Month: October 2017

North Shore task force holding forum to address anti-Semitism on college campuses

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“Campus anti-Semitism is becoming more complex and pervasive,” says Kenneth L. Marcus.

 

OCTOBER 19, 2017 – SWAMPSCOTT – Rabbi Michael Ragozin was particularly fired up during his 2016 Kol Nidre sermon at Congregation Shirat Hayam. The topic was anti-Semitism on college campuses, an issue he said “Gets me in the kishkes. It was in college that my Jewish identity solidified and set me on my trajectory. I don’t know that I would have grown in the same way if I had been under attack simply for being Jewish.”

That sermon generated interest and launched the Campus Anti-Semitism Task Force of the North Shore. Its mission is to promote awareness of campus anti-Semitism; to educate teens on how to deal with situations they may encounter; and to empower students to advocate for themselves and others.

Task force participants include members of Shirat Hayam in Swampscott, Temple Emanu-El in Marblehead, unaffiliated families, and Marty Schneer, executive director of the Jewish Community Center of the North Shore.

“The issue of campus anti-Semitism is not the sole dominion of a single individual or shul,” Rabbi Ragozin said. “We must all work together to put an end to the hate, lies, disinformation, and intimidation on college campuses.”

On Sunday, Oct. 29, the task force will sponsor its fall event, “What’s Up at College,” a panel discussion about Jewish life on campus geared to parents and teens. The panel includes current college students, professionals and alumni. It will take place from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at Congregation Shirat Hayam, 55 Atlantic Ave., in Swampscott. Rabbi Ragozin will moderate.

“I hope teens and their parents will leave feeling empowered,” said Arinne Braverman, one of the panelists and the former executive director of Northeastern University Hillel. She will provide information about how the State Department defines an anti-Semitic act and will address the active role students and their families can play by participating in community responses to campus incidents.

Two alumni of the Epstein Hillel School in Marblehead, Dylann Cooper, a senior at Roger Williams College, and Zach Shwartz, a graduate of Boston University, will be joined on the panel by Tufts University sophomores Madeline Blondy and Rachel Wulf.

Last April on the night before Passover, members of the Tufts Community Union Senate passed a divestment resolution that accused Israel of being an apartheid regime and endorsed the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) Movement.

Similar issues are arising widely and more frequently, according to Kenneth L. Marcus, president and general counsel of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law in Washington, D.C., and author of “The Definition of Anti-Semitism” and “Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America.”

“We’re seeing four important trends lately,” he said. “First, alt-right activity is substantially increasing. Second, left wing anti-Zionist activity continues to surge. Third, in the current environment, anti-Zionist activity tends to merge with other campus protest activity, such as anti-Trump, anti-fascist, and Black Lives Matter. Finally, campus anti-Semitism continues to spread throughout the country, no longer focused on a few states or regions.

“Campus anti-Semitism is becoming more complex and pervasive,” Marcus said.

Nationwide, there have been 457 incidents so far in 2017, including 27 in Massachusetts, according to the AMCHA Initiative, a California-based nonprofit that tracks anti-Semitic acts at institutions of higher learning (amchainitiative.org).

Nonetheless, Marcus is heartened that the Jewish community is becoming more aware of the problem and is ready to take action. “There are now increasing numbers of Jewish, pro-Israel, and counter anti-Semitism events at many colleges,” he said. “While it is true some problems are worsening, it is also true that we are getting stronger and better able to fight them.”

Jahna Gregory, a North Shore task force member and Marblehead mother of three, is pleased the group is fulfilling its mission of awareness, education, and advocacy. At its next event, the task force will invite Braverman to lead a one-day workshop of tools and strategies for dealing with campus anti-Semitism that she developed while at Northeastern.

“It is important that the Jewish community not isolate ourselves after anti-Semitic incidents and that we send an unambiguous message to our Jewish young adults that they should never allow themselves to be intimidated into silence or hiding their Judaism,” said Braverman.

“As Elie Wiesel said, ‘Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.’”

For more information, email Marylou@shirathayam.org, call 781-599-8005, or visit bit.ly/CASTF-NS.

Swampscott library hosts tea sommelier

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Tea sommelier brings book to life at Swampscott library

By Shelley A. Sackett

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Hillel Bromberg, a certified tea sommelier, as he prepares to present his tea tasting at the Swampscott Public Library.

 

Last Wednesday night, over 50 people sat and chatted in the Swampscott Library at tables set with white cloth tablecloths, teacups, tea lights and tea biscuits. Promptly at 6:30 p.m., a spry, bearded man in a colorful vest stepped behind a table adorned with a variety of artistic teapots and addressed the crowd.

 

“Thank you for coming to take tea with me,” said Hillel Bromberg, certified tea sommelier.

 

For the next 90 minutes, Bromberg talked about the history of tea, its many heath benefits and the proper (and improper) way to brew an authentic cup of tea. He also conducted a tasting of several distinctive styles of teas. “I really like tea, and it turns out I’m not alone,” he said.

 

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Bromberg carefully pours water heated to just the right temperature into the cast iron tea pot.

 

The inspiration for the program came from the book, “The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane” by Lisa See, which was the library’s Popular Titles Book Group selection for September.

 

Laurie Souza, head of circulation, had just read the book and wanted to learn more about tea. She had heard about Bromberg from other libraries and suggested to the Friends of the Library that they bring him to Swampscott. “They thought it was a great idea,” she said.

 

Bromberg, who lives in Newton with his coffee-drinking wife, was introduced to tea as a child. He grew up in an observant Jewish home where the family and guests enjoyed a “full-blown Shabbat dinner” every Friday night. After dinner, they would sit around for quite a while, sipping tea, eating dessert and “schmoozing.”

 

“We drank your basic Lipton that I usually loaded up with lemon and sugar,” Bromberg recalled. He has continued that ritual in his own home. When his son and daughter left for college, he made sure they left home with a hand-selected supply of their favorite teas.

 

He received his tea sommelier certification from the International Tea Masters Association. During the four-month training (one intensive weekend of study and three months of weekly online assignments), he learned about different teas from different countries. “When I started drinking tea, the whole world opened up to me,” he said.

 

Bromberg captivated the audience with his lively condensed version of the history of tea, peppering the fascinating chronicle with amusing tidbits such as the difference between high tea and afternoon tea, and the Lexington Tea Burning, which pre-dated the December 16, 1773 Boston Tea Party by three days.

 

The audience learned what is tea (white, green, yellow, oolong, black and post fermented teas, which all belong to the camellia sinensis species) and what is not tea (all fruit and herbal teas, known as tisanes).

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A proper cup of tea can only be brewed using a proper tea strainer which, according to Bromberg, allows the tea leaves to “stretch out.”

 

In addition, properly steeped tea must take into account three specifics that differ with each variety of tea leaves: the amount of tea leaves in the strainer; the temperature of the water, and the amount of time the tea steeps before drinking.

 

Throughout the presentation, Bromberg demonstrated the proper way to brew a pot of tea, which can only be accomplished with a proper tea strainer. He brewed five different teas, including white tea, oolong tea, a pineapple flowering tea and black tea. He set his electric teakettle to different temperatures for each, and poured a taste into each participant’s white ceramic teacups.

 

Somehow, he magically made a small teapot stretch to accommodate all.

 

Next came instruction in the proper way to taste tea. Since 80% of the taste of tea is from its aroma, smelling it is an important first step. So is slurping — and the more noise the better.

 

One thing the mild-mannered Bromberg is unequivocal about is his abhorrence for tea bags. “They are horrible, vile and disgusting,” he said with the trace of a shudder. “They were invented in the United States by two women who tired of cleaning leaves out of pots.”

 

Strainers are designed to let tea leaves come to life; tea bags are designed to steep quickly with macerated, tightly packed leaves that lose their flavor. “Tea wants to stretch out,” he emphasized, as he passed around the strainers with post-steeped tealeaves as evidence.

 

Bromberg had just borrowed “The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane” from his local library when Souza contacted him to arrange the Swampscott tea tasting, so the timing was perfect. He liked the writing a lot, especially the way the author described the hard work the tea pluckers, who were almost all women, did for very little pay. “I like to make people aware of the strong and patient women who were at the very beginning of the tea making process,” he said.

 

Izzi Abrams, who has run book groups at Swampscott Library for over 18 years and is co-director of the library’s children’s department, was delighted that Bromberg excited the crowd with his knowledge and experience. “A program like this evening makes a book come alive. It makes it experiential,” she said.

 

For more information about Hillel Bromberg and his Tea Oasis business, visit http://www.teaoasisboston.com

 

 

 

Local couple buys Swampscott-based Craft Beer Cellar

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Kim and Joe Nunnari a re the new owners of Craft Beer Cellars in Swampscott, which also sells Kim’s homemade beer soap, displayed on the counter.

 

The Swampscott store will sell regionally brewed beer, other beverages, chocolates — and beer soap.

About 20 years ago, Joe Nunnari’s in-laws gave him a home brew kit as a Christmas gift.

“I didn’t know a whole lot about beer, but soon learned all about the craft after brewing a few good batches,” the Swampscott resident said.

“I brewed some bad ones as well,” he added with a chuckle.

Little did he realize it at the time, but that gift sparked an idea that would take two decades to ferment. Last month, Nunnari and his wife, Kim, became the new owners of Craft Beer Cellar Swampscott on 450 Paradise Road.

When CBC Swampscott opened in February 2016, Nunnari was its first hire. Eighteen months later, when the opportunity to purchase the franchise arose, he jumped at the chance.

“Being an employee here first for a year and a half has certainly helped being able to move into the ownership position,” he said.

Although the store carries ciders and some wines, it focuses on retailing craft beer from local breweries, such as Notch and Old Planters, as well as a curated selection of regional and international breweries. “Craft beers are higher-end beers. Small brewers make these beers in small amounts. They are not mass produced, so they don’t have that mass-produced taste,” Nunnari explained.

Like all CBC Swampscott employees, Nunnari is a Cicerone Certified Beer server, ensuring that his customers receive knowledgeable answers to their questions.

Although he and Kim have only owned the shop for a month, they’ve already made significant changes. They have added a larger selection of beers — including 12-packs — as well as chocolates made by CB Stuffer, a Swampscott company, and hot sauces and marinades supplied by a central Massachusetts vendor.

The most exciting beer-related merchandise, however, is Kim’s homemade beer soaps. A retired registered nurse, she has been making soap for almost 10 years, selling them at farmer’s markets and craft fairs.

“You can use any solution for the liquid when you make soap, so I started using still beer because it was on hand,” she said. “It gives a different quality to the soap, making it a little more lathery and bubbly.”

She gave them as gifts to her family and the response was so positive that the couple is now retailing them at CBC Swampscott.

Nunnari also plans to host beer tastings classes to help people increase their awareness and knowledge of “great tasting beer.” “I love talking beer with our customers, and I’m looking forward to continuing to do that,” he said.

Nunnari credits his previous careers with providing experience that help in his new venture. He spent 20 years in the airline catering business and seven years as a quality control manager in a high-end bakery production plant. “Both places were 24/7 operations that required a lot of my time. Both jobs definitely helped pave the way for my being a business owner,” he said.

Although Kim doesn’t officially work in the store, her husband recognizes that they are very much a team. “To say that she has been a huge help in getting the changes underway would be an understatement. I wouldn’t and couldn’t have done it without her,” he said.

Gesturing at his store and the beautifully displayed merchandise, he beamed. “It’s great to have an idea and be able to run with it,” he said with a proud smile.

For more information, visit swampscott.craftbeercellar.com or call 781-715-8495.

Marblehead’s Dolphin Yacht Club has survived stormy seas

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By Shelley A. Sackett

 

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George Freedman of Marblehead reflected on the history of the Dolphin Yacht Club. Photo by Steven A. Rosenberg/Journal Staff

 

MARBLEHEAD – John Smidt was a kid from Marblehead who loved sailing and being around the harbor. His dad, Phenny, bought a boat in 1948 and John remembers they joined the Salem Willows Yacht Club, even though his hometown harbor was miles closer.

“The way the story has been passed down, there was no place in Marblehead Harbor for a Jew with a boat,” John said over coffee and a muffin at an outdoor café on a recent sunny morning. “I didn’t know the politics of what was going on, but I watched what was happening.”

Although there was no written ban, realtors steered Jewish buyers away from Marblehead. “‘You probably wouldn’t be comfortable here’ was the phrase most commonly used,” said retired psychiatrist George Freedman, who grew up in Marble­head.

That discrimination extended to Marblehead Harbor and its yacht clubs, which in 1950 denied fuel, mooring, or launch service to Jewish boaters. Like Phenny Smidt, they either joined clubs in nearby harbors or had to moor at a spot unaffiliated with any of the Marblehead clubs.

Fed up with the status quo, a group of Jewish boaters decided to take matters into their own hands. In January 1950, 14 men formed the Dolphin Yacht Club and sent letters soliciting charter members “with the main qualification being a desire to participate in nautical activity as an avocation.” The stated purpose and scope of the club was to “promote and foster the nautical spirit among its members regardless of color, race, or creed.” Initial membership would be limited to 60.

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The founding members of Marblehead’s Dolphin Yacht Club in 1950.

 

The list of founding members and tentative officers who signed the letter included Harry Weinstein, B. Frederick Yoffa, Morris Jaynes, Ben Myers, Arthur Rubino, Phenny Smidt, Irving Mann, Leo Sonnabend, Dr. Adolph Sandberg, Harry Simon, Nathan Cohen, Dr. Nathan Silbert, Hy Jaffee, and John Rimer.

Nine attended the club’s first breakfast meeting on January 15 at Lynn’s Hotel Edison, according to a $12.65 bill that itemized breakfast charges at 85 cents each and room rental at $5.

Smidt remembers going with his father to the Dolphin Yacht Club’s first location, a space under the Rockmere Hotel (now Glover Landing condos) with a gravel floor and metal lockers. Boaters would grab their dinghies and row out to their moorings.
In 1955, the Marble­head Harbor Yacht Club, adjacent to the Rockmere Hotel, merged with another club and its property became available. Lewis Athanas, brother of restauranteur Anthony Athanas, offered to act as a non-Jewish “straw” – or third party – to buy the Marblehead

Harbor Yacht Club and turn it over to the Dolphin Yacht Club. “He was just open-minded,” Smidt said. “Looking back, it took guts.”

Over the next six decades, the club fluctuated in its financial solvency, physical amenities, and members, but remained steadfast in its promise to be an inclusive presence on the previously exclusive Marblehead Harbor.

In 1964, 22-year-old John Smidt bought his first sailboat, a 16-foot Bullseye, and joined the Dolphin. By 1969, he and Marvin Frank put the club on the yachting map when they raced Frank’s boat, “Bat Yom,” in the 70-hour Marblehead to Halifax race, becoming the first Dolphin boat to compete in that prestigious event.

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The Dolphin Yacht Club looks out onto Marblehead Harbor. Photo courtesy of dolphinyachtclub.com

 

By 1973, the club needed more income to remain solvent. Smidt tried to beef up membership numbers – and the club’s finances – by advertising the Dolphin as “a yacht club for all people.” He did the same thing in 1980 when membership had dwindled to 45. By the end of that season, the Dolphin had 75 members who represented a mixture of people and cultures.

“We took on a bunch of non-Jewish members,” Smidt said. But the club still struggled to make ends meet.

The situation was so dire that a 1986 article in the Jewish Journal was titled, “The Dolphin sends an S.O.S. to the Jewish community.” Marblehead pharmacist Elliot Strasnick, a member since 1975, dug in his heels, enlisted volunteers like Freedman, and “decided to go for it. We started to think outside the box,” he said. The club sold bonds, paid off its debts, and rebooted with more emphasis on social and kayak memberships and amenities.

Next, the club procured a liquor license, started offering food service, and offered social memberships. Today, social memberships far outnumber boaters, and non-Jews outnumber Jews. The club recently completed extensive renovations and hired Alan Knight, former executive chef at the Boston Yacht Club. On sunny weekends, dinner reservations on the deck are hard to get.

Despite the larger numbers and fancier digs, Freedman still feels the small club friendliness of the early years. But more than that, the 2017 Dolphin has come full circle, more closely fulfilling the original members’ intent.

“Although the club’s origins are Jewish, its original charter specifically stated that the club was open to all,” Freedman said. “Fortunately, we have lost the perception of being “the Jewish Club,” but the history is important, especially in these sensitive times.”

Neshama Carlebach headlines Swampscott inclusion celebration

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By Shelley A. Sackett

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Neshama Carlebach will headline Swampscott’s Shirat Hayam’s Shir Lanu Inclusion Initiative Celebration on October 27 and 28.

 

Singer/songwriter Neshama Carlebach, a passionate advocate for inclusion in synagogue, will headline Congregation Shirat Hayam’s Shir Lanu (“One Song-Every Voice”) Inclusion Initiative Celebration October 27 and 28.

“When you’re accepting people who are different than you, it means that you have acceptance and love in your heart. Period. And if you don’t have love and acceptance in your heart, that’s not a place to pray,” the six-time entrant in the 2011 Grammy Awards said by phone last week from her New York City apartment.

One of Shirat Hayam’s stated missions is to support and provide opportunities for families and individuals with special needs as well as the LGBTQ community, interfaith families, elders and everyone who seeks a genuinely respectful, compassionate and responsive synagogue experience.

“I believe that hands down, this is one of the most important missions in the Jewish world right now. Every single synagogue should have this mission attached to their synagogue statement,” Carlebach said.

Last May, the synagogue received a selective Ruderman Synagogue Inclusion Project (RSIP) grant to further its inclusion work. The Ruderman Family Foundation is a Boston-based philanthropic entity that advocates for and advances the inclusion of people with disabilities throughout society.

Michele Tamaren and Amanda Clayman co-chair Shirat Hayam’s Shir Lanu inclusion committee and attended the gathering for the cohort of new 2017 RSIP affiliates. There they met Neshama Carlebach, who performed for the group.

“We were deeply moved by her soulful ability to lift hundreds of us in that room,” Tamaren said. She and Clayman stayed and connected with her after the concert. When the Shir Lanu committee started planning the October inclusion event, Tamaren and Clayman invited Carlebach to be the weekend’s artist-in-residence and to perform a community concert Saturday night with her gospel band, The Glory to God.

 

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Neshama Carlebach has sold more than one million records, and performed and taught in cities worldwide.

Neshama Carlebach is the daughter of renowned Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, the folksy, guitar-playing Orthodox rabbi who created hundreds of uplifting melodies, including many that are part of Shabbat services in synagogues all over the world. She sang with her father until his death in 1994, when she launched her own professional career.

She has sold more than one million records, performed and taught in cities worldwide, and co-authored the Broadway play, “Soul Doctor,” based on her father’s life. In 2016, she was inducted into the Brooklyn Hall of Fame, where she received a Certificate of Congressional Recognition for her work.

 

Carlebach credits her father for instilling in her the desire to bring inclusivity, love and wonder to the world. “My father gave that to me in my ear and in my heart from the moment I was born. That’s what he stood for. There’s no way I could have been any different,” she said.

She has done several events with the Ruderman Family Foundation. “I have never cried so much in my life, sitting and hearing these inspirational people talk about how they have struggled in their wheelchairs and how doors have been shut in their faces,” she said.

As the weekend’s artist-in-residence, Carlebach will provide inclusion teachings at the Friday, October 27 evening “Holy, Happy Hour Minyan” and the Saturday, October 28 morning “Nosh and Drash” Shabbat services. “Her teachings will focus on the Jewish imperative of inclusion,” Tamaren said.

Saturday evening, she will perform with her band and members of the spirited New York gospel choir, The Glory to God Gospel Singers, at Congregation Shirat Hayam, 55 Atlantic Ave, in Swampscott.

Reflecting on today’s divisive political climate, Carlebach thinks her father would be broken-hearted about the pain in the world and would have tried to do everything he could to bring healing. “Under his influence and in my own heart, I hope to try to do the same,” she said.

“There’s a song I sing called, ‘Y’hi shalom b’haylech’ – ‘May there be peace in your borders and tranquility in your castles.’ My father spoke about that all the time, that true peace comes from within the castle,” she said.

She paused for a few moments, then added, “I know you can’t heal what’s going on now with a song, but it would be great if all the world was waiting for was that one right niggun (Jewish religious melody).”

For more information or to purchase tickets, visit shirat­hayam.org/Neshama or call 781-599-8005.