M.O.T.: Member of the Tribe Page 19 of 19 pages « First < 17 18 19
Diana Brement
• JTNews Columnist
Marty Levine came to Seattle fresh from medical school about eight years ago. He completed his residency in family medicine and a fellowship in geriatrics, and is now Group Health Cooperative’s sole “consultative” geriatrician.
“There are lots of doctors at Group Health who have geriatric certification,” Marty points out, “but I’m the only person who is a full-time specialist for seniors.” (This doesn’t include GHC docs working in nursing homes, or their specialist in hospice care.)
“I like this work because it’s not just about the older people, it’s about families,” he explains. “You don’t see older people by themselves; they all have people who love and care about them.”
Aside from seeing patients he oversees two new programs. One has 7,000 of GHC’s 60,000 senior clients meeting with their doctor once a month for 90 minutes. The catch? About a dozen other people are there, too.
This “senior support web,” modeled on two studies, has been a huge success. Patients and doctors are happier and participants have a lower rate of hospitalization than their peers. The other program helps prevent re-hospitalization of geriatric patients with a nurse who follows their care from hospital to recovery.
Medical institutions need to prepare for elder care, says Levine, “because we are going to need a whole new system. There’s no big effort anywhere in the U.S. to deal with this.
“People in health care have mastered how to perfectly care for one disease,” he points out, “but no one’s figured out how you systematically, thoughtfully care for an age group that has a mixture of problems.”
Levine hails from Cleveland and although he says he grew up “secular,” he attended a Sunday school program and participated in a group Bar/Bat Mitzvah. Applying for residencies, he says, “was my chance to pick whatever city I wanted to live in,” and Seattle “looked spectacular.
“When I came out here and saw it, I felt bad for people on the East Coast.”
He and his wife, Kathleen, live in north Seattle with their two young daughters, Lucy and Dahlia. Lucy is a Kindergartener at the Seattle Jewish Community School. The family is synagogue shopping, but “with Lucy in school we’re learning a lot.”
When asked what he did in his free time, the busy doctor said, “I don’t have any free time! I’m just a dad and a husband.” He did tell me that B.K. (before kids) he and his wife enjoyed backpacking and sea kayaking — they met on a kayak trip — and hope to do more with the kids when they get older.
• • •
Seattle Hebrew Academy sixth grader Dena Phillips was recently appointed to the nine-member national editorial advisory board of Babaganews, a magazine for fourth to sixth graders that presents the contemporary world through a Jewish lens.
Published by the Avi Chai foundation, Babaganews seeks to educate and inspire students, while the foundation encourages Jewish observance and better understanding between Jews of different backgrounds.
Dena receives a survey after each issue — published once per Jewish month — where she evaluates content and gives opinions on proposed features.
“They also ask me what kind of music I like and what I am thinking about the news and Israel. I can write things for the magazine,” she says, and they “send me cool free stuff.” She plans to submit a poem and hopes it will be published.
Her mom, Joyce Bloch Phillips, says she glanced at Dena’s most recent survey and was pleased to see she was bringing Torah and Jewish values to her feedback. “She integrates her knowledge of Judaism with the values highlighted in each issue of the magazine,” Joyce observes.
SHA librarian, Janine Rosenbaum and language arts teacher, Rick Monroe, recommended Dena for the job based on her writing, editing and her leadership skills.
Dena and Joyce both help raise money for the SHA’s ongoing capital campaign that funds repairs to the damage done in the 2001 Nisqually quake. Dena conducts an annual class fundraiser and serves as a table captain at the “Mitzvah Circle” breakfasts, at which members of the community come and learn about and tour the school.
A basketball player, Dena plans to play on two SHA teams this year. She is already looking forward to her eighth grade trip to Israel — another fundraising project. She earns money as a mother’s helper, and her parents match what she saves. She hopes to raise enough not just for travel expenses, but “so I can buy souvenirs for my family.”
This past summer Dena combined her academic and athletic interests at the University of Washington Robinson Center summer challenge program where she studied the physics of sports.
Dena is the daughter of Steve Phillips and the granddaughter of David and Astrid Phillips. Her family attends Bikur Cholim Machzikay Hadath.
Babaganews has a great Web site — you’ll get it on the first hit if you type that into your search engine — as well as a clever name. There is information at the Avi Chai Web site, too.
To attend a Mitzvah Circle breakfast at SHA, call them at 206-323-5750. Everyone is welcome.
Posted December 22, 2005 |
|
Diana Brement
• JTNews Columnist
Readers of this paper may recall a Herculean task taken on by Norm and Isabella Chapman three years ago. Returning to the Seattle area from a Federation-sponsored mission to Israel, they resolved to collect 25,000 books for children in the schools of Kiryat Malachi and the Hof Ashkelon region. Home to Israel’s poorest immigrants, the region is now absorbing many former residents of Gaza.
Most Israelis want or need to learn English, but the Chapmans found these schools lacked the most basic teaching tools — books.
The drive is almost finished, with over 23,300 books collected.
“We’ve shipped over 300 boxes weighing five-and-a-half tons,” Norm says, relating that Isabella alone has been responsible for 4,000 of those books from garage sales, thrift and used book stores.
The Chapmans need “gently used” books for elementary-aged readers, especially picture books. Books with slightly higher reading levels are needed for teens, but with appropriate subject matter (teenagers don’t want to read about Mrs. Piggly Wiggly, for example). They collect unused coloring books, puzzles under 500 pieces, gently used digital cameras and tape recorders and tapes, as well.
Almost all local synagogues and both Tree of Life stores have collection boxes, and many local students are collecting books for their B’nai Mitzvah projects (including Temple De Hirsch Sinai’s current sixth and seventh grades).
The Chapmans have been ably assisted in their endeavor by Dina Tanners, a former ESL teacher now working at Tree of Life, who calls Chapman “a local mitzvah hero.” Dina chairs the Israeli Partnership 2000 committee of the Federation and has visited the schools where the books go. Her background and knowledge of Hebrew has helped pinpoint the kinds of books that are needed.
“My life since retirement from Microsoft has been devoted to educating our children in Israel and in Seattle,” says Norm, who is treasurer of the Jewish Day School “with 280 kids who are my surrogate grandchildren.”
Chapman also serves on the board of the Weizmann Institute of Science, a medical research facility in Israel. A former resident of Baton Rouge, La., he has been involved in helping that city’s Jewish Federation with the needs of the approximately 1,000 members of New Orleans’ Jewish community who have settled there — some of them permanently.
“My wife keeps asking me when I’m going to re-retire,” he quips.
For more information, or if you have a donation you need picked up, contact Norm at 425-649-8553 or Norm@Cadenza.com.
• • •
Steve Steinberg is probably the envy of many American men. Ensconced in his office in Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood, he has the luxury of thinking, reading and writing about baseball to his heart’s content.
The author of numerous articles and a new baseball history book, Steinberg fell into this second career after he sold the family’s 80-year-old retail clothing chain and found himself with time on his hands.
“It was the best thing that ever happened to me,” he says, “to be able to ask ‘what was I meant to do?’
“I had hardly read a book while working,” Steve explains. With time for books, he gravitated toward baseball biographies.
“I stumbled upon one ballplayer who intrigued me,” he says, named Urban Shocker. (He’s grown so attached to this player — the subject of a book in progress — that he carries Shocker’s photo in his wallet.)
Shocker started out in St. Louis, but ended up on the Yankees, on the famous 1927 roster. He was a star, but died prematurely of a mitral valve defect — something easily corrected by surgery today.
This interest in Shocker provided an entrée to the “Dead Ball” era, 1901-1925, a pre-Babe Ruth time of low-scoring games and the birth of the American League, which has become Steinberg’s area of expertise. Most of his writing concerns the players and teams of that time, with a focus on St. Louis, the subject of his book, Baseball in St. Louis 1900-1925, published this year by Arcadia.
He has also published articles in the Yankees’ team yearbook (’05 and forthcoming in ’06) and magazine, as well as in the Society for American Baseball Research journal, The National Pastime (look for the national SABR conference in Seattle in June 2006 with keynote speaker, Jim Bouton).
“All the people I write about have been totally forgotten,” he says. “What I love is to bring back the past and make them come alive,” adding that there is “a powerful spiritual aspect” to creating this connection.
Growing up in Seattle, where his parents Irene and Sheldon still live, he attended the Seattle Hebrew School (now Academy) and graduated from the University of Washington in 1972, spending two of his college years in Israel. He lives in the Montlake neighborhood with his wife, Colleen and their kids, Brian (who’s at Johns Hopkins), Mathew and Allison. They belong to Temple B’nai Torah.
For more information, visit Steve’s Web site, www.stevesteinberg.net. You can find his book at Elliott Bay and Third Place Books and on Amazon, or purchase it through the web site, giving Steve the chance to autograph your copy.
Posted December 8, 2005 |
|
Diana Brement
• JTNews Columnist
Northwest Yeshiva High School grad Oren Kaufman, who graduated from Yeshiva University this past May, returned to YU this fall. He participated in the Presidential… Posted November 25, 2005 |
|
Diana Brement
• JTNews Columnist
Basha Brownstein, manager of the healing arts program at Cancer Lifeline in Seattle, calls herself a 'chopped liver Jew.' Growing up in her non-observant, but… Posted November 10, 2005 |
|
Diana Brement
• JTNews Columnist
I chatted recently with Ellen Hellman while she was visiting her daughter in New Jersey. The former Seattleite, who made aliyah with her husband John… Posted October 27, 2005 |
|
Diana Brement
• JTNews Columnist
Bernice Mossafer Rind is familiar to the Seattle-area Jewish community for her commitment to many causes. Her interests in higher education and politics have led… Posted September 28, 2005 |
|
Diana Brement
• JTNews Columnist
When Pesha Gertler arrived at Seattle’s Bumbershoot arts festival for the naming of the city’s newest “poet populist,” she had no idea that she had won.
“I cried,” she said when city councilman Nick Licata read her name. “I was in shock.”
The poet populist program was started by Licata to promote literary arts. Readers may be familiar with the idea of a poet laureate — our country has one and so do many states — but Licata added a democratic twist by having the poet populist elected.
If you run in one of Seattle’s many poetry circles you no doubt received more than one e-mail from various arts organizations exhorting you to vote. There were 12 candidates for the post. The winner receives a $500 honorarium and opportunities to read and teach around the city. Over 1,500 people voted.
“I’m overwhelmed,” says the North Seattle Community College creative writing instructor. “I never dreamed it would be me.”
Pesha feels she accepted the award not only for herself, but for “everyone who’s marginalized or disenfranchised. It’s an acknowledgment of the importance of including those voices,” she adds, explaining that she has worked hard during her career to reach adults and children who wouldn’t ordinarily have the chance to express themselves in words.
Appropriately, her first official act was to read her poetry at Katherine House, a women’s shelter and housing facility recently opened by the city. She read her poem, “The Little Match Girl Revisited,” and “they loved it.” At the end of Gertler’s poem, the match girl doesn’t die, as she does in the fairy tale, but begins crusading for housing for other match girls like herself.
Gertler says the social justice theme of this poem, which appeared in Pontoon and is soon to be on the Switched on Gutenberg Web site, often gets a chuckle of recognition from Jewish groups.
In addition to teaching and serving as poet populist, Pesha is working hard to find a publisher for her manuscript, a collection of poems that deals with Jewish identity, which “is extremely important to me.”
“A poem is a way of entering the mystery, which includes what it means to be Jewish,” she says. Being raised in a three-generation, multilingual home in Brooklyn is another strong influence on her work. Her grandmother, who spoke only Yiddish, went to work every day in a sweatshop.
“I learned how language can cut you out,” as well as help you grow, she states. “I’m very sensitive to those who are shut out.”
As for Seattle’s poetry scene, Gertler says it has grown and changed enormously, and “that was so evident in the 12 poets who read [for the poet populist position].
“The scene has never been as alive,” as it is now. “When I came to Seattle in the ’70s, there was the academic world and that was it. Poets were pretty frustrated,” she says, adding that Nelson Bentley, the late University of Washington professor, “was our only asset.”
Now there are dozens of readings every month, with and without open mikes, including the quarterly one that Pesha runs at NSCC. (The next one is Dec. 2.)
Gertler hopes to use the position to continue finding “the poems that are hidden or buried” in all of us. She’ll be working closely with Licata to develop her role.
“I was so moved to have public recognition for something that has been so deeply important to me. I’ve dedicated my life to healing [through poetry] as many people I could reach. I’m delighted to have that acknowledged and honored and I want to do everything I can to make sure this continues.”
• • •
Seattle native Ilana Balint says she’s delighted to be back in her hometown, where she’s landed a job as public relations manager at the Seattle Repertory Theater.
Ilana grew up in Seattle’s Seward Park neighborhood, where her family attended Sephardic Bikur Holim. The 26-year-old graduate of Northwest Yeshiva High School and the University of Washington recently completed graduate studies in arts management at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
Balint, who did P.R. for the Seattle nightclub Jazz Alley in between college and grad school, says that the program at Carnegie Mellon “was awesome” and “just what I was looking for.” Instead of a thesis, a group of students acted as consultants for an arts group that had bought an old church as a performance space.
While she job hunted on both coasts, Ilana says, “I knew I wanted to come back to the West Coast. I love it here.”
She’s an avid skier and glad to be back where there are “real mountains,” and she’s also enjoying walking around Green Lake again.
If her name looks familiar to readers of this paper, it’s because Ilana is the daughter of former Seattleite and now Jerusalem-based journalist Judy Balint, whose work sometimes appears in these pages. Ilana tells me that her brother Benjamin has also moved to Israel, where he is working for a magazine. She still has family in Seattle, though. Her dad, step-mom and step-brother are all here.
Posted September 16, 2005 |
|
Diana Brement
• JTNews Columnist
When I called Max Hurwitz, he was happily settled at the University of Southern California after a week of orientation and one day of classes.… Posted September 11, 2005 |
|
Page 19 of 19 pages « First < 17 18 19
|
|
|
|
M.O.T.: Member of the Tribe
There’s always somebody in the community who’s got a story to tell. For over a decade, Diana Brement has been telling us about those people whose stories might otherwise be overlooked. Send her your tips about someone you know to mot@jtnews.net
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
MORE COVERAGE
