LOCAL RABBIS DON’T WANT THE HOLOCAUST COMPARED TO ABORTION — The local daily newspaper as well as other Jewish newspapers across the country picked up a story last week that The Rabbinical Association of Greater Kansas City is urging a Republican politician from Kansas City to stop comparing abortion to the Holocaust.
The Rabbinical Association of Greater Kansas City wrote a letter to State Sen. Steve Fitzgerald saying his words “abuse the memory of the murdered victims of the Nazi regime,” The Kansas City Star reported last week. (See the entire text of the letter on Page 21.)
Fitzgerald, who is running to be the Republican nominee for a U.S. House of Representatives seat from Kansas’ 2nd District, has compared Planned Parenthood to a Nazi concentration camp and brought up infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele in a Kansas Senate debate over an amendment involving aborted fetal tissue.
Fitzgerald made the Planned Parenthood comments last year after he was informed someone made a donation to the organization in his name. In a contentious debate last month Fitzgerald compared the logic of a moderate Republican colleague to that of Mengele.
The conservative Republican from Leavenworth said he would take the rabbis’ words “into consideration and under advisement” but would not commit to stop bringing up Holocaust topics during abortion debates.
“I don’t think anybody should accept arbitrary limits placed upon the exercise of their freedoms,” Fitzgerald told The Star.
The Rabbinical Association is not the only local Jewish organization to register concerns regarding Fitzgerald’s comparison of abortion to the Holocaust. In early April the JCRB|AJC sent the senator a letter urging “caution in drawing any analogy to the Nazis and their genocidal persecution of the Jews. The Holocaust was a singular, horrific event that to this day defies comparison. Surely, the notorious Dr. Mengele, whose very role at Auschwitz came to personify this evil, remains in a category by himself.”
(Portions of this story were supplied by JTA News & Features.)
MISSY’S WAY — Every day during the school year, Melissa “Missy” Palan Goldenberg would stand in the circle drive and welcome students to the Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy. She did it regardless of the weather – wind, rain, sleet, snow and most definitely sunshine. So, it is fitting the clouds started to part Tuesday morning just in time for the outdoor ceremony dedicating the circle drive as Missy’s Way in memory of Goldenberg, who passed away in September 2017 after battling cancer.
“No one I knew was more dear to us,” said Rabbi Avi Weinstein, head of Jewish studies. “This sign will remind all of us who we should be because that’s Missy’s way.”
“Missy’s way was seeing the best in all of us,” added HBHA Head of School Howard Haas.
Goldenberg worked as a resource teacher at HBHA for nine years. Because Goldenberg used to wear a red coat during cold weather, HBHA staff wore red shirts with Missy’s Way printed on them at Tuesday’s dedication ceremony. Students also wore red shirts in her honor.
“Missy was an absolute inspiration to students, staff and the community,” Haas told Chronicle Contributing Writer Jerry LaMartina. “She had a loving, compassionate, wonderful heart. She was kind and strove every moment to make the world a better place, and that’s what we teach our students to do. The reason we called it Missy’s Way is that Missy had a way about her.”
Goldenberg was loved by HBHA staff and students alike because of “the light in her eyes, the warmth in her heart and the loving kindness that just exuded from her being,” Haas said. “No one could not love Missy.”
Besides teaching at HBHA, Goldenberg was also an adjunct professor at the University of Saint Mary, where she taught in the graduate school of education. Goldenberg was active in numerous community organizations and served on the boards of Congregation Beth Shalom and the National Council of Jewish Women. Missy and her husband Jeff Goldenberg have three daughters, Elana, Kayla and Mirra. Kayla will graduate later this month from HBHA, Elana graduated in 2016 and Mirra is a sophomore at the school.
MILES FOR MISSY BIKE CHALLENGE — Carol Pfau says biking is in her blood, so what better way to honor the memory of her friend Missy Goldenberg than riding 500 miles to raise funds for STAND UP TO CANCER from June 1 through July 31. Pfau, who is executive assistant to Howard Haas and Dr. Jessica Kyanka-Maggart at HBHA, will be doing so with an e-bike, a bicycle that can be run on electric power as well as by pedaling. For the most part Pfau can be found “out on the streets or trails every day during the nice weather.”
“Cancer is a devastating disease that affects millions of people.” Pfau said. “I’m sure it has touched each and every one of your lives in very similar ways. I have set an initial goal to raise $1,000 to help STAND UP TO CANCER fight this terrible disease.”
To donate, write a check to STAND UP TO CANCER, write Miles for Missy in the memo and mail or deliver it to HBHA, Attn: Carol Pfau, 5801 W. 115th St., Overland Park, KS 66211.
Donations can also be made online through Pfau’s Facebook page. For more information email her at .
GREENBERG AND KC TORNADOS HEAD TO THE PLAYOFFS — Grant Greenberg has completed his rookie season with the playoffs-bound Kansas City Tornados of the North American Premier Basketball League.
This was the Tornados’ first season in the league and they finished with 15 wins and 15 losses. Greenberg played the entire season and will be on the roster for the first playoff game, Friday, May 4, at Avila University against the first-place Yakima Sunkings in a best-of-three series.
Greenberg’s first season with the Tornadoes went pretty well, he told Chronicle Contributing Writer Jerry LaMartina.
“It was a learning experience at first, and I’m just trying to build on this year going into year two, work on my game and get better,” he said. “It definitely was a great experience.”
He has not yet signed with the Tornados for another season.
Greenberg is Jewish and lives in Leavenworth, Kan. He was invited to the Tornados three-day training camp last December and then was invited to join the 10-man team. The Tornados play home games at Municipal Auditorium in downtown Kansas City.
Greenberg holds the record for points scored in collegiate men’s basketball career in the state of Kansas – 3,330 points for the University of Saint Mary in Leavenworth. He also achieved another goal last year: he played on Team USA’s men’s basketball team in the 20th Maccabiah Games (commonly known as the Jewish Olympics) from July 4-18 in Israel. The team won the event’s gold medal.
JFS’ GENIUS IDEA — Last week I had the honor of attending Jewish Family Services’ annual Friends of the Family Breakfast Event with a large crowd in the Social Hall of the Jewish Community Campus. That same day JFS hosted an even bigger crowd for lunch. We learned all about the new You Be You mental health program for youth that is already impacting thousands of high school youth in the metro area. You Be You is led by the Greater Kansas City Mental Health Coalition, of which JFS is the founding organization and leader of its core programs. We heard a very moving story from one of the agency’s clients about how it kept her from “dropping down the cracks.”
“Because of this organization, I didn’t get put in a nursing home and it helped me learn to make good decisions,” the client said. “I learned to make good decisions and they helped me make simple choices and my whole life has changed.”
That tugged at the heartstrings. Financially and philanthropically I was drawn the JFS’s new Dip Jar. The “genius” idea is the brainchild of JFS Executive Director and CEO Don Goldman. Now, if invited to an event where you were asked to bring food or toiletries for the JFS Food Pantry and forgot, instead of kicking yourself for being forgetful you can make a small donation to JFS at the event. The Dip Jar is set to a small amount, usually $1 or $2 as is noted on the front of the little electronic collection machine. Just take out your credit or debit card and – even though you left at home those cans you bought for the event – you can still make a small donation and help the JFS pantry feed hundreds of families.