January-February 2012 - The Jewish Georgian
January-February 2012 - The Jewish Georgian
January-February 2012 - The Jewish Georgian
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<strong>January</strong>-<strong>February</strong> <strong>2012</strong> THE JEWISH GEORGIAN Page 33<br />
Yad LaKashish - Lifeline for the Old<br />
By Lynne Hoffman Keating and Tom Keating<br />
Tour buses abound in Jerusalem. Private<br />
companies pick up pilgrims, tour groups, and<br />
missions at well-recognized hotels. Egged’s<br />
bus #99 transports visitors interested in a hopon,<br />
hop-off overview of<br />
the city’s high spots.<br />
Tourists listen to certified<br />
guides tell about historic<br />
events and sites.<br />
To celebrate our 41st<br />
wedding anniversary, we<br />
designed our own 18night<br />
visit to Israel this<br />
past fall and made it a<br />
point to include 14<br />
Shivtei Israel Street,<br />
which is located in the<br />
Musrara district behind<br />
Jerusalem’s municipal<br />
center. Fifty years ago,<br />
this was a rundown<br />
neighborhood on the<br />
Jordanian border in which were found increasing<br />
numbers of poor and elderly beggars, as<br />
well as homeless street seniors. Having our<br />
health, and knowing the secure feeling of having<br />
employment and family back home, it is<br />
difficult to imagine what it must have been like<br />
then to be ageing seniors in a new country<br />
without income, a new language, and no family<br />
except perhaps a spouse.<br />
But that was before Myriam Mendilow, a<br />
mother and teacher, stepped forward and<br />
founded “Yad La Kashish, Lifeline for the<br />
Old,” a unique craft center for this population<br />
and our destination that day. In a 1994 biography<br />
about Mendilow by Barry and Phyllis<br />
Cytron, which had as a subtitle, Do Not<br />
Forsake Me When I Grow Old, it was pointed<br />
out that she intended to provide an environment<br />
and opportunity filled with dignity for the<br />
less fortunate, the poor, and the elderly.<br />
When we arrived at the address, our knock<br />
on its door brought Chava Brown, Community<br />
Relations at Yad LaKashish, to meet us, and,<br />
after a brief background introduction, we<br />
teamed up with Judy and Allan Shriber, who<br />
were also visiting from the States, and our volunteer<br />
guide, Vardit Schwartz. From then on,<br />
our tour switched from historical references to<br />
walking, watching, and witnessing tzedakah in<br />
action.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Lifeline for the Old program began<br />
Breman<br />
From page 32<br />
Spring Asher, Jane Leavey, and<br />
Julie Rotenstreich<br />
with one workshop focused on bookbinding. It<br />
has grown into a series of rooms, settings, and<br />
workshops, where a working cadre of senior<br />
immigrants, artistic teachers, and often attendant-helpers<br />
make authentic crafts. As we<br />
watched immigrants from the former Soviet<br />
Lifeline Artisans<br />
Union and Ethiopia perform detailed, intricate<br />
tasks with their fingers, our hearts kvelled like<br />
parents. No matter how limited our Hebrew<br />
vocabulary was, respect and pride could be<br />
transmitted. <strong>The</strong>ir hands and our eyes communicated.<br />
<strong>The</strong> demeanor of their bodies and faces<br />
demonstrated the dedication to their work.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se were not people idly passing time. <strong>The</strong>y<br />
painted with intensity, cut with purpose, and<br />
hammered with gumption. <strong>The</strong>y obviously<br />
enjoyed visitors, and our passionate activity<br />
with a Canon camera prompted discussion at<br />
one station. Through a combination of charades<br />
and a translating attendant, the artist<br />
shared his past as a photojournalist.<br />
Our touring companions, Judy and Allan,<br />
were as rapt and complementary about the<br />
handiwork as we were. Later, we learned that<br />
<strong>Jewish</strong> geography connected us with only three<br />
degrees of separation, as they knew family<br />
members of some of our temple rabbis. We<br />
even continued our mutual admiration of Yad<br />
LaKashish during Friday night Sabbath<br />
Services at Beit Oren.<br />
A brief tour even for 60-90 minutes invariably<br />
ends in the gift shop, shekels and credit<br />
cards in hand, representing one of the many<br />
strengths of Lifeline for the Old. We bought<br />
tchotchkes, placemats, scarves and note cards.<br />
We tried on tallit and yarmulkes. We purchased<br />
Spring Asher, Elaine Gruenhut, and<br />
Joyce Shlesinger<br />
remembrances and made a note to order more<br />
on line. We rejoiced in the works of their hands<br />
and felt uplifted at being a part of the program<br />
that provided for a place where immigrant elderly<br />
workers could earn money and a sense of<br />
achievement.<br />
Yad LaKashish makes it possible for up to<br />
300 participants to live with dignity in<br />
Jerusalem. A recent independent evaluation<br />
completed in March 2010 by DAS<br />
International Ltd. concluded that working in<br />
Yad LaKashish gives seniors an incentive to<br />
get up in the morning, a purpose, and an opportunity<br />
to function on an equal basis in a social<br />
setting.<br />
We have since learned there are direct and<br />
indirect connections to Atlanta: the historic<br />
experiences with the founder and Janice<br />
Rothschild Blumberg; Mendilow’s subsequent<br />
publication in the Atlanta media decades ago; a<br />
few workshops supported by Atlantans; <strong>The</strong><br />
Temple’s adult and family visitors in June<br />
2011; and the years of association of the<br />
Epstein School of Atlanta and Lifeline.<br />
For at least a decade, Myrna Rubel, principal<br />
of the Epstein Middle School, has<br />
exposed her students to the work of artisans at<br />
Lifeline so that teenagers could learn from the<br />
hands of the aged, and<br />
so that those elders<br />
could experience hope<br />
through sharing with a<br />
future generation. L’dor<br />
va-dor.<br />
As many have<br />
noted, by being with,<br />
learning from, and sharing<br />
alongside one another,<br />
old and young help<br />
each other reach across<br />
all boundaries of culture,<br />
language, and<br />
nationality.<br />
For 50 years Yad<br />
LaKashish has given<br />
seniors the greatest<br />
dimension of charity<br />
according to Maimonides in <strong>The</strong> Mishnah<br />
Torah, “<strong>The</strong> Laws of Gifts for the Poor.” <strong>The</strong>re<br />
is no greater dimension of Tzedakah than to<br />
strengthen the person’s hand so he needs no<br />
longer be dependent upon others.<br />
Daily, Yad LaKashish gives this gift. For<br />
more information visit lifeline.org.il.<br />
Lynne Keating, writer, and Tom Keating,<br />
educator, are members of <strong>The</strong> Temple.