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Saul Rubinek recasts Shakespeare in the provocative ‘Playing Shylock’

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Saul Rubinek in “Playing Shylock.” | DAHLIA KATZ

By Shelley A. Sackett

Ask a Jewish audience what their first reaction is when they think about Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice,” and chances are they will mention the negative portrayal of Jews by the Venetian moneylender and play’s principal villain, Shylock. Long considered a slur against Jews, the very term was condemned by the Anti-Defamation League as antisemitic as recently as last July, when Trump described bankers as “shylocks and bad people” during a rally in Iowa.

Saul Rubinek flips that ingrained stereotype on its head in “Playing Shylock,” the provocative and powerful solo play he stars in and helped develop with playwright Mark Leiren-Young and director Martin Kinch. The play premieres in New York at Polonsky Shakespeare Center and runs through Dec. 7.

Rubinek plays a fictionalized version of himself. The actor is forced to stop “The Merchant of Venice” because his portrayal of Shylock – as Rubinek, a Jewish man – has angered members of the Jewish community, who have successfully petitioned for the production to be shuttered because it “endangers the well-being of some in our community.”

During the play, Rubinek uses the show’s cancellation as a launching pad from which to engage the audience on thorny issues like antisemitism, institutional self-censorship and cultural appropriation, and stereotyping. He challenges the audience to wrestle with whether the theater might be right to consider the current climate of antisemitism or whether it’s more dangerous to censor a play than to stage it.

“Isn’t Shylock part of the history of antisemitism? The most famous Jewish character in theater? And isn’t it important to own it, talk about it and show it?” Rubinek rhetorically asked the Journal over Zoom from his California home. Contrary to popular perception, he posits that “Shylock is not a caricature. He is the first three-dimensional Jew in the history of English literature.”

He details how in 1595, when Shakespeare’s play was first produced, there had been no Jews in England in the 300 years since King Edward I issued the Edict of Expulsion in 1290 (ironically on Tisha B’Av). Jews were portrayed as clowns, puppets with horns, or a devil in religious pageants. Audiences threw figs and oyster shells at them. “They were used to thinking of Jews as not being people because they had never actually met one,” Rubinek said.

Christopher Marlowe’s “The Jew of Malta,” first produced in 1592 (three years before Shakespeare), “sold tickets like Taylor Swift” and was the first antisemitic play where a Jew was played by a living actor. Its Jewish character was a one-dimensional Machiavellian villain. Shakespeare, on the other hand, was the first playwright to humanize his Jewish character.

Although Shylock only appears in five scenes, the character and his lines are synonymous with the play, even though he is not the star (the Italian Antonio is the eponymous merchant) and is deemed vile for demanding the pound of flesh he is owed on a defaulted loan.

Rubinek points to Shylock’s most famous speech: “Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? … And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that … The villainy you teach me, I will execute, … but I will better the instruction.”

“The point of that speech,” he said, “is not a plea for humanity;” rather, it is a declaration of a right. “We are human, just like a Christian. And if we are like you in other ways, are we not like you in villainy? Whatever you do to me, I will do back to you tenfold. That is what the character is about. That is what the speech is about. And that is why it’s ageless and relevant.”

In other words, according to Rubinek, Shylock is telling his Christian audience, “If you don’t like what you see in me, look in the mirror to see where it comes from.”

The 77-year old actor, best known for television (“Frasier,” “Billions,” “Mrs. Maisel,” “Schitt’s Creek,” “Hunters”) and films (“Unforgiven,” “True Romance,” “The Battle of Buster Scruggs” and over 60 other features), co-founded and was actor/writer/director at the Toronto Free Theatre (now Canadian Stage). He has continued his work in theater in Canada, the U.S. and Europe.

Rubinek’s love for the theater and storytelling is deeply rooted in his heritage. His parents survived the Holocaust by hiding in a Polish farmhouse for 2 1/2 years. (In 1986, he took his parents back to Poland for a reunion with these farmers and created a book, play and documentary film about the experience). He was born in a refugee camp in Germany after World War II. His father, who was a Yiddish theater actor before the war in Lodz, ran a Yiddish repertory company in Germany before the family immigrated to Canada when Rubinek was 9 months old. He spoke Yiddish and French before learning English, and at age 8 started acting in English on the stage.

Though he attended Talmud Torah and Jewish summer camp and grew up in a world of Talmudic discussion, his Jewish upbringing was secular. “I have never been fond of any organized religion, but I love the Jewish traditions. They matter to me on a deep level even though I don’t go to synagogue,” he shared. He, his wife and his children, who are half Scottish/English, celebrate the Jewish holidays and participate in, for example, tashlich. “I grew up without any grandparents, but with these rituals. They are very meaningful to me,” he added.

Rubinek recalled that his father always wanted to portray Shylock on the stage, but “Hitler stopped him. I always wanted to play my father playing Shylock in his heavy Jewish accent,” he said. One of the play’s most moving scenes is when the Rubinek character, clad in traditional Hassidic garb and channeling his father, recites Shylock’s famous “Does a Jew not bleed?” speech in Yiddish.

In the play (and during this interview), Rubinek tells the story of his 16-year-old father confronted by his father (Rubinek’s Zayde) after he had cut off his payos (sidelocks) so he could continue in the Lodz Yiddish theater he so loved. “My Zayde asked, ‘How could you go so far away from God? How can you betray your family, your people, like this?”’ Rubinek said.

His father explained that he was doing a Yiddish play by a great writer about a Jewish family and their hopes for their children. Rubinek continued, “My father said to his father, ‘Theater – if it’s good – the audience sees themselves on the stage. They laugh. They cry. And for a few minutes each night, they don’t feel so alone.’ And my Zayde said, ‘Maybe it’s not so far from God after all.’

“That’s why I wrote the play,” Rubinek said, with an emotional catch in his voice and the glimmer of a tear in his eye.

For more information, visit https://tfana.org/about/polonsky-shakespeare-center

‘Bad Shabbos’ director dishes about filmmaking and his love of being Jewish

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The cast of “Bad Shabbos”/MENEMSHA FILMS

BY SHELLEY A. SACKETT

Daniel Robbins, the director and co-writer of the award-winning film “Bad Shabbos,” discovered two things about himself at a very early age – he loved Judaism and he loved making films.

Raised in a Modern Orthodox Jewish family, he attended Westchester Day School up to 8th grade and then Ramaz, the yeshiva in New York’s Upper East Side, for grades 9-12. Every year, the “funny kids” in the upper grades were tasked with making a short video. As “funny kids,” Robbins and his friends were drafted in high school. “I felt the spark,” Robbins told the Journal by phone. “From my junior year in high school, I wanted to go to film school.”

He also loved growing up in a family that gathered for Shabbos dinner every Friday night. “Even on the most chaotic nights, there was a warmth,” Robbins says. He still observes this tradition with family and close friends. “It’s not about your week or how your work is going, but rather about your dignity as a person and connecting with the people around you.”

What he most appreciates about Judaism (and especially Modern Orthodox Judaism) is that it takes universal values (family, community, loving other people, for example) and builds habits around them. “It’s one thing to cherish those values, but Judaism also gives us an actual framework that pushes us to practice them,” he says.

I think Shabbos dinner is probably the main way we can improve our lives. Which is why we made a movie about it.”

“Bad Shabbos,” released in 2024 and co-written and produced by fellow Ramaz alumni Zack Weiner and Adam Mitchell, has taken the festival circuit by storm. This film is not, however, about your bubbe’s Shabbos dinner. Unless, of course, your regular family Friday night gatherings included a prank gone awry, a death (an accident, or possibly a murder) and Cliff “Method Man” Smith masquerading as an observant Jew. Throw in the first meeting between parents of engaged children (a visiting Catholic couple from the Midwest and their hosts, observant, wealthy New York Modern Orthodox Jews), and you’re getting close to the tenor of what becomes a very bad, very funny, and ultimately very poignant Shabbos dinner.

The film stars Kyra Sedgwick as the matriarch, David Paymer as patriarch, and Jon Bass, Milana Vayntrub, Meghan Leathers, Theo Taplitz and Ashley Zukerman, Catherine Curtin and John Bedford Lloyd.

Robbins and his team’s primary goal was to make a film that authentically portrayed their subculture as New York Modern Orthodox Jews in a loving light. His second goal was to take everything he loves about the fast-paced comedies he grew up with (anything Mel Brooks, “Meet The Parents,” “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” “The Birdcage,” and “Death At A Funeral,” among others) and adapt it to modern times. Coming from a horror film background (his first film, “Pledge,” debuted at the 2018 Screamfest where it won Robbins an award for Best Directing), the film also had to have a dead body. “I love horror and the dead body trope,” Robbins says. “With horror, the realer it is, the scarier it is. It’s the same with comedy – the realer it is, the funnier it is.”

Waxing more serious, he shares how he sees Modern Orthodox Judaism as a metaphor for the film’s family. The family members in “Bad Shabbos” must manage their individual polarities, between personal freedoms and familial expectations and between unconditional love and constructive criticism, all while trying to get along with each other. Similarly, Modern Orthodox Jews must manage the polarities between the secular and the religious, balancing the sometimes-conflicting agenda of the traditional and contemporary.

“I feel like Jewish content hasn’t shown this section of Judaism, the kind that interacts with the secular world while also keeping their traditions very seriously. I thought if we could show the energy of one of those households honestly and with a break-neck plot, this could be a movie people would love,” Robbins says.

The film has resonated with Jewish and non-Jewish audiences from Berlin to Seattle to a packed Coolidge Theater earlier this month (“I think Boston might be our best audience,” says Robbins. “They got every joke in the movie”). It won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival and audience awards at many others, including Boston Jewish Festival.

Robbins explains that “Bad Shabbos” neither mocks religion nor lampoons Judaism. It is a loving portrayal of characters trying to find equilibrium by incorporating religion into their lives. Their goal is to deepen their connection to religion and find a way to make it work for them. In that way, it stands apart from the many films that parody religion and depict people trying to self-actualize by ignoring, rejecting or escaping religion. “It’s a faith-based movie,” Robbins says.

It’s also a funny movie that celebrates Jewish humor and Jewishness at a time fraught with antisemitic, anti-Israel and anti-Zionist sentiments. Robbins says that finding laughter in the dark spots is part of what defines Jewish humor. “People forget that there’s a Jewish responsibility to also rejoice, to remember how beautiful life can be, that it’s not just about suffering and complaining about how bad things are,” he says.

Robbins remembers the film’s premiere at the Berlin Jewish Film Festival. There was a huge crowd and someone asked him how he could make a comedy during these difficult times. His response was that if Jewish artists waited for good times to make comedies, there wouldn’t be any Jewish comedies. Says Robbins, “We still have to persevere and do what we can, even when times aren’t great.” Θ

Marblehead’s Edna and Don Kaplan volunteer in Israel to provide “hands on” help

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Edna Kaplan in the Israeli army uniform she “proudly wore.”

BY SHELLEY A. SACKETT

MARBLEHEAD — After Oct. 7, 2023, Edna and Dr. Don Kaplan wanted to do something hands-on to help Israel. Edna, who was born in Israel and lived there until her family relocated to New York City when she was eight years old, had dreamed of returning to her native land to do her army service for over 30 years, but had no idea how. After the Hamas attack, she was motivated to make that dream come true and started researching in earnest.

She discovered Sar-El, a non-political volunteer organization founded in 1983 and dedicated to supporting Israel by assisting the Israel Defense Forces and learned that volunteers had been manning bases in Israel for decades.

For two weeks in May, she and Don volunteered (Don lovingly says that Edna volunteered; he was conscripted) at Tel Hashomer, where a major IDF base and the Sheba Medical Center are located. A mission-critical logistics base, Tel Hashomer prepares medical kits of all types requested by military bases.

On Sundays, the Kaplans’ team was met at the Tel Aviv airport for transport to the Dori base near Ramat Gan. They returned to Tel Aviv on Thursday mid-afternoon for Shabbat.

During the first week, their team opened up kits that had been returned by army bases and sorted them for repackaging. Another team checked for expired dates.

The second week they packed several different medical kits requested by various IDF bases. Don, a retired critical care and pulmonary specialist, was tapped to pack operating room kits.

The volunteers were paired with a roommate to share air-conditioned barracks. Every evening the organization arranged programs in the activity center for after-dinner gatherings.

“I still communicate with my roommate, Hadar, at least weekly,” Edna said. She and Don look forward to seeing other Sar-El friends when they travel to Australia this fall.

Dr. Don Kaplan (right) stands with Amnon, manager of the surgical kits warehouse.

Edna’s Israeli roots extend deeper than her birth certificate. In 1947, her Polish parents set out for Israel on the Exodus, a ship carrying Jewish refugees – primarily Holocaust survivors – from Europe to Palestine during the British Mandate era. Refused entry in Palestine, they were returned to Germany. They found another ship in 1948. “When my father got off the boat in Israel, he immediately enlisted. He fought in the 1948 and 1956 wars,” she said.

The family moved to New York City in 1956. Each parent had one sister there, the only remains of very large families. Her father was one of nine children, her mother one of seven.

When she was a 21-year-old doctoral candidate at Ohio State University, Edna decided to take a quarter off and go to Israel. She and her cousin volunteered at Kibbutz Degania Bet as cooks, preparing meals for 600 people. “The day we were supposed to fly home, we looked at each other, shrugged and went back to work. I gave up a fully paid Ph.D. program, and never regretted staying in Israel. I only left because I was about to be drafted. That, I do regret.

“I have wanted to do my army service a couple of weeks at a time until I put in my full two years,” Edna said. “Well, two weeks down, 102 weeks to go! If I had only known about Sar-El earlier, I would have started a lot sooner.”

Newton native Don attended Hebrew school and had his bar mitzvah at Temple Emeth in South Brookline, where his father served on the board and his mother was an active member of Hadassah. He and Edna started dating when he moved to New York City for his internship and residency in internal medicine. The two married in 1976 and eventually settled in Marblehead, joining Temple Israel and raising two sons, both Y2I alumni.

Don worked as medical director of the Whidden Memorial Hospital and was instrumental in its merger with Cambridge Health Alliance. An avid sailor since childhood, he was president of Community Boating on the Charles River and trustee of Boston’s Museum of Science.

Edna, “mostly retired” from KOGS Communication, the PR agency she founded in 1990, was a JCCNS board member for 23 years, serving on and chairing numerous committees. She was also a longtime National Tay-Sachs and Allied Diseases (NTSAD) board member.

Other than one local friend who was born in Israel and Edna’s Israeli family, the Kaplans haven’t found a specifically Israel-focused community like what they experienced through Sar-El.

“There’s good reason Sar-El volunteers from all over the world return year after year, some multiple times in a single year. It’s a soul-satisfying experience like no other. You are with a group of like-minded, pro-Israel volunteers, Jews and non-Jews, secular and religious, doing productive, meaningful work together,” Edna said.

She and Don stay in touch with the people they’ve met from all over the world through WhatsApp. “I think I’ll find my pro-Israel family through Sar-El,” Edna said. Θ

The escape from Mussolini’s antisemitic Italian fascism told in ‘Pack One Bag’ podcast

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David and Sergio David Modigliani reviewing documents.

By Shelley A. Sackett

Heirlooms hold the keys that can unlock family histories. For many, these stories remain untold, preserved in artifacts that are passed from generation to generation and display case to display case. They sit silently on a shelf, admired and gathering dust.
Award-winning documentarian David Modigliani’s family was different.

When his grandfather, the Italian-born economist and Nobel Prize winner Franco Modigliani, died in 2003, David’s father Sergio inherited 19 boxes of documents. He kept them in a storage unit, where they remained taped up and unopened until COVID, when David decided to check out what was inside them.

He and documentary producer Willa Kaufman had begun dating just before the country went into lockdown during the pandemic. The boxes were a perfect diversion.

What they found inside was a treasure trove of family archives including letters, personal diaries, and fascist spy documents detailing his family’s harrowing times fighting to survive during the rising tide of antisemitism in 1930s Italy. That was the start of “Pack One Bag,” a 10-part podcast that traces his family’s escape to America.

In the boxes, there were scores of love letters between Franco, then a 19-year-old economics student, and Serena Calabi, the daughter of Jewish publishing baron, Giulio Calabi (known as “The King of the Books”) and the love of his life. Although David had grown up hearing the fairytale stories about his grandparents’ epic romance and their escape from fascist Italy for the United States in 1939, these letters did more than just preserve their love; they bore witness to the perils they confronted as Benito Mussolini and his Italian Racial Laws fueled antisemitism.

Most eye-opening was the 25-page letter that Giorgio, Franco’s brother who stayed behind in Rome, wrote and sent to David’s grandfather just after the war. It detailed, in “harrowing, page-turning prose,” his experience of navigating his family and shepherding them through a gauntlet of horror during the Mussolini regime.

“Reading this letter was chilling and opened up a much deeper understanding of the universe my grandfather could have experienced had he not been so fortunate to fall in love with my grandmother and escape fascist Italy with her family before the outbreak of war,” David told the Journal.

The professional storyteller in him knew he had to get to the bottom of his own family’s story. Toting his grandparents’ love letters, he and Kaufman went to Italy to speak to surviving family members, retrace his family’s steps in Rome and Bologna, and discover the answer to a question that haunted him: Why didn’t they all just flee Italy when they could?

The couple spent months piecing together a story that includes narratives of relatives left behind, recorded in their octogenarian voices. They plumbed state archives and even interviewed former Italian prime minister Mario Draghi, one of Franco’s students. They returned home knowing they had the raw material for a thrilling and timely story. But how to best tell it?

Film has been David’s medium ever since falling in love with the collaborative process of documentary storytelling while a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin. He has won numerous awards for his feature films, which have run on Hulu, Netflix, PBS, and HBO.

But this time was different. There were no great visual assets and most of the main characters are no longer living. His coproducer reminded him that podcasts are at heart a visual medium. “A podcast is more akin to reading a novel than film. The audience must construct and build through their own imagination the world you are trying to create for them,” David said.

Actor/producer/writer Stanley Tucci signed on as executive producer and the featured voice of Giulio Calabi. David voices his Nonno Franco and Nonna Serena.

As a kid, he had done impersonations of his grandparents for his sisters and cousins, and when his collaborators heard them, they agreed that it would be an authentic way for him to bring his grandparents to life. David always meant to record them, and regretted that he didn’t prioritize that before they died. “I felt very close to them when I was recreating them for the podcast,” he said.

Episode 1 of the series David and his team created débuted at the 2023 Tribeca Festival as “Shalom, Amore.” It won the Jury Award for Nonfiction Audio, citing its “unexpectedly moving narrative that blends the personal, political, and comical” as it takes listeners “on a journey across generations and continents.”

Later, he changed the name to “Pack One Bag” to reflect the details of his family’s story. When his great-grandparents began illegally ferrying money across the border into Switzerland in the 1930s, they packed one bag so it would look like they were going on vacation. When the Nazis banged on doors in Rome’s Jewish ghetto in 1943, they instructed them to pack one bag.

“This story is about people who happened to be Jewish in the 1930s in Italy,” David said, “but it is a universal story. It applies to people in any environmental or political crisis who have to leave their homes. What do you take with you?”

David, 44, grew up as a “Reform Jewish kid in Brookline” and was especially connected to Judaism culturally and historically. He vividly understood how being Jewish had impacted the physical locations of his family. “My grandparents were in Belmont largely because of their Jewish identity and because they left Italy just in the nick of time,” he said.

He hopes that listeners can find some answers for the present moment from the way his family confronted their situation. “The question at the heart of ‘Pack One Bag’ is ‘when confronted with fascism, do you stay or flee? What if you can’t?’ ” David said.
Noting the upswing of nationalism, totalitarianism, and antisemitism at home and globally, he is reminded how fascism needs an “other” to survive and thrive, a subset of the population that the majority is motivated to antagonize, scapegoat, and persecute.

He cites his great-grandfather Giulio as advice to those being “othered.” “You resist as best you can for as long as you can, and then you flee,” David said.

“For those that have the privilege to exist inside a fascist society without being persecuted, the onus is on us to preserve democracy and to attempt to return society to a more inclusive and tolerant place.”

To listen to the podcast and for more information, visit packonebagshow.com.

Salem teen takes his talents to ‘Leopoldstadt’

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Elias Wettengel

By Shelley A. Sackett

When her son was little, Liz Polay-Wettengel tried to get him interested in soccer, which his older brother had loved at that age. Instead, all three-year-old Elias wanted to do was memorize lines from the movie “Frozen” and perform them in the living room.

“We knew he needed to try the stage,” she told the Journal.

By the time he was four, Elias Wettengel was on his way to an acting career that would culminate with his casting in the role of young Jacob/Heini in the new production of Tom Stoppard’s award-winning “Leopoldstadt,” which runs at the Huntington Theatre through
Oct. 13.

The sprawling drama follows multiple generations of the fictional Jewish Merz-Jacobowitz family in Vienna in the 20th century. As it moves from 1899 to 1955, the play showcases everyday family dynamics against the ever-changing tides of revolution, war, antisemitism and assimilation.

Stoppard was inspired by the experiences of his own family; all four of his grandparents and three of his mother’s sisters lost their lives in the Holocaust. His stirring masterpiece takes a bold look at what it means to be Jewish for one’s self, in the eyes of others, and in the broader context of history.

“Leopoldstadt” won four Tony Awards in 2023, including Best Play, and two Laurence Olivier Awards, including Best New Play, when it débuted in London’s West End in 2020. The Huntington Theatre production is presented in association with the Shakespeare Theatre Company and features a cast of 15 adults and four children.

Elias, now a 13-year-old student at Collins Middle School in Salem, feels honored to play the roles of Jacob and Heini in such a meaningful play. “As a Jewish kid, the play has extra meaning for me. I sometimes get chills during the scenes,” he told the Journal.

“Leopoldstadt” is an emotionally intense and politically timely production, especially for American Jews. Elias and his mom handle the challenges of his role through open and honest conversations about what being Jewish means today and about how one’s ancestors can shape future generations.

It helps, according to Liz, that her brother-in-law Jason Stark teaches genocide studies. “We answer any questions that arise about death and the Holocaust. We don’t shy away from hard questions and encourage Elias to ask them,” she said.

For Elias, the resilience of family is an important message of the play. “I hope audiences see how generations of Jewish families relate, and the continuous impact they have on each other’s lives throughout time,” he said.

Family is also a major focus of his own religious practice. One of his favorite pieces of Judaism is that his family celebrates holidays like Sukkot by opening their home to everyone who wants to participate, “Being Jewish is always visible in our lives. I love sharing my Jewish culture with my family, friends and community,” he said. He is studying for his bar mitzvah, which his family will host in late 2025.

Elias’s theatrical journey began at the Salem YMCA, and he has since had featured roles in regional productions and in several film and television projects. He acknowledges that balancing the demands of school and performing is sometimes hard, but feels lucky to be a student in a district where his teachers assist him. “They come up with a plan to make sure I’m supported both as an actor and a student,” he said.

He is inspired by the actors he has the opportunity to work with, whether in community theater, films or the current play at the Huntington Theatre, which he hopes will serve as a stepping stone to appearances in additional professional productions. “I’d love to go on a tour or perform on Broadway!” he enthused.

As for advice to four-year-old youngsters who think they want to become actors? “Don’t be sad when you don’t get a role you want. Be happy to be part of theater in general. It isn’t about the role; it’s about the experience,” he said. Θ

For more information and to buy tickets, visit huntington­theatre.org.

Ruth Rooks loves to share her passion for art

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Ruth Rooks in her painting studio./SHELLEY A. SACKETT

By Shelley A. Sackett

Artist and art teacher Ruth Rooks has always portrayed whatever caught her interest at that moment. In the first grade, it was beets. In 1996, it was the external pageantry of the Big Dig and the internal world of hospitals. Lately, she has been experimenting with two totally different subjects: the view from her studio window and faces.

Along the way, the Swampscott resident and president of the Swampscott Arts Association has garnered a “drawer full” of prizes, including two from the Copley Society of Boston and many from the Marblehead Festival of the Arts and SAA.

“Every time I submit a piece of my work, I hope it will be well-received and am thrilled when it is publicly recognized,” she said.

Rooks grew up in Brighton in a three-story apartment complex, attended Sunday school in a one-room schoolhouse and played with her neighborhood friends on the wide sidewalk in front of the building and in the large backyard behind it. Although she had few toys as a child, she always had a box of crayons.

Her first encouragement came from her father, Harry Kemelman (author of the Rabbi Small detective series) and his writer friend, who conspired to send her three-year-old drawings to Life magazine after it published an article on modern art. Art in the Brighton public schools was uninspiring, limited in medium to crayons and in subject to classroom holiday decorations.

Moving to Marblehead in the seventh grade was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, Rooks was thrust into a small-town environment where most of the other kids knew each other since kindergarten. On top of that, her father drove her to school and she was late “EVERY. SINGLE. DAY!”

On the other hand, Marblehead schools championed the arts, and Rooks encountered media other than crayons along with encouraging teachers. In high school, Marion Brown, “famous as an artist and by ancestry,” introduced Rooks to watercolors, a medium (along with oil paints and gouache) she favors to this day.

At 15, she “stretched the truth” and applied as a 16-year-old to be arts and crafts director at Camp Columbia day camp. She got the job and stayed for eight years, loving every minute, even the rainy days when she had an hour to dream up a project for the more than 50 campers who would show up in her shop.

It was then she knew she wanted to teach art. “I always liked to make things,” she explained. “If I saw something in a store, I would try to make it with whatever was in the house. I don’t throw away anything that sparkles and seizes my attention.”

Ruth Rooks with one of her “Big Dig” paintings./SHELLEY A. SACKETT

Years later, while her husband, George, attended Columbia University Graduate School of Business, Rooks attended the university’s Teachers College to complete the coursework needed for Massachusetts certification. Her first job was at Revere Junior High School and she never stopped teaching art, from a juvenile court-ordered program in Boston, to the Jewish Community Center of the North Shore, the Marblehead Arts Association, and private classes in her home. Under the direction of Bennett Solomon, she started the art program at (now) Epstein Hillel School.

These part-time jobs afforded her flexibility to mother three children – Nina, Jennifer, and Jared – and to take classes with a variety of artists. Then, in 1993, she was diagnosed with lung cancer and her teaching career ground to a halt.

She recovered after two surgeries, but was “antsy. I needed a schedule,” she said, so she enrolled in three classes at DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln: silversmithing, silver jewelry, and painting critique. Silversmithing hurt her wrist and she had more jewelry than she would ever wear. The painting class, taught by Tim Harvey (“one of the best painters I know and one of the harshest critics”), resonated in a way that would set her life’s creative agenda.

When her family moved to Swampscott in 1996, Rooks had room to set up a dedicated studio. Her first inspiration came from Boston’s Big Dig, the largest public works project in the country. “I loved everything about it – the cranes, the sand barrels, the colors of the equipment, the huge building structures. So I painted them!” she exclaimed.

Her paintings were included in many shows and won many prizes. “It was heady stuff,” she admitted.

But the restless Rooks soon tired of construction scenes and moved on to whimsical but undeniably hospital scenes based on another medical stay (“I can’t think of anyone who would buy one!”) and her current interests in landscapes and faces.

Although her father – whose “Friday the Rabbi Slept Late” won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel in 1964 and starred Art Carney in a made-for-TV adaptation – always wrote, Rooks was unaware of it as a child. What she does remember is his lecturing to her and her siblings. “We were his audience and he liked to expound. All that you read and learn in the Rabbi Small books, we heard one way or another,” she said. A creative writing teacher, he brought his work home and encouraged his children to “write a million words,” a lesson Rooks took seriously and enjoyed as a nightly exercise.

Rooks also takes the Swampscott Arts Association (swampscottarts.org) and her role as president seriously. To add some challenge for the more experienced artist, SAA holds one or two juried shows per year. It also sponsors two social events: an annual meeting/picnic at Rooks’ home, and a December holiday party.

The most special aspect for Rooks? “This is an organization where everyone seems to like each other!” she said with a smile. 

Swampscott’s former Poet Laureate is always ready for inspiration

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Lee Eric Freedman / SHELLEY A. SACKETT

By Shelley A. Sackett

SWAMPSCOTT — The path of Swampscott Poet Laureate Emeritus Lee Eric Freedman’s life journey has been paved with happy accidents.

These stepping stones span more than 40 years. While attending Hadley School, his fourth-grade teacher (Mrs. Barrett) opened his eyes and ears to poetry. Her class had to memorize a Robert Frost poem, sparking a young boy’s lifelong love affair with poetry. To this day, Freedman can still recite “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” and Frost remains his favorite poet.

Later, when his high school best friend started a basement band, he listened to them play a song they had written. Freedman decided he could do better. His first poem was a song for them, a “rip-off” of Robert Frost and a new-wave band.

“I thought it was pretty good and that I could just keep writing poetry,” said Freedman.

While a biology major at Salem State, he worked as general manager of its radio station. There, he met the editor of the school’s literary magazine, “Soundings East,” who encouraged him to submit one of the many poems just sitting in folders in his dorm room. It was accepted, and he was invited to give a student reading.

“I thought I was the greatest poet ever,” he admitted with a shy grin.

It was the first time Freedman had wielded a microphone, sharing words he had penned with a live audience, and the headiness he experienced electrified him. He was hooked.

He started frequenting open mics in Salem, Marblehead, and Lynn and wrote for Salem’s Deacon Giles Café’s “This Magazine.” He is a charter member and current president of Tin Box Poets, a poetry workshop group that still meets once a month at Panera in Swampscott. “I’ve become such a better poet through them,” he said of the group he helped start in 2017. He remains active in the North Shore poetry scene, performing regularly at the Lynn Walnut Café’s Speak Up and other venues.

Freedman’s love for live readings and for his native Swampscott would soon share common ground. In 2017, ReachArts, Swampscott’s new artistic hub, signed a two-year lease with the town for the former senior center on Burrill Street. When a board member reached out to him about starting an open mic, Freedman jumped at the chance. He has hosted the monthly First Friday Open Mike Night since 2018.

Which leads to Freedman’s most recent “happy accident” and COVID silver lining: The expansion of his open mic from its community audience to a global network that recently included 31 participants from India, Denmark, Greece, Singapore, Scotland, Canada, and the United States. Like most in-person gatherings, ReachArts open mic had to transition from live to virtual meetings after March 2020. Although mastering the ins and outs of running Zoom gatherings was a challenge, Freedman is overjoyed by the rewards.

“We went from this tiny local thing to a global thing,” he said. Freedman has attended open mics in other countries around the world, making connections that yielded additional rewards. His poems have been published in anthologies in Bangladesh through an Indian publisher he met online.

Freedman is no stranger to accolades; the three-time Naomi Cherkofsky Memorial Contest winner has been published in magazines, anthologies, and curated poetry quarterlies. When asked what he’s proudest of, he doesn’t hesitate: being Swampscott’s Poet Laureate.

The brainchild of educator and Swampscott resident Sami Lawler, the town’s Poet Laureate program was launched in 2014. Lawler became aware that many towns in Massachusetts had Poet Laureates and, as an elementary school teacher in Swampscott, wanted to support and encourage her students to enjoy writing while also recognizing community writers.

“Our town was noted for its fine athletic programs and Marblehead was known for its support of the arts. I felt that writing was also a gift many of our own residents possessed,” she said.

Candidates for Poet Laureate would submit three poems that a panel of three judges would rank. Lawler approached the town selectmen and received approval for both an adult and K-4 student Poet Laureate. For the first few years, the winners would open Town Meeting by reading their poems. Freedman, who, as a Pisces, attributes much of his inspiration to Fisherman’s Beach, read, “Fisherman’s Beach Wet.”

Lawler was happy when Freedman was chosen by the panel in 2016. “Aside from his dynamic and versatile poetry writing, Lee Eric is a vital town poetry organizer and supporter through his oral poetry and leading the Tin Box poets,” she said. “Lee Eric’s dedication to the art and expression of poetry makes him a perfect town poetry representative.”

She and Freedman worked together after his Poet Laureate tenure to keep poetry at the forefront in town. Freedman also ran poetry workshops in Lawler’s classes, where the students would create poems and then read them out loud. “It was a blast,” he said.

Growing up, Freedman and his family (parents Norma and Sherman and brothers Gary and Brad) attended Temple Beth El in Swampscott, where he continued his post-Bar Mitzvah education through confirmation. Although Freedman describes himself as “not religious,” his Jewish identity is important to him and crops up from time to time in his poetry.

Freedman is not one of those disciplined poets who set specific times and places to write. “I can’t follow a rule. It doesn’t work for me,” he said. Instead, he waits for inspiration to strike. He has taken lots of notes during his current job as a school crossing guard, and might mine that trove for future poems.

“It’s just the luck of the draw. I don’t plan it. I can’t help it. It’s just the way I work,” he said.

For more information about ReachArts and First Friday Open Mic Night, visit reacharts.org

North Shore travelers embark on a mission to discover Spain and Portugal’s Jewish past

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JCC travelers at the Lisbon memorial to the Jewish massacre of 1506.

by Shelley A. Sackett

MARBLEHEAD – On Sept. 7, most of the 32 North Shore residents leaving on a 13-day trip to Spain and Portugal the next day were doing a last-minute check on their weather apps and adjusting their suitcases accordingly.

Billy Flaxer had other priorities. He had only one item on his “must pack” list – the velvet bag containing his tallis, tefillin, and kippah, items worn by Jews during weekday prayers. The retired pharmacist from Peabody, for whom davening is a daily ritual, decided he would put on his tallis and tefillin and recite the Shema in public locations where practicing Jews had historically prayed.

On this trip organized by the Jewish Community Center of the North Shore in Marblehead, those opportunities would be rare in the countries where the Spanish (1492) and Portuguese (1536) Inquisitions resulted in the expulsion, forced conversion, and death of hundreds of thousands of Iberian Jews. Today, Jewish Heritage Sites in these countries more often refer to places marked by plaques indicating where prosperous Jewish communities used to exist.

Yet Flaxer was able to fulfill his promise two times in Spain. The first was in Girona at the Jewish Museum located in the former Jewish quarter on the site of one of the town’s three synagogues, where he prayed “in remembrance of our fellow Jews who once lived and thrived in this town.” The other was in Toledo at the Sinagoga de Santa Maria La Blanca, an 1190 Moorish synagogue that was converted to a Catholic church in the early 15th century.

“It was important to me that I pay tribute to the thousands of Spanish Jews who flourished in Spain until 1492,” Flaxer said.

The ambitious trip itinerary, which covered over 1,100 miles by bus and – in addition to Girona and Toledo – included stops in Barcelona, Zaragoza, Madrid, Granada, Seville, Evora, Lisbon, and Sintra, was part of the JCCNS’s travel program.

Diane Knopf, group travel leader, helped recruit and organize the trip and planned the three orientation sessions during which travelers had the chance to meet each other and ask questions about the trip. Originally scheduled for September 2020. the trip had been postponed twice due to the pandemic.

“I was awestruck by how quickly people who didn’t know each other before the trip formed a familial bond,” she said, a sentiment confirmed by fellow travelers as one of the highlights of their trip.

For Wendy Zimmer of Marblehead, waking up each day was “like getting a new surprise to open. What would our next hotel look like? What medieval town would we be walking through that day?”

Billy Flaxer prayed at the Toledo Sinagoga de Santa Maria La Blanca.

In Barcelona, the La Sagrada Família Basilica, the largest unfinished Catholic church in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage site, was a trip favorite of both Alan and Donna Pierce from Beverly. “When I entered, my breath was taken away. I felt as if I had walked into a magical forest with the nature-themed columns that were so tall and bright and unlike other dark, Gothic cathedrals I’ve seen,” said Donna, a retired insurance claims manager.

A more whimsical stop was at the “Windmills of Don Quixote” on the road between Madrid and Granada. Twelve white tower windmills crown Cerro Calderico Mountain, surrounded by the sprawling plains of Castilla-La Mancha and backdropped by a striking medieval castle. These iconic towers are believed to be the windmills described by Miguel de Cervantes in his famous novel, “Don Quixote” (part 1, 1605, and part 2, 1615).

The group toured the historic Lisbon synagogue on the final day of the trip. Called Shaaré Tikvah (Gates of Hope), it was inaugurated in 1904 as the first synagogue built in Portugal since the late 15th century. The historic and functioning house of worship hosts Friday night, Shabbat and holiday services, and follows Sephardic customs. With 900 member families, its 450 seats cannot accommodate all who want to attend High Holiday services.

Sandra Montez, a Lisbon native and local guide, was a wealth of information about the Portuguese city’s past and present. She chronicled the history of the synagogue and described the current social and religious climate in Lisbon.

The Lisbon Synagogue especially moved Jean Guastaferri, who lives in Marblehead and is retired from the Massachusetts Council Against Discrimination. “As a non-Jew, I enjoyed learning more about the deep roots of Jews and Jewish history in Iberia and how the Jews and Moors lived peacefully together for so many centuries,” she said.

“Simply walking through where ‘the Jews used to be’ strained our collective imaginations,” said Salem attorney and historian Alan Pierce. The utter lack of official, public acknowledgment of the contribution that Jews made to Spain and Portugal before the Inquisitions troubled Judy Mishkin of Salem. “We saw a few symbols of where the Jews lived, but I believe there should have been much more recognition,” the senior caregiver consultant said.

Nonetheless, the overwhelming majority of reactions were positive. Everyone experienced that special bolt of wonder travelers crave. For one, it was shock at the heavy traffic in and out of Barcelona and Madrid. Another interacted with locals and improved her Spanish skills. And it was impossible not to marvel at the breathtaking scenery of the Spanish and Portuguese countryside.

Mishkin echoed her fellow travelers when asked about her biggest takeaway: “The absolutely tremendous amount of planning that goes into a trip of this magnitude,” she answered without a moment’s hesitation.

For additional information about the JCCNS’ travel program, contact Adult Program Director Sara Ewing at sewing@jccns.com

Book your ticket to hear eight top authors at the Marblehead JCC’s speaker series

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The 28th Annual Jewish Book Month Speaker Series will be held at the Jewish Community Center of the North Shore.

by Shelley A. Sackett

MARBLEHEAD – Once again, culture vultures on the North Shore are in luck. From Oct. 12 until Nov. 29, the 28th Annual Jewish Community Center of the North Shore Jewish Book Month Speaker Series in Marblehead will treat locals to in-person conversations with seven authors and a virtual interview with another, and a catered lunch in memory of Susan Steigman, a former JCCNS staff member, longtime JBM committee member, and dedicated JCCNS volunteer.

JBM cochairs Sylvia Belkin and Patti McWeeney and their committee have selected a bang-up roster of eight non-fiction, mystery, memoir, historical fiction, and cookbook authors. Sharon and Howard Rich continue as longstanding cultural benefactors. Discounted ticket packages to all events are available at $165 for members and $180 for non-members.

Opening night features two-time Peabody Award-winning writer and CBS News “60 Minutes” producer Ira Rosen, who will talk about his revealing tell-tale memoir, “Ticking Clock: Behind the Scenes at 60 Minutes.” The book – dubbed “a 60 Minutes story on 60 Minutes itself” – details the intimate and untold stories of Rosen’s decades at America’s most iconic news show, including war room scenes of clashing producers, anchors, and correspondents like the legendary Mike Wallace. The Oct. 12 event at 7 p.m. at the JCCNS is $30 and includes a reception.

Letty Cottin Pogrebin, journalist, lecturer, social activist, a founding editor of Ms. magazine, and the author of 12 books, will speak about her latest, “Shanda: A Memoir of Shame and Secrecy.” Fears of shanda (shame or disgrace in Yiddish) and public humiliation and an overarching desire to fit in drove three generations of her immigrant family to lie and cover up long suppressed secrets. Pogrebin unmasks their hidden lives – including her own long suppressed secret – and showcases her family’s talent for reinvention in an engrossing and illuminating narrative. This writer will interview her on Zoom on Oct. 19, which can be seen by a live audience and also at home – both for $20.

Marblehead resident and best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin will speak about his latest book, “Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution” on Oct. 27 at 7 p.m. at the JCCNS ($20 includes a reception). Dolin contends that privateers (aka pirates), thousands of whom tormented British ships, were critical to the war’s outcome. Abounding with tales of daring maneuvers and deadly encounters, Dolin’s book reveals the history of this critical period in the nation’s founding in a way rarely documented.

Two historical novels, set against the backdrop of World War II, bring life and romance to very different stories. Based on the true account of Coco Chanel’s war-time romance with a German spy and how that affair led to her arrest for treason following the liberation of Paris, author Gioia Diliberto, who will be interviewed by JCCNS past president Izzi Abrams, takes a closer look at Chanel, her powerful personality, and her activities during the occupation of France in “Coco at the Ritz.” (Nov. 2 at 7 p.m. at the Boston Yacht Club for $30.

Weina Randel’s “The Last Rose of Shanghai,” set in 1940 when the city was occupied by Japan, brings to life Shanghai’s history as a haven for Jewish refugees as well as its dynamic jazz scene, all through a heart-rending and timeless love story. (Nov. 10 at 7 p.m. at the JCCNS. $20 includes reception)

In partnership with the Consulate General of Israel to New England, chef and restaurateur Avi Shemtov will talk about “The Simcha Cookbook,” which celebrates the traditions of Shemtov’s Turkish-Israeli heritage and recreates the delectable dishes those familiar with his Sharon restaurant have come to cherish. The event, in memory of Susan Steigman, is on Nov. 13 at 11 a.m. at the JCCNS. $30 includes lunch.

Beloved bestselling writer B.A. Shapiro will speak about her masterful novel of psychological suspense, “Metropolis,” on Nov. 16 at 7 p.m. at the JCCNS ($20 includes a reception). In her latest, Shapiro follows a cast of six intriguing characters with no obvious ties to each other except they all store goods at the same warehouse in Cambridge. After a fatal accident, their precariously balanced lives are torn apart in this page-turning mystery.

Closing the series is “The Imposter’s War,” a riveting narrative about intrigue and espionage by Mark Arsenault. Arsenault has covered national politics, gambling, and worked on Spotlight Team investigations as a staff reporter for the Boston Globe, which won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing. In his first nonfiction book, he tells the stranger-than-fiction story of the efforts of John Rathom, the Australian-born editor of the scrappy Providence Journal, to shift American attitudes toward involvement in World War I after Germany spent the modern equivalent of $1 billion to infiltrate American media, industry, and government in the hopes of undermining the supply chain of Allied forces. Without the ceaseless activity of this editor, America may have remained committed to its position of neutrality. Yet, Rathom was not even his real name! Arsenault asks and answers the question: who was this great, beloved, and ultimately tragic imposter? (Nov. 29 at 7 p.m. at the JCCNS. $20 includes a reception.)

The Jewish Community Center of the North Shore is located at 4 Community Road, Marblehead. For more information and to buy tickets, go to
jccns.org/jewish-book-month

All books can be purchased through Copperdog Books in Beverly at copperdogbooks.com/jewish-book-month

Swampscott mother connecting hungry babies with donated formula

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Keiko Zoll singlehandedly launched a nationwide site to match those needing baby formula with donors. Photo: Steven A. Rosenberg/Journal Staff

By Shelley A. Sackett

SWAMPSCOTT — Until her mom, who lives in New Jersey, casually mentioned the nationwide baby formula shortage to Keiko Zoll, news of the crisis was not on her radar. While Zoll was aware of the Abbott formula recall in February, as the mother of a 9-year-old son she hadn’t given it a second thought. “Recalls happen all the time,” she told the Journal, “and I’m a bit removed from the early parenting space.”

Sitting in her car, the nonprofit communications professional tuned into a podcast, “The Baby Formula Crisis,” to learn more. What she heard left her shaken and sobbing in her Swampscott driveway.

Story after story of mothers going to desperate lengths just to feed their babies unleashed memories of what it was like for her when her son was born six weeks prematurely and she had to locate a specialty formula that was critical to his survival and hard to find. She couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to deal with the added stress of a nationwide shortage at the same time.

An interview with a mother ready to pay hundreds of dollars for a single can of formula was Zoll’s tipping point. “As a mother, as a human being, how could anyone not empathize with these women?” she said. “For me, knowing there are babies who may die if they don’t receive the formula they need to survive – it was just too much.”

She knew she had to do something. That night, after her work as director of communications for the Boston Schools Fund, she started building a website to connect families who need formula with those able to donate it.

Just before midnight on Friday, May 13, the Free Formula Exchange website went live. Zoll emailed 300 personal and professional contacts in her network announcing its launch. By the end of the first week, there were 10,000 requests and 1,000 donors from all over the country.

“While this platform doesn’t increase the supply of formula, it does leverage existing supply that most people don’t realize they have access to,” she said.

Zoll and her son in 2013. The baby was born six weeks premature.

Zoll said she was outraged and disgusted by reports of people price-gouging formula online. She emphasized that freeformula.exchange is 100 percent free. Users must create an account to access its database, but no money exchanges hands.

“It was important to me to design a solution that removed the marketplace from the transaction. Cost shouldn’t be a barrier to feeding children.”

Zoll is no stranger to rolling up her sleeves when it comes to helping others. She is a founding member of the Swampscott Antiracism Caucus and helped organize March Like a Mother for Black Lives in Boston in June, 2020, in the wake of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. She has volunteered extensively for and served on the board of RESOLVE New England, a nonprofit supporting those struggling with infertility.

She is also a member of the Tzedek LaKol: Justice for All committee at Congregation Shirat Hayam in Swampscott, where she sits on the temple’s board of directors.

Zoll emphasizes that her experiences as a biracial woman have informed her activism throughout her adult life. “I know what it feels like to be unseen and unheard,” she said, referencing the bias, discrimination, and marginalization she has encountered

In addition, her personal values, which “exist at the intersection of Jewish belief and Japanese tradition,” have strongly influenced her volunteerism. She credits the Jewish emphasis on tikkun olam (repair the world) and the Japanese cultural belief known as wabi-sabi (an acceptance of the imperfection of life) as major guiding forces.

“My worldview settles into a comfortable space between these two beliefs: one that accepts our human flaws and also fights for just causes.”

Zoll knows firsthand how draining and overwhelming the onslaught of negative news can be. “It’s especially hard to be a parent in America right now. There are so few systemic supports and inequities abound,” she said.

She urges everyone who can to help out with the nationwide baby formula shortage, whether by scouring stores for formula to donate or simply providing a compassionate ear or shoulder or hug to support those parents who are totally stressed out.

“There are many ways we can all practice chesed (acts of loving-kindness) to our fellow humans in their time of need,” she said.

For more information and to request or donate formula, visit freeformulaexchange.com or follow @FormulaExchange on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.