Kansas City’s Opus 76 Quartet will perform a new rendition of the renowned “Kol Nidre” by German composer Max Bruch at 6:30 p.m. on Shabbat Shuvah, Friday, Oct. 4, at Congregation Beth Torah.
Beth Torah’s Rabbi Javier Cattapan said the composition is meaningful this time of year.
LEST WE FORGET — The exhibition featuring 70 photos of Holocaust survivors from around the world, including seven from the Kansas City area, opened last week on the Memorial Courtyard at the National WWI Museum and Memorial. The outdoor exhibit, featuring photos by Luigi Toscano, will be open through Sunday, Oct. 6. Each photo features a small information panel. The local photos were taken earlier this summer here with support from the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education (MCHE).
Toscano created this exhibition to remember the tragedies of the Holocaust and its lasting effect on local communities. He has chosen parks and other common areas with increased accessibility to display his work. He said he started the project after he first met a survivor, and no one originally wanted to help fund it. But he persisted because, “If you forget the past, we are all destined to repeat it.” Through the project he has met more than 400 survivors and, he said, “every story is unique, touching and heartfelt.”
MCHE Executive Director Jean Zeldin was among the speakers at the opening.
“As Luigi has illustrated so uniquely and artistically,” she said, “Holocaust survivors are truly larger than life.”
In conjunction with “Lest We Forget,” the University of Missouri-Kansas City is hosting an on-campus event featuring UMKC History Professor Andrew Bergerson. The Jewish professor will host a conversation with Toscano on a panel with Cristina Albu, UMKC associate professor of art and art history, and Sandra Enriquez, assistant professor of history. The conversation is scheduled from noon to 1:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 4, in 101 Katz Hall. The event is free, but RSVPs are requested and available by email to .
Fundraiser for DACA scholarships
Beth Torah members John Lantos and Tamara Falicov work with Centro Hispano Director Lily Romero to create a test batch of vegetarian tamales. A large batch of these tamales will be made at Beth Torah on Oct. 20 to sell as a fundraiser to help fund DACA scholarships locally.
The adage that experience is the best teacher makes a lot of sense to Kansas City-area natives Diane Lowenthal and Jeffrey Sosland.
Lowenthal is senior associate dean of the School of Professional & Extended Studies at American University in Washington, D.C. Sosland is an assistant professor in the School’s Washington Semester Program | Global Economics and Business.
An exciting season awaits at The White Theatre, located at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City (The J). Now entering its 15th year, The White Theatre’s 2019-2020 season offers everything from self-produced Broadway shows, to robust concert fare, to educational programs and once-in-a-lifetime visiting artists for all to enjoy.
When Sarah Hurwitz was working as a senior speechwriter for President Barack Obama, and later as head speechwriter for Michelle Obama, she often was assumed to be a good source of knowledge about Judaism.
Except Hurwitz wasn’t.
She had grown up nominally Reform. And after her Bat Mitzvah, Hurwitz felt her relationship with Judaism was pretty much over.
AN EVENING WITH DEBORAH LIPSTADT — An interfaith audience of approximately 300 people attended “Antisemitism Here And Now with Dr. Deborah Lipstadt” on Sept. 5 at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. The event was co-sponsored by Jewish Federation, Midwest Center for Holocaust Education, JCRB|AJC, UMKC and UMKC History. The internationally renowned scholar best known for her expertise on Holocaust denial was introduced by her friend Patricia Werthan Uhlmann, who was instrumental in getting Lipstadt here for the presentation. Federation’s Director of Marketing and Communications Mimsy Tallent said the audience was very interested in what Lipstadt had to say. At one point while discussing modern day anti-Semitism, Lipstadt discussed that, in many cases today, men are wearing baseball caps instead of kippahs when traveling, women don’t feel comfortable wearing a Star of David or Chai symbol, and many are afraid to tell a neighbor/co-worker/stranger/etc. they are Jewish because of not knowing how that person would react. “When a group doesn’t feel free to walk in their own skin, something is wrong,” Lipstadt told the audience. The historian’s newest book, “Antisemitism: Here and Now,” is available on Amazon and at other book retailers.
SUICIDE PREVENTION MONTH — There have been several events in the community this month led by members of the Jewish community, including the SASS (Suicide Awareness Survivor Support) Remembrance Walk and SPEAK UP Walk. This past week, Dr. Karen Arkin, one of the founders of SPEAK UP and a former member of the Kansas City Jewish community, was featured in Parade magazine. In the article “A Mother Opens Up: 7 Things I Want You to Know About My Son and Suicide,” Arkin said: “His suicide wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t our fault. It was the fault of the disease of depression. But there will always be a hole in my heart.” You can find the article on parade.com by searching Karen Arkin.
According to Dr. Steve Arkin’s Facebook page, Sunday’s SPEAK UP Walk was the largest one ever. It attracted more than 1,000 walkers, and donations and sponsorships have exceeded $150,000. Funds raised will help educate local teens and their families about mental health and suicide prevention.
DWTS AND JEWISH GEOGRAPHY — I’m a fan of DWTS (“Dancing with the Stars). When pro dancer Alan Bernsten was introduced on Monday’s season premiere, I immediately wondered whether he was Jewish. I Googled him and it appears he is. One of the first things that came up was a Twitter post from 2016: “I hope all of my fellow Jews have an easy fast this Yom Kippur.”
YALE LAUNCHES HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS PODCAST (JTA) — Yale University’s Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies launched a podcast series last week featuring the remembrances of survivors.
The series started with the testimony of Martin Schiller, a Jewish man from Poland who described his experiences in the concentration and slave labor camps of Plaszow, Skarzysko-Kamienna, Buchenwald and Theresienstadt. Plaszow serves as the setting for the film “Schindler’s List.”
Titled “Those Who Were There,” the podcast has narration by Eleanor Reissa, an actress and Yiddish theater director, and historical oversight by Professor Samuel Kassow. It features testimonies collected from 1979 onward.
To learn more, visit fortunoff.library.yale.edu/podcasts/.
Note early deadlines for High Holidays
The upcoming High Holidays bring with them adjusted deadlines for the month of October. They are:
Monday, Sept. 23, for the Oct. 3 issue
Friday, Sept. 27, for the Oct. 10 issue
Tuesday, Oct. 8, for the Oct. 17 issue
Friday, Oct. 11, for the Oct. 24 issue
Deadlines will return to normal for the Oct. 31 issue. The deadline for that issue is 5 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 22.
Questions? Contact Editor Barbara Bayer at 913-951-8425 or .
Never date a fellow rabbi — that’s what both Sarah Smiley and Josh Leighton thought when they met while at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. It didn’t quite work out that way.
Now married with a 2-year-old daughter, Eliana, the two rabbis both work at The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah. They’re the only married rabbi couple to both work at the same congregation in the Kansas City area.
Joe Pfefer is an old hand at getting awakened in the middle of the night to start his workday. He’s been at it for 50 years.
Pfefer owns Jade Alarm Co., based in Kansas City, Missouri. As told on the company’s website (jadealarm.com), he started Jade Alarm in 1969 in the basement of the home of his late parents, David and Lillian Pfefer. His parents owned a parking lot at 2201 Brooklyn, near the old Municipal Stadium. One night, soon after they returned home after operating their parking lot while a game was played in the stadium, a would-be intruder tried but failed to force open their front door.
LAWRENCE — After the Sept. 17 do-over election, Israel is likely to have its first “unity” government in 30 years, according to the author of a new book on Arab electoral politics in the Jewish state.
And while four Arab parties have once again formed a Joint List that is likely to increase their standing in parliament, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is unlikely to be able to form a completely right-wing majority coalition, as he has in the past. Thus, he will be forced to ask the centrist Blue & White Party of former army general Benny Gantz to join him in a so-called unity government.
