Jewish Federation next-generation leader profile

The last person in Kristin Schultz’s family before her who was Jewish was her grandfather. Schultz was raised without religion, yet always sensed she belonged in the Jewish community. She began to seriously explore her Jewish identity in college at the University of Iowa, not far from Waterloo where she was born and raised. Later in Sioux City, she was embraced by a small but warm Conservative congregation.

In 1997, her husband, Joe Markley, took a job in Kansas City. When the couple moved here, Schultz was pregnant with their first child, intimidated by the size of the congregations and didn’t know a soul. At the same time, she knew that one of the best ways to feel at home was to get involved.

Drawn in through Women’s Division
Schultz and Markley participated in the Genesis program for interfaith families and found their way to Congregation Beth Shalom through a program to encourage affiliation sponsored at the time by the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City. At the synagogue, Schultz began to meet other moms involved with Federation. She signed up for the Women’s Division B’not Kehillah program to learn more about what the Federation does and to explore how she might fit in.

The next year, she served on the B’not Kehillah planning committee, the next year as co-chair and the next year as Women’s Division co-vice president of leadership with Lisa Schifman.

“Women’s Division, to me, is the arm of the Federation that really addresses the way in which women at all stages of life like to get involved in doing good things in the community,” says Schultz.

Through Women’s Division, Schultz was drawn to other activities in the Jewish community. At tovkc, the Federation program for socially conscious adults in their 30s and 40s, she found an outlet for her interest in community service as chair of an arts-themed series. At the Florence Melton Adult Education Program, she expanded her social connections as well as her knowledge. “Oh, did I love Melton!” she says, and learning Hebrew from Sari Havis “was amazing.”

Deepening connections
In 2007, Schultz and Fay Balk were co-recipients of the Federation’s Dan Fingersh Young Leadership Award, presented to them at the General Assembly in Nashville, Tenn., as well as here at the Federation’s annual meeting that year. That came after the Tel Aviv One Young Leadership Conference, followed by serving with Roberta Weingarten as co-chairs of an Israeli Artists Exchange for Partnership 2000. Four artists from Kansas City’s sister region in Ramla/Gezer spent a week in Kansas City meeting with Jewish students and artists here and building connections. More than two years later, Schultz still stays in touch with the Israeli artists.

At the moment, Schultz is working with her co-chair, Cindy Singer, to plan a unique Women’s Division annual meeting, which is set for 9:30 a.m. Thursday, April 29, at the Jewish Community Campus. The annual meeting will take a hands-on approach to solving the problem of hunger in Kansas City. That’s yet another role Schultz has taken on to mobilize the Jewish community to help others.

Through the Federation, Schultz has had fun, made friends, learned a lot and always felt room to have an impact. “It’s sort of a portal for making happen what you want to happen,” she says.

But her feelings go deeper than that. “The Jewish community has been a source of support, and the Federation has been my grounding experience,” she says, referring to several difficult years coping with illness in her family. “I gain a connection to community that I think is important to preserve.”

Kristin Schultz
• Born in Waterloo, Iowa, 1965
• West Waterloo High School
• University of Iowa, Iowa City
• National marketing and sales background
• Lives in Overland Park
• Children: Phoebe, 12, and Oliver, 9
• Recent Reading: “The Rehearsal” by Eleanor Catton
• Favorite Movie: “Gaslight”
• Favorite Jewish Food: Gefilte fish and horseradish
• Trips to Israel: 1

Exhibit explains Nazis’ use of ‘Deadly Medicine’

The shower stall that’s actually a gas chamber is perhaps the ultimate symbol of the Holocaust. And while most people undoubtedly associate it with Auschwitz, the first time this tool of hygiene was perverted into a mass-murder weapon was as part of the Nazi campaign to clear Germans with mental and physical defects out of state institutions by any means necessary.

As many as 200,000 men, women and children deemed undesirable were killed in this program between 1939 and 1945, and many of the doctors who carried it out moved smoothly into concentration-camp employment.

That is just one revelation in “Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race,” a traveling exhibition of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum that opens March 16 for a three-month run at the new home of the National Archives at Kansas City, 400 W. Pershing Road.
A related speaker series will further expound on the topics of eugenics, medicine in the Third Reich and more. (See below for details)
The Midwest Center for Holocaust Education and the Center for Practical Bioethics have partnered with the National Archives to present the exhibit.

Their leaders believe “Deadly Medicine” has much to say to viewers today, particularly as the national political discourse is being dominated by issues of medical care, its cost and the morality of its distribution.

“It speaks to issues of individual responsibility, professional responsibility and medical ethics,” said Jean Zeldin, executive director of MCHE.
Zeldin first saw the exhibition when it premiered at the USHMM in Washington five years ago. “I felt it was a significant exhibit, and we should bring it here,” she said.

MCHE had worked with the National Archives (it was formerly part of the Bannister Federal Complex, Bannister Road and Troost Avenue) for over a decade, Zeldin said. It serves as the repository for the master tapes MCHE recorded with local Holocaust survivors in 1994, Zeldin said.
So when the National Archives got a brand new space in a rehabilitated building near Union Station, officials there jumped at the chance to house “Deadly Medicine” in its new gallery. It’s just the second exhibition in the new space.

A blood-based state

“Deadly Medicine” brings together photographs, video testimonies and artifacts from international collections. It shows how the Nazis took a commonly held, if now rejected, early-20th century belief in eugenics — i.e., the perfection of the human race through science — and warped it even further with their twisted theories about the purity of German blood.

“In February 1920, three years before the Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler defines citizenship in terms of biology and birth,” said Fran Sternberg, MCHE’s director of university programs and adult education. “So the whole state is a blood-based state. And then you define who is hostile to the health of the blood and who is beneficial.”

That is how, Sternberg said, a doctor who has taken the Hippocratic Oath to “do no harm” can allow himself to operate a gas chamber/shower: In his mind, he’s not killing a person; he’s eradicating a germ and protecting the health of the body politic. The Nazi term for it was “racial hygiene.”

“Nazis are not out-of-this-world demons,” Sternberg said, “These are highly educated scientists from renowned research institutes and universities. … For whatever reason — for personal advancement or because they were real Nazis — they were comfortable spinning their ethics to comply with the regime.

“Nobody forced them to do anything. People got involved in committees … and saw it as a valuable and valid exercise.”

What began with the forced sterilization of undesirables ended with the industrial-scale murder of millions we now call the Holocaust.

For interested adults, some of the visiting speakers will take on the sub-topic of Nazi doctors in greater detail. Nearly 1,000 high school students are also scheduled to tour the exhibit during the day.

The exhibit also shows how the corruption of leading institutions by the Nazis made it easier for average Germans to go along with Hitler.
“When every institution is telling you this is OK — the army, education, the arts, media, judiciary — it’s got to be OK,” said Sternberg. “Your teacher is telling you this, not some weird Nazi guy.”

“It helps explain how it could have happened,” Zeldin said. “You have to go back to the concept of the racial state, as opposed to looking at the opening of Auschwitz as the beginning of the Holocaust.”

Viewing the exhibit

The public is invited to attend a ceremonial ribbon-cutting for “Deadly Medicine” at 10 a.m. Tuesday, March 16, at the National Archives, 400 W. Pershing Road. It will include a tour led by the curator of the exhibit, Susan Bachrach of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

“Deadly Medicine” is a free exhibition and will be open March 16 through June 10. Viewer discretion advised, as it contains material that may be disturbing to some viewers.

The National Archives at Kansas City is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday for exhibit viewing; 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. those same days for research. Free parking is available for visitors, with additional free parking available in the Union Station Parking Garage on the west side of Union Station.

The National Archives at Kansas City is one of 13 facilities nationwide where the public has access to federal archival records. It is home to more than 50,000 cubic feet of historical records dating from the 1820s to the 1990s created or received by nearly 100 federal agencies. Serving the Central Plains Region, the archives holds records from the states of Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

For more information, call (816) 268-8000 or visit www.archives.gov/central-plains.

“Deadly Medicine” is organized and circulated by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. It is sponsored in part by the Samberg Family Foundation, the Dorot Foundation, the Viterbi Family Foundation of the Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego and the Rosenbluth Family — Al, Sylvia, Bill, and Jerry. Additional support was provided by the Takiff Family Foundation and the David Berg Foundation. The Kansas City presentation of “Deadly Medicine” is made possible with the support of Saint Luke’s Health System, the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, the Missouri Humanities Council, the Kansas Humanities Council, Sprint Foundation and Oppenstein Brothers Foundation. Bus subsidies have been provided by the Earl J. and Leona K. Tranin Special Fund and the Flo Harris Supporting Foundation of the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City.

Wednesday speaker series

There is no charge for the following programs, but seating is limited and reservations are required two days prior to the event. Visitors may see the exhibit and have light refreshments from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the National Archives gallery, followed by the program at 7 p.m. in the venues indicated. For reservations, contact the National Archives at (816) 268-8010 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

• March 24 at the Arthur Stillwell Room at Union Station – “German Physicians and Nazi Crimes: the Medical Profession and its Role in Nazi Germany” -- Patricia Heberer, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

• April 7 at National Archives at Kansas City -- “Nazi Culture: Daily Life in Germany, 1933-1939” --  Panel presented by the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education’s Holocaust Education Academic Roundtable, moderated by Carla Klausner of UMKC’s Department of History

• April 14 at National Archives – Film screening of “Selling Murder: The Killing Films of the Third Reich” -- introduction and discussion led by Cheryl Lester, Department of American Studies, University of Kansas, and Milton Katz, Department of Liberal Arts, Kansas City Art Institute

• April 21 at National Archives – “Confronting Complicity: Professionals in the Third Reich” -- Panel presented by the MCHE’s Holocaust Education Academic Roundtable, moderated by Jeffrey W. Myers, Department of History, Avila University
Panelists

• April 28 at National Archives – “Racial Science in the United States Today” --
Leonard Zeskind, president, Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights and author of “Blood and Politics”

• May 12 at Arthur Stillwell Room, Union Station – “Medical Ethics and Nazi Ideology” -- William F. Meinecke Jr., Education Department, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

• May 26 at National Archives – “The Perfect Baby: Eugenics, Race and Bioethics” -- Glenn McGee, John B. Francis Chair in Bioethics, Center for Practical Bioethics

• June 2 at Arthur Stillwell Room, Union Station – “The Doctors’ Trial” -- Professor Harry Reicher, University of Pennsylvania Law School

Film shows simple heroism of Nazi-era rescuers

The Talmud says: Whoever saves a single life, saves an entire universe.” One of the principal missions of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem is to convey the gratitude of the state of Israel and the Jewish people to those non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. While attitudes toward Jews during this dark chapter in history ranged from indifference to hostility, there was a small minority who mustered extraordinary courage to uphold human values. The highest honor these heroic martyrs can be accorded is to be granted the title of Righteous Among the Nations. We are all familiar through books, plays, films and television of the exploits of Oskar Schindler (“Schindler’s List”) and Irena Sendler (“Life in a Jar” and “The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler”). The names of Heinrich Aschoff, Hubert Pentrop, Heinrich Silkenboehmer, Bernhard Suedfeld and Bernhard Sickmann have been added to the list as a result of the memories brought to light in the 1965 book “Among Farmers: Saviors in the Night” written by Marga Spiegel. The dramatic movie adaptation, “Saviors in the Night,” is the opening night film of the 12th annual Kansas City Jewish Film Festival. (See box for details) The director is Ludi Boeken, who himself is the child of Holocaust survivors saved by peasants and factory workers.

The main character, Siegmund “Menne” Spiegel (Armin Rohde), like tens of thousands of other German Jews, is a veteran of World War I; winner of the Iron Cross for bravery. When the film opens in 1943, he lives in the small village of Ahlen in southern Munsterland with his beautiful, blonde-haired wife Marga (Veronica Ferres) and their little red-headed daughter Karin (Luisa Mix). He makes his living as a horse trader and is well known to the neighboring farmers. He wears the yellow Star of David on his outer garments, and his beloved fatherland wants to kill him and his family because they are Jewish. He seeks help from his former war buddies who are now simple Westphalian farmers. Even though Heinrich Aschoff (Martin Horn) is a patriotic German, a loyal member of the Nazi Party since 1930 and the father of a Wermacht soldier fighting on the Russian front, he never hesitates when agreeing to provide shelter and security for Marga and Karin. This Catholic rescuer views the Spiegels as fellow Germans. The main stumbling block is Anni Aschoff (Lia Hoensbroech), the farmer’s daughter. She is a member of the German Girls’ League and proudly wears her uniform. She is on the lookout for liars and traitors. She has a crush on Erich, a group leader in the Hitler Youth movement. She isn’t made aware that Marga and Karin are Jewish until a local pub owner in need of eggs recognizes Marga. One of the pleasures derived from watching the movie is witnessing Anni’s transformative arc from ardent Nazi to sympathizing emotionally with Marga’s plight. While his family stays at the Aschoffs’ farm, Menne is forced to move from farm to farm and live in darkness for nearly two years. Finally, in 1945, the Allies finally reach Westphalia, liberating the family and enabling them to reunite. Even so, high tension remains as the Allies are unable to differentiate between Nazis and ordinary German civilians.

The movie was filmed in the region where the actual events depicted took place. Superior camera work brings the viewer close to the key characters, and one senses the constant danger and fear of being caught. Everyone in the movie is aware that Jews are being deported to the east, and that none can expect to return. The movie shows what Good Samaritans, acting right under the noses of the Gestapo, achieved. While the Pope in Rome was silent, these salt-of-the earth Catholic families felt a closer kinship to the teachings of the Bishop of Munster than the angry rants of Adolf Hitler.

At the conclusion of the movie, we are privileged to see the real Marga Spiegel and Anni Aschoff. Marga, now 97 years old, is still in touch with third-generation descendants of the brave farm families who risked their lives to save fellow human beings.

This emotionally moving film is suitable for family viewing and offers an educational introduction to the Holocaust. It holds your interest throughout a running time of 97 minutes. The dialogue is in German with easy-to-read English subtitles. It gets my vote as the best film of this year’s festival and deserves my GOOD rating of 3 stars.

Opening night

“Saviors in the Night” opens the two-day Kansas City Jewish Film Festival at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 6, at the Lewis and Shirley White Theatre at the Jewish Community Campus. Tickets to the opening film and the dessert reception that follows are $16. To buy tickets or for more information, visit www.jcckc.org or call (913) 327-8000.
“Circumcise Me,” at 9:45 p.m. Saturday, March 6, is non-stop laughter as a standup comedian (Yisrael Campbell) tells of his conversion from Catholicism to Judaism.
“Children of the Sun,” 2 p.m. Sunday, March 7, is about children who were raised apart from their parents in an early Israeli kibbutzim.
“Max Minsky and Me,” 7 p.m. Sunday, March 7, tells the story of a 13-year-old girl who is more interested in astronomy, and fellow astronomy fan and heartthrob Prince Edouard of Luxembourg, than in her Bat Mitzvah.

‘Postcards from Yo Momma’ author here for Yad b’Yad

Girlfriends have been dishing about the conversations they’ve had with their mothers forever. Now with the Internet and text messaging, it’s even easier to share these communications with others. So two Jewish women decided to make these often-funny messages the object of a blog, “Postcards From Yo Momma.” From there came the book “Love, Mom: Poignant, Goofy Brilliant Messages from Home.” One of the authors, Doree Shafrir, will discuss the book and blog at a Women’s Division Yad B’Yad event at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 9, at the Jewish Community Campus.

Hyperion published the book last April and describes it as “a collection of laugh-out-loud e-mails, text messages and instant messages from technologically inept mothers to their adult children. … ‘Love, Mom’ reminds us all that our mothers are the ones who know us best — and, of course, nag us the most.”

Shafrir said this whole thing got started when her friend and co-author Jessica Grose decided to share with her a funny e-mail from her mother. Shafrir then reciprocated, sending her friend a message from her mother. A short time later Shafrir suggested that they post these funny e-mails on a Web site, asking their friends to contribute to it. Thus the blog was born.

“It just snowballed. People send us stuff and we post it and people comment on them,” said Shafrir about the blog, www.postcardsfromyomomma.com, which was launched in March 2008.

Almost immediately the women were contacted by publishers wanting a book.

“It surprised us because this is just something we put up for fun. We were shocked at how quickly it took off and how many people it resonated with,” Shafrir said.

It took Shafrir a couple of weeks to raise the nerve to call her mother and tell her about the book. Once she did, her mother fell in love with it.
“She went to the site and started laughing hysterically,” Shafrir said.

As Shafrir’s mother searched for her own e-mails, she often thought other mothers’ e-mails were hers.

“It just proves my point that there are so many universal truths out there about moms and how they relate to their adult children. They are all relating to them in very similar ways. Some are more extreme than others, but it’s very similar themes,” Shafrir said.

When the women started the blog, Shafrir said, they naively assumed that most of their submissions would come from Jewish moms.

“We do get a lot of e-mails (originally sent by) Jewish moms. But we also get a lot of e-mails from non-Jewish moms. It’s been very eye-opening to see that it’s very universal; it’s not just Jewish moms who are giving their kids guilt trips,” she explained.

This is the first book for the 32-year-old Shafrir, who lives in New York and who has contributed to The New Yorker, New York magazine, thedailybeast.com, Details magazine and slate.com, among others.

Since the book was published, Shafrir has given speeches all around the country, usually to a combination of mothers and daughters.

“The question and answer period often gets really fun,” she said.

Tickets for the Yad B’Yad event are $8 a person. The event is free of charge for students and Yad B’Yad series subscribers. Reservations can be taken up to the day of the event. For more information, visit www.jewishkansascity.org or call Nicole Feldman, (913) 327-8111.

Artist makes ancient instruments

The Kansas City Jewish Museum presents the exhibit “Moshe Frumin — Ancient Instruments” March 14 through May 2 at the Epsten Gallery at Village Shalom.

The show features 21 musical instruments created by Israeli professor Moshe Frumin, who has constructed authentic recreations of ancient biblical instruments based on depictions discovered in archaeological discoveries from Israel.

This exhibition, organized by the Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art in Tulsa, Okla., marks the first time Frumin has exhibited in the United States, and KCJMCA is the second and only additional venue to host this exhibition in the country.

The exhibition opens from 2-4 p.m. Sunday, March 14, at the Epsten Gallery at Village Shalom with a public reception; a gallery conversation with Karen York, curator of the Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art, begins at 3 p.m. Sunday.

The Moshe Frumin exhibition has its roots in a project conceived in the late 1970s by the Haifa Museum in Israel. Frumin was chosen by the museum to participate in a project to reproduce musical instruments from the ancient world. Frumin found his life’s work in that project. He was “lured by the possibilities,” and, over the ensuing 30 years, he has searched for examples of instruments in ancient sculpture, paintings, coinage and biblical texts.

In his workshop in Kiriat Bialik, Israel, Frumin has sculpted numerous instruments; from lyres to harps to drums and shofarot. Frumin’s instruments are playable, hand-created, accurate recreations of instruments from biblical times that — perhaps — when played, sound the way they might have sounded during the time of King David.

Moshe Frumin was born in 1940 in Poland. He immigrated to Israel in 1948, and graduated from the Youth Village “Hadassim” and the Arts & Crafts College of Tel Aviv. He has a degree in education and creative art from Haifa University and a master’s degree in arts.
Frumin is a former member of the education faculty of the University of Haifa, where he founded the technology-in-education department. He also taught at WIZO Arts College in Haifa, qualifying teachers in technical arts, and for the Oranim Seminar at the Art and Design Institute, where he taught art and product design courses as well as headed the studio for wood, metal and plastic. He currently lectures at Western Galilee College and teaches several private sculpture courses.

Frumin’s numerous prizes include the Haifa Cherished Artist Award in 1996, The Spirit of Creation Award in 1997 and the Haifa City Medal in 2000. An active sculptor and photographer, Frumin is a member of the Israeli sculptors and Painters Association. His exhibitions include The Jewish Museum in Melbourne, Australia, The Bible Lands Museum in Tel Aviv, the Bnei-Zion Medical Center in Haifa, ISCAR and many private collections.

JDC seeks local support for overseas programs

Jewish Federation fundraising campaigns all across the country, including Kansas City, have slumped in the face of the sour economy. As a result, funding for overseas programming has declined.

So Steven Schwager, executive vice president and CEO of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, came to Kansas City last week in an effort to make local Jews understand why it’s important to support JDC’s programming around the world with their wallets.

Since its inception in 1914, JDC has helped millions of Jews in more than 70 countries. JDC acts on behalf of North America’s Jewish communities to rescue Jews in danger, provide relief to those in distress, revitalize overseas Jewish communities and help Israel overcome the social challenges of its most vulnerable citizens. JDC also provides non-sectarian emergency relief and long-term development assistance worldwide.

For the 2009-2010 budget year, the Kansas City Jewish community is sending a total of $1.07 million to the Jewish Federations of North America for overseas programming. Another $379,428 from here pays for elective, overseas programs in Israel and Eastern Europe, primarily Bulgaria and Romania. That brings the Federation’s total Israel and overseas allocations to $1.45 million in this fiscal year.

Percentage-wise, that is a year-over-year drop of 4 percent -- from 34 to 30 percent of the total budget. Todd Stettner, executive vice president and CEO of the local Jewish Federation, said the board decided to cut the overseas allocation in order to “maximize the dollars we can use here in Kansas City.”

JDC’s Schwager said other Jewish communities also keep about 70 percent of the funds raised by their campaigns for local programs. But that wasn’t always the case. When Schwager joined JDC in 1989, most federations split their funds 50-50 between local and overseas programs.

“So even though the system has raised more money today, there’s actually less money going overseas,” Schwager said.

The total amount of money going overseas from North American federations is about $140 million today, Schwager said. About 75 percent of that total goes to the Jewish Agency for Israel, with the remainder going to JDC. That’s a formula that has been in effect since about 1952, when Displaced Persons camps were closing in Europe and Israel was preparing to welcome many new immigrants.

“Now it’s 2010, and we’re dealing with welfare caseloads well over 200,000 people, and we think we need more money so those elderly Jews can live out their lives in dignity,” Schwager said.

Creating awareness
Schwager said without exception, members of every North American Jewish community he has visited have expressed concern for their brethren abroad.

In just a few hours last week, Schwager visited with about 125 local Federation leaders in an effort to create awareness about the agency’s mission. Patricia Werthan Uhlmann, a vice president of the local Federation and chair of the International Development Program Committee of  JDC, believes Schwager’s message was well received.

“I think there was a better understanding … of what is going on and what the situation is all across the world that the Joint is committed to taking care of,” Uhlmann said. “It’s very distressing to know that there are hungry, poor, isolated Jews out there that are not getting services because we are not raising enough money throughout the system to provide for them.”

While Uhlmann has personally witnessed the plight of these Eastern European Jews on many trips, Schwager realized on his visits to American Jewish communities that many federation leaders have no firsthand experience of JDC’s work.

“They have never experienced the walk up four or five flights of stairs to visit an elderly Jewish client. They have never had the opportunity to sit and talk, in person, with a woman who has not felt the sun on her face in years simply because she is unable physically to walk down and back up the stairs to her apartment,” Schwager said.

Stettner said federations want their next-generation leaders to learn about the dilemmas of Jews around the world. Therefore, a “next gen” service trip to Eastern Europe, chaired by Joe Loeffler and Jeremy Applebaum, is being planned for the fall.

Applebaum visited Ukraine in November 2008. He met with Ukrainians of all ages and is excited about the rebirth of Judaism he witnessed. He was surprised to find out when he came home that most of his peers had no idea that there are millions of Jews living outside Israel and North America.

“They are going to Hebrew day schools and going to summer camps and living Jewish lives,” Applebaum said. “Those people need our support. We need to learn from them, and they need to learn from us.”

He thinks next-gen familiarization trips will benefit both JDC and federations around the country.

“At the end of the day, the federations’ support is a large percentage of JDC’s budgetary makeup. If we get young people involved in seeing where their money goes, how it’s used and the wonderful things it does, then they will get interested in donating and being a part of the campaign instead of being turned off,” Applebaum said.

Beneficial relationships
With cooperation between JDC and Federation, Romania and Bulgaria have become Kansas City’s sister communities. Due to the current economic downturn, Schwager said, the Jewish people in both European nations ─ around 5,000 in Bulgaria and 12,000 in Romania ─ are suffering tremendously. He said many basic needs are going unmet.

Not all American federations have sister-community relationships with Eastern Europe like Kansas City. Schwager said the fact that Kansas City has adopted these communities is beneficial for all three communities. The Eastern European communities have a place to go to for advice and guidance, and Kansas City has profited from their ideas, as well.

In fact many of the senior-support programs now in place here were originated in Romania and Bulgaria, including Jewish Family Services’ Help@Home and Jet Express programs.

“We learn from each other. The nice thing that has happened is the young people in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union all speak English, so you can have a regular dialog with each other. English has become the language of the world,” Schwager said.

Helping Haiti
The JDC doesn’t concentrate only on Jews. As it has done after many national and world-wide disasters, JDC is helping the people of Haiti recover from the devastation caused by January’s earthquake.

“The Joint has done non-sectarian work for all of its 95 years,” Schwager explained. “We believe it’s a part of our Jewish responsibility to repair the world.”

With a national campaign and the help of local federations, JDC has raised $5.5 million for Haiti relief so far. Of that total, Kansas City has raised a little more than $46,000.

Typically not a first responder, Schwager explained that, after an emergency situation is under control, JDC usually comes in and tries to help rebuild infrastructure. It does such things as create jobs and rebuild schools.

“However in Haiti, because the job was so large, we’ve expended about a third of the money we’ve raised so far on basic needs,” he said.

The first thing JDC did was forge a partnership with the Israel Defense Forces, which brought a military hospital to Haiti. The hospital was designed to help adults, so funds were needed immediately to purchase supplies for children and infants.

“We bought two incubators and supplies for children and gave it to the hospital,” Schwager said.

JDC also partnered with Kansas City’s Heart to Heart International.

“We’ve paid for shipping in medical supplies and we’ve bought them several trucks to do distribution on the ground in Haiti. Equally important, we took the Heart to Heart people in Haiti to meet the doctors from the Israeli army hospital and they’ve created a partnership. So the next time there is a disaster someplace, Heart to Heart and the IDF will be able to work hand-in-hand again,” Schwager said.

Recession stings JVS, refugees it helps

If times are tough for native-born Americans in this Great Recession, think how hard they are for refugees from Africa and Asia who wind up being resettled in Kansas City, Mo.

Immigration has never been easy, and the ongoing recession has made the job of Jewish Vocational Service, the sole refugee-service agency in KCMO, that much harder this past year and a half.

That, in turn, has led to a series of stories in the local press about the difficulties faced by JVS clients, who have fled persecution in such nations as Somalia, Burundi and Myanmar (formerly Burma).

The failures revealed in a Kansas City Star story last year led to a series of internal changes — in both policy and personnel — that JVS Executive Director Joy Foster and board President Callan Cohen believe have improved the situation. They have some favorable outside reviews to back them up, as well.

This week the agency received a three-year accreditation from the Commission for the Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities.
And yet the changes didn’t prevent JVS from becoming the focus of another critical Star story this year as well as one in The Pitch Jan. 7.

JVS’s Foster admits that “Weaknesses surface during a time when you’re stretched.”

Back on track
And yet Foster hopes that things are getting back on track, both at JVS and in the larger economy. Last week, for instance, JVS helped nearly 50 people interview for and obtain jobs at the Triumph Foods pork-processing plant in St. Joseph.

There’s also hope that JVS can eliminate the structural budget deficit that leaves many refugee families in dire straits even before they arrive in Kansas City, Foster said. She explained that it almost always costs more to rent and outfit an apartment for a newly arrived refugee family than JVS receives from the federal government, which handles refugee placement nationwide.

Local donations make up some of that gap. (See below for details on how to help.) JVS got a one-time boost from the feds last year, as well as funds from the local United Way’s emergency campaign.

“The good news is,” Foster said, “that the U.S. Department of State informed us on Jan. 22 that money for reception and placement will double for the calendar year.”

Since it took over refugee resettlement in Kansas City, Mo., from the Don Bosco Center in 2003, JVS has received about $900 in federal funding for each person it resettles. JVS spends just over half of that on the refugee’s behalf (renting and outfitting a clean, safe, affordable home), with the remainder paying JVS’s administrative costs.

Meanwhile, the total number of refugees resettled by JVS has risen from 330 in 2004 to nearly 500 last year. Foster said JVS expects to resettle 450 refugees in 2010.

“Maybe we didn’t realize how much work would be involved” with refugee resettlement, said Cohen. “But it’s been very rewarding, and it goes along with the mission of JVS.” The agency was formed in 1949 to help Jewish Holocaust survivors assimilate into America.

Today, after their initial reception, JVS helps refugees to apply for identification, food stamps and other benefits, and to learn English and look for work. Some need medical attention, too, and to help make that happen, the Kansas City, Mo., Health Department has established a clinic at JVS’s downtown office.

But there is more than JVS workers alone can do, so Foster has appealed for volunteer mentors to help acclimate the refugees to the American lifestyle. (See below for details on how to help.)

And yet, for all the difficulties faced by the refugees and the anguish it causes those who try to help them, there are enough success stories to keep Foster and her staff going.

Foster says she knows immigrants who have been here just two years who “are buying houses with cash.”

Then there is former JVS refugee client Oumar Barry, now a steward/heavy duty cleaner at Ameristar Casino, who on Feb. 16 was named Team Member of the Year and awarded a $15,000 bonus. Barry, a Mauritanian refugee, has worked at Ameristar since September 2007.

“He possesses a deep compassion for others, which stems from the difficulties he has had to overcome in his own life.” says Barry’s manager, Jim Mulford. “His strong work ethic is an inspiration to every team member he encounters.”

How to help
JVS continually needs donations of good, used furniture, dishes, small appliances, etc., to outfit the homes of newly arrived refugees. A complete wish list is available at its Web site. Go to www.jvskc.org and click “Programs and Services,” then “Refugee Resettlement Services” and then “Center for New Americans.” Contact Housing Coordinator Deborah Fiene at (816) 471-2808, Ext. 1162, or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to make an appointment for a JVS truck to pick up a donation.

JVS is also seeking volunteers to meet with newly arrived refugees to help them learn English and to mentor them in adjusting to an American lifestyle. For more information, or volunteer, contact Pete Cabell, volunteer coordinator, at (816) 471-2808, Ext. 1115, or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Jewish Film Festival moves to Campus, single weekend

While the 13th annual Kansas City Jewish Film Film Festival has been reduced from a weeklong affair to a single weekend, Jewish Community Center Cultural Arts Director Tammy Ruder says it still has a lot going for it.

The four films over two days touch on the Holocaust, life in early Israel, conversion to Judaism and assimilation vs. tradition. (See below for details)

Ruder said it was tough for the film festival committee to narrow down all the films it reviewed to just four.

“Each film needed to be different than the other … and to really provide variety in a short amount of time,” Ruder said.

She offered the following comments on each film:

• “Saviors in the Night” is “such a great story, and told so well,” Ruder said. “It’s a feature film based on history. I always like to include a film that deals with the Holocaust and survivors. This is based on the memoirs of Marga Spiegel, and how she was rescued by Christian farmer. The family dynamics are interesting. The daughter is in a Nazi youth group and the son is going off to join the war, and it shows how they worked together.”

• “Circumcise Me” is “just a great, fun laugh; a great comedy,” Ruder said. “The star talks about growing up Catholic and how he converted to Judaism and went from Reform to Conservative to Orthodox, and everybody on the committee was laughing.”

• “Children of the Sun,” Ruder said, “opened up a huge dialogue” at the committee screening. It’s about how children were raised apart from their parents in an early Israeli kibbutzim. It includes historic footage of kibbutz life and interviews with the adults those children grew up to be. Film festival committee member Dr. Uri Alon, a native of Israel and former kibbutznik, will moderate a discussion featuring his son, Guy Alon, and fellow kibbutz veteran David Shik.

• “Max Minsky and Me” on Sunday night “is our teen film,” Ruder said, “about a young lady whose mom wants her to go through with her Bat Mitzvah, while she’s more interested in basketball and meeting a prince. … She finds out along the way what’s important.”

Making changes
In addition to the shortened schedule, the Film Festival moves for the first time from a commercial movie theater to the Lewis and Shirley White Theatre on the Jewish Community Campus.

That will save $4,000 in theater rental costs, Ruder said, and help make up for the annual subsidy the Jewish Federation had to withhold after a down fundraising year.

“We did not get funding this year from the Federation,” Ruder said. “We did not request it (because) we were asked to limit our requests.”

Even with a truncated festival moving to the Campus, “it is not a free program,” Ruder said. “It takes the support of the community to continue something important …and film is a great way to tell our story.”

In addition, the timing of opening night has changed this year. The festival has traditionally opened with an 8:45 p.m. film, followed by a dessert reception.

This year, the reception will follow the 7:30 p.m. film.

As a JCC-sponsored event, the festival has tried to avoid conflicting with the Sabbath. This year, with opening night coming before the advent of Daylight Savings Time, and Shabbat thus ending earlier, the earlier start time is possible.

Charge tickets now
Tickets to the 13th annual Kansas City Jewish Film Festival, presented by the Jewish Community Center in collaboration with The Kansas City Jewish Chronicle, are on sale now at the Center’s main office. A pass to all four films (including the opening-night reception) is $32. Individual show tickets are $8, except for the opening-night film and reception, which is $16 a person.

To charge tickets by phone, call the JCC, (913) 327-8000.