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.

THE PLACE I CALL HOME — If you weren’t one of the 650 or so who attended Village Shalom’s Ages of Excellence celebration, honoring volunteer Evelyn Gibian, you missed a wonderful video starring Village Shalom residents, family, friends, staff and volunteers. The lyrics of “It’s Village Shalom, the Place I Call Home,” were written by the senior living campus’ Communications Manager Linda Salvay to the tune of “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen.” Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duehT3UbIYM&feature=colike. A new book celebrating Village Shalom’s 100th anniversary, “To Provide a Suitable Home: 100 Years of Village Shalom,” cebuted at the event and is now available in the gift shop.

JUSTICE-RAISING DINNER — I was also privileged to attend the Jewish Community Relations Bureau|American Jewish Committee’s annual Human Relations Dinner honoring Leo E. Morton with the Henry W. Bloch Human Relations Award. He was honored for his commitment to justice, leadership and service in the community as well as leading the way to prevent discrimination, strengthen democracy and expand freedom for all, which reminds me a lot of JCRB|AJC’s mission.

COMEDY SHOW FEATURES RITTMASTER — Corey Rittmaster and his wife Monique Madrid are here for Thanksgiving visiting family. They are slated to perform their brand of comedy Friday, Nov. 23, at the Westport Coffeehouse Theater (4010 Pennsylvania) along with Tantrum. Known as The Union, Rittmaster and Madrid do sketch comedy, improv, make videos, tell jokes and fight over dumb things because they’re married. The show may contain adult material. For ticket information or more information, call 816-216-7682.

Rabbi Morris B. Margolies, who served the community as Congregation Beth Shalom’s senior rabbi for 25 years, passed away Friday evening, Nov. 9. About 600 people filled the Kehilath Israel Synagogue sanctuary on Monday to honor his life. He would have been 91 on Dec. 25.

More than one of the afternoon’s speakers — which included K.I. Senior Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz, K.I. Rabbi Emeritus Herbert Mandl, Beth Shalom Senior Rabbi David Glickman and Professor Zvi Gitelman, Rabbi Margolies’ nephew — referred to Rabbi Margolies as “larger than life.” Hazzan Jeffrey Shron also participated in the service.

“He was a bigger than life rabbi who believed in social justice driven Judaism,” said Rabbi Yanklowitz as he began the eulogy.

Rabbi Margolies served Beth Shalom from 1961 to 1986. During that time the Conservative synagogue’s membership grew to 1,400 congregants.

Born in Jerusalem, Rabbi Margolies came to the United States in 1930 at the age of 8. He was ordained at Yeshiva University in 1943, where he also earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. He completed his Master of Arts degree from the University of Chicago in 1946 and his doctorate in Jewish history from Columbia University in 1979.

Before coming to Kansas City, Rabbi Margolies had pulpits in Chicago, Denver and Brooklyn, N.Y. He also served two years as executive director of the American Jewish Congress, Midwest Division.

Rabbi Margolies proudly served in the Army Chaplaincy — first at Fort Bragg, N.C., and then in Korea. A man morally opposed to war, Rabbi Yanklowitz said Rabbi Margolies went to Korea only after being told “Jewish soldiers needed him.”

Serving Beth Shalom

According to “Mid America’s Promise: A Profile of Kansas City Jewry (edited by Joseph P. Schultz, 1982) Rabbi Margolies told his new congregation in his opening sermon that he would be controversial, but not deliberately so. One of his first controversial stances in Kansas City was opposing the Vietnam War. In fact he was one of the first pulpit rabbis in the country to do so.

Rabbi Margolies always stressed social activism and urged his congregants to become involved in human rights and Jewish education. He practiced what he preached by, among other things, supporting the Civil Rights Movement and promoting equality for women in the Conservative movement.

“He was a champion for women’s representation at Beth Shalom,” Rabbi Glickman noted. “He ushered in full female participation before much of the country and he personally saw to the adult Bat Mitzvah program … dozens of adult women who never in their lifetime had had the chance to lead from the Torah or to lead services.”

In “Mid-America’s Promise,” Dr. Schultz writes that Rabbi Margolies “brought impressive intellectual qualities and fine oratorical gifts to the pulpit of Beth Shalom …. Margolies accelerated the adult education program, and his weekly evening lectures attracted large numbers of members and non-members to the synagogue. His weekly morning classes for the Sisterhood and his Men’s Club study group held over lunch in a downtown restaurant were immediately and lastingly successful.”

The rabbi felt teaching was one of his life’s missions.

“I see myself as a teacher of Jewishness and Judaism …,” he told former Chronicle Editor Rick Hellman is his last interview, featured in The Chronicles Guide to Jewish Life in the spring of 2008.

“When I got through organizing regular study periods for the Sisterhood and the regular congregation, we had as many as 600 or 700 people attend lectures I gave, a good many of them gentiles,” said the rabbi.

Day school champion

From the time he first moved to Kansas City, Rabbi Margolies fought for a Jewish day school. He believed it would help ensure the survival of the Kansas City Jewish community. He told The Chronicle that “no Jewish community can survive persistent ignorance of its own tradition and culture.”

He never served in an official capacity with the day school, but is often credited with working tirelessly to get it established. He enrolled his daughter, Malka, to be part of its inaugural class in 1966. His support of a Jewish day school was another of the rabbi’s highly controversial views.

“The rabbi was actually warned by his board not to have anything to do with the creation of a day school,” said Blanche Sosland, a founder of the Jewish day school. “In spite of that Rabbi Margolies was one of the major players, albeit behind the scenes. His guidance and advice to the young leadership was really indispensible.”

Once the Hebrew Academy was established, there was still the matter of community funding. But the school didn’t receive any financial subsidy from the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City until 11 years after it opened. Rabbi Margolies served on a committee whose purpose was to recommend whether the Federation should subsidize it. There were an even number of pro and con voices on the committee and Rabbi Margolies recalled that, “It looked fairly bleak for those who wanted Federation help for the Academy. I believe I was instrumental in swaying one steady naysayer to see the light as I regarded it, so that the committee’s report was aye instead of nay.”

Over the year Rabbi Margolies served as a consultant to Academy leaders, and he and his wife, Ruth, were honored with HBHA’s Civic Service Award in 2002.

In an article about the school’s 25th anniversary published in 1991, Rabbi Margolies said the school’s founders, and the others that followed shortly thereafter, were the true heroes of Kansas City Jewish education “because they put their children and themselves and their hearts where their mouths were.”

When he was received HBHA’s Civic Service Award in 2002, he said none of the awards he had previously received came close “to equaling my own deep gratification at this honor.”

“The reason? The Hebrew Academy represents, for me, the highest achievement of Kansas City Jewry, bar none. And to be honored by the Academy is a pinnacle of achievement for me, especially if it would help bring the vitality of the Academy to the attention of more people.”

Retirement

Rabbi Margolies was in good health when he retired from the pulpit in 1988, assuming the title rabbi emeritus, after 25 years, at the age of 64.

“My leadership didn’t want me to retire,” the rabbi said in 1994. “But remember, I was ordained when I was barely 21 years old. I had been active in the rabbinate for 43 years, and I was experiencing internal burnout. I don’t think it showed on the outside. I continued to work at the same pace, about 75 hours a week …. But inside, I was beginning to realize I needed a change.”

Soon after he retired from the pulpit in 1986, Rabbi Margolies accepted a position as a lecturer in the history department of the University of Kansas. Until 1993, he taught Jewish history at KU, winning awards from students, some of whom he kept in touch with for many years.

In 2007, Rabbi Margolies served as scholar in residence and lecturer for the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at Union Station.

At their heart, the rabbi once said, all his activities were a means of advancing the cause of Jewish knowledge. He loved books and wrote five: “A Gathering of Angels,” a 1994 Book of the Month Club selection; “Ten Turning Points in Jewish History;” “Samuel David Luzzatto: Traditional Scholar;” “Twenty/Twenty: Jewish Visionaries through 2,000 Years;” and “Torah Vision: Sermonic Essays for Our Time.”

His dedication to learning and teaching others was recognized in January 1994, when the rabbi and Ruth were honored with the “Second Century Award” from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. They were chosen for their dedicated service to the community.

“The seminary is one of the most vital institutions of Jewish life in America, and to be honored by that kind of institution is to underscore what I’ve stood for all throughout my career — namely, that only Jewish learning on the broadest possible scale will save Judaism in America in the 21st century,” Rabbi Margolies said at the time.

His rabbinical career spanned 63 years, during which time he delivered more than 2,000 sermons and lectures, wrote more than 100 book reviews and hundreds of columns for The Chronicle, a volunteer position he began on Oct. 30, 1987.

The rabbi continued to write, first alternating with other columnists and then on a weekly basis as its sole regular columnist, until the summer of 2010, when his failing health forced him to stop writing. At the time it was announced that he was “taking a break from his weekly chronicle column.” As it turned out that note was attached to his final column, which was published Aug. 6, 2010.

Love of Israel

The rabbi and his wife made frequent trips to Israel over the years. He once said in an interview with The Chronicle “that Israel is emotionally engrained into my soul.” He was willing to both defend the Jewish state as well as criticize it when he felt it was warranted, such as following the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, which he called a morally unjustified tragedy in his Yom Kippur sermon.

When interviewed in 1988 on the subject of the intifada between the Israelis and the Palestinians, which began the year before, the rabbi said the conflict had only strengthened the opinion he had had since 1967, “which is that Israel should … negotiate a Palestinian state with due respect for Israel’s secure borders and with international guarantees.”

“I would hope Israel will sit down and talk with the leadership of the PLO to see if some kind of peaceful accommodation can be reached …,” he said at the time.

In what was to be his final interview with The Chronicle in 2008, Rabbi Morris B. Margolies told then-Chronicle Editor Rick Hellman he would like to be remembered as a scholar and a teacher. Since the Jewish community learned of his death over the past several days, he has been remembered as that, and more.

Rabbi Herbert Mandl became friends with the late rabbi long before he moved to Kansas City to serve Kehilath Israel Synagogue in 1977. In fact K.I.’s rabbi emeritus turned to Rabbi Margolies for advice before deciding to take the job here. Over the years Rabbi Mandl characterized his relationship with Rabbi Margolies as that of colleague, student and friend and was deeply honored when Rabbi Margolies referred to him in recent years as “his rabbi.”

At the funeral, Rabbi Mandl referred to Rabbi Margolies as “the voice of the Jewish community,” one who helped keep it together even after he retired from the pulpit in 1986.

Many, including Neil Sosland, who served as president of Congregation Beth Shalom back when Rabbi Margolies was senior rabbi, said, they will miss the rabbi’s scholarly presence.

“The true meaning of a rabbi is my teacher. He was my personal teacher for a period close to 50 years. His loss is a tremendous one, especially to me, as well as to the congregation as a whole,” Sosland said.

Beth Shalom members reminisced about the rabbi at shul Saturday morning, noted Blanche Sosland, who as a founder of the Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy worked closely with him.

“People were saying they were sorry that they hadn’t taken advantage of more of his classes. I think the lack of his presence has been felt since he’s been ill. He was a very vibrant man and he will be profoundly missed,” she said.

Alan Edelman, the associate executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City, has been a member of Beth Shalom his entire life and was a young student of the rabbi.

“For those of us who grew up during the 1960s, Rabbi Margolies had a profound impact on our Jewish identity and development. He helped us understand how, as Jews, we needed to understand events such as the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War in the context of tzedek, justice. Every Friday night hundreds of congregants went to 34th and Paseo to hear those powerful sermons and celebrate Shabbat with the congregation he shaped,” Edelman said.

Edelman also served as education director at the congregation in the early 1980s.

“I worked with Rabbi Margolies to engage families in their children’s Jewish education. I learned much from Rabbi Margolies and he served as a powerful role model for my career as a Jewish professional,” Edelman said.

Congregation Ohev Sholom Rabbi Harry “Scott” White also grew up in Kansas City and had the opportunity to learn from the rabbi before he became a rabbi.

“Rabbi Margolies had the exceedingly rare combination of a keenly analytic mind and an encyclopedic command of scripture and Jewish history, and I daresay a good portion of rabbinic literature. The same could be said for his knowledge about certain secular subjects, including English literature and serious (and Jewish cantorial) music,” Rabbi White said.

“I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention his mastery of baseball knowledge, both the intricacies of the game and its history. Morris was a quintessential renaissance man of the mind. Learning with and from him was never without eloquence, passion and love for the subject.”

“ ‘Lo kam b’Kansas City k’Moshe ode’ — there never was and never again will be another rabbi like him in Kansas City. We were truly blessed,” Rabbi White said.

Rabbi Mark Levin and Rabbi Margolies were colleagues for 36 years in Kansas City.

“Rabbi Margolies possessed the finest rabbinic mind the Kansas City Jewish community has ever experienced. His erudition in history, Talmud and Tanach were incomparable. His preaching has been quoted and discussed even decades later. His teaching has never been surpassed for its depth and the numbers who attended his classes. Kansas City had the privilege of learning with a first-rate rabbinic mind. Those who studied with him count themselves blessed by his intellect and mastery of all things Jewish. Rabbi Margolies established a level of devotion to Jewish learning that will outlive his long life by many decades. I pray that his legacy will be a devotion to Jewish study for its own sake for many decades to come,” Rabbi Levin said.

Rabbi Alan Cohen, who served Beth Shalom as its senior rabbi for a total of 20 years, said, “Rabbi Margolies set a very high standard for rabbinic excellence that served as a model for me all of the years that I was at Beth Shalom.”

“Rabbis of his stature and learning are few and far between. I know that he will be deeply missed by his dear wife, Ruthie, his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, as well as the entire Kansas City community,” said Rabbi Cohen, who now lives in Florida and holds the title of rabbi emeritus at Beth Shalom.

Steve Rose, publisher of The Jewish Chronicle said that for many years Rabbi Margolies “shared his brilliant intellect as a columnist for The Kansas City Jewish Chronicle.”

“His opinions were thought-provoking and followed closely by the Jewish community. He will be greatly missed,” Rose noted.

He was not shy, as everybody knows, about expressing what he thought about any topic, particularly relating to the politics of the day, Jewish or otherwise, noted Todd Stettner, executive vice president and CEO of the Jewish Federation.

“I only knew him in his emeritus years. Even then he was a tremendous force in the community,” said Stettner while in Baltimore to attend the Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly meeting. “He was a good supporter of the community and everything that went on in it. He will be missed.”

As for his legacy at Congregation Beth Shalom, Rabbi David Glickman, the congregation’s new senior rabbi, said Rabbi Margolies “left such a deep and permanent impression on countless souls.”

“It wasn’t just the depth of his knowledge that made Rabbi Margolies stand out. It was his broad mind, his robust spirit and his courage that truly set him apart. I can’t tell you how many congregants have told me ‘Rabbi Margolies was simply the most intelligent man I’ve ever met.’ ”

“Rabbi Morris Margolies was larger than life,” Rabbi Glickman continued. “They simply do not make pulpit rabbis like that anymore.”

The rabbi’s nephew, Professor Zvi Gitelman, voiced out loud what many have thought about the rabbi over the years.

“I didn’t always agree with him, but I always learned from him.”

Gitelman sang the rabbi’s praises in a number of ways.

“His kindness never failed. His concern for others never flagged. His loyalties never wavered … to his family, to his friends, to Yiddishkeit, to the State of Israel, to the United States and to the Giants, not necessarily in that order,” Gitelman said.

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz, the senior rabbi at K.I., noted that Rabbi Margolies had students all over the world. He himself had been what he described as “a student of the rabbi from a distance.”

“So many were touched by him on a daily basis in so many different ways. It’s not possible to even scratch the surface of the over 90 years the rabbi lived,” Rabbi Yanklowitz said. “Reb Moshe, they really don’t make rabbis like you anymore.”

Rabbi Mandl, who knew Rabbi Margolies for 43 years, voiced what many were thinking Monday.

“Farewell dear teacher. Farewell dear rabbi. Farewell dear friend. You will be missed. Go in peace.”

“Sidonia’s Thread” by Hanna Perlstein Marcus (CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2011)

Sidonia Perlstein was the sole survivor of the Holocaust within her immediate family. In 1949 she was able to immigrate to the United States with her 2-year-old daughter Hanna. Sent to Springfield, Mass., Sidonia made a life for the two of them. Because of her talent as a gifted seamstress, within a few years Sidonia found work in a dress manufacturing factory. Hanna began school, and the process of Americanization began.

In a memoir of her mother’s life, Hanna Perlstein Marcus crafts the story of a woman who kept certain aspects of her life secret, like the hidden seams in the beautifully tailored clothes she made, but created a beautiful life for herself and her daughter in the new world to which they immigrated. Using the chapter headings from “Coats and Clark’s Sewing Book,” the author constructs the various aspects of her mother’s life. Whether it’s the experiences of Sidonia and her sister Laura in Birkenau described in the chapter entitled “Clipping,” or a description of their 1983 visit to Hungary to see the town in which Sidonia grew up in a chapter entitled “Backstitch, ” Marcus displays a gift for linking sewing techniques to her mother’s experiences. Yet while Sidonia never kept secrets from Hanna about her Holocaust experiences or about her early life in Dámósc, Hungary, one huge secret lay between them. Who was Hanna’s father?

Bit by bit Hanna pieces together the information about her father, and in the chapter “Buttonholes” finally makes contact with him. This telephone call, however, does not lead to an emotional meeting or reconciliation, but it does lead to a greater understanding of her mother. Yet, it is not the secret that is the most important aspect of the book or Hanna and Sidonia’s lives. What is important is the artful way Sidonia stitched together a good life for herself and her daughter having, initially, only scraps with which to work. “Sidonia’s Thread” is a story of triumph over the most horrendous adversity. Sidonia’s motto, “Stand up straight” should be a directive for all of us.

Author to speak Nov. 27

The Midwest Center for Holocaust Education will present award-winning author Hanna Perlstein Marcus at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 27. She will discuss her memoir, “Sidonia’s Thread.” Marcus’s mother Sidonia Perlstein was the cousin of Kansas City resident and Holocaust survivor Olga Rothstein, whose son Steven still lives in the area.

The program will take place in the Social Hall on the Jewish Community Campus. The author talk will be followed by a book signing and light dessert reception. This event is free and open to the public, but reservations are requested at 913-327-8196 or .

HELP CAMP RAINBOW — Congregation Beth Torah member Daniel Hakan, a member of the BTTY youth group and a counselor at Camp Rainbow, is raking leaves to raise money for the camp. Camp Rainbow is a summer camp for children in the St. Louis area with cancer and blood related diseases. He will rake and bag your leaves and donate all the money to Camp Rainbow. His schedule is flexible; email him at if you are interested. You’ll write your check to Camp Rainbow, making this a tax deductible contribution! While he’s raking, you might want to ask him to tell you about all the wonderful benefits of Camp Rainbow!

A DAY OF THANKS-DOING — Congregation Beth Shalom’s Rabbi David Glickman made an interesting suggestion to members in the synagogue’s monthly newsletter. “As you are preparing your own Thanksgiving dinners, I would like to request that you pick up extra cranberry sauce, extra pumpkin pie filling, as well as more nutritious non-perishables and bring them to the new JFS Food Pantry so Thanksgiving can become a day of Thanks-doing.” For more information on the food pantry, click on www.jfskc.org. I would like to add that Yachad-The Kosher Food Pantry could use your help as well. For more information about Yachad, email .

BOOK SIGNING — Those of you with young children or grandchildren may want to check out this new book, “The Pillow Fairy,” written by Marcia Gale Riley, a Lawrence resident who graduated from Shawnee Mission South and attended The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah as a youth. The first-time author shares the joy of imagination and wonder that her sons, Justin and Matt, experienced as they faced one of life’s first challenges — sleeping in their own beds all by themselves. She will appear at a book signing at Barnes & Noble’s Oak Park Mall location from noon to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 17. For more information visit www.thepillowfairy.net.

NOVEL DISCUSSION — Another local author, Beth Lyon Barnett, is showcasing her work. The author of “Jazz Town,” will discuss her novel at the Sulgrave Regency Ballroom, 200 W. 49th St., in Kansas City, Mo., from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 17.

Barnett will discuss “Jazz Town” again in a special event that begins at 5 p.m. at the American Jazz Museum, 1616 E. 18th, in Kansas City, Mo., on Friday, Nov. 30. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the museum. “Jazz Town,” is the story of the free-and-easy days of prohibition, sex, the birth of the jazz age and how Jews assimilated into Midwestern culture. Readers will recognize famous people like Jelly Roll Morton, Count Basie, Sigmund Harzfeld and Rabbi Samuel Mayerberg, all of whom add to the true-to-life plot. “What really happened in Kansas City was just too good a story not to be told,” Barnett said.

For more information visit www.bethlyonbarnett.com.

If American Jewish history’s your thing, The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah has it covered with their November scholar in residence weekend featuring Jonathan Sarna, Ph.D.

Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, is well known for his books, especially “American Judaism: A History” and “When General Grant Expelled the Jews.” He is also the chief historian of the National Museum of American Jewish History.

“I think it’s really important to bring (scholars) to the Midwest,” said Mary Davidson Cohen, who is sponsoring the weekend. “We have a proud heritage, and that heritage is not just in Europe.”

He’ll focus on American Jewish history during his sermon at the Friday night service Nov. 16.

“What’s really significant is that I’m going to be talking about General Order 11 and the whole history of Jews in the Civil War,” Sarna said. “This is the 150th anniversary of the order in which Ulysses S. Grant expelled Jews from his war zone, the most notorious official act of anti-Semitism in American history, the only time Jews as a class were expelled from anywhere in the United States. Many people don’t know about it.”

Sarna said that after President Abraham Lincoln overturned the expulsion order, Grant apologized and when he was president later on, he appointed more Jews to government positions than anyone else had and went out of his way to be sensitive to Jews.

The other main topic he’ll talk about, mostly during his Saturday lunch and learn session is a letter from George Washington to the Jews of Newport, R.I.

The letter, which Sarna said champions “no sanction for persecution and insists that it’s not just toleration that will (create) religious liberty in the United States. It’s an inherent natural right.”

Sarna will tie that letter into a discussion of how Judaism developed in the early years of this country.

“I don’t think most American Jews have had the opportunity to learn a lot about their history,” Sarna said. “My sense is that many people don’t realize the extent to which Jews were a part of America’s history from the colonial period onward and what the central aspects of that history are and why that’s important.”

According to Sarna, both Washington’s letter and Grant’s order are important to consider when one examines the growth of American Judaism.

“George Washington’s letter helps shape a certain kind of America in terms of the religious character he helped to define. Similarly, General Order 11 was a central issue in the 1868 election when Grant ran for president,” Sarna said.

As a first generation American, Sarna said his interest in history was natural.

“Someone once claimed I went into the one field my father, who was a famous scholar, knew nothing about. But I’ve really been interested in American Jewish history going on 40 years,” he said. “It’s about how Jewish history in the United States was intertwined with the history of the country as a whole … Jews have a played a significant role at different moments in American history, a role that members of the Jewish community should know about (and) anyone (studying) American history should know about.”

Sarna said he’s excited to be speaking at B’nai Jehudah, as he has admired the book local author Frank Adler wrote about the synagogue’s history, which he called “one of the finest synagogue histories we have.”

“Anyone who really wants to understand the history of the synagogue can read his volume, which is based on really fabulous research,” Sarna said. “He understands the significance of the history of the congregation for understanding the history of American Judaism in general.”

Professor Sarna’s schedule of events

Jonathan Sarna will be speaking throughout the weekend of Nov. 16-17 at The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah. Events include:

Friday, Nov. 16, 6 p.m. Sarna will give the sermon at Erev Shabbat Services.

Saturday, Nov. 17, 10:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. Morning service with a d’var Torah from Sarna. He will speak again at a Kiddush lunch and study session after worship.

Those wishing to attend the lunch and learn, which is free, should call 913-663-4050 to reserve a spot.

The religious rights of women in Israel may have just recently come to the surface of public opinion here in the United States. But women’s rights have long been one of the focuses of acclaimed artist Andi Arnovitz’s work. Arnovitz, who was born in Kansas City and moved to Israel in 1999, spent some time in the area late this summer visiting her parents, Sylvia and Marshall LaVine, and discussing her art.

Arnovitz has always been an artist, pointing out that one of her role models was her art teacher at the old Meadowbrook Junior High School. She has high praise for her high school alma mater, Shawnee Mission East, as well.

“I still think Shawnee Mission East’s art program is one of the best high school art programs ever,” she said. “The fact that we did jewelry and ceramics and print making …. That was an incredible education and a phenomenal program.”

Armed with the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree she earned from Washington University in St. Louis in 1981, Arnovitz entered the world of advertising, working for some big-name agencies such as Darcy, MacManus, Masius in Atlanta and Ogilvy and Mather in New York, where she served as art director.

Along the way she met and married David Arnovitz, and following the birth of her third child — the Arnovitzes have five children — she quit the advertising business and started “making art.” She’s made quite a name for herself in Israel, the United States and around the world.

“A lot of what I’m doing now is incredibly labor intensive, so the pieces are very expensive. I would say that I sell regularly, but I’m also now a little less interested in selling and a lot more interested in participating in museum shows,” Arnovitz said.

Over the years Arnovitz has been featured in more than a dozen different articles in such publications as Christian Science Monitor and Tablet magazine. The Arnovitz home, which she and her husband built in Jerusalem and includes a third-floor art studio, has even been featured in The New York Times. In the article Arnovitz described the home as “another art project.”

Arnovitz has exhibited her work in England, the United States, Israel, Spain, Poland, Finland, France, Lithuania, Canada and Bulgaria. She has had many one-woman shows and participated in multiple group shows. Her work is in many private collections in both the United States and in Europe. She is represented in Jerusalem by several galleries and her work is currently featured at three museums: Hebrew Union College in New York, BayCrest in Toronto and the Museum of Art in Ein Harod.

When Arnovitz first moved to Israel, she created a lot of prints about Jerusalem.

“They were these romanticized, graphic collages of things that I thought were particularly seductive about Jerusalem like old buildings and arched windows and pomegranates,” explained the woman who grew up as a Reform Jew and now describes her family as shomrei mitzvot.

Arnovitz’s work now is more often centered on various tensions in Israel that exist within religion, gender and politics.

“The things that I am doing now are not pretty. They are highly conceptual. There is an aesthetic to them, but they are not easy pieces. In the very beginning it was almost like I was trying to convince myself how beautiful this place was I was living in. They were overly romanticized, attractive things to go on the wall. I don’t do that at all now,” Arnovitz said.

A lot of her work has something to do with women’s issues.

“I didn’t start out to do this, but I’m definitely a feminist artist because everything I do is from a woman’s point of view,” she noted.

One featuring a woman’s view is a series of coats devoted to agunot, the so-called “chained women.” According to Jewish law, agunot cannot remarry due to their husbands’ refusal to grant a divorce, or inconclusive evidence of a husband’s death. To make these coats, Arnovitz obtained and digitally copied hundreds of ketubot (marriage contracts), and tore them into small pieces. With thread she affixed the fragments onto massive paper coats. The sleeves, hems and collars were sewn shut, and the threads, evidence of her painstaking process, were left hanging, a metaphor for the agunah herself.

“She is completely trapped by this piece of paper. I made the coat out of paper because it’s a piece of paper (her ketubah) that’s wrecked her life and it’s a piece of paper (the get or divorce decree) she’s waiting for,” the artist explained.

She uses a variety of mediums for her art. She uses etching, digital information and various printmaking processes, as well as fabric and thread to create large-scale dimensional paper garments.

Arnovitz uses a lot of fabric and thread in her artwork, and that natural affinity for textiles can be traced back to the days of her youth when she spent time at LaVine’s Fabrics, a shop owned by her father and her grandmother, Sonia LaVine.

“There are threads in almost everything I do. There is a deep love of fiber but I think because I was an art director in advertising I’m very obsessed about ideas and concepts. So when I work I do a lot of double-checking, (determining if) this is the right media to transmit the idea. I don’t automatically go to fabric and I don’t automatically go to paper. I think, ‘which is the most powerful vehicle to carry the idea?’ ”

“Right now I am a little bit obsessed with the idea of mending in terms of repair and pushing that concept in terms of repairing realities, like political situations,” she continued.

Many of her works feature textiles and papers that she has wound, wrapped and tied. She believes those methods are quintessential Jewish acts.

“I think when you do a close investigation of Jewish ritual you will find those motions repeated over and over again. For example we roll and wind the Torah. We bind the Torah. We braid challot. We wrap tefillin. We draw the Shabbat lights toward our eyes in this motion three times,” she explained. “Even the chevra kadisha (where she was a member in Atlanta) has a very ritualized way of tying knots on a shroud. To me, a lot of what I do in my art is something that is repeated over and over again in Jewish ritual.”

When she originally went to Jerusalem in 1999, Arnovitz thought it was simply for a sabbatical. But she loves living there.

“I would say for me the most compelling thing is that we made incredible friends. For some reason Jerusalem just has incredible people, idealistic people, professors and scholars and authors and poets and artists. There’s this enormous concentration of talent in Jerusalem. We just have really interesting and great friends, and their kids,” she said.

Midwest Center for Holocaust Education was honored Oct. 22 by Nonprofit Connect for its book, “Collective Voices.” Nonprofit Connect links the nonprofit community to education, resources and networking so organizations can more effectively achieve their missions.

“Collective Voices,” is MCHE’s writing project for children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors. It won top honors in Unique Concept category, an award created just this year, at Nonprofit Connect’s Philly Award breakfast. Nonprofit Connect’s Liz Goyer said the book was honored because it “went above and beyond the mission of the organization,” which is to teach the history of the Holocaust, applying its lessons to counter indifference, intolerance and genocide.

“The judges felt the piece deserves to be honored. The Philly Awards Committee decided to introduce the Unique Concept category to make sure ‘Collective Voices,’ got the recognition it deserved. We look forward to continuing the category in the future as a special honor to organizations, recognizing organizations that use a less traditional path to create an impact for their organization and mission,” Goyer said.

Jean Zeldin, MCHE’s executive director, noted that, “To our knowledge, ‘Collective Voices’ is the only project of its kind nationally, providing succeeding generations with the opportunity to express their thoughts and experiences as children and grandchildren of survivors.”

Judges had high praise for the book, making such comments as:

“An inspiring collection of stories and other memories. There was a nice variety to the collection, including recipes, stories, and poems. The pictures were a great addition. Thank you for helping us never to forget!”

“I loved reading this. I poured over every word because the stories were so poignant. Clearly there is a huge appeal for this target audience, and hopefully, a much wider audience who could benefit from the stories being told.”

“This is an incredibly innovative and moving piece of work. I grew as a person by reading the stories, a few of which have stayed with me, and likely will for some time.”

The “Collective Voices” project was supervised by Fran Sternberg, MCHE’s director of university programs and adult education, and facilitated by Benjamin Furnish, editor of UMKC’s BkMk Press. The project was funded by the Jewish Heritage Foundation of Greater Kansas City. “Collective Voices” sells for $10 plus tax and is available at the MCHE office at the Jewish Community Campus on through its online store at mchekc.org.