Author: Shelley A. Sackett

The Girls Are Dreamin’ in Beverly

Posted by

0

Eric LaJuan Summers steals the show as James “Thunder” Early in NSMT’s production of “Dreamgirls.”
PhotoPaul Lyden

Attending the season opener at the North Shore Music Theatre brings back memories of stepping off the bus on the first day of summer camp. Like the joy of reconnecting with old friends and places, the NSMT’s round stage with its magic trapdoor center pit, its live orchestra and its signature disco-esque spinning light signal that, finally, summer is here.

And with its exuberant production of “Dreamgirls”,the winner of six Tony and two Grammy Awards, NSMT throws quite the summer party. There’s even dancin’ in the streets.

Inspired by the career of Diana Ross and The Supremes, the musical follows the onstage and backstage drama of the 1960s up-and-coming female trio, “The Dreams.” From their career-launching talent contest at New York City’s famed Apollo Theatre to their farewell concert over a decade later, there are the usual love triangles, artistic squabbles and managerial double-crossings.

There are also a soulful score, slick choreography and the performances of Bryonha Marie Parham as Effie and Eric LaJuan Summers as James “Thunder” Early that make “Dreamgirls” anything but the usual summer musical fare.

Parham and Summers are hands down the standouts in the strong 22-member cast. In Effie, Parham has a vehicle to unleash her powerful voice, and what a set of pipes she has. Her “And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going” deservedly brought down the house. Summers likewise packs a wallop as the showboat Early, playing him with a blend of James Brown athleticism, Stevie Wonder crooning and Little Richard flamboyance. Not since J. Cameron Barnett tore up the stage last summer as Sebastian the crab in “The Little Mermaid” has the NSMT hosted such an electrifying performer.

Like most NSMT productions, “Dreamgirls” is a little long at two-and-a-half hours (which includes a 20-minute intermission), but in this age of shrinking values and increasing costs, that seems a pretty silly thing to complain about.

“Dreamgirls” plays through June 14. For tickets and more information, visit nsmt.org or call 978-232-7200.

Summer Stages Beckon

Posted by

0

 Even on a cold and rainy Sunday afternoon, there is something summery about the opening day of the summer theater season. The North Shore is blessed with two stellar companies, Gloucester Stage and Beverly’s North Shore Music Theatre, that have offered theatergoers the chance to see professional productions without having to traipse into Boston for a combined 97 years.

Under the skillful direction of Weylin Symes, Gloucester Stage, in collaboration with Stoneham Theatre, opens its season with “Sweet and Sad”. The production introduces us to the five members of the fictional Apple family, who are at the center of four plays by American playwright Richard Nelson. “Sweet and Sad” is the second in the chronological series. All are set in Rhinebeck, N.Y., and all focus on either an election or a significant historical anniversary.

In “Sweet and Sad”, the Apple family assembles uncomfortably on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 (the New York Public Theater opening night was actually September 11, 2011). Although the family members — siblings Marian, Barbara, Jane and Richard, and their Uncle Benjamin — spend less time talking about the events of 9/11 than their own personal histories, the significance of the day officially devoted to loss and remembrance casts an indelible shadow.

Even though Barbara (Karen MacDonald whose nuanced performance brings to mind Diane Wiest at her finest), a schoolteacher whose Rhinebeck home hosts the family brunch, early on states that the day is not one to talk politics, the reason for the gathering is to attend a commemoration her students will perform that evening. Uncle Benjamin, who moved in with caretaker Barbara after his brilliant acting career was cut short by a heart attack that left him amnesiac, will read Walt Whitman’s “The Wound Dresser”.

Marian, also a teacher, has just moved in with Barbara, seeking refuge from a recent separation from her husband. Manhattanites Richard, a Wall Street lawyer, and Jane, a writer, round out the family. Tim, Jane’s sometimes boyfriend and an actor currently relegated to waiting tables, walks the fine line between blending in and being unobtrusive.

It’s hard to know where to start praising this production.

The lights rise on a large set that makes good use of the entire stage and yet also creates an intimate dining room setting for the family to share a late lunch and squabble. Each actor embodies his role with a stunning naturalism, breathing life and depth into his role. The same cast staged the first of the four-part Apple family plays, “Hopey Changey,” earlier at Stoneham Theater, and their obvious comfort with each other is the stuff stellar ensemble acting is all about. They are so physically at ease that the audience really does feel like it’s eavesdropping on a family reunion.

Symes, producing director at Stoneham, brings a light but quirky touch to the show, allowing the characters to explore their characters’ eccentricities and individuality without jeopardizing the cohesive fabric of their shared histories. Watching the siblings interact as adults, you can imagine what they must have been like as kids. And having the actors really eat real food (in some cases going back for seconds) is nothing short of brilliant.

Which brings us last, but hardly least, to Nelson’s script. In fewer than two intermission-less hours, he lets us through the keyhole to glimpse a family’s most perilous secrets while making us think about such broad and weighty topics as: the roles of memory and memorials; what drives young people to suicide; and the state of the nation. The characters overlap and interrupt and answer for each other with the familiarity of broken thoughts and familial patterns. We witness the passive-aggressive, judgmental and ultimately supportive Apple family dance. His dialogue (and its flawless delivery) points to as much what is not said as to what is.

The only time all the Apples manage to sit still and listen quietly is when Uncle Benjamin practices reading “The Wound-Dresser”. Whitman’s poem is a tribute to the memory of the Civil War soldiers he tended during his time as a nurse, but when we hear, “I sit by the restless all the dark night; some are so young, some suffer so much, I recall the experience sweet and sad,” he could be talking about the Apple family today.

Pictured at top: Karen MacDonald (Barbara Apple) makes her sisterly point with Laura Latreille (Jane Apple Halls).

(Photo by GARY NG)

“Sweet and Sad” is at Gloucester Stage, 267 East Main St. through June 20. For tickets, go to gloucesterstage.com or call 978-281-4433.

The Queen of Accessories Reigns

Posted by

0

Iris Apfel in her museum-like apartment


Iris Apfel is more than the sum of her parts in the same way a unicorn is not just a horse with a horn. She trails magic dust and casts a mysterious shadow in filmmaker Albert Maysles’ (“Gimme Shelter,” “Grey Gardens”) outstanding valentine, “Iris,” the documentary pioneer’s last movie before he died in March at 88 years old.


By contrast, Apfel shows no signs of slowing down. At 93 years old, the pint-sized nonconformist with the signature oversized round glasses still trolls Harlem (albeit from a wheelchair and with a driver) in pursuit of the perfect addition to her madcap collection of contemporary fashion. (“My mother worshipped at the altar of the accessory,” she deadpans).

“I like to improvise,” she explains in the opening scene, as she vamps for the camera and concocts “another mad outfit” she might wear to a party. “I always think I do things like I’m playing jazz.” As she layers enormous amber and silver necklaces and bracelets onto her birdlike frame, the audience marvels as much at her ability to remain upright as at the final quirky ensemble.

Born into a middle-class Jewish family in Astoria, Queens, in 1921, Iris Barrell developed her fearless sense of individuality and style as a child, helping her fashion boutique owner mother dress windows and accompanying her importer father to jobs at Elsie de Wolfe’s legendary interior design studio. She studied fine arts at New York University and eventually began a fabulously successful interior design business.

Early on, a mentor singled her out and bluntly told her that although she wasn’t pretty, she had something more important because it would outlast her looks: she had style. Apfel has been taking that piece of advice to the bank ever since, inventing and re-inventing her unique self.

In 1948, she married Carl Patel, an advertising executive, and together they founded Old World Weavers, a fabric manufacturing firm, after Apfel couldn’t find the fabrics and furnishings she envisioned for her many high-end clients. The two spent over half a century traveling and collecting.

Their palatial Park Avenue apartment and Palm Beach home are brimming with the eclectic fruits of their shopping expeditions. The overflow is housed in a storage loft.

In 2005, The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art approached Apfel. The 600-piece show, “Rare Bird of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel,” traveled to various museums after its New York run, arriving at Salem’s Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in 2009.

Apfel fell in love with PEM. “It was the climax [of the show’s tour]. They have soaring ceilings and they did a really great job,” she remarks in the film. She subsequently bequeathed the entire show plus more to the museum, substantially expanding and modernizing its permanent textiles and fashion department.

The collection and its final resting place are important to Apfel. “This is a very personal collection. I wore almost everything in it. It’s nice to see where it’s going,” she says. An additional bequest will fund a fashion gallery in the PEM’s new wing that is slated to open in 2017.

Although several academic talking heads analyze and pay homage to Apfel’s pioneering contributions (“She is the perfect example of the intersection of fashion, interior design and art,” comments Margaret Russel, “Architectural Digest” editor), it is Apfel whose pithy asides cut to the chase.

Putting together the right outfit requires skill and chutzpah. “I’m brazen,” she explains as she bargains shamelessly with a street vendor for a bauble she cannot live without and then whips out her gold American Express card to pay for it. She is also serious with a firmly embedded work ethic. “It’s hard work. Everything I have, I have to go out and find,” she says.

Apfel’s credo is that fashion should be fun. “You might as well amuse people when you dress,” she comments as she pairs priceless tribal vestments with a plastic ladybug bracelet she found at a flea market. Her flamboyant and self-confident free spirit is infectious.

Although Apfel’s larger-thanlife persona could devour the screen for the film’s 83 minutes, the moments when we glimpse her sweet and trusting relationship with director Maysles temper her nonstop chatter and activity. The few scenes when she silently turns to the camera are the film’s most intimate.

“Iris” is a playful, entertaining and beautifully shot film of a woman who has spent her life marching to her own drummer and, at age 93, is still living her dream. Recommended.

Check local theaters for times.

‘All In’ in Houston

Posted by

0

Houston community members Daniel Ogorek and Morgan Davis rescuing Rabbi Emeritus Joseph Radinsky in a canoe.

The historic flooding that hit the Houston area on May 26 and devastated the United Orthodox Synagogue and scores of its congregants’ homes had a silver lining, according to its president, Max Reichenthal. “The Jewish community that may be fractured at times came together. It’s like we’re one seamless community,” the owner of a local stell business said.

The building, spiritual home to 325 member families, suffered damage in almost every area of the complex. The majority of the prayer books and chumashim were ruined. At the height of the flood, UOS and much of theWillow Meadows area where it is located were under as much as four feet of water. The building sustained over one million dollars in damage and it is uncertain whether it will be repaired or rebuilt.

For nearly 50 years, UOS has served as a community guiding light for the Orthodox community. Reichenthal, 57, who has lived in Houston for all his life, said this flood was by far the most difficult for everyone. Many congregants lost everything. Some had no flood insurance. “With all the people reeling from the devastation of the flood, worrying about the synagogue is more challenging,” he said.

One person who was up to the challenge is Zach Katz, 17, an incoming senior at the Robert M. Behren Academy, the private Modern Orthodox Jewish primary and secondary school located near the Willow Meadows neighborhoods. His family lost everything in the 2001 Tropical Storm Allison flood. Although he was only three years old, he remembers living with his grandparents for over two years.

“When I saw these kids my age affected by this flood, it gave me perspective. I wanted to make a difference but I wasn’t sure how,” he said.

His sister, Marissa, 24, sparked an idea. The founder of Making a Difference Houston (MAD), an organization that provides teens a way to volunteer for environmental causes, she suggested that her brother rally his fellow high schoolers to aid those in need. Katz asked his friends and was amazed by the positive feedback. “The high school took it as its own responsibility to help out,” he said.

Behren Head of School, Rabbi Ahroni Carmel, supported Katz’s idea, going so far as to waive final exams so the high school students could offer their help full time every day. “What is better than watching your kid give back to the community by helping others?” asked Uri Ghelman, president of Behren and father of student Alex, 16, who arrived home last Monday night exhausted. “It’s heartbreaking but it’s also physical work. The kids are part of a solution,” he said.

Behren Academy

Behren Academy high schoolers (l-r) Tania Blanga, Marcos Bentolila, Jared Gonzalez, Henry Sar-Shalom, Alex Ghelman and Jonathan Gross take a break.

Katz learned that it was harder to organize such a large project than he had expected. The group received supplies from the JCC in Houston and, through the school, coordinated teams to go door-to-door offering help to families and the UOS.

For Katz, this experience helped him see first hand that when disaster strikes, it’s not just individuals who are affected, but whole communities. Asked to describe how he felt about it, he recalled hearing the motivational speaker Gian Paul Gonzalez.

“He talked about being ‘All In’ and everyone pitching in. If you really think about it, that’s what this is. You can’t ever quit. When you start something, you have to do everything you want and can do for it,” he said.

Visit uosh.org to donate to the United Orthodox Synagogue relief effort.

‘Hallelujah!’ Combines Jazz and Judaic Melodies

Posted by

0

Hallelujah! Jazzy and Classical Piano Variations
Eugene Marlow Oasis Disc Manufacturing, 2015

Eugene Marlow has done it again. The composer/arranger/ performer of classical and jazz compositions recently released an anthology of Heritage Ensemble piano tracks that puts a new spin on traditional and familiar Jewish melodies. This CD, the group’s fifth, is guaranteed to make you rethink and appreciate new melodies that have become old hat.

Try listening to the songs before reading their titles. Marlow is a superb pianist, his style a blend of innovation and tradition. It is several bars into “Hatikva,” for example, before the familiar strains of the melody beckon recognition and then fade into the background of a composition that could hold its own among that of any contemporary jazz pianist. What a thrill for a jazz fan to hear “Mah Nishtanah Halaylah Haze (Passover’s Four Questions)” as a bright, lively rendition of the traditional Passover melody. Maoz Tzur (Rock of Ages), recorded specifically for this album, feels playful and new.

Pianist Marlow founded “The Heritage Ensemble,” a quintet dedicated to performing and recording his original compositions and arrangements of Hebraic melodies in various jazz, Afro-Cuban, Brazilian and classical styles. Other members are of Puerto Rican, Lebanese and Eastern European descent. Marlow’s family background is Russian, Polish, German and British.

Marlow didn’t get serious about music until he was in his 20’s and didn’t start studying composing formally until he was in his 50’s. He is a professor at New York City’s Baruch College in the department of journalism and writing.

’24 Days’: Because He Was Jewish

Posted by

0

“24 Days: The True Story of the Ilan Halimi Affair” is not an easy film to watch. Based on a memoir written by the victim’s mother, the movie chronicles in excruciating detail the 24 days in 2006 between the abduction, torture and death of a 23-year-old Parisian Jewish cell phone salesman by a group of African and North African immigrants known aptly as the “Gang of Barbarians.” More shocking and disturbing than the physical violence, most of which occurs off camera, is the refusal of the French authorities to even entertain the possibility that Ilan was kidnapped solely because he was Jewish. 


The film opens with Ilan’s mother, Ruth (the superb Zabou Breitman), unflinchingly addressing the audience. “If my son hadn’t been Jewish, he wouldn’t be dead. It happened to me and my family, but it could have happened to others,” she says, leaving no doubt as to Ilan’s fate. Nonetheless, Director Alexandre Arcady skillfully manages to maintain a level of suspense and hope for the next 110 minutes as the events chronologically unfold, no easy cinematic feat.

The story is horrifying. Under the leadership of the savage Youssouf Fofana (a terrifying Tony Harrisson), a gang of multi-racial thugs operates out of a suburban public housing complex, plotting the kidnapping and ransoming of Jews under the theory that Jews are rich and the Jewish community would unite to rescue one of its own. In Ilan’s case, the bait is a sexy leather-clad girl who walks into his store, flirts with him and asks for his phone number. Later that night, she calls, asking him to meet her in a caf. While walking to her apartment, a gang ambushes Ilan and throws him into the back of a van. The girl was paid 5,000 euros.

24 days 2
Fofana (Tony Harisson), leader of the “Gang of Barbarians,” made nearly 700 calls with ransom demands, insults, threats and photos.


When the Halimis receive a ransom demand for more money than they could possibly raise, they go to the police. (Arcady filmed all these scenes in the actual 36th Precinct Police Headquarters, the first time a film crew received permission to shoot in that building.) The detective in charge of the case enlists a psychologist who specializes in negotiation. The two peg Ilan’s father, Didier (an understated Pascal Elb), as the more cooperative parent and enlist his help in negotiating for his son. He alone will have direct contact with the blackmailers, but the authorities will be calling the shots.

For the next three weeks, he and his ex-wife Ruth field over 650 vile and abusive phone calls, many of them anti-Semitic rants. Despite Ruth’s gut recognition that this is an anti-Semitic crime that does not fit into the government’s cookie-cutter approach, the police stubbornly stick to their conception of the case. Their failure leads to the sad, but predictable, result.

The film’s focus seamlessly shifts from police activity to the Bagneux ghetto where Ilan is held. In scenes eerily reminiscent of the 1964 Kitty Genovese murder (where 38 people heard her cries for help and did nothing), the kidnappers act in broad daylight in clear sight of the hundreds of onlookers who go about their business as if nothing is amiss.

Director Arcady said in a press release that after reading the line, “I would like Ilan’s death to serve as an alert” in Ruth Halimi’s memoir, he knew he was meant to make “24 Days” to bear witness to the martyring of her son, the first young Jew to be killed in France simply because he was a Jew since the Holocaust.

“We return to the old schemas we thought disappeared with the Nazis and the final solution. All the elements were there: a Jew, who is locked away and starved and tortured, before having his head shaved, being disinfected, and thrown into a forest with passing trains, who is later burned… All the themes of anti-Semitism and of the Holocaust were reproduced during the abduction and assassination of young Ilan Halimi,” he said.

The epilogue provides the film’s one bright moment. After Ruth went public on a radio broadcast, the case sparked a national outcry against anti-Semitism and forced the government to treat it as the hate crime it was. Of the 29 suspects brought to court as implicated in the crime, 19 are serving prison sentences, including Fofana whose life sentence is without possibility of parole for 22 years.

Pictured at top: Ilan Halimi (Syrus Shahidi) kisses his mother Ruth (Zabou Breitman) for the last time. Menemsha Films

Celebrating the Miracle of Israel

Posted by

0

The emergence of Israel from the ashes of the Holocaust is no less miraculous than the parting of the Red Sea during the Exodus.


Starting today, we celebrate a week of holidays that, like Passover, afford an opportunity to reflect, remember and reconnect to our Judaism. They also link that Judaism to the land of Israel. With Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Memorial Day), Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers) and Yom Haatzmaut (Israel Independence Day), we commemorate how and why Israel came to be, and recommit to ensuring the survival of our homeland.

Yom Hashoah (April 16) reminds us that people are capable of unimaginable evil and cruelty. The lessons of the Holocaust and the dangers of passivity are unfortunately still relevant today. A global wave of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiment has spilled over into dangerous acts of violence and intimidation against Jews. Life in the Diaspora remains difficult for Jews. What is different today is that we now have a safety net and its name is Israel.

Yom Hazikaron (April 22) acknowledges and laments the many who died to create and maintain the Jewish state. In Israel, where military conscription is mandatory, many families have suffered losses. For them, the holiday is neither abstract nor remote. They have paid, and continue to pay, the price to keep Israel free so that the world’s Jews have a place they can call home.

Yom Haatzmaut (April 23) commemorates the birth of Israel, the one place that unconditionally welcomes all Jews. On this day, we rejoice that we survived as a people and remember those who sacrificed and perished on our behalf. We forget the contemporary political and religious differences of opinion that may divide us and collectively marvel at the week’s journey from Holocaust to sacrifice to homeland.

What will we take away from this week? Perhaps a sense of responsibility and duty to safeguard Israel’s existence will inspire us to take action to contribute to her legacy. Perhaps awareness that we are all survivors will rekindle an image of a global Jewish family that can cherish Israel’s existence while acknowledging her faults. At the very least, we are reminded that Israel’s existence is nothing less than a miracle that should never be taken for granted.

Last week we ended our Seders with the words, “next year in Jerusalem.” This week we give thanks that, for us, that is a real option.

This originally appeared in the Jewish Journal on April 16, 2015.

Younger Generation Speaks Up for An Infrastructure of Hope in the Middle East

Posted by

0

Last summer, Ohad Elhelo received a phone call while he was home in Israel after volunteering to serve in the Protective Edge military operation in Gaza. The Israeli-American Council invited him to address a Combined Jewish Philanthropies-sponsored August 14 “Stop the Terror” rally in support of Israel that was expected to draw 3,000 people in Boston. The 25-year-old Israeli Brandeis University economics and business major wasn’t sure he wanted to accept.

“I believe in delivering productive messages — those that have added value. To go on stage and tell people ‘You must support the IDF’ didn’t seem productive because those people already supported the IDF. That’s why they attended the rally,” he explained.

“I thought, ‘If I am going to speak at this event, I want to give my own message, which is more complicated.’” And more liberal.

Elhelo believes military means alone will not solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It must be paired with a joint Israeli- Palestinian- American effort to rebuild the broken social and economic foundation of Gaza.

He calls this an “infrastructure of hope.”

Elhelo delivered a powerful six-and-a-half minute speech at the rally that went viral almost immediately, reaching over two million viewers http://www.ohadelhelo. com/#!video-gallery/cw47.

“Every round of violence in Gaza weakens the moderates and empowers extremism.

We say Hamas does not want peace and we are right. But being right is not enough. To succeed, we must be smart,” he told the crowd.

“The terrorist infrastructure is not just Hamas. It is also poverty, ignorance, hopelessness, desperation and a lack of political horizon. It is up to all of us — Jews, Arabs, Palestinians, Americans — to build an infrastructure of hope,” he said, summoning the thousands gathered to rise to the challenge of building this joint Israeli-Palestinian organization.

Hundreds of people waited to greet him offstage, many to tell him that they could relate to his words.

“I love Israel and there is no arguing that,” the IDF Special Forces veteran of three military operations said. “Even when I spoke about some sort of criticism for the Israeli government, people were supportive.”

After the rally, he realized he had been given an opportunity to pursue a unique trek.

Right after the Boston rally, Elhelo was interviewed by major TV stations and newspapers in Israel and the United States. He also received invitations to speak at such high-profile fundraising events as the International Lion of Judah Conference of the Jewish Federations of North America, where 1,400 top female contributors of the world donated $27.2 million, and the CJP Major Gifts event in Boston.

At those fundraisers, many people expressed their support for what he was saying. “I came with a message that is slightly different from what some of the peace organizations are doing,” he said, explaining that he doesn’t believe in the “kumbaya” approach of bringing Palestinians and Israelis together to talk about their feelings. “That is basically asking them to do what we want instead of what they want.”

Nor does he think about the leaders when he thinks about role models who can carry a message of collaboration and coexistence. “The current leadership on both sides cannot get along. That is a fact,” he stated.

Ehud 2

Ohad Elhelo and Lidor Cohen served in the Golan Heights, in 2011.

“I think about the entrepreneurs, the students, the young professionals. This is where I want to focus. What do young people care about? What prevents them from working together?” he asked. The answer, Elhelo believes, was they lacked a platform that interested them, one that focused on business startups, entrepreneurship and networking, rather than “coexistence.”

“My message was pragmatic and I needed to pursue this idea with pragmatic people,” he said.

He met with business executives and senior politicians, enlisting them to use their talents, experience and resources to help a younger generation make their voices heard and their constructive energy felt in the region. Brandeis’s senior administration was the first to sign on.

Elhelo explained his idea of setting up a foundation to bring outstanding Palestinian and Israeli students to American campuses to develop their leadership skills and build their own ventures with the goal of developing a new generation of Israeli and Palestinian leadership that will share a powerful vision for a common future. President Lawrence was one of the first to sign on and the Brandeis venture was born.

The cost for the program of two cohorts is $5.4 million, of which Brandeis is committed to contributing $1.4 million. The planning stage is completed and fundraising is in full swing. Projected launch date is either Spring or Fall 2016.

The Board of Advisors and list of mentors includes leaders from Israel, the Palestinian Territories and the U.S.

Under the  program, ten Palestinian and ten Israeli students will come to Brandeis each year for a 15-month Masters program in public policy and business that will focus on negotiations, mediation and leadership skills. Each student will have a mentor who has agreed to participate, including American, Palestinian and Israeli business executives and politicians, including parliament members, heads of security services and senior business executives.

The students will propose and establish their own ventures, up to three per year, from Brandeis and then bring those ventures back to their communities in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.

Elhelo gave an example of how the program is meant to work.

“If you go to a Palestinian community and ask the students, ‘What do your people care about?’ sometimes the answers will be fascinating. They might tell you, ‘We don’t really mind about the Israeli army but in our village there are no light bulbs on the road and there are many car accidents and that bothers us,’” he said.

If one of the  student ventures were to equip that village with light bulbs, then the single  fellow who returned to his village would be bringing change that the community wanted and needed. “That fellow will be seen as a leader. He is a change agent,” Elhelo said.

In the meantime, the recipient of the prestigious Brandeis University Slifka scholarship is a change agent in his own right. “Collaborative ventures are the answer. They are cheaper than rockets and have greater implications in the long run,” he said.

Pictured at top: Ohad Elhelo addressed the CJP Major Gifts event last fall.

It’s a Good Friday for a Seder

Posted by

0

Passover and Easter are highly charged religious holidays. This year, the first Seder falls on Good Friday and it’s a perfect opportunity to reflect on some surprising similarities between the Jewish and Christian springtime commemorations.


Both memorialize important historical events central to the identity and belief systems of Judaism and Christianity. For Jews, the Passover tradition is a powerful link that defines us and binds us as a people to each other and to God. We share the retelling of our Exodus from bondage in Egypt when God promised to save us and we were delivered from slavery to freedom. For Christians, the week of important historical events leading to Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection is the backbone of their narrative as a people. Both stories are full of pain; both stories transform that pain into salvation.

Like Passover, Easter centers on the family and food. The Seder and Easter dinner are sacred times for families to gather, share a meal and renew their connection to their heritage through ceremony. Both holidays transform bread into ritual symbols. We eat unleavened bread, or matzah, to remember our ancestors who fled so quickly they did not have time to let their bread rise. Matzah is both the bread of our affliction and the sustenance of our freedom. For Christians, too, bread is both sacrament and sacrifice in the form of the Holy Eucharist, a wafer that represents Christ’s body.

Finally, both holidays acknowledge reverence for springtime, the season of renewal and rebirth. The egg, symbol of fertility and new life, plays a prominent role at the Seder as we dip a hardboiled egg in salt water to symbolize both new life and sacrifice. After the meatless (and eggless) Lenten fast, eggs became a staple of the Easter meal to celebrate the end of the privation of Lent. Today, dyeing Easter eggs celebrates rebirth through rededication of faith.

While we are certainly aware of the stark religious differences between Jews and Christians that Easter crystallizes, perhaps this year when we sit down to our Seder on Good Friday, maybe even as an interfaith family, we might focus as well on the commonalities that transcend those distinctions. We all cherish freedom, we all love God and, especially this year, we all revere spring.

This originally appeared in the Jewish Journal on April 2, 2015.

“The Guys Next Door” Celebrates Family, Friendship and Gay Rights

Posted by

0

When award-winning documentary filmmaker Amy Geller opened her 2011 Bates Alumni magazine, she was blown away by a story about Rachel Segall, a Jewish alumna from Newton in her 40’s with three teenagers who had recently volunteered to be a surrogate so her gay friends could become parents.

Not once, but twice within two years.

“Rachel had seen a television program about how expensive and difficult it is for gay men to have kids. So she called up Erik, her good friend from college, and said, ‘whenever you want to have kids, I’m your gal,’” said Geller. “I was so inspired that I thought, ‘This could be a film!’” She contacted Rachel through a mutual friend. Rachel was on board and reached out to Sandro Sechi and Erik Mercer, the biological gay dads, who were equally excited. “The Guys Next Door” was a go.

Geller and her filmmaking partner, Allie Humenuk, started shooting in 2011. Geller served as artistic director of the Boston Jewish Film Festival from 2012 until 2014. Her productions have been braoadcast on PBS, the Documentary Channel, the BBC, Yes (Israel) and Turner ClassicMovies.

When shooting began, Erik and Sandro were living in Bedford-Stuyvesant in New York City. Rachel and her family were there visiting. ‘We went down to New York, where both families were staying together in this one-bedroom. It was total chaos. We started filming and we just totally fell in love from the get-go,’ Humenuk said.

Humenuk is an award-winning filmmaker and cinematographer whose films have been broadcast nationally and internationally.

Geller and Humenuk have been shooting on and off for over three years. They started filming when Rachel was eight months pregnant with Eleonora, the second child, who is now three years old.

They have wrapped principal photography, edited a trailer and launched an early Kickstarter campaign, running through April 11, to help raise money for post production.

‘We’ve built a mutual trust and respect with our characters which enabled us to film some very personal moments, like the birth of Eleonora. It seems ironic that filming something so intimate ends up being very public. But it’s those moments that make documentaries so powerful,’ said Humenuk.

The story starts with Rachel, who was raised in a Jewish family and married her Bates College sweetheart, Tony Hurley. They remained friends with fellow alum Erik Mercer and his husband, Sandro Sechi.

‘I am Jewish and my parents raised me to believe in equality and giving to others in whatever ways we can. As a mother now, it is important for me to continue living the foundation of those values and teach them to my children,’ she said.

‘My experience in helping my good friends Erik and Sandro be able to have children symbolizes to me the notion of Tikkun Olam (repair the world) — my little part in helping to heal the world,’ she added.

Rachel said that it struck her as unfair that she and her husband could so easily have children and that for two gay men to have children was such a hardship, especially financially.

‘By helping her gay friends to have daughters, Rachel makes a deeply personal decision that has political implications,’ Geller said. ‘It’s the ultimate tzedakah (charity).’

Because Rachel was in her 40’s, each child had a separate egg donor. It wasn’t important to either Sandro or Erik who the biological father would be. They had some eggs fertilized by Erik’s sperm and some by Sandro’s sperm. ‘They had the DNA test and have the results in a sealed envelope, ‘ Geller said.

In addition to helping her friends have a family, Rachel also saw her surrogacy as a way to create an extended family for her own children. Maddie (now 17), Jordie (now 15), and Zeke (now 13) consider Rachel Maria (now four and a half years old) and Eleonora (now three years old) to be their cousins.

‘I believe that being able to help Erik and Sandro have their daughters not only benefits them, but also benefits my family and, really, benefits the world around us,’ said Rachel.

‘I think that a wonderful gift that has come out of this whole thing is that Rachel’s kids are very invested in this family. So even though there’s no biological connection, they feel very intimately connected,’ said Geller.

Co-director Humenuk thinks a film like ‘The Guys Next Door,’ which chronicles a gay family’s life, can help combat discrimination. ‘The film highlights intimate moments which reveal the beauty, challenge and complexity of being parents. If people see what a loving gay family looks like, it changes minds,’ she said.

Rachel agreed. ‘My hope is that the film helps people see that family can look like many different and wonderful things, and how two gay men, given the opportunity, can create a beautiful home filled with love and strong values, just as well as a heterosexual couple can,’ she said.

To view thefilm’strailer and learn more about the Kickstarter campaign for ‘The Guys Next Door,’ visit asquaredfilms.com.

Pictured at top: A Squared Films (L to R): Daughters Rachel Maria and Eleonora with their dads Erik Mercer and Sandro Sechi