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Page 28 THE JEWISH GEORGIAN July-August 2012 The birthday ring’s family circuit BY Carolyn Gold In the years before bat mitzvahs became an accepted rite of passage for girls, my astute and caring uncle, Joe Rubin, of Columbia, South Carolina, began a family tradition. I doubt he had any idea that he was starting something that would become a ritual, but here is the story. His two sons, Hyman and Sammy, had the usual bar mitzvahs at age 13. Uncle Rubin wanted to do something special for his daughter, Charlotte, on her 13th birthday. He bought her a beautiful gold and silver ring, with a little chip of a diamond set in the center. This gift initiated a lovely and sentimental, as I call it, “dance of the ring.” My Cousin Charlotte wore the pretty ring from 1936 to 1942. That year, I turned 13, and Charlotte, who was like the big sister I never had, gave the ring to me. By that year, Charlotte’s ring finger probably was adorned with an engagement ring from handsome soldier Larry Kantor, from New Jersey, who was stationed at Ft. Jackson. I remember sitting in high school, in Elberton, Georgia, admiring the pretty ring on my finger. I was so proud of it. A diamond ring! I felt so grown up. I n 1953, I passed the ring on to Eleanor R u b i n , Charlotte’s brother’s daughter, in Columbia. Charlotte and Larry had two sons, so Eleanor was the next girl in the family to turn 13. By that time, I was wearing a wedding ring. Eleanor’s cousin, Jane Rubin, turned The birthday ring 13 a year later, and my mother was concerned that Eleanor’s turn had not been long enough, or that Jane wouldn’t have a ring. So Mother went out and bought a little alternative ring for Jane. We don’t know what happened to that one, but the original family ring continued to travel. My daughter, Susan, became the next wearer of the 13-year-old’s ring in 1973, in Atlanta. She wore it in high school and into her college years. After seven years, she passed it on to Debi Niestat, Eleanor Rubin Niestat’s daughter, who turned 13 in Columbia. In 1984, it went back to the original wearer’s granddaughter, Beth Kantor. Finally, there was a girl in that New Jersey Kantor family! My granddaughter, Rebecca Kahn, received the birthday ring in Atlanta, in 2004. She wears it very carefully, mindful of its history. It has gone from its original recipient to her granddaughter; to a niece and her daughter; and to me, my daughter, and my granddaughter, three generations in our case. Its last three wearers have had bat mitzvahs, but this has been like icing on the cake. The ring has, so far, traveled for 76 years. It has traveled back and forth, from South Carolina to Georgia about five times, BY Gene Asher Memories.... • My daughter Laurie, celebrating her first birthday, sitting on my lap for seven innings and watching Murphy High School’s Bobby Dalgleish two-hit Roosevelt High School and win 6-0. Laurie never missed a pitch and hollered “Hi!” at umpire Frankie Allen the whole game. • With Northside High trailing North Fulton 6-0, at halftime, Laurie said, “I want to touch the colorful purple and white tiger.” We went to the Northside bench, and Laurie touched the paper tiger, which was Northside’s mascot. The Tigers came back after intermission and beat the North Fulton team, 14-6. When Northside coach Wayman Creel heard what happened, he asked me to bring Laurie to every game and have her touch the paper tiger. I did, and with Laurie’s golden touch, the Tigers went on to win the state championship. • When I asked Laurie which she liked best, football or baseball, she replied, “basketball.” • Carl Richard (Chubby) Zwerner, the star of the Tech High School basketball team, and Rebecca Kahn wears the birthday ring with a trip to New Jersey included. The next candidate is Eleanor’s granddaughter, now age 6, who is in Chicago. Best of all, the ring has taught three generations of girls something about their family tree. It has made those girls who’ve worn it feel special at 13 and beyond. It says, “We welcome you into your teens.” Boys get to keep the family names as adults, but girls, thanks to Uncle Rubin, get to wear the modest, but beloved, family ring. No 13-year-old has complained that the ring didn’t fit. They’ve worn it on various fingers. And miracle of miracles, none of them, in three-quarters of a century, has lost it. Memories of days gone by his brother, Herbert, the star of the Tech High swimming team. • Taking geometry I and geometry II at the same time. I flunked geometry I and made an “A” in geometry II. • My brother Buddy carrying me out of the ring on his shoulders, after I won the 1949 lightweight state Golden Gloves championship. Out of eight divisions in that tournament, three titles were won by Jews. In addition to me winning the lightweight crown, Asher Benator won the featherweight title and Harold Rosenthal the welterweight title. • Watching, with my dad, Sandy Koufax setting a World Series strikeout record (15) and beating the New York Yankees’ Whitey Ford. • Watching Memphis’ Marv Rotblatt beat the Atlanta Crackers and earning a trip to Chicago to pitch for the White Sox. He had a brief career in the majors but a long and bright one with the New England Mutual Life Insurance Co. ————— Hoorah for Oglethorpe University for honoring the family of Luke Appling, a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Luke’s daughter threw out the first pitch as the Stormy Petrels defeated Birmingham Southern. It was a super day for Oglethorpe, thanks to the leadership of Jay Gardiner, athletic director, and Hoyt Young, sports information director.
July-August 2012 THE JEWISH GEORGIAN Page 29 YOU NEED TO KNOW... During the last 60-plus years, meter for meter, person for person, no other nation has done more for the betterment of the health, economic, and technological advancement of the world population than Israel. It is a story, although critically important, that is not heralded and largely remains unknown. We plan to present some of these unbelievable accomplishments in an attempt to disseminate the heart and soul of what and who Israel really is. GIVING TO THE WORLD THROUGH SCIENCE. Have you ever stopped to think how much better, safer, and healthier all people are because of what Israel has given to the world–––small in geography but gigantic in contributions? What a great reservoir of knowledge and innovative technology has emanated from that young, vibrant society. It would have been hard to imagine a little over sixty years ago that a diverse group such as this, speaking many different languages, could develop a country that would produce so much in the way of new and innovated technology. There is probably no other place that proportionately has served as a more advanced and concentrated incubator of ideas and technical innovations. And now we read about another med- ical device that is in the development stages and promises to help alleviate suffering and untimely death. Check-Cap is a small, biotechnology company, based in Isfiya, an Arab Druze village in the Galilee close to Haifa, where the majority of its staff resides. The company employs 35 people, and most of its engineers are graduates of the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology). Today, the primary screening procedure for colon cancer is a colonoscopy. About ten years ago, Israel’s Given Imaging developed the PillCam imaging system that is based on cameras. Both the colonoscopy and the PillCam require aggressive bowel cleansing, a process that is somewhat upsetting to the patient. The beauty of the Check-Cap is that it operates with virtually no bowel preparation. The small capsule captures 360-degree images as it travels through the intestines, and it then transmits the information to a data receiver worn on the wrist. ISRAEL HAS BECOME A GIANT IN STEM-CELL RESEARCH. It is only natural that the lovers of chopped liver with schmaltz and rye bread spread with gribenes (for some reason my spell-check program could not find this word) would FEDERATION NEWS ROSENBERG TO CHAIR COMMUNITY CAMPAIGN. Mark Rosenberg will lead Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta’s efforts for the 2013 Community Campaign, which begins September 1. As chair, he will spearhead strategy and fundraising to support Federation’s 17 affiliate agencies, as well as more than 60 outcome and community partners in Atlanta, in Israel, and around the world. Mark is a managing director with Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and has 30 years of experience in the financial industry; his areas of focus are retirement planning, fixed income, and overall wealth management. Recently, he was recognized by Barron’s as one of the top 1,000 financial advisors for the third consecutive year. Mark has been a Mark Rosenberg member of the Federation’s Board of Trustees for the past four years. He also serves on Federation’s Investment Committee, was the chair of Premier Gifts for the 2011 Community Campaign, and was vice chair of the 2012 Community Campaign. He served on The Davis Academy board for 10 years and chaired the school’s golf tournament for several years. He lives in Dunwoody with his wife and has three adult children, who are all graduates of The Davis Academy. 106TH ANNUAL MEETING. Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta’s 106th Annual Meeting took place June 5, at the Selig Center. This year’s meeting recognized community leaders, including outgoing Chair of the Board Robert Arogeti and incoming chair of the Board Gerald R. Benjamin. Also recognized were the participants of Federation’s Emerging Leadership Project, a comprehensive eight-month program aimed at community members age 45 and under. The goal of the program is to turn participants into Federation leaders of the future. This year’s participants are Josh Berman, Dana Bernath, Stephanie Effron, Abbey Flaum, Civia Gerber, Marc Goldberg, Benjamin Halpern, H. Elisa Iteld, Steven Kushner, Brian Levy, Jared Levy, Allison Medof, Zackary Morris, Jeff Pollock, Raanan Pritzker, Avi Robbins, Evan Rosen, Hilary Saperstein, Ryan Silberman, David Skid, Viktoria Sobolevsky, Alana Sonenshine, Marc Sonenshine, Jonathan Swartz, Darren Tobin, Arin Tritt, and Glenn Zweig. Community Award winners will receive their awards at the Annual Meeting as well. The 2012 award winners are: Rick Aranson, Marilyn Shubin Professional Development Award; Bob Arotsky, Gerald H. Cohen Community Development Award; Josiah Benator, Max and Mary London “People Power” Award; and Isaac Frank and Ross Kogon, Abe Schwartz Young Leadership Award. The new Board of Trustees was inducted at the event; for a full list, visit www.JewishAtlanta.org. understand the importance of this. Recognized as a world leader in scientific research and development, Israel has made major contributions to stem-cell research. At its best research institutes, laboratories have been concentrating on heart disease, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease or on repairing nerve damage. At Technion in Haifa, an Israeli team has been able to form healthy heart tissue from a patient’s own skin stem cells, which can merge into existing muscles. Professor Lior Gepstein, head researcher at Technion in the project, said, “What is new and exciting about our research is that we have shown that it’s possible to take skin cells from an elderly patient with advanced heart failure and end up with his own beating cells in a laboratory dish that are healthy and young — the equivalent to the stage of his heart cells when he was just born.” TEACH THEM TO FLY; TEACH THEM TO DUNK. The very nature of being combat pilots requires fast, immediate reactive decisions appropriate to observed conditions in which they find themselves. This is a reflex reaction based on training and experience. In the 1980s and 1990s, Daniel Gopher, an Israeli expert in the field of cognitive psychology and engineering at the Technion, led in the development of video game-like training methods for use by the Israeli Air Force and the US Army Aviation Center. Based on the use of cognitive psychology, the study of mental processes by which people speak, think, perceive, remember, and learn, a video game trainer was developed that improved flight performance more that 30%. The technology was subsequently demilitarized, improved, and became the basis for the formation of Applied Cognitive Engineering (ACE) headquartered in Hod Hasharon, Israel. Under the brand IntelliGym ® , the company develops training tools that significantly improve the performance of trainees in targeted tasks, including sports. “We found a lot of similarities between jet flying and competitive sports,” Danny Dankner, CEO, is quoted as saying. “We realized we had the technology to improve performance of people in information-condensed environments with a lot of data coming in, and where fast decisions need to be made under duress.” When former Atlanta Hawks coach Hubert Jude “Hubie” Brown was introduced to this training tool, he was sufficiently impressed that he joined the company’s Advisory Board. In Israel21c, the following testimonial by Brown is quoted: “In the game of basketball it is not about who runs faster or jumps higher, but about who makes better decisions and fewer mistakes.”
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