This may be the most off-the-beaten track, unexpected, unintended creative training program and place of employment for people with disabilities that I have encountered in the world!
SHANGA (Located at Elewana Arusha Coffee Lodge)
The Foundation for Jewish Camp
The Foundation for Jewish Camp Leaders Assembly is moving from Baltimore to Virtual. Join the conference Monday March 16 from 11 am to 7 pm. Howard will facilitate a Networking Session for Disabilities Inclusion Professionals at 2:45 pm.
Musical Showcase Highlights Inclusion and Diversity
The Original Article published On The New York Jewish Week
Howard Blas was live at an amazing showcase of young musical talent–all to benefit AKIM, Israel’s organization for people with intellectual disabilities.
The Musical Showcase to Celebrate Diversity, Ability and Inclusion Featuring the Awesome Talent of NYC Teens and Young Adults was set to start at 12:30 pm at Manhattan’s Cutting Room. Yet, by noon, the funky musical venue was already buzzing with excitement. A large group of students from such New York schools as Blessed Sacrament, Horace Mann and Avenues were practicing on stage for their opening number, “Tequila.” Emily Negron, 15, of the Bronx, was getting in some last minute practicing of “All You Need is Love” at the rear of the venue with fellow Ideal School students, Vita Krasny and Laura Lyle. “Turn that way when you feel me put my hand on your shoulder,” Negron instructed her fellow performers.
When the concert began, a performer with a visible disability informed the crowd that she may be singing off pitch. The crowd clapped and went wild. A brother and sister team, with the brother performing two songs from his walker, brought the house down.
Logan Riman of Edward R Murrow School sat at a piano and flawlessly played Billy Joel’s “Piano Man,” as a photo of Riman with The Piano Man appeared on the screen.
Other acts in the eclectic afternoon were electric, including Daniel Becker of the Rebecca School playing the Violent Femmes “Blister in the Sun” and the Beatles’ “Back in the USSR,” accompanied by drums and guitar.
Angelica Mroczek, Miss Staten Island Outstanding Teen 2020, a student at Curtis High School and Myles Roven, of the Packer Collegiate Institute, welcomed the crowd to the second annual AKIM event and thanked its sponsor, the Building Bridges Conference. AKIM is the National Organization for People with Intellectual Disabilities in Israel—founded in 1951. Mroczek’s twin sister Tatiana also performed in the concert.
The pair introduced Ami Ayalon, Chair of AKIM Israel and former Chief of the Israeli Navy and Former Head of Israel’s Secret Service. Ayalon, who came from Israel to address the crowd, was emotional and passionate as he told the story of his niece, Zahara, who, with disabilities and great charm, taught his own children “how to respect the other” and in the process, they “became better people.” Ayalon offered his remarks after the first two songs and playfully said, “I am glad my wife is not here. It is the first time in 50 years she did not come with me. She would be crying in the last five minutes.” Ayalon explained that AKIM is responsible for 35,000 people with disabilities in Israel, and their 150,000 family members and has thousands of volunteers.
AKIM’s 65 national centers are in 85 towns throughout Israel in both Jewish and Arab sectors. “We advocate for all people with special needs in Israel—Jew and Arab, Christian, Muslim and Hindu, religious and not religious. AKIM is an island of sanity in a society of tribes. Our vision is our mission statement—to create a better Israeli society.” Ayalon was particularly excited about a concert featuring such a diverse group of performers. “We are humans—and music connects us!”
Robert Ukrainsky, a student at Avenues School and a saxophone player who performed with numerous groups throughout the concert, has been involved with AKIM for many years. “I learned about AKIM when I was looking for a Bar Mitzvah project. When I heard about a new program being set between AKIM and Tel Aviv University Dental Center that will allow your adults with intellectual disabilities be trained and get jobs, I got fascinated. The idea of giving someone an opportunity to live independently and instilling social equality resonated with me,” he said. Ukrainsky’s mother, Rada Sumareva, is a periodontist implant surgeon, AKIM board member and one of the organizers of the concert. Ukrainsky visited the program in Israel last summer and met with the four students in the first cohort of the program.
Ukrainsky was delighted to have the opportunity to participate in the concert. “I feel fortunate to be a part of the inclusion concert as we all can learn about each other’s differences and bring the best of our abilities to make music together. We are all part of the same team, share our interest in music, and truly enjoy new friendships and stage collaborations. I made new friends through this concert and also was able to reconnect with my old friends who joined the team this year.”
His mother, Rada, added, “The concert was especially meaningful for Robert as it not only enabled him to collaborate with all these incredible musicians different in various ways and help AKIM, but also it was a stage debut of his own student who is now 8 and who started saxophone lessons with Robert when he was 6. It warmed my heart that his first question after the show yesterday was not about his performance, it was about his student’s performance!”
At this year’s event, performers, family members and guests didn’t want to leave—even when they concert officially ended. They stayed for an informal jam session and drum circle. Ideal student Emily Negron enjoyed performing with her two friends from the Ideal School and summed it up best and will hopefully be back for next year’s 3rd annual event. “It is an amazing opportunity. I sing daily. I love to participate with others. I love it all!”
From Holocaust Refugee to Rock’s Greatest Promoter
The Original Article Published On The Jerusalem Post
New York exhibit recalls the unlikely Jewish rock & roll journey of Bill Graham.
NEW YORK – It is hard to imagine what the music scene in Israel might have looked like had Bill Graham decided to choose the Jewish homeland instead of the Golden Medina.
The legendary impresario and music promoter, born Wolfgang Grajonca in 1931 in Berlin, was a young boy fleeing Germany in 1940. He and other Jewish orphans were given the choice to go to America or Israel.
“We’d never heard of either place, so we went to America!” recounts childhood friend Ralph Moratz in a three-minute video that greets visitors to the Bill Graham and the Rock and Roll Revolution exhibit on display from February 14-August 23 at the New-York Historical Society Museum and Library.
Soon after Graham arrived in America, the world of rock & roll would never be the same. Graham, at both his legendary venues the Fillmore East in New York and Fillmore West in San Francisco, and later as an international promoter for tours of Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones and shows like Live Aid, became one of the key figures in the emergence of rock culture in the US and around the world.
The fascinating exhibit takes music lovers through over 300 objects including rare backstage photos and concert posters, ticket stubs and costumes. Fans can gravitate to displays of favorite bands, concert venues and music festivals – the Who, the Stones, Dylan, the Fillmore East and West, and Live Aid – all while listening to favorite tunes of Santana, the Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company on immersive audio devices.
Howard Warner, 75, of Bayside, Queens, was fixated on photos of Janis Joplin. “She was great. She was taken too soon.” He then adds, “I remember all of these people. I can relate.” He was particularly taken by Graham’s World War II story, which he proceeded to recount.
But the excitement begins long before entering the actual exhibit hall. The main hallway of the museum features changing displays of such music legends as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in Oakland, and Jimi Hendrix in Winterland. A giant screen shows the Joshua Light Show, “the most technically and artistically sophisticated light show to emerge during the 1960’s,” as the Grateful Dead’s classic “Terrapin Station” from December 30, 1978, played in the background.
To the right of the ticket booth, a jukebox-like contraption displaying the words “Explore Bill’s Life” sucked me in with audio and visual tributes to Bill Graham. Jerry Garcia tells the story of Graham coming over to him “in a sweater, with a clipboard,” attempting to fix his broken guitar. “I loved him right at that moment. He was a real sweetheart.”
Jorma Kakounen of the Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna recalls meeting Graham at a benefit for the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Graham organized a successful benefit concert for the troupe, which helped launch his career as a concert promoter.
OTHER LONG-TIME friends mention Graham’s “grand pyrotechnics” at concerts, and recall how he “was not good at delegating,” was “literally everywhere” and personally handed out apples to show attendees at the Fillmore. A basket with fake apples is on view at the entrance to the exhibit.
When I finally entered the exhibit, I learned about Graham’s connection to the legendary apples he gave out to hungry fans at to the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco between 1965 and 1971. The sign encouraged concert-goers to “Have one… or two” fresh red apples. The apples suggest a connection to Graham’s impoverished childhood.
In 1939, the Nazis shut down the Auerbach kinderheim (children’s home) in Berlin. His father, Jacob, a civil engineer, died when Bill was two. His mother, Freida, who sold artificial flowers, costume jewelry and women’s clothing in Berlin in the 1920s, sent him to France. The children were told they were going on a two-week vacation when they were sent on July 4, 1940. He never saw his mother again.
Bill reports, “I don’t mind hearing what happened to me as a kid. I’ve asked very little about my mother and very little about my father. I have no recollection of either of them.” He also reports having no memories of anything prior to the age of nine.
In the moving black and white video, childhood friend Moratz describes their lack of food in France. “We were really hungry, and we helped ourselves to local apples. Bill would climb out of the window. It was one of the most enjoyable things…. [Later] Bill always had a bowl of apples.” He was referring to the famous concert apples.
Graham and his fellow orphans made their way from France, through the Pyrenees, to Barcelona, Madrid, Lisbon, Casablanca, Dakar, Cuba and eventually to New York.
Graham’s describes himself as “angry and belligerent” when he first arrived to his New York foster home. A couple from the Bronx, with a child, Roy, two years older than Graham and learning French and German – the two languages he knew – took him in.
The exhibit traces Bill’s fascinating childhood and teen years which included attending DeWitt Clinton High School and City College, a stint in the US Army serving in the Korean War (earning the Bronze Star and Purple Heart), summers busing tables, serving as a maître d’ (and listening to live music) at various Catskills resorts, evenings at the Palladium Ballroom in New York City dancing the Mambo to Tito Puente and Celia Cruz.
In the early 1960s, Graham moved to San Francisco and began to manage the San Francisco Mime Troupe. His successful benefit concert and promotion of several free concerts in the Bay Area led to his career as a full-time concert promoter. His successful career put him in constant contact with such legends as the Who, Hendrix, Dylan, the Allman Brothers, and the Dead.
WHILE GRAHAM quickly shed his European name and accent, he did not lose the connection to his Jewish past, and to the meaning of the Holocaust experience. The exhibit displays a Fillmore Auditorium dance hall permit from 1966. Many local merchants were opposed to the application for the permit.
“The rabbi from the temple next door said, ‘Mr. Graham’s people, they’re urinating on my holy walls.’” Graham then approached each merchant individually.
“I put on my suit and tie and went to see every merchant who had signed the petition and got 24 of them to say it was okay. Then I went to see the rabbi, who started lecturing me about persecution. I realized he thought he was talking to a goy.
“I put on my suit and tie and went to see every merchant who had signed the petition and got 24 of them to say it was okay. Then I went to see the rabbi, who started lecturing me about persecution. I realized he thought he was talking to a goy.
“How dare you talk to me about persecution! After I told him what happened to my mother and my sisters, he said, “We have to talk about the holidays. So out of concern for him, I volunteered not to have shows on the High Holidays.”
Many years later, when Graham learned in 1985 that president Ronald Reagan intended to lay a wreath at Bitburg’s World War II cemetery where Waffen-SS soldiers were buried, Graham took out a full page ad in The San Francisco Chronicle and urged people who shared his fury to join him at a rally in Union Square in San Francisco. Two days after Reagan’s visit to Bitburg, a firebomb (planted by neo-Nazis) destroyed Graham’s office.
Graham was in France at the time of the bombing, meeting with Bob Geldof to organize the first Live Aid concert. Graham lost nearly all memorabilia from his 20-year career including gold and platinum albums and hundreds of original Fillmore posters. His dance hall permit survived. Despite the devastating emotional toll the firebombing took, he continued working. Graham eventually led an effort to build a large menorah that is lit during every Hanukkah in downtown San Francisco.
Graham died tragically in a helicopter crash on October 25, 1991, while returning home from a Huey Lewis and the News concert. Graham, known for promoting concerts for various important societal causes, had attended the event to discuss promoting a benefit concert for the victims of the 1991 Oakland Hills firestorm. A sign at the exhibit notes, “Two days after Bill’s death, more than 2,000 mourners gathered at San Francisco’s Temple Emanu-El to remember him… Carlos Santana performed a moving eulogy, playing ‘I Love You Much Too Much,’ a Yiddish song Bill had taught him.
Graham came to America from the horrors of Europe, speaking no English. He shed his European accent, spoke unaccented English and left for his eternal resting place to the sound of Santana singing a Yiddish song in his memory.
Bill Graham and the Rock & Roll Revolution is organized and circulated by the Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles, in association with the Bill Graham Memorial Foundation, and made possible by the support of Alex Graham, David Graham and Danny Scher. The New-York Historical Society is grateful for the cooperation of the National Museum of American Jewish History.
Coordinated at New-York Historical by Cristian Petru Panaite, associate curator of exhibitions.