Keeping in Touch

Keeping In Touch THE MAGAZINE FOR JEWISH SENIORS No. 127 March 2019 Shvat 5779 JewishCare is a Member of the JCA Family of Organisations Find us on (JewishCareNSW) 2 Keeping in Touch | January 2019 Contents 4 Q & A with Dr Ron Weiser 5 Ordinary People Extraordinary Acts 6 Dani Antman 7 Henry Roth, Renaissance Man 8 Sydney’s Think Tank 9 The Florence Melton School of Learning 10 Eva Engel Welcome to the latest edition of 11 Josie Lacey Keeping In Touch magazine This edition pays tribute to some of the leaders 12 Wolper Jewish Hospital within our community and acknowledges 13 Centre for Healthy Ageing organisations that make positive impacts on 14 Health Tips many lives. Educational institutions are also celebrated as is the work of the Burger Centre and 15 Jewish Care’s Links Program JewishCare. 16 JewishCare News Enclosed is a reader survey that will help us know 18 The Year in Review more about your experience of Keeping In Touch. You can email JewishCare your completed survey 20 Russian Seniors Hit the Beach or post it back in the enclosed envelope. 21 Who are the Alte Zachen? I want to acknowledge once again the assistance 22 Prison Outreach I have received from JewishCare and Print35 staff 24 Burger Centre who help me assemble this publication, and I also wish to thank the many people and organisations 26 Laughing Matters who have let me share their stories. 27 Quotes To Make Your Day If you know someone who would like to receive this 28 There’s Nothing Like A Good Book magazine, please contact JewishCare, so that they can be added to the mailing list. 30 Out & About While Keeping In Touch tends to concentrate on 31 Upcoming Events information for older members of the community, JewishCare as an organisation supports community members of all ages and from all walks of life. If you know of anyone who needs a helping hand, please phone FirstCall on 1300 133 660. Enjoy. Elise Hawthorne Editor: Elise Hawthorne Editor Design by Print35 Design Studio The opinions expressed in this publication are the authors’ own and do not reflect the views of JewishCare. Keeping in Touch is published by JewishCare, 3 Saber Street, Woollahra NSW 2025 Ph 1300 133 660. January 2019 | Keeping in Touch 3 Q & A with Dr Ron Weiser AM Elise Hawthorne r Ron Weiser AM has had many roles over the Dyears, he is a member of the Board of Governors of the Jewish Agency, a Past President of the Zionist Federation of Australia and Honorary Life President of the Zionist Council of NSW. I recently had the honour of interviewing Dr Weiser for Keeping In Touch. Q. When you held the position of President of the Dr Ron Weiser AM Zionist Federation of Australia you initiated the Birthright/Taglit and MASA Israel programs which their latest techniques and materials so that our are both potentially life-changing experiences for local educators can see what is happening in their young Jewish Australians. When did you first visit respective fields around the world. Israel and how did the experience influence you? Q. In 2005 you were one of the first Jewish A. The first time I visited Israel was when I went as an leaders to be given the Herzl Award from the Australian delegate to a Youth Movement Conference. World Zionist Organisation in recognition of your I landed on a winter’s day in Israel and went to the outstanding leadership and service to the Jewish Kottel, something I had been dreaming about and world and Israel; how has receiving this award imagining for years and yet when I got there, by changed you? myself, in the wind and the rain, with very few people A. Whilst it is correct that I received the award, in truth, around, I was disappointed because I felt very little it was really a recognition of the Zionist Federation at all. Two days later I joined the actual Conference of Australia (ZFA) and the whole organisation’s which began with a program on erev shabbat at the achievements both locally and internationally. This, Kottel, and the effect was transformative. The stories of course, would not have been possible without a told, the ruach (atmosphere), being part of a group. remarkable team of lay leaders and professionals. I do I guess it was then that I began to understand the not believe it changed me as much as it represented power of going to Israel on peer structured programs a recognition by other Zionist organisations around with professional educators, where the places and the world of the leadership position that a relatively events come alive, are directly relevant and have small community could play in Israel and on the the greatest impact. So my desire to increase the global stage. numbers of Jewish Australians going to Israel in Q. How do you see Israel in the year 2050? a meaningful way began with my own first such experience and I am very proud of how Birthright, A. Whilst unforeseen events can dramatically change MASA and many other programs have grown today. the trajectory of history, one of course, hopes for peace, but a full peace seems like an unlikely Q. You also initiated the National Biennial Jewish outcome. The efforts around peace however, will in Educators Conference; what are some of the large part, shape how Israel will look, or rather the achievement this conference has set in place? pace of change more than the direction. By 2050 I A. This year we celebrated 20 years since the first would expect to see an Israel where the vast bulk Educators Conference in 1988. This conference, of world Jewry live, with a fully first world economy which covers as wide a section of the community as bringing the lower socio economic sectors along with it does, cannot be found anywhere else in the world. it. Where debates about the direction of the Jewish And certainly not one led by a Zionist Federation, People will continue to take place, whilst the past will which says something about the position of Zionism continue to be studied and remembered. Israel will in the life of the Jewish community in this country. The dominate the Jewish world in all aspects of Jewish fact that such a large conference continues 20 years thought, education, philosophy and development. after it began just shows the value of it. Amongst the Shimon Peres said that the secret to Jewish many benefits it brings is the networking, bringing continuity is ‘dissatisfaction’. This ‘dissatisfaction’, together the formal and informal sides of the Jewish continues to drive the Jewish People to greater and educational makeup and the fact that it is the greater achievements, something which can only premier forum for leading overseas Jewish educators be fully realised in the Jewish State, where national worldwide, who choose to come to showcase expression is possible. 4 Keeping in Touch | January 2019 Ordinary People Extraordinary Acts Elise Hawthorne ourage to Care tackles some hard topics, this who have been moved by what they saw and heard. Coutreach program run by B’nai B’rith has for Our living historians, the Holocaust survivors, have the past twenty years informed Australians of the told their stories to over 100,000 students who dangers of prejudice and discrimination; its volunteers otherwise may have never heard these extraordinary visit schools, workplaces and community groups, testaments.” educating participants about understanding the roles of the victim, perpetrator and bystanders. “We will continue to run two regional exhibitions a year as well as expand our school incursion In 1992, inspired by the many stories of rescue and program in Sydney. We are also growing our fantastic courage displayed by non-Jews who saved or helped workplace program. We hope that over the coming 20 Jews during the Holocaust, the Raoul Wallenberg years we can continue the great work of Courage to Unit of B’nai B’rith Victoria mounted the first Courage Care and share our message that every person, every to Care exhibition in the Jewish Museum of Australia. single act can make a difference. Like Moses, we want The exhibition has, since 1998, been taken up by to reach 120,” said Lazarov. B’nai B’rith NSW. Courage to Care celebrates the people who had the Courage to Care’s mission is to combat discrimination courage to care – ordinary people, whose acts were in all forms by inspiring and empowering the individual extraordinary in their bravery and impact. It tells the to become an upstander and to take positive action story of individuals who, stood up and confronted if needed. This inspiring organisation oversees a discrimination and injustice, often risking their own travelling exhibition, together with an integrated lives and sometimes those of their loved ones, to education program, aiming to spread its message of save others. In a perfect world an organisation such social justice far and wide. as Courage to Care wouldn’t need to exist, but thank Hezie Lazarov, program coordinator, Courage To Care goodness it does. (NSW) said, “Courage to Care NSW is very proud of For more information visit: www.couragetocare.com.au its achievements over the past 20 years. We have set up and curated over 40 exhibitions that have been seen throughout regional NSW and in many parts of regional Queensland, reaching a diverse audience Students and survivor at Courage to Care exhibition January 2019 | Keeping in Touch 5 One Woman’s Story of Spiritual Discovery shores of Rishikesh, India, who initiates her in his lineage of Kundalini Science, the study of the Divine force within every human being that is the initiator of spiritual growth.

Load more