JTNews Columnists

Bookish types

2013-05-07T17:09:34+00:00

Diana Brement

JTNews Columnist

At the book launch party for “Horatio’s One Wish,” held at Seattle’s Mockingbird Books, newly minted children’s author Joshua Kriesberg related that he’d written voraciously as a child. In writing “Horatio’s One Wish,” a book for middle-grade readers (ages 8 to 12) he tried to capture the free and unhampered writing of those years.
Growing up in Bethesda, Md., Josh remembers “math and creative writing were the subjects I was most interested in,” finding that “one helps the other. Doing math sometimes brings out the creative side.”
After working for Microsoft for 16 years, he left last year to focus on promoting the book, most of which he wrote in 2007 and 2008.
“I was at a crossroads,” then, he says, “not doing what I really wanted to do,” and decided to return to his dream of writing. During that year he came home from work and wrote for two to three hours a day with the support of his wife, Jane Lichty, and their twins, Max and Ben, who were 11 at the time.
Once complete, Josh sent the book to some publishers, but found the adventure, with its heroic hedgehog named Horatio, didn’t fit with current publishing interests. He put the manuscript away for four years, but once he left Microsoft he decided to publish it on his own, a popular route for authors these days. He found an illustrator, James Bernardin, hired a book designer and used CreateSpace (Amazon) for production.
Now he is gearing up for what many authors find most daunting — marketing his book. In addition to Mockingbird, he’s made one school appearance and hopes to appear at other schools, libraries and bookstores. He is doing some consulting for tech startups, “but a lot of my attention is on the book,” he says.
He has a website, www.joshuakriesberg.com, and an Amazon page where all but one reviewer has given the book five stars, but finds that in the “virtual world you’re reaching out to a lot of people, but they’re not hearing you,” he says. “The physical world goes a long way.”
• • •

Betsy Dischel uses song, American Sign Language and both Hebrew and Spanish in her PJ Library programs. Here she is signing and guitar playing at a Musikal Magik class at the Phinney Neighborhood Center in Seattle. (Photo by Diana Brement)

I went to Mockingbird Books another time last month to see Betsy Dischel in her monthly PJ Library appearance there.
PJ Library is an outreach program of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation that sends interested families a Jewish-themed children’s book or CD each month, in partnership with philanthropists and local Jewish organizations. In the Seattle area it is administered by our Jewish Federation, which hosts storytelling events around Seattle.
Trained in special education, Betsy brings an additional dimension to the two to five PJ Library events she leads each month.
As “a special-ed teacher in California,” she explains, “I was working with students with disabilities, who spoke Spanish and also American Sign Language, all passions of mine.”
After moving to Seattle she was inspired by a preschool music class her son Diego attended. She started Musikal Magic, creating classes for preschoolers that she brings to schools and organizations around the Seattle area.
“It’s become popular,” says the New York City native, and there is a waiting list. “People want Spanish, they want American Sign Language, they want live music,” which Betsy provides on her guitar.
She also took Diego to a “tot Shabbat” at Temple Beth Am and was further inspired by the synagogue’s song leader Shoshana Stombaugh, a kindergarten teacher at Seattle Jewish Community School.
“I wanted Diego to go to school where she worked,” says Betsy.
A school administrator “suggested I become a storyteller,” Betsy told me, and connected her with Amy Paquette at the Jewish Federation, who invited her to be a PJ Library teacher.
In her classes and PJ Library events, kids are getting “a professional level of instruction, [including] brain development…language development,” says Betsy, and visual development as well as fun. The day I saw her at Mockingbird, there was a deaf toddler and mother in the audience. Betsy is quick to point out that she welcomes kids of all capabilities to her programs with “a joy and a heart for sharing language and stories with people of all abilities.”

Got milk for Shavuot? How about delectable dairy?

2013-05-07T17:05:23+00:00

Michael Natkin

JTNews Columnist

Panna cotta is a classic Italian dessert, traditionally made from cream and milk set with gelatin, which isn’t vegetarian. The gelatin is what makes it different from flan (set with eggs) or pudding (set with starch and sometimes eggs).
The best panna cotta is ultra-creamy and just barely set — it should have a distinct wiggle to it. So the challenge in making a vegetarian panna cotta is to replace the gelatin with something that doesn’t make a brittle, crumbly, or over-firm gel. Agar, derived from seaweed, can make a good panna cotta if you are careful to use the bare minimum amount.
Agar is relatively easy to find. The brand I like best is Telephone — it comes in little packets that you can find at Asian groceries or on Amazon.com. I find this brand to be completely flavorless, and the thickening strength is very reliable. If you try other brands, or agar flakes etc., you may have to experiment to find the equivalent amount.
Whenever you use agar it’s important to disperse it before hydrating. The best technique is to whisk it in with sugar or another powdered ingredient, disperse it into a vortex of liquid in the blender, and only then do you heat it. If you try to heat it, which causes the powder to hydrate, before fully dispersing it, you’ll have a clumpy mess on your hands.
With panna cotta you have the choice of serving it in ramekins or unmolding it. Obviously ramekins are the safest choice, but if you want to unmold, it’s best to use metal or silicone molds to aid in the release. Dipping the base of the mold in hot water for a few seconds before drying and inverting on a plate may aid in release.

Caramelized Banana and Buttermilk Panna Cotta

For the bourbon brown sugar syrup
3/4 cup water
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
6 Tbs. good-quality bourbon (Maker’s Mark or better)
Bring all ingredients to a simmer in a small saucepan. Simmer 5 minutes. Strain and reserve in refrigerator.
For the caramelized banana and buttermilk panna cotta
3 overripe bananas, peeled (430 grams peeled weight)
2 cups buttermilk
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. salt
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 tsp. Telephone brand agar agar powder (check if you need kosher, but other brands’ strength may vary)
Gather 8 ramekins, pudding cups, or whatever you want to serve the panna cotta in onto a baking sheet that will fit in your refrigerator.
Preheat oven to 400º. Put bananas on a parchment line baking sheet and roast until very well browned and bubbling, about 30 minutes, mashing with a fork a couple of times throughout to expose more surface area.
Put bananas, buttermilk, cream, vanilla, salt, and brown sugar in a blender and blend on high speed for 2 minutes.
Whisk together white sugar and agar in a small bowl. With the blender on medium speed, remove the top and sprinkle the sugar-agar mix into the vortex. Put the cover back on and blend on high speed for 2 more minutes.
Strain the mixture through your finest sieve into a saucepan. Heat at medium, whisking frequently until it comes to a simmer. Immediately remove from heat and transfer to the ramekins. Place on baking sheet and cover with tin foil. Refrigerate at least two hours.
To serve, unmold if desired by dipping the ramekin base in hot water then drying and inverting onto a plate. Otherwise, you can serve directly in the ramekins. Drizzle about 2 tablespoons of the bourbon brown sugar syrup on each portion.
Makes 6-8 servings.

Israel’s first responders’ first-rate lessons for Boston

2013-05-03T20:06:55+00:00

Janis Siegel

JTNews Columnist

In Boston on April 15, as in Israel, when an improvised explosive device detonated onto a crowd of innocent civilians at the finish line of the city’s signature marathon, bystanders instinctively and immediately rushed in to help the injured, tying improvised tourniquets on those with severed limbs, transporting them to waiting ambulances, and comforting others who were in utter shock.
But within minutes, when emergency first-responders arrived on the scene that afternoon on Boylston St., medics implemented a rescue operation with the precision and all of the skills they learned from their Israeli counterparts who helped train them, the Magen David Adom, Israel’s national emergency response organization.
Tasked with administering CPR, attending to traumatic injuries, mitigating severe blood loss, retrieving and covering severed body parts with sterile fabrics, readying patients for surgery, and transporting them safely to hospitals, Israel’s MDA had proactively instructed Boston disaster teams on what to do in those crucial first 10 minutes of a disaster.
“Those first magic 10 minutes, when the patient is really at the verge of life or death, is really where we come in,” said Erik Levis, assistant director for press relations and editorial content for the American Friends of Magen David Adom, speaking with JTNews from his New York office. “We get victims in a position to be helped once they get to the hospital.”
Recently, he said, several of their staff travelled to Boston and all over the U.S.to speak about best practices in these types of emergencies and he said, medical staff from Boston have travelled to MDA offices in Israel to see, firsthand, how they operate.
In December 2011, Kurt Schwartz, the undersecretary of homeland security for Massachusetts, went to Israel with homeland security and emergency medical services personnel from his state. He told JTNews they were focused on learning how to deal with a terror attack in the event that a device, much like the one that surfaced in Boston last month, was detonated.
“We made visits to several hospitals and to Magen David Adom’s headquarters,” said Schwartz. “What I learned and saw in Israel helped me in my response to the IED attacks in Boston.”
Also in 2011, Ori Shacham, a high-ranking official in the MDA, visited the Boston University Medical School to coach students and paramedics in their emergency management program. Shacham described how Israel integrates and coordinates the police, security, ambulances, and the fire department into an unfolding catastrophe.
“The level and quality of the people at Boston University were comparable to everything we see in Israel,” said Shacham. “The only thing they were lacking was experience, which unfortunately, we could provide to them.”
Shacham also described the medicines that MDA uses in those crucial minutes en route to the hospital and the sophisticated tourniquets they use in their ambulances.
That day in Boston, when so many ran to the aid of the wounded, Shacham said he was gratified to see all those people who tried to help.
“It was a real eye-opening experience for us in Israel because we haven’t seen America attacked like this since 9/11,” Shacham said. “It felt a little like Israel, seeing that people were just rushing in — people caring for each other. We were all very happy to see that Americans cared for each other the way Israelis care for each other here.”
At an impromptu press conference at the scene of the Boston attack, Dr. Alastair Conn, chief of emergency services at Massachusetts General Hospital, also credited the Israeli preparation his team received.
“This is like a bomb explosion that we hear about in Baghdad or in Israel,” said Conn. “About two years ago, we asked the Israelis to come across and they helped us set up our disaster teams so that we could respond in this type of manner.”
In 2005, Conn consulted with Dr. Pinchas Halpern, a world-renowned expert on trauma treatment and chief of the emergency department at Tel Aviv Medical Center, who travelled to Boston to meet with him, according to reporting from Algemeiner.com.
Halpern said his team learned to manage mass-casualty crises by performing additional CT scans to detect smaller pieces of shrapnel, streamlining the victim identification process, keeping patients long enough to be sure of the extent of their injuries, and calling up large numbers of staff as soon as a terrorist attack occurs — just in case.
“As soon as we heard about the blasts we didn’t let any anesthesiologists or general or trauma surgeons or pediatricians leave the hospital,” Conn said. “I remember walking through the emergency department two hours after the bomb victims arrived. Many of the acute patients had already been moved, and it looked like there was more staff than patients in the ER. If there had been a third or a fourth bomb that day — we could have managed.”

Dancing into broadcasting | Leading AIDS care into a new era

2013-04-22T22:51:58+00:00

Diana Brement

JTNews Columnist

1 I suspected Seattle-area traffic reporter Sprince Arbogast was Jewish because I assumed “Sprince” was a variant of the Yiddish name Shprintze. Then one really messy traffic night this winter I heard her mutter on KPLU, “Oy vey, the traffic,” and I was sure.
Sprince, it turns out, is a childhood nickname based on her maiden surname that’s stuck with her into adulthood. Born and raised on Seattle’s Eastside, she went to Sammamish High School and the University of Washington. She became a Bat Mitzvah at Temple De Hirsch Sinai, where her grandparents and parents were married.
She became a professional dancer and arts promoter, first in New York and then employed by a modern dance company in Grenoble, France for a few years. Hired by a performing arts center to increase attendance, she contacted local radio stations, she recalls. One station hired her, first to produce an arts show, and eventually to be a reporter and translator for the news department.
“I was there at the right time,” she says.
When she stopped dancing and returned to the States, she was ready for a second career in broadcasting. Back in Seattle, she started as a producer at KING Broadcasting and has done a variety of work in the Seattle area, including reporting for public radio station KUOW and running her own media and communications company.
“I knew I wanted to be an at-home mom, but keep my feet wet,” she says. So when pregnant with the oldest of her three children, she “knocked on the door” of Metro Traffic (now Total Traffic, part of Clear Channel) and they hired her.
While she reports under her own name now, “back in the day I [had] three different names,” says Sprince, and multiple on-air personas. “On a rock and roll station I had to banter with the DJ,” she says, and a news station required “a news delivery…[and] you had to remember who you were on which station.”
The challenge of traffic reporting is getting information out quickly.
“Traffic is reactive,” she says, but new technology is speeding up reporting and response time.
Still freelancing as a producer and reporter, she is thrilled that KUOW submitted one of her recent pieces for an Edward R. Murrow award.
Sprince occasionally appears on TV, substituting for Adam Gehrke on Q13 in the morning.
“It’s fun,” she says, but “TV means waking up at 3:50 [a.m.]…and hair and makeup have to be perfect.”
• • •
Lauren Simonds became executive director of Rosehedge/Multifaith Works this past January, ready, she says, to return to a leadership role and drawn to “the human services, direct services” that the organization provides. The former local director of NCJW (National Council of Jewish Women) and NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League), and program director for StandWithUs Northwest says she’s “honored that this organization chose me [to follow] in the footsteps of such great leaders” as previous director Rabbi Anson Laytner and founder Rev. Gwen Beighle.
Rosehedge/Multifaith Works provides housing, compassionate health care and psycho-social support services for people living with HIV/AIDS who are homeless and struggling with chemical dependency and mental health issues. It began in 1988 as two separate organizations, Rosehedge AIDS Housing and Multifaith AIDS Project of Seattle (which later changed its name to Multifaith Works).
When those organizations were founded, patients were dying quickly, “often ostracized and alone,” explains Lauren. “What we hear now…in the news is very little, except that [patients] are living.”
She feels like AIDS is on the back burner, but people need to be reminded that “the safety net is being cut due to the economy.” Her role is to help lead “the agency forward in a strategic planning process” that will determine “where we will go over the next three to five years.” Understanding insurance changes brought by the Affordable Care Act is part of that job.
The south Florida native graduated from Boston University and decided to move to Seattle after seeing local scenery in the movie “Immediate Family.” She has a master’s degree in social work from the UW. Lauren, her husband and son attend Congregation Kol HaNeshemah in West Seattle.
Before NCJW, Lauren worked at Temple B’nai Torah and helped their social action committee form a “CareTeam,” which worked with Multifaith Works.
“Currently there are no synagogue-based CareTeams, and I’m excited to reconnect the Jewish community with our work,” she says.
A CareTeam training is scheduled for April 27, and June 2 is the organization’s 25th anniversary celebration and fundraiser at Temple De Hirsch Sinai. Find information at the website, www.rosehedge.org.

Seeking solace in poetry

2013-04-22T22:49:34+00:00

Rivy Poupko Kletenik

JTNews Columnist

Dear Rivy,
The Boston Marathon bombing is just devastating and shocking, one more tragic life-changing milestone in our country’s loss of innocence. This has been just a dreadful year of violence what with the shootings at the opening of the Batman movie and then the awful shootings at the school in Newtown, Conn. I feel like the carpet has been pulled out from underneath our entire country. I am at a loss.
There are a variety of coping mechanisms that people draw on at times like these. Some immerse themselves in news reports, and some set up a wall of self-protection, distancing themselves from all media outlets. Some people become cynical and pessimistic; others try to bring healing and restoration to the world.
Then there are the rest of us, who vacillate from one extreme to the other as we exchange nuggets of news and information, giving off the allure of some pitiful speck of control that we might pretend to have. Ultimately, in spite of everything, we reassure ourselves that this world is not a ghastly place of random horror. We do this so that we might continue to place one foot and then the other down as we propel ourselves into a daily life. We gravitate like moths toward some bit of light in the darkness. We flutter around morsels of inspiring tales of heroism that present themselves, as if to offset the high dose of cruelty. Most of all we then look for comfort. How might we get through this morass?
For this tragedy, this time, in this National Poetry Month of April, perhaps the comfort we seek might be found in the medium of poetry, a lovely locus for the lonely and a solace for the isolated. Per Harold Bloom, who writes that his antidote for “so many shadows, so many difficulties” is poetry, perchance we, too, might find a modicum of succor therein.
I offer you a selection of Jewish poetry, hopefully to speak to the troubles of the moment.
First is a short, classic poem from Hannah Szenes, a Hungarian Jewish young woman. While on a rescue mission from then-Palestine, after heroically parachuting into Hungary in 1944, Szenes was tragically captured, tortured and then executed by the Nazis. This poem suggests, more than anything else, a sense of continuity and the ongoing ebb and flow of both nature and the human reach for the beyond. This is a comfort.

A Walk to Caesarea
My God, My God
I pray that these things never end:
The sand and the sea
The rush of the water
The lightning in the sky
The prayer of man.

From the Biblical book of Kohelet, here is another poetic portrait of the constant, rhythmic patterns of this worldly life, signaling a transcendent grandeur, greater than any single one of us. Captured and put to music by Pete Seeger, and later recorded by the Byrds, it became possibly the No. 1 Billboard song with the oldest lyrics. Surely, reading it quiets the turbulent soul.

For everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

As we struggle to understand the frailty of life snuffed out in a single swift act of violence, let us allow the words of this haunting poem by Israeli poet Zelda Schneersohn Mishkovsky to take us on a journey inward, to slowly help us redirect our internal compass toward those whose names are now ensconced forever with Boston’s Patriots Day 2013.

Everyone Has a Name
Everyone has a name
given to him by God
and given to him by his parents.
Everyone has a name
given to him by his stature
and the way he smiles
and given to him by his clothing.
Everyone has a name
given to him by the mountains
and given to him by his walls.
Everyone has a name
given to him by the stars
and given to him by his neighbors.
Everyone has a name
given to him by his sins
and given to him by his longing.
Everyone has a name
given to him by his enemies
and given to him by his love.
Everyone has a name
given to him by his feasts
and given to him by his work.
Everyone has a name
given to him by the seasons
and given to him by his blindness.
Everyone has a name
given to him by the sea and
given to him
by his death.

This last, raw poem by Israeli poet Yehudah Amichai captures for us the pain that Israel has come to know too well, of the sudden bomb that shatters everything in sight and afar, whose genesis is cold and calculated at the same time as its impact reaches the immeasurable heights of heaven, raising timeless questions with no answers.

The Diameter of the Bomb
The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters
and the diameter of its effective range about seven meters,
with four dead and eleven wounded.
And around these, in a larger circle
of pain and time, two hospitals are scattered
and one graveyard. But the young woman
who was buried in the city she came from,
at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers,
enlarges the circle considerably,
and the solitary man mourning her death
at the distant shores of a country far across the sea
includes the entire world in the circle.
And I won’t even mention the crying of orphans
that reaches up to the throne of God and
beyond, making a circle with no end and no God.

Give yourself the gift of pausing as you read these poems. Try sharing them out loud to friends and family. Every poem tells a story. Ask yourself: What story does each of these poems tell? In what way do the poems speak to the way you are feeling?
Let us hope, that, as in the words of Jean-Paul Sartre, “Every age has its own poetry; in every age the circumstances of history choose a nation, a race, a class to take up the torch by creating situations that can be expressed or transcended only through poetry,” that the poems here might go a bit toward the relief we each crave.

Happy homeschoolers • Also: Good hair days for local stylist

2013-04-18T00:31:24+00:00

Diana Brement

JTNews Columnist

The words “Jewish” and “homeschooling” are not frequently seen together, especially outside of the Orthodox community, but the idea appealed to North Seattle resident Deb Harrick the moment it was planted in her head.
“It was such an unusual thing…I was always explaining [it],” says Deb, adding there is no one way to homeschool. Homeschoolers are like Jews, she jokes, with three opinions for two people.
Deb and Tod Harrick’s kids, Jasmine, 9, and Eliana, 7, have never attended a conventional school. When Jasmine was a baby, they joined a cooperative preschool at North Seattle Community College. Deb was getting a teaching certificate (which is not the case for all homeschooling parents).
“I loved being a mom [and] being with the kids so much” that Tod suggested it, she says. “I never even thought about it or knew about it.” But it made sense. “We had always done things a little bit different anyway.”
She discovered Seattle Homeschool Group (SHG) with a couple hundred families, an active listserve, regular meetings, and classes for kids at a community center. She has been actively involved for eight years. “It’s the only secular game in town,” explains the North Seattle native, an alumna of Hale High School and the University of Washington. Most homeschoolers belong to faith-based communities.
A different issue arose around the kids’ formal Jewish education. “It felt really hard to make the homeschooling choice,” especially with the Seattle Jewish Community School in the neighborhood.
“I’m leaving community behind,” Deb remembers feeling. “It was sort of bittersweet.”
Having worked for Jewish federations, United Jewish Appeal and active in Judaism since her teen years in BBYO, Deb yearned for a Jewish component to education. She also currently teaches music at Kadima’s Sunday school.
By chance, the family went to a Congregation Beth Shalom event where she learned of another liberal Jewish homeschooling family.
Deb says she was “in heaven,” and she quickly started the Seattle Jewish Homeschoolers group, which includes a number of SHG families, several of whom had not been actively Jewish before.
The Harricks have hosted a number of holiday-related events, including a homeschool seder and a Hanukkah party. Deb estimates there are 35 to 40 families involved. Twenty came to the last event. “It’s still a small group,” but it is outgrowing their house.
The whole family enjoys acting, and their flexible schedule allows for weekday afternoon rehearsals. Jasmine appeared recently in “The Music Man” at the 5th Avenue Theater (see the MOT column “We love our music and we love our food,” Feb. 8, 2013), and you can see the whole family this summer in Kitsap Forest Theater’s spring-summer musical, “Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.”
For more information, contact seattlejewishhomeschoolers@gmail.com
• • •

Joseph Abolafia, left, with his dad, Jack. (Photo courtesy Joseph Abolafia)

“What should we talk about, business or charity?” Joseph Abolafia asked me when I called him last week at Salon Joseph, his hair salon. Since the Seattle native had just finished running the annual City of Hope (COH) fundraising Mah Jongg tournament, we started there.
The tournament, held at Bellevue’s Temple B’nai Torah, raised $8,000 for diabetes research at the California charitable hospital.
COH has been an Abolafia family affair. “My mother [Betty] was involved in City of Hope,” before her death from cancer, says Joseph, and he and his two sisters, Marilyn Shulman and Vicki Lynn Babani were inspired by her. Even Joseph’s dad, Jack, is a member.
The tournament “is my big project every year,” Joseph adds.
The Franklin High graduate grew up at Sephardic Bikur Holim and has been a member there in his own right since the age of 20.
“I feel a real connection to my community,” he says. “My family all grew up there.”
Going directly to beauty school from high school, Joseph says, “I knew I wanted to be a hairdresser.” He opened his first salon at age 23 in downtown Seattle and his current salon in 1985.
Still at the same location, Salon Joseph will be doubling in size in its first-ever expansion and will be ready to open in about two weeks. They were able to take over the space next door and “the timing with the economy is good,” Joseph says, explaining that, “truthfully, the hair business is fairly stable in bad times.
“People need their hair done,” whether they’re working or job hunting. Plus, the salon’s clientele is “a little more established,” better able to weather the vagaries of the economy.
You can read more about Joseph and his employees at www.salonjoseph.com, and more about City of Hope at
www.cityofhope.org.

Back to life: New regenerative therapy brings hope

2013-04-18T00:30:42+00:00

Janis Siegel

JTNews Columnist

In 2010, Rabbi Rafael Shmuelevitz, head of the Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem and a three-decade career educator, could hardly speak, breathe, or walk due to the deadly effects of his advanced stage Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, commonly known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease. This neurodegenerative disease eventually claims the life of its victims.
Resigned to life in a wheelchair as his body continued to deteriorate, Shmuelevitz reportedly told Israel’s Channel 2 News in July 2012 the progression of his disease had stopped and that he could walk, speak, and teach again just one month after taking part in the world’s first clinical trial, at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, to test the stem-cell therapy drug NurOwn.
Developed by BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics, an Israeli biomedical company, NurOwn is the company’s “proprietary, first-of-its-kind technology.” According to researchers, in the first phase of the trial several of the 24 patients had “considerable improvement.” Four out of six subjects had significant improvement, according to Hadassah Hospital, and the progression of the disease stopped in two of the others.
“These results are extremely encouraging,” said Dimitrios Karussis, head of the department of neurology at the Hadassah Medical Center, in a statement. Karussis is the principal investigator for the clinical trial.
“The early clinical follow-up of the patients treated with the stem cells shows indications of beneficial clinical effects, such as an improvement in breathing and swallowing ability, as well as in muscular power,” he said.
Researchers believe ALS sufferers develop symptoms when their cells simply die off. To intervene in that process, doctors took stem cells from the subject’s bone marrow and treated them with the NurOwn stem-cell technology, which accelerated the production of BDNF and GDNF, brain-cell derived and glial-cell derived proteins that support the survival and emergence of dopamine-like neurons.
Then, researchers duplicated these stem cells, added growth hormones to them, and injected them intramuscularly into early-stage ALS patients or into the spinal cords of the more advanced-stage patients.
Using a patient’s stem cells ensures the body will accept the cells and it also guards against possible infection from another person’s stem cells.
“Preliminary results demonstrate that the stem cells have the potential not only to stop deterioration, but perhaps even cure ALS,” BrainStorm’s president, Chaim Lebovits, told Reuters.
“The coming phases in the trial will have to prove this,” added Lebovits, “but these results also reaffirm our belief that we have an enormous potential of being successful with less severe indications such as multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s.”
Rasheda Ali, the daughter of the famous boxing icon and legend, Muhammad Ali, paid a visit to the company’s laboratories at its site at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem in August 2012. She is also a board adviser to BrainStorm. Her father has been coping with the debilitating effects of Parkinson’s disease for many years.
Rasheda Ali is known internationally for her advocacy work to further research in the area of neurodegenerative diseases and published the book “I’ll Hold Your Hand So You Won’t Fall: A Child’s Guide to Parkinson’s Disease” (Merit, 2011).
While in Israel, Ali met with Karussis and Prof. Tamir Ben-Hur, a professor of neurology at Hadassah to learn about their most recent successes in the treatment of these brain diseases.
In an interview about the visit, Ali told Foxnewsinsider.com she does this work to help everyone afflicted with these diseases.
“Here at BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics, we are trying to get those answers for millions of people,” she said. “I’m their voice. We’ve been in clinical trials for BrainStorm for years. But going from pre-clinical to clinical is major for us. We’re getting there.”
BrainStorm is anticipating the approval of NurOwn by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration even as it conducts its second, more intensive Phase IIa trial using NurOwn with 12 more ALS patients.
In this current phase, three cohorts of subjects are receiving increasing doses of combined injections of NurOwn, inside the muscle and inside the spinal cord. They will be followed for six months. Karussis is also leading this second phase.
The company plans to begin Phase II clinical trials in 2013 in three locations in the U.S. — the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, and The Mayo Clinic, pending approval from the USFDA.
NurOwn’s availability on the general market for widespread use is projected to take another five years, but the applications for BrainStorm’s stem-cell therapy technique is also expected to benefit other diseases, including MS and Parkinson’s.
“It will hopefully be possible to treat Parkinson’s disease,” Dr. Adrian Harel, the director of research and development at BrainStorm told nocamels.com, “as well as Huntington’s and other nerve diseases.”

An Israeli national sandwich, coming to a plate near you

2013-04-16T18:07:35+00:00

Michael Natkin

JTNews Columnist

Sabich was a popular Shabbat food for Iraqi Jews, and when they immigrated to Israel and set up a community in Ramat Gan, the sandwich came with them. It has since gained widespread popularity.
There is something about the creaminess of the egg and the fried goodness of the eggplant that work really well together, and then the garnishes of Israeli salad (tomatoes, cucumbers with a bit of lemon juice), hummus, onions, pickles, parsley, and amba (pickled mango) give your mouth the full workout of sweet, spicy, sour, herbacious, smooth and crispy.
If you can’t find amba, mix together diced fresh mango with minced preserved lemon and a Sriracha-type hot sauce to taste.
Vegetarian; vegan if you omit the egg. Gluten-free if you omit the pita and serve as a salad.
Makes 4 sandwiches
2 Roma tomatoes, finely diced
1/2 English cucumber, finely diced
Juice of 1 lemon
1-2 large eggplants, peeled and sliced 1/4” or so thick
Vegetable oil for pan-frying
Kosher salt
4 hardboiled eggs, peeled and sliced
Hummus (store bought or your own)
Prepared tahini (store bought or your own)
1/2 bunch flat leaf parsley leaves
1/2 small white onion minced
1/2-cup pickle, cut into small slices or cubes
Amba or hot sauce of your choice
4 pieces pita bread
Make a simple salad with the tomatoes, cucumber, and lemon juice, with salt to taste.
Fry the eggplant in batches until thoroughly tender and browned; drain on paper towels and sprinkle with salt.
While the eggplant is frying, put the eggs, tahini, parsley, onion, pickle, and amba in bowls.
Toast or grill the pita bread. Let everyone build a sandwich with as much or as little of each ingredient as they please.

Back to life: New regenerative therapy brings hope

2013-04-10T18:21:02+00:00

Janis Siegel

JTNews Columnist

In 2010, Rabbi Rafoel Shmulevitz, head of the Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem and a three-decade career educator, could hardly speak, breathe, or walk due to the deadly effects of his advanced stage Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, commonly known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease. This neurodegenerative disease eventually claims the life of its victims.
Resigned to life in a wheelchair as his body continued to deteriorate, Shmulovitz reportedly told Israel’s Channel 2 News in July 2012 the progression of his disease had stopped and that he could walk, speak, and teach again just one month after taking part in the world’s first clinical trial, at Hadassah Medical Center, to test the stem-cell therapy drug NurOwn.
Developed by BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics, an Israeli biomedical company, NurOwn is the company’s “proprietary, first-of-its-kind technology.” According to researchers, in the first phase of the trial several of the 24 patients had “considerable improvement.” Four out of six subjects had significant improvement, according to Hadassah Hospital, and the progression of the disease stopped in two of the others.
“These results are extremely encouraging,” said Dimitrios Karussis, head of the department of neurology at the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, in a statement. Karussis is the principal investigator for the clinical trial.
“The early clinical follow-up of the patients treated with the stem cells shows indications of beneficial clinical effects, such as an improvement in breathing and swallowing ability, as well as in muscular power,” he said.
Researchers believe ALS sufferers develop symptoms when their cells simply die off. To intervene in that process, doctors took stem cells from the subject’s bone marrow and treated them with the NurOwn stem-cell technology, which accelerated the production of BDNF and GDNF, brain cell-derived and glial-cell derived proteins that support the survival and emergence of dopamine-like neurons.
Then, researchers duplicated these stem cells, added growth hormones to them, and injected them intramuscularly into early-stage ALS patients or into the spinal cords of the more advanced-stage patients.
Using a patient’s stem cells ensures the body will accept the cells and it also guards against possible infection from another person’s stem cells.
“Preliminary results demonstrate that the stem cells have the potential not only to stop deterioration, but perhaps even cure ALS,” BrainStorm’s president, Chaim Lebovits, told Reuters.
“The coming phases in the trial will have to prove this,” added Lebovits, “but these results also reaffirm our belief that we have an enormous potential of being successful with less severe indications such as multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s.”
Rasheda Ali, the daughter of the famous boxing icon and legend, Muhammad Ali, paid a visit to the company’s laboratories at its site at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem in August 2012. She is also a board advisor to BrainStorm. Her father has been coping with the debilitating effects of Parkinson’s disease for many years.
Rasheda Ali is known internationally for her advocacy work to further research in the area of neurodegenerative diseases and published the book “I’ll Hold Your Hand So You Won’t Fall: A Child’s Guide to Parkinson’s Disease” (Merit, 2011).
While in Israel, Ali met with Karussis and Prof. Tamir Ben-Hur, a professor of neurology at Hadassah to learn about their most recent successes in the treatment of these brain diseases.
In an interview about the visit, Ali told Foxnewsinsider.com she does this work to help everyone afflicted with these diseases.
“Here at BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics, we are trying to get those answers for millions of people,” she said. “I’m their voice. We’ve been in clinical trials for BrainStorm for years. But going from pre-clinical to clinical is major for us. We’re getting there. “
BrainStorm is anticipating the approval of NurOwn by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration even as conducts its second, more intensive Phase lla trial using NurOwn with 12 more ALS patients.
In this current phase, three cohorts of subjects are receiving increasing doses of combined injections of NurOwn, inside the muscle and inside the spinal cord. They will be followed for six months. Karussis is also leading this second phase.
The company plans to begin Phase II clinical trials in 2013 in three locations in the U.S. — the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, and The Mayo Clinic, pending approval from the USFDA.
NurOwn’s availability on the general market for widespread use is projected to take another five years, but the applications for BrainStorm’s stem-cell therapy technique is also expected to benefit other diseases, including MS and Parkinson’s.
“It will hopefully be possible to treat Parkinson’s disease,” Dr. Adrian Harel, the director of research and development at BrainStorm told nocamels.com, “as well as Huntington’s and other nerve diseases.”

New Hadassah Foundation board member

2013-04-01T19:27:15+00:00

Diana Brement

JTNews Columnist

Also: A chef and a comedian

When I called Spokane resident Julie Morris just before Passover, she was hands deep in matzoh ball batter and revealed she makes two recipes in advance, half fluffy and half “bombs,” to suit the whole family’s tastes.
A long-time member of the national board of Hadassah, Julie was recently appointed to the board of the Hadassah Foundation, something she’s very excited about. On the national board Julie developed expertise in fundraising and strategic planning that she brings to the foundation.
“I love the idea [of the foundation] because it allows Hadassah, in a different way, a different system, to provide opportunities to young girls and women,” she says.
She’ll attend her first meeting is in New York in June.
Hadassah primarily supports Hadassah Medical Organization (HMO), the two-campus research and clinical hospital in Jerusalem. Half of all Israeli medical research originates from HMO, Julie points out.
The foundation “improve[s] the status, health and well-being of women and girls,” according to its website (www.hadassah.org/foundation), mostly in Israel. They might support “a foundation that deals with bullying” or the status of Orthodox women, explains Julie. Foundation fundraising is separate from Hadassah chapter fundraising and its board is half Hadassah members, half from the wider community.
“It gives us wider exposure to what is going on in the world,” adds Julie.
Julie grew up on Seattle’s Beacon Hill, a member of the extended Brenner Brothers Bakery family. A graduate of Cleveland High School, she met her husband Jeff (a Franklin alum), when they were active in the AZA and BBG Jewish youth groups. Moving to Spokane about 40 years ago for Jeff’s work, they assumed they would return, but “we settled in and we love it.” Plus, she adds, “we can get to Seattle whenever we want.”
Spokane has “a wonderful…[and] very active Jewish community where everyone pulls together,” Julie says. The main synagogue is Temple Beth Shalom, with its close-knit intergenerational community, “and there is a small but active Hadassah chapter,” she says. Julie was active in the synagogue when her three sons were growing up and is more active again as her grandchildren begin to attend Hebrew school.
• • •

Chef and new cookbook author Becky Selengut. (Photo by Clare Barboza)

My conversation with private chef Becky Selengut was so entertaining that I wasn’t surprised when, at the end, she revealed she is branching into stand-up comedy.
Becky was raised in New Jersey and says that although she was a picky eater as a child, she was open to new tastes. One of her favorite childhood food memories is the Hillel sandwich — matzoh, charoset and horseradish — of the seder table. She also recalls fondly “the spread” of smoked fish, bagels and knishes picked up at Russ and Daughters Deli and eaten at her grandmother’s lakeside house with her home-grown tomatoes.
“This is where I found my love of fish, I think,” says the author of “Good Fish,” her first cookbook about sustainable seafood, which is about to head into its third printing.
“I wanted to be a surgeon,” says Becky, who spent some time in medical school. Always “interested in health and nutrition and how food makes people feel,” she says, she made a hobby of cooking lavish dinner parties. Much to her family’s chagrin, she dropped out of med school and went to culinary school.
She finds some skills are transferable, especially when she does food styling.
“I have my forceps and my tweezers,” to precisely arrange food for photography. “It’s kind of like surgery,” she observes wryly, “for one-64th of the money.” Plus, as a chef, she adds, “no one is unhappy to see me.”
The recession convinced Becky to branch out and now she’s added restaurant consulting, recipe development, and writing for Edible Seattle magazine to her repertoire. She teaches cooking at Bastyr University, PCC and other local schools and just signed a contract for her second cookbook on mushrooms.
“Fish and mushrooms are my two areas of expertise in cooking,” she says.
By the way, “don’t eat raw mushrooms,” Chef Becky advises. They all “have a small level of toxins when they’re raw.”
And about that comedy: She and food writer Matthew Amster-Burton have started a comedy podcast — rated R — called Closed for Logging, which you can find on the website of that name. It has a talk-show format and they’ve had a lot of Jewish guests.
“There seems to be something with Jews and comedy,” Becky observes.
No kidding.
You can find more about Becky and her book at www.cornucopiacuisine.com.

The seder’s beautiful light, then…darkness

2013-03-21T01:44:02+00:00

Rivy Poupko Kletenik

JTNews Columnist

Dear Rivy,
Year after year at the seder all is going well, then — there it is — the paragraph that unsettles me every time, that dire dramatic pronouncement of deep Jewish pessimism: “In every generation they rise up against us to destroy us.” Really? Do we need to be reminded? Why is this in the Hagaddah? Do we truly believe this? What kind of message is this for our children? This is not the Judaism I want to pass on to another generation. Yet there we are, holding a cup of wine in our hands proclaiming almost proudly, with gusto, “They’re out to get us!”

It is never fun to have our buttons pushed. This prayer is clearly bringing something up for you. Though it is not, thankfully, an everyday ordeal — it warrants some attention and probing. It’s reasonable to inquire about the heart of this challenging paragraph — its meaning and message, especially in the context of seder night.
Notice first that you seem most moved or disturbed by the middle line of the paragraph. The beginning and the end actually seem rather redemptive in nature.
Consider the text:
And it is this, that stood by our fathers and us; For, not only one alone, has risen up against us to destroy us, but in all ages did they rise up against us to destroy us; but the Holy One, blessed be He, delivered us from their hands.
The beginning is lofty and evocative of trust. The end point seems in fact to be comforting: God Almighty, no matter what, always saves us. It’s that middle line that makes us squirm. And if you really want to squirm — please, open the fairly new, artistic and edgy Hagaddah of Noam and Mishael Zion, “HaLaila HaZeh: An Israeli Hagaddah.” Here the prayer is illustrated by an artistic rendering of a varied sampling of cartoonish Jewish foes armed and in hot pursuit with a timeline hovering above it detailing, indeed, every generation.
The list is about as dismal and disheartening as one could hope for: 1400 BCE, Egypt; 722 BCE, Assyria vanquishes Kingdom of Israel; 586 BCE, Babylonian exile; 167 BCE, Antiochus; 70 CE, Rome destroys the Temple; 135, Bar Kochba; 484, Persia; 627, Kuriza; 629, Spain; 873, Byzantium; 992, Limoges; 1007, Egypt; 1096, First Crusade; 1141, Norwich, England; 1171, blood libel, Paris; 1189, Third Crusade; 1198, Yemen; 1215, edict of the pope; 1242, burning of the Talmud in Paris; 1248, Baghdad; 1281, Castille; 1290, expulsion from England; 1306, expulsion from France; 1348, black plague riots; 1354, Jerusalem attacks; 1391, forced conversions, Spain; 1475, Northern Italy; 1492, expulsion from Spain; 1495, expulsion from Lita; 1496, expulsion from Portugal; 1500, expulsion from Provençe; 1510, expulsion from Napoli; 1536, expulsion from Saxony; 1597, expulsion from Milano; 1648, Chmielnicki pogroms; 1736, Iran; 1840, blood libel, Damascus; 1865, Iran; 1871, Odessa pogrom; 1877, riots in Morocco; 1881, Ukraine; 1891, blood libel, Corfu; 1894, Dreyfus affair; 1898, Algeria pogrom; 1903, Kishinev pogrom; 1910, Buenos Aires pogrom; 1912, Fez, Morocco attacks; 1919, Ukraine pogrom; 1929, Hebron massacre; 1935, Nuremberg Laws; 1935, persecution of Polish Jewry; 1938, Kristallnacht; 1942, the Final Solution.
The artists and authors are making
a graphic point loud and clear — everywhere, every generation. Don’t even try to deny it, there it is, generation to generation: A full menu of Jewish torment. Ironically, at the time of its being written in the Hagaddah itself, back in the second century — this paragraph was far less menacing and knotty. Now, at the time of its reading, about 1,900 or so years later, we’ve gotten so many additional anti-Semitic pogroms and persecutions under our collective belt.
That said, this prayer is recited, with a glass of wine, salvation, in hand, and is meant to be a prayer of gratitude. What are we missing? What is its message?
Our paragraph is found in the section of the Hagaddah that offers an answer to the question asked by the children: Why is this night different from all other nights? We lovingly tell them our story. We were slaves in Egypt, we begin. But it did not start there. Our story goes way back to our ancestor’s family, to Abraham, who came from idol worshippers. Then there was a covenant. There would be the promise of a land, and the experience of slavery, and then freedom. This is what has stood by us. No matter what, or when, God saves us. This is our story. It is timeless and true. This covenant has stood by us. That’s one interpretation.
Rabbi Twersky suggests that what has stood by us — ironically — is this very stream of persecution. As in the aphorism “when it is good for the Jews it is bad for Judaism and when it is bad for the Jews it is good for Judaism,” this constant stream of persecution has stood by us. It has fortified us, made us stronger. Rabbi Lehman of 19th-century Mainz noticed we are a long-lasting people. Other nations from antiquity have faded away. Our fortitude to withstand suffering with the help of God has made us a people of endurance.
That cup of wine that we raise, says Rabbi Soloveitchik, represents our destiny. There will always be a Pharaoh. There will always be an Egypt, a drama. We are a lonely people. The Hagaddah is our eternal story, the Exodus a constant. We steadfastly take our cup of destiny in hand.
For Elie Wiesel, though, there is wonder about the veracity of our salvation — we are a people who have survived. For Shlomo Carlebach, we are the chosen people. He was wont to say, “Let’s not talk about killers, are they what makes me a Jew? Can you imagine how holy these people were? God meant more to them than life.”
Finally, the Lubavitcher Rebbe reminds us that within each of us is an enemy. It rises against us. It doesn’t allow us to be our best self. Enter God’s eternal unconditional promise: With it we can persevere against our inner challenges no matter how daunting, even when we must face them at the seder itself.
So we grapple with that which vexes us most. We consider and reconsider and notice our reactions to things that rub us the wrong way. Is there something in them to which we are drawn and yet afraid to face? For this prayer, that is no surprise.

Back to basics for a lovely Pesach dish

2013-03-18T21:52:48+00:00

Michael Natkin

JTNews Columnist

Braising is something of a lost art, which is a shame because it isn’t at all difficult to do. Learn a couple of basic moves and you’ll be rewarded with a succulent, richly flavored, rustic dish perfect for Passover.
A proper braise is composed of even more basic cooking methods. First you sear the heck out of your main ingredient to develop those beautiful browned flavors. Then you remove it from the pot, quickly sweat your other vegetables, and return the main ingredient along with a small amount of flavorful liquid. With the lid on and the heat lowered, everything steams until tender while the flavors marry and the sauce emulsifies into silky goodness.
The most common choice of supporting vegetables is mirepoix — carrots, onions and celery. In this case I omit the celery because it might muddy the flavor of the fennel.
Fennel pollen, if you can get it, is pretty amazing stuff. The aroma is like summer in Provençe in a jar. It is rather expensive but a pinch goes a long way. This dish is just fine without it, but if you are in the mood to gild the lily, I highly recommend it.

Braised Fennel
Serves 4 as a side dish
Vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil plus additional for garnish
2 medium fennel bulbs, trimmed and halved lengthwise, fronds reserved for garnish
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1/2 white onion, thinly sliced
1-1/2 cups sliced carrots (1/4" thick coins)
Crushed red pepper
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
Zest and juice of 1 mandarin orange
1/4 cup dry vermouth (kosher for Passover)
Flaky sea salt, such as Maldon
Optional: fennel pollen
In a pot with a tight-fitting lid, big enough to hold the fennel in a single layer, heat the olive oil over medium high heat. (A Dutch oven is ideal for this recipe.) When the oil is shimmering hot, lay the four fennel halves in the oil, cut side down. Sear until quite well browned, about 5 minutes. Flip and cook for another couple of minutes on the rounded sides.
Remove the fennel to a plate, leaving the oil behind in the pot. Lower the heat to medium low. Add the garlic, onion, carrots, a big pinch of crushed red pepper, several generous grinds of black pepper, and the salt. Cook, stirring occasionally for about 3 minutes, until the onions start to soften.
Add the orange zest and juice, the vermouth, and 1/2 cup water and stir, scraping the bottom to incorporate the delicious caramelized brown bits (fond). Put the fennel back in the pot, cut side up, on top of the onions and carrots. Cover the pot and braise until the fennel is completely tender when probed with a knife. This could be anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes, depending on the size of the bulbs. During the braise, adjust the heat so there is a good, steady amount of steam in the pot, but not so much that all the liquid boils off. Add a bit more liquid if needed.
To serve, transfer the fennel bulbs onto a serving platter. Spoon the carrots, onions and sauce over the fennel. Garnish with a generous drizzle of good olive oil, more freshly ground pepper, some flaky salt, the fennel fronds, and the optional fennel pollen.