TOM’S TOWN IS KOSHER — According to our friends at the Vaad HaKashruth of Kansas City, one of the most recent and exciting additions to the kosher scene is Tom’s Town Distilling Co. Tom’s Town is a craft distillery that produces vodka, gin and bourbon. Its owners — David Eptsein and Steve Revare — call it Kansas City’s first legal distillery since Prohibition, which ran from 1920 to 1933. It offers a full bar and appetizers, event space for as many as 250 people and tours of its operation. The distillery’s kosher products hit the shelves a few weeks ago and you should be able to find Tom’s Town’s Botanical Gin, Double Grain Vodka and Double Oak Bourbon with the Vaad symbol along with the special batch code 19.01. In fact, all Tom’s Town’s products are kosher except Pendergast Royal Gold bourbon. You can pick them up directly at the distillery, located at 1701 Main St., or selected liquor stores.
MAZEL TOV RABBI DEBBIE STIEL — This week, Rabbi Debbie Stiel of Temple Beth Sholom in Topeka is attending the Central Conference of American Rabbis in Cincinnati, celebrating the 200th birthday of Isaac Mayer Wise and the 130th anniversary of the CCAR. She is also celebrating a milestone of her own, 25 years in the rabbinate. She was ordained by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati campus, and the seminary has a tradition of conferring an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree on its rabbis after 25 years of service to the Jewish people. During her career, she was the first female rabbi to serve a pulpit in Omaha, Nebraska and in Topeka, where she is now in her “Bat Mitzvah” year. She wrote in Beth Sholom’s April Bulletin, “I am truly honored to be your rabbi. And I am astounded, humbled, and grateful to God for the privilege of being a rabbi in Israel.”
RACIST AND ANTI-SEMITIC GRAFFITI DISCOVERED IN TOPEKA — Rabbi Stiel informed us early this week that anti-Semitic and anti-black content was recently discovered in a Topeka neighborhood. According to the Topeka Capital-Journal in an article written by Katie Moore, the graffiti, including a swastika, was sprayed on a street in an undeveloped part of a subdivision near Lake Shawnee.
Rabbi Stiel told the newspaper, “I am saddened to learn of this graffiti. Our city and our world deserve better.”
Another incident of anti-Semitic graffiti was reported in the area in August 2018.
The newspaper reported the graffiti discovered last week included disparaging remarks about Israel, blacks and Parkland student activist David Hogg.
NEW ON THE SHELVES, PART I — Blanche Sosland, Ph.D., has a new book out that we will feature in the pages of The Chronicle soon. In case you don’t want to wait a few weeks to read about it, you can order a copy of “Banishing Bullying Behavior: A Call to Action: From Early Childhood Through Senior Adulthood” on Amazon now. It’s available in paperback and Kindle format. It is a call to action that has been described as “a toolkit that exposes the ugly truths of the way we treat others and see others being treated. We so often associate bullying with young children and teenagers. But as the book makes clear, it is a cycle that does not stop until we work to stop it.” Stay tuned for more insight regarding Dr. Sosland’s newest book.
NEW ON THE SHELVES, PART II — Jaime Metzl also has a new book out, “Hacking Darwin: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humanity,” and you can find a review of it on Page 20. He will be in town next week for several events, including free lectures on the genetics revolution on Monday, April 8, at the Kansas City Public Library Plaza Branch, and Tuesday morning, April 9, at Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences. That night he will give the keynote speech at the Center for Practical Bioethics 2019 Annual Dinner.
KU’S AEPi HOSTS WALK TO REMEMBER — A fraternity at the University of Kansas is hosting an event Wednesday, April 10, commemorating the families who lost loved ones from the Holocaust. The second annual Walk to Remember event will include speeches from KU Hillel’s Rabbi Neil Schuster, KU Chabad’s Rabbi Zalman Tiechtel, KU Chancellor Douglas Girod and a Holocaust survivor. The 1.5-mile walk will begin after the speeches at the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity house, 1116 Indiana St., and begins at 5:30 p.m. Participants will walk to the Campanile and back to the AEPi house.
“We’re walking 1.5 miles, which is the distance of the walk from the death camp from Auschwitz to Birkenau where millions were killed,” said Evan Satlin, Alpha Epsilon Pi’s civics chair and the event coordinator.
Members of the Lawrence and surrounding communities are encouraged to attend the free event.
AEPi MIZZOU’S ROCKIN’ ROUND THE CLOCK — Our friends at the St. Louis Jewish Light and its editor, Ellen Futterman, provided us with this story about the AEPi chapter at the University of Missouri’s annual Rock-A-Thon.
Mizzou senior Edan Goldfarb admits he’s not quite sure how to prepare himself to rock in a chair for 63 straight hours without a bathroom break. But he said he’s determined to do just that in downtown Columbia from 6:30 a.m. today (Thursday, April 4) to 9:30 p.m. Saturday, April 6, to raise money for the American Cancer Society and March of Dimes.
Goldfarb is indeed putting the “rock” in the Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) Rock-A-Thon, the largest single fraternity philanthropy in the country, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.
“I still haven’t gotten the answer as to exactly how I will do this, but I’m planning to go with the flow and figure it out. I am committed to this,” said Goldfarb, a senior in broadcast journalism. “For me, rocking in a chair for 63 hours doesn’t seem all that difficult, especially compared to the people who are fighting cancer and other terrible diseases. What they are doing is 10 times harder than what I am about to do.”
The 100-plus brothers of AEPi elected Goldfarb to this task, who said he had wanted to do this since his freshman year. While he rocks, his fraternity brothers will canvass throughout mid-Missouri, St. Louis and Kansas City for donations. The public can also donate online, at crowdrise.com/mizzourockathon. More information is available at mizzourockathon.com.
“Our hope is to break the record we set in 2015 of $132,000,” said co-chair Jordan Bernstein, a senior at Mizzou majoring in business and economics. Bernstein explained that since the every-other-year Rock-A-Thon started in 1969, AEPi has collected close to $1 million. This year, to celebrate the 50th anniversary, AEPi hosted a gala, featuring former Mizzou football coach and cancer survivor Gary Pinkel, along with a golf tournament at Forest Park in St. Louis with hopes of raising more money than ever before.
“We wanted to hit it out of the park this year,” said Bernstein, adding that part of this year’s mission is to spread awareness about pancreatic cancer, the third-leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States. (Check out more in St. Louis Jewish Light at stljewishlight.com.)
DO YOU HAVE YOUR HAGGADOT READY? — Passover begins the evening of Friday, April 19, and if you are like me you are already thinking about the seder. Reader Maury Kohn sent me a note that he and his wife discovered you can order large-print haggadahs free from JBI International (Jewish Braille Institute). I discovered they are also accessible for download and are available in several languages. To receive the book by mail, books need to be ordered before April 12. Visit jbilibrary.org or call 800-999-6476 for more information.
If you are looking for downloadable haggadahs to enhance your seder experience, a simple Google search will give you a variety of other options. Don’t forget beautiful hard copies, which can be found at our local synagogue gift shops and at a variety of online retailers, are also lovely options.
MAXWELL HOUSE IS OFFERING A ‘MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL’ HAGGADAH (JTA) — Real-life tradition and television nostalgia collide in a collaboration between the venerable Maxwell House Haggadah and the hit Amazon series “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”
The coffee company is offering a limited-edition version of its Haggadah featuring illustrations and other shtick based on the show about an aspiring Jewish comedian and her extended family of Jewish relatives in late 1950s New York.
The “Maisel” Haggadah is a throwback to an earlier edition of the Haggadah, which the company has been offering as a holiday giveaway since 1932. Illustrations of Midge Maisel and other characters are scattered throughout the new version, which also has handwritten notations by Rachel Brosnahan’s character as well as faux wine stains.
The limited-run Haggadahs are available to those who order Maxwell House coffee via Amazon.com.
“There is an organic link between the Maxwell House and ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ brands, and we quickly aligned on the idea of creating Midge’s Haggadah — a combination of the 1958 classic version and Midge’s amazing personality,” Naor Danieli, brand manager for Maxwell House, said in a statement.