935 and he recalls. “It was then that my lieutenant tor. I was successful because recalls a high school career filled with academics and ath- gave me a letter to go to Officers Training Jerry and Fran Milder on opening day in of the great help and letics. Some of the teachers he remembers include Mr. School. At that time, they made me a pri- 1965 at Milder Manor. because I had all the beds Gulgard, a math teacher, Madam Bozell who taught vate first class and sent me to the Presidio in San Medicare approved. We had an excellent nursing staff. French and Sarah Vore Taylor, the English teacher who Francisco with nine or 10 men.” Four of the registered nurses stayed with Milder Manor Milder adds, “When I got on the base, they were for 20 years. There were 150 full and part-time employwrote The Style Book. He recalls, “We used to run around the third floor in working night and day interpreting intercepted mes- ees.” His employees remained faithful to him because he the winter time because Central didn’t have a track. One sages from Japan. I guess I was just in the right place at instituted profit sharing for them and saw to it that they year, we went to the State Track Meet and, the car that the right time, and they sent me to Fort Monmouth, had benefits and good working conditions. I rode in turned over and hit a pole. Nobody got hurt New Jersey, for officer’s training in the Signal Corps. Continued on page 38
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Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
March 30, 2007
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A giant in the nursing home industry Continued from page 35 As the original brochure stated, Milder Manor was designed to “create congenial, warm, ‘home-like’ living for persons needing convalescent care.� Milder was a visible and hands-on administrator and owner. He worked night and day filling in anywhere he was needed – even driving carpools and picking up employees during snowstorms. Many times he slept at Milder Manor. Times were tough when On March 24, 2006, Fran the home first opened. Fran and Jerry Milder celebrated helped to supplement their their 60th anniversary. income by working as the Their daughters, Cheryl bridal manager and buyer at Cooper and Gayle Spooner, Younkers for 20 years. had a duplicate made of Milder was regional vice their parents’ wedding cake. president of the American N u r s i n g Home Association for four years. He traveled to monthly meetings in Washington, D.C. When his term as president of the Nebraska Health Care Association ended, he received hundreds of “thank you� letters from administrators and owners of other homes. One wrote, “Your loyalty, dependability, dedication, faithfulness and concern for others have touched us all deeply. We know that there have been times when you had to sacrifice and neglect your own family and business to go to bat for us!� He was inducted as a Fellow in the American College of Nursing Home Administrators and was on the advisory committee of the Midwest Health Congress of Hospitals and Nursing Homes. He sold Milder Manor in 1984 but remained active with the home until 1986.
“I’m so very impressed with our Blumkin Home,� says Jerry Milder, “a home away from home with excellent care for the members of our Jewish community.�
In 2006, Jerry and Fran celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary with their children, Cheryl and Ron Cooper, Gayle and Jim Spooner and Harlan Milder; their grandchildren, Emily and Josh Cooper, Valerie and Alex Cooper, Sarah Spooner and Zach Spooner; and their great grandson, Ben Cooper. Milder, now a senior, attributes his longevity to his lovely wife Fran and the vodka that they drink every night before dinner. He says, “I’ve had a good life and nobody should cry for me when I’m gone. In spite of all that happened during the first years, life has been good -- very good.�
The extended Milder family: back row: Josh Cooper, left, Jim and Gayle Spooner, Harlan Milder, Cheryl and Ron Cooper, Alex and Valerie Cooper; front row: Zach Spooner, Emily Cooper holding Ben (son of Josh and Emily), Jerry and Fran Milder, and Sarah Spooner.
The Milders and Jerry Rosen, left, then Director of the Jewish Federation Foundation, celebrated the opening of the Home’s addition in 1990.
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Continued from page 33 husband, Ruben, a resident of the Home, and to Jim According to Bernstein, Huerter, enjoying the prothe singalongs, which have gram with Therese, his wife, been regularly attended on who is also a resident. Tuesday afternoons ever Huerter commented, “The since they began at the Sher volunteers do a great job, Home, are one of the most and the participation is popular activities among the residents. “Miriam Simon unbelievable. It brings back started it way back then,� memories.� she said, “along with Lee Old favorite songs do stimJane Parsow.� ulate the memories of those Joanie Bernstein, Brody, who spend most of their Altsuler, Widman, Bea Karp, time sitting quietly. The Ernie Wintroub, and Terry smiles on the faces of the Kate Ferer, center, leads the Singalong group for residents residents let volunteers Bernstein are the veteran and family members, Myrna, left, and Stan Diamond. know that certain melodies song leaders for this group. have revived happy thoughts “Florence also knitted afghans and blankets for of their younger days. the residents,� Bernstein recalled. “Kathy Weiner and Tootie Simon are the newest members of the Everyone enjoys singing group. All the volunteers work together as a along together with their team,� she added. husbands, wives, sons and Deb Jennings plays piano for the Omaha daughters, and friends, and Ballet, and at the time of the interview, had just the room is filled with finished accompanying the “Nutcracker Suite� warmth and good feelings. performances. She plays for the Omaha Theater “Associates of Jewish Ballet School, and several churches in Omaha. Homes and Services for the Music has long been a part of Jewish heritage Aging� (AJHSA) presented and history. And whether one sings soprano, alto Kate Ferer, the former leader or tenor, or can’t even carry a tune, makes little of the Singalong group, an difference in the singalongs. Some participants “Outstanding Program� display strong, enthusiastic voices, and others Bernie Altsuler, left, and Stan Widman award, dated May 2 of 2004. simply hum or keep time to the music by rhyth- joke around for the residents during According to Bernstein, mic toe tapping. There are still others who like the Singalong. “Quality of life is the goal of to harmonize. The combination blends together beauti- Jewish Senior Services at the Rose Blumkin Jewish fully. Home. No finer example of group efforts can be found “Our music is fun and uplifting,� Bernstein observed. anywhere. Even people who have lost relatives that were “The residents really look forward to it.� once residents here, still continue to come in for this And judging from the smiling faces, I had to agree. I activity,� she noted, and added, “The singalongs do as spoke briefly with Louise Lippett, who was visiting her much for all of us as they do for our residents.�
March 30, 2007
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 39
Our rabbis speak about our elders: the Jewish perspective on aging by JOAN K. MARCUS We recently visited with all of our Omaha rabbis and asked them about their views and the Jewish perspective on aging. We wanted to know their thoughts about the impact of the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home and its residents on them and on their congregations. Our findings were fascinating. Our rabbis range in age from 25 to 93 and they have been in Omaha anywhere from a few months to 60 years. We were able to speak with all seven of them. Their comments are not in any particular order. Rabbi Jonathan Gross of Beth Israel Synagogue has lived in Omaha for three years. He is originally from New Jersey but came to Omaha via Los Angeles. He thinks the RBJH is one of the most impressive features of our community. “It is outstanding as a facility and is always on the cutting edge because of the management. I feel that we’re the best nursing home in the state. In my career, I have visited nursing homes and I have walked out feeling depressed,” he said. “But, when I walk out of the Blumkin Home, I feel that there is a community there. It doesn’t feel like a nursing home and its because of the staff and the residents. The members of Beth Israel who
live there are all happy. Because my synagogue is close, I stop in whenever I’m at the JCC and that’s usually several times a week. I usually try to join in an activity when I am there or go in for tea. Some of the residents are people who were fixtures at Beth Israel, so it’s important. He added, “In order for our young people to be connected with the greater community, they need to visit our nursing home and see the multi-generational spectrum that exists. They shouldn’t see themselves as isolated, but rather think of themselves as part of a tapestry.” It is so important to have a Jewish Home, Rabbi Gross noted. “You have a collection of people who, at one point, built this community. We are standing on their shoulders! We can certainly be proud of the fact that we take care of our elderly in such a dignified manner.” Rabbi Seth Nadel, also of Beth Israel, has been in Omaha for only a few months. “Aging is part of life and is something that is challenging. I am luckier than most because my mother is the director of a nutrition center in Patterson, New Jersey, where I grew up. They offer kosher hot lunches to Jewish senior adults.” He added, “So I grew up visiting, engaging and enter taining senior adults. I have many
fond memories from my childhood. I saw the aging process and what is so special in Judaism is that we don’t forget about our older people. We place a really important emphasis on not living alone. We emphasize taking care of them and being there.” Jews support the physical and emotional needs of the elderly and that’s certainly a value, Rabbi Nadel noted. “It’s not that others don’t take care of the elderly, but we place special importance on them. Even the prayer that we say on the High Holy Days asks G-d not to forget us in the time of our old age!” Rabbi Nadel explained that “During my visits at RBJH, I’ve noticed it is a place where the residents are treated with the utmost dignity. It is kept so well and there’s a lot of activity, and great food. It’s important that residents not feel their lives are less meaningful because they are elderly.” He added that Jewish tradition says we have a Torah obligation to help everyone -- but specifically those who are in need. Seniors are to be respected, cared for and not forgotten. Rabbi Nadel closed by explaining, “We have a whole list of laws of respect. We need to provide financial and emotional support. We value the wisdom that they have achieved throughout their lives. It’s not about just caring for the elderly.” Rabbi Mendel Katzman of Chabad House has been in Omaha for 20 years and he has seen the growth and development of RBJH. His prospective of aging is a little different. “It is a great privilege to grow older and
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I appreciate the opportunity as I myself grow older. This blessing should be appreciated by the people themselves as well as those around them,” he said. “Old age is a gift and is not somethat thing should be for taken granted. We thank G-d in the morning for returning our soul for that reason. Every morning that we wake up is a blessing -- not an entitlement. Just because you went to the doctor, did your exercises and ate well, you are not entitled to keep living. It is just a gift of G-d that comes along with a price tag.” Rabbi Katzman added, “That price tag is a mission and we all have a mission in life that G-d expects us to fulfill. By doing so, we are paying our way. G-d is the accountant and His accountings are perfect. We accept what G-d decides! What gives one person more time is definitely a reward. How it works out, we don’t know because we don’t know most of the picture. We don’t know what the mission of this person was. Some people have difficult missions and some have simpler. Some figure out their missions earlier and some never figure them out. Therefore, the gift has to be very much appreciated by the people who live.” Compared to other nursing homes, Continued on page 40
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March 30, 2007
The Jewish perspective on aging Continued from page 39 Rabbi Katzman thinks that the RBJH provides good service. However, he says, “People are going to kvetch because its not their home. In an institutional setting, there’s no way that you can cater to everyone. However, for an institutional setting, we do a very good job.” Katzman went on to say, “If I had it my way -- and as we do in our family -- grandparents live with the family. Not everyone can do that. One of the grandchildren would sleep downstairs with Grandpa every night and our mother was limited in her travels. If my parents needed care, my siblings and I would go the extra mile to make sure that they got the care they needed. The Jewish way is to do whatever you can to keep your family members at home. Our parents raised us and it is our responsibility to take care of them.” He then recalled a story about Omahan Barney Fink. “He came to our house to spend some time during a power outage. He sat by the fireplace and told my children stories of how his mother prepared the house for Shabbos. That gave my children an appreciation of Shabbos I could never give them. They have never forgotten his stories. When children go to RBJH and speak with the residents, they get a lot more than they give.” Rabbi Katzman added, “If you appreciate life when you’re young, then you appreciate it when you’re older. The Torah tells us that you should ask your elders and they will inform you. To really get information, ask your elders because they were there. Computers and machines only give us data. Our elders, on the other hand, are going to impart life lessons.” Rabbi Aryeh Azriel has been at Temple Israel for 18 years. “I think that at the core of our religion is the care and compassion that all of us need to practice with those individuals in our community who are aging. I call it ‘sacred aging’ because there’s something very holy about that population.” He went on to say that the RBJH and JSS have been doing important work for this community. “It’s not only caring about the residents but it’s about caring about other older adults,” he said. “The caring of our elders is something that we need to celebrate. I’ve been here over 18 years and I do go to other communities. I listen to my colleagues and we have many reasons to be proud of the services that we offer our aging adults.” Rabbi Azriel added, “The RBJH is not a scary place for our youth group or our students in religious school. During the past few years, we initiated some wonderful
projects such as ‘Senior Prom’ where our religious school students go and dance with the residents.” He spoke of Temple’s Caring Committee taking bags of goodies every Friday for Shabbat. There is a constant relationship with the residents -- including B’nai Mitzvah kids who take it upon themselves to form relationships. “Those experiences have always been very positive when the kids write up their portfolios. They are definitely touched. They walk in with some trepidation and leave with good experiences.” Rabbi Azriel says all of the rabbis and the cantors visit the Home regularly. He likes to visit, sing and interact with the group. “I’m looking forward to the renovation, the construction and remodeling. Mike Silverman (JSS/RBJH executive director), the Federation and the staff working at the Home definitely have a vision of what the place needs to be.” One thing that is of great importance to Azriel is the opening of the doors to non-Jews. “We have people in our community who have converted to Judaism and they want their parents to see what our Jewish community is experiencing. This is something very positive and definitely worthwhile,” he added. “I think that the management now is excellent and the Federation has moved the Home in the right direction. I think it’s very important for the younger generation to go there and listen to the wisdom of our elders. It’s a wonderful place for us to create a personal pilgrimage from time to time.” Rabbi Eric Linder, also of Temple Israel, came to Omaha last summer from New York. Everyday, millions of Jews around the world recite the words: “God of Abraham, God of Isaac and God of Jacob” as part of the daily Amidah. “I once heard it explained that this line serves as a reminder to G-d to pay attention to each of our prayers. Every single Jewish individual is descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We are part of a sacred promise that G-d made first to Abraham. Our prayer reminds G-d that we are linked to Abraham through faith, history and culture,” Rabbi Linder explained. “Oftentimes, while davening the ‘Amidah,’ these words make me think of my living relatives. They remind me of my responsibility to my older relatives, friends and community members. G-d is not the only party responsible for the covenant.” Rabbi Linder thinks that the future of our Jewish identity is bound together with our past. “Here in Omaha, the Blumkin Home serves as a reminder -- not unlike the
words of the ‘Amidah.’ Each of us can remember life’s lessons that were taught and exemplified by older friends, siblings and colleagues. Let us repay them with the blessings of companionship and love -- the blessings of our presence.” He added, “The residents of the Blumkin Home are not unlike Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They are the blessings from which we spring forth. Let us recognize the home for the blessings that it gives to our community so that we, too, can become a blessing, ‘L’dor V’dor,’ from one generation to another.” Rabbi Mordechai Levin Rabbi Mordechai Levin of Beth El Synagogue came to Omaha four years ago from Argentina. He says older people there are not significantly different from those in Omaha. However in Argentina, he thinks the system is more compassionate toward the elderly. “Here in America, like in any country, there are people who don’t have medical coverage. But, in Argentina, like Canada and some European countries, it is assured by the government that each person has medical attention. Some people complain about the system. But, you are not without anything,” Rabbi Levin explained. “In Argentina, it doesn’t matter if you are very poor, you have medical attention. This is very important for older people because many of them have medical problems. They have to take medicines and, in Argentina, many medicines are free for those who cannot pay. There, elderly people are not homeless because nursing homes are free if you cannot pay.” Rabbi Levin noted, “In Omaha, there are needy Jews who are elderly. We are seeking ways to help them and we are doing a good job. However, maybe we could do better.” Rabbi Levin thinks the community has to develop ways to help them more. “We are doing well. But, there are things that we can do better. Jewish Family Service does a great job, but their budget isn’t always large enough to help in a permanent way those people,” he said. “Taking care of elderly people who are in need is a very important part of Jewish life. I think that the Blumkin Home is marvelous,” he said. “The quality of the attention that is given to the residents is first rate. We can all be very proud of having the Home. The residents are treated with compassion, care and love. I go there to visit my congregants, but I visit with other people I’ve come to know. Some of my congregants are unable to come to the synagogue, so it’s nice for them to see me and for me to visit with them at the Home.” Continued on page 41
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Jewish perspective on aging helpfulness. I don’t know how you acquire a staff like that and I have to hand it to Mike.” Jewishly, the rabbi feels a dearth. Although he is grateful for strict kashrut, he misses having only one religious service a week. “It is led by a revolving group of volunteers from the community. Some of them are good, some of them excellent and some of them...we’ll leave it at that.” Smiling, he notes that each one of the service leaders does what he likes to do and that’s not bad. “The residents who come to the service experience different opinions and mindsets about what a religious service should be. Sometimes, the one who leads the service delivers a little sermon and sometimes not. I stand by and offer a comment -- trying to extract some kind of meaningful lesson from the Torah reading,” he added. “The service never runs more than an hour and a half and I like that. I remember when I was a student years ago. My professor, Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, said that you couldn’t handle a subject in less than 40 minutes. Now, if you spoke for 40 minutes, they’d hang you!” he laughed. The only thing that Rabbi Kripke misses is the compaRabbi Kripke, standing, greets fellow resident George ny of rabbinic colleagues and Schapiro, July 11, 2003. others who know their way “The Blumkin Home is just a splendid around Judaic subjects. place. I don’t know what I could possibly “The Home is just a wonderful place offer in criticism of it. There are two for me. In it, I can do anything that I’m rooms down by the entrance that show capable of doing. In general, I’m totally what they hope to have in the ‘new’ free to come and go as I please. I go to Home. They’re asking for suggestions, the library at the JCC and Gary Katz is but I have very few to make because great, very helpful. This place is just full everything is already wonderful!” of good people. I’m quite satisfied.” Rabbi Kripke added, “From Mike Rabbi Kripke closed by noting, “I am Silverman down, the nurses, aides and privileged to have been given this gift of even the cleaning crews -- they’re all just old age. However, I don’t understand nice people. There’s never a gruff word why it has been given to me in particuand there’s a feeling of gentleness and lar.”
Continued from page 40 Rabbi Myer S. Kripke, Rabbi Emeritus of Beth El Synagogue, has been in Omaha since 1964 and celebrated his 93rd birthday in January. He was the spiritual leader of Beth El for more than 30 years. He jokes that now, “It’s over 30 years since I retired!” During his retirement, he has taught part time at Creighton University in the Theology Department, lectured frequently, and written “Sparks from the Word,” his weekly column about the Torah portion for the Jewish Press since 1976. He’s also the only rabbi interviewed for this article who is actually a resident at the Home. His late wife, Dorothy, also resided there, until her death in September of 2000.
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 41
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One JSS president has already placed her order for “a nice room” by JOAN K. MARCUS When Joan Marx Bernstein was growing up in Omaha, she learned from her parents, Betty and Leon Marx that it was important to give of yourself; in the process, you are always rewarded. The Marx family moved to Omaha in 1940. It was a time of turmoil in the world, when Joanie and her family came to live with their grandmother in a house at 3810 Davenport Street. “We celebrated every Jewish holiday and I attended religious school through eighth grade,” she says. “I was active in B’nai B’rith Girls and president of my local chapter and region”. When her father was young, he had to quit attending school in order to work. As an adult and a lifelong student, he took instruction and became a government meat inspector. Betty Marx, among other things, taught nursery school at Temple Israel. She began during the tenure of Rabbi Lou H. Silberman who came to Temple in 1945. Among Silberman’s many accomplishments, the congregation lists the establishment of the nursery school. Betty, unlike many women of her generation, had a Joanie Bernstein degree from the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago. She served as a role model for Joanie and her older sis- playroom on the second floor.” She spent 15 years there, involved on the Friends ter, Leonore (Paasch). Love of volunteer activities had come down from Betty’s mother, Rae Furth, the second board and president of it before she became an employpresident of the Omaha Section of the National Council ee. “I worked with the Birth Defects Clinic and the of Jewish Women, 1922-25. Since the family lived very close to the Omaha Oncology Clinic as a volunteer. As an employee I conCommunity Playhouse, everyone was involved in the tinued with those clinics and their support groups. In shows, acting and volunteering backstage. “I began addition I worked with all other outpatients and became passing out programs when I was five and my parents a Child Life Specialist. She had been teaching for seven years before she and sister were in many, became affiliated with the many plays”. hospital. When Bernstein Joanie adds, “My mother left, she went back to teachset an example for us by ing until she retired in 2000. doing volunteer work -- for Joanie’s volunteer work at the American Red Cross, at RBJH began when Terry’s the University of Nebraska parents, Bess and Dave Medical Center, and at the Bernstein, moved there from Veteran’s Hospital from the the Sher Home in 1982. day it opened until she came Her mother moved into the to the Blumkin Home. She Home in 1986. continued her work for the “At that time, Miriam Ben Red Cross for 45 years and Yaacov was asked to write a while living at the Rose book about the residents Blumkin Home, they named an award in her honor, the L.O.V.E. co-chairmen George Schapiro and Joanie Bernstein and she asked me to help her Betty Marx Award for the introduce banquet coordinators Edith Rogert and Marsha with the interviews. I went to the L.O.V.E. organizaOutstanding Hospital Kleinberg. tion (League Offering Volunteer.” Joanie attended Saunders Grade School, Central High Volunteers to the Elderly) to ask for their help in paying School and the University of Nebraska at Omaha. While for the book.” Bernstein and Lois Wine worked together to make the at UNO, she was introduced to Terry Bernstein, the patrol boy who had helped her across the busy street of L.O.V.E. organization an auxiliary, a fundraising arm of 40th and Davenport during grade school. They were the Home. Subsequently, she was elected secretary of the board of Jewish Senior Services/Rose Blumkin married in 1960. “We didn’t know each other while at Saunders but Jewish Home board and then vice president. She took Terry’s mom had a picture of the glee club. We were over the reins as president from 2001-05 and remains on both standing in the same row. He had been in the Army the board as past president. She selected the steering committee, and served on it for the “New Beginning” of in Korea and then came back to go to college.” Their children, Mark and his wife Terri, live in Skokie, the Home. Many of the current activities at the Home began at Illinois, where Mark teaches special education and Terri is an Instructional Interventionist for students who are the Phillip Sher Home. Miriam Simon and Lee Jane deaf and hard of hearing. The couple has two children, Parsow were just two of the many volunteers who felt there should be more to living in a nursing home than Jacob 8, and Ella, 2. Another daughter, Tracy Lewis, her husband Lester just sitting around all day. The Singalong, cooking activand son Charlie age 2, live in Santa Monica, CA, where ities, gardening, religious services and celebrations were Lester is a television producer. Tracy follows in her all activities that began at the Dr. Sher Home. “The residents, family members, staff and volunteers mother’s volunteer footsteps by facilitating a support live and work together as a family,” Joanie has observed. group for homeless women. Joanie began her “volunteer career” in 1968 at the C. “When I first entered the Home, I thought of the resiLouis Meyer Therapy Center and Children’s Memorial dents as ‘sick people.’ I soon learned that they were just Hospital. “I began by working with children with dis- people, people who had lived full lives and had wonderabilities and when I got to Children’s Hospital, I decid- ful stories to share. As family members, we are there to ed they needed a playroom,” she recalls. “I started out listen to those stories and for the volunteers and staff, one day a week and then three days a week until after 15 that is a gift.” years, they hired me. I persuaded the auxiliary to build a Continued on page 43
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One JSS president Continued from page 42 Joanie described the Eden Project that came about while Barbara Gottlieb was the Executive Director of RBJH. The premise of the program is to provide green space full of plants and flowers, pets and children to make the place seem like a real home. It encourages the blending of generations -- children and the elderly, so that love and respect are taught and received. Janet Herman and Darlene Golbitz, two RN’s, have continued to make this program flourish every year since its inception. And in talking about the changes and progress as part of the Home’s “New Beginning,” Joanie adds, “In our new Home, we’ll have an indoor playground and a room where the children from the Child Development Center can come over and do crafts with the residents. These will be perfect places for visiting with children and watching them play. Guests and residents alike can meet on our ‘Main Street,’ relax, visit and enjoy the light streaming in from the windows overhead. We’re creating an environment that looks and feels like being outside.” She added, “Our staff is committed to providing exceptional care. Now we will have a building that matches that reputation. The concepts and design will serve our Jewish community for decades. We’ll provide a warm and inviting environment where people will be happy to live and families and friends will enjoy visiting.
Photos from left: Mike and Marina Sadofsky visit Marina’s mother, Olga Garanuner at a Blumkin activity in the JCC
According to Bernstein, “Staff members go far beyond coming to work every day. They truly care about the residents, take time to visit with them and their families and share plenty of love every day. That’s the family feeling I was talking about.” She lauds the role of the RBJH staff who, when they have people come to entertain, become part of the entertainment themselves and involve everyone, residents, families and volunteers alike. She truly believes that as far back as the days of the Sher Home, life has been different for our Jewish Home. “I know for a fact that we have more activities staff at the Home because that’s the kind of atmosphere our Jewish community wants. We want our residents to Dave Bernstein holds his great-grandson, Jacob.
auditorium; JSS/RBJH Volunteer of the Year for 1997, Gerri Phillips, and her parents, former Blumkin residents Lew and
have active, challenging and fun lives.” Bernstein adds, “We all appreciate the residents as friends and it gives us such a warm feeling when they laugh and smile when we’re there. We listen, laugh and sometimes share each others problems. It’s like a relationship you have with your best friends.” She notes that Mike Silverman has been like a breath of fresh air in planning the new Home. He has had the vision and the ability to make it happen. “I know the new Home will make us proud and be the state of the art facility that we have wanted for so long.” And she adds, “I hope that someday if I need a room, they’ll pick out a nice one for me!”
Anne Ellis; Gary Garelick, right, chats with Mayor of the City of Omaha Mike Fahey at the Blumkin Home in 2004.
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Dorothy, shmorothy: KU gets enthusiastic Yiddish scholar by MARTIN ROSENBERG LAWRENCE, Kan. (JTA) -- As bullets whistled overhead and the smoke of the Battle of Black Jack wafted through the warm air 150 years ago this month, a terse conversation passed between two men fighting alongside abolitionist John Brown. “Nu, was meinen Sie jetzt?” (So, what do you think of this now?) August Bondi, who later recorded the conversation in his journals, asked in Yiddish. Theodore Weiner replied in Hebrew, “Sof odom muves.” (The end of man is death.) For Jonathan Boyarin, the exchange underscores the vitality and early presence of Yiddish in America. Boyarin, a cultural anthropologist and Yiddish scholar whose field is 20th century Jewish history, is translating a Yiddish book about the Kotsker rebbe written by noted scholar Abraham Joshua Heschel. Boyarin arrived at the University of Kansas last fall as a professor of modern Jewish studies, his first full-time academic position. The professorship was created by a $500,000 donation by a foundation set up by Kansas oilman Robert Beren. Paul Mirecki, chairman of the university’s Religious Studies department, described Boyarin’s post as “an interdisciplinary professorship that will expose many K.U. students to a variety of scholarly approaches to a major world religion.” There are about a dozen Yiddish stud-
ies programs at North American universities. Boyarin’s task will be to broaden that beachhead: In addition to helping build up the Jewish studies program on campus, he’s thinking of ways to bring Yiddish writers and scholars to campus for brief, intensive programs. He has studied the living cultural context in which Yiddish sparkled on the lips of Jews after they were wrenched by the Holocaust out of centuries-old communities in Eastern and Central Europe. Boyarin, 49, grew up in a chickenfarming community in New Jersey and got his undergraduate degree in anthropology from Reed College in Portland, Ore. After college, he plunged into a rigorous Yiddish immersion program at Columbia University. Several weeks into the summer program, he had an epiphany while descending to the subway: He found himself speaking and thinking in Yiddish. “I was a little gentler toward myself speaking Yiddish. I felt the language coming out from inside me,” he recalled. He went on to earn a master’s degree and a doctorate from the New School in anthropology. His doctoral research project took him to Paris for two years in the early 1980s, where he studied the secular Yiddish culture of former Eastern Europeans living there. One of Boyarin’s early academic works was “From A Ruined Garden -- The Memorial Books of Polish Jewry,” which he co-authored. The book is a compilation of excerpts from yizker-bikher, or
memorial books, crafted by former residents of hundreds of European villages and towns to remember and honor the lives and memories they left behind. Boyarin translated most of the stories in the book.
Boyarin is unabashedly upbeat about his work. “We recently passed the point where the number of Yiddish speakers has stopped declining and is starting to grow again,” he said, referring to growing enclaves of Chasidic and Orthodox Yiddish-speakers. “It is not a dying language.” But the fate of Yiddish is more than a numbers game. “The measure of the continuing vitality of Yiddish is not only the number of fluent speakers there are,” Boyarin said. “It is also the ways fragments and elements continue to be rediscovered and transformed into new modes of Jewishness that are genuinely creative. We cannot say beforehand what they are going to become.” One example is the vital klezmer music scene. Boyarin expressed an interest in several Jewish farming Yiddish scholar Jonathan Boyarin, professor of modern communes that failed long Jewish studies at the University of Kansas. ago on the hard plains of Years later, Boyarin enrolled in Yale Kansas. And then there are the whispered Law School, graduating in 1998. For five conversations of Bondi and Weiner floatyears he worked with a New York law ing on a stiff Kansas breeze, summoning firm, doing tax law and litigation, but he Boyarin to new battlefields. still had the Jewish studies bug. (Editor’s note: for information about “All along I was saying to myself, Omaha’s yiddish group: Lomr Redn ‘There’s something I really love, I am Yiddish, call Anne Skolkin at 343.1638. really good at it, and that’s what I should The group meets every Thursday, 1-3 be doing,” he recalls. p.m., at the JCC.)
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Blumkin resident’s son: collector of collectors of Jewish artifacts at Yivo self and one of his brothers. My mother’s family was entirely wiped out. So that’s a personal thing, you know.” Yivo’s preservation of Yiddish culture resonates with the Greenbaums’ own Yiddish heritage, from the institute’s collection on the Yiddish Theater, which his by LEO ADAM BIGA mother was involved in, to its renowned summer classes Last fall, the Jewish Press caught up with former that teach the Yiddish language, which his family spoke. Omaha resident Leo Greenbaum, accessioning archivist “My mother was active in the Yiddish Theater in the at the famed Yivo Institute for Jewish Research in New Soviet Ukraine,” he said. “She performed with a semiYork. Greenbaum was in town to visit friends and fami- professional group. Also, my parents spoke Yiddish and ly. While here he stayed at the home of author Oliver I learned it from them. So I have a personal interest. Not Pollak, with whom he’s collaborated on articles about all the staff members at Yivo have this background. In the Yiddish Theater and Workmen’s Circle in Omaha. fact, some of our archives staff don’t have a Jewish backGreenbaum’s mother, Mina, resides at the Rose ground at all.” Blumkin Jewish Home. His father Joshua died last year, Greenbaum came with his parents to the United States, but Leo returns often to visit his mother. by way of Israel, as a teen in 1961. The Omaha Central Begun in 1925 in Vilna, Poland, Yivo is both a major High School and University of Nebraska at Omaha grad repository and disseminator of Jewish culture through was from an early age fascinated by current affairs and the institute publications, exhibitions, classes, activities and currents of time. Until age 10 he lived in Poland, a bitterprograms. Individuals accessing the collections come sweet land for Jews, and the birthplace of Yivo. From ages from all over the world and all walks of life. The hold- 10 to 13, he and his family lived in Israel, the sanctuary for ings are utilized by historians, authors, journalists, so many displaced Jews in search of an ancestral homeland artists, filmmakers, scholars, educators, students and and a new life. It’s no wonder then he pursued post-grad every day folks. studies, at now defunct Filmmaker (and another former Omahan Dropsie University, in a featured in these pages) Joan Micklin Silver field dedicated to archiving said that in “researching at Yivo” to inform fragments of history that her and Matthew Goodman’s new docuinform the past and the mentary on the bagel’s immigrant history in present. America, she met Greenbaum, whom she Yivo’s Jewish scholarship described as a “lovely guy, very bright and mission was part of a larghelpful.” er heritage movement led Inquiries about topics and materials are by Jewish intellectuals, fielded every day and cover the gamut of scholars and educators in Jewish life, as Yivo is well known for the Europe and elsewhere. wide scope of its vast archives and library. The idea was to give the The collections encompass commerce, polimasses ownership of their tics, religion, the arts, labor, education, famown history. The academy ily life...you name it. model for Yivo was Nothing less than the totality of Jewish designed by Max YIVO Archivist Leo Greenbaum endeavor can be found there. Yivo marketWeinreich, a Yiddish lining materials refer to Yivo as “the world’s leading organ- guist who became its first director. At the start, the fledgization for the study of Eastern European Jewry and ling institute was based in Weinreich’s apartment, but it their descendants” around the globe. soon grew to a set of rented rooms before constructing a On shelves, in files and in store rooms lay books, offi- permanent headquarters building in Vilna. Emblematic of cial records, diaries, letters, posters, photos, films, Europe’s troubled history, Vilna was variously part of recordings, art works, et cetera. Some are quite rare. Poland and Lithuania during Yivo’s 20-year lifespan there. Reading rooms and audio/video booths are available for Vilna was chosen as the base for Yivo, Greenbaum perusing printed materials, listening to recordings or said, as its Jewish residents were not as assimilated as watching films. Walk-ins are welcome but a call ahead of those in Warsaw or, for that matter, Berlin, where Jews time is advised. Select materials can only be accessed by looked down on Yiddish culture. Besides, he said, “the appointment. Vilna Jewish community was a highly developed culturAs chief collector for an al community. It had several His parents only made it out alive by luck and Jewish libraries in it, some of archive that boasts some 25 million documents spanning guile. Viewed in this light, his work at Yivo is a them with quite old and the breadth of Jewish experivaluable collections.” ence, Greenbaum is respon- testament to all the people and history Even early in its life, Yivo sible for not only preserving destroyed. Their legacy is in his hands. The enjoyed prominent supportand cataloging the history of ers. The original board of extant articles represent an inheritance for him directors a people, but adding to it. included Albert Always adding to it. He said to safeguard for future generations. Einstein and Sigmund the position is a good fit for Freud. Impressive names on “It’s our job, I suppose,” he said. someone like himself, who is a letterhead didn’t do much ever curious about history for Yivo’s perpetually short resources though. It largely and ever in search of treasures which help illuminate that depended on donations of time and money and materihistory. “It has become my specialty,” he said. als from those sharing its ideals. His being there is apt, given the tumult that the instiThen, as now, Yivo could not afford to pay for acquitute and his own family experienced in the Holocaust. sitions. Beyond Weinreich and the cadre of professionals Some of the holdings in his charge today were rescued he gathered to establish the aims of Yivo and to catalog, by brave Yivo staff members, volunteers and sympathiz- exhibit and publish its findings, the institute depended ers at the height of the Shoah. Most Yivo artifacts, like on an extensive network of volunteer zamlers or collecmost of its workers and supporters, were lost in the war tors, working in groups or circles throughout Eastern and in the genocide, just as were the members of Europe, to do research and to collect artifacts. Greenbaum’s extended maternal and paternal families. In keeping with its egalitarian, grass roots philosophy, His parents only made it out alive by luck and guile. Yivo supplemented its small staff with this army of volViewed in this light, his work at Yivo is a testament to all unteers who scoured attics, basements, flea markets, the people and history destroyed. Their legacy is in his antique shops, book stores, public records and all manhands. The extant articles represent an inheritance for ner of sources and sites for historical finds. Yivo also him to safeguard for future generations. trained university students in the methodologies of con“It’s our job, I suppose,” he said. ducting Jewish studies. He acknowledges his work has perhaps even deeper “The volunteers played a huge role,” Greenbaum said. meaning for him than for others. “I have sort of person- “They were going around copying communal registers, al motivation for Yivo in this respect because I lost my interviewing folks.” Even today volunteers play a vital family on both sides in the Holocaust. My father had a role in handling and cataloging Yivo’s huge collections. large family and they were all wiped out except for him- Continued on page 46
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Continued from page 45 Jewish sources continued to surface in the Soviet Union, He said until Yivo’s formation, Jewish studies tended Lithuania and Poland. Part of the plundered Yivo colto be limited to the elite and the old guard, focusing on lection was found in Paris, including copies of commuthe distant past, not modern times, and on religious, nal registers. After the Soviet Union fell, Yivo negotiated with the high-brow subjects rather than secular, working-class ones. Where things like communal registers, periodicals new Lithuanian government to copy and catalog a large and contemporary Yiddish works of fiction, were collection of records, some 100,000 pages worth. In the ignored before, he said, Yivo made these prime areas of post-war years Yivo also acquired a host of materials, study. And where the entrenched old school paid scant ranging from Nazi reports on the Jewish question to attention to the new social sciences, Yivo embraced soci- Nuremberg Trial documents. Within Yivo’s own struggles are the stories of heroes ological studies, sending researchers out into the field to interview the proletariat for their impressions and mem- who risked their lives to save artifacts. His parents did not save historical artifacts as such, but their survival ories and stories. Special Yivo committees were formed in America, meant life for Greenbaum and the birth of his interest in London, South America, Africa and Palestine. A steady Jewish studies, which led him to Yivo and the work he stream of artifacts flowed in. The early 1930s were good does preserving history. It’s all intertwined. The life undone his parents faced mirrored that of milto Yivo. Yet tempering this sense of pride and surge of interest in a shared Jewish consciousness was anti- lions of refugees. Before the war his mother, Mina, acted Semitic tension. The threat of pogroms was always pres- part-time in the Yiddish Theater and worked part-time ent for Jews in Europe. Adding to the unease was a post- in a factory in Kremenchug, Ukraine. His father, Joshua, World War I economic depression and the rise of politi- was from a family of bakers in Zawiercie, Poland. They cal parties and social movements that targeted Jews as did not know each other prior to the trouble. Each faced danger alone during the Holocaust, only meeting after scapegoats and worked against Jewish coalitions. By the late ’30s, the climate was poisonous. The Nazi- the war. “My mother jumped on the last train out of her homeCommunist pact made life miserable for Jews throughout Europe and the Soviet Union. Jewish institutions in town in the Ukraine,” Greenbaum said. “She saw peoplaces like Kiev and Minsk, where similar initiatives to ple running and her instinct told her to jump the train. Yivo had blossomed, were closed. When Poland was She ended up in Tashkent in Central Asia. My father invaded by the Germans and Russians in 1940, Yivo’s ended up in Russia during the war. He was immediately “trouble started,” Greenbaum said. At first, Vilna was arrested and put in a Siberian labor camp. It was a very tough camp. He barely surunder Soviet occupation. In acts of defiance and resistance right under vived it. When Russia was Soviet officials incorporatinvaded by the Nazis he was ed Yivo into the Lithuanian their captors’ noses, the prisoners, who came released as a Polish citizen. Soviet Academy of Sciences. They replaced Weinreich to be known as the Paper Brigade, risked their He wanted to join the Polish Army but was denied. He with a hand-picked puppet. lives to save and secret out Yivo materials for worked in factories” the rest During the occupation safekeeping in the ghetto and in the homes of of the war and trained as a Weinreich was on vacation with his family and ended up sympathetic non-Jews. “Some of the stuff was tailor after it. The pair met in a refugee surviving the war and relo- literally buried underground,” Greenbaum said. camp in Tashkent, Russia. cating to America, where he The couple fulfilled Joshua’s wish to return to Poland, reestablished Yivo in New York. “They (Soviets) were looking for what they considered settling in the territories, where their only child, Leo, was politically reliable people,” Greenbaum said. “They put born in Wroclaw (Breslau). His parents applied to go to somebody who was a fairly low level researcher at Yivo America, where Leo’s uncle Jacob emigrated, working in charge. They changed the personnel. They brought the ovens at Adler’s Bakery in Omaha, but a visa was into Yivo material from the Soviet institutions they’d refused. Poland’s Communist regime enforced strict emigration policies. Finally, in the late ’50s, the restrictions closed. They dumped everything there.” When the Nazis took over, Yivo was shut down as part eased enough to allow the family’s move to Israel. The family settled in Beit Shemesh, then a small, of sweeping restrictions that stripped Jews of all enterprises, possessions and rights and isolated them into a undeveloped immigrant town thick with Moroccan and ghetto. A special Nazi unit plundered Yivo and other other North African refugees. History was all about. Jewish cultural institutions of treasures for a planned “Near our yard you could pick up these fragments, like Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question in jar handles and things, from Biblical times,” Greenbaum Frankfurt-am-Main. said. “There was an archeological dig done by an The remaining Yivo materials were removed and put Englishman in the 1920s. He found interesting things aboard wagons to be shipped by train to sites where the and he left all the shards” on the site. precious cargo would be “turned to pulp,” Greenbaum Times were hard in Israel and so Greenbaum’s father said. To carry out this desecration, the Nazis selected a left for America in 1960, joining his brother in Omaha. group of Jewish workers from the ghetto. However the Here, Joshua Greenbaum found work as a tailor at Nazis did not realize the strong sentiments among the Charles Assman Clothing Company. A year later he sent prisoners for the heritage bound up in these items. In for Mina and Leo to join him. Leo had a rough go of it acts of defiance and resistance right under their captors’ his first full year of school at Central. noses, the prisoners, who came to be known as the Paper “I didn’t know very good English,” he said. “I think I Brigade, risked their lives to save and secret out Yivo was the only immigrant in the whole school. The teachmaterials for safekeeping in the ghetto and in the homes ers were not that sympathetic to me. They would not of sympathetic non-Jews. “Some of the stuff was literal- give me slack on the language thing. I was kind of isoly buried underground,” Greenbaum said. lated. But I got my grades and passed all the classes.” Eventually, the Vilna Ghetto was liquidated and most Between school and television, he said, “I picked up of its inhabitants, including most Yivo staff, killed. Some the language. By the time I was a sophomore I was fluin the resistance movement survived, escaping to the ent in English. I was able to keep up with the other stuoutlying forests, to continue their fight against the dents.” Nazis. In the fluid chaos of war, Vilna kept changing As a history major at UNO he would have enjoyed hands. Near the end, the city came back under the Red Jewish studies, but none were offered then. A sleight Army’s control. In the immediate post-war years, a sal- young man, he was deferred from military service durvage effort was undertaken by the U.S. Army on behalf ing the Vietnam War because he was under the miniof Yivo to locate as much of the confiscated treasure as mum weight, which suited him fine. “I was very skinny possible. The few stashes unearthed and few train wagon and I was not very military-minded anyway,” he said. loads discovered, some in Czechoslovakia and some in His interest in Russian and Eastern European studies Germany, where the artifacts awaited disposal, recovered led him to Dropsie College in north Philadelphia. Once a portion of Yivo’s holdings. a leading Jewish studies institution, the nonsectarian Other wagonloads were never found. “At least one Dropsie transformed into the Annenberg Research wagon was still in Vilna after the war ended,” Institute and was later absorbed into the University of Greenbaum said, “and the people working at the train Pennsylvania. station did not know what it was. They thought it was To pursue his interest in modern Jewish history he junk paper and it was pulped. So that material was lost. commuted to New York, where he was offered a job I don’t think it was done intentionally. It was a mistake. with the Bund Archives, the repository for the Jewish Another wagon disappeared in Czechoslovakia and we Labor Bund, a secular socialist party in the late 19th and don’t know what happened to the materials to this day.” early 20th centuries. He moved to New York in 1978 to He said estimates put the amount of original Yivo work at the archives and in 1989 he was hired by Yivo. materials that survived the war at 30 to 40 percent. Even Eventually, the Bund Archives merged with Yivo. long after the war, caches of scholarship from various Continued on page 47
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Collector of collectors Continued from page 46 people who stumble upon old items and Seventeen years into his Yivo career, call to ask if he wants to see them. He Greenbaum said he is “now one of the almost always does. “You never know veterans” on staff. He’s seen the insti- what you’ll find,” he said. Landlords who tute’s impact continue to grow. Many would otherwise junk stuff that tenants books, films and exhibitions, for example, leave behind call. The same with employhave drawn on Yivo’s archives. Yivo’s ees from the public or private sector. produced works of its own, notably “They notice something old and interImage Before My Eyes, an exhibition, a esting and they call us and say, ‘Come book and a documentary about Jewish over before I throw it out,’ and I come life in Poland. over and pick it up. At “The first generation is least once a passerby on Since Yivo’s reincarnation in New York, it’s immigrants. The second the Lower East Side saw focused more and more generation wants to be somebody throwing out on Jews in America, comthese huge records on the piling thousands of case Americanized. The third street and called us, sayhistory files of Jewish generation becomes ing, ‘Better come before immigrant applicants, nostalgic for grandpa’s it’s trashed.’ We came autobiographies of East- culture.” over, along with people ern European Jewish from the Museum of immigrants and home movies made by Broadcasting, and found these broadcast Jewish Americans touring Europe before disks for recording old radio shows like and after WWII. Fibber Magee and Molly. They’re very As Yivo continues accumulating new fragile.” finds, he said, “we’re running out of He said a good proportion of the space. Every archive has the same dilem- research done at Yivo today is by lay peoma -- where to store stuff and how to pre- ple digging into their family roots. serve it.” Part of the challenge, he said, is “It’s third generation nostalgia,” he that at Yivo “we collect pretty much said. “The first generation is immigrants. everything. We have a pretty wide scope. The second generation wants to be I’m pretty liberal with what I keep.” Americanized. The third generation Yivo gets donated items from some becomes nostalgic for grandpa’s culture.” unlikely sources. For example, it works He’s not so keen on genealogy himself, with the New York State Insurance preferring instead to explore the arts or Department Liquidation Bureau to politics. He’s a devotee of ballet and access the records of retiring Jewish opera. He reads a lot. But as he’s learned, mutual benefit societies, of which there you can’t dismiss any area of investigation. are fewer and fewer. Serving insurance, After all, you never know what you’ll find. charitable, social, even political functions Yivo is located at 15 West 16th Street for members, these societies offer a in New York City. It is closed on Jewish revealing window into various aspects of holidays and most federal holidays. For Jewish American life. details, call 212.246.6080 or visit Greenbaum fields calls all the time from www.yivo.org.
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Then executive direcor Gene Brandt, standing left, is pictured with staff and some residents of the Blumkin Home in 1992.
Purim 1987, Rabbi Mendel Katzman greets Jack Rosenberg; right Elizabeth Rubenstein.
RBJH Assistant Director Seth Levy, 1981; right: Beth Shyken visits her grandfather, Sam.
Page 48
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March 30, 2007
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Page 49
Inspired by his father, builder inspires community to “New Beginning” committee first called in the out of town by CAROL KATZMAN Editor of the Jewish Press experts with experience in nursing home As a youngster, Howard Kooper can design and construction. “We must have clearly recall watching construction work- interviewed four or five firms,” Kooper ers create what would become in 1948, said, “and finally decided on one.” the Dr. Philip Sher Home. Every weekAfter a year of surveys and studies, the end, he and his father, Robert Kooper committee had vetoed a free-standing would drive north past Ames to the 52nd building off campus, as well as tearing Street location of the nursing home. down the Blumkin Home and building “My father inspired me,” Kooper said an assisted living facility with a nursing quietly in his office recently. “He and his home wing. In fact, Kooper said, generation became my role model. And it “Everyone agrees that remaining on this created this desire in me to do the same.” campus is a big, big benefit.” By “the same,” Kooper is referring not But he also said, “I can picture Harlan only to the rebuilding of Rose Blumkin sitting across the desk from me and shakJewish Home, but as chairman of the ing his head, ‘Howard, these plans don’t building committee for Beth El make sense. This doesn’t feel right.’” Synagogue, and for the expansion and Noddle and Kooper took their conremodeling of the Jewish Community cerns to the Jewish Senior Services/Rose Center. In his current role, Kooper allud- Blumkin Jewish Home board of directors ed to the same parameters he said worked -- and they listened. The steering comfor the earlier projects. mittee agreed to engage an architect who “When Mike Silverman came to had already made a presentation; they Omaha, the board at the worked for several Home already knew they months and came up with needed to do somea reasonable plan. thing,” he explained. But when it came time to “Joanie Bernstein asked negotiate a contract, Harlan Noddle and me to Kooper didn’t get the serve as representatives answers he wanted on the of the Federation on this price and schedule. So he steering committee she called his longtime friend was putting together with Joe Kirshenbaum for Mike, Bob Lepp and Bob advice. “Harlan had died at Belgrade.” this point,” Kooper said, At first the two were “and I had another idea.” reluctant, he said. “We He did something were skeptical, but we unheard of in the nursing Harlan Noddle agreed.” The steering home industry; he called
Howard Kooper on a longtime associate -- Mike Purdy of Purdy & Associates, who had never designed a facility for the elderly. But Kooper and Purdy have worked together for nearly 30 years, collaborating on building projects for Broadmoor Development, the firm Kooper and his partner Tom Fellman began in 1977. “Purdy’s local; he’s competent, has no ego. He’s a good architect,” Kooper said. “And Joe said, ‘Hire him!’” Kooper also got Bob Bloechle of Hawkins Construction involved early. While Purdy was busy learning about
nursing homes and the latest trends, Bloechle (who coordinated the construction on the JCC remodel and expansion a decade ago) worked with the steering committee to give them schedules and cost estimates. “Mike (Purdy) took a concept that Mike Silverman and I had already agreed upon,” Kooper explained. “We wanted more private rooms and more privacy for the residents and their families, a ‘Main Street’ concept, and a safe, secure wing for residents with dementia. When we’re done, we’ll have a state-of-the-art facility.” Bloechle’s construction committee, which meets every Thursday morning at the JCC, have indicated that the first major phase -- the Special Care Unit, for residents with dementia -- might be ready as early as November, but will still be used for other residents until the project is totally completed. “We wouldn’t have even had plans from the other architect at that point!” Kooper laughed. He trusts the group managing this process and has tremendous respect for Mike Silverman. “I don’t feel that I have to be out there every day watching construction, like my dad did with the Sher Continued on page 50
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Inspired by his father Continued from page 49 Home,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense to sit on top of them.” But Kooper and Noddle had rules, he said, when it came to taking on major projects like this. “You have to have a decision-maker at the top,” Kooper insisted. “Someone has to be the boss, because you can’t make good decisions with a large committee. Since we have an architect and a contractor with whom we’re not only familiar, but have the utmost confidence in, we told Mike Silverman, ‘Just let us do what needs to be done.’” “What needs to be done” is not just the selection of an architect or a construction firm. It’s not just agreeing upon design details and schedules. It’s also about raising money, big money. But quietly, behind-the-scenes, Kooper and Noddle set out to do just that. With no arm-twisting needed, and no mortgage payments expected, the two, “with lots of help,” Kooper added, have raised more than half of the $18 million goal. When Noddle died in December of 2005, Jan Goldstein, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Omaha, stepped in to help Kooper solicit donors. “We raised $8 million in 18 months,” Kooper said, “from selected families and donors who have a real commitment to the Home and to caring for our Jewish elderly. It’s a credit to Omaha’s outstanding Jewish community.” Kooper did insist, however, that the Home beef up its endowment and revisit its financial operations. “Mike Silverman has done a terrific job,” Kooper added, “He’s very cognizant of producing cash flow and reviewing all
Some familiar faces attended the dedication of the Dr. Philip Sher Home, in front: Dr. Philip Sher, left, receives the official papers from Milton Livingston; others identified include: second row: Sam Poster, left, unidentified man and Nate Nogg; third row: Ben Kaslowsky, left, Sadie and Harry Kulakofsky, Robert Kooper with his son, Howard standing in front of him, and Ida Bernstein. If you can identify others, please call the NJHS at 402.334.6442. areas of the operation. The Home is in and as I’ve said, with the building of the great financial shape, as it should be. Dr. Sher Home.” Like father, like son, he After all, the Home is debt-free -- no added, “What I’m doing for the Home, monthly mortgage payments. And it I do for the entire Jewish community -doesn’t pay property taxes because it’s a that’s a lesson I learned from my dad.” non-profit entity. So it should be able to As the Blumkin Home kicks off the put some of its operating capital back next phase of fundraising and construcinto the endowment to ensure future tion with a community presentation at financial stability.” Ironwood Country Club on Tuesday, Kooper thinks his father, Robert May 8, 7-9 p.m., Kooper has good feelKooper, who was president of the Jewish ings about completion of the project. Federation of Omaha from 1958-60, “I see the next generation, kids in their would be very proud of him today, “and 40s, watching us and our parents and proud of what the community has what we’ve done,” he said. “Sometimes accomplished,” he added. “My dad was it’s the friends of their parents who involved at Beth El and the Highland, inspire them. And in some cases, it’s the
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kids who have an affect on their parents.” In fact, Kooper noted that during one solicitation, it was the adult children who urged their parents to “give more” to the Blumkin Home. “That,” he said, “was inspiring!” He’s still eager to meet with willing donors, too, and said it would only take a call to his office (402.392.1800) for him to respond. “I’ll come to a donor’s office or home,” he added, “wherever they want to go to talk about their role in making this happen.” And while he called this project “fun”, he admitted that he misses his friend Harlan. “When we’re making decisions, I often think to myself, ‘What would Harlan say?’” he said. “He was truly a partner in putting this together. We worked together to strategize, to design, to build, and to raise the dollars needed to see this go forward,” Kooper added quietly. “I wish he was here to see it.” He wouldn’t say this project has been easy, but he did admit that he has received calls “from out of the blue. Donors have been very forthcoming,” Kooper said. “The response has really been phenomenal.” He and his wife, Sharon, are already grandparents. With the recent marriage of their daughter Robyn to Chad Menin, and his daughter and son-in-law, Lori and Wayne Schwarz, expecting twins this summer, siblings to three-and-a-halfyear-old Melanie, life is good. But what if he needs to live at the Blumkin Home someday? “Well, he smiled, “I’m not planning on it. But if I have to go, I’ll have a really nice place to call home!”
Who’s got the afikomen? The afikomen is just a little bit of matzah. It looks like any other piece. But at the seder, it’s unique and indispensable. And we can’t end the seder without it. To Jews in need all over the world you are the afikomen, the essential piece. Without your help, so many Jews in Omaha, Israel, and 60 countries across the globe wouldn’t have the means to celebrate Passover. Each year the Omaha Jewish Community stands out as one of the most generous nationwide. Thank you for living generously, and helping to bring Passover to Jews in need throughout the world.
March 30, 2007
Reaching out The outreach services offered by JSS are a large part of by ANDREA BARTMAN the work that these two perform every day. With this for JSS/RBJH When they started working for Jewish Senior Services, goal in mind of helping older adults maintain their indethey were both practicum students at the University of pendence, Kotok and Fox coordinate home visits and Nebraska-Omaha. Now Shane Kotok and Shelly Fox arrange assistance for seniors, if necessary. Many times, look back on their time with the Rose Blumkin Jewish calls they receive from community members are simply Home, 23 years and four years respectively, and recall requests for information from a source they know they exactly why they spend their days reassured that theirs is can trust. “When somebody calls Shelly or me, they’re usually the most fulfilling kind of work. These two are part of a team of four social workers for the RBJH that act as asking for some advice on what the next step is for themadvocates for the Home’s residents, as well as any com- selves or their loved one,” says Kotok. “We’re the bridge for older adult’s healthcare decisions from that first munity senior who needs their support. In response to a question of whether or not it’s diffi- phone call, regardless of where the path leads.” Kotok says that this change in healthcare, along with cult to work at a nursing home every day, Kotok and Fox are quick to point out that the job can be fun as well as overall societal changes has helped to remove the stigma rewarding. They point to their interactions with the res- associated with a skilled nursing facility. She says, “It’s been a slow process of educating the idents of the Home and the people they meet out in the community, as well as through people’s personal expericommunity as examples of how to fully enjoy life. Kotok says, “This is challenging. It’s exciting and ences with friends or family that you really can get back meaningful work. These people who have lived on this out the door and return home. An overwhelming earth for 80 or 90 years, they are amazing. I feel like I’m amount of older adults are currently living at home. transported to periods of time I never lived in. Even That’s why outreach is such a big part of JSS. If we only people who may not have a memory for recent things catered to the needs of those people who needed a nursing home, we would be leaving out the majority of can give such a vivid account of their life.” Fox agrees, “Its fun to go out with your girlfriends Jewish seniors in Omaha. Sometimes people may only and laugh, but it is nothing like sitting and hearing the be calling for one particular need, like Meals-on-Wheels, stories of, and experiencing the joy from, someone who has lived a fulfilled life. That’s fun.” This social work team, including Bert Benson and Abigail Erpelding, work together to make transitions in and out of the Home easier on everyone involved. Families need support, especially during the admission process, and residents need the ongoing support while they are at the Home. “We are a team, the four of us. We all perform different roles. That’s why we have the time to do what all Shelly Fox, a social worker for the last four years at the Home, also narrates a computer we do; because there are “walk through” at the Home’s groundbreaking ceremony in October, 2006. four of us,” says Kotok. The jobs do often blend togeth- companion services or questions about long term care er, however; picking up on each other’s work for the insurance.” Fox gives an example of a recent call from an older sake of always being available to the families and older adults who need them. Fox says, “We’re privileged to be adult who needed information on relocating to another able to say, ‘Of course; Come in and sit down.’ to any- community. “It wasn’t a matter of intervening in any crione who walks in the door with a question, and we sis situation,” she says. “It wasn’t really about assessing know everything will still get done and we can take the their needs. They knew what their needs were. They just needed some help getting it done.” This is how JSS time that we should with people.” Kotok and Fox are typically part of the initial contact works to provide the connections or referrals required with Jewish Senior Services, and they site the work of on a case by case basis. Both of these women credit others with being conthis “admissions team” in easing the transition into either short or long term care. Benson, the Director of cerned enough to call JSS when they feel an acquainSocial Service, who has been with the RBJH for 22 tance may need a phone call or visit. “We have a very concerned community,” says Kotok. years, works with those older adults currently residing at the Home, and Erpelding, going on three years, works “It’s always appreciated. We’d rather get five calls about with the residents as well and takes care of the discharge someone than no calls at all.” They also site the local synagogues and rabbis for the enormous amount of help plans for those returning home. Fox gives an example of how this team’s jobs influence they provide in notifying JSS when a member of their one another by pointing out that someone she’s been congregation may have needs. Most have “caring comvisiting at home for outreach could enter the Home as a mittees” that will work with JSS in providing continued short term stay after surgery. They would be cared for companionship and visits once JSS has established an during their rehabilitation, go through discharge plan- interest or need from the individual. The reputation of Jewish Senior Service and the ning and return back to their home as a contact for outreach service again, if necessary. In this situation, an Blumkin Home in the community at large is evident, individual would have contact with all four of the RBJH they say. Fox points out, “People know where to call and social workers and then return to his or her own resi- they have a comfort level that their call is going to be dence, where they can be confident and comfortable in acted upon. Sometimes they call the JCC or Jewish Family Service. They may not know specifically which calling again if they need anything. Getting people back home, or even better; keeping agency to contact, but the other agencies in the them in their own home, is a major goal of Jewish Senior Federation will refer that call to the correct place.” Confidentiality is paramount when dealing with any Service. Kotok sites an overall evolution in health care and a specific effort on the part of the Rose Blumkin incoming calls from concerned people. Every phone call Jewish Home staff to do everything they can to make is followed up on, but an individual’s status cannot be reported back to the caller for the sake of privacy. “It’s this an option for those they come into contact with. Kotok says, “It used to be simply -- home -- or the wonderful that the community of Omaha knows that the Blumkin Home. Now we feel very strongly that no one Jewish community wants to take care of our older adults. should ever give up independence if they don’t have to. That means so much, and it’s fairly unique,” says Kotok. These two say that people, overall, are doing a better As much as somebody can do, we want them to do that; job of being prepared before a need is present. The as long as a balance with safety is considered.” Fox agrees. “Someone has the right to choose to stay “Peace of Mind” project, sponsored by the Jewish in their home. If that is important to them and it’s what Federation of Omaha and JSS is ongoing. Anyone can they want to do, we hope we can assist them in making call to receive information on end of life documents, liva safe choice that’s right for them. We’re not all-know- ing wills, long term care insurance and more. ing. We can’t just pop into someone else’s life and say There is a need, they say, for advanced preparation, Continued on page 54 ‘Here’s what you should do.’”
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 51
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The mikvah revealed by CAROL KATZMAN “one of my biggest problems was finding Editor of the Jewish Press a chair for the bathroom -- one that As Suzanne Singer looks back on the would withstand moisture and humidity, volunteer work that she has done, she but be comfortable for a woman to rest says that two projects stand out as “most in. I knew a plastic patio chair would be rewarding.” perfect, but I didn’t realize that in the One is the Temple Israels Centennial late fall no store in Omaha sells patio Book, Consider the Years 1871-1971, chairs. I happened to stop by to see Sivi, which she researched, wrote and pro- and there on her patio was the perfect duced with Silvia “Sivi” Roffman. The taupe-colored chair! After I gasped in other is the renovation of the mikvah, shock, I asked her if we could borrow it the ritual bath. until spring. She replied, ‘Take it and It’s housed in the Rose Blumkin Jewish keep it!’ I did and it’s still perfect!” Home, located on its eastern edge. While it be accessed can through the Home, it also has its own entrance for the privacy of the users. As a member of the Federation Executive Board six years ago, Singer was asked to explore the possibilities of a renovation project. While the mikvah was halachicorrect (in cally with accordance Jewish law), “it looked like the gym bathroom in a high school,” she said. Singer, who had never been in a mikvah, quickly got an education. After some research, she spoke to women who used the mikvah on a regular basis and rabbis. She Suzanne Singer admires the artisty of the handpainted walls of the saw her role as beauticommunity mikvah, a project she chaired in 2002. fying not only the physical surroundings, but the experiThe result was -- and still is -- remarkence itself. able. Singer has always said that while She drew ideas from many people. One she heard many lovely comments about woman suggested a feeling of Ein Gedi, the renovation, her favorite remains the the magnificent gardens in Israel. remark of her daughter-in-law, Kelly Roffman recalled hearing Norman Somberg of Kansas City. She had seen a Veitzer describing a mattress store that mikvah as part of an education class, but had a ceiling painted to look like the when she saw ours, she looked around night sky. Fortunately, the manager of quietly for a few moments and then said, that store remembered the name of the “It’s so spiritual.” painter. That’s exactly what Singer had hoped “This very talented, artistic painter, to achieve. After all, the mikvah is used with the unforgettable name of James for many purposes--following the laws of Bond, became interested in the project family purity, toiveling to purify dishes after seeing the mikvah and hearing how and the like, and for conversions. we wanted it to enhance a nighttime ritIt is used by all the rabbis and all the ual,” said Singer. “As he worked, the congregations as a “community mikvah,” concrete block walls began to look like something Singer stressed is very imporJerusalem stone; soon beautiful vines tant. She added that Rabbi Aryeh Azriel were cascading over them. The ceiling of Temple Israel even uses the mikvah for became a night sky full of stars and a new congregants following a surgery, divorce, moon. James Bond absolutely trans- or miscarriage as a way of healing. formed the mikvah.” As he said in a Nov. 29, 2002 article in The ceramic tile remained around the the Jewish Press, “immersion in the mikritual bath itself, but the floors were vah allows people to ... emerge with retiled as was the shower/tub of the renewed courage and strength.” adjoining bathroom. There, the concrete Because of those strong feelings, blocks also took on the look of Jerusalem Singer would like to see this community stone; a beautiful new vanity was built create a “Friends of the Mikvah camand lovely plush towels were added so paign to help support its operation and visitors need not bring their own. Two take the burden off the Blumkin Home’s small benches were placed in the entry as budget.” well as posters from Israel to brighten the There’s a kind of permanence to the walls. two projects of which I’m most proud,” Several important unseen changes were she said. “Knowing that the Temple’s mechanical, such as a better exhaust and a 100th anniversary book is in the Library hot water heater on the water line from the of Congress as well as in members’ JCC making it more efficient than piping homes, and that the beauty and peacefulin hot water from the JCC boiler room. ness of the mikvah is still being enjoyed, “To my surprise,” Singer explained, gives me great satisfaction.”
EARLY DEADLINE NOTICE Because the Jewish Press office is closed for the first two and last two days of Passover (Tuesday/Wednesday, April 3-4, and Monday/Tuesday, April 9-10), the deadline for the April 13 issue is Monday, April 2, 9 a.m. for all ads, articles and photos. Questions? Call 402.334.6448.
March 30, 2007
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
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Kitchen crew delivers more than food to Blumkin residents by OZZIE NOGG cheese, frozen pizza. dietary crew unloads the order As a young girl growing up on a farm near Boxholm, She recalled that, “One and stocks the newly kashered Iowa, Laura Bair enjoyed meals of homemade bread, year we ordered Passover cooler and kitchen cupboards. apple pie from fruit in the family’s orchard, and roast waffles, thinking they “Making ready for Passover is from the cows her father raised and butchered. On occa- would be a treat for the hard,” Bair admitted, “but sion, her mother served up a platter of spicy potato Blumkin residents. But no once you get into it, it’s fun. bologna sausages. Every year feels like a new matter how much syrup Today, as Food Service Manager of the Rose Blumkin we poured on those wafexperience.” Jewish Home, Bair understands the intricacies of fles, they stayed hard as For Bair and Company, part kashrut, and her food preferences include some tradi- rocks. In fact one of the of the fun is participating in the tional Jewish dishes. “I absolutely love kasha var- residents pitched his wafseders themselves. “Sometimes nishkehs,” she smiles, “though I still turn down gefilte fle across the dining room a resident’s entire family fish in favor of pickled herring. Apparently some Jewish like a frisbee. We never attends the seder as a unit, and people feel the same way, so I’m in good company.” when the family includes young ordered those waffles Bair began working in nursing homes when she was again.” children, everyone has a happy eighteen, and has been part of the dietary department at time, what with the afikomen The ritual cleaning of the RBJH for fourteen years. “I started out as a cook, the hiding and all.” Blumkin Home then became a secretary in the kitchen, doing the cater- kitchen is supervised by Bair also remembers the ing paperwork and paying bills. Eventually I got to help an Illinois-based mashPassover when Marti decide on the menus. The first time I faced the Meat- giach, Joe Roth, with Nerenstone, an attorney who Dairy issue it was scary, and I thought, ‘I’ll never learn whom Bair has worked lives in Council Bluffs, came to to do this. This is a totally different culture and religion.’ for years. “We call him the seder and brought her guiLaura Bair, Blumkin Home Food Services Manager ‘Chicago Joe’ and he’s But keeping kosher isn’t as hard as you think.” tar. “The music really livened Promoted three years ago to Food Service Manager, things up.” Over time, the dietary staff has created its Bair supervises a full-time crew of four cooks, three own Passover tradition. “Before we serve the meal, we aides and four dishwashers, plus three high school stusit along the walls of the dining room and read the dents who work part time in the RBJH kitchen. “My Hagaddah along with the residents. We may not understaff is great,” Bair said. “We’re like a family, and the stand the words but we sing along with everyone. We residents are part of our family. We don’t want to see really like ‘Dayeinu’.” them hurting or sick. We’ll do anything we can for The Blumkin Home kitchen crew is also available to them.” cater on-site seder meals for nonresidents. “We’ve prePassover preparations involve extra and often unfamilpared Bernice and Alan Wolfson’s family seders in the iar work for Bair and her staff, only one of whom -Blumkin conference room, and we also supply SedersRussian-born Valentina Etus -- is Jewish. “Most of the to-Go. You can order whatever you want in advance -rest of my crew comes from Thailand and Mexico, but from just the matza ball soup to the entire menu -- and even the other Americans on my staff are non-Jewish, so then pick it up. We’re happy to provide this service for the process of kashering a kitchen for Passover and cookfolks who want a seder that’s delicious and easy.” ing for seders is completely foreign to all of them. But Judy Brookstein assists a member of the Blumkin Home dietary Though food preparation requires special attention that’s no problem. When I first arrived at the Blumkin staff during Switch Day, 2001. and care at Passover time, Bair delivers TLC to Blumkin Home I’d never heard of matza and knew nothing about done the pre-Passover kashering as long as I’ve been Home residents all year around. She knows all of them here. He scalds all the pots and pans, the cutlery, the by name, understands their individual diets and tries to Passover, but I learned fast. My staff learns fast, too.” About two months before Passover, Bair orders matza walk-in cooler and cupboards, turns on the ovens to serve the foods they like. products, gefilte fish, horseradish and other packaged high and leaves them on until the burners and broiler “For me, the residents are like my mom and dad,” she staples along with frozen chickens, brisket and roast beef racks are clean and good to go.” said. “I always ask my staff, ‘How would you want your She thought for a moment and added, “The first time parents or grandparents to be treated?’ We need to satthat will translate into eight days of holiday meals. “A few years ago I went to New York to KosherFest -- I saw the process I thought, ‘Why is he doing this?’ But isfy the residents and treat them like they were at home. a marketing meeting for people in the kosher food serv- after he explained things, it made sense.” While Joe does A nice meal is what they look forward to, what they ice industry,” Bair said. “Every year there are new prod- his work, Bair and her staff take the regular dishes down enjoy. I love it when a resident says, ‘This tastes like what ucts, and it was neat to see all the Passover foods available to the Blumkin Home’s basement and bring up the my mother used to fix.’ At moments like that we know in big city supermarkets -- black truffle olive oil, foie gras, Passover china. And when the semi-trailer truck with we’ve done our job.” smoked country apple sausages, baked macaroni and food supplies arrives at the Home’s loading dock, the Continued on page 54
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March 30, 2007
Kitchen crew delivers Continued from page 53 According to Bair, the expanded kitchen designed as part of the Blumkin Home renovations will be an interesting challenge. “The plans call for a bigger dish room and new combination ovens, which will allow us to do more, and do it more efficiently. Also, right now there are two large dining rooms, but the new space has four small dining rooms, so meal time will be more intimate and quiet.” Bair looks forward to the addition of bakery space where she and her cooks can turn out homemade bread, cinnamon rolls and cakes. “For years we relied on Duncan Hines kosher pareve mixes,” she said, “and then they took them off the market. I e-mailed the company -- don’t do this to me, I pleaded - but got no response. Suddenly, a few months ago the mixes were reintroduced, which is great, but soon we won’t need them,” she laughed. “When our bakery is up and running we’ll make cakes and bread from scratch, just like my mother did on the farm.” Passover aside, the dayto-day work load for Bair and the kitchen crew is staggering. “We serve approximately 300 resiLaura Bair, right, dent meals a day,” she said, “and also cater meetings in the Blumkin Home, at the JCC, and serve the Friedel students lunches Monday through Friday. But I like working with people, especially with the elderly and with kids. This job is very rewarding. It’s
made me a better person.” Bair is happy to share the rewards of her work. “I have two grandchildren, age five and seven, who have visited the Home since they were able to walk. They’re learning what to expect when a person gets old. They push the residents to exercise sessions.” She added thoughtfully, “It can be scary to see someone in a wheelchair, but people need to get over being skittish about visiting here. The Blumkin residents were once little children, then they were active adults. Now they’re sort of like babies again. They crave company and a smiling face. Who’s going to visit if you don’t?” Last month, Bair put her intergenerational philosophy to work when she and
supervises the Blumkin Home dietary staff. her siblings gathered at the family farm to celebrate their father’s 90th birthday. “It was a wonderful visit,” Bair said. “And in honor of the occasion I made my dad a pot of matza ball soup. It’s his favorite Jewish food.”
Reaching out Sher Home,” she says. “Not having famContinued from page 51 more than ever. Families are more spread ily here, it was a way to connect to this out across the country than ever before. community.” Fox’s comments are similar in sentiMany households are double income homes where one family member isn’t ment, but from an opposite viewpoint. “I necessarily home enough of the time to believe that what drives me, why I chose care for a loved one on a permanent, or this work, is that I have history with many of the people I interact with at even temporary, basis. says, Kotok “Not only do we see ourselves (JSS) as crisis intervention, but we also see ourselves as educating people to have control and be prepared to handle their own healthcare decisions when the time comes.” Many more people, they say, are coming in before planned surgeries to take a tour, fill out an applica- Social worker Shane Kotok, left, visits with Lois Wine, Director of tion and be pre- Volunteer Services, on a sunny day on the Home’s interior courtyard. pared for rehabilitation at the Home if it work. Maybe I grew up with their daughter, or they were a friend of my grandfabecomes necessary. When the time does come to enter the ther’s. That takes it to a different level for Blumkin Home, there’s much paperwork me.” These two voice appreciation for their to be done, but the emphasis is always on taking the time to welcome someone to a jobs and their co-workers. They are obvinew place to live. Many staff members at ously an enormous impact on the value the Home have been with RBJH for long of the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home and periods of time, including Kotok. This is are a positive influence on the care of evidence of people who are there, not for every resident here. If you need social workers from Jewish a job, but for a motivation that is all their Senior Services to reach out to a family own and unique to each one. “When I moved to Omaha 27 years member, call them at: 402.334.6532 or ago, I started volunteering at the Dr. 334.6539.
Wishing You and Your Family a Happy & Joyous Passover!
March 30, 2007
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March 30, 2007
Color the Home’s kitchen ...appetizing Happy Passover
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by OZZIE NOGG Psychological studies show that the color of your kitchen and dining area -- even the color of your dishes -- can subconsciously affect your appetite and affect your mood toward food. “Most people are unaware of the profound effect color has on their behavior,” says Kenneth R. Fehrman, a professor of interior design and co-author of Color, The Secret Influence. According to Fehrman, blue is an appetite suppressant, and many people have deep-seated instincts to avoid blue and purple foods because they tend to be poisonous. Weight loss plans suggest dieters take advantage of this natural instinct by using blue plates, napkins and place mats, and even putting a blue light in the refrigerator to help curb late-night raids. On the other hand, red, yellow, and orange effect brain wave activity and stimulate appetite. “Restaurants often use the red end of the color spectrum because it makes us salivate and gets our stomach juices flowing,” explains Fehrman. The theory that color has potentially positive affects is gaining acceptance in the food services departments of nursing homes, where meal preparation and presentation is a prime factor in keeping elderly residents wellfed and healthy. Many facilities now use bright colored dishes to subliminally encourage residents to ask for a second helping. Susan Schiffman of the Duke University Medical Center Department of Psychology says enhancing food aromas is another way to increase appetite in seniors, many of whom have a diminished sense of smell. Schiffman’s findings show that the simple addition of sweeteners and herbs sparks appetites in older people. While experts recognize the importance of color, creative menus and tasty food preparation, it’s clear that the social aspects of eating are what make it a joyous experience for everyone, especially the elderly. This Passover, when the residents of the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home gather for their seders, the stimulating social interaction will surely have them reaching for another serving of Laura Bair’s brisket -- or for one of these favorite Passover dishes, submitted by Blumkin residents and their families. Eat and enjoy! (Editor’s note: though Rebbetzin Frances Groner never lived at the Blumkin Home, she was a frequent visitor at the Dr. Sher Home. She died recently in Jerusalem at the age of 98, but we felt it appropriate to share several of her recipes here.)
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CHOPPED EGGPLANT by Rebbetzin Frances Groner 1 eggplant 1 small green pepper 1 small onion 1 small red tomato 1 tbsp. oil 1 tbsp. lemon juice salt & pepper to taste Bake eggplant in moderate oven until soft. Chop finely the onion and pepper; add cooled, peeled eggplant and tomato. After well chopped, add seasoning, oil and lemon juice. Serve on lettuce leaf. PASSOVER ROLLS by Rebbetzin Frances Groner 6 eggs 1/2 cup water 11/4 cup matza cake meal 1 tbsp. sugar 11/2 heaping tbsp. potato starch 1/2 tsp. salt Beat eggs well, then add sugar and salt, beating until very thick. Add starch and cake meal unsifted. Mix well. Drop onto greased pan, shaping into rolls. Bake at 400º for 10 minutes, then 350º for 20 minutes. MARGIE LINCOLN’S MATZA FARFEL KUGEL 1 cup minced onion 1 cup finely diced celery 1 cup sliced mushrooms (fresh or canned) 6 Tbs. vegetable shortening 31/2 cup matza farfel 1 t. salt 1/4 t. pepper 2 eggs slightly beaten
10 oz. can condensed chicken broth 11/4 cup hot water Sauté onion, celery and mushrooms in shortening, until tender. Add farfel. Combine remaining ingredients, add to mixture. Pour into well greased 11/2 quart baking dish and bake at 375° for 30 minutes, or until firm. Serves 6-8 GEFILTE FISH by Mabel Katskee When Mabel made gefilte fish, she purchased fresh fish at Joe Tess Live Fish Market at 5424 So. 24th St. Use 4 pounds of buffalo (filleted, keep the bones separate) Use 2 pounds of carp (filleted, keep the bones separate) keep the roe (fish eggs, not the milk) NO HEADS Other ingredients: onion, celery, carrots, eggs, salt and pepper Grind up fish together then add 1 onion Add 4 eggs, salt and pepper. Chop with a chopper Prepare 1 extra-large soup pan or 2 regular soup pans. Put carrots, onions, and celery on the bottom of pan(s). Season with salt and pepper. Add bones and fill with water. Bring to a boil. Make round fish balls and drop into pan(s). Add roe around the edges. Continue to simmer with pan(s) covered for 3 hours. Cool and refrigerate. Discard everything but the fish. Decorate with some cooked carrots. FARFEL POPCORN by Fannie Chunovic 1 lb. box of matza farfel 5 large eggs 1/2 tsp. salt 1/4 cup oil Heat oil in a large baking pan in a 350º oven. In the meantime, mix eggs and salt and pour over farfel in a large bowl. Spread mixture into hot oil and return to oven. Stir and break up mixture about every 10 minutes until crisp. Season farfel as desired. Excellent snack; also very good in chicken soup! PASSOVER POTATO KUGEL by Rose Novicoff, mother of Elaine Nachman 5 large potatoes 2 onions 1 stick margarine 3 eggs, beaten 1/2 tsp. salt 1/2 tsp. black pepper Peel and grate the potatoes and onions using the fine shredding disc of a food processor. Melt the margarine and mix with the other ingredients. Grease a 9x13” pan. Pour the mixture into the pan and cover tightly with aluminum foil. Bake at 325º for oneand-a-half hours. Remove the foil and bake for another hour, or until golden brown. FRUIT COMPOTE ALA FRANCES FOX (whose daughter, Janie Kulakofsky, says it’s easy and goes with everything) 1 package pitted prunes 1 package dried apricots 1 package dried peaches (all can be cut into smaller pieces if you like) 1 can pineapple chunks and juice 1 can mandarin oranges, drained 1/2 cup sweet or dry sherry (optional) 1 can cherry pie filling for topping Mix all together and put into a 3 quart casserole Top with cherry pie filling and bake at 350º for one hour AUNT MOLLYE’S PASSOVER PUDDING (Janie Kulakofsky’s Aunt Mollye Marcus is from Omaha, but moved to California to be with family) 6 or 7 matzas soaked and drained 4 eggs beaten chunks of margarine (save some for topping) 1 or 2 diced apples white raisins, cinnamon, sugar, lemon juice, and vanilla (to taste) Mix all ingredients together and put into greased cake pan. Put more margarine on top. Bake at 350º for 45-50 minutes. Continued on page 57
March 30, 2007
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 57
Color the Home’s kitchen...appetizing Continued from page 56 KULAKOFSKY ROCKY ROAD KANDY (Look for ingredients that are kosher for Passover) 12 ounces chocolate chips 2 tablespoons butter 10 ounces marshmallows 1 can sweetened condensed milk 2 cups roasted nuts Melt butter, milk, and chocolate chips; fold in nuts and marshmallows. Spread in a 9x13 pan lined with waxed paper. Chill for 2 hours.
A few drops of either orange or lemon juice Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and beat well. Add cake meal, starch and nuts. Blend well. Allow mixture to rest a few minutes until stiff enough to handle. Form into small rolls. Wrap in wax paper and refrigerate for several hours or overnight. Slice and bake on greased cookie sheet for 15-20 minutes at 350º until golden brown. Cool slightly and remove from pan gently with a spatula. These were so good, and such a favorite of George’s that I baked them year ’round!
HELEN BERNSTEIN’S PASSOVER BANANA CAKE 7 eggs, separated 11/4 c. sugar 1 c. mashed bananas 1/2 tsp. salt 3/4 c matza cake meal sifted with 1/4 c. potato starch 1/2 c. chopped nuts Beat egg yolks with sugar; in a separate bowl, mash bananas. Add to yolks. And add salt, sifted flour/starch mixtures to bananas. Beat egg whites and fold into flour/banana mixture. Fold in nuts. Bake in greased cake pan or bundt pan at 325º for 45 minutes. Cool in pan then remove.
BEST PASSOVER BROWNIES by Mollie Franklin 1 cup of oil 2 cups of sugar 4 eggs 1/2 cup of cocoa 1/2 cup matza cake meal 1/2 cup potato starch dash of salt Chopped nuts (optional) Cream together oil and sugar. Add eggs and mix until well blended. Sift together cocoa, cake meal, salt and potato starch. Add to creamed mixture. Add chopped nuts, if desired. Pour into 9x9” greased pan and bake at 350º for 20-30 minutes.
GEORGE SCHAPIRO’S FAVORITE PASSOVER COOKIES submitted by Julie Schapiro 1 stick Passover butter 1 cup of sugar 2 eggs, well beaten 1 cup Passover cake meal 1/2 cup potato starch 1/2 cup chopped nuts
FRIEDA KRIZELMAN’S APPLE PUDDING 4 matzas or 4 cups of matza farfel 2 eggs 1/2 cup of sugar 1 large apple, peeled and grated 1 tsp. salt 1/2 tsp cinnamon 2 tbsp. melted margarine
Soak matzas or farfel until soft. Drain water. Add well beaten eggs, sugar, and apple and mix well. Add salt, cinnamon and margarine and mix. Pour into baking dish, dot with pieces of margarine and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. Bake at 350º for 30-40 minutes until golden brown. INGBERLACH by Fannie Sherman Chunovic (But her daughter, Annette Fettman says it’s a Kaplan/Sherman recipe!) 1 lb. honey (11/3 cups) 2 tbsp. sugar 2 cups of matza farfel 11/2 cups chopped nuts 2 tsp. ginger Bring honey and sugar to a slow boil in a sauce pan. Add farfel, nuts and ginger. Stir constantly until golden brown (about 10 minutes). Spread mixture on a dampened board or pan. Roll out with a wet drinking glass until about 1/4-inch thick. When hard, cut into squares or diamond shapes. Can be frozen. FRUIT AND NUT BARS by Fannie Chunovic 3 eggs 1 cup of sugar 3/4 cup matza meal 1 cup chopped nuts 1 cup chopped dates or raisins Beat eggs and sugar together. Stir in matza meal. Add nuts and dried fruit. Pour into 9x9” greased pan and bake at
350º for 45 minutes. Cut into squares while still warm. (Editor’s note: Mary Wine, mother of Bert Lewis, will be remembered by many as giving cooking demonstrations at the Blumkin Home when she was well into her 80s. A consummate cook, the Press offers some of her “milchig”, dairy recipes as a change from all the meat and potato dishes consumed during Pesach!) BLINTZES Bletlach (crepes) 6 beaten eggs, 1/2 cup potato starch (not flour) water to make 1 cup To the beaten eggs, add the potato starch and enough water to make one cup. Mix well, and cook 2 tbsp. at a time in a small frypan sprayed with vegatable oil. Filling: 24 oz. dry cottage cheese (sometimes known as farmer’s cheese) pinch of salt 2 well beaten eggs enough matzo meal to absorb liquid and “hold together” Fill crepes and brown in butter or margarine; serve with sour cream or applesauce or jelly....your choice Note: Some of my calculations: 3 - 12 oz cartons of cheese fills 33 small crepes; 11/2 recipes of crepes makes 30 You do your own math, but this gives an idea of quantities. Continued on page 58
EARLY DEADLINE NOTICE Because the office is closed for the first two and last two days of Passover (Tuesday/Wednesday, April 3-4, and Monday/Tuesday, April 9-10) for Passover, all ads, articles and photos for the April 13 issue are due Monday, April 2, 9 a.m. Questions? Call 334.6448.
Bring a Friend FOR FREE Buy any regular-size dish and get one of equal or lesser value FOR FREE! Hurry! Offer expires April 30, 2007. 72nd & Dodge 402.393.0831 Not valid with any other offer. One offer per person, per visit. JP01
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Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
March 30, 2007
Color the Home’s kitchen continued from page 57 MARY WINE’S BORSCHT (MILCHIG) 4 or 5 medium beets, peeled and cooked 2 to 3 cups of water and a pinch of salt Juice of one lemon Enough sugar to give it the “sweet and sour” taste Sour cream for topping Grate cooked beets and pour into 2-3 cups of water and salt; bring to a boil, then remove from heat. Keep tasting to adjust and achieve the “just right sweet/sour” flavor. Chill and serve with generous additions of sour cream. This very simple recipe is delicious and has an old fashioned flavor. It’s so easy it can even be done with canned beets, but fresh are better. DAIRY POTATO SOUP 2 or 3 large potatoes, peeled and cut into small pieces salt and pepper 1 tbsp. butter Cook in just enough water to cover...no more. Cook to just tender, then drain off most of any remaining water. Add enough sour cream and mix well into potatoes to make a “soupy” creamy consistency EAT! and enjoy. This is a very forgiving recipe...almost any proportions work, but this simple combination is truly delicious. This will probably serve 2 or 3.
Photos from top left: The Home’s “Concierge” Rose Frankel, left, and RBJH Volunteer Coordinator Lois Wine greet Nebraska Governor Mike Johanns; Leonard Kulakofsky celebrates a milestone birthday for his mother, centennarian Helen Kulakofsky; Wayne Schwarz handles the blackjack table at a Young Jewish Omaha Casino Night for residents; RBJH staffers Ann Joseph and Phil Innes, right, narrate a fashion show for residents as Phil’s father models a dressy outfit; “dealer”; Sarah Kaplan; Betty Weissman and Sedil Resnick.
Everyday, in some way, somewhere, for someone, our endowment and donor-advised funds are repairing the world. We thank our heroes, the donors, who established the funds that help furnish the JCC Child Development Center, pay for BBYO programs, provide scholarships for youngsters and programs on teen issues, buy equipment for handicapped Jews, and especially support activities for the Rose Blumkin Home residents.
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Grubb & Ellis|Pacific Realty is passionate about our community. Most importantly, we applaud all those associated with the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home who give of themselves to benefit our distinguished community. We thank you for all you do, your abilities are truly astounding! We wish you and your family a happy and healthy Passover season!
ROSE BLUMKIN JEWISH HOME 25 YEARS OF DEVOTED CARE
Thanks to those who establish the funds, we’re committed to Tikkun Olam every day. You can be to! Call Marty Ricks, endowment director, at 402/334-6440 and help insure the future of our Jewish community.
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Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 59
Take an exodus from heavy fare, try fruits and veggies at seder by LINDA MOREL NEW YORK (JTA) -- Hard-boiled eggs, brisket, matzah balls laced with chicken fat and flourless cakes that require eight eggs. Not to forget the farfel casseroles laden with margarine and often containing harmful trans fats or the saturated fat of butter. Passover may be the quintessential spring holiday, but many of its foods are far from “lite” in calories, cholesterol and fat. This heavy fare evolved in part because most American Jews emigrated from Eastern European countries, where snow was still knee deep when Passover arrived and it made sense to beat the chill by indulging in foods that stick to the ribs.
Braised Carrots, from The Healthy Jewish Cookbook: 100 Delicious Recipes from Around the World by Michael van Straten. Credit: North Atlantic Books But must we continue this pattern in a country with gentler springs, central heating, and rising rates of heart disease, diabetes and obesity? To balance the hard-boiled eggs, glistening casseroles and meaty entrees on seder tables, enlightened hosts often select side dishes brimming with fresh produce. They’re filling but light, tasty and attractive. “Health hazards come with affluence,” explains Michael van Straten in The Healthy Jewish Cookbook: 100 Delicious Recipes from Around the World. “As Jews acquired money they added more meat to their diet, consuming fewer vegetables, beans and grains.” An osteopath, acupuncturist and a naturopath -- a practitioner of healing without drugs -- van Straten, became a pioneer in nutrition long before most people realized that rich foods aren’t healthy. “In my early 20s I was already studying naturopathy, seen as cranky nutrition,” says van Straten, who lived in England until recently. “I loved my mother’s Jewish cooking, but soon became aware of the health risks.” Sharing an apartment with fellow students, he began tweaking her recipes to reduce fat and add nutritious ingredients. Years later he explored recipes from across the Diaspora, culling light fare to feature in The Healthy Jewish Cookbook. “The basic principles of kosher cooking are healthy, particularly those which forbid the consumption of milk and meat foods in the same meal,” van Straten says. “This simple practice immediately reduces the amount of saturated and artery-clogging fat.” His quest to healthier eating led him to Sephardi cuisine, which calls for the olive oil and produce found in sunny Mediterranean countries. Still, Passover lures many from heart-smart foods. Jewish women -- and some men -- take pride in preparing their most luscious
recipes for the holiday, which celebrates the Israelites’ freedom from bondage, the defining moment in Jewish history. “High fat foods are usually high calorie foods,” says registered dietitian Lisa Ellis. “The cholesterol found in egg yolks, fullfat dairy products and meat is unhealthy, artery-clogging fat.” Ellis, of White Plains, N.Y., has four children and keeps a kosher home. She often prepares seders for 15 to 20 people. “When you consume so much high-fat, high-calorie food in a short time span, your gall bladder has to work harder than it should,” she says. “Foods high in fat stay in the stomach longer than vegetables and fruit because they take longer to digest.” Ellis says this all becomes a burden on someone’s system. Some of the ritual foods associated with Passover are full of fiber -- the charoset, bitter herbs and greens. Ellis says there are ways to cut down on the eggs and fat-laden dishes associated with this special holiday. “Sometimes you can use less fat and fewer eggs in recipes,” she says. “Experiment with recipes before Passover arrives.” In place of margarine, Ellis suggests using trans-fat free oils such as olive, canola and safflower. Olive oil sometimes works well in baking. “You save here, you save there, it all adds up,” she says. Another suggestion: “If you want to participate in the egg course, just eat the egg white,” Ellis says. “It’s pure protein and under 20 calories, with no fat.” If you feel deprived without tasting the yolk, she suggests cutting the egg in half and sharing it with someone else at the table. For seder guests, who have no control over the fat that goes into the cooking, Ellis says to shrink the portion sizes. “Portion control is the most important thing when considering high fat, high cholesterol foods,” she says. “If you eat half portions, you’ll consume half as many fatty foods.” As seders entail several courses, no one is leaving the table hungry. The problem is, many people leave too full. “If you’re prone to indigestion, you run the chance of getting reflux,” Ellis says. “Your stomach has a lining to protect it against the acids that break down food. If that acid backs up into the esophagus, which has no protective lining, you can experience a burning sensation in your chest and throat.” Ellis selects her seder menu carefully. “I don’t serve brisket on Passover if I’m making matzah balls because they contain chicken fat,” she says. “Instead I prepare a skinless chicken dish with dried fruit, which provides fiber.” She recommends eating plenty of fruits and vegetables during Passover to counteract the binding effect of matza. Van Straten stresses the importance of whole wheat matza. “One of the great problems of Passover is constipation, already a widely suffered Jewish illness, made worse by the lack of fiber,” he says. When it comes to side dishes, Ellis prefers steamed vegetables. For seders she sautes broccoli or string beans in a little olive oil, sprinkling slivered almonds on top. Besides honey glazed carrots, her menu typically features a salad. Noting that many people crave a good matza farfel, she serves a small one, so “everyone gets to try a little.” Ellis adds fiber by preparing the dish with peaches or other fruit. Continued on page 60
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March 30, 2007
High School Seniors
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2007
High School Seniors... We will be publishing our annual Graduation Teen Age on June 8, 2007. To be included, we need your graduation photo and the following information. Name ____________________________________________________________ Parent(s)’ Name(s) __________________________________________________ Current High School _________________________________________________ College you plan to attend ____________________________________________ Send by May 11 to: The Jewish Press | 333 So. 132 St. | Omaha, NE 68154
Try fruits and veggies at seder Continued from page 59 She caps off the meal with pastries, but also offers fresh fruit for a lighter choice. Afraid your family and friends will rebel against spa cuisine on Passover? Give them the chopped liver, potato kugel, brisket and sponge cake they crave. But these brown foods are crying out for the healthy crunch of fiber. Fruits and vegetables not only add color to the table, they complement the season. Remember, a sprig of greens on the seder plate is the first sign of spring. The recipes here, as well as the historical information and health notes, are from The Healthy Jewish Cookbook. SWEET AND SOUR ZUCCHINI Sicilian Jews adopted this Turkish recipe. 1/4 cup olive oil 8 large zucchini, cut into large cubes 1 tablespoon finely chopped, fresh oregano leaves 1 small garlic clove, finely chopped 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar 3 tablespoons raw sugar (if unavailable, use light brown sugar) 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon Warm the oil in a large frying pan. Saute the zucchini, stirring frequently, until softened but not browned. Using a slotted spoon, put onto a serving plate and sprinkle with the oregano. Add the garlic, vinegar, sugar, cinnamon and about 2 tablespoons water to the oil remaining in the pan. Bring to a boil and simmer until thickened. Serve zucchini with the sauce poured on top. Yield: 4 servings Health note: This recipe provides heart protection with the garlic, beta carotene from the zucchini and antibacterial phytochemicals from the cinnamon. OLIVE AND ORANGE SALAD Jews were the earliest cultivators of citrus fruits. Olives have been cultivated for at least 5,000 years, and they’re part of Jewish biblical history. Widely used in Sephardic cuisine, this salad is a favorite in Israel, although its origins are probably North Africa.
Olive and Orange Salad, from The Healthy Jewish Cookbook: 100 Delicious Recipes from Around the World by Michael van Straten. Credit: North Atlantic Books
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4 oranges peeled and sliced horizontally About 18 black olives, pitted and cut in half Juice of 1 lemon 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil 1 garlic clove, very finely chopped 1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh mint 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin 1/2 teaspoon paprika, plus 2 pinches for serving Put the oranges into a serving bowl. Scatter olives over them. Whisk together the lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, mint, cumin and paprika. Pour dressing over the salad, sprinkling 2 pinches of paprika on top. Yield: 4 servings Health note: This recipe contains the vitamin C of oranges. Olives provide some vitamin E and lots of protective antioxi-
dants. NUTTY SPINACH WITH RAISINS The combination of spinach, nuts and dried fruits is a common favorite with Jews in the Middle East and North Africa. This recipe comes from Rome, but it was almost certainly taken there by Jewish traders during the days of the Roman Empire. 2 ounces (about 1/3 cup)
Nutty Spinach with Raisins, from The Healthy Jewish Cookbook: 100 Delicious Recipes from Around the World by Michael van Straten. Credit: North Atlantic Books seedless raisins 1/4 cup pine nuts 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 clove garlic, very finely sliced 21/4 pounds baby spinach Juice of 1/2 lemon Soak raisins in freshly boiled water for 10 minutes. Dry roast the pine nuts. Put olive oil into a large pot. Saute the garlic very gently for 2 minutes. Wash the spinach, even if the package says it’s already washed. Add to the garlic pot with water clinging to the leaves. Cook covered over gentle heat until the spinach is wilted -- not more than 5 minutes. Drain the raisins. Add to the spinach along with the pine nuts, stirring gently. Serve with lemon juice squeezed on top. Delicious hot or cold. Yield: 4 servings Health note: With all the nutrients in spinach -- especially the beta carotene -- the protein and minerals from the pine nuts and the heart-protective properties from the garlic, this recipe is exceptionally healthy. BRAISED CARROTS Carrots are widely used in all Jewish communities, from the coldest parts of Eastern Europe to the kitchens of the Mediterranean and the hot spots of the Middle East, Asia and India. Adding mint and raisins is typical of Middle Eastern and North African Jewish cooking. 3 tablespoons olive oil 8 young carrots with the bottom 1/2 inch of their leaves About 1 cup vegetable broth, or use a low-salt bouillon cube 1 tablespoon freshly chopped mint 1/4 cup raisins 2 tablespoons finely chopped flat-leaf parsley Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan and saute the carrots gently, until golden all over -- about 6 minutes. Add enough broth just to cover. Add the mint and raisins. Cover and simmer until the carrots are almost tender -- about 15 minutes. Uncover and bring to a brisk boil, until most of the liquid has evaporated. Sprinkle with parsley for serving. Yield: 4 servings. Health note: Rich in cancer-fighting beta carotene, carrots are one of the few vegetables that are better eaten cooked than raw, as the cooking process makes the nutrients easier for your body to extract. The oil in this recipe improves absorption of beta carotene, a fat-soluble nutrient that is also good for night vision.
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March 30, 2007
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
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One family’s ties to the Home BERT’S EYE VIEW by BERT LEWIS I’m almost positive that if I had a dollar for every word I’ve written about both the Sher Home or Blumkin, I’d have enough to pay my current Federation Campaign pledge! How come? Well, my family has had an ongoing connection with both since the days when my late mother worked on fund raising for what was then the future Dr. Philip Sher Home. That’s a long time ago, when one of my grandmothers became a resident after it was built. I don’t know what it was that inspired Mom to develop a program that would benefit the people who lived at the Sher Home, but when the term wasn’t so well known, she “invented” her own brand of occupational therapy. Today it’s often called Arts and Crafts, but she knew it was better for those elderly to gather in a sociable group and knit or crochet or cover hangers with yarn, among other things than just sit alone in their rooms. She knew when they were busy with their hands, they were happier, and she found out quickly when the afternoon was over, she provided an extra pleasure. She brought a big urn and would brew coffee and serve it with her own, home baked goodies. She was there every Thursday, rain, shine, snow, hail...no matter what. Thursday became known as Mary Wine Day. I’m sorry to say I wasn’t involved with that, probably because I had a bunch of little kids I was raising at that time, but my mom had already done that and was ready to take on projects that would benefit others while it kept her busy. Everybody knew her and her connection to the Home. And all knew the Home was Sher. She preceded the wonderful L.O.V.E. group that some younger women established later, when it was obvious that doing for the elders was a terrific thing to do. A real mitzvah. Her activity, in addition to serving on the Board of Directors of the Sher Home, was probably among the most fulfilling contributions to the Jewish community in
Mary Wine’s career of volMy own darling mom, who did so unteerism. So you can see much for the residents of the Sher Home, what I mean when I say my was herself a resident for the last four family has long had a con- years of her life. And if I may add an extra nection with our seniors and touch, I’ll tell you in her early years as a their welfare. resident, she still participated in some While the Sher Home volunteer projects. She, with volunteers was still a viable facility, from outside the Home, did some of her there were other members of my family in famous baking for all to enjoy. I can tell residence, including a great aunt, a great you with certainty, she enjoyed the projuncle and my mother-in-law. All were ect more than words could describe. lovingly and well cared for at a time in When her health became more precaritheir lives when that was exactly the best ous, I used to wonder if everyone got place for them to be. Naturally, we’re such special attention or just Mary Wine. among the Omahans who remember In time I realized that while she may have what it was like to have a family member gotten copious hugs, so did everyone else. at what is I also had sometimes three of my called “the dear aunts and old Home.” one uncle at But the old the Home order changes, through its and that which history. All was once wonwere watched cared derful often over, becomes worn for, kept as with time. So happy as posit was with the sible, and in case, Sher Home, one and when it proved that was recoggood nutrition nized, those and meticulous who pitch in care with medand help ication could Residents Sylvia Ross, left, and Mary Wine, chat with Gene improve things almost make a Brandt, RBJH director from 1982-1996. began to plan miracle. for a replacement. I learned the truth of that when one Blessed be the memory of Rose aunt who had been living alone began to Blumkin, who stepped up to the plate show slight but real signs of oncoming and made both a contribution and a chal- dementia. After a few weeks of proper lenge to her fellow Jews. She gave and attention, three meals a day plus snacks invited everyone else to match her gift, and meds on schedule, she turned around and we were on the way to a new home and became her old self! If you think I’m for our bubbes and zaydes. And what a exaggerating, I can authenticate that beauty we all built! We thought it would statement with professionals still on staff be a shining example of the best nursing who witnessed this. home in the world for years and years. Oh yes, you’d better believe my family And it was ... for 25 years! has always had ties to the Home. When it Well look at us now! Some of us who first opened, 25 years ago, I was just getwere young when the Blumkin Home ting involved in the workings of the place. was built have matured, shall we say. Lots I was invited to join the Board of of those who actively labored to create Directors, and it was years later before I the Blumkin Home have already experi- learned my mom (who was still a board enced residency there. We proudly nod member) had “pulled strings” and urged and smile when we hear (and we hear so the appointment. She wanted me involved, often) the words: “My doctor said this is and she got her wish, because involved I the best nursing home in the area and he was. Before I was finished, I also served wants me here!” two terms as the President of the Board
and developed an ongoing affection for the place and all its occupants. I’ve been outside of the loop for some years now, for a variety of reasons, including my absence (with my room-mate) from the city for roughly half the year. I’ve never felt it was fair to hold a seat on a board if I couldn’t be there 50% of the time. Besides, I’m a senior now too, and I recognize that it’s proper and right for the younger people to step up and be counted. I guess I could use that old expression, “I’ve been there and done that,” but I have to tell you, I loved it all. I understood why and how my mom got so much pure, unadulterated naches from the years and energy she gave to this segment of our Jewish community. As I’ve gotten older and thought back to some of that involvement, I’ve come to have a better understanding of the importance of one of my mom’s favorite philosophies: we take care of our own. She believed that and practiced her belief. I wish she could see what’s going on at the Blumkin Home these days, and know what the future plans are. I know she’d be pleased to learn of the wonderful improvements that will soon become the new look. I wish too that Rose Blumkin herself could see how her early generosity has grown and bloomed. These ladies both knew what it meant to do for others. I believe we’re so lucky to have such a caring, generous Jewish community here in Omaha. I never stop bragging about how much we’ve done and how much we’re still doing. My dear and wise husband often likes to say, “Jews have an edifice complex”... we love to build beautiful synagogues and retirement homes and other structures, to testify to our pride in what we cherish. Maybe he’s right. Let us hope this community will continue to have such pride and to always care for its elders, as well as its children, and all those in between. I’m proud of all of us and all we’ve done, and especially all we hope to do in the future. When I tell somebody in another state I’m from Omaha, I say it with pride. And if that person is Jewish, they know why. We have a reputation to kvell about. Long may we serve. Bert Lewis can be reached at BertLewis39@aol.com.
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March 30, 2007
This month in history... March Dates in Jewish Civil Rights from the Encyclopaedia Judaica, Second Edition March 1831: The Assembly of Lower Canada repealed legislation that, since 1804, had declared Jews ineligible for membership in the Assembly and legally unfit to hold any civil, judicial, or military office. March 1, 1281: Pope Martin IV directs the papal Inquisitors to proceed against lapsed Jewish converts. March 3, 1812: A progressive edict concerning the civil status of the Jews is enacted in Prussia on the strength of the chancellor, Karl August von Hardenberg, who stated that he was not prepared to approve any law which was based on more than four words: equal rights, equal duties.
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communities. March 17, 1808: Napoleon Bonaparte signed an edict attempting to force the Jews of France to integrate with civil society. The so-called “infamous decree� followed the French Sanhedrin, a congress of Jewish notables convened by the emperor to construe government policies as binding religious doctrine. Through coercive tactics such as deferring debts owed to Jews by Christian peasants, heavily regulating trade, and restricting Jewish exemptions from military service, the reformist government pushed Jews, particularly in the Alsace-Lorraine region, to adopt family names and submit to a special religious authority that enforced the general legal and economic structure of the country.
The hops of egacy
March 4, 1849: Centuries-old residency restrictions are abolished in the Czech region of Moravia. On March 17, another law organized Moravian Jews into 27 autonomous political
March 20, 1911: The mutilated body of a 12-year-old boy was discovered in a cave on the outskirts of Kiev. The right-wing
press and anti-Semitic groups immediately launched a vicious campaign accusing the Jews of murdering the boy for ritual purposes, the so-called “blood libel� that had been the pretext for persecutions of Jews for centuries. Obligingly, the chief district attorney of Kiev disregarded police information pointing to a gang of local criminals and instead looked for a Jew on whom to blame the crime, through whom the entire Jewish people could be publicly indicted. Mendel Beilis, the Jewish superintendent of a local brick kiln, was soon arrested and sent to prison, where he remained for more than two years. The trial of Beilis took place in Kiev in 1913, resulting in his acquittal. Bernard Malamud’s 1966 novel The Fixer is based on the Beilis case. Indeed, the weeks before the Passover celebration were frequent occasions for blood libels against Jews. After the grotesque murder of four citizens of Endingen, Germany, in March 1331, Rabbi Elias and his two brothers were accused of ritual murder, tortured, put on trial, and burned at the stake. Soon after, all of Baden’s Jews were expelled. Continued on page 63
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Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
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This month in history... Continued from page 62 March 27, 1247: A two-year-old child was found dead in the French town of Valréas, with the traces of many wounds. After being tortured, nine Jews confessed involvement in a ritual murder on the child. The cruel sentence that ensued appears to have struck an even larger number of the Jews of Valréas: some were quartered, others burnt alive; men were castrated, and were women mutilated by the ablation of their breasts. In two nearby towns, authorities confiscated all the possessions of the Jews under their administration and then imprisoned them.
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March 26, 1381: King Charles VI of France signs an ordinance exempting Jews from the obligation to replace stolen pledges after anti-Jewish riots in Paris and other towns. At the time, Charles was only 13-years-old, and the ordinance was the work of his regent, Louis of Anjou. When
Charles himself assumed control, the official attitude changed and the civil rights of Jews were restricted. In 1394, Charles expelled the Jews from France. March 30, 1526: Emperor Charles V of Spain issued a general safe-conduct to the Portuguese “New Christians” in Antwerp, Belgium. Numerous Marranos (Jews who nominally to converted Catholicism to avoid persecution) were enabled to settle there, and engage in business. Wealthy Marranos, such as the Mendes family, used the Spanish Netherlands for transit to Muslim countries. However, toward the mid-16th century, it was decided to expel from Antwerp all Marranos who had arrived there before 1543. The edict was renewed in 1550 and most of the Marranos were forced to leave, although a group of families continued to reside in Antwerp without rights of domicile. After the Peace of Westphalia (1648), Marranos were able to resettle in Antwerp, and even established a modest place of worship there.
The hops of egacy
“A New Beginning” is underway at the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home in March, 2007, as construction crews demolish the entrance to make way for the expansion and building of the “Special Care Unit” for residents with dementia. Temporarily, the Blumkin Home entrance has been relocated to the south side of the Home, facing the Jewish Community Center parking lot.
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Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
March 30, 2007
Photos from above left: John Kolm volunteered to run bingo even before he was a resident; Larry and Andi Kavich underwrote the Eden Project at the Home, a philosophy which brings plants and animals in to create a homey atmosphere; LOVE volunteers Eileen Remer, left, and Joann Blatt socialize at the tribute to Lee Jane Parsow; below: physical therapist Robin Brace greets Joe Frank and his daughter, Renee Wiseman.
Photos from top: Joanie Bernstein installs Marlene and Hyman Sukiennik as co-presidents of the L.O.V.E. organization in 2003; a former resident of the Home; Fred Ostrow on the day he came to live at the Home, Aug. 28, 2006; Mike Silverman, JSS/RBJH Director, jokes around during the start of construction; volunteer chefs Harry Weiner and Larry Hasslinger sub for kitchen staff on Switch Day; Mae Ostrow shows off her winning smile.
March 30, 2007
Margaret Bandynia celebrates her 103rd birthday in 2001.
Paul Roth, RBJH maintenance superviser, and Barbara Gottlieb, RBJH executive director 1996-2002, work on keeping the Home clean, safe and up-to-date.
Young Energetic Seniors, sponsored by Jewish Senior Services, and Visions, can be found taking day trips to Brownville, NE, or the Lied Historical Building, right, or at the end of
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
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Residents and “friends” Perry Saltzman and Fannie Chunovic.
April, going down to Kansas City for a tour of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Union Station. For more information about JSS outreach programs, call Maggie Conti at 334.6521.
Photos clockwise from top left: the Dancing Grannies perform for residents at the Home during an annual event -Grandparents’ Day; Yale Richards, left, thanks Lenora Lancaster, Barbara Gottlieb and Silvia Roffman for his nomination to American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging as the “Trustee of the Year” in 1999; Rose and George Novicoff, pictured here on June 23, 1979, at their 50th anniversary, lived at the Blumkin Home from 1990-97; Mike Walts runs bingo during a luau at the Home in 2002.
Next Year in Jerusalem
as well as Sderot, Nahariya, Haifa and Beer Sheva American Friends of Magen David Adom (AFMDA) is rebuilding the MDA Station in Israel’s eternal capital and largest city – The William H. Bloomberg MDA Jerusalem Station. In Sderot, where Qassam rockets from Gaza continue to rock the city, AFMDA is building a completely new MDA Station. In Nahariya and Haifa, on Israel’s “front line” with Lebanon, AFMDA will also renovate MDA facilities. MDA Beer Sheva is being refurbished as well. In May, American Friends of Magen David Adom will dedicate a beautiful new Station in Ashdod, after expanding and repairing MDA facilities in Afula, Rehovot, Kiryat Gat, Arad, Dimona, Nazareth Ilit and Beit Shean. Supporting American Friends of Magen David Adom (AFMDA) will help build and renovate Stations and contribute desperately needed vehicles, paramedic training, communications equipment, medications and medical equipment as well as flak jackets, helmets and security for our facilities. Help us make a difference. Artist’s rendering of the new William H. Bloomberg MDA Jerusalem Station
George Lennon and Sandy Rosen, Co-Regional Directors 3175 Commercial Avenue, Suite 101, Northbrook, IL 60062 888-674-4871 • 847-509-9802 • info@afmda.org
www.afmda.org
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March 30, 2007
Passover Cleaning PEOPLE OF THE
BYTE
by MARK MIETKIEWICZ It’s known as the holiday of national liberation. But don’t try to convince that to anyone who has been spending countless hours cleaning for Passover. As you find yourself scouring, mopping and vacuuming, the important thing to remember is that you are not alone… especially if you have a computer nearby. Today, cleaning for Passover on the Web. But first a reminder. There are many excellent articles explaining the why’s and how’s of Passover cleaning but for the final word, you should always consult a trusted rabbi. If the cleaning ritual is new to you, here’s a website with a not-so- intimidating title: “An Absolutely Very Short Guide to Keeping Kosher for Pesach.” [http:// tinyurl.com/2gts3a] But if you are looking for more detail, then check out “Clean for Pesach and Enjoy the Seder” edited by Rabbi Moshe Finkelstein. Before he gets into the nitty and the gritty, Rabbi Finkelstein explains why modern Passover causes such high levels of cleaning angst. In the past, wealthy people who lived in large homes often had many servants to do their cleaning. Poor people who could not afford servants lived in small homes with one or two rooms. “Today, we seem to be caught in a trap.” Our homes are larger. Furniture, utensils and clothing are more plentiful. But we don’t have the servants to do the cleaning. So the weeks before the holiday become filled with cleaning. [www.israel visit.co.il/top/Clean.htm] If you are well into your cleaning ritual and haven’t budgeted time to read up on the minutiae online, then just have the expert come to you. Aish Hatorah’s Rabbi Yitzchak Berkowitz has recorded two 45-minute lectures, Pesach Cleaning Made Easy. He reiterates the common theme that people have created stringencies which are simply not demanded by Jewish law or tradition. [www.613.org/pasclass.html] Meanwhile, Rabbi Gershon Bess of Kehilas Yaakov covers everything from cleaning refrigerators to kashering Tupperware. [http://tinyurl.com/28relw] If you’re feeling overwhelmed cleaning for your army, be thankful you don’t have to clean for a real one. Even the Israel Defense Forces goes on alert for the holiday. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website, “the IDF takes no chances, embargoing all packages from home just before and during Passover week in case they contain chametz goodies, thus ensuring that bases will be kept strictly kosher so both religious and non reli-
gious soldiers can serve shoulder-to-shoulder during the festival period.” [http://tinyurl.com/653tw] There is no shortage of sites that are designed to alleviate stress as the looming deadline approaches. But to tell you the truth, I wonder whether some well-meaning advice does just the opposite. Take Stephanie Savir’s Ten Tips for Reducing Pesach Pressure. The tips themselves are reassuring enough: “While it’s nice to have sparking walls…the mitzvah of Pesach cleaning is to remove chametz from our homes -- not dust.” But it’s when you reach the Pesach Calendar that you realize that all hope is lost: sevenweeks before Passover: Review and copy recipes; Buy paper goods and cleaning supplies; 6 weeks before Passover: Buy Yom Tov outfits for family; Clean bedrooms; five weeks before Passover: Clean basement and cars four weeks before Passover: Begin purchasing Pesach staples; Clean and stock a Pesach cabinet in your kitchen…. And so on. [http://tinyurl.com/4zgcp] On the other hand -- and with all due respect to Rabbi Shlomo Aviner -- can I really, really believe an article titled, “How to do your Pesach Cleaning Happily in Less than One Day?” In it, Rabbi Aviner passes along the basics: how to deal with children’s clothing, medicines and toiletries, high chairs, cars, and of course, the kitchen. He concludes, “In light of what is written above, it should take about an hour to clean the house, another hour for the dining room, and two-three hours to kasher the kitchen. In short, about one day!” [http://tinyurl. com/22pwfs] Perhaps Rabbi Aviner should have a word with Ms. Savir. Cleaning and cooking and so many dishes Out with the hametz, no pasta, no knishes Fish that’s gefillted, horseradish that stings These are a few of our Passover things. [http://tin yurl.com/4ekod] If Passover cleaning isn’t one of your favorite things, you’re not alone. But as days count down to Passover, there’s plenty of advice for you on the internet. And surprisingly, you’ll even meet some people who actually look forward to the annual ordeal. Like Emuna Braverman. . In “The Joys (?) of Passover Cleaning,” Emuna Braverman utters some very controversial words: “I’m beginning to feel like an endangered species, because I like Passover. It’s actually my favorite holiday.” This fact dawned on her after she attended one of those Passover getaways where everything but everything is done for you. “And I learned an important lesson. Studying the ideas underlying Passover was not the true preparation... It was the physical effort that led to the emotional and intellectual preparation. I felt less prepared when I didn’t take out my special dishes, when I didn’t clean my children’s bedrooms...And I felt more alone. That crucial link to other Jewish women was not being forged...So, much as I would like a vacation, as
tempting as some events sound, I’ve returned to what I enjoy. I can’t wait to start cleaning.” [http://tinyurl. com/ytrnk4] Braverman may have found a kindred spirit at the Chabad.org site. Bella Shapiro’s revelation hit about “forty minutes to the deadline to get rid of all remaining chametz. I commandeer the kids, assigning rooms, brooms and vacuums. I run about frantically. …Weeks of intense labor have brought us to this moment. There is so much to do, so little time, and failure to finish not an option.” And then it dawns on her. “What an incredibly easy religion.” Those really are Bella Shapiro’s thoughts (and not the byproduct of industrial strength cleansers) but you’ll have to check out her essay to find out more. [http://tinyurl.com/25z7qu] Whether or not you enjoy cleaning, do take care with those industrial strength cleansers. A few years ago, Professor Yona Amitai, a senior toxicologist at Hadassah-University Hospital in Jerusalem warned that “the number of accidental poisonings of children from cleaning fluid triples during the two or three weeks before Passover, and poisonings from all other causes doubles, compared to the rest of the year.” Amitai urged the public to be especially careful with liquid drain cleaners, and never to mix bleach with acids. He also advised parents to be extra cautious when cleaning out medicine cabinets to ensure drugs do not end up in the hands of children. [http://tinyurl.com/yvejrc] As you clean your home for the holiday, are you greening it at the same time? According to the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, “the average house contains 3 to 10 gallons of hazardous cleaning products that threaten your respiratory health and could end up in our air and water. Keep these facts in mind as you gear up for your Pesach cleaning frenzy. You can find environmentally responsible ways to dispose of hazardous products and identify alternatives to replace them” on their site. [http://tinyurl.com/ysaq6y] Beyond human health, there’s the health of your small appliances. According to one blog that I chanced upon, the pre-Pesach season also proves to be a bonanza for appliance repair shops in Israel as people “remove screws that can’t be replaced by mere mortals,” or soak and dunk things that were never meant to be soaked or dunked. [http://tinyurl.com/yoo8fw] I’m not quite sure how they conducted their survey but according to the Brandman Research Institute, 43 million man-hours are spent in Israel in cleaning preparations for the Passover. Curious use of the term “manhours” since the study found that 29 million cleaning hours are done by women and 11 million hours by men. Persons paid to clean account for the remainder. [http://tinyurl. com/4frn6] Speaking of roles and responsibilities, let’s just say that Continued on page 67
Happy Passover Congratulating the Rose Blumkin Home for 25 years of Service to the Jewish Community
To All Of Our Friends
11th & Howard • 30th & L • 35th & Farnam 52nd & Center • 72nd & Redick• 78th & Cass 87th & Pacific• 101st & Pacific • 108th & Center 120th & Stonegate Cir. • 142nd & Millard Ave. 171st & W. Center Rd. Loan Office: 29 S. Main, Council Bluffs
March 30, 2007
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
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Stuck in the desert JOURNAL ENTRY FROM ISRAEL by TEDDY WEINBERGER Passover is the formative event in Jewish religious memory. With the Exodus, the 12 Israelite tribes become one Jewish people. The Passover Seder is in part designed to awaken a Jew’s national consciousness. From the traditional Haggadah’s perspective, a seder will be successful if it does indeed enable participants to see themselves as those “who personally went out from Egypt.” This theme of the Exodus was used repeatedly by Jewish writers over the millennia to characterize Jewish migration to the Land of Israel. Second Isaiah, for example, the great prophet of the return to Israel after the destruction of the First Temple, says, “A voice rings out: ‘Clear in the desert a road for the Lord! Level in the wilderness a highway for our God!’” Knowing of the powerful account of the Exodus in the Pentateuch, it was only natural for Second Isaiah to depict the Jews’ trip from Babylon to Israel (toward the end of the 6th century BCE) as going through a desert wilderness. As we take stock on this Passover holiday in Israel, it is obvious to everyone that we are still somewhere in the desert of our national aspirations -- we have experienced the Exodus but we are not yet in the Promised Land. Up until this (recently concluded?) intifada, however, there was a certain excitement and charm to these desert-like conditions (indeed it was possible to forget that we were even in the desert). There are still plenty of Israelis who can regale you with first-hand accounts of smuggling Jews into Israel in the years before 1948 and of battle stories from the War of Independence. And with the irrepressible octogenarian Shimon Peres still in politics, it is no exaggeration to say that the influence of the generation of Israel’s Founding Fathers is still being felt. This would be like waking up in America to find not George Bush junior and senior on the American political landscape, but John Adams junior and senior.
Passover cleaning Continued from page 66 one husband didn’t win big points when he broke it to his wife that he couldn’t do his share of the Pesach cleaning because he’d be on the road the week before the holiday. He tells all in his blog entry, Mars & Venus on Erev Pesach Cleaning. [http://tinyurl.com/ 2hajqu] A few years ago, I came across the story in the Jerusalem Post about Yael M., a resident of Jerusalem’s Old City who made sure her cleaning paid off – literally. “Every couple of years, Yael M. enters a frenzy of Passover cleaning, wiping out kitchen cabinets, washing out the refrigerator, emptying out closets and vacuuming the furniture in her apartment. Then she moves out.” In exchange for renting out her home to a family eager to spend Pesach near the Kotel, Yael earned $1,500 to $2,000 in cash. But then again, that meant Yael had to move in with her parents for eight days. [http://tinyurl. com/5pmup] When the plagues strike When the lice bite When we’re feeling sad We simply remember our Passover things And then we don’t feel so bad. Have a chag kasher v’samayach – a kosher and happy holiday. Mark Mietkiewicz is a Toronto-based Internet producer who writes, lectures and teaches about the Jewish Internet. He can be reached at highway@rogers.com. EARLY DEADLINE NOTICE Because the Jewish Press is closed for the first two and last two days of Passover (Tuesday/Wednesday, April 3-4, and Monday/Tuesday, April 9-10), the deadline for the April 13 issue is Monday, April 2, 9 a.m. Questions? Call 402.334.6448.
What’s happened over the last few years, however, has caused me and most Israelis to see our desert existence in its true dimensions: We may have declared our independence on May 14, 1948, but it feels like the State of Israel is still in the process of being born. Everyone now knows that until we settle our business with the Palestinians we will continue our wanderings. Yet unlike the Jews in the biblical desert, it’s hard today to even imagine the Promised Land. The Bible tells us that the adults who were destined to die in the desert could at least take comfort in God’s promise that their children would inherit the Land -and they, of course, also had the great blessing of Moses’ leadership. In Israel we are not united by any kind of vision for the future. Perhaps what we really need this Passover is not a seder through whose experience we can relive the Exodus from Egypt, but a seder through which we are led to imagine our Exodus from the Egypt of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This sure would make it easier to believe that “not only were our ancestors redeemed by the Holy One Blessed Be He, but even we were redeemed with them.” Happy Passover. Teddy Weinberger and his wife, former Omahan Sarah Ross, made aliyah with their five children almost 12 years ago and live across the Green Line in Givat Ze’ev. He works in the Department of Zionist Education for the Jewish Agency for Israel and can be reached at: weinross@netvision.net.il.
Photos from top: RBJH Activities staff member Cathy Carroll Moriarity gives resident Mollye Rimmerman a hug. Blumkin Home residents perform in a program in this undated photo, front row: Bessie Williams, left, Celia Grossman, Ricklie Hoyt; back row: Chuck Liberman, Sylvan Block and Celia Saltzman.
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More than 250 good-carb, healthy-fat, sugarfree recipes from the simple to the elegant by NECHAMA COHEN After a long winter, the first spring greens and early vegetables are a welcome site on the dinner plate -spring is on its way, freeing us to enjoy warmer, longer days. Spring also brings Passover, a holiday commemorating a journey to freedom. For people living with diabetes and restrictive food allergies such as wheat and gluten intolerance, eating traditional Passover fare can cause serious health concerns. But this year’s celebration can be different with the recipes found in Enlightened Kosher Cooking (Feldheim Publishers; October 2006; Hardcover/ $39.95; ISBN: 1-58330-888-1) by Nechama Cohen. Passover meals, along with the food requirements that traditionally come with a Seder, entail s e r i o u s changes in food choices, quantities, and eating even times. These changes can be a source of worry for people who follow specific dietary regimens. Cohen provides an extensive Passover section with recipes that make it easy to enjoy delicious foods along with everyone else. Cohen has also designed an additional 129 recipes throughout the cookbook that are suitable for Passover and gluten-free. “The holidays are an integral part of Jewish life. One of my favorite parts about them is that they afford me the opportunity to spend time with my family and friends, creating many cherished memories,” says Cohen. “And much of this time, especially during Passover, is spent sitting down together for festive meals.” The 250 recipes in the book cover all Jewish holidays and celebrations. Some of the Passover recipes include: • Mock Chopped Liver • Passover Blintzes and “Noodles” • Sweet-and-Sour Sauce for Beef or Poultry • Charoses • Mock Knaidlach (Matzah Balls) • Almond Lemon Bars • Chocolate Cream • Light-As-Air Sponge Cake Each recipe in Enlightened Kosher Cooking contains an easy-to-read nutritional chart that provides portion
sizes, dietary exchanges, and food values for calories, fat, carbohydrates, protein, sodium, cholesterol, calcium, and fiber. The book also offers an entire chapter devoted to pantry necessities, as well as: • helpful tips, lists, and charts • suggestions on how to “Enliten” your own favorite recipes • ways to avoid the hidden barriers that sabotage weight loss • traditional, healthy cuisine that the whole family will love • current nutritional information about good carbs and healthy fats • realistic portion control and serving sizes appropriate for any diet or eating regimen For the approximately 64% of Americans who are overweight or have a serious health issue such as diabetes, holiday meals such as Passover can be a time of either overindulgence or deprivation. According to the American Diabetes Association, the incidence of diabetes has nearly doubled over the last ten years and is expected to grow another 165% by 2050. “When I was diagnosed with type 1 (insulin-dependent) diabetes, I was already married with children and had established eating and cooking habits,” says Cohen. “With diabetes came the kitchen challenge of learning how to cook for my family, as well as for myself.” Cohen’s “Enlitened” approach to cooking and eating is not a fad diet. It is a lifestyle that incorporates a balanced, moderate, long-term, informed approach. In addition to great recipes, Enlightened Kosher Cooking serves up nutrition and the joy of creating delicious food that puts life’s sweetness back where it belongs -- in an enjoyable, healthy lifestyle for everyone. PASSOVER BLINTZES (CREPES) AND “NOODLES” These marvelous crepes are great on Passover and all year round. Once you get the hang of it, they really are easy to make. You can also use this recipe to make kosher for Passover noodles. Carb-Free, Low-Fat 7 eggs plus 7 egg whites 1-1/2 tablespoons potato starch 1/2 cup water, divided 1-1/2 tablespoons olive oil (or walnut oil for sweet blintzes) Non-stick cooking spray Salt and pepper to taste Beat egg and egg whites together with salt and set aside. Mix potato starch with part of the water to form a smooth paste. Add the rest of the water and beaten eggs and mix well. Add remaining ingredients and mix well again. (A Continued on page 69
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Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 69
Enlitened cooking Continued from page 68 blender or food processor is handy for mixing the batter, but be careful to mix just until blended. Overmixing will create a foam that must be removed, or it will affect the texture of the finished crepes.) Transfer batter to a pitcher that is wide enough to allow mixing. Heat olive oil and non-stick spray in an 8-inch non-stick frying pan. Pour off extra oil into a dish. Keep a paper towel in this dish to use for wiping the pan after every few crepes (this helps keep the amount of oil needed down to a minimum), or spray with non-stick cooking spray. When the pan is hot, lower the heat to medium and pour in 1/4 - 1/2 cup of batter. Tilt pan to cover the bottom and pour any extra batter back into the pitcher. This will ensure very thin blintzes. As soon as the batter is firm, loosen the edges and turn over onto a dish towel or slightly greased piece of aluminum foil. Then return it to the pan to cook on the other side. (You can flip it with a spatula, but most people find it easier to turn it out and then return it to the frying pan.) Cook on the second side for no more than a few seconds and remove to a towel. Before making the next crepe, mix the batter with a fork in order to blend in any potato starch that settles. Unless you’re a real pro, the first 1 or 2 blintzes will probably not come out easily and will tear. Yield: 12 crepes or 2 cups noodles For Noodles: When blintzes are cool, roll up a few at a time and slice into ultra-thin strips. For smaller noodles, slice down the length as well. Allow noodles to dry a bit and then store in an airtight container or plastic bags. These freeze well. For Crepes (Blintzes): Use the filling of your choice and either fold the crepe around it blintz-style (like an envelope) or roll up. The unfilled crepes freeze well, either stacked or in layers divided by wax paper. Fillings: You can certainly use the standard mashed-potato filling, but if you want a lower carb count and something more interesting, here are a few suggestions: Low-Carb Potato: Mix equal amounts of cooked potato with cooked cauliflower and some fried onions. Add salt to taste.
Meat: Mix ground meat and/or chicken with fried onions and seasoning. Apple: Grate apples; add sugar substitute, cinnamon and ground nuts. Cheese: Mix farmer cheese with 1 beaten egg white, sugar substitute, cinnamon and vanilla flavoring. Pareve (Non-Dairy) “Cheese”: In a small pot, bring water to a rolling boil. Drop in small amounts of egg white, breaking up with a fork. They will look like curds of cheese. Drain well; add a pinch of salt, sugar substitute and cinnamon (optional). Tip: If you’re cooking for a crowd and want to save time, use a large frying pan and make extra-large crepes. Pile up cooled crepes, slicing off the sides to use for noodles. You will be left with nice-sized rectangles that can be used for folded blintzes. Nutrition Facts: Serving size: 1 crepe Tbsps noodles: 2-3 Ounces: 1 Grams: 30 Calories: 37; Protein (g): 3.1; Carbs (g): 0.7; Fat (g): 2.3; Sat. Fat (g): 0.6; Cholesterol (mg): 85; Sodium (mg): 37; Calcium (mg): 11; Fiber (g): 0. Exchanges: Lean Protein: 1/2. CHAROSES Charoses is a food eaten at the Seder, which symbolizes the mortar and bricks that the Jewish slaves used when they were forced to build for Pharaoh. We have lowered the carbs by using sugar substitute. All you have to do is keep an eye on portion size. Low Carb, Reduced Fat 1 apple 1 teaspoon cinnamon 3/4 cup ground walnuts 1/4 cup dry red wine 1 teaspoon ground ginger 3 packets sugar substitute Using a medium-sized bowl, grate the apple. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix together with a wooden spoon into a thick consistency. If you prefer it less thick, add a bit more wine until desired consistency is reached. Store refrigerated in an air-tight container. Yield: 11/2 cups.
Nutrition Facts: Serving size: Tbsp: 2 Ounces: 1 Grams: 30 Calories: 88; Protein (g): 1.7; Carbs (g): 3.4; Fat (g): 7.1; Sat. Fat (g): 0.8; Cholesterol (mg): 0; Sodium (mg): 5; Calcium (mg): 10; Fiber (g): 0.5 Exchanges: Fat: 1
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March 30, 2007
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Photos from top left: DeeDee Sortino is the first person visitors meet at the Home’s “temporary” front desk; Selma Tretiak congratulates her husband Iz on being named 2006 Purim King; Mabel and David Katskee celebrate an anniversary; Seymour Zoob and Bill Lohrman socialize in 1997; Phyllis Gentry is Mike Silverman’s “right hand”; David Kaplan visits his mother, Lena, 2006; Philip Hirshman helps Blumkin resident Mollie Weiner with an art project, 1998; Mike Silverman, second from left, meets with Tim Lidstrand of Hawkins Construction, Nursing Director Bert Benson, and Social Services Director Shelley Cash; Silverman crowns Esther Mazvinsky and Louie Levine this year’s Purim Queen and King.
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Passover: kvelling over a kosher kitchen MODERN JbyEWISH MOM MEREDITH JACOBS ROCKVILLE, Md. (JTA) - I’m not ready for Passover. I haven’t even bought matza. Seriously, I’ve done nothing. I’m now in panic mode. Okay, I can do this. I’ve done it for years. All I have to do is box up my kitchen, clean out the refrigerator and pantry, and put out the kosher for Passover stuff. This weekend my daughter is having friends sleep over. I’ll teach them how to make chicken soup and matza balls. And I’ll find out how far ahead I can bake a sponge cake. See, I can do this. My husband suggested I just put out paper plates this year and that we pick up a rotisserie chicken for the seder. I just can’t; not once have I experienced Passover with a Passover kitchen. Here’s how it all happened. Growing up I remember my parents packing up the kitchen and putting out the Passover stuff. Weird things emerged from these boxes -- a meat grinder to make chopped liver, an ancient Mixmaster, stuff from my grandparents. And then there were the polka dot plastic cups. I don’t know why my sister and I loved these cups so much, but they were our favorites. Maybe because we only got to use them once a year? Maybe because plastic was a bigger deal then? Who knows, but when I think of Passover, I think of my polka dot plastic cup.
And I loved the plates and silverware from Woolworth’s, the now defunct five-and-dime store my mom bought our Passover stuff from. So much more exciting than our regular stuff, even though the regular stuff actually was nicer. So when I was single, and when my children were babies, I would put out paper plates and plasticware to use during Passover. When my daughter was in nursery school, my rabbi gave a workshop about Passover and said, “Each year, do one thing more.” I’ve talked about this before. It’s become my little mantra, my path to increased observance. So I began my baby steps to turning over my kitchen. Now I have full sets of milk and meat kosher for Passover stuff. I box up everything, wipe down the cabinets and wash the counter tops with hot water. The night before, my family hunts for chametz. By turning over my kitchen, I’m turning over my life to Passover. It’s a lot of work, but it forces me to clean out my kitchen once a year. And it really feels different during Passover -- in a really good way. With fewer kitchen supplies for Passover, the kitchen feels lighter and brighter. Every time I reach for a spoon or cup or plate, I remember it’s Passover. Like when I was a child, I get excited to use my plastic Passover stuff. And, of course, I bought the kids polka dot plastic cups. So if I can do it, you can do it! Start small -- baby steps, remember? Meredith Jacobs is the author of The Modern Jewish Mom’s Guide to Shabbat (HarperPaperbacks) and the co-founder and editor of www.modernjewishmom. com.
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Photos from top: Louis Lipp, President of the Carl Frohm Foundation, center, hands over the keys to a new van for the Blumkin Home to Gene Brandt, RBJH director from 1982-96, and board president Bert Lewis in 1996; the National Council of Jewish Women-Omaha Section purchased an additional van the following year for the Home with proceeds from the NCJW Home Fund, chaired by Sue Meyers, left, and Lois Friedman. The van was presented by Cindy Goldberg, NCJW president, right, to Barbara Gottlieb, RBJH director from 1996-2002.
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From challah to matzah, rebbetzin aids Jerusalem poor by URIEL HEILMAN JERUSALEM (JTA) -- On a quiet, little-known street in one of Jerusalem’s poorer neighborhoods, the line on Fridays begins to form as early as 6 a.m. outside the home of Bracha Kapach. They come from all over Jerusalem, particularly in the weeks before Passover: men down on their luck, elderly women with meager pensions, street kids living from fix to fix, mothers with too many mouths to feed. Kapach treats them all the same. She hands them challahs or clothing or cash, wishes them a “Shabbat shalom� and sends them on their way. This is how Kapach, a diminutive Yemenite octogenarian known all over Israel for her good works, has become a lifeline for some of Jerusalem’s neediest, delivering hope in the form of food packages and small kindnesses. Kapach says it’s not charity; it’s her responsibility. “How can a person sit at his Pesach table and not have helped someone else for the holiday?� Kapach says. “If I help God’s children, He’ll help me.� From her modest living room in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Nahlaot, Kapach runs a busy operation that regularly provides food, clothing and myriad assistance to some 1,400 indigent families in Jerusalem every year to the tune of about $180,000 annually. Before Passover she shifts from challahs to matzah and provides food packages containing meat, oil, wine, sugar, instant coffee, dates, tea and nuts. When she can, she gives some of the needier cases a little extra cash. Families with eight, nine and even 15 children knock on Kapach’s door. Young men who have been cast out by their families because of drug problems or an abusive parent, mothers who cannot afford weddings for their daughters, prostitutes trying to break out of the cycle of vice and desperation, providers who have lost their jobs -- they all come to Kapach for help. Kapach doesn’t just offer handouts on her doorstep. She manages a used clothing center, runs a summer day camp for needy youths, organizes bar mitzvahs for orphans and throws together weddings for couples who cannot afford them. In one recent case, Kapach made sure a destitute couple had a wedding complete with flowers, candles, volunteer musicians and a sit-down dinner using leftover hotel food, homemade fill-ins and rolls contributed by a local bakery. Kapach seems uniquely able to make do with whatever she can scrape together. But the last year has been very difficult, she says. In the wake of last summer’s war in Lebanon, many of Kapach’s regular donors redirected their money to Israel’s North rather than to her charity, she says, and she is short on cash. The weeks before Passover found Kapach wringing her
hands with worry. “We haven’t paid off our debts from last year, and now Pesach is coming,� she says. “It frustrates me that I give less. They come and I send them away. What can I do? God have mercy on me.� Fiscal challenges have forced her organization, Segulat Naomi, to borrow money from supporters and banks, sending her into debt and reducing the number of needy she can assist. “This holiday we’ll only distribute 4,000 Pesach packages, not our usual 6,000, because we don’t have enough money,� she says. “This year has been very hard. I hope God sends me some donors so I can repay some loans. I’m very ashamed about it.�
rabbi’s research and commentary on Maimonides won him the venerated Israel Prize in 1969. His wife’s charitable work won her the prize three decades later, in 1999. The Kapachs remain the only married couple ever to have both won the Israel Prize. Kapach says she doesn’t deserve the credit for the dozens of prizes and plaques that adorn her kitchen wall. “It’s all on the merit of God -- He helps and He gives,� she says. “My work expanded so nicely. It’s all from God.� Kapach’s charity began gradually, when she started helping her neighbors in Nahlaot some 42 years ago. She washed the floors and prepared hot meals for an elderly woman too infirm to care for herself. She helped rebuild the home of a family whose house was destroyed by a fire the husband had started to keep himself warm during a Jerusalem snowstorm. She rented a room for a gang of street boys on drugs, paving the way for their eventual return to society and embrace of Judaism. When she was asked who sent her, Kapach invariably proffered the same answer: “God.� Little by little, more and more people began coming to Kapach. She helped everyone from the neighborhood’s shmatta Rebbetzin Bracha Kapach, left, speaks in her Jerusalem kitchen with a disadvantaged woman, lady with the cockroachFriday, March 9, 2007. Credit: Brian Hendler/JTA infested house to the Kapach may be generous, but she’s no pushover. Israel Defense Forces, for which she knitted caps for solWhen junkies she knows come to her door, she gives, diers. Kapach’s embroideries earned her an international reputation. but no more than $5. Seven years after her husband’s death at the age of 82, “They cry, ‘It’s not enough,’ and I tell them, ‘It’s enough for a fix,’ and I laugh. I’m not afraid of them,� Kapach is still going strong. But she says her work is just she says with a smile. “When they bug me for more, I a fraction of what’s needed. say, ‘Wait around a bit. The police will be by.’� “Jerusalem is one of the hardest places in the country. Kapach’s energy appears boundless. Asked her age, she It’s poorer than anywhere else,� she says. “There are so demurs. many here that I just can’t help. The state of poverty has gotten worse and worse. You know how many people “I’m an old woman� is all she will say. Born in Yemen’s capital city of Sanaa to a prestigious come just to ask for bread and milk? It’s a very grave sitJewish family, Kapach married her first cousin at age 11 uation.� Even as her organization’s debts grow, Kapach says and had her first child at 14. She had two more children before she made aliyah with her husband in 1943. she’ll carry on, that there’s simply no other way. “We continue to give,� she says, “and whatever will Kapach’s late husband, Rabbi Yosef Kapach, was a scholar and extraordinary person in his own right. The be, will be.�
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This 4-session course will be taught by Teresa Drelicharz, licensed therapist from Jewish Family Service.
Registration fee is $60 per family. Sliding fee available – call for information. Child care for ages 1-12 provided for $2 per child per session.
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Classes will run from 6-8 p.m. April 12, 19, 26 and May 3, 2007 at the Jewish Community Center.
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March 30, 2007
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 75
Pesach 5767 by BERNARD MANN Legacy Crosswords, © 2007 ACROSS 11. “My cup is ____ full” - 23rd Psalm 15. GREAT LEADER OF THE PASSOVER SAGA, CHALLENGED PHAROAH TO “LET MY PEOPLE GO” 10. _____ TV news coverage is usually good, sometimes not (the cable network acronym, with apostrophe-possessive) 14. Spanish word often used for the Hispanic people 15. Twelve in. 16. Prevaricator 17. Roman poet 18. Prefix, adjective for a bygone style 19. Corrida cheers 20. MOGEN DAVID IS ONE LABEL/WE DRINK FOUR OF THIS/FRUIT-NUT MIXTURE SYMBOLIZING THE MORTAR USED IN BONDAGE 23. Not win 24. Before 25. We might say this about a TV episode that just started (2 words) 28. Greek letter 31. “__ ___ in yesterday’s edition,” one may comment on op-ed piece 35. Gap, hiatus 37. FIRST WOMAN, OR TIME OF DAY WHEN PASSOVER BEGINS 39. My people, in Hebrew 40. WHAT 2 ACROSS LED, AND FROM WHERE (3 words) 44. One of the Scandin. countries 45. For 46. French patois spoken in Louisiana 47. Hebrew word for herd, with English plural ending 50. What principal earns, abbr. 52. Solitary guy 53. Brain scan, abbr. 55. What ‘preowned’ means 57. UNLEAVENED BREAD/SHELTER USED IN THE SINAI/ THE PASSOVER RITE AND FEAST 64. Large volume, or serious book
Answers to crossword puzzle on page 79.
CALL 1-800-7-PARENT PLATTE VALLEY EQUIPMENT CO JOHN DEERE DEALER INDOOR AUCTION Saturday, March 31 – 10:00 am • 4 hour auction 2263 N. Co. Rd. 20AV – Fremont, NE
Lawn Care Equipment: 10 new & used riding lawn and walk behind mowers, baggers, decks, brooms, chainsaw, lawn roller, ATV attachments, blower & deck parts, ballast box, small engine parts Vehicles: 94 Chevy 1 Ton Flat Bed, 94 Chevy 1 Ton Service Truck, 02 Ford E350 Cube Van, 99 Chevy C1500 1/2 Ton Pickup, 98 Ford F150 1/2 Ton pickup Other Items to Sell: Shop Tools, Rotary Cutters, Tires & Rims, Tractor, Planter & Implement Parts Accessories & Attachments Many more items to numerous to list. For a complete listing of auction items, go to: www.plattevalleyequipment.com (or) call Jennifer at 402-720-9548 / 402-721-9111
90% of Americans believe organ & tissue donation is the right thing to do… But only about 20% have actually * signed up as a donor.
You can sign up now online at www.nedonation.org or mark “ yes ” on your next Driver’s License application at the DMV. For more r information, information r call Ne Nebraska Organ & Tissue Donor Coalition 1-800-718-LIFE or in Omaha call 559-3788 *According to a 2004 survey by Donate Life America
Own Your Future Tax time is a great time to review your financial plans. Information about long-term care planning resources is available at www.answers4families.org/ltcplanning or by calling 800-746-8420.
65. A snoop or snitch 66. Abstain from spending 67. OUR FOREFATHERS SHEARED IT 68. “_____! Read all about it!” 69. Master printmakers Currier and ____ 70. Source of indigo dye 71. A _____ SHANK BONE ON THE CEREMONIAL PLATE 72. End of term starting in 6 Down DOWN 11. (5 ACROSS) HAD BEAMS OF LIGHT SHINING FROM HIS ____ 12. Indian instrumentalist ____ Shankar 13. The boss __ __ (he’s not out) 14. Turned up the volume (2 words) 15. Mulberry genus 16. First two words of term for hundredth 17. Third son of Adam and Eve 18. ____-YIM, SON OF JOSEPH AND PATRIARCH OF LARGE
TRIBE 19. _____-HOUSES, SUCH AS THOSE BUILT BY JOSEPH TO STOCKPILE GRAIN 10. This may be of the walk-in type 11. RIVER ON WHICH INFANT (2 ACROSS) PLACED IN FLOATING BASKET 12. Negative votes (dial. Var.) 13. Older folks, abbr. 21. Known, in Nice 22. My light, in Hebrew 25. ___ __ la Citè 26. Levied (think IRS) 27. Biscuit, often with currants 29. Large wading bird, as the Great Blue 30. Prefix relating to eggs 32. Synthetic fiber 33. Abundant 34. Saltpeter 36. SERPENT TRANSMUTED FROM AARON’S STAFF 38. Einstein’s Relativity equation, without equal sign and 2 41. Day before Sat. 42. Stanley Gardner and namesakes 43. _________ dome (Epcot Center has one) 48. THE HAGADAH LETS US ______ THE PASSOVER SAGA YEAR AFTER YEAR 49. “So he ___ and then she …” (slurred slang for “tells”) 51. Components used so radios can pick up station airwaves 54. “He’s a ___” (done for) 56. Prefix referring to layers, layered phenomena 57. PASSOVER FALLS IN THE MONTH OR ____ OF NISAN (think lunar) 58. For me, in France 59. Prefix denoting a poisonous substance in bloodstream 60. This, in Spain 61. Letterman 62. Not odd 63. SHABBAT, THE DAY OF ____, IS OBSERVED ACCORDING TO THE LAWS OF 2 ACROSS 64. Once an internatl. airline
Page 76
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
March 30, 2007
The boys of summer and seder: baseball, Passover share openers by MARTIN ABRAMOWITZ where he went 2-0 with a 0.63 ERA and traded from the Houston Astros, where and Dave Roberts. Mike Lieberthal, a catcher who had three saves in 16 appearances. The sec- he went 3-4 with a 6.04 earned run averBOSTON (JTA) -- This certainly won’t be the first time that opening day of base- spent his 13-year career with the ond-half success for the Reds apparently age, to the Colorado Rockies. The rightball season coincides with the first Philadelphia Phillies, signed a one-year, helped the lefty earn a three-year, $10.8 hander was the Texas League Pitcher of Passover seder, but the confluence seems $1.15 million contract with the Los million contract with the New York Mets, the Year in 2005 and the MLB.com Triple-A Starting Pitcher of the Year last Angeles Dodgers to back up Russell the fifth franchise of his career. particularly appropriate this year. season. Why is this spring training In pitching to catcher Brad Ausmus different from all other last year, Hirsch was part of the first spring trainings? Jewish battery since the days of It turns out that this winKoufax and the Sherry brothers. ter saw the greatest exodus The Boston Red Sox will open with of Jewish Major Leaguers, or at least two fewer JMLs than their JMLs, in the history of the 2006 complement of four. Outfielder sport. Six of last year’s Adam Stern was the “player to be record-tying 13 JMLs will named later� in the deal with begin the 2007 season with Baltimore for catcher Javy Lopez, new franchises, and three are and outfielder Gabe Kapler retired to among the top 10 Jewish begin a managing career at the helm players in career rankings. of the Sox’s Single-A Greenville franAfter fading as a starter for chise in the South Atlantic League. St. Louis in the second half If Kapler works his way back to the of last season -- and being major leagues as a coach and managleft off the post-season roser, he would be the first former JML ter that eventually took the to manage in the bigs since Norm Cardinals to a World Series Sherry guided the California Angels, championship -- Jason now the Los Angeles Angels of Marquis took advantage of Anaheim, in 1976 and 1977. his free agent status to sign The seven JMLs who return to their a three-year, $21 million 2006 teams are Mets outfielder contract with the Chicago Shawn Green; Ausmus, a Golden Cubs. If Marquis wins as few as The opening day of baseball season coincides with the first night of Passover this year. Credit: Steve Pittleman Glove catcher for the Astros; first Schoeneweis is particularly effective baseman Kevin Youkilis and lefty pitcher four games this year, it will send him past Martin. Lieberthal’s first hit and first Barry Latman into seventh place on the homer, in 1994, both came in Los against left-handed hitters, whom he has Craig Breslow of the Red Sox; second held to a .231 average over his eight-year baseman Ian Kinsler and right-hander all-time victory list for Jewish pitchers, Angeles. with 60. Apparently in the twilight of his career, career. He has 466 career strikeouts, 10th Scott Feldman of the Texas Rangers; and lefty reliever John Grabow of the If Marquis has three decent years as a Lieberthal is in fifth place among Jewish overall in the history of Jewish players. If he makes 41 relief appearances this Pittsburgh Pirates. starter with the Cubs, he could become home-run hitters with 150, and seventh just the fifth Jewish pitcher with 100 vic- in runs batted in with 609 and hits with year, Schoeneweis will pass Larry Sherry Martin Abramowitz produces Jewish and Allan Levine to move into third place baseball cards and lectures on Jews in tories – and he’d still be only 32 years 1,137. old. The other four 100-game winners, in Scott Schoeneweis struggled in the on the all-time appearance list for Jewish baseball as president of Jewish Major descending order of victories, are Ken Toronto bullpen during the first half of relievers. Leaguers, Inc., on the Web at www.jewLate-season call up Jason Hirsch was ishmajorleaguers.org. Holtzman, Sandy Koufax, Steve Stone 2006 and was traded to Cincinnati,
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March 30, 2007
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 77
Omaha Performing Arts Presents 2007 | 2008 Season Announcing a new season, with performances that will astound, entertain, provoke and inspire. Let the magic of the arts…
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T I C K E T S | 13TH AND DOUGLAS STREETS | WWW.TICKETOMAHA.ORG | 402.345.0606
Page 78
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
March 30, 2007
Candlelighting Friday, March 30, 7:28 p.m. Monday, April 2, 7:33 p.m. Tuesday, April 3, no earlier than 8:26 p.m
Synagogue Listings B’nai Israel Synagogue 618 Mynster St. Council Bluffs, IA 51503-0766 322.4705 email: CBsynagogue@hotmail.com
Beth El Synagogue Member of United Synagogues of Conservative Judaism 14506 California Omaha, NE 68154-1980 492.8550 www.bethel-omaha.org
Beth Israel Synagogue Member of Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America 12604 Pacific St. Omaha, NE. 68154 556.6288 BethIsrael@OrthodoxOmaha.org
Beyt Shalom An Affiliate of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation 3012 S. 119 St. P.O. Box 390352 Omaha, NE 68139 660.2395 www.beytshalomomaha.org
Chabad House An Affiliate of Chabad-Lubavitch 1866 S. 120th St. Omaha, NE 68144-1646 330.1800 www.OChabad.com email: chabad@aol.com
Congregation B’nai Jeshurun South Street Temple Union for Reform Judaism 2061 S. 20th St. Lincoln, NE 68502-2797 435.8004 southstreettemple.org
Offutt Air Force Base SAC Memorial Chapel 301 Lincoln Highway Offutt AFB, NE 68113 294.6244
Rose Blumkin Jewish Home 333 S. 132 St. Omaha, NE 68154
B’NAI ISRAEL SYNAGOGUE FRIDAY: Services followed by Oneg, 7:30 p.m. FRIDAY, April 13: Services followed by Oneg, 7:30 p.m. with guest speaker, Regional ADL Director Alan Potash, who will discuss current issues. The community is invited.
BETH EL SYNAGOGUE Office Hours: Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.; Friday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. FRIDAY: Musical Kabbalat Shabbat Service, 6 p.m., in the chapel. SATURDAY: Morning Service, 9:30 a.m.; Kiddush sponsored by Beth El; Mincha/Ma’ariv, 6:40 p.m. ADULT EDUCATION SUNDAY: Bible Discussion Group, 10 a.m.; Living Hebrew, 10 a.m., with Susi FrydmanLevin; “The Weekly Parasha: It’s All About Me?!,” 10 a.m., led by Andy Greenberg; “Jewish Pot Pourri,” 11 a.m., led by Frydman-Levin. WEEKDAY SERVICES: Sunday, 9 a.m./5:30 p.m.; Weekdays, 6:55 a.m./5:30 p.m. Sitter Service is available during Friday night and Saturday morning services, on a drop-in basis, at no charge. PASSOVER MONDAY: Shaharit/Siyyum B’khorim, 6:30 a.m.; Minha-Erev Pesach, 4:30 pm.; First Seder TUESDAY, First Day: Shaharit, 9:30 a.m.; Mincha/ Ma’ariv, 5:30 p.m.; Community Seder, 6 p.m. at Beth El. WEDNESDAY, Day Two: Shacharit, 9:30 a.m.; Mincha/ Ma’ariv, 5:30 p.m.
Temple Israel Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) 7023 Cass Street Omaha, NE 68132-2651 556.6536 templeisrael-ne.org
The Neighborhood Minyan 1317 No. 57 St. Omaha, NE 68132 551.6609
Tifereth Israel Member of United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism 3219 Sheridan Blvd., Lincoln, NE 68502-5236 423.8569 www.tiferethisraellincoln.org
Tree of Life Center 2925 Prairie Road Lincoln, NE 68506 613.7443 email: treeoflife.rabbimichael @yahoo.com
If you’re looking at this space, so are others! YOUR AD CAN GO HERE...
to reserve space, call
Allan Handleman, 334.6451, or Terri Greenwood, 334.6559.
BETH ISRAEL SYNAGOGUE Hours: MondayOffice Thursday, 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.; Fridays, 8:30 a.m-2 p.m. Services conducted by Rabbi Jonathan Gross. FRIDAY: Kabbalat Shabbat, 7:28 p.m. Shabbat Dinner follows services (about 8:15 p.m.) SATURDAY: Shacharit, 9 a.m.; Free Babysitting, 9:30 a.m.; Children’s Classes, 9:45 a.m. with Torah Parade; Kiddush is sponsored by Sisterhood; Shabbat lunch follows Kiddush; Mincha, 7:15 p.m. followed by Suedat Shlishit with Gemara class; Havdalah, 8:31 p.m. SUNDAY: Shacharit, 9 a.m.; “Reading the Rambam” with Rabbi Nadel, 9:45 a.m.; Search for chametz, not before 8:32 p.m.; Mincha/Ma’ariv, 8:30 p.m. WEEKDAYS: Shacharit, 7 a.m.; Ma’ariv, 8:30 p.m. MONDAY-Erev Pesach: Shacharit, 7 a.m. followed by Siyum B’chorim; Office open from 8:30 a.m. to noon; Pesach To Go orders available for pick-up; Chametz may be eaten until 11:20 a.m.; Burning/nullification of chametz is before noon; Burning of chametz will be at 11:30 a.m. at Beth Israel; Mincha, 7:45 p.m.; Earliest time to start aeder, 8:25 p.m.
TUESDAY-First Day of Pesach: Shacharit, 9 a.m.; Kiddush sponsored by Sisterhood; Mincha, 7:45 p.m.; Second Seder, 8:30 p.m. at Beth Israel (by reservation only). WEDNESDAY-Second Day of Pesach: Shacharit, 9 a.m.; Kiddush sponsored by Sisterhood; Mincha, 7:45 p.m.; Havdalah, 8:38 p.m. THURSDAY: Women of the Torah class, 9:30 a.m.; Advanced Parsha Study, 7:30 p.m.
BEYT SHALOM FRIDAY: Shabbat in the Home MONDAY, April 2: Pesach Community First Seder, 6 p.m. at the synagogue.
CHABAD HOUSE Services conducted by Rabbi Mendel Katzman. FRIDAY: Services, 7 a.m. SATURDAY, Shabbat HaGadol: Shacharit, 9:30 a.m. followed by Kiddush; Vision & Leadership, a Farbrengen commemorating the Rebbe’s 105th Birthday. SUNDAY: Shacharit, 8:30 a.m.; Formal search for chametz, 8:22 p.m. WEEKDAYS: Services, 7 a.m. MONDAY: Shacharit, 7 a.m. Taanit Bchorot Siyum followed by refreshments; chametz may be eaten until, 11:19 a.m.; burn chametz before 12:23 p.m.; Light candles at 7:31 p.m.; Chabad Family Seder, 7 p.m. TUESDAY, Pesach Day One: Shacharit, 9:30 a.m.; Priestly Blessings, 11:30 a.m.; Kiddush to follow davening. WEDNESDAY, Pesach Day Two: Shacharit, 9:30 a.m.; Priestly Blessings, 11:30 a.m.; Kiddush to follow davening. THURSDAY & FRIDAY: Chol HaMoed: Shacharit, 7 a.m. Programs are open to the community. For information or to register, call 330.1800 or visit: www.nebraskajudaism.com.
CONGREGATION B’NAI JESHURUN Services conducted by Rabbi Ilan Emanuel. FRIDAY: LJCS Family Dinner, 6 p.m. and Service, 7 p.m. led by Rabbi Emanuel, Rabbi Royi Shaffin, and the LJCS students. SATURDAY: Shabbat Morning Service, 9:30 a.m.; Torah Study, 10:30 a.m. all led by Rabbi Emanuel. SUNDAY: Passover Celebrations -- LJCS Grades 2-7, 9:30 a.m.-noon at Tifereth Israel; K-1, 9:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m. at South Street Temple; Hallah High, 10 a.m.-noon at Tifereth Israel. TUESDAY: Annual Community Passover Seder, 6 p.m. Call the Temple at 402.435.8004 or email stemple@neb.rr.com for reservations. WEDNESDAY: No Hebrew classes. THURSDAY: Board of Trustees, 7 p.m. FRIDAY, April 6: Snacks, 6
p.m.; Early Family Shabbat Service, 6:15 p.m. led by Rabbi Emanuel. SATURDAY, April 7: Shabbat Morning Service, 9:30 a.m.; Torah Study, 10:30 a.m. all led by Rabbi Emanuel.
OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE
tact the Temple office to make a reservation. Cost is $5 for adults and children at no charge.
NEIGHBORHOOD MINYAN FRIDAY: Minyan, 7 p.m. SATURDAY: Services, 9 a.m. There will be no services during the week of Passover, April 1-12.
FRIDAY: Services, 7:30 p.m.
TIFERETH ISRAEL ROSE BLUMKIN JEWISH HOME FRIDAY: Kabbalat Shabbat, 6 p.m. led by Nancy Rips and Andy Greenberg. SATURDAY: Services, 9 a.m. led by Andy Greenberg. PASSOVER MONDAY, April 2: First Seder, 6 p.m., led by Andy and Carole Greenberg. TUESDAY, April 3: Services, 9 a.m. led by Rabbi Maximo Shechet; Second Seder, 6 p.m., led by Eileen and Miles Remer. WEDNESDAY, April 4: Services, 9 a.m. led by Rabbi Maximo Shechet.
TEMPLE ISRAEL FRIDAY: Shabbat Evening Service, 7:30 p.m. Cantor Wendy Shermet will officiate. SATURDAY: Sparks Beneath the Surface, 9:15-10:30 a.m.; Shabbat Morning Service, 10:30 a.m. SUNDAY: No Religious School. SITTER SERVICE: Available each Friday evening for the 7:30 p.m. service, Saturday mornings when there is a bar or bat mitzvah, and Sunday mornings when there is Religious School. Advance reservations and a $5 donation are appreciated. Sorry, there are no facilities for infants. PASSOVER TUESDAY, APRIL 3: Passover Morning Service, 10:30 a.m.; Congregational Seder, 6 p.m. WEDNESDAY, April 4: No Family or Religious School; No Middle/High School. THURSDAY, April 5: No Adult Study with the Clergy. FRIDAY, April 6: Tot Shabbat and Dinner, 6 p.m. Please con-
Services conducted by Rabbi Royi Shaffin. Minyan, MONDAY & THURSDAY, 9 a.m. FRIDAY: LJCS Family Dinner, 6 p.m. and Service, 7 p.m. led by Rabbi Emanuel, Rabbi Royi Shaffin, and the LJCS students at South Street Temple. SATURDAY: Weekly Parashah class, 8:30 a.m.; Morning service, 9:30 a.m. followed by Shabbat lunch and Talmud class. SUNDAY: Passover Celebrations -- LJCS Grades 2-7, 9:30 a.m.-noon at Tifereth Israel; K-1, 9:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m. at South Street Temple; Hallah High, 10 a.m.-noon at Tifereth Israel; Unveiling for Charlotte Orloff at 2:30 p.m. at the cemetery 4200 No. 14 St. MONDAY, April 2: Erev Pesach Minchah Ma’ariv, 6:30 p.m. TUESDAY, April 3: Shacharit, 9:30 a.m.; Community Seder, 6:30 p.m. WEDNESDAY, April 4: Shacharit, 9:30 a.m.; Maariv, 7:45 p.m.; No Hebrew classes.
TREE OF LIFE CENTER Services conducted by Rabbi Rabbi Michael Weisser. FRIDAYS: Sabbath Experience, 7:30 p.m. SATURDAYS: Havdalah: Rites of Separation, 6:30 p.m.; following Havdalah Drumming Meditation until 8 p.m.; following Drumming Social Time until 10 p.m. MONDAYS: Sitting/Silent Meditation, 6 p.m.; Teachings/ Discussion, 7:30 p.m. WEDNESDAYS: Sitting/ Silent Meditation, 6 p.m.; 8 Weeks to Mindfulness Class, 7:30 p.m.
EARLY DEADLINE NOTICE The Jewish Press is closed for the first two and last two days of Passover, Tuesday/Wednesday, April 3-4, and Monday/Tuesday, April 9-10. The deadline for the April 13 issue is Monday, April 2, 9 a m., for all ads, articles, photos and schedules. Questions? Call 402.334.6448.
Large print Haggadot available The Jewish Heritage For The Blind announces that they have extra large type Haggadahs for the visually impaired at NO COST. Please contact main office at 718.338.4999 or fax request to 718.338.0653 or e-mail request to jewishheritage@gmail.com.
To Submit B’nai Mitzvah Announcements Announcements may be e-mailed to the Press with attached photos in .jpg or .tif files to jpress@jewishomaha.org; faxed to 402.334.5422, or mailed to 333 So. 132 St., Omaha, NE 68154. Forms are available through Omaha and Lincoln synagogues, by contacting The Jewish Press at 402.334.6448, or by e-mailing the Editor at: ckatzman@jewishomaha.org. You can also submit announcements online at the Jewish Federation of Omaha website: www.jewishomaha.org. Click on “Jewish Press” and go to Submit Announcements.
March 30, 2007
Index of Advertisers Advertiser Page AAA Rents .................................................................... 38 Abacus Consulting ...................................................... 44 Abrahams, Kaslow & Cassmann LLP .......................... 59 Absolutely Fresh Seafood Co. ...................................... 12 Acura of Omaha .......................................................... 41 Advantage Mortgage Service, Inc. ................................ 11 Alkar Billiards ............................................................... 17 All Makes Office Equipment Co. .................................. 67 All Seasons Home Improvement Co. ........................... 40 Allens .......................................................................... 45 Allstate Insurance-Tim Wortman .................................. 73 American Friends of Magen David Adom ..................... 65 American National Bank .............................................. 15 American Tile & Marble Company ............................... 68 AMIT Women ............................................................... 36 AmSan Nogg Paper & Chemical .................................. 42 Anti-Defamation League .............................................. 36 Associated Counseling Professionals ........................... 18 B’nai B’rith Henry Monsky Lodge ................................ 36 B’nai B’rith Youth Organization .................................... 24 B’nai Israel Synagogue ................................................ 36 B’nai Jeshurun Synagogue .......................................... 51 Badger Body & Truck Equipment Co. ........................... 42 Bag ‘N Save ................................................................. 19 Belgrade Family ........................................................... 30 Bell, Angela Massage Therapist ................................... 20 Belly Bump .................................................................. 62 Bergman Incentives/Bergman Jewelers ...................... 26 Bernina Sewing Centers .............................................. 29 Beth El BILU USY ......................................................... 24 Beth El Sisterhood ....................................................... 36 Beth El Synagogue ...................................................... 36 Beth Israel NCSY ......................................................... 24 Beth Israel Sisterhood .................................................. 36 Beth Israel Synagogue ................................................. 36 Bloomfield Forum ........................................................ 27 Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska ............................. 33 Blue Willi’s ..................................................................... 9 Broadmoor Development Company ............................ 47 Broadmoor Market ...................................................... 55 Brodkey’s ..................................................................... 11 Brownell Talbot ............................................................ 70 Canfield’s Sporting Goods ........................................... 68 Care Consultants for the Aging ...................................... 8 CB Richard Ellis/MEGA ............................................... 21 CBS/Home-Gary & Kimberly Kuklin ............................ 51 Chabad ....................................................................... 36 Christel’s ..................................................................... 38 Chocolate Omaha ....................................................... 52 Clearview Mobile Imaging, LLC ................................... 40 Cohen Family ................................................................ 8 Countryside Village ...................................................... 55 Crown Pointe Retirement Community .......................... 20 Crowne Plaza .............................................................. 28 Cruise Planners ........................................................... 14 Dance Shoppe ............................................................ 55 Dave & Busters ............................................................ 67 David Morton Food Marketing ........................................ 3 Devenu ........................................................................ 23 Diamond Fence ........................................................... 15 Ehrhart Griffin & Associates ......................................... 14 Emanuel Contracting, Inc. ........................................... 41 Embassy Suites ........................................................... 53 Enterprise Bank ........................................................... 27 Eye Essentials ................................................................ 3 Faces Day Spa ............................................................. 55 Factory Eyeglass Outlet ................................................ 52 Fahey, Mayor Mike ......................................................... 7 Family Enrichment, Inc. ................................................. 5 Family Fun Center ....................................................... 46 Fifth Third Bank ............................................................. 6 Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar ....................... 9 Frankel, Zacharia, Arnold, Nissen, Stamp & Reinsch, LLC ............................................................ 33 Fraser Stryker Law Firm ............................................... 43 Friedel Jewish Academy ............................................... 23 Garbo’s Salons & Spa .................................................... 9
Advertiser Page Garden Cafe ................................................................ 71 Genzyme ..................................................................... 31 Girls & Boys Town ........................................................ 13 Giving Tree ................................................................... 62 Gordmans ................................................................... 80 Grace/Mayer Insurance .............................................. 35 Greek Islands ............................................................... 37 Grubb & Ellis/Pacific Realty ......................................... 60 Hadassah .................................................................... 36 Hadassah Upper Midwest Region ............................... 59 Hagel, Senator Chuck and Lilibet ................................ 44 Hap Abraham Catering ................................................ 56 Harris Center for Judaic Studies at UNL ...................... 46 Hawkins Construction Company ................................. 49 Heartland Life Coaching .............................................. 68 Hiller Electric ................................................................. 5 Hockenbergs ............................................................... 34 Honeyman Rent-All ...................................................... 45 Horizon Dental Center ................................................. 11 Hy-Vee ......................................................................... 48 I-Go Van & Storage ....................................................... 30 Ideal Water .................................................................. 46 Industrial Packaging Corporation ................................. 47 Integrated Health, LLC ................................................. 73 Intima .......................................................................... 71 Jacobson Fish Co., Inc. ................................................. 5 Jay Moore Landscaping ............................................... 15 Jet Linx ........................................................................ 43 Jewish Community Center .......................................... 29 Jewish Family Service .............................................. 4, 74 Jewish Federation of Lincoln ........................................ 21 Jewish Federation of Omaha ....................................... 50 Jewish Federation of Omaha Foundation .................... 58 Jewish National Fund .................................................. 22 Jewish Press ...................................................... 2, 24, 60 Jewish Senior Services ................................................ 25 Jewish War Veterans .................................................... 36 John A. Gentleman Mortuaries .................................... 61 Julio’s .......................................................................... 56 Katelman Company Antiques ...................................... 46 Keiser Construction ....................................................... 8 KM Landscaping ........................................................... 3 Kohll’s Pharmacy & Homecare .................................... 28 KPTM/KXVO ................................................................. 7 Kristen’s Gourmet Cookies ........................................... 72 Lakeside Dentistry ....................................................... 20 League Offering Volunteers for the Elderly ................... 36 Legacy Art & Frame ..................................................... 63 Lerner Company ......................................................... 44 Lion’s Automotive Upholstery ...................................... 45 Louie M’s Burger Lust ................................................. 56 Louis Liquor Grill & Bar ................................................ 12 Lynn Roberts International ........................................... 38 Malashock Jewelry ...................................................... 23 Malbar Vision Centers ................................................. 26 Marathon Realty Corporation ....................................... 51 Mark Sanford Group ...................................................... 3 Market Basket ............................................................. 55 Marks Clare & Richards ................................................. 8 Marriott Regency Hotel ................................................ 32 Massage Envy ............................................................. 73 McGill, Gotsdiner, Workman & Lepp, P.C., L.L.O. ......... 10 McGrath, North, Mullin & Kratz, PC LLO ..................... 52 MDK & Associates ....................................................... 38 Medicap Pharmacy ..................................................... 72 Mediterranean Bistro ................................................... 12 Mid Con Systems Inc. .................................................. 14 Mid-City Jewelry & Loan ............................................... 41 Midwest Ear, Nose, & Throat, P.C. ................................ 19 Midwest Woodworkers ................................................. 42 Mulhall’s ...................................................................... 30 N. Pitlor & Son, Inc. ..................................................... 47 National Council of Jewish Women .............................. 36 Nebraska Children’s Home Society ............................. 68 Nebraska Democratic Party ......................................... 17 Nebraska Furniture Mart ............................................. 23
Advertiser Page Nebraska Jewish Historical Society .............................. 36 Nebraska Press Statewide Classifieds .......................... 79 Nebraska Wine & Spirits, Inc. ...................................... 23 Nelson, Senator Ben and Diane .................................. 32 No Frills ....................................................................... 27 Nobbies ....................................................................... 51 Noddle Companies ...................................................... 10 Noodles & Company ................................................... 57 Northwestern Mutual-Robert Randels .......................... 29 Omaha Compound Company ....................................... 4 Omaha Jewelry ............................................................ 73 Omaha Paper Stock Co. .............................................. 69 Omaha Performing Arts Society ............................ 60, 77 Omaha Public Power District ....................................... 75 Omaha Steaks ............................................................. 17 Omaha Surgical Center ............................................... 33 Omaha Temple Youth Group ........................................ 24 Omaha Trans Video ..................................................... 35 One Drake Place .......................................................... 50 Parsow’s ........................................................................ 9 Pasta Amore ................................................................ 73 Pear’s Gourmet Coffee ................................................ 53 Peterson Brothers Realty Co. ........................................ 18 Pollak & Hicks, P.C. ..................................................... 30 Pulverente Monument Co. ........................................... 68 Purdy & Slack .............................................................. 64 Randy’s Pharmacy ....................................................... 41 Red Tee Box ................................................................. 63 Regency Court ............................................................... 9 Regency Lodge ............................................................ 19 Remington Heights ...................................................... 39 Residential Mortgage Services, Inc. ............................. 28 Right At Home ............................................................. 53 Rockbrook Floors ......................................................... 32 Rockbrook Village ............................................. 71, 72, 73 Rossi ............................................................................ 72 Rotella’s Italian Bakery ................................................. 45 Russell’s ...................................................................... 55 Ryco Packaging Corp. .................................................. 34 St. Joseph Villa ............................................................ 10 SalonWalk ................................................................... 63 Sanctuary Day Spa ...................................................... 59 Sarah’s ........................................................................ 55 Schwalb Realty ........................................................... 42 Scott Conference Center ................................................ 7 Security Equipment, Inc. ............................................... 4 Security National Bank ................................................ 66 Seim Johnson Sestak & Quist LLP .............................. 34 Shops of Legacy .................................................... 62, 63 Sodexho ...................................................................... 66 Sol’s Jewelry & Loan .................................................... 26 Sonny Gerber Auto Sales ............................................. 43 Soul Desires ................................................................ 26 Sound Environment ..................................................... 71 Spellman, Nick ............................................................ 20 Spirit World .................................................................. 56 Stoddard Family, Jay .................................................... 14 String of Purls .............................................................. 55 Suburban Newspapers Inc. ......................................... 33 Superior Pools, Spas, Etc. ............................................ 18 Swartzbaugh Farber .................................................... 40 Taste ............................................................................ 72 The Cakery .................................................................. 72 Temple Israel ............................................................... 36 Terry, Congressman Lee .............................................. 21 Tier One Bank ............................................................. 42 University of Nebraska Medical Center ......................... 76 V. Mertz ....................................................................... 37 Valentino’s ................................................................... 12 Visions ......................................................................... 36 Visiting Nurse Association ............................................ 18 Wells Blue Bunny ......................................................... 54 Wiesman Development ................................................ 11 Winery ......................................................................... 12 Wolfson Used Cars ...................................................... 35 Zio’s Pizzeria ................................................................ 37 Zuerlein Dentistry ......................................................... 16
ELECTRICIANS NEEDED
One Call, One Low Price* for over 170 Newspapers!
Muth Electric Inc., a company with over 300 employees, is now accepting applications for Apprentice and Journeyworker Electricians. We have seven locations that are in the prime hunting and fishing areas of South Dakota. No State income tax, full benefits and incentive pay are awaiting you today.
Place your 2x2 display ad in over 170 Nebraska newspapers and get your message to over 900,000 readers. Statewide coverage for less than $4.85 per publication*. Regional ads also available in Central, Northeast, Southeast or Western Nebraska. Other sizes available upon request.
Looking for a challenging work environment with the opportunity for advancement?
For more information call 605-996-3983.
hr@muthelectric.com www.muthelectric.com EOE
Solution to crossword puzzle on page 75
Call this newspaper or 1-800-369-2850 for more information.
Nebraska 2x2 Display Ad Network
Making Your Health Care Degree Possible. Nebraska Methodist College is waiting to help you fulfill your dream with affordable, in-demand degree programs,
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 79
Cardiac Sonographer
Nebraska Heart Institute is currently recruiting for a full-time Cardiac Sonographer to rotate between our Omaha & Lincoln offices & also assist with mobile echo on a regular basis. Associate’s of Applied Science degree and completion of coursework in ultrasound technology required; RDCS desired. We are a M-F clinic only – no nights weekends or call! If you are interested in this opportunity, please apply online at www.nebraskaheart.com or mail your resume to the address below. EOE. Attn: HR-11907 PO Box 82585 Lincoln, NE 68501-2585
HERNIA PATCH RECALLED The FDA has recalled certain Kugel Mesh Patches used to repair hernias because of the risk that the patches might rupture the intestine or bowel. If you or a loved one may have been injured by the Patch, call the Hollis Law Firm at 800-701-3672. You may be entitled to compensation.
Lee J. Hollis, Attorney
800-701-3672
DRIVERS NEEDED
Daws Inc. needs OTR Drivers for newer Peterbilt 379·s & up-to-date flatbed equip. Paid by miles, great benefits package. Need current CDL-A, 2 yr. experience, clean MVR, drug/alcohol testing req·d. O/O Welcome. Contact Ann 800-372-4801
M-F 8am – 4pm E.O.E.
Statewide Classified CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING in over 170 newspapers. Reach thousands of readers for $195/25 word ad. Contact the Jewish Press at 402-334-6451 or call 1-800-369-2850 BANKRUPTCY: FAST relief from creditors. Statewide filing. Affordable rates. Call Steffens Law Office, 308-872-8327. www.steffenslaw.com. We are a debt relief agency, which helps people file bankruptcy under the bankruptcy code. LOOKING FOR the classic car, truck or motorcycle of your dreams? Go to www.midwestclassiccars.com. It’s your midwest connection to classic vehicles for sale. Need to sell a classic vehicle? For only $25, your ad with photos will run until sold! Call this newspaper today or 1-800-369-2850 for more information. HUD HOMES from $199/month! Foreclosures, VA, FSBO, etc. Stop renting and own! 5% down, 20 years @ 8.5%. For local listings 800-618-0668 xs888. ATTEND COLLEGE Online from home. Medical, Business, Paralegal, Computers, Criminal Justice. Job placement assistance. Computer provided. Financial Aid if qualified. Call 866-858-2121, www.OnlineTidewaterTech.com. COMSTOCK FESTIVAL-Experience the magic of Comstock Viaero Wireless music series; Windmillfestival.com June 7-10; Comstockrock.com July 19-22; Godstock.net August 3-4; 800-595-8712. ALL CASH candy route. Do you earn $800 in a day? Your own local candy route. Includes 30 machines and candy all for $9,995. 1-888-755-1356. HOT TUB buyers. Buy direct from manufacturer, save $1, 500 to $2,000. For price list and info call 1-800-869-0406. Spas, 2645 “O” Street, Lincoln, NE. goodlifespa.com. SPECIALS! 3 door glass coolers, hoodless fryers, soft serve machines. New/used complete line of restaurant/bar equipment. Public welcome! Restaurant Equipment Outlet, 2121 Floyd Boulevard, Sioux City, Iowa 51104, 800-526-7105. HUD HOMES from $199/month! Foreclosures, VA, FSBO, etc. Stop renting and own! 5% down, 20 years @ 8.5%. For local listings 800-618-0668 xs888. AIRLINES ARE hiring. Train for high paying aviation maintenance career. FAA approved program. Financial aid if qualified. Job placement assistance. Call Aviation Institute of Maintenance, 888-349-5387. JEFFERSON COUNTY Ambulance is accepting applications for a full time Paramedic. We offer uniform allowance, paid holidays, competitive wage and benefit package. Application by 3/31/07. For information on how to apply, call 1-888-325-0911. PART-TIME, HOME-BASED Internet business. Earn $500-$1,000/month or more. Flexible hours. Training provided. No investment required. Free details, www.K348.com. NEEDING SERVICE technician and parts positions open at LandMark Implement. Competitive wages, insurance, retirement and modern facility. Send resume to PO Box 177, Minden, Nebraska 68959. HEAVY EQUIPMENT Operator Training. Nationally Certified, 4 week 200 hour program, job placement assistance, 1-308-874-9989.
supportive faculty and a student body that’s the right size
DRIVERS-ASAP! $1,000 plus weekly and bonus. 36-43cpm/$1.20pm. $0 lease new trucks. CDL-A plus 3 months OTR. 800-635-8669.
for you. See why students are choosing Nebraska
DRIVERS: DRIVE the road that brings you home! Excellent compensation package & outstanding home time. Terminals in Grand Island, NE and Rensselaer, IN. Class ACDL/6 months. OTR experience required. GICC, 877-367-4422. www.gicc.chiefind.com.
Methodist College. Call (402) 354-7200 for admissions information or visit www.methodistcollege.edu.
EXPERIENCED OTR driver with good driving record for small Omaha based nationwide refrigerated carrier. Health insurance available, life insurance paid. Lanny at 800810-5432. DRIVERS: NO more waiting! You can drive with the best today! Excellent compensation package. Grand Island, NE and terminals in Rensselaer, IN. Class A-CDL/6 months. OTR experience required. GICC 877-367-4422 www.gicc.chiefind.com.
THE JOSIE HARPER CAMPUS
720 N. 87th St. Omaha, NE 68114 (402) 354-7200 (800) 335-5510 © 2007 Nebraska Methodist College, an affiliate of Methodist Health System. We admit students of any race, color and national or ethnic origin.
NEW 5 star driver package! We have the pay, home time and benefits you want plus friendly dispatch, and late model equipment. 0/0’s welcome. Class A-CDL required. 866-472-6347, www.giexpress.com. OTR FLATBED drivers wanted. Good miles, good home time, and nice equipment. $.40/mile. 507-240-1080.
Page 80
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
March 30, 2007
Best Wishes for a happy Passover and a celebration of freedom with family and friends.