PALMER, MA — Finding a four course gourmet kosher meal in Palmer, Mass. is nearly impossible — unless Chef Paula Shoyer is in town. This summer, Chef Shoyer has returned to Camp Ramah in New England where she teaches a “select” group of campers about healthy, mouth-watering, kosher menu planning and cooking.

Shoyer comes to town as part of the “kishroniya” (expertise) program that combines specialty camping and Jewish experiential education. Choosing from a menu of sports, arts, and outdoor adventure, campers spend four hours a day learning from experts in their fields.

Prior to this years’ five day kishroniya, Shoyer spent two days cooking with Ramah’s Tikvah Program, an overnight camping experience for children with developmental disabilities such as mental retardation, autism, and cerebral palsy. Members of the Tikvah Vocational Training Program met with Shoyer to plan the Tex-Mex menu, discuss healthy, kosher eating, and come up with a shopping list. The group members carefully walked the aisles of the local Wal-Mart selecting fresh produce, spices, measuring spoons, muffin tins, etc. When they returned, they were greeted by Shoyer, who had set up cutting stations for the group in the newly renovated, handicapped accessible kitchen of the vocational training building.

Program member Leah quickly mastered the art of chopping lettuce for the salad. Benji was busy learning how to use the salad spinner to dry the lettuce.

Shoyer moved quickly among group members, highlighting their strengths and abilities.

“I didn’t know what everyone’s skill level would be. But it became clear pretty quickly that there was something everyone could do,” reports Shoyer. “They clearly felt good about what they were doing. Everyone was busy, and the kids were so warm, excited and enthusiastic about it — and they were so respectful of each other and me.”

After almost five hours in the kitchen, Shoyer and group members, including their advisors, Shayna Hersh and Marcia Glickman, sat down around a long table for a quiet, relaxed dinner.

“[Group members] challenged themselves, moved quickly, and really kept up,” notes Hersh. “And Paula did it in a way that was supportive — and it worked.”

The next day it was back to work for Shoyer, who spent several hours cooking with campers ages 13 to 18 in the Tikvah Program. Their menu consisted of cheese bourekas and chocolate cupcakes.

A lawyer by training, Shoyer received her pastry diploma from the Ritz Escoffier Ecole de Gastronomie Francaise in Paris, France in 1996. and operated a dessert catering business in Geneva, Switzerland for two years. She was also the recipe tester and editor of two popular Kosher cookbooks: Kosher by Design Entertains and Kosher by Design Kids in the Kitchen, both written by Susie Fishbein.

The mother of four, Shoyer runs Paula’s Parisian Pastries Cooking School form her home in Chevy Chase, MD. In addition to teaching classes to aspiring cooks ages 3 on up, she is currently at work on her own cookbook of non-dairy desserts and is preparing to launch a new “Kosher Baker’s Blog.” Shoyer is also in the midst of filming a pilot TV show on kosher baking.

Despite her busy schedule, Shoyer knows just where she’ll be next summer: back at Ramah, teaching kids to cook.

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Original Article Published On The Jerusalem Post

It started with a late-night call from DeeDee Benel, my son’s faculty adviser at Manhattan’s Ramaz High School, a private Orthodox Jewish prep school on the Upper East Side. “Everything is OK with Daniel,” she reassured my wife and then began telling her about the birth of her grandson in Denver, Colorado, and the upcoming pidyon haben.

This ceremony is performed for first-born Jewish males who, according to the Torah, belong to G-d and must be “redeemed” by their parents. Only those whose parents are not descendants of the Levites or Kohanim – members of the “priestly class” who cannot be redeemed – undergo the ritual, and only those who have been delivered naturally and not by C-section. It happens 31 days after birth; the father pays five silver coins to a kohen friend who passes them over the child’s head, “releasing” him from his duty to serve G-d as a priest in the Temple, and recites the priestly benediction, Birkat Kohanim. In Temple times, the priests kept the money, but nowadays the kohen tends to return the coins to the father as a nice gift for the child. It all culminates in a festive meal, usually a breakfast, after which everyone dashes off to work.

For the family, it’s a breeze compared to the stressful brit mila circumcision ceremony, when they have eight days to line up a mohel, and a caterer, notify friends, and there’s blood involved. But, nevertheless, Benel was anxious about her grandson’s pidyon haben. Noting that the book of Numbers specifies that the redemption price is “five shekalim of silver, which is 20 gerah,” she told my wife that she had gone on-line looking for the right coins. “I originally ordered coins from a religious man in Brooklyn. I thought they were pidyon haben coins. When they arrived at my home, they were simply U.S. silver dollars.” Halakhically acceptable, but not what Benel, a woman of uncompromising standards, had in mind.

The coins have to contain 100 to 117 grams of silver. Silver dollars minted before 1965 contain 24.06 grams of pure silver. Five of them would fit the bill for a pidyon haben (though more recently minted U.S. coins would not). But Benel wanted something special.

“I went on-line and Googled ‘pidyon haben coins,’” she explained. “The name of one place in Hamden, Connecticut, came up. I called the guy. It was late and he usually closes at 5pm. By a miracle, he was at his desk doing paperwork. I told him the story. And he had the coins I was looking for.” She was referring to a set of coins minted by the Bank of Israel in the 1970s for the specific purpose of pidyon haben. The set consists of five coins containing 117 grams of pure silver. The beautiful 25 lira coins have a small Hebrew mem mint mark and the emblem of the State of Israel on one side and the biblical verse for pidyon haben and five pomegranates on the other.

The coin dealer offered to send the coins overnight mail to Denver. But it was winter and Benel was concerned about the weather. She wanted to personally deliver the coins to her son – the father of the new born boy – who was visiting New York and would be flying back to Denver for the ceremony in two days.

“The delivery of the coins can’t be delayed,” she implored before coming to the point of her call: “I remembered that I had a student from New Haven [Connecticut] … That’s why I’m calling… I didn’t want to ask, but….” Hamden is actually 10 or 15 minutes from our home. “Your friend is a bit nuts, the dealer observes when I arrive at his office the next morning, filling me in on the nonstop series of late-night calls and messages from the irrepressible Benel.

We chat amicably about the price of gold, and he tells me that many people are melting down coins for money and he shows me a table filled with new commemorative gold coins, featuring Shmuel Yosef Agnon and selling for $800 each. “I didn’t even know who Agnon was until I came across these coins and researched the guy,” he tells me.

The dealer (who wishes to remain anonymous, for reasons of safety and security) reaches across his desk for a sturdy blue box, tucked safely inside a Fed Ex envelope.

“Here are the coins for your friend,” he says and, shaking his head, adds: “I’m not a rabbi, but she shouldn’t be buying them. It is the father’s obligation. Besides, five silver dollars would do the job – she could have saved nearly $150.”

Not the sort of argument that would sway a determined Jewish grandmother like DeeDee Benel. And I was glad that I could do my small part to help her get this ancient Jewish ritual just right.

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WOODBRIDGE — When Debbie Roth wanted to make Shakespeare come alive for her eighth grade English class at Ezra Academy in Woodbridge, she had a clever idea: Why not bring in a real actor who has performed Shakespeare on the stage? And so she did – enlisting the aid of Bruce Altman, a veteran actor of stage and screen who also happens to be the parent of an Ezra Academy alum.

Altman readily agreed to set aside time from his busy acting and auditioning schedule to visit the school, and did so twice – once to teach students about Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, and once to critique the students as they performed various scenes from the play.

“For the kids to see a professional actor perform Shakespeare inspires them to read the play in a different way”, observes Roth, who has taught English and Spanish at the Amity Road day school for the past 13 years. “The first time Bruce came, he talked about the play and about the character of Shylock in particular. During Altmans second visit, he asked the students to reconfigure the room to resemble a stage. This isn’t English class – it is an acting workshop,” Altman playfully informed the class.

Asked if he was required to memorize lines for auditions, Altman said, “not for TV or movies, but usually for plays – I usually use a monologue of Richard the Second.”

Calling upon the students to read selections from the play, Jeff Spivack of Hamden shoe Lorenzos speech because, as he explained to Altman, “It is really poetic – about the moon and music. And it is really up to ones own interpretation.” Altman approved.

“That was beautiful,” he said. “Im really touched by it!” Before Spivack performed his selection a second time, Altman suggested that he take a moment to relax his body.

“Take in the moonlight,” he counselled. “Really imagine that moon. This is a really good audition piece – full of smells and feelings.”

Elizabeth Skalka was next to perform. She chose Shylock because, as she explained to Altman, “There is so much feeling between Shylock and Antonio. He has been holding it in for so long – now, he can tell him how he really feels.”

“That was great – did you notice there were moments when your hands moved?” asked Altman after watching her for several moments.

As Altman listened, he applied lessons learned from Jewish texts and Jewish history to the acting process. For example, he told them, “Memorization is great – the great Jewish scholars memorized long passages from the Talmud.”

After Ariel Rock presented Shylocks speech in Act III, Altman asked what the student thought Shakespeare meant when he wrote: “If you prick a Jew, do we not bleed, if you poison us, do we not die?” Explained Rock: “[It means] that Jews are the same as everyone else.”

Altman then engaged the class in a discussion of the blood libel and the myth of Jews poisoning the wells. Altman and family regularly attend the egalitarian Shabbat minyan at Yale University’s Slifka Center.

As the bell rang, Altman wrapped up by telling the class that it is okay to have differing interpretations of the text. “I got some of my best ideas when I saw someone doing something I didnt agree with. So Lital, it is okay to play the part cynically, even though Lizzy is saying, Play it more depressed!”

Altman, who will soon appear in Recount, an HBO movie about the 2000 Bush/Gore Florida election that will air in May, was blown away by the lesson.

“It was a powerful experience for me. I am really impressed with the students. They are so alive, and comfortable responding. Mrs. Roth has done a great job.” 

The students shared Altmans sentiment about the lesson. As they filed out of the room for the next period, they offered careful analysis of the class.

“Bruce gave us new insight into how to act and understand and feel the text”, noted Solomon Botwick Reis. Jeff Spivack concurred. “It was interesting to get an actors point of view on such an old text”, he said.

Then, as if to remind the class that they are still kids, Josh Grove smiled and noted proudly, “It was cool to know an actor!”

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MIDDLETOWN — For seven special nights this semester, Wesleyan University will seem more like artsy Tel Aviv than a college town in Connecticut. Thanks to the tireless work of Professor Dalit Katz and the Ring Family, Wesleyan will screen seven cutting-edge, contemporary Israeli films as part of the Ring Family Wesleyan Israel Film Festival. Each film will be screened in a new, 400 seat cinema on the Wesleyan campus. And each film will be followed by a question-and-answer session with a well-known writer, director or film critic.

For Katz, who teaches three Hebrew courses at Wesleyan, the film festival is a labor of love.

“I integrate the film festival into my Hebrew curriculum,” said Katz. “All of my students are required to see all of the films. They then meet with the director in class and have a discussion in Hebrew. Students must also produce a response to the film, in Hebrew.”

Katz said she is pleased that her students don’t simply learn Hebrew language-they gain valuable exposure to Israeli culture.

“This combined series brings the best of Israel to the viewers-the films are multi cultural, pluralistic, artistic and creative,” explains Katz. “The artistic and creative community in Israel is flourishing-filmmakers are not afraid to take chances. They are very innovative, and they offer fresh angles.

“The Wesleyan film festival is designed to educate the community about the rich cultural life of Israeli society. Each film illuminates a different aspect of modern contemporary Israeli life, from life in modern Tel Aviv to life at the kibbutz. One film deals with the life of an immigrant from Sudan and another film deals with the life of foreign workers in Israel. Israel at 60 is a very hybrid and complex society which is well reflected in all the films,” Katz said.
Katz was pleased with the response to the movie “The Secrets,” screened on February 4 as a “preview” to the actual film festival.

“There was a great turnout, and the movie was so beautiful, such a spiritual experience.”

The film takes place partially in a midrasha, a Jewish women’s seminary, in Safed, and deals with the friendship of two Israeli women from very different backgrounds, their relationship with a sick French woman, and Kabbalah.

“The subject matter was new to the audience and very revealing. Avi Nesher (the director) was just splendid in the question and answer session—so articulate, so smart and he connected so well to the audience.”

As a favor to Katz, Nesher allowed her and Wesleyan to be the first in the United States to screen the film; Nesher then co-taught with Katz in her advanced Hebrew tutorial.

Nesher, writer, producer and director of such well-known films as “Turn Left at the End of the World,” “Blind Date” and “The Point Men,” was born in Tel Aviv. He attended junior high school and high school in New York City, where his father was stationed as a member of the Israeli diplomatic corp. Nesher graduated Manhattan’s prestigious Ramaz High School and took courses at Columbia University before returning to Israel to complete his army service.

Nesher, who has been writing movies since the 1970s, is particularly proud of the state of Israeli films, which he says have become “very interesting, lucid, and accessible.”

Nesher explains that the current funding system has greatly helped the Israeli film industry.

“The government covers 25 percent or more of the budget, Israeli television contributes, as well as private donors,” he explained.

Nesher further explains that, when people first saw such films as his “Turn Left at the End of the World, “ a film set in Israel in the 1960s dealing with relationship between immigrants to Israel from Morocco and India, “they were really surprised to see that this is Israel.”

“Now,” he reports, “audiences come to expect such films-they are no longer patronizing, coming out to see Israeli films out of sympathy-theynow watch Israeli movies like they would Spanish, French or Serbian movies-and they view them as good or bad-not Israeli!”

“They are not your grandfather’s Israeli movies,” Nesher said. “They are a whole new generation of films.”

Upcoming films screened as part of the Ring Family Wesleyan Israel Film Festival will include:

“Year Zero” on Feb. 25, “Someone to Run With” on March 3, “Live and Become” on March 24, and “Jellyfish” on April 29. All films will be shown at 7:30pm at the Wesleyan Film Department, 301 Washington Terrace, Middletown.

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