Writing

WEST HAVEN — Congregation Sinai, located in West Haven since 1929, recently sold their 78-year-old building in West Haven, and started construction of their new Milford synagogue space, located on the second floor of an existing commercial building at 55 Old Gate Lane.

Rabbi Dana Bogatz, who grew up in Meriden, and has been serving as rabbi of the Conservative (though not affiliated with United Synagogue) Congregation Sinai for three and a half years, has been proud of her congregations process in making decisions about their future.

Bogatz observes, Our congregation is aging, our building is aging, and West Haven is not a place where young families are moving to. The congregation wrestled with what to do. Im terribly impressed by the fact that the primarily elderly congregation believes it can and should continue to exist-and that changes needed to be made.

The Congregation Sinai building, at 426 Washington Avenue in West Haven, was sold to a church in November 2006. The church allows the synagogue to use two rooms until their proposed mid-June 2007 move to Milford.

Bogatz is confident about the future.

When I came here four years ago, there was not one child in synagogue, there was no Hebrew school, and there hadnt been a bar or bat mitzvah in eight years. Now, we have a Hebrew school and we have at least one bar or bat mitzvah scheduled every year for the next seven or eight years. That means there is a future-the congregation will continue! There are 100 individuals who are members of the congregation.

Bogatz, who recently purchased a house in Milford, notes, Milford is the first town in New Haven County outside of Fairfield County, the town offers the best of old New England and contemporary culture, and Milford has a Jewish population of young, educated families.

Congregation co-president (and incoming president), Becky Goodman-Olshansky, celebrated her bat mitzvah at Congregation Sinai in West Haven, was married there, and has been a life-long member.

Goodman-Olshansky, herself a Milford resident, feels that Milford is a vibrant, up and coming community and she loves the fact that downtown Milford has never been built up and remains quaint. Goodman-Olshanskyobserves that there are a number of young and unaffiliated Jews in the Milford area.

Daniel Krevolin, the other co-president, notes that a number of young families have already expressed interest in the Hebrew school. At a future date, the synagogue will likely become Congregation Sinai of West Haven and Milford, adds Krevolin.

While pleased with the move, Krevolin acknowledges, The thing that really hurts is that we will not have this beautiful sanctuary any more. Visitors have always been impressed with the beautiful, plain and simple sanctuary. But it was larger than we needed. Krevolin notes that the sanctuary had been totally refurbished following an arson fire on May 5, 1989.

Congregation Sinai will be the only year-round synagogue in Milford.

Says Bogatz, While Milford offers the seasonal (Orthodox) Woodmont Synagogue, there has been no year-round synagogue in Milford since the last one closed in 1981.

The board is sensitive to the needs of their elderly congregations who live mainly in West Haven and in the Towers in downtown New Haven. Members often pitch in to assist in transporting fellow congregants to the West Haven building, and will likely do the same after the move to Milford.

The new building is in a very good location-right off the highway, reports Krevolin. We wanted to be near New Haven Avenue so members could come from West Haven without having to go on the highway.

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NEW HAVEN — When Professor Doron Ben-Atar was growing up in Israel, his mother, Roma Nutkiewicz Ben-Atar, seldom spoke of her Holocaust experiences.

When she did start speaking – “some time after the Six-Day War,” reports Professor Ben-Atar — her incredible story filled an entire book, “What Time and Sadness Spared: Mother and Son Confront the Holocaust” (University of Virginia Press, 2006). Now, Professor Ben-Atar has written “Behave Yourself Quietly,” a play based on a moving story from her experience at Auschwitz, which will be performed at the Little Theater in New Haven on April 28 and 29.

The play is sponsored by the Department of Jewish Education, Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven, The Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale, and Fordham University.

Proceeds from the two performances will provide scholarship money to support The March of the Living, which sends high school students from around the world to Poland and Israel. Bi-annually, the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven sponsors between 30-50 teens to experience the March of the Living.

Ben-Atar learned of the experience that inspired his play when his mother went to Auschwitz again as part of the March of the Living.

On the trip, his mother began speaking of her experiences in various ghettos and camps from age 12 until her liberation. At Auschwitz, she began telling the group about her imprisonment there, at age 16, six decades earlier. As they walked past the bunk where she slept as an inmate, she paused at the latrine and told the group, “This was like our coffee shop…where we could laugh and gossip.”

Prof. Ben-Atar, chair of the history department at Fordham University, member of Fordham’s Middle East Studies and Women’s Studies programs, had never heard that story before, but it made an impression.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about her comment about the latrine-that there was this autonomous place in Auschwitz, where people laughed, gossiped, and bickered,” he said. “I thought about it, wrote, left it, and came back to it – I couldn’t let go of the comment.”

The latrine remark led to Ben-Atar’s play, just over an hour in length, which depicts the lives of three women in Auschwitz in July, 1944. The play takes place against the backdrop of the most dramatic escape in the history of the concentration camp. The three female inmates are startled by the news and react in different ways. The play begins in the women’s latrine and moves through other intimate spaces of existence in Auschwitz.

Director Jane Tamarkin has been working with Ben-Atar on the project from the moment he asked her to read the first draft of the play.

“There was great stuff in it, because he is a historian and a writer,” observes Tamarkin. “It was provocative, and filled with facts, but, as a director, I think about how it can be played. A story can be a great read but not playable.” Ben-Atar accepted some suggestions from Tamarkin and re-worked the script. Tamarkin, who has acted off-Broadway and at the Long Wharf Theater and has taught acting classes and directed productions at the Hopkins School in New Haven for 13 years, then invited several friends from her female choir to read the play aloud. When Ben-Atar decided he was ready to see it on the stage, he invited Tamarkin to be the director. “This was a very exciting process,” reports Tamarkin. “This was not like directing ‘Death of a Salesman’ or ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ — this was brand new. We have been working on rewriting the script and the order of the lines until very recently.”

Tamarkin and her actors and actresses received an unexpected gift one month before the show’s opening. “Doron’s mother was in the States for Passover, and she came to a rehearsal and sat and talked with us for 45 minutes,” Tamarkin said.

Ms. Ben-Atar’s incredible memory for detail helped the actors truly envision the scene from 60 years ago. “There is a scene where clothes are being sorted,” notes Tamarkin. “She walked us through the way it was done. She remembered the exact height of the tables, and the certain way the clothes were folded. It was very moving.”

At the end of the preview, Ms. Ben-Atar, who reports reading the re-written script in one sitting, told the cast that she loved the play, and that it “really moved” and had “a lot of action.”

“My mother is an impressive person,” Prof. Ben-Atar said. “She is brilliant, really an intellectual. And she doesn’t give you standard cliches.”

“Behave Yourself Quietly” will be performed April 28 at 8:30pm and April 29 at 2pm at the Little Theater, 1 Lincoln Street in New Haven. For more information or to purchase tickets, call (203) 387-2424, ext. 310. Proceeds will provide scholarship money to support The March of the Living.

Donations to the March of the Living may be made directly by sending a check made out to “March of the Living,” c/o Ruth Gross, Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven. 360 Amity Road, Woodbridge, CT 06525.

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MILFORD — Manny Strumpf is the man responsible for the first wedding and the first murder at the Statue of Liberty. But he is neither a rabbi nor a criminal.

Milford resident and long-time Jewish Ledger columnist, Strumpf knows a thing or two about Lady Liberty — he served for 22 years as the public affairs officer for the National Parks Service in New York City and had an office at the Statue of Liberty.

Strumpf once went to great lengths to help a Chicago couple plan a wedding at the Statue of Liberty-helping to arrange everything from the marriage license, to a minister, to media coverage. Now in his new book, “Murder at the Statue of Liberty” (2006, Publish America), Strumpf writes about a fictional murder at the national monument.

The idea for the book evolved from Strumpf’s real life work at the Statue. He recalls one incident when a man hid in the torch and tried to parachute from the Statue-but his parachute got stuck and he was left dangling.

“I thought, ‘What would have happened if this person hiding in the torch was a murderer?’ That afternoon on the train home from Grand Central Station, I jotted down some notes.”

Every afternoon from then on, he jotted down more notes for what would eventually become his book.
Besides his own experience at the Statue of Liberty, he received input for the book from the members of the United States Park Police New York Field Office.

“I developed a great respect and admiration during that time for the men and women who are devoting their careers to protecting and preserving our natural and historic resources, including the Statue of Liberty,” he said. “I’m proud to have worked closely with them during my career. Although I was an eyewitness to many activities on Liberty Island, fortunately, there never was a homicide.”

A six-year process
Strumpf, who was trained as a journalist at New York University, worked as a sports editor for a newspaper in Mount Vernon, N.Y., and served for 14 years as a reporter for the New Haven Register, before becoming PR officer for the National Parks Service.

Besides the Statue of Liberty, he also handled public relations for landmarks like Theodore Roosevelt’s birthplace, Grant’s Tomb, Federal Hall, Castle Clinton and Alexander Hamilton’s Home.

Over the years, Strumpf’s job at the Statue of Liberty has led him to meet many famous people, including President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca, and country singer Dolly Parton. He once gave a private tour to actress Mary Tyler Moore and her father.

Strumpf used much of his own knowledge about the famous New York City monument in writing his murder mystery.

In “Murder at the Statue of Liberty,” main characters William Johnson, deputy chief ranger at the Statue of Liberty, and ranger Jennifer Marcus find a dead body one morning inside the monument. They soon become prime suspects when U.S. Park Police Lt. Mike Finnegan and Vince Torre of the NYPD begin to investigate the shocking murder.

After completing one draft of the novel, Strumpf put it away for eight months. When he looked at it again, he felt it needed revision. He met book editor Stuart Meyer at a conference at Manhattan’s World Trade Center, who agreed to offer feedback. Strumpf ended up rewriting the book twice and changed the outcome several times. In all, it took him six years to finish the project.

Strumpf said that he has received many letters and emails of support for his book – and he has also received his first royalty check.

“I’ve received letters from London, Toronto, Los Angeles, North and South Carolina and I have been featured in the newsletter of the International Statue of Liberty Club,” reports Strumpf.

Strumpf, and his wife, Phyllis — the parents of two grown children and grandparents of three – are members of Congregation Or Shalom in Orange, where he is chairperson of the communications committee and was the recent recipient of the synagogue’s Shomerei Or Award.

Strumpf and his wife will soon head to their winter home in Florida where he will spend his time following sports, reading, golfing, and working on his next novel, which takes place at another interesting New York landmark — Theodore Roosevelt’s birthplace.

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