Archived News

We no longer live in world where people get old and then think of themselves as old, so explains Rabbi Rachel Cowan, co-author of “Wise Aging: Living with Joy, Resilience, and Spirit.” Rabbi Cowan, who is senior fellow and co-founder of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, wrote the book after her own retirement. Through the IJS, she expanded those thoughts and developed, along with Dr. Linda Thal, a Wise Aging program aimed at helping seniors both explore this stage of life as well as cultivate qualities of the soul.

“Fed,” a pop-up dinner event designed to engage the next generation of members and leaders of the local Jewish community, will take place Oct. 17 in midtown Kansas City. 

Rick Recht, one of the top-touring Jewish musicians today, will join Rabbi Alan Londy at the New Reform Temple’s evening services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. In addition to his role as an artist, Recht is regarded as a top Jewish educator and leader. He lives in St. Louis, Missouri, where he serves as artist in residence at United Hebrew Congregation.

SIMCHA GIFTS NEEDS VOLUNTEERS! — As the holidays approach, Simcha Gifts is preparing to make a holiday delivery to Jewish seniors who live in nursing homes, retirement centers and in their own homes. The Simcha Gifts program is run by Chabad House, under the tutelage of Blumah Wineberg. She said the program needs “more wonderful volunteers to help pack and deliver Simcha Gifts before the High Holidays. It is such a beautiful mitzvah!

Beginning this fall, The New Reform Temple (NRT) will begin offering grades K through third at its Henry & Marion Bloch Religious School to members of the Jewish community tuition-free, and “without families having to be members of the NRT,” said Dan Fromm, NRT president. “This option will be available to any Jewish family in the community that is currently unaffiliated with a congregation.”

Most of us in the Jewish community take it for granted that we have a warm — or this time of year cool — home in which we can sleep easy every night. That’s not true everywhere and a group from the Jewish community, led by Barry Kaseff, is making sure a family in Kansas City, Kansas, will have a home of their own where they, too, can feel safe and secure.

One in eight couples, that’s 12 percent of married women, have trouble getting pregnant or sustaining a pregnancy according to a 2006-2010 National Survey of Family Growth reported on by the Centers for Disease Control. That can be devastating news for a couple, both financially and psychologically, as they look for ways to start a family. In the past it’s been difficult to find support for those seeking it within in the Jewish community. Annie Glickman hopes it becomes easier very soon.

Sandi Lerner is a talker. She’ll be the first to admit it, and anyone who knows her will attest. But on the afternoon of July 30, before a room full of witnesses, Sandi Lerner was rendered speechless for the first time she could remember. It was because on this day, at an impromptu presentation during Village Shalom’s weekly happy hour, Village Shalom President and CEO Matt Lewis informed the crowd that Lerner had been selected as the LeadingAge Kansas “Volunteer of the Year.”

(Editor’s note: The Chronicle has published several stories about the Vaad’s Rabbi Mendel Segal as well as the 4th annual Kansas City Vaad Kosher BBQ Festival and Competition to be held Sunday, Aug. 16, at the Ritz Charles in Overland Park. Since readers of the Times of Israel have enjoyed this story this week, we thought our readers would like it as well.)

LEAWOOD, Kansas — Mendel Segal wears two particular titles that each reflect a devotion to tradition, imply an unending pursuit of precision and command immediate respect.

Congregation Beth Torah announced this week an innovative shift to its members’ financial commitment to the congregation. The board of trustees announced its members will no longer have to pay religious school tuition. Beth Torah is also making another large policy shift by opening up its religious school to everyone in the Jewish community. In doing so, it is increasing its dedication to educating the next generation of Jews in the Kansas City Jewish community.