From Kansas City to Kiryat Arba

Judy (Simon) Kamm grew up in greater Kansas City, but today she lives near the ancient city of Hebron in the disputed territory known to most as the West Bank, but to many Jews as Judaea and Samaria.

Kamm lives in the Jewish suburb (or settlement, as some call it) known as Kiryat Arba with her Israeli husband, Menashe. Born in Kansas City, Mo., to Kehilath Israel Synagogue members, the late Alfred and Elfie Simon, Judy grew up in Kansas City and attended Southwest High School.

For her junior year, she went to the Hebrew Academy in Chicago, then on to the Chicago Teachers’ College. From there, in 1962, she went on hachshara (preparation) for a year to Kibbutz Yavne, but stayed another year to go to Machon Gold, a teachers’ training institute. While there, through mutual friends, she met Menashe Kamm. They married in 1964.

“It was so hard to live here. After we had our first child, I coerced Menashe into leaving, and we went to Kansas City in 1966.”

While living in Kansas, they both taught at Congregation Ohev Sholom, four more children were born, and they remained for seven years.

About that time, Rabbi Moshe Levinger, a leader of the post-’67 Jewish settler movement, who was a good friend of Menashe’s, began advertising for families to come join him in Hebron.

“He said we had to come to live in Kiryat Arba, so we came in 1973,” said Judy.

Menashe was a high school teacher and historian, and she was a housewife. Eventually, they built a house and planted 13 fruit trees.

Today, they are the parents of 10 children, ranging in age from 42 to 22, around 35 grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.

Like everyone else
“My life is very much like everyone else’s,” Judy Kamm says, “being a housewife; home with the kids. All the girls but one went to sherut l’eumi (national service in lieu of the armed forces); one daughter went to the army. The boys went to the army, and one was a hero in the Lebanon War.”

Five out of the six girls are nurses, two are midwives. One of the girls was injured by a thrown bayonet when she was a 2-year-old. Today she’s a nurse in intensive care at Hadassah Medical Organization in Ein Kerem. One son is a lawyer, one is an engineer, one is in law school and one is learning electronics.

How does she feel having lived these 36 years surrounded by hostile Arabs? “When we lived here in 1973, there were 70,000 Arabs; today there are 400,000,” says Judy. “In 1973, we counted families; today there are thousands of Jews. I think Israel is surrounded by hostile Arabs. Every community is surrounded by hostile Arabs —Tel Aviv, Jerusalem. We’re on an island in a sea of hostility, but I feel comfortable. This is my home. I came here when I was 17; the situation is temporary. We will survive.”

Judy’s parents came to live in Kiryat Arba in 1989, but then her mother returned to the United States and passed away in 2002. Her father is buried in Hebron.

Last month, two Kiryat Arba women were stabbed at the local gas station; inspectors have been posting notices on partially finished buildings that the construction must be frozen; there are groups of soldiers stationed throughout the section of Hebron in which Jews are allowed to live and move about.

How does Judy feel about this situation?

She says that, in general, people are very optimistic, especially in Judea and Samaria (i.e., the West Bank).

“For 35 years, we’re hearing there will be sanctions, and we have to leave. The building freeze is ridiculous. Arabs are building without permission. Israel is growing and prospering. The goyim are trying to weaken us and take our land, but if they take the land, we’ll only be a people.”

‘Saving Israel’ author here for AIPAC

The changes Rabbi Daniel Gordis has been through are reflected in the topics of the books he’s written. When he lived in the United States, he wrote such tomes as “God Was Not in the Fire: The Search for a Spiritual Judaism” (1995, Simon & Schuster) and “Becoming a Jewish Parent: How to Explore Spirituality and Tradition with Your Children” (1999, Crown). Since he made aliyah, his titles have included “If a Place Can Make You Cry: Dispatches from an Anxious State” (2002, Crown) and his latest, “Saving Israel: How the Jewish People Can Win a War That May Never End” (2009, Wiley).

Rabbi Gordis will be the featured speaker Jan. 24 at the second annual Kansas City Israel Action Forum sponsored by American Israel Public Affairs Committee. (See below for details)

Rabbi Gordis now serves as senior vice president and senior fellow of the Jerusalem-based think tank the Shalem Center. He is the father of two Israeli army veterans, with a third soon to enlist.

His latest book posits the notion that the survival of the world’s only Jewish state is more important than Israel having peace with her neighbors.

Rabbi Gordis reminds “Saving Israel” readers of the purpose of Zionism, “a revitalization of Jewish peoplehood … that cannot unfold anywhere else.” He continues:

“A return to a sense of purpose, and even uniqueness, is thus a key to Israel’s working its way out of its present conundrum.”

The Chronicle reached Rabbi Gordis at his Jerusalem office this week and posed the following questions. His answers have been edited for space and clarity.

Q: In 2003, when we last spoke, you still had hope for peace between Israel and the Arabs. In 2010, do you?

A: I do think that the chances for a peace deal at any point in the near future, unfortunately, are very slim. While Israel is hardly blameless, the Israeli people would overwhelmingly, tomorrow, approve a real peace deal; even one with massive evacuation of big parts of the (disputed) territories. I’d have mixed feelings, but Israelis would overwhelmingly approve. Unfortunately, with any level-headed look at what’s going on in the Middle East, the Arabs — and Hezbollah and Hamas, to be sure — have not yet accepted the idea of a functioning Jewish state in the Middle East. They haven’t accepted a two-state solution. Israel has done more to create a Palestinian state than the Palestinians themselves have done.

Having said that … to be entirely focused on the Israel-Palestine conflict sidetracks us from major, societal issues that Israel has to face — immigrants, violence, culture, etc. I worry that we focus only on trying to arrive at peace, and put everything else aside, and peace is not around the corner …

We have to be in a stage of low-level violence. We have to try to conduct warfare as morally as we possibly can … but we’re not about a conflict. Nor is America about Afghanistan or Iraq alone. The U.S. is the world’s greatest superpower; it’s about democracy. So the conflict is skewing the picture of what Israel is ultimately about, and the book is to assert the other strategic issues that Israel will have to face: what kind of role will democracy have to play here; what role religion will or will not play in Israel discourse; how to handle the ultra-Orthodox; the Israeli Arabs, etc.

Q: What’s your opinion of President Obama’s Arab-Israeli peacemaking efforts?

A: I think Obama has made some very egregious mistakes. He is an incredibly smart guy, and I believe he is not trying to do Israel ill. I think he doesn’t understand, although he is learning, and, had the Christmas day attack succeeded, he would have learned even more quickly that the Muslims he met in Indonesia as a child are not same Muslims we have as neighbors here. His approach to the world is that all great problems can be solved. But he doesn’t understand the level of hatred Muslims have for the very idea of a Jewish state in the Middle East and the intransigence.

The Cairo speech was problematic but eloquent. It was basically about reaching out to the Muslim world, but they haven’t embraced it. If anything, the vitriol is getting more vicious, and the terrorism has been stepped up.

His second mistake was that he raised the (Israeli) settlements to a level of significance they don’t deserve. A freeze on settlement construction might be a great strategic move or a suicidal strategic move. It’s lots of things, but it’s not the reason there is not peace. (Palestine Authority President Mahmoud) Abbas negotiated with Israeli governments for years, all of which were building settlements. But when Obama got the idea to say something about it, suddenly Abbas can’t negotiate as long as you are building in the settlements. Obama uses the word settlement to … refer to Gilo, which is adjacent to Jerusalem and which was never Arab land. That is the same word you use to speak about a caravan in the middle of nowhere that fanatics have opened up on Arab land. When you use the same word, you lose a certain amount of moral credibility.

The last thing is that everyone who follows the Middle East crisis can tell you what Obama wants from Israel — a settlement freeze. What does he want the Arabs to do? There have been some little requests, flyover rights for El Al and such. But what specific demand has he made of the Palestinians, or other Arab governments, as clear as the settlements are to Israel? Nothing.

So what he has done — unintentionally, I hope — is he made settlements more important than they are, and been very unfair to Israel, and made Israel look like the recalcitrant one. I am disappointed, but I am not giving up yet. He may also learn. He is not going to get away all four or eight years without a major terror attack.

Q: What is the best way to counter the anti-Israel tactics of BSD (Boycott, Sanctions, Divestment) and “lawfare”?

A: The call for boycott is a symptom of a larger challenge. The real challenge of the new decade is the delegitimization of Israel, which is manifested in ways like boycotts, like the U.N.’s Goldstone report, which holds Israel to a standard it can never meet and which the U.S. doesn’t begin to rise to in Afghanistan or Iraq. It’s manifest in academic boycotts, in Tony Judt writing in the New York Review of Books that Israel is an anachronism and needs to be replaced. It’s manifest in the fact that there is only one country about which there is a question about whether it has a right to exist. The Palestinians have failed in a whole array of ways — militarily, with economic boycotts in the ’70s, with terror in the ’90s and in the early 21st century, and now they are taking their case to the international court of public opinion. If anyone thinks this is not a dangerous move for us, think of what happened to South Africa. I’m not saying that because Israel is an apartheid state, because clearly it’s not, but because the international community decided that South Africa shouldn’t exist. … We could find ourselves … in a binational state; not a Jewish state anymore.

Q: How can we, American Jews, best educate our children about Israel and Zionism?

A: We have to first get our kids to Israel. Only 30 percent of American Jews have been to Israel. That percentage has to be reversed. Seventy percent of American Jews have to visit Israel, because once they get here, they will realize that a lot of what they read in the press simply does not fit. We have got to get them to know that each Israeli attempt to create a peaceful solution gets rebuffed, now by the Palestinians and in the past by Arabs.

Q: How can we win a war that may never end? Doesn’t the Muslim numerical advantage doom us, absent a miracle?

A: We have to hope there will be peace eventually. There are a lot more Muslims than Americans. Is America finished? … It doesn’t mean we have to roll over and play dead. … Israel is simply the bellwether for the whole international community when it comes to facing terrorism. It doesn’t mean we are doomed. We simply have to have a sense of purpose. The real danger is a loss of purpose. Israel was designed to give the Jewish people a place to heal; to discover for the first time in 2,000 years what happens when Jewish ideas, texts and values are the dominant ideas of just one country on the planet.

The purpose of Israel is not to have an army or an orchestra, but a place where the Jewish people can thrive like any other people. When the Arabs are ready to make peace, we will make serious accommodations. Until then, we will defend ourselves and not lose sight of ideals, our thriving Jewish culture and art, our education system. We will turn ourselves back to the challenge of making Israel a place where the Jewish people thrive, and not merely where they survive.

Hear Rabbi Gordis here

Rabbi Daniel Gordis will be the featured speaker at the Kansas City Israel Action Forum, set for 1:30 to 5 p.m. Sunday, July 24, at Kehilath Israel Synagogue. Light refreshments will be served (dietary laws observed). There is an $18 couvert per person; $5 for students.

Register online at www.aipac.org/kcforum2010 or contact Kansas City Area Director Melody Mokhtarian at (312) 253-8986 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Event co-chairs are John Isenberg and Bonnie Siegel.

Registration and check-in start at 12:45 p.m. The program starts at 1:30 p.m. with a legislative update from Brian Abrahams, AIPAC’s Midwest regional director. He will be followed by Rabbi Daniel Gordis speaking on “The Future of Israel, Zionism and the U.S.–Israel Alliance.”

Breakout sessions starting at 3:30 p.m. include such topics as “Nuclear Nightmare: The Consequences of an Iranian Bomb” and “Israel Today — Exception to the Rule: Israel’s Outsized Achievements.”

Gifts swell Hebrew Academy endowment

The Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy has more than doubled the size of its supporting endowment with the successful, year-end conclusion of a $3 million fundraising campaign.

“We started raising this money about a year and a half ago,” said Headmaster Howard Haas. “The major impetus was a matching grant from Sosland Foundation for $1 million, and then from the Menorah Legacy Foundation and Jewish Heritage Foundation for another million dollars. This is more than we’ve raised at the Hebrew Academy since its inception, and the endowment is larger than it’s ever been.”

The Academy’s supporting endowment had previously been at $2 million, Haas said, and now it rises to $5 million.

He attributed the success of the campaign to the leadership of the board of trustees, headed by its president, Dr. Scott Sher.

Haas said the recent alumni event in Chicago, which he attended, drew 35 people and raised over $5,000.

“So much of our success is that people have come forward who haven’t given before,” Haas said.

The Soslands are among the founding families of HBHA, and Sosland Foundation executive director and HBHA alumna Debbie Sosland Edelman said the foundation was pleased to help.

“For longer than a generation, day schools have been a cornerstone of Jewish life in America, and we are fortunate to have as fine an institution as the HBHA in Kansas City,” Sosland Edelman said. “Our gift, the joint committee’s and the outpouring of major donations from the HBHA board, parents as well as the community recognize both the importance of the school and the financial resources day schools need to thrive in 2010 and beyond. We hope this successful endowment campaign prompts others to give, seeing how this wonderful school may become even greater.”

Haas said the larger endowment is expected to throw off greater returns that will be used to defray operating expenses.

“Especially during these tough economic times, we couldn’t be more pleased,” said Haas. “We just thank the whole community.”

Local PJ Library a win-win for parents and kids

Children, and their parents, have embraced The PJ Library since it began in Kansas City almost three years ago. By the end of 2009, almost 800 local Jewish children between the ages of 6 months and 8 years were enrolled in the program and receive an age-appropriate Jewish book or CD from The PJ Library each month. As one of its twice-yearly special events, The PJ Library, a program of the Jewish Federation, will present the Mama Doni Band on Sunday, Jan. 17. (See more information below)

Karen Gerson, the local PJ Library director as well director of information education for CAJE, the educational arm of the Jewish Federation, said The Mama Doni band is “Jewish rock with a twist for all ages.”

“She specifically performs for the 0 to 8 to 10-year-old crowd,” Gerson said. “The great thing about Mama Doni is that she’s engaging and she’s involved in her concerts. She gets off the stage and dances and gets involved with the kids. She has a great stage presence.”

Gerson said PJ Library’s other event this year will be the second annual PJ in the Park at Harmon Park in Prairie Village on June 13. Each family brings their own lunch and can participate in activities which will include balloon artists, make-up artists and bubbles.

“These events are a great opportunity for families to come and enjoy each other’s company. The important thing about PJ Library, at least for this community, is that we didn’t bring it in just for the books. The hope was that families would feel comfortable enough to come to a program and meet other families that were like minded. The books were the first step,” Gerson explained.

Todd Stettner, Federation’s executive vice president and CEO, believes The PJ Library has been a “phenomenal success.”

“The number of families who show up is incredible and it allows us to reach out to people we wouldn’t normally reach. Hopefully, it will lay the path to for parents to get their kids engaged whether it’s in Jewish preschool or religious school or holiday celebrations,” he said.

The local program is affiliated with the national PJ Library, established in 2005 by the Harold Grinspoon Foundation. Funding is provided by the local Federation, local donors and the Harold Grinspoon Foundation.

Gerson, who is the mother of a 6-year-old son Gilli, works with the program both professionally and personally.

“The variety and the topics are really expressive. We received a book about God and then Gilli started asking about God. Then a couple of months ago we received a book about a girl who lives in Israel and her father is an archaeologist. It was amazing. I’ve never seen a book about archaeology written through a child’s eye,” she said.

Gerson believes the program meets the needs of children, parents and grandparents. When the books arrive, they come with a resource guide for the adults.

A lay committee, consisting of at least one volunteer from each synagogue and Jewish preschool as well as Chabad, TLC, JCC and HBHA, helps get the word out about The PJ Library. The committee also plans and implements the programs and suggested an electronic newsletter, which is written and organized by committee members.

Committee member Jody Hanson said her children, 9-year-old Ben and 6-year-old Abby, are always excited to get the Jewish books and CDs addressed to them in the mail. She also likes the special events.

“It really brings the Jewish community together. I’ve met a lot of people from different congregations and different groups, people that I know I never would have met,” said Hanson, a member of Congregation Beth Torah.

She said the program is “such a win-win” for her family.

“I think that the reason Jewish families aren’t involved with it is just because they haven’t heard of it yet,” she said. “I think the benefits are huge for any family in the community.”

In addition to the committee, Gerson said PJ Library’s local success can also be attributed to two people who helped get it off the ground: Tamara Schuster, who was working with the Genesis program at the time, and PJ Library’s first coordinator Missy Goldenberg.

“Missy did a phenomenal job,” Gerson said.

PJ Library sponsors free concert Jan. 17

The PJ Library presents The Mama Doni Band with special appearance by Clifford, the Big Red Dog, at 4 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 17, in the social hall of the Jewish Community Campus. Doors will open at 3:45 p.m. with the free concert taking place from 4 to 4:45 p.m. After the concert, there will be a reception with light dairy snacks, story time, pictures with Mama Doni and Clifford and art activities.
The Mama Doni Band, dubbed the “Jewish indie-rock band for kids,” is led by Doni Zasloff Thomas, a mother of two young children who has been immersed in Jewish life and music since she was a little girl. Mama Doni went to Jewish day schools and then to Brandeis University and NYU, where she earned a degree in educational theater. She has been both a Hebrew school teacher and a dance teacher and was creative director for a children’s media company for more than seven years. When her children’s preschool asked her to serve as the school’s music teacher recently, she readily agreed and the creative juices started flowing. Wanting to share her love of Jewish culture with the school kids Thomas started writing and recording her own songs. That’s how her album, “I Love Herring,” released to the public in May 2008, was born.
For more information, contact Karen Gerson at (913) 327-8143 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Local PJ Library a win-win for parents and kids

Children, and their parents, have embraced The PJ Library since it began in Kansas City almost three years ago. By the end of 2009, almost 800 local Jewish children between the ages of 6 months and 8 years were enrolled in the program and receive an age-appropriate Jewish book or CD from The PJ Library each month. As one of its twice-yearly special events, The PJ Library, a program of the Jewish Federation, will present the Mama Doni Band on Sunday, Jan. 17. (See more information below)

Karen Gerson, the local PJ Library director as well director of information education for CAJE, the educational arm of the Jewish Federation, said The Mama Doni band is “Jewish rock with a twist for all ages.”

“She specifically performs for the 0 to 8 to 10-year-old crowd,” Gerson said. “The great thing about Mama Doni is that she’s engaging and she’s involved in her concerts. She gets off the stage and dances and gets involved with the kids. She has a great stage presence.”

Gerson said PJ Library’s other event this year will be the second annual PJ in the Park at Harmon Park in Prairie Village on June 13. Each family brings their own lunch and can participate in activities which will include balloon artists, make-up artists and bubbles.

“These events are a great opportunity for families to come and enjoy each other’s company. The important thing about PJ Library, at least for this community, is that we didn’t bring it in just for the books. The hope was that families would feel comfortable enough to come to a program and meet other families that were like minded. The books were the first step,” Gerson explained.

Todd Stettner, Federation’s executive vice president and CEO, believes The PJ Library has been a “phenomenal success.”

“The number of families who show up is incredible and it allows us to reach out to people we wouldn’t normally reach. Hopefully, it will lay the path to for parents to get their kids engaged whether it’s in Jewish preschool or religious school or holiday celebrations,” he said.

The local program is affiliated with the national PJ Library, established in 2005 by the Harold Grinspoon Foundation. Funding is provided by the local Federation, local donors and the Harold Grinspoon Foundation.

Gerson, who is the mother of a 6-year-old son Gilli, works with the program both professionally and personally.

“The variety and the topics are really expressive. We received a book about God and then Gilli started asking about God. Then a couple of months ago we received a book about a girl who lives in Israel and her father is an archaeologist. It was amazing. I’ve never seen a book about archaeology written through a child’s eye,” she said.

Gerson believes the program meets the needs of children, parents and grandparents. When the books arrive, they come with a resource guide for the adults.

A lay committee, consisting of at least one volunteer from each synagogue and Jewish preschool as well as Chabad, TLC, JCC and HBHA, helps get the word out about The PJ Library. The committee also plans and implements the programs and suggested an electronic newsletter, which is written and organized by committee members.

Committee member Jody Hanson said her children, 9-year-old Ben and 6-year-old Abby, are always excited to get the Jewish books and CDs addressed to them in the mail. She also likes the special events.

“It really brings the Jewish community together. I’ve met a lot of people from different congregations and different groups, people that I know I never would have met,” said Hanson, a member of Congregation Beth Torah.

She said the program is “such a win-win” for her family.

“I think that the reason Jewish families aren’t involved with it is just because they haven’t heard of it yet,” she said. “I think the benefits are huge for any family in the community.”

In addition to the committee, Gerson said PJ Library’s local success can also be attributed to two people who helped get it off the ground: Tamara Schuster, who was working with the Genesis program at the time, and PJ Library’s first coordinator Missy Goldenberg.

“Missy did a phenomenal job,” Gerson said.

PJ Library sponsors free concert Jan. 17

The PJ Library presents The Mama Doni Band with special appearance by Clifford, the Big Red Dog, at 4 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 17, in the social hall of the Jewish Community Campus. Doors will open at 3:45 p.m. with the free concert taking place from 4 to 4:45 p.m. After the concert, there will be a reception with light dairy snacks, story time, pictures with Mama Doni and Clifford and art activities.
The Mama Doni Band, dubbed the “Jewish indie-rock band for kids,” is led by Doni Zasloff Thomas, a mother of two young children who has been immersed in Jewish life and music since she was a little girl. Mama Doni went to Jewish day schools and then to Brandeis University and NYU, where she earned a degree in educational theater. She has been both a Hebrew school teacher and a dance teacher and was creative director for a children’s media company for more than seven years. When her children’s preschool asked her to serve as the school’s music teacher recently, she readily agreed and the creative juices started flowing. Wanting to share her love of Jewish culture with the school kids Thomas started writing and recording her own songs. That’s how her album, “I Love Herring,” released to the public in May 2008, was born.
For more information, contact Karen Gerson at (913) 327-8143 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Berger steps down as Chronicle ad manager

Readers may have noticed a change in the masthead of The Jewish Chronicle last week. No, it’s not the new year, or our new suite number. (We moved down a floor in the same building). It’s the move of Ruth Berger from advertising manager to account executive. She’s stepping down to part-time status after 44 years at The Chronicle, the last 27 as advertising manager.

Amy Cohn has been named advertising manager, while Berger will cut back to two or three days a week and be shed of management responsibilities.

“Ruth was one of the most outstanding associates we have ever had at this newspaper,” said Chronicle Co-Publisher Steve Rose. “She’s been the backbone of The Jewish Chronicle.”

Berger has been associated with the newspaper for very nearly half of its 90-year lifespan.

It was Steve Rose’s late father, Sun Publications founder Stan Rose, who transformed Berger from housewife to saleswoman back in 1966.

“Nobody introduced me to anyone; I had no training,” Berger recalled. “I knew how to measure an ad, and they sent me to the Plaza. The first couple of days I went out and cried. … Finally, I sold an ad to Halls. It was offset print … and I turned it in to this gal at the office, and she looked up at me and said ‘Who are you, and what is this?’ And from then on, I knew the corporate world would be a challenge.”

Since then, Berger has adapted to the advent of fax machines, e-mail and Internet connections and the end of the need for her to physically handle ad copy. “It’s all electronic now,” she said.

Some things have never changed, though.

“You need to put a smile on your face and go out there,” Berger said. “Nobody wants to be around you if you’re complaining or moody.”

She admits it’s sometimes stressful, but Berger said she has “immensely enjoyed” her work, including the companionship of co-workers and clients.

And she has been proud to represent The Chronicle.

“It’s the voice of the Jewish community,” she said. “People believe in it; it’s such a tradition in the household. It’s been very rewarding to me to come in to the office and do a job that contributes to something that binds the community together and keeps it going.”

Berger said she couldn’t have accepted the promotion to sales manager in 1983 or succeeded without the support and encouragement of her husband, Zane.

KC Symphony features Israeli composer, conductor

The Kansas City Symphony debuts the work of yet another Jewish composer this weekend when guest conductor Asher Fisch leads the orchestra in the U.S. premiere of Israeli composer Menachem Wiesenberg’s “Reflections.”  (See below for details)

This follows the world premiere earlier this season of Avner Dorman’s “Lost Souls” piano concerto.

Fisch, like Wiesenberg and Dorman, was born in Israel. Fisch said Wiesenberg’s piece, “Reflections,” should bring a hint of Middle Eastern warmth to the frozen Midwest.

“When I have a chance to perform Israeli music outside of Israel, I grab it,” said Fisch, who returns for his second visit as guest conductor with the Kansas City Symphony. “He’s an old friend. I have known his music for many years. This is my second time debuting one of his works in America; the first was with the Dallas Symphony.

“This is the first performance of ‘Reflections’ outside of Israel. It was composed in 2002.

“Menachem is one of the only composers really trying to catch the spirit of the land, the country. He comes from folk music and a deep knowledge of Israeli classical music at the beginning of the state. Whereas other composers become more intentionally abstract over time, he stays very Oriental, I would say. The rhythms, the modality, the tonal structure — it’s very modern and up-to-date. He’s a great rhythm writer, very intricate. It sounds very Israeli, which is why I like it. It’s warm.”

Fisch said the main theme of “Reflections” is “based on a Ladino song and an Arabic song that was adapted by the Jewish Israelis to become a kind of folk song.”

Fisch began his musical training as a pianist, and became Israeli pianist/conductor Daniel Barenboim’s protégé. Like his mentor, Fisch has conducted both classical concerts as well as operas, including the operas of the German composer Richard Wagner. Wagner was a virulent anti-Semite and was glorified during World War II as Hitler’s favorite composer, which made his music taboo in the Jewish state until Barenboim broke the mold with a series of concerts in 2001 in Israel.

Fisch led the Kansas City Symphony in a movement from Wagner’s “Twilight of the Gods” opera during his first visit to town back in 2008.

“Only in Israel I have to have controversy” over playing the music of Wagner, Fisch said with a laugh.

“I had a great time with the orchestra in Kansas City, and I am happy to be back,” he added.

Fisch was appointed principal guest conductor of the Seattle Opera last season, appearing each season there, in addition to his frequent guest appearances with orchestras and operas throughout Europe and the United States. He has worked at such leading European opera houses such as La Scala in Milan, the Vienna Staatsoper and the Paris Opera.

Israeli composer
Composer, arranger, pianist and educator Menachem Wiesenberg is said to be one of Israel’s most varied and acclaimed musicians. He won the 2008 Landau Prize for the Performing Arts in the classical composition category and the 1998 Prime Minister’s Prize for composition.

His works cover a wide range of styles, ranging from orchestral, chamber and vocal works in the classical field to jazz.

He has performed as a soloist as well as chamber-music pianist in Israel, Europe and America. In addition, Wiesenberg once worked as a professional jazz pianist, performing with his trio all over Israel.

His orchestral music has been performed by every major symphony and chamber orchestra in Israel, as well as many international orchestras.

Wiesenberg graduated with a master’s degree from the Juilliard School of Music. He is now a senior lecturer at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, where he was the founder and head of the Interdisciplinary Music Department. In addition, he is the director of Interdisciplinary Program at the Jerusalem Music Center, founded by the late Maestro Isaac Stern.

Tivol marks century milestone

Established in 1910 in Kansas City, Mo., by a recent Jewish immigrant to America, Charles Tivol, the company is now led by its third generation, CEO Cathy Tivol.

But it is Cathy’s father and Ruthie’s husband, Harold Tivol, who remains the face — nay, the bald head — of the company. This past Christmas season was at least the 25^th during which television ads featuring Harold’s head and shoulders have run.

The success of those ads reflects just one of the principles that Harold Tivol says have made the company a success: be willing to try something new. He recalled this week that when ad man John Muller first proposed that he be featured in a television ad, he balked.

“I said ‘I’m not doing any TV spots. I’m not a used-car dealer, telling you what bargains we have,’ ” Harold Tivol said. “And he said, ‘No, no, it’s not like that at all. You’ll see.’ And he came back with those ads. It was an instant success. People called and came in.”

The ads served to address what Harold Tivol called his biggest problem — “threshold resistance” — the oft-mistaken idea in consumers’ minds that they couldn’t possibly afford Tivol products, and so they won’t even enter the stores.

Smooth operator

Of course, no advertising plan will do any good without the products and/or services to back it up, and that is where the Tivols’ 100-year history comes into play. Their centennial catalog is replete with laudatory comments from the biggest names in the industry.

Harold Tivol entered the business after World War II, at age 23, but says “I knew I would be a jeweler at the age of 3; it was all my father talked about. It had to soak into me.”

Despite open-heart surgery in 2008, the 86-year-old master gemologist still comes in to the Plaza store six days a week.

“I got out of the hospital and came back to work two weeks later,” Harold Tivol said. “I said to Cathy, ‘Don’t you think it’s time I retire? She said no. I said ‘Maybe instead of working six days a week, I could work only four, and instead of eight or nine hours a day, only four hours a day?’ She said no. She’s a tough boss. Of course, I’m kidding.”

That charm has stood Harold Tivol in good stead as a salesman.

“John Muller had some T-shirts made up saying ‘This little bald-headed man has satisfied 20,000 women,” ” he said, grinning just a bit with pride.

But Harold Tivol is no pushover. On the contrary. To hear his tales of lease negotiations with successive owners of the Country Club Plaza, and even before that with the owner of the downtown building where his father’s shop was located, he wields an iron fist in a velvet glove — while wearing a platinum ring and cufflinks.

This combination of selection, service, savvy and promotion has allowed Tivol not just to outlast the competitors that existed when it moved to the Plaza in the 1950s — Jacquard’s, Gale Grossman, Helzberg’s (as a family-owned concern, anyway) — but such carpetbaggers as Tiffany & Co. and Bailey Banks & Biddle.

Stubborn independence has a role, too, such as when Harold Tivol rejected an overture from a national chain of jewelry stores to buy Tivol.

“I’ve seen what happened to stores they bought; they destroy it,” he said. “They can’t stand to put all that money into merchandise like we do.”

Cathy Tivol said that after the toughest year in her memory, things are looking up at the three Tivol stores — on the Country Club Plaza, plus Briarcliff Village north of the river and Hawthorne Plaza to the south.

“No question this season was better than last year,” she said this week. “The recession started for us in November of last year and continued … through mid-2009. Then we started to see a gradual improvement, and it’s been a steady incline.”

That’s not to say the recession had no effect on Tivol. Belt-tightening has been in order, even in the town’s ritziest shops — at least in the back rooms, where customers wouldn’t notice. For instance, Cathy Tivol said, there were no daily, catered lunches for the staffs of the three stores during the busy holiday season, as in years past. Instead, managers brought in cold cuts from Costco and the like.

“When this recession started, we went through the budget item by item and figured out where we could cut … without hurting our brand,” she said.

During her tenure as head of the company (she took over formally several years ago; her brother, Tom Tivol, has since gone out on his own), Cathy Tivol has dealt with other disruptive forces, such as that of the Internet on the jewelry industry.

“The Internet has had an impact on everyone; mostly to the good,” she said. “Because of the Internet, we’ve changed our pricing structure to be more competitive … People are more informed, especially about diamond purchases.”

Doing well by doing good is a 21^st century mantra, but Tivol has practiced it for a long time, going back at least to the establishment of the Mollie Tivol Alzheimer’s Resource Center in 1990.

In 2010, Tivol will celebrate its centennial with “100 Acts of Kindness,” a mixture of educational and charitable outreach, as well as civic involvement. Cathy Tivol said managers polled store associates to see which charities they wished to support, and the result will be a focus not only on Alzheimer’s disease, but hunger, through support of Harvesters. The staff has already worked together at the city’s central food pantry and made donations in lieu of gifts to customers, Cathy Tivol said, with more to come on the Harvesters front, and much more besides.

To follow Tivol’s “100 Acts of Kindness,” or to share your own memories about the stores, you may visit www.tivol.com or become a Facebook fan at www.facebook.com/Tivol.