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It’s summertime and that means hundreds of kids had fun at the various camps of the Jewish Community Center.

In addition to the local camp counselors, two Israeli young women spent their summer at Barney Goodman Camp — working and having a bit of fun as they shared their own culture as schlichim (emissaries). Noam Tzarfaty from Hertzliya and Michal Alhindi from Nes Ziyyona moved at a rapid pace, bringing a bit of the Mideast to the Midwest. Tzarfaty has been to the United States before with her family, but this is Alhindi’s first trip. 

Each year, The Jewish Agency for Israel chooses about 1,500 shlichim  from more than 10,000 applicants. These shlichim are placed at Jewish organizations around the world to strengthen community members’ Jewish identities and provide a personal connection to Israel through education about the country.

“We both heard about the shlichim program from people we know, and they told us about the amazing experience they had,” the young women said. “We also wanted to do something meaningful and spread the Israeli spirit to people in the states.”

Both women are 20-years-old and have completed their military service. Tzarfaty worked as The J’s camps’ Israeli cultural specialist while Alhindi served as a counselor at Barney Goodman camp.

“With my group of girls, we played Israeli games, Israeli songs and we made friendship bracelets with their name in Hebrew,” Alhindi said. “I also did an Israeli food activity with the kids in the camp and I told them about my army experience.”

Tzarfaty did a variety of activities with the campers she encountered.

“In my groups the kids made the Western Wall and put their wishes in,” she said. “I also made activities about Israeli places, the Eurovision songs, Israeli food — we made chocolate balls — and the Jewish holidays.”

DD Gass, The J’s director of camps, said the shlichim were a fantastic edition to the summer staff.

“They brought many fun activities for the campers, and were a joy to work with this summer,” Gass said. “Each summer we bring two Israeli staff to J Camp, and each summer our campers and staff are enriched by the information they learn and enjoy getting to know more about their life in Israel.”

Tzarfaty and Alhindi enjoyed their summer experience at The J.

“My favorite thing about working with the kids was that I got to share my Israeli experience, and always be there for my girls in the group and make a positive impact on them,” Alhindi said. “I liked it when they asked me questions about Israel and wanted to know more.”

Tzarfaty took great pride in sharing all things Israeli.

“I liked to see how enthusiastic they were when they remember all these things,” she said.

The shlichim stayed with host families in the Jewish community. They got to experience Kansas City at its best, getting the opportunity to attend a Kansas City Royals game and visiting various parts of the city including the Country Club Plaza and downtown. In addition they were treated to a trip to the Lake of the Ozarks. 

“We also spent good times with the staff of camp,” they said.

As camp is over and summer winds down, the two women will return to Israel where they will work for a few months, travel abroad and apply for university.

NEWS ABOUT GERMANY’S RABBI TEICHTAL  —  On July 25, Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal, president of Chabad Lubavitch in Berlin and the brother of KU Chabad’s Rabbi Zalman Tiechtel, was verbally abused and spat on by Arabic-speaking attackers. He was with one of his young children at the time of the incident.

According to JTA, the rabbi told the German newspaper Die Welt that it was especially shocking to be physically attacked, adding that he had never experienced anything similar in 23 years in Berlin, though he has frequently heard derogatory comments from passersby.

On Sunday, Aug. 4, KU Chabad’s Rabbi Tiechtel shared on Facebook that the president of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, had visited his brother at his home in Berlin to “discuss the importance of embracing the Jewish people and fight this darkness with light.”

“My brother and his wife had the opportunity to sit with the president for quite some time and talk about the message of our Rebbe to bring more light into this world with acts of goodness and kindness,” Rabbi Tiechtel wrote. “I am asking you my dear friends: Pause for a moment and reflect on this incredible moment!!! Who would’ve imagined 50 years ago that in Berlin Germany — once the seat of such hatred toward the Jewish people — should the president of this country visit the rabbi’s family in his home and share the wisdom and insight from our rich heritage? This my friends IS the ultimate transformation of darkness into light. This my friends is AM YISRAEL CHAI!”

In a statement to German media following the attack, Rabbi Teichtal said that despite such attacks in Berlin schoolyards and streets, he was convinced that “most people in Berlin want Jews to be able to live openly as Jews, without fear of being cursed at, spat on or beaten up.”

“Of course we won’t hide ourselves,” he wrote. “We will continue to build on a foundation of love, tolerance, dialogue and education.”

According to JTA, the Berlin-based Anti-Semitism Research and Information Center reported that the district in which Rabbi Teichtal lives and works, Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, had 80 reported ant-Semitic incidents last year, the second highest level in Berlin, second only to the Mitte district with 146. In all, some 1,800 incidents were reported in the capital in 2018, an increase of nearly 20% from the previous year.

  

‘WE’RE OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD’  — Chronicle readers may recognize two cast members in Theatre in the Park’s Wizard of Oz — well, one might be hard to recognize with all the face paint! Jacob Jackson, a rising senior at Blue Valley High, plays Tin Man. He became a Bar Mitzvah and was confirmed at The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah.

McKenna Lewis, a student at Blue Valley North and the daughter of Jay and Kim Lewis, sings and dances as part of the chorus. “The Wizard of Oz” closes the 50th anniversary season at Theatre in the Park. See Jacob and McKenna, along with Dorothy, Toto, Cowardly Lion and Scarecrow, at 8:30 p.m. tonight 

(Aug. 8), tomorrow and Saturday night at Shawnee Mission Park. For information regarding box office and parking, visit theatreinthepark.org. 

BLESSING THE MAYOR  — Rabbi Yitchak Itkin of Plaza Chabad was part of Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Quinton Lucas’ first City Council Meeting on Aug. 1. He was chosen to give a special blessing to the young mayor. That day, Rabbi Itkin posted on Facebook:

“Honored to have been asked to be part of the new mayor’s first council meeting. Wishing Quinton and the entire city council much blessings and success in their quest to make this an even greater city!” 

BIAV RABBI SEARCH UPDATE  — Carol Katzman and Sam Arbesman are chairing BIAV’s search committee for a new rabbi. BIAV is working with Yeshiva University’s Center for the Jewish Future, and Rabbi Ron Schwarzberg, to assist with the search. The community’s Orthodox congregation’s goal is to have a new rabbi on board in the summer of 2020.

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED  — Kosher Meals on Wheels, now in its fifth year and run by Torah Learning Center, needs volunteers for Sunday deliveries. If you have time to do this mitzvah, call 913-710-1770 or email .

50 YEARS FOR CAMP SABRA  — Camp Sabra will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2020. The camp is kicking off its birthday year at an event for adults only in St. Louis tonight, Thursday, Oct. 8. The camp is also in the midst of its second annual 24-hour day of giving campaign, All-in-for-Sabra Day, which runs from 2 p.m. to 2 p.m., today and tomorrow, Aug. 8-9. All gifts of any amount will open doors of opportunity through scholarship support, improved facilities and new equipment. Donate online at charidy.com/campsabra or call the main line at the St. Louis Jewish Community Center, 314-432-5700, and ask for the development department. The camp hopes to raise $100,000 in this 24-hour campaign.

RABBI Q’S BARBECUE SAUCE  — Joe Pfefer contacted us this week to let us know that the barbecue sauce created and produced by Mendel Segal, also known as Rabbi Q, is getting hard to find at the Leawood Hen House where he regularly purchases it. Upon further research, he discovered that Segal, who now owns and operates a kosher barbecue restaurant, Backyard BBQ in Surfside, Florida, may not be planning to produce any further product.

Pfefer said, “If you are a BBQ aficionado and enjoy his fantastic sauces — he has two varieties, the regular and the pomegranate honey” — please contact him and tell him you want to continue purchasing it. The email for the sauce business is . You may also be able to reach him through the contact us section on the restaurant’s website, backyardbbqmiami.com.

SHANE LUTZK UPDATE  — We told you in July that Shane Lutzk was about to travel to Savona, Italy, and have his ceramics exhibited at the Savona Ceramics Museum. His creation, “Mediterranean,” was chosen as the featured ceramic piece displayed in the foyer. Another of Lutzk’s ceramic pieces is featured in the foyer of the Nerman Museum at Johnson County Community College. He will teach again this fall at Eastern Illinois University, where he is head of the ceramics department.

Katie Harris, 38, was born with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, a rare disease of the connective tissue that causes overly flexible joints; easily-bruised, elastic skin; and fragile organs. Although she began to show symptoms of the syndrome in high school, she wasn’t diagnosed until she was 31.

She said in 2011 a team of physicians at Mayo Clinic finally diagnosed her. Last year her health declined to the point where she was wheelchair-bound.

Over the years Harris, who is a social worker at Blue Valley West High School, has lost vision in her right eye, lost feeling in her arms and legs, suffered burning pain throughout her body, and began having seizures. She was forced to wear a neck brace because the ligaments were not holding her neck up and she was compressing her brain stem as well as the main artery that leads up to the brain.

Two months ago, she had surgery for the latter and is recovering well. She said she now wears the neck brace off and on, and with the help of a walking device is able to walk for short periods.

Last year, she became obsessed with getting a dog because she said she fell in love with her father’s goldendoodle. So she acquired a mini-goldendoodle as a companion dog and named her Moxie, because the word “moxie” means the ability to face difficulty with spirit and courage.

She began working with the American Service Dog Association (ASDA) in St. Louis, where Harris was raised in the Jewish community, to train Moxie as a service dog. Moxie now accompanies Harris everywhere.

Every Friday, the staff and campers at Camp Ramah Nyack gather for a ceremony called Shishi Al Hamigrash — Hebrew for “Friday on the field.”

The entire camp community — some 1,100 people in all — assembles on an enormous field in the center of the camp about 30 miles north of New York City for a spirited session of Israeli dancing. When it’s over, the Israeli emissaries who serve as staffers each summer line up at the flagpole holding Israeli flags and singing “Hatikvah,” the Israeli national anthem.

In August, on the last Friday of camp, anyone spending the next year in Israel is called up, and the Israeli staffers dance around them, welcoming them into their circle.

This year, Sammy Fishman will be among them. A fourth-year counselor at the Jewish day camp, Fishman will be moving to Israel on Nefesh B’Nefesh’s charter aliyah flight in August and soon after be drafted in the Israeli army.

“Cosmopolitan elite” is the main phrase causing controversy in a speech Josh Hawley, U.S. senator for Missouri, gave July 16, but the ADL’s Karen Aroesty said it was only one part of a speech with several troubling references.

Hawley gave the speech at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, D.C. The conference of nationalist thinkers was organized by Yoram Hazony, an American-Israeli professor. Aroesty is regional director of ADL Heartland, which serves Missouri, Eastern Kansas and Southern Illinois and is based in St. Louis.

When Greg Azorsky and his family took a trip to Israel nearly five years ago, it led to serendipity early this year that resulted in a collaboration between him and Israeli fashion designer Elisha Abargel.

Azorsky is a graphic designer and owns Recognition Plus, an awards, promotional products and custom apparel company in Independence. He lives in Leawood and is a member of Congregation Beth Shalom.

The Jewish Social Justice Roundtable of Kansas City has formed to facilitate communication about various social justice efforts of Jewish agencies and congregations in the metropolitan area. The Jewish Community Relations Bureau|AJC is spearheading the effort, with the Roundtable meeting on a quarterly basis.

The Roundtable is an outgrowth and replacement of Jewish Voices United: A Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion (JVU), which formed in 2017 around the immigrant travel ban. JVU’s focus at the time was to use social action to stand with those most vulnerable and persecuted by demonstrating support for and promoting positive relationships among Kansas City’s diverse populations. Twelve organizations and congregations signed on as founding JVU members. 

Despite the current political stalemate between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, there are many grassroots efforts bringing Israeli and Palestinian people together for dialogue to pursue peace. It has been said that peace will come when Palestinians learn and appreciate the Israeli narrative and Israelis learn and appreciate the Palestinian narrative.

ISRAELI BASKETBALL ‘STAR’ TO VISIT KC  —  Former Kansas City resident Avinoam Sachs was one of 12 players selected to compete on the Elitzur Israel basketball team that spent the first half of July playing exhibition games in the United States and Canada.

Congregation Beth Torah welcomes Lezlie Revelle Zucker as their new music coordinator. Zucker has been part of the Beth Torah music program since she joined the congregation in 2009, starting out as a member of the Beth Torah volunteer choir, then working as part of the congregation’s worship team. Over the years, she has sung in almost every High Holy Day choir, helped garner Boogie-to-Broadway victories, and spieled her way through musical Purim parodies. She also participates in the wider Jewish community. She has been part of the choir and a soloist for the community Selichot service and has become a staple musician at the JFS Gathering for Spiritual Peace and Wholeness.