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LIFE IN PRISON  —  Last month a Jackson County jury found Brandon Howell guilty of a quintuple killing spree in a south Kansas City neighborhood in 2014. One of the victims was Susan Choucroun, an active member of the Jewish community.

We learned last week the convicted murderer will spend the rest of his life in prison. According to multiple local news sources, he was sentenced to five consecutive life sentences in prison without parole for each first-degree murder conviction.

Howell was convicted of a total of 11 felonies. He was also sentenced to life in prison for each of the four armed criminal action convictions, plus 15 years for the burglary conviction, plus one year for stealing. All those other sentences are set to run concurrently.

According to KSHB’s Andy Alcock, Choucroun’s brother, Ronald Sandhaus, who is the lone surviving member of his family after Howell shot and killed his sister, said in his victim’s statement that Choucroun, a lifelong teacher, had spent her last years volunteering to help people like Howell. He told Alcock she had really felt strong about helping people in the criminal justice system.

According to Fox4kc.com, “a memorial stands tall at the entrance of the Woodbridge neighborhood in South Kansas City” as a tribute to the five victims.

 

Smashed car windows outside a Chicago synagogue were not hate crime, police say (JTA)  —  The smashing of two car windows outside a Chicago synagogue was not a hate crime, according to local police.

A suspect has been arrested in the vandalism last week in West Rogers Park, a neighborhood with a large Jewish population. It was among 14 similar incidents in the neighborhood that took place over the course of May.

Police apprehended the suspect after finding him smashing windows, Alderman Debra Silverstein said in an announcement May 22.

“As suspected, the vandalism does not appear to have been a hate crime,” her statement said.

The vandalism occurred at about the same time as an attempted arson attack on a synagogue in another Chicago neighborhood.

 

VISITING ST. LOUIS? CHECK OUT THIS NEW KOSHER RESTAURANT  —  It’s been a week for reader tips, although I’ve also had this one for quite a while.

In April, Joe Pfefer let us know there’s a new kosher eatery in St. Louis. After further research I learned that Café Coeur, the St. Louis area’s first Japanese-Italian fusion restaurant, opened in early April at 10477 Old Olive Street Road in Creve Coeur.

It is owned by Moshe Plotnik and Yaniv Sides. Sides also owns restaurants in New York. Since it is kosher certified, it closes early on Fridays and remains closed on Saturdays for Shabbat and is also closed on Jewish holidays. Its menu includes kosher sushi, pizza, salads and Italian and fish specialties. For more information, call 314-439-8800 or go to cafecoeurstl.com.

 

CHUCKLE OF THE DAY  —  Last month while doing some last-minute Passover shopping, reader Susan Lebovitz spotted a jar of Brown Sugar & Spice Ham Glaze that is certified kosher. “Who knew?” she wrote, adding she thought our other readers might find it as funny as she did. I certainly did!

 

This jar of ham glaze features the OU’s circled-U hechsher symbol.

 

REPORT SAYS GREITENS TO DEPLOY TO MIDDLE EAST (JTA)   —  Eric Greitens, the former Missouri governor who resigned amid a sex scandal, has told friends and supporters he is planning to deploy with the U.S. Navy to the Middle East in the fall, The Kansas City Star reported.

The former Navy SEAL spoke of his plans in meetings over the past month, according to The Star.

Greitens, a 45-year-old Jewish Republican, resigned in May 2018 in the face of a possible impeachment in part because of charges stemming from an extramarital affair. He was accused of photographing the woman partially nude without her consent and illegally creating a political donor list from a separate veterans charity that he had founded. The charges have since been dropped.

Prior to the scandals, Greitens had been considering a presidential run. For two consecutive years he was a featured speaker at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual Las Vegas conference.

Harvey L. Miller (right) with brothers Jack (center) and Arnold, are shown in the early days of the Quill Corp. (Wikimedia Commons)
One of the first things Steve Miller and Bruce Barron did when planning their venture capital firm, Origin Ventures, was to send the business plan to Steve’s father, Harvey, for his input.
A legendary Chicago businessman and prominent philanthropist, Harvey L. Miller and his two brothers had built the Quill Corp. from a tiny company housed in their father’s live poultry shop into a national supplier of office products. In 1998, they sold the company to Staples.
“Harvey had yellow Post-it notes on just about every page of our document,” Barron recalled. “He wanted to understand every detail.”
That kind of attention was a hallmark of Miller’s business career. For more than four decades, Miller was Quill’s operations chief, helping to oversee a company that eventually grew to employ 1,200 people, shipped 72 million catalogs annually and operated distribution centers in eight locations across North America.
That attention to detail carries into Miller’s philanthropy. More than just writing checks, Miller has regularly immersed himself in the organizations he supports, serving on their boards, attending their meetings and bringing his creativity to bear in helping to advance their missions.
“You really want to know to whom and for what you are donating,” the 86-year-old Miller said, “and what you’re expecting out of it. And what you are going to expect in the way of operations and so forth. To me, that’s philanthropy.”
In 2015, that propensity led Miller to launch a groundbreaking collaboration between the California-based cancer center City of Hope and the Israel Cancer Research Fund, or ICRF, which funds cancer research in Israel across a variety of institutions. Named for Barron and his wife, Jacki, the five-year, $5 million program aims to advance cancer research by awarding joint research grants, supporting sabbaticals for researchers and hosting an annual symposium to share research discoveries.
“This is transformational philanthropy,” said Dr. Mark Israel, ICRF’s national executive director. “It goes beyond research support to provide a vehicle and the means for Israeli cancer researchers to work collaboratively and collegially with investigators at City of Hope.”
The initiative came about through a series of fortuitous connections. Barron first became involved in the ICRF when the organization honored Dr. Steven Rosen, the oncologist who cured his wife of breast cancer. Barron in turn asked Harvey Miller, whom he became acquainted with through his partnership with Steve Miller, if he would co-chair a 2015 dinner that ICRF was holding in the Barrons’ honor.
“For more than 20 years, Harvey’s vision has helped guide City of Hope’s mission to advance new therapies for those on the cancer journey,” said Rosen, director of City of Hope’s Comprehensive Cancer Center. “We are blessed to have Harvey’s guidance and support of our partnership with ICRF through the Barron program, bringing an international focus on developing insights into the complexities of cancer and innovative ways to help find new cures.”
Rather than just lend his name to the event, the elder Miller started to think about how he could have a deeper impact. As it happened, Rosen in 2014 had become the provost and chief scientific officer at City of Hope, which had long been the charity of choice of the office products industry. Miller already was a longtime supporter.
“I thought that was a pretty nice connection,” Miller said. “I called Dr. Rosen and I said I’d like to do something to honor Bruce and Jacki, and it seems to me that the top researchers at the City of Hope would benefit greatly by collaborating with the great researchers in Israel, who would also benefit greatly by collaborating with you.”
Miller knows a thing or two about successful collaborations. Quill’s growth was itself the result of a remarkable partnership between Miller and his brothers. Each had his own domain: Jack did sales, Arnold handled the money and Harvey made sure the products were delivered.
It’s a partnership that almost never happened.
A native of the Albany Park neighborhood of Chicago — he still lives in the city’s suburbs — Miller initially had pursued medicine, enrolling in a premed program at the University of Illinois. But within a year he had dropped out and joined the Navy. Over the next three years he circled the globe twice on a destroyer, specializing in underwater sound detection. On his return to Chicago in 1954, he found work at an electrical supply company earning $90 a week.
Jack launched Quill in 1956 and asked Harvey to join him, but Miller demurred. He had a decent job, was pursuing an electrical engineering degree at night and had a young son. But a year later he had a change of heart. Again, he dropped out of school.
“I’ve been told many times if I had finished college I could have been a success,” Miller notes dryly.
Quill did fine in its early years, and when Arnold joined in 1974, it began to really take off. The company was doing $5 million in sales at the time. By the time it sold to Staples in 1998, that number had increased more than a hundredfold.
Along the way, the company won a landmark Supreme Court case that effectively freed Quill’s customers from paying sales tax on interstate purchases, a ruling that remained in effect until last year.
After the Staples sale, the brothers began developing real estate around Chicago, but philanthropy remained a major focus. In addition to the ICRF, Miller is a major supporter of a number of causes, including the Illinois Holocaust Museum, Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium and the Jewish Theological Seminary, whose cantorial school is named for him.
“The example that my parents set and continue to set is that when you are blessed with wealth, you have a deep responsibility to give back,” Steve Miller said.
Miller’s gift to the ICRF is already going to support some promising research avenues. One study being funded by the program aims to understand how various bacteria in the gastrointestinal track can cause lung cancer to become resistant to chemotherapy treatments. Another project focuses on a class of drugs that can both enhance brain tumor imaging during MRIs and kill the tumors themselves.
Miller continues to stay involved in monitoring the impact of his gift. He has attended both symposia held under the auspices of the Jacki and Bruce Barron Cancer Research Scholars’ Program — in Duarte, California, and Jerusalem — where the researchers involved shared their findings.
“I didn’t understand a damn thing they were talking about,” Miller conceded. “They’re talking their language. I don’t speak that language.
“My purpose for going and my purpose for being in that room is to show support, to add a personal touch, to keep them grounded. I want to keep reminding everyone that the purpose and goal of my funding, and the result of all this research, must be cures and treatments for cancer.”
This article was sponsored by and produced in partnership with the Israel Cancer Research Fund, whose ongoing support of these and other Israeli scientists’ work goes a long way toward ensuring that their efforts will have important and lasting impact in the global fight against cancer. This article was produced by JTA’s native content team.

 

Students with the Technion’s Engineers Without Borders chapter worked with Haifa residents to develop a program to create better public spaces in the city’s Neve Paz neighborhood, an impoverished area with a large immigrant population. (Courtesy of the Technion’s Center for Global Engineering)
It’s a new, African version of the old adage about teaching a man to fish so you can feed him for a lifetime.
Except in Ethiopia it’s about teaching him — or her — to use cow manure to generate biofuel to power a clean-burning stove in their home.
In this case, Israeli engineering students are using technology to help rural villages become not just more environmentally sustainable, but reduce the labor and ill health effects that come with traditional, wood-based fuel for cooking.
Mark Talesnick, the Israeli professor behind the project, describes the cow manure initiative as “Shit for change.”
The biofuel oven is one of a variety of projects being spearheaded by the Israeli chapter of Engineers Without Borders, an international NGO that seeks to harness the skills of engineers to help the world’s underserved populations. The only Israeli chapter of the group is at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, where some 70 students work on projects under the oversight of Talesnick, a professor of civil and environmental engineering.
The program is part of the Technion’s Center for Global Engineering, whose mission is to create long-term, sustainable engineering solutions in communities that lack access to basic needs.
“About 10 years ago, I decided I was going to leave a mark. I was going to try to find a way that my students would light the path to positive impact,” Talesnick said in a November 2013 TED talk in Israel describing his impetus for the program. “It wasn’t simple. I had to think about what we were missing, what were we giving to our students while they were studying, and what did it mean when they left to go into the real world.”
The moral imperative that guides the work, Talesnick says, is to help the world’s “have-nots” while avoiding the cataclysmic environmental damage being wrought by the world’s “haves.” He also hopes to spur among students “a social conscience about how their work could change the world” while giving them the skills and hands-on experience to do so.
Working in five groups, their efforts range from a program to improve drinking water quality and reduce indoor air pollution in the Ethiopian cities of Lalibela and Mekelle to installing turbine and solar-powered heaters in Israel’s Negev Desert. The Technion’s Engineers Without Borders chapter also has constructed dozens of “biogas reactors” in rural Nepal, launched a renewable energy project in eastern Jerusalem and developed a program to create better public spaces in the Neve Paz neighborhood of Haifa, an impoverished area with a large immigrant population.
The first student-led project Talesnick spearheaded a decade ago sent Technion students to Nepal to develop the biogas reactors, which use natural animal and human waste to generate methane gas for cooking. In the reactors, organic waste such as animal excrement and vegetable scraps are kept in a pit while they decompose, eventually producing a slurry that can be used as fertilizer and biogas for use as an efficient fuel. The Technion students were able to produce the reactors using a much less labor-intensive process than traditional methods by developing a reusable bamboo mat to construct them.
Improving indoor cooking methods remains a major area of interest for the Israeli engineers. In many parts of the developing world, rural households use traditional wood and dung-burning ovens, burning “dirty” fuel in mud-and-straw homes with poor ventilation and investing hours of backbreaking labor to harvest wood. The carcinogenic smoke from these ovens causes major respiratory, vision and health problems — especially for mothers and their children, who spend a lot of time in the house.
This summer, a group of some 30 engineering students from Israel, Ethiopia and York University in Toronto will spend a month in Mekelle as part of a program run by the Technion’s Center for Global Engineering to develop chimneys and efficient fuel-burning stoves.
Tigabu Zegeye, a 21-year-old computer science and engineering student at the Mekelle Institute of Technology, participated in one of the summer programs two years ago and will be going back this summer. A big part of the challenge, he said, is outreach to local community members who might be resistant to change. The students going this summer will build a stove in a single household and then work with the local municipality to install it more widely.
“Sometimes people can get convinced if you show them some practical ideas. They get tired of the chimney blowing smoke back into the house,” said Zegeye, who grew up in a small village in rural Ethiopia about 100 miles from Mekelle.
Tamar Fradkin, 27, an architecture student at the Technion, did a summer course in the program in 2016. She took classes on globalization, the developing world and sustainability, and spent a week in a village in northern Ethiopia learning about local problems and helping devise solutions.
“It gave me one of the strongest tools I’ve received in my education — the human perspective on our work, an understanding of who we’re designing for,” Fradkin said. “In academia, often you’re studying books rather than learning and meeting real people in the field. This is one of the most important and practical things I’ve done. You feel that you’re doing something.”
Ari Van Der Merwe, a 24-year-old Technion student from Jerusalem, spent his summer in 2017 working on an Engineers Without Borders project much closer to home, in Haifa. His mission was to develop a project to help the local underserved population. Locals repeatedly said that what they needed was green, open space, something that was lacking in their community since a park in the neighborhood fell into disrepair years earlier.
While not a traditional engineering project, it required students to develop problem-solving and community outreach skills that are part of the Center for Global Engineering’s mandate.
“I was looking for something closer and really on the ground, where you can be there every week and you’re making a difference where you live,” Van Der Merwe said.
The students also volunteered at a local elementary school and explored a variety of other projects, including creating an Ethiopian-style cafe where new immigrants to Israel from Ethiopia could share their culture with their native Israeli neighbors in Haifa.
“For these communities, a little change makes a huge change in their quality of life,” said Dr. Avigail Dolev, director of the Center for Global Engineering.
Meanwhile, the students get hands-on experience using their education and skills to develop solutions to real-life problems.
“It’s a win-win situation,” Dolev said.
The American Technion Society supports visionary education and world-changing impact through the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. To learn more, go to ats.org.

 

The video-based learning program for European Jewish students is supplemented by in-person encounters like this Shabbaton in Berlin in March 2018. (Lauder Foundation)
When Jewish physicist Vladimir Osipov emigrated from his native Moscow 13 years ago, he first moved to Holon, a city in central Israel.
But it wasn’t until Osipov relocated with his family three years later to a mid-size city in Germany that they felt part of a vibrant Jewish community.
It wasn’t because of the preponderance of Jews in Duisburg, a city of about half a million people in Germany’s western Rhineland region. On the contrary, there are only about 2,500 Jews spread out across Duisburg and two neighboring cities.
In fact, the Osipovs’ main Jewish connection isn’t to their local Jewish community at all, but to a largely virtual one created by a Jewish day school in Berlin.
Osipov’s 12-year-old son is a student in a distance-learning program run out of the Lauder Beth Zion School of Berlin. The program, part of the Lauder e-learning network, teaches online courses in Hebrew and Jewish studies to students in outlying areas that don’t have local Jewish educational opportunities.
In an effort to reach out to a largely immigrant Jewish population that often lacks basic knowledge of Jewish life, the program also offers online courses and regular gatherings aimed at parents.
That’s where Osipov finally found his Jewish niche.
“This really changed my life,” Osipov said. “We don’t work on Shabbat now. In spite of the fact that we were in Israel, we were surrounded by non-religious people. Nobody invited us to participate in celebrating Shabbat. Here in school was the first time I took part in Shabbat and synagogue, with singing, reading Torah. This was the first time, and I enjoyed it a lot.”
Since 1987, the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation has been working to rebuild Jewish life in Central and Eastern Europe, opening schools, kindergartens, youth centers and summer camps in areas devastated by the Holocaust. With the launch of its online learning platform in 2012, the foundation focused on bringing formal Jewish education to areas where the Jewish presence isn’t large enough to sustain a brick-and-mortar facility.
Begun in Poland in 2012, the Lauder E-Learning Schools now provide online instruction in Hebrew and Jewish studies to more than 250 students in six European countries.
This isn’t some automated, computer-based learning program. Rather, it connects students via video with real teachers and other students in far-flung areas for live, video-based classes and discussions. Instructors teach the students in their native language and interact with them in real time. The program also brings children and their families together in person multiple times a year.
The program is entirely free of charge, and each participating student receives a tablet computer that permits two-way video, so the instructor can see the kids and vice versa.
“The Lauder Foundation saw that they were catering for people in capital cities, but there were still many children living outside of these cities where it was not possible to go to day schools,” said Gafna Ganova, one of the deputy directors of the Lauder school in Prague, whose e-learning program educates 42 Jewish kids ages 7-18. “So we created a program for families that either live in other communities where there are no Jewish schools or who live completely detached from the Jewish community.”
One of those families is the Syka family, which moved from Prague to Pretoria, South Africa, in 2016 when Anna Syková took a position at the Czech embassy there. Without a Jewish school in the South African capital, David Syka worried that his daughter, who was then about to start first grade at the Lauder school in Prague, would fall behind.
“For me, it was important that when we come back to the Czech Republic they will need to be at the same level as other kids in their classes,” said Syka, whose two children take Hebrew lessons online twice a week with a Czech-speaking instructor. “So it was important for them to start with Hebrew.”
In Germany, where over 100 students from 36 cities participate in e-learning, the program offers a wide range of learning opportunities, including a special track for Bar- and Bat-Mitzvah age teenagers that culminates in a trip to Israel, and a program for older teens called J Teens, in addition to adult learning. The 100 spots for this year’s Berlin Shabbat gathering sold out within hours, and the long waiting list prompted the foundation to seek out additional capacity.
Julia Konnik, who coordinates the e-learning program in Germany and teaches several classes, said the program has created lasting bonds between participants. She acknowledged, however, that it’s not always easy to hold student attention in an online classroom.
“You need to give your energy over so they will be energized,” Konnik said. “They need to see the sparkle in your eyes. Every second they’re watching you. One may think that you just sit in front of the computer like you’re watching Facebook or something. It’s totally not the same. To do it well, you need to give a lot of energy.”
In addition to Poland and Germany, Lauder e-learning programs are available in Slovakia, Hungary and Greece. Because many Jewish parents themselves lack Jewish knowledge, some of the programs also include online courses for adults.
Because the programs are aimed at families who live in places with limited access to Jewish life, the foundation brings families together several times a year for weekend gatherings where they attend synagogue services, enjoy Shabbat meals and go on outings. For many participants, it’s a rare opportunity to experience Jewish life and form enduring social connections with other Jewish students.
“Jewish life outside of Prague is not easy,” said Leo Pavlat, the Lauder foundation representative in Prague and the director of the Prague Jewish Museum. “Not because of the official obstruction, but because of the missing structure of Jewish life. These communities are very small ones. They have difficulties making a minyan. E-learning is the only way these kids encounter Judaism.”
For Petr Papousek, the current president of the Federation of Czech Jewish Communities, who lives some 150 miles from Prague, in Olomouc, the e-learning program provides the only formal Jewish education for his two children, ages 12 and 10. Some 150 Jews live in Olomouc, which boasts a synagogue, community center and a kosher kitchen — but no school. The Papouseks are one of just three traditionally observant families in Olomouc.
“The impact is huge, because without such a program most of the kids from the assimilated families — they wouldn’t be able to have any Jewish education,” Papousek said. “In this small country, we have 2,800 people registered in the Jewish communities of the Czech Republic. We count every soul. And as many souls are involved, we are happy.”
This article was sponsored by and produced in partnership with the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation, which works to strengthen the future of Jewish life in Europe through supporting excellent Jewish schools. This article was produced by JTA’s native content team.

 

Kesher KC Resource Center volunteers Lois Rice and Kelly Somberg. Volunteers are invited to join them in this new JFS program.

 

As part of the new Kesher KC program, Jewish Family Services has created an additional opportunity for volunteers. Known as Kesher KC Resource Center volunteers, they will play a key role in helping JFS reach more people and increase the positive impact of Kesher KC.

Kelly Somberg and fellow volunteer Lois Rice are leading the charge as Kesher KC Resource volunteers. This “dynamic duo” has been involved since November as part of a pilot program that is growing to engage more clients in Missouri, and eventually Kansas.

In their role as Resource Center volunteers, Somberg and Rice serve as a welcoming face of JFS and the first person that families connect with in person at JFS. Resource Center volunteers meet with families to identify needs and opportunities, provide information and referrals to agency and community resources and link families with immediate or complicated needs with the on-site social worker for further assessment and support.

“We want to get to know their story and what their needs are,” Somberg said. We do a brief description of what we offer and that we can connect them here. We also have a resource center of information about how other organizations may assist them with things JFS does not provide.”

 

Jewish Family Services’ Kesher KC integrates and builds on the success of its food pantry, social work and employment services. Kesher means connection in Hebrew, and it is the spirit of connection that defines the program. Program goals include: 

• Connecting and engaging meaningfully with individuals and families challenged by food, housing and financial insecurity;

• Connecting and linking individuals and families with the resources and services they want and need;

• Connecting staff and volunteers to bring coordinated, affirming services to life.

Kesher KC provides easy access to a range of on-site services centered on the food pantry, a primary access point for families struggling to meet basic needs. Kesher KC focuses on meeting the immediate needs of participating families and moves them toward a more secure future in an integrated manner. The program provides low-barrier access with welcoming and friendly engagement for individuals and families seeking assistance from JFS. Kesher KC also serves as a resource for services that JFS doesn’t provide but other community partners do.

Hillary Merryfield has helped facilitate more than 1,000 adoptions in the Kansas City area since 1986.

 

Hillary Light Merryfield beams with pride as she points to the 1,055 photos of adopted children displayed on two of the four walls in her Overland Park office.

A licensed clinical social worker, Merryfield opened her own adoption agency in 1986 and has been placing children in loving homes ever since. Adoption Option, Inc., a nonprofit organization, is the product of her passion for building forever families. 

“It’s exciting to see these tiny babies, and now they’re teenagers, or I’ve been invited to their weddings,” Merryfield said. “I love meeting people and helping families grow.”

The local adoption expert will share her experiences June 4 at the next meeting of Bloom, an infertility support group, which will meet at the Jewish Community Campus Board Room. 

 

Sam Fine

 

The Bronfman Fellowship has selected its 33rd cohort of intellectually curious 11th-graders from across North America, including Congregation Beth Torah’s Youth Group Co-President Sam Fine. Other Bronfman Fellows include the president of a club that helps support youth development in the African country of Eswatini, a young physicist whose studies on cosmic ray muons have been used by high schools throughout the country, a professional jeweler who works with ancient gemstones, and an activist who spoke to a crowd of thousands about the violence spawned by white nationalism in the wake of the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue.

The 26 Fellows, chosen from more than 230 applicants, will participate in a five-week program of study and travel in Israel, followed by a year of programming centered around pluralism, social responsibility and Jewish texts. They also interact with a group of Israeli peers who were chosen through a parallel selection process as part of the Israeli Fellowship, Amitei Bronfman. 

The Bronfman Fellowship was founded in 1987 by philanthropist Edgar M. Bronfman, formerly CEO of the Seagram Company Ltd. He passed away in December 2013.  

“Edgar Bronfman would have relished the opportunity to get to know this year’s Fellows,” said Becky Voorwinde, executive director of The Bronfman Fellowship. “They are a passionate, inquisitive, talented and incredibly bright bunch. I look forward to seeing them challenge and inspire one another and their communities throughout their lives.” 

Following a competitive application process, the 2019 Fellows are from 10 states and Canada and represent a wide range of Jewish backgrounds, including Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist and secularly/culturally Jewish.

Sam is a junior at Blue Valley High School. There, he participates in debate and business clubs, and has won numerous awards. He won first place at Business Professionals of America’s state competition in Banking and Finance and Personal Financial Management and finished in the top 20 in Personal Financial Literacy (PFL) at DECA’s National Leadership Conference. He also has won first place in PFL at DECA’s state competition for two years in a row. At school, Sam is also involved in Youth Court and honor societies for math, science, Spanish and English, and he is an officer in Investment Club. Outside of school, Sam is the senior patrol leader of Troop 10 and is very involved at his synagogue, Beth Torah. In addition to Beth Torah’s youth group, he is a teacher’s aide for Sunday school. He participates in NFTY, which he said has drawn him closer to his Jewish roots and has given him Jewish friends from around the region. He is interested in economics, politics and philosophy, and he plans to pursue a career in engineering. Sam is also a former winner of The Chronicle’s annual Hanukkah Art Contest, sponsored by Chabad House Center and The J. 

The Fellowship promotes the study of Jewish texts, traditions, history and culture as a way for Fellows to engage with each other and the world. The Fellows will study with an esteemed faculty including Gila Fine, editor-in-chief of Maggid Books (Koren Publishers Jerusalem) and a teacher at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies; Rabbi Dahlia Kronish, director of Jewish and student life at the Abraham Joshua Heschel School in New York; Jake Marmer, education and programming director of The Bronfman Fellowship, author of two poetry collections and contributing editor/poetry critic for Tablet Magazine; Evan Parks, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Germanic Languages at Columbia University where he studies German-Jewish thought and modern German literature; and Rabbi Yehuda Sarna, the executive director of the Edgar M. Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life at NYU and the university chaplain at New York University. 

For more information about The Bronfman Fellowship, including how to apply, visit bronfman.org.

 

Karen Agron Flattery and Kevin Flattery enjoy one of the many dance moments that the Jewbie Brothers offered during the Beth Torah Bash.

 

CONGREGATION BETH TORAH CELEBRATES 30 YEARS — 

It’s been a festive year for the Reform congregation founded in 1988. 

Congregation Beth Torah (CBT) began its yearlong anniversary celebration a little more than a year ago on May 4, 2018, with a Shabbat dinner following services. A full year of Pick a Parties followed, where congregants hosted different gatherings to build camaraderie and raise funds for the synagogue.

Celebratory events also included a luncheon following Rosh Hashanah services. This past year CBT hosted two scholars in resident, Rabbi Ron Wolfson and Rabbi Sam Joseph. Panim El Panim programs were established celebrating CBT’s history of tikkun olam and future social justice activities, including making the urban area of Kansas City a safer place through Tikkun KC, headedby CBT member Larry Myer, and making the synagogue’s own back yard more beautiful through the Beth Torah park cleanup program led by member Greg Zarobsky, as well as other projects.

The celebration continued April 13 with a BASH. There was music by the Jewbie Brothers, food by Kosher Connection, a silent auction and a parody of its history written by Estelle Edelbaum and Vic Finkelstein specifically for the 30th anniversary.

I’m told by reliable sources the Jewbie Brothers have offered to play again in another 30 years for the 60th anniversary celebration! Mazel tov Beth Torah on 30 years of being 

“a vibrant, modern Reform Jewish congregation where everyone matters.”

 

Estelle Edelbaum and Vic Finkelstein wrote ‘30 years of Beth Torah told in under 15 Minutes,’ an original parody to celebrate Beth Torah’s history. Performing the parody are Carol Ducak (from left), Zach Zwibelman, Nina Shik, Larry Rittmaster, Denise Ellenberg, Vic Finkelstein, Estelle Edelbaum, Fred Gustin and Lezlie Zucker.

 

KU HILLEL HAS ITS OWN CUSTOM COFFEE BLEND  —  

If you are one of those who believes “good ideas start with brainstorming, great ideas start with coffee,” then you should check out KU Hillel’s new Roasterie blend coffee.

 

Following a presentation by The Roasterie Kansas City Air Roasted Coffee Founder and CEO Danny O’Neill, several students suggested a KU Hillel blend. The students worked with O’Neill and his team at The Roasterie to create a completely custom coffee blend that is now available to purchase. Jacob Milgrim mixed up the winning coffee blend and Margo Hellman  won the label design competition. The coffee is described as creamy and rich with notes of pear, cocoa powder and hazelnut in the finish. A portion of the proceeds for every package purchased will support ongoing Jewish programming at KU Hillel.

To purchase, go to theroasterie.com/causes or search KU Hillel.

 

 

Rabbi Elana Nemitoff listens to her sponsor and father, Rabbi Arthur Nemitoff, speak to her during her ordination ceremony May 12.

 

It’s a busy time for Rabbi Elana Nemitoff. On Mother’s Day she was ordained by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR). On Father’s Day she will get married. Then on July 1 she will begin serving as rabbi/educator at Temple Israel in Westport, Connecticut, a 70-year-old congregation with approximately 800 member families.

The daughter of Leslie and Rabbi Arthur Nemitoff, the newest Rabbi Nemitoff was confirmed at The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah, the Reform congregation her father has served since 2003. He estimates his daughter joins a group of 18 to 20 children of the congregation, including him, who have become rabbis.

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