This group of Muslim, Christian and Jewish students participating in an interfaith program spent their first meeting getting to know each other last year at Pinstripes in Overland Park.
This year’s first Jewish baby was born at 1 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 3, to Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy graduate Isaac Gortenburg and his wife Carah at Shawnee Mission Medical Center. The couple’s first child, Shoshana Marie Gortenburg, entered the world with a full head of brown hair, weighing 7 pounds, 9 ounces and measuring 21 inches long. Her father described her eyes as grayish-blue “for now.”
The Gortenburgs named their daughter Shoshana because mom Carah thinks it’s “a very pretty name.” Her parents also like the nicknames that go along with it, and may call her Shosh, Shosha and Shoshie. In Hebrew, Shoshana means rose. Shoshana appears in the Bible in Song of Songs 2:2, as “standing out like a rose amongst the thorns.” In kabbalah, Shoshana has the same numeric value (661) as Esther, the hero of the Purim story who lived in the city of Shushan (related to “Shoshana”).
The baby’s middle name, Marie, was chosen in honor of Isaac’s grandmother, Mary.
Isaac and Carah attend programs at Chabad on the Plaza. Isaac grew up in the Kansas City Jewish community and graduated from HBHA in 2004. He moved away for several years — during which time he met Carah. At the time they didn’t live in the same city, but began living in the same city when they both moved to Denver in 2014. He moved to back to Kansas City in May 2015 and Carah, who is from South Florida, soon followed and “loves it here.” Together as a couple for five years, they were married Nov. 28, 2017. He is currently president of multifamily at Eighteen Capital Group, a private equity firm and family office focusing on real estate, specifically value-added multifamily housing investments. Carah describes herself “as a full-time stay-at-home mom now.”
Carah is not Jewish, but plans on converting in the future.
“Absolutely the baby will be raised Jewish,” the Gortenburgs said.
As for being parents, Isaac said that even though he’s only been a father for a short time, “it’s even more amazing than I anticipated.”
“It still doesn’t feel real sometimes,” Carah added. “I look at her and I just can’t believe she’s mine. It’s a really cool feeling.”
The baby is the granddaughter of Karen and Michael Gortenburg, and Rob and Rhona Mancuso of Jupiter, Florida. She is the great-granddaughter of Roberta Fallon of Franklin, North Carolina.
Shoshana and her parents will receive a free one-year subscription to The Chronicle and gifts from the following advertisers in honor of being the First Jewish Baby of 2018:
Engraved crown ring from Brookside Jewelry BKS
$25 gift certificate from Cosentino’s Price Chopper
Bouquet from Craig Sole Designs
An overnight stay and breakfast for two in the Trofi Restaurant from the Doubletree by Hilton Kansas City-Overland Park
$25 gift certificate from Gates Bar-B-Q
$500 gift certificate toward kindergarten tuition at the Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy and a Future Ram bib
Two tickets to any Spring 2018 show at Carlsen Center of the Johnson County Community College and $50 at Garozzo’s Ristorante
Two tickets to a performance of your choice in the 2017-2018 season at KC Actors Theatre
$25 gift certificate from Rileys Phillips 66
To tickets to a performance of your choice during the 2017-2018 season at the Unicorn Theatre
Refugee children settled by Jewish Vocational Services enjoyed celebrating their birthday at last year’s party with cake, games, balloons and face painting.
Refugees who have been resettled in the Kansas City area within the past year will celebrate their very first birthday in America on Sunday, Jan. 21. Congregations B’nai Jehudah and Beth Torah are partnering with Jewish Vocational Services to make this happen.
Many young adults from our area have spent time visiting Israel this winter break on Birthright trips, including three Haith siblings who are participated in Shorashim Birthright. On the trip they met a group of three Rosenzweig sisters from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Pictured visiting Masada are Ellie Haith (from left), Sydney Rosenzweig, Taylor Rosenzweig, Jenna Haith, Lauren Rosenzweig and Jake Haith.
THE TORCH IS PASSED — At the beginning of 2018, longtime Chronicle advertiser and Realtor Anita Chaplick decided to step away a bit from her Better Homes & Gardens real estate team, handing over the management reigns to her partner, Lisa Ruben.
Sollie Flora will be sworn in as a Mission, Kansas, councilwoman on Monday, Jan. 8.
Sollie Flora defeated long time Ward IV incumbent, Mission City Councilwoman Suzie Gibbs, in the Nov. 7 election. She will be sworn into office on Monday, Jan. 8.
Grant Greenberg takes a shot while playing in the Maccabiah Games in Israel in July 2017. Team USA won the gold medal in men’s basketball. Dov Halickman Photography
Danny O’Neill, founder of The Roasterie, sits with his mentor, Henry W. Bloch, co-founder and honorary chairman of H&R Block, at The Roasterie’s newest shop in the H&R Block building.
Now that Hanukkah 2017/5778 is behind us, it’s only 100 days until Passover. Earlier this year Rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg published “Rosenberg English Holocaust Haggadah For Passover: Holocaust Poems and Essays to Supplement the Seder.” (Paperback, May 2017)
In January of 2000, Debra Gill spoke at an event called “The Spirit of One’s Soul” at the Jewish Community Center. She gave a presentation on her recent surgery; a lifesaving kidney/pancreas transplant that she had received three months earlier.
