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Victor Wishna is an award-winning author. Articles he has written have appeared in newspapers and magazines all over the country. Now he’s written a play that will be produced locally by the Barn Players. “To the Dogs,” directed by Lindsay Adams and featuring Josh Brady, Alice Pollock and Jeff Shehan, will be presented on Dec. 7, 8 and 9 at 6219 Martway in Mission, Kan.

Wishna, a member of Congregation Beth Shalom, has not written a lot of plays before, but it’s something he’s always wanted to do.

“I’ve always loved theater and the book I wrote was interviewing 61 top American playwrights,” said the author of “In Their Company: Portraits of American Playwrights,” published in 2006 by Umbrage Editions. It is the winner of the 2007 Independent Publisher Book Awards Silver Medal.

A graduate of Stanford University and the New School’s creative writing MFA program, he has written for the Wall Street Journal, the Baltimore Sun, the Miami Herald, the Kansas City Star, Humanities, and other major magazines and newspapers. Wishna currently contributes a weekly real estate feature to the New York Post and his column “Letter from New York” is syndicated nationally. At one time his column also appeared in The Chronicle. He also served as special aide to Chancellor Arnold Eisen at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, where he assisted with researching, editing and writing of official speeches and publications.

After nearly 12 years living and writing in New York City, Wishna returned to his hometown of Kansas City, where he lives with his wife and their baby daughter. In 2011, he founded The Vital Word and, as chief editorial officer, has helped find the right words for an array of nonprofit, corporate and individual clients. His words can also be seen —and heard — via the local and national media outlets to which he regularly contributes, his efforts as senior editor at KCMetropolis, his language-related posts as a founding contributor to Book Riot, and his regular commentary on NPR affiliate KCUR-FM.

When not writing for publication or pleasure, Wishna is honing his stand-up routine, which he has performed at numerous clubs and special events around New York, the Midwest and elsewhere. In June 2010, he was named New York’s second-funniest amateur Jewish comedian by The Jewish Week.

This is the first play Wishna has written, outside of a school setting, that has been produced. The opportunity energizes him.

“It’s really exciting. It’s a big deal for me,” he said.

He’ll see the play rehearsed for the first time this week. He’s spoken with the director but he has not yet met any of the three actors in the play.

“It’s cool. I do love theater and it is something that has always been part of what I do. When I was a kid in high school and college I was involved in acting, producing and writing. In my professional career I’ve written a lot about theater,” he said.

“One of the things I think is wonderful about theater is it’s a collaborative effort. I was excited to write something that was an acceptable blueprint for a play and I’m excited to see what happens when a director and actors and all the other people that are involved from a technical standpoint take that and make something out of it,” he said.

He explained the play is about three racing greyhound dogs moments before what turns out to be their last race.

“I was trying to write something that could stick within these parameters, specifically a 10-minute parameter and I was inspired by David Ives, (a contemporary American playwright) who writes a lot of short, comical but somewhat meaningful plays,” he said. “I had been reading some of his short plays the night before so I just sat down and wrote this.”

Alex Bigus has entered two playwriting contests in his life. He has won both of them. He wrote the first as a student at Blue Valley North High School and it was presented at the Kansas State Drama Festival. The second is being performed next month as one of the six plays being presented by the Barn Players in the fifth annual “6 x 10 Play Festival.”

His play “Who Am I” will be featured along with five other original plays Dec. 7, 8 and 9 at the Barn Players, 6219 Martway in Mission, Kan. It is the story of a man and a woman who awaken with no knowledge of where they are, who they are, or why they are there. The play will be directed by Sara Crow.

“Who Am I” is the first 10-minute play Bigus has ever written.

“It is very short,” said Bigus, the 23-year-old son of Ruth and Larry Bigus.

He said writing something that short was hard for him.

“I like words. Ten minutes doesn’t lend itself to words in a way that I would usually work them. It is about using what you have to get the most information out without besieging the audience with too much exposition. You just have to set it up in a way where things make sense without needing too much explanation,” he explained.

Vida Bikales, president of the Barn Players board of directors, noted that Bigus is the Barn Players youngest playwright. He’s also appeared on its stage in one of its Barn Jr. productions.

Bigus is a 2007 graduate of BVN and a 2011 graduate of Oklahoma City University. There he earned a degree in music with a specialty in musical theater. He works as a vocal coach and director and has both performed and has been a part of production staffs in several local theaters. He has also served as an assistant director of the Oklahoma City Repertory Theatre and a show director at OCU.

Currently Bigus is an acting apprentice at the Florida Studio Theatre in Sarasota, Fla., where he will be until the end of May. He has been cast as an understudy in FST’s production of “Smokey Joe’s Café” and is teaching musical theater classes for teens.

This month he’ll even get a chance to march in Sarasota’s annual Christmas parade. What he won’t get a chance to do is come to Kansas City to see his play.

“They will be working it without my input, which I think is the way it should be in theater. I think once the writer has written it … the writer should step aside and let the people whose jobs and hearts and souls are in that play to work on it,” Bigus said.

Even after winning two writing contests, he doesn’t like to enter them.

“It’s frightening to put something you’ve poured a lot of your heart into out there for others to say this isn’t quite good enough, or to just sometimes even not say anything which is always worse,” he said.

As an actor Bigus faces criticism as well, but it doesn’t bother him as much.

“Acting is an area I feel more confidence in and is an area I’m more experienced in.”

Bigus was encouraged to enter the contest by his old acting teacher Eric Magnus, who happens to be the artistic director for the Barn Players.

“I couldn’t sleep one night, which usually means my brain is too busy, so I get up and I write. That’s what I did one night and this is one of the things that came out of it. I decided to send it in and see what happens,” he said.

His “end all, be all goal” for the future is to direct.

“I’m hoping in a few years to be able to attend Penn State for my MFA (master of fine arts degree) in directing and to someday teach and direct at a collegiate level,” he said.

He loves writing, acting and directing.

“Because I love all three I can continue to do all three. Even if I’m 45 and teaching at a college somewhere, chances are I can turn around and find a community theater and go do a role in the evenings. Then of course as long as my fingers work I can continue to write. But who knows, in 10 years you might not even need your fingers for that,” he said.

Bigus said theatergoers can look forward to the playfulness of the characters when they come to see “Who Am I.”

“They are very, very lost and it’s quite interesting to read. Hopefully it will be quite interesting to watch as well.”

While he won’t be able to attend the festival, he encourages others to “go see all of the six by 10s and support everybody who writes.”

Ray Zarr has performed in New York on stage at the Metropolitan Opera. Now he’s going to direct one of the six productions in the “6 x 10 Play Festival,” Dec. 7, 8 and 9, at the Barn Players Theatre, 6219 Martway in Mission, Kan. The 10-minute play is “The Captain and Roberts Take on the World,” written by local playwright Brian Gehrlein.

Zarr directed his first play for the Chilean Relief Fund in 1959 when he was only 9 years old.

“I gathered all the Jewish kids in the neighborhood that were learning trumpet, trombone, flute, drums and taking dance lessons and put on a show at Sommerset Elementary. We raised 300 dollars,” he reminisced this week.

His acting career also began in elementary school and he has continued to act throughout his life.

“When I was 13 I did ‘Ring Around the Moon’ by Frederick Molnar at the Jewish Community Center. My twin brother, Ron, and I played twins in the play. One twin would run off stage and the other one would come on dressed in something entirely different in about five seconds and no one could figure out how they did that because in the program it said R period Zarr for Hugo and R period Zarr for Frederick, the two twins,” he explained.

Following graduation from the University of Denver, Zarr was with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City for several years, where he played a supernumerary.

“That is a person who stands in costume holding a spear or engaging in a fight or being in a parade, but doesn’t sing on the stage as an extra,” he explained.

While in New York City, he toured nationally with two Broadway shows, “Cabaret” and “1776.”

After teaching and directing plays in Upstate New York, Zarr returned to Kansas City in 2004 to take care of his father, Ben, who now lives in Village Shalom. He has sung and performed at many local theaters including The Barn Players, Unicorn, Starlight and Theatre in the Park. He also performs in his own cabaret production and sings concerts at The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah, where he is a member, with Cantor Sharon Kohn.

Last year he also directed a play at the “6 x 10 Play Festival.” He estimates he has directed 118 plays over the years and “been in something like 178 plays since the age of 9.”

Today he characterizes himself as “more of an actor,” but also does just about anything in a theater including serving as house manager or as head of all the ushers.

“I keep very busy,” he said.

He says the “The Captain and Roberts Take on the World” is a “very funny two-character play” and notes while the plays are supposed to be 10 minutes long, they often aren’t.

“None of the plays are actually 10 minutes. They are more like 15 to 20,” he said.

Three of the six original plays being presented by the Barn Players in its fifth annual “6 x 10 Play Festival” are written or directed by men who have ties to the local Jewish community. The plays will be presented on Dec. 7, 8 and 9 at 6219 Martway in Mission, Kan. The Friday and Saturday evening performances will take place at 7:30 p.m. while the Sunday matinee is scheduled for 2 p.m.

“The Captain and Roberts Take on the World,” by Brian Gehrlein is being directed by Ray Zarr, a member of The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah. It features Emerson Rapp and Art Bagdasaryan.

“To the Dogs” is written by Congregation Beth Shalom member Victor Wishna. It is being directed by Lindsay Adams and features Josh Brady, Alice Pollock and Jeff Shehan.

Kansas City native Alex Bigus wrote “Who Am I.” Sara Crow is directing it and it features Korey Childs and Stephanie Charleton. (See three related stories.)

The other three plays being presented that weekend are “Back to One;” “The Suitcase,” and “Sunday in the Park with Carla.”

Each of the six plays presented at the festival are approximately 10 minutes in length. All six will be presented at each performance. For ticket information call (913) 432-9100 or visit www.thebarnplayers.org.

Mental health issues, relationships between parents and children, visiting the ill and keeping marriage alive are all topics that Dr. Michelle Friedman will cover during her weekend of learning as part of the Caviar Scholars’ Series at Kehilath Israel Synagogue.  The weekend series, set for Dec. 14-16,  is entitled, “Listening to Each Other and Ourselves: Judaism and Relationships.”

Dr. Friedman is the director of pastoral counseling at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, the open orthodox rabbinical seminary in Riverdale, N.Y., as well as, working in a private practice.  She attended medical school at New York University, completed her residency in psychiatry at Mount Sinai, and has a certificate in psychoanalysis from the Columbia University Institute. Dr. Friedman currently devotes much of her professional time to the interface of psychiatry and religious life.

“Many people struggle with disorders such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, addiction and marital/family distress,” she said, when discussing the most important issues facing Jewish communities. “Our community is hesitant about addressing this openly. People feel uncomfortable and sometimes scared of these issues. This reluctance can extend to reluctance about visiting or providing support for people with mental health problems, especially those who are homebound or in the hospital with psychiatric disorders.”

The relationships between parents and children will be part of the Friday night services. Services begin at 4:55 p.m.; and Dr. Friedman will speak at 5:45 p.m. No dinner will be served.

Shabbat morning, Dr. Friedman will speak about “Challenges with Mental Health (Depression, Anxiety and Dementia),” immediately after services, which begin at 9 a.m. Her program will begin at approximately 11:30 a.m. A Kiddush luncheon will be served.

“The Pastoral Skills on Visiting the Sick,” will be the discussion topic held during seudah shlisheet at about 5 p.m., with services for Mincha beginning at 4:30 pm.

Sunday morning from 10 to 11 a.m. Dr. Friedman will discuss “Keeping Marriage Alive.” A light snack will be served.

As a result of her programs, Dr. Friedman hopes that there will be “more open conversation about how this community experiences challenges with mental health and talk about how members can listen to, support and help each other.” She hopes that people get “a sense of what an important Jewish value it is to extend compassion and support going through hard times. Also, how much Jewish tradition cherishes the importance of and special contribution of each person. We can do a great deal by including challenged person as well as by supporting resilience. Jews going through mental illness are still cherished members of the community. Too often they feel outside the camp, like there is no place for them.”

All events will be held at Kehilath Israel Synagogue. Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz, who was a rabbinical student in Dr. Friedman’s pastoral counseling class, said, “Dr. Friedman will teach us how, not only to reach out to others, but also how to heal others. Through kind actions and empathetic words, we can seriously improve our relationships and transform our communities.  We feel blessed to have Dr. Friedman bring the rare talents combining Jewish wisdom, psychological insight, and refreshing creativity.”

Dr. Friedman has requested that a mechitza be in place during services while she is at the congregation.  As a courtesy to her, there will be a mechitza during all services on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  However on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, her talks will not be during services, so there will be no mechitza during the programs.

Both Jewish Family Services and The Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City are co-sponsoring this event.

SUCCESS ON THE GRIDIRON — Junior Aaron Bigus was the Blue Valley North football team’s leading rusher for the 2012 season. The son of Ruth and Larry Bigus, he carried the ball a total of 47 times for 225 yards. At the year-end football banquet, Mustang Coach John McCall presented Aaron, a three-year letterman, with the Mustang Football Leadership Award.

BLITT PAINTING TO BE FEATURED IN PARIS — Rita Blitt is one of 33 international artists selected to join in the OperArtCode Paris 2012 exhibit at the Grand Palais in Paris, which opened Tuesday and continues through Dec. 2. Blitt’s “Dancing with Beethoven” painting will be on display within the Grand Palais at the Salon des Artistes Indepéndants (Society of Independent Artists), a Salon created in 1884 from a small group of innovative artists that included Cézanne, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec and Pisarro.

THE BEST LITTLE KLEZMER BAND IN TEXAS — Janet Price recently returned from Houston where she saw “Ketubah” at the Houston Ballet. Music was provided by The Best Little Klezmer Band in Texas. Kansas City native Marcia Plaut Sterling, and Price’s cousin, serves as the band’s director as well as plays violin and sings. When she lived in Kansas City, Sterling was the youth choir master under the auspicious of Rose Levine at Congregation Beth Shalom. She and her husband Dan Sturba founded the non-profit The Best Little Klezmer Band in Texas in 1993, which is dedicated to the presentation, preservation and revitalization of Yiddish culture through live performance. Sterling’s parents were Rudy and Blanch (Planzer) Plaut, of blessed memory, who also lived in K.C. Price said the Klezmer music at the ballet was superb.

FAIR TRADE CHANUKAH GELT — Rabbis for Human Rights–North America is partnering with Fair Trade Judaica to bring slavery-free Chanukah gelt to synagogues around the world. The gelt is kosher (Triangle K), comes in dark and milk chocolate and is child-labor free. The gelt we eat on Chanukah is a sweet reminder of the freedom our people won many years ago. In his book “Holidays, History and Halakhah,” Eliezer Segal argues that the earliest sources that mention gelt on Chanukah are about students in Europe giving gelt to their teachers, inspired by the linguistic similarities between the Hebrew word Chanukah (dedication) and the Hebrew word chinnukh (education). Divine Chocolate is co-owned by Kuapa Kokoo, a fair trade cooperative in Ghana. The organization is democratically run, and their children attend school rather than work in the fields. The gelt can be purchased at http://shop.divinechocolateusa.com.

Rabbi Mark Levin plans to assume a reduced role at Congregation Beth Torah, the Reform congregation he has served since 1988, in 2014. Members of the congregation were informed of his decision in a letter emailed to them late Monday evening by President Michelle Cole.

“I would love to continue as a rabbi at Congregation Beth Torah after June 30, 2014, but not with my current job description. I look forward to working with our board of trustees to find a mutually agreeable manner by which I can continue to serve the congregation, its people and our community,” wrote Rabbi Levin in his letter to congregants.

Cole said it will be daunting to consider a future without the congregation’s “founding rabbi and inspirational leader.” But the 20 months notice he has given the congregation will allow it to properly plan for a seamless transition.

“The goal for July 1, 2014, is clear — to find the proper balance of Rabbi Levin’s continuing involvement in our congregational life and a path forward to new spiritual leadership. The board will be forming a committee to consider all of the issues and options to insure the best possible future for our congregation. We will be in touch with the entire membership frequently as we move through this process,” Cole said.

Rabbi Levin was ordained by Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) in 1976. He began his rabbinic career as the assistant rabbi at The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah in Kansas City in 1976. He has been the congregational rabbi for Congregation Beth Torah since its inception in 1988. He serves on a number of boards locally and nationally, writes religion columns for the Kansas City Star, and answers questions for the “Ask the Rabbi” service of the Union of Reform Judaism.

A father of three grown children and the grandfather of one, Rabbi Levin has become aware in recent years that there are things he would like to accomplish in life that aren’t possible while serving as the senior rabbi to the Reform congregation that serves approximately 650 members.

“Some of them, like counseling people confronting mortality, can be achieved at Beth Torah; and others not,” he said. “My work does not leave adequate time for reading, writing, reflection and expanding my personal possibilities.”

The rabbi, who will be 65 years old in 2014 when he plans to scale back his duties at Beth Torah, notes that the congregation has been his “life’s work and fulfillment for a quarter century.”

“We set out to create a ‘modern American Judaism in southern Johnson County.’ In many respects we did not know where we were headed. Our successes have been the result of the combined efforts and the vision of many people, including the Beth Torah staff, the wonderfully dedicated and generous presidents of the congregation, scores of volunteers who have given of their time, energy and funds, and, of course, the most superb membership in the world,” he said.

He noted that Beth Torah has been the fulfillment of his professional dreams and he is “very grateful to have had this magnificent opportunity.”

“I pray and feel confident that we will find a path to continue forward together,” he concluded.

Students who eat at the University of Kansas’ Mrs E’s dining hall will be able to eat kosher food beginning in the fall of 2013. Mrs. E’s is located at Lewis Hall on Daisy Hill and serves approximately 3,500 students daily. Any student with a dining plan may eat at Mrs. E’s.

Rabbi Zalman Tiechtel, director of the Rohr Chabad Center for Jewish Life, also known more simply as KU Chabad, is “very excited” about this news.

“In the past KU has tried to accommodate students who wanted to eat kosher foods with MREs (pre-prepared meals) ... but there’s nothing like having a fresh, kosher meal available. It changes their entire college experience.”

Jay Lewis, executive director of KU Hillel, reports that there are between 1,500 and 2,000 Jewish students enrolled at KU. The undergraduate enrollment at the Lawrence campus is estimated to be 19,000 students.

The time is ripe to add kosher food because Mrs. E’s is being renovated this summer. Sheryl Kidwell, assistant director of KU Dining Services, said other options will be added in the fall of 2013 as well including halal (for those who follow Islamic dietary guidelines) as well as those who request gluten-free and vegan-vegetarian items.

“Plans are definitely in place to add kosher food to Mrs. E’s,” Kidwell said. “We just don’t have specific menus in place yet.”

Kidwell is meeting with Rabbi Tiechtel as well as the president of the Muslim Student Association president, for assistance with recipes and ideas that will please students.

“Now that it is looking like more of a reality I think we can talk a little more seriously with Rabbi Zalman and get ideas and suggestions from him,” she said.

Rabbi Tiechtel noted he has been working with the university to provide kosher food “for a very long time, since 2007.”

“There are a lot of variables involved, obviously. Throughout the past few years every time we talked about it we always tried to bring it a few inches closer because this takes a long time,” he said.

KU’s Kidwell said the renovated area inside Mrs. E’s will be self-contained. It will have all of its own equipment — utensils, refrigeration, freezer, a little bit of dry storage, microwave, flat-top grill, gas range, hot and cold pans and a dishwasher.

“Our hope is when you invest that much money in a concept that it can be more things to more people. It’s hard to say how many of our students on our dining plans would benefit from this station,” she said.

“We want it to be not only for our students that would choose halal and kosher and that kind of ethnic diet, but would also appeal to students that are on special diets. … That’s our challenge right now.”

It was about this time last year that a kosher hot dog stand opened at Allen Fieldhouse. Earlier this semester another kosher stand opened at the Kansas Union.

“We had a big breakthrough with having the kosher stand in retail dining,” Rabbi Tiechtel said. “We really wanted to make some kind of difference in the residential dining as well, and that’s what Mrs. E’s is all about.”

Last year the kosher stand at Allen Fieldhouse served only hotdogs. Now it sells a variety of items. The kosher stand at the Kansas Union has also proven to be very popular.

“The Wednesday kosher stand is open from 10:30 to 1:30 and every single week we have sold beyond expectation. We are talking about an average week serving over 120 people in a three-hour slot. We first projected maybe selling 40 to 60 hotdogs a week. Now were talking about over 100 on average. There were weeks we have sold out. There were two weeks that we had to close it, so now we know to have reserves,” Rabbi Tiechtel explained.

Next semester Rabbi Tiechtel hopes the kosher stand at the Kansas Union will be expanded.

“We’re talking about not only increasing it to two or three times a week, but maybe adding additional foods as well. A lot of it is about logistics because kosher is so sensitive. Not only do you have to have kosher food you have to have separate serving areas and on campus that is prime real estate. It’s very hard to get that space and KU has been very accommodating to make it work.”

The rabbi said they are taking baby steps when it comes to kosher food on campus.

“The more things work and the more the response is as great as it has been, the easier to take it to the next level,” he said.

Naismith Hall, which is a private dorm that has a large percentage of Jewish residents, is also not a kosher facility. However Chabad has worked with the dorm over the years to supply such things as matzah for Passover to its residents.

“Right now they are very accommodating when it comes to offering holiday foods,” Rabbi Tiechtel said. “But as far as kosher per se, it’s something that’s in the pipeline … but it’s a business model as opposed to KU’s service model.”

Sol Koenigsberg is a wealth of knowledge who can quote Yiddish, Talmud and Shakespeare.

“Shakespeare said, ‘What’s past is prologue.’ I’ve always felt that if you don’t know where you’ve been, you can’t know where you’re going.”

That’s one of the reasons he wrote “Challenges & Growth: The Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City, 1968-1989. A Memoir.” The book was self-published by CreateSpace, a division of Amazon, in October and may be purchased on the website by searching the author’s full name, Sol Koenigsberg.

Koenigsberg is executive director emeritus of the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City. He moved here in 1968 and served for 21 years, through 1989. He was the fifth person to serve in that position, during which time he stewarded the agency through several special fundraising campaigns as well as the establishment of the Jewish Community Campus.

Koenigsberg originally envisioned the book to be a history of the entire community, taking over where “Mid America’s Promise,” the history of the Kansas City Jewish community edited by Dr. Joseph P. Schultz and published in 1982, ended. He wanted to include such things as the changing demography as well as the changing of professional and business characteristics within the Jewish community.

“ ‘Mid America’s Promise’ dealt with the time up to 1980. From 1980 to 2005, there was a big gap in time,” he said in a recent interview.

He decided to seek funding for his original idea in 2008. He notes that his timing was bad, as that was the year the economy crashed. When he couldn’t get the funding for a comprehensive sequel to “Mid America’s Promise,” he was “urged to put down my own experiences, which resulted in this book.”

He spent two years on his book, first determining what the content would be, then researching it.

“I felt that memory can’t be depended on, particularly after this lapse in time. After all I did retire in 1989. I had to make use of archives,” said Koenigsberg. “Plus I interviewed a number of people who were very much involved in that era and now.”

To get a better flavor of what happened in the past, and a little glimpse into the present, Koenigsberg interviewed the three people who served as president of the Jewish Federation as well as the Jewish Community Foundation. As part of his chapters on the Jewish Community Campus, he made use of recordings that were made at the time of its creation. Those are located at the State Historical Society of Missouri Research Center-Kansas City housed at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (formerly known as the Western Historical Manuscript Collection-Kansas City).

David Boutros, assistant director of the historical society, actually copied the videos to disk for Koenigsberg so he could watch them from the comfort of his own home. The executive director emeritus will soon be 88 years old.

“If it weren’t for David Boutros I would have had a much more difficult time. He was exceptionally generous with his time and talent,” he said.

Koenigsberg’s memory did play a few tricks on him. Since writing the book he’s discovered that he was a little off on at least one fact concerning the Jewish Community Campus. He writes that that it opened in 1987 when in fact it opened in October of 1988. There are a few other cases in the book of names being misspelled, most notably that of The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah.

Bob Gast, who served as Jewish Federation’s executive director immediately after Koenigsberg, said the book is a brilliant portrayal of a servant of the Jewish community’s experience.

“His wisdom in relating to the history and challenges of the Jewish community will serve generations to come. Sol’s dedication as a leader in the Jewish community is to be lauded and emulated,” Gast said.

Since the book was just published last month, Koenigsberg doesn’t think many people in the community know it’s available yet.

“I think that once it does become known that the book is out, the past and current leadership of the Federation, the Foundation and all the local agencies could find this of interest,” he said.

Koenigsberg said he learned a lot from writing the book.

“After such a hiatus between the time I retired and the time I wrote it, it made me appreciate more how this community has grown and achieved so much,” he said.

The book is specifically about Koenigsberg’s professional experiences and includes very few personal experiences not related to his job. That was by design.

“The idea of the book was just to let people know what happened during that period of time,” he said.

The author said this book “defines a perspective and a guide for how people can meet common needs acting as persons as part of a community.”

He devotes a big chapter in the book to what he calls “one of the most successful enterprises in the Jewish community,” the creation of the Jewish Community Campus.

“It did a wonderful job of unifying entities which never even thought of that type of cooperation before,” he said. “The Campus is almost 25 years old and one of the ways of commemorating its importance was a chapter about it in this book.”

He believes the major Jewish philanthropic institutions are thriving today and he finds that “most encouraging” for the future of the community.

“The Jewish Community Foundation — along with the Federation, the Jewish Heritage Foundation and the Menorah Legacy Foundation — has established a model of cooperation which bodes well as instruments of community responsibility,” he said.

Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City is opening a new Israel Terror Relief Fund, to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the people of Israel at this critical time. This new fund will help support the more than 1 million residents of Israel’s south and provide aid to those who are victims and the most vulnerable Israelis during this time of conflict. One hundred percent of all donations will be used for humanitarian aid for efforts including:

Moving 4,000 children, living under siege in bomb shelters, to safer areas of Israel.

Providing trauma counseling to children and adults living under fire.

Distributing food and emergency kits to the elderly and disabled in these areas of Israel who cannot leave their homes.

Jewish Federation partner agencies — Jewish Agency for Israel and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee — are providing much of these direct services to those in need.

Jewish Federation is also working in close coordination with Reform, Conservative, Traditional and Orthodox congregations in Kansas City to help those in need through the Israel Terror Relief Fund.

How to donate:

Online: Go to jewishkansascity.org

Phone: Call Jewish Federation at 913-327-8100

Mail: Send a check to Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City, 5801 W. 115 St., Suite 201, Overland Park, KS 66211, Attn: Israel Terror Relief Fund.