Archived News

The Jewish Community Center, the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival and Johnson County Community College Performing Arts Series are collaborating to produce Kansas City’s first professional production of “The Merchant of Venice” since 1950.

Krista Blackwood, director of Cultural Arts for the Jewish Community Center, says “ ‘The Merchant of Venice’ is such an important piece on so many levels. From the Jewish perspective, the production will create a forum for discussion on issues that are particularly relevant to the Jewish community, most specifically anti-Semitism and the concept of the ‘other.’ ”

The Heart of America Shakespeare Festival will produce “The Merchant of Venice,” starring festival veteran Mark Robbins as Shylock. The play will run March 19, 20 and 22, 2015, at the Jewish Community Center’s White Theatre. The play will run the following week, March 26-29, 2015, at Johnson County Community College’s Polsky Theatre. Individual tickets for both locations are $25. Youth tickets are $13. JCCC Performing Arts Series will also offer package ticket pricing at $22 with Friends package pricing at $21. 

THANKS FOR A JOB WELL DONE! — Alan Bram was honored Monday night for his 26-plus years at the Jewish Community Campus. He became its executive director while it was still being built and he stepped down as its full-time exec in April 2013. However he stayed on behind the scenes, as is the way he always likes to keep things, and continued working for the Campus in a consultant role. Little did he know he would have to ramp it back up last month just after two people were killed in the Campus parking lot. Bram was responsible for instituting all the security procedures that were put into place that day and will continue to help Jewish communal leaders review and revise those procedures and policies. At the reception in his honor, a plaque was unveiled that hangs next to the security desk at the Campus’ main entrance. It reads: “In appreciation of Alan’s outstanding advice as the first executive director of the Jewish Community Campus. Alan gave his ‘Heart and Soul’ to the Campus. Alan’s dedication, devotion, diligence, time and talent made the Campus the ‘Crown Jewel’ of Kansas City’s Jewish community.” I hope I speak for everyone who has ever walked through the doors of the Campus when I say there aren’t enough plaques in the world to thank you for working so hard to keep us — and all those children attending the CDC and HBHA — all safe at the Campus.

By Barbara Bayer

Editor

“Lean on me when you’re not strong

And I’ll be your friend, I’ll help you carry on

For it won’t be long

‘Til I’m gonna need somebody to lean on.”

We don’t always give teens the credit they deserve. Teens are often accused of being young and preoccupied. Even if they are young and preoccupied, they often do good things, especially the BBYOers who planned the Friday night service, vigil and walk to Village Shalom from the Jewish Community Campus last week.

These particular teens are especially wise.

By Barbara Bayer

Editor

“We’re not going anywhere. We’re going to be back in our synagogues, we’re going to be back in our JCCs, our children are going to be attending the schools because if they don’t and if we aren’t, the act of one hater, one individual, has impacted this entire community and has won and that’s not what this is about.”

Those are the words of Paul Goldenberg, the national director of the Secure Community Network, who was here last week to help Jewish community leaders assess the security of the Jewish Community Campus, Village Shalom and local Jewish institutions following the deaths April 13 of two people outside of the Campus and one in the parking lot of Village Shalom.

“It’s really business as usual under unusual circumstances,” said Jacob Schreiber, president and CEO of the Jewish Community Center, on Friday, April 18, one day after the interfaith Service of Unity and Hope, and less than one week after the shootings.

“Everyone is aware of what has happened here, but the overwhelming desire for people is to move ahead with their lives,” Schreiber said.

Todd Stettner, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City agreed with Schreiber that “we’re doing the best we can to be back in business as usual.”

The JCC is in the midst of celebrating its 100th anniversary and had asked people to send in their stories about what the JCC means to them. Until last week’s tragedy struck, the response had been underwhelming.

“Now, we probably have 500 stories of people here who are telling us what the Jewish Community Center has meant to them,” said Schreiber who came to the JCC in the summer of 2009. “I didn’t have any clue of what this meant to people as a community center. Everybody and their brother, their cousin, their friend has had somebody who has swum here, done fitness, did the singing competition, been in a play … I think this is why this has hit the community so much because after 100 years of being open to the entire community, everybody has a connection here. It’s unbelievable.”

Besides reopening its facility last week for its preschool, sports and fitness department and various programs, another way the JCC got back to business quickly is by rescheduling KC SuperStar auditions that were abruptly halted by the lockdown April 13. They were expected to take place yesterday (Wednesday, April 23). Only those who had registered originally were contacted about the rescheduled auditions.

By Barbara Bayer

Editor

The feelings we’ve been having, Paul Goldenberg said, “can almost be described as a punch in the stomach.”

Goldenberg is the national director of the Secure Community Network. As such, he has seen tragedies such as the one that the Jewish community is coping with many times.

“You have a wonderful, vibrant Jewish community embedded in middle America that has an exceptional and an extraordinary relationship with the greater community and no one ever believes that something like this can happen. The best description is almost like a punch in the stomach. You lose your breath. Hopefully you regain it back very quickly because it’s all about recovering and it’s all about resilience and I think your community showed exactly that tremendous effort,” Goldenberg said.

Efforts to begin the healing process began almost immediately. Jewish Family Services has had counselors available since the very beginning.

“We are able to respond to all who have called and have connected with community resources if we get into areas or volume that we can’t handle. So far, that’s not the case,” said JFS executive director Don Goldman.

He pointed out that the JFS counselors and employees, like most people, are having the same normal sadness and fears.

“We took some time on (April 17) for them to debrief and share their thoughts with each other,” he added.

The Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy, in cooperation with Jewish Family Services, is hosting trauma experts from Project C.H.A.I., a project of Chai Lifeline International, to help explain to parents how to talk to their children about the tragic events last week when three people died following shootings at the Jewish Community Campus and Village Shalom. The event will be held at 7 p.m. tonight, Thursday, April 24, in the Social Hall of the Jewish Community Campus. It is open to adults in the community.

“We are having a trauma specialist come in from Chai Lifeline in New York. This agency is sending a social worker out to us and one of the directors of their trauma and bereavement department to offer advice and support,” said Ayala R. Zoltan Rockoff, HBHA school psychologist.

The Bellows Family National Crisis Intervention Program, Project C.H.A.I., is a network of programs to help families, schools, camps, synagogues and community institutions cope with an untimely death or medical crisis. Dr. Rockoff said Dr. David Fox, director of interventions and community education for the crisis intervention, trauma and bereavement department of Chai Lifeline International, will be here along with co-facilitator Zahava Farbman.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City announces three upcoming events that will provide an opportunity for all members of the Kansas City community to celebrate together, in honor of Israel. All three events are sponsored by the Israel Committee of the Jewish Federation.

“In light of recent events, Yom HaZikaron, Yom HaAtzmaut and Lag b’Omer will be even more important this year, as they will provide opportunities for Kansas City to celebrate together and to honor the fallen together,” said Yahav Barnea, Israel emissary to Kansas City.

Yom HaZikaron

Join us Sunday, May 4, from 7 to 9 p.m., at this meaningful Israeli-style ceremony, honoring the lives of those who have fallen in Israel, followed by an insightful Q & A session with IDF Officer Moran Omer. 

“Just as we recently attended the interfaith memorial service at the White Theatre to honor the lives of the three shooting victims, Yom HaZikaron is an incredibly important memorial holiday for the many who die each year in Israel — defending our country, or as a result of senseless terrorist attacks. I think this year’s ceremony will have additional meaning to Kansas Citians, and I welcome people of all faiths to join us that evening,” Barnea said. 

By Barbara Bayer

Editor

Author, professor and researcher Theodore Sasson, Ph.D., will be the featured speaker at the 2014 Milton Firestone Lecture May 8 in the Social Hall of the Jewish Community Campus. Sponsored by the Jewish Community Center, the presentation begins at 7 p.m. and it will be followed by a book signing of his most recent book, “The New American Zionism,” published by NYU Press earlier this year. The lecture is free and open to the entire community. He will speak about the relationship between American Jews and Israel.

“The purpose of the Milton Firestone Memorial Lecture is to offer an informed perspective on a topic of critical importance to the Jewish community. Our relationship with Israel as a factor in and reflection of our sense of Jewish identity is one of the most important issues we face today. After reading his book and speaking to those who have heard him, I knew that Ted Sasson would fulfill the promise of the Lecture and was gratified to hear of his enthusiasm to visit Kansas City for the first time,” said Jill Maidhof, the JCC’s director of Jewish Life & Learning.

Milton Firestone served as the editor of The Chronicle until his untimely death in March 1983. The Milton Firestone Memorial Lecture event was created by his family and friends as a lasting tribute to his memory.

By JACK MURTHA 

Special to The Chronicle 

The power of the pen has proved critical to an Edison rabbi’s push to pass the lessons learned through the Holocaust to future generations.

Rabbi Bernhard H. Rosenberg, a Kansas City native who is the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth-El in Edison, N.J., has written several books on the subject. His latest endeavor, “The Holocaust as Seen Through Film,” was published recently and is available on Amazon.com in April.

The book is a tool for educators to teach the horrors of the Holocaust to high school seniors, college students and graduate candidates, he said.

“What I want the students to come away with is basically a lesson in what was done to humanity, what was done to the Jewish people and what lessons we should learn from the Holocaust to make the world better today,” Rabbi Rosenberg said.

“The Whispering Town” by Jennifer Elvgren; Illustrated by Fabio Santomauro. (Kar-Ben Publishing, 2014.)

“Hidden: A Child’s Story of the Holocaust” by Loïc Dauvillier; Illustrated by Marc Lizano. (First Second, 2014.)

“Hidden Like Anne Frank: 14 true stories of Survival” by Marcel Prins and Peter Henk Steenhuis. (Arthur Levine Books, 2014.)

By Andrea Kempf

Contributing Reviewer

As we recall the Holocaust on Yom HaShoah this year, take a look at several newly published titles that will educate and inform younger members of the community, and indeed children everywhere, about the horrors of the Holocaust. All three books are about the goodness and bravery of people throughout Europe who hid Jewish children and protected them until the Germans were defeated.

“The Whispering Town” is set in a small Danish town where Jewish families are hiding until they can be smuggled onto a boat that will take them to freedom in Sweden. A young girl named Anett knows how to procure extra food, clothing and even library books for the guests in her family’s cellar. Then when a lack of moonlight prevents the guests from making their way to the boat waiting in the harbor, Anett devises a plan that she shares with her friends in the village. Everyone whispers directions to the fleeing guests. This whimsically illustrated book is charming and appropriate for children 3 years and up.