Rangers! Finally World Series Champs!!

Week 4 of War

Been awhile, this one's a little long.

We're grinding along. One soldier was rescued last night from Hamas captivity, another died in service defending our North. 

A friend's nephew was murdered on October 7. A grad school classmate/colleague in elder care's aunt and uncle, themselves older adults, were as well. 

We mourn and pray for the return of all the rest of our captives and do our best to keep on truckin.

What to Pray For - Part 2:

• Pray for the mental health professionals (including my lovely wife). Those providing care are themselves mourning, anxious, fearful - experiencing the whole gamut of emotions. May G-d help them to help their clients, supervisees, etc. 
• Pray that my people of Israel never undergo this terror again.
• Pray that G-d perform miracles enabling those who are risking their lives to ensure this never happens again to completely succeed in their mission.

Our entire nation is one big miracle, all the way back to Abraham and Sarah (in this week's Torah portion, VaYeira) miraculously giving birth to Isaac in their ripe old age. Please keep the miracles coming!

From the Artscroll commentary on last week's Torah portion, Lech Lecha:

As the story of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs unfolds, we see that infertility was common among them, but that prayer and Divine intervention resulted in the emergence of the nation. This was G-d's way of proving that the Jewish people are not a natural phenomenon; without miracles we could not have existed, nor could we continue to exist. 

Ain't that the truth.

Please of course keep up the prayers I asked for in my last post. About that post, Yossi Klein Halevi (link to his TOI piece below) wrote a book "Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor." So along those lines, with my high school friend Lauren's permission (she also quoted me in her blog back in the day!), I bring you the first installment of:

"Emails with my Presbyterian High School Friend." 

Sammy -
Just wanted to write and tell you that we are continuing to pray and remember and cry out to God on your behalf. Goodness, the words in your blog, "Our Father, Our King, accept - with compassion and favor - our prayer." What beautiful words.

I’m doing a bible study on some of the Psalms right now, and this week we read Psalm 5 which starts like this:

“Give ear to my words, O LORD;
consider my groaning.
Give attention to the sound of my cry,
my King and my God,
for to you do I pray.
O LORD, in the morning you hear my voice…”

The assurance of: “You hear my voice” is so powerful.

So we are praying and trusting that Our Father and Our King hears our voices as we cry out to Him.

There are lots of conversations happening that are making me reconsider the privilege I have - as someone who does not feel persecuted (at least here in Dallas, TX) for my faith. It breaks my heart to see my friend write the words, “The world hates Jews.” I cannot comprehend what it feels like to type those words, so I want to make sure you know without a doubt that you (and your beautiful family!) are loved and worthy and valued, and that the world is a better place - my life is more full - to have a friend like you. I am so grateful for years of friendship and conversations about how we both walk out our faiths. You are a gift to me, Sammy.

Praying for light to shine in the darkness.  For love to have the final word.  And for the Rangers to win.

Lauren - as I wrote "the world hates Jews," I thought of you. I knew that would be painful for you to read. Your reply was just so thoughtful and gorgeous and so appreciated.

But, alas, after all these years watching the world do its anti-Semitic thing time after time, knowing what was coming this time... shoot, I honestly felt numb when I typed that. I'm gonna even make it into TWHJ to tighten it up in future reference here. There is no other explanation.

But here's to that light and love winning out, and yes the RANGERS BABY!!!

--

Why did I lose it a few weeks ago upon reading "Our Father, Our King, accept - with compassion and favor - our prayer"? Let's look at some of these requests to our King. Nobody had any illusions that our haters' designs needed nullifying, that our enemies' counsel needed thwarting (heck, the day I moved here, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made one of his infinite statements about how Iran would destroy us). But these (full prayer book text at bottom)?

• Exterminate captivity, destruction, iniquity and eradication (aka the Holocaust) from the members of Your covenant.
• Take pity upon us, and upon our children and our infants.
• Act for the sake of those who were murdered for Your Holy Name.
• Act for the sake of those who were slaughtered for your Oneness.
• Act for the sake of those who went into fire and water for the sanctification of Your Name.
• Avenge before our eyes the spilled blood of Your servants.

Israel was founded to render these requests irrelevant (certainly at the kind of scale of October 7, at the bare minimum), first as recent history from the Holocaust. As the 7.5+ decades passed, harking back to Sukkot, just 5 weeks ago, before this war, it felt like these things were only relics out of the history books, things that could never happen to us again. But they did.

And as our citizens mourn... our soldiers are out there, spread all across our beloved, beautiful, holy land, looking clearheadedly into the future and giving everything they've got to make it a glorious one.

That brings me back to a 2006 Birthright trip that I staffed. These groups, bringing young Jewish adults from around the world to Israel, always include about a handful of Israeli soldiers.

I'll never forget what my Israel Defense Forces soldier roommate, his emotions riled up as he experienced seeing Israel "for the first time" again along with the American bus-mates, said to me as we watched my Mavs' lose in the NBA Finals - "I LOVE this land! I would die for this land." He said that to me in the very corner of this beautiful land that was scorched by Hamas terrorists on October 7.

Some 200,000 Israelis have flown back here, with that love of land and nation etched all over their hearts and souls. Each one of them is our answer to Hamas, who believed they were on the cusp of either murdering us all, or watching the rest of us run away screaming and crying. This is our land, world. We're staying here, more than that - we're coming back. Don't mess.

--

Times like these, so very trying for us, help clarify the importance of emotional intelligence when reaching out to loved ones who are suffering. 

From Rabbi Zelig Pliskin's "Growth through Torah", about last week's Torah portion:
The Almighty told Abraham to travel away from his father's home, his birthplace, and his land. Only now when he personally experiences being a stranger in a foreign place will he know firsthand what it is like. This will give him a greater appreciation of what he can do to help his guests...

Whenever you personally suffer any kind of pain or sorrow, remember carefully every aspect of your experience. When other people are in similar situations, you will know with greater depth what they are experiencing. This will help you to help them with greater sensitivity and kindness. Moreover, it will make your own suffering easier to cope with. You will view it as a meaningful learning experience that will assist you in becoming more effective in helping others

I so appreciate all of you checking in.

My brother from another mother and former roommate, Rabbi David Fain, struck a chord when he checked back in with me this week with this message: "prayers are with you my brother! Stay strong"

That's an emotionally intelligent man telling me - "This is Week 4. I know this is hard for you. I got ya." Love you too Dave!

--

A few words about my family's part in the war effort:

• Over the last 3 Shabbats, we've hosted for meals 3 families with a combined 3 husbands and 3 sons called up to reserve duty and out defending our land.
• When we're cooking for said meals (that's me grilling), we make a little extra as a nice treat and deliver to a celiac soldier whose gluten-free army grub is less than ideal.
  
  
• In wartime, the most trivial things turn into defiant acts of Zionism. Our economy is hurting. Just going to the supermarket or the fruit stand is our small part in keeping our beloved country going. 
• Last week I celebrated at my friend's son's Bar Mitzvah, which didn't go as planned, but was nonetheless a raucous celebration of his coming of age, of our tradition, of our land.
• Focus on family and supporting the wife and kids is always my main thing, even more so now. That's my role here in a nutshell.

We are so blessed. I am here, getting amazing quality time with my family, all sorts of extra hugs and cuddles. So so so many of our brothers and sisters are not - either tragically never will again, or will be missing husbands/dads/sons (mostly men; we do have one female friend who volunteered to serve) for probably many months. My last post was on the 20th anniversary of my 3:43 performance in the Chicago Marathon! We're running, as my kids would say, a super-muper marathon. 

Our evil incarnate enemy that we seek to destroy doesn't have to worry about scaling their startups, or developing their social services. They have an economy of death and destruction that's given a blank check by the likes of Iran and Qatar.

Our effort to destroy them means so many of our software engineers, teachers, you name it have to hit pause on all that to focus their skills, talents and genius against the evil.

Hey enemies - we're not only smarter than you, better than you, we're also WAY better at multi-tasking than you. Those loving fathers and husbands spread love to their families, students, coworkers. And yea, kick tuchus (to quote my wife) on the battlefield.

--

Recommended reading:

Aforementioned Halevi piece on how he frames the war, also oh boy TWHJ - blaming us for our own massacre.

Yedidia Stern's suggestion to call this the Genesis War.

My friend Sara Hirschhorn on the rotten state of affairs on campuses. About that, 20+ years ago at Michigan, I got treated to a weekly diatribe against Israel disguised as an "Op-ed" in the student paper, hateful anti-Israel protests, and the big winner: someone took a key to Israel on the globe at the Ugli (undergrad library) and wiped it out, then did the same with a marker in the atlas.

My classmates back then probably have their own kids now in the same dorms and classrooms, with a decades-long heaping of anti-Semitism surely leading them to celebrate evil incarnate.

As for the Samantha Woll (we overlapped at U of M) murder investigation, it seems WAY too convenient for that to be coincidental in a metro area awash with Hamas celebrations. I hope I'm wrong (how awful is that to hope for a random murder), but I highly doubt it.

So much attention has justly been placed on our murdered and kidnapped babies and children. University of Haifa professor Issi Doron, a huge leader in Israel's gerontology world and an elder law expert, has started Older Lives Matter, an initiative to shine light on the older adult victims of Hamas crimes.

Along with the prior running recommendation to read David Horovitz pieces on Times of Israel, I recommend everything by: 

• Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh
• Friend from Chicago Eugene Kontorovich

If you do take my recommendation and financially support Times of Israel, I'd love to hear that you did. They are doing such crucial wartime work and, again, really deserve it. 

In addition to the many pieces I already mentioned, of note are their ongoing special sections:
Those we are missing, Those we have lost, and Those we call heroes.

I'll wrap up with a very timely Israeli love song, from Danny Sanderson - in my eyes Israel's Paul McCartney, the brainchild behind Kaveret, the closest thing we had to The Beatles. This one goes out to the love of my life:

לא יפריד דבר בינינו לעד
גם אם העולם ייפסק ביום אחד
מקומי תמיד יהיה לצידך
לאורך כל הדרך אני אהובך

את תמיד היית הכל בשבילי
בזכותך למדתי מה ומי אני
מתנה כזאת של פעם בחיים
צריך לשמור עליה עולמי עולמים

הנהר סוחף אותנו ישא
אין לדעת לאן
או את אורכו של המסע
וכשנגיע אומר בוודאי
זו הנסיעה של חיי

גשר מזהב סלול אל ליבך
מחבר את שנינו
בכל אשר נלך
ברוחות הקור סופות וגשמים
אני צמוד אלייך עולמי עולמים

הנהר סוחף אותנו ישא...

לא יפריד דבר בינינו לעד...

Nothing will ever keep us apart

Even if the world ends in one day (it certainly has felt like the world is ending twice now in our last few years together - Covid and now this war)

My place will always be next to you

All along the way I'm your love

You were always everything to me

Thanks to you, I learned what and who I am

A gift like that that's once in a lifetime

You gotta hold onto, forever and ever

The river will carry us away

There's no way to know where

Or the length of the journey

And when we arrive, I'll say, of course

This is the ride of my life

A golden bridge is paved to your heart

Connecting us both

Wherever we go

In the cold wind, storms and rain

I am by your side forever and ever

GO RANGERS - SUPPORT ISRAEL

 

What to pray for

Thank you again so much for the incredible waves upon waves of support, far and wide. That includes everyone who's calling my mom to check in. It means so much to me and my family.

My wife mentioned yesterday that an Israeli Rabbi had suggested including the Avinu Malkeinu (Our Father, Our King) prayer during this war. Anyone who's been to services for the High Holy Days (Rosh Hashana - the new year, and Yom Kippur - the day of atonement), knows - and feels - the famous, melancholy minor melody.

At Rosh HaShana the year I made aliyah (emigrated) to Israel, hosted by my friend Mordechai McKenney at his Jerusalem yeshiva (Jewish academy of learning), I adopted my first-ever favorite verse:
אבינו מלכנו, הרם קרן ישראל עמך - Our Father, Our King, raise high the pride of Israel, Your people.

As I met the love of my life, the most incredible person I've ever met, and we subsequently created our beautiful family with the addition of our native Israeli kids, I changed that to:
אבינו מלכנו, מלא ידינו מברכותיך - Our Father, Our King, fill our hands from Your blessings.

Reading these prayers yesterday, I totally lost it. Especially this one:
אבינו מלכנו, קבל ברחמים וברצון את תפילתנו - Our Father, Our King, accept - with compassion and favor - our prayer. 

I lift my head to Hashem, G-d, please, accept these prayers with compassion and favor.

--

Thank G-d we're doing fine.

The soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces need your prayers.

I know many of these guys quite closely. I know of no one in the world who I would rather have to fight this war, to defeat this evil incarnate, rearing its ugly head - again - in 2023.

Hamas won the first day, one of the most mind-boggling series of failures any government and military command have ever made. There were inspirational stories of heroism among the endless stories of horrors of horrors. 

But as one man who successfully defended his small town said - in the Middle East, you can't rely on good defense. This ain't the San Antonio Spurs with a "defense wins championship" motto. So we will come after you now and win this war.

In every prior conflict with Hamas in Gaza, we have been too surgical. We let this cancer fester for too long.

--

Back to that failure of our leadership. 

In early 2021, the Economist ran a special podcast dubbed The Jab, about the COVID-19 vaccine release. Every week, I took so much pride when their musical chart sounding out who had most swiftly vaccinated their populations had my little Israel at #1, every week. We protected our older adults, our women and then our children, like no other country in the world.

2 and a half years later, this happened to our women, our children, and our older adults.

But again back to those IDF soldiers. That's where my trust is when the leaders failed us.

But now Bibi, and Yoav Gallant must redeem themselves and win this war. Thank G-d they brought on another experienced voice of reason from the opposition in Benny Gantz.

--

Allow me to frame this war for you.
This is the continuation of the War of Independence from 75+ years ago. We came here to create the reborn state for the Jewish people in our eternal homeland. And we're still fighting to keep it.

Hamas truly believes that they are on the cusp of killing us all, or if that fails, of driving whoever's left out of our homeland crying and screaming. They are dead wrong.

As for the perfectly blessed distraction of my remarkable Texas Rangers, dominating their way into their third ever ALCS (semifinals for the non-baseball types),
I have been waiting four and a half decades to see my favorite team bring home their first ever title.
Hamas thinks I won't make it that long. (Don't have any illusions though, anywhere I would be in the world, they'd want me dead there too. Let's all put up another prayer to keep my people safe worldwide).

Now go put up your prayers and we'll all prove this pure evil wrong together. (And no, I have no illusions - as amazing as Texas has been, this still may not be their year).
But they're giving me a dang good ride! Adolis kept providing my kids with great material in Game 3 - the Rolling Stones tongue and the finger shimmy!!!

And back to reality... since the last post, my friend's brother-in-law fell in battle, valiantly defending Sderot.

--

Now, a word for anyone who's confused, doesn't know who to believe, etc.

This is a battle between good and evil incarnate (big surprise - those are the ones who lie). There's nothing to equivocate about. You wanna equivocate? Go do that in your own little Equivocating about Israel club and please get out of my way.

I am nauseated to even have to waste my energy typing this, but, well, the world hates Jews, so here goes:
We have a friend who's a nurse in the pediatric ER of a hospital in the south. She saw the most unthinkable, unimaginable horrors there since Saturday.
We're telling the truth, they're lying murderers. Simple as that.

--

So now we brace for what's not gonna be a short war. We pray for miracles of a swift defeat. But today is already the symbolic-around-here day 6 (ala the miraculous victory in 1967), and this war hasn't started yet.

Please keep writing! If I don't respond, know that I feel your love and appreciate it so much.

Dark days

Israel's national worst nightmare has come to pass. There are no words to describe it.

The support of friends and family has brought me to the verge of tears. We feel your love and really need it right now.

I don't have a ton to say other than thank you!
And thanks also to my Texas Rangers, whose futility as a franchise has been a big part of my life for most of the life of the franchise. They and my family are about the only thing keeping me sane, with two HUGE wins in Baltimore, the first interspersed with the worst day of my dear country's history.

I've been using my sports teams as a distraction from geopolitical tension for decades, and it's given me some amazing excitement to share with the kids (we watch the highlights together the next day - lots of Rangers highlights these days, as well as Michigan football this season). 

Watching the highlights (the games I just listen to on the radio feed, especially enjoying the local legend Eric Nadel, calling Rangers games since I was born) takes me to this surreal parallel universe, where life is normal right now. 

And then I go back to following what's happening (all you really need to read is David Horovitz's columns on Times of Israel - he is an amazing man (was lucky to meet him twice) and journalist. If you're able to support the website financially, they deserve it in a big way). So far I've heard of the nephew of someone who goes to my synagogue being killed in battle. And a friend's colleague's family of 5, all murdered. And a former colleague's husband recovering in the hospital after being wounded and undergoing surgery.

And I dread when I'll (probably) hear of someone I know first-hand...

Anyway, my son is calling me to go watch the Game 2 highlights! It's been a busy day - I still haven't seen Mitch Garver's grand slam!!!

Lots of love and here's to the win that actually matters: a swift victory by my brothers and sisters in the Israel Defense Forces over Hamas and their evil brethren. Amen

P.S. My son's favorite part was Adolis's chest bump and fist kiss (cued up here) after his RBI hit in the 2nd

P.S.S. Feel free to subscribe to this for updates

דרוש תיקון - ישראל היא גילנית

סוף הקיץ. הקייטנות נגמרות. חופשות. הילדים משתגעים.

במרכזי יום לאזרחים ותיקים, פשוט עובדים כל השנה. אין דבר כזה חופשת קיץ. 
כשהצגתי תכנית עבודה לליאור שטרסברג, מנכ"ל עמותת מטב (ובהיות מטב ארגון גדול ומקצועי בתחום הסיעוד והזיקנה, ליאור הוא אחד האנשים המובילים בארץ בתחום) הוא שאל אותי - "אם תפתח את מרכז יום מצפה רמון בשבת, יגיעו?" תהיתי לשתי שניות, ועניתי "בהחלט". זה שירות חיוני ומתן השירות ללא ספק מהווה פיקוח נפש. חברתי לעבודה בעבר, רויטל סגרון יעקב, תמצאתה את החיוניות של מרכזי היום בפוסט בפייסבוק מהשבוע ועל ההשפעה האדירה של המרכזים על עשרות אלפי אזרחים ותיקים.

אני עם צוות מרכז יום נהורה לפני כמעט 20 שנה

אף אחד לא ביקש את השניקל שלי לגבי השביתה של מרכזי יום ברחבי הארץ שנערכה שלשום 15/8, אבל החלטתי לרשום את דעתי בכל זאת. במשך 7 שנים, שמיטה שלמה, ניהלתי שני מרכזי יום מאוד שונים: ב-2015-2017 את מרכז היום הגדול של העמותה למען הקשיש בית שמש, וב-2017-2021 את המרכז הרב תחומי בהפעלת עמותת מטב במצפה רמון. אני גאה לציין שכוח העל שלי בתפקיד היה ניהול תקציב.

באחד הימים מספר חודשים לפני סוף התקופה שלי במצפה, בעקבות עיכוב בקבלת הארכת אישור כיבוי אש (סיפור ארוך ומתסכל), נאלצנו לסגור ליום אחד את המרכז. עבורי זה היה השפל של כל 7 השנים. הזוג שמפקידים להגיע כל יום נאלצו לאכול כוסות מנה חמה (ועוד הרבה סיפורים עצובים) בגלל פשלה אדמיניסטרטיבית. נשבר לי הלב.

כל מרכזי היום ברחבי הארץ סגרו את הדלתות בסגר הראשון של הקורונה באביב 2020 לכמעט 3 חודשים. לא היה צורך בשום מחקר כדי להבין - האזרחים הוותיקים הלכו אחרת אחרי התקופה הזו - אם עד אז הגיעו כל יום למרכז יום והשתתפו בחוג פעילות גופנית, אכלו ארוחות בצוותא עם חבריהם, תפסו תאוצה של שנים כדי להגיע למצב פיזי מסוים; אז ברור שהם הלכו לאחור בגדול בגלל המצאיות הבודדת שהפכה תוך לילה אחד למציאות החדשה.

אמנם מדובר שלשום על שביתת אזהרה בת יום אחד, אבל כל יום ללא הבית השני של מבקרי המרכזים מזיק. מאוד.

לכן הסקירה הדלה בלשון המעטה של התקשורת על יום השביתה חסר התקדים ממש מכאיב ומכעיס. בחיפוש גוגל אין שום פולו-אפ מאז יום השביתה. (כמעט) כאילו לא קרה. האמת כואבת - אנחנו חיים בחברה גילנית מאוד, שכמעט ולא מתעניין בכלל במצב הלא יציב של מרכזי היום - מסגרת קסומה ששינתה אין ספור חיים של גם עשרות אלפי מקבלי השירות וגם צוותי המרכזים. אישית, התקופה שלי כמתנדב במרכז היום במושב נהורה ובבית פרנקפורטר בירושלים ב-2005 ללא ספק גרמה לי להחליט לעלות לארץ כדי להביא ערך מוסף לאזרחים ותיקים ישראלים. מליאת התפקיד במשך 7 שנים היה חלום מטורף שלי מבחינה ציונית ובתור בעל תואר שני בגרונטולוגיה מאוני' בן גוריון.

להלן המסקנות שלי על "השביתה לאן":

1. ישראל חייבת. דחוף. למסד גוף שידאג לאוכלוסייה המבוגרת בסגנון ה-AARP האמריקאית. מהדף בקישור - העמותה הזו מסנגרת עבור הנושאים הבוערים ביותר של אזרחים ותיקים ומשפחותיהם: ביטחון בריאותי, יציבות כלכלית, ומימוש עצמי. העמותה נלחמת בחזית מול נבחרי הציבור ודואגת שאזרחים ותיקים לא יישארו מאחור, כמו שנשארו בגדול בארץ שלשום, ובכלל. 

ישראל אמנם חוקקה ב-1988 חוק מדהים, חוק סיעוד, שאומר שהמדינה תדאג לכל אזרח ותיק שזקוק למטפל/ת סיעודי/ת, והכניס לחוק את מרכזי היום, ועוד דירבנה אזרחים ותיקים לצאת מהבית למרכז יום תמורת 2 (או 2.75) שעות של חוק סיעוד, כשעוד מקבלים יום עשיר של 6 שעות.
אבל זה לא מספיק. 

חוסר העניין באיתנות של מרכזי היום זה סימפטום. החברה הישראלית לוקחת את מגמת הגילנות (ageism) הרווחת במערב, ומוסיפה את ההידור של החייל בן ה-18-21, אשר מוסיף לדריסת מעמד זקני השבט, האנשים שהקימו את המדינה. גוף מקביל ל-AARP נחוץ ביותר כדי לדאוג שנבחרי הציבור יתמכו במסגרת הקסומה של מרכזי יום ועוד אין ספור מיזמים חשובים.

2. מרכזי היום לא יכולים להרשות לעצמם להתבייש לגייס משאבים. 
תופעה כזו קיימת פחות או יותר, יותר או פחות - תלוי בגוף המפעיל.

זורק פה רעיון - לגייס תורם גדול שמעוניין בזיקנה ובאיכות הסביבה. מגייס תרומה עבור התקנת פאנלים סולאריים על גגי מרכזי היום (לפחות בשני המרכזים שניהלתי, מתאים מאוד).
התורם מבסוט שתרם לאיכות הסביבה, וגם לאיתנות הכלכלית של שירות חיוני שנמצא בקשיים.
ומרכז היום לא רק מוריד סעיף תקציבי של חשבון החשמל, אלא מרוויח כל חודשיים "משכורת" מחברת החשמל על החשמל שהוא מוכר חזרה אליה. ואם המבנה שייך לרשות המקומית, אפשר להסתדר עם זה, הרי כולם תמיד אוהבים Win-win.

בונים קומה חדשה? הגג תפוס? אז אולי לבדוק תרומת רכב חשמלי לטובת ההסעות. כולם חוסכים בדלק, ויהיה אפשר לנשום יחסית לרווחה (תרתי משמע). 

יש עוד מלא אופציות דומות כדי לשפר את המצב הכלכלי של המרכזים.

3. יש לי עוד מה להגיד. מי שמעוניינים, אפשר לבקש את ההמשך ב-WhatsApp או במייל.

חודש טוב ושבת שלום

נ.ב. אני עובד כבר כמה חודשים בהייטק ונהנה שם מאוד מאוד.

My 20-year career in elder care. It's a wrap!

It all begins with visits to my grandparents in Ohio, and their visits to us in Texas. I especially connected with Poppa, whose smile here radiates his essence. Fun-loving, positive, gregarious, he showered us with love, and he had this Yiddishe neshama - a real Jewish soul. I adored him.

He passed away when I was 12, leaving me grandparent-less.

I filled that void at 18 in a first-year Psychology seminar at the University of Michigan called "Late Life Potential", and then at almost 19 when I fortuitously decided to join a Hillel (the major Jewish organization on college campuses) Alternative Spring Break at the Lieberman Center for Health and Rehabilitation in Skokie, IL (I continued as the site leader of this trip the next two years). Those volunteer trips cemented my future direction working alongside like-minded people to strive for the greater good of older adults.

It took a year out of college to cement that direction, but when my friend (and prior participant from one of those Chicago volunteer trips) Jaime Goldberg got a promotion at Little Brothers - Friends of the Elderly (Chicago branch), she told me to apply for her position as a Program Assistant there. That was 20 years ago, the summer of 2003.

I fell in love immediately with making elder care my full-time position - visiting predominantly African American and Latina older adults across the South Side (also coordinating the NPO's food bag program for seniors in need). Their story of urban music and culture deepened and personalized the connection to jazz and blues that my father gave me. Christine Bertrand, the Intergenerational Coordinator at Little Brothers and "adoptive mother" of the Program Assistants, was a true ambassador to the world of elder care, relentlessly encouraging us newbies to stick around in the field and make a career out of it. Needless to say, I heeded that call. 

The next year took me to volunteer mostly at adult day centers in Israel on OTZMA, a 10-month program bringing young North Americans to Israel. I was exposed to a model that is far more widely adapted here in Israel than in the US, which was simply magical. Older adults in need of any number of things were able to join their peers, play dominoes, sculpt with clay and do other artwork, travel the country (we went together to the Dead Sea), eat two delicious meals a day, and just celebrate life! The directors of the two centers that welcomed me (Avi Entebbe in Moshav Nehora and Sima Zini at Beit Frankforter in Jerusalem) seemed otherworldly in their commitment to their participants' wellbeing.

When I returned to the US, I settled into a great position at a spinoff of Little Brothers called H.O.M.E. - Housing Opportunities and Maintenance for the Elderly - Volunteer Coordinator and Program Assistant under the Program Director Jan Takehara. I deepened my connection to minority populations in Chicago. But one Shavuot (the Jewish holiday that is (from Aish.com) "ironically a little-known holiday, given that it commemorates the single most important event in Jewish history – the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai"), I forgot to check my calendar and had scheduled a recruiting session for new clients for our weatherization program, which helped to keep apartments and houses warm in the winter. My recruiting efforts took place at an event put together by a nun, whose Caucasian-ness just stood out so starkly in a room of over 100 African American older adults. This nun gave her life and soul to enhance the lives of her beneficiaries. 

Shortly thereafter, I got stuck in Houston on the way to staffing a Jewish youth group Shabbaton (weekend event). As my plane-mates were freaking out about the inexplicable delay, I worked on various exercises from the job-search book "What Color is Your Parachute?" I ended up gaining the longly-awaited clarity I had been searching for: I was meant to pursue a career in elder care in Israel, serving my people, those who overcame unthinkable challenges in order to found our reborn national homeland.

15 years ago, July 2008, I left behind what seemed like a good stable job at H.O.M.E. and made aliyah (lit. ascended to / immigrated) to Israel. A number of months later, that position was eliminated due to the global financial crisis's impacts on their fundraising efforts. 

I pursued a Master's in Gerontology at Ben-Gurion University in the Negev - offering me the basics (Hebrew vocabulary in the elder care field), as well as amazing knowledge from the coursework, and connections to classmates and faculty that would prove priceless.

My first full-time position was at Project La'ad (forever) of the Jewish Agency for Israel and the Office for Senior Citizens (which has moved around a bunch in Israel's government since). I was the South region coordinator, helping train and supervise volunteers helping with rights clarification and documenting of life stories for Holocaust survivors. I especially enjoyed my work as the client-facing lead in distributing emergency funding to survivors in great financial need, as well as learning the nooks and crannies of my enormous geographic region, from Ashdod all the way to Eilat, our southernmost city.

After a relatively brief stint of underemployment, my friend Louis Miller found a Yediot Acharonot (newspaper) ad for the position of Director of the prominent Adult Day Center in Beit Shemesh. After my experience volunteering under Avi and Sima, this opportunity to try to emulate them was no less than a dream job! My two years there were followed by five more in the same position in Mitzpe Ramon at Matav, the country's leading elder care non-profit, a very professional organization specializing in home health care, but also with a huge footprint in the field of adult day center management across the country.

I was blessed to work with amazing staff members, doing incredibly holy work to serve the centers' participants. I put my stamp on these centers' services. I always remembered that Marion Perlmutter course at Michigan - Late Life Potential - and that served as a compass for my vision of these centers. A programming highlight was my fellow Dallasite and neighbor over the last several years brewing a batch of beer and giving a seminar and tasting in Mitzpe Ramon. 

After two years of managing the Mitzpe Ramon center under the COVID-19 pandemic (during which zero of our participants contracted the virus), and all of the resulting personal and family costs, it was time to find the next challenge.

A close friend and former lecturer in graduate school, Doron Sagi, is doing amazing work as we speak to try to make the Gerontologist into more of a brand name in Israel. But as my search dragged on, my networking, multiple interviews for interesting positions, self-reflection and inventory of my strengths and fields that I didn't excel in failed to lead me to the next promised land, and my degree only reliably opened one door (to be a professional worker at a home health care agency, performing home visits and doing the paperwork for new caregivers - which I tried out, meeting incredible staff and older adults at Matav Arad, but which definitely did not play to my strengths)...

I decided to move on and try out some other pastures.

My hats go off to Doron and everyone else who is fighting to make our degree a more reliable source for return on investment.
But I have a mortgage to pay. Right now. And then next month, and the month after that.

So I will soon (belatedly) update about that exciting next step.
But today I thank each and every mentor, colleague, boss, staff member, lecturer in university and many other courses, and especially all of the older adults who bequeathed me such great wisdom that they amassed over their decades roaming the earth. I wouldn't trade these two decades for the world.