of the Week Shabbat Blessings We make Shabbos together this Friday, August 26, at 6:45 p.m. with Shabbat blessings and a short D’var Torah on Zoom. This is a great opportunity to not only connect with our Kol Ami community to celebrate Shabbat but also to be comfortable and more familiar with the rituals of Shabbat at home. For the Zoom link, click here. Community News Singers Wanted for Communitywide Selichot Service in September Want to sing in the community chorus at this year’s communitywide Selichot service — Saturday night, September 17 — at Congregation Beth Torah? If yes, you must attend two rehearsals: 7:30-8:45 p.m. Wednesday, August 31, and 7:30-8:45 p.m. Wednesday, September 14. The choir also meets for a sound check and a final run-through at 8 p.m. September 17. If you’re interested, contact Lezlie Zucker, music coordinator at Beth Torah, at lzucker@beth-torah.org. Yahrzeits This Week August 23 Alfred Katz – father of Allan Katz August 30 Sara Reissig – niece of Rick and Marion Breinin
We Wish
Mi Sheibeirach
A Complete Healing of Mind, Body and Spirit to:
Berny Burke Tim Bruning Robert Clinton Jenny Dake Dennis Dalton Renee Dietchman The Rev. Kendyl Gibbons Bailey Hix Judy Krugman Michah ben Sarah Randal Strong-Wallace Cierra Wheeler
If you would like a name to continue to be listed or if you have a new name to include, please send an email to healing@kolamikc.org.
Rabbi's Week in Review
Kansas City is one of the only major cities in the country without local control of its police department. Large swaths of the Kansas City community have persistently gone unrepresented on the Board of Police Commissioners, made up of our mayor and four members appointed by Missouri’s governor. There has been little to no representation east of Troost and overrepresentation from the Waldo, Brookside and Plaza neighborhoods. ... Click here to read the rest of Rabbi Doug's blog post.
This Week's Torah Portion
This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Re’eh (Devarim/Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17). The Torah portion begins with a choice placed before us of either blessing or curse. Following last week’s Torah portion of Eikev, Consequences, and the obligations that come with being an Am Segulah, a treasured people, we begin to see our relationship with G-d as directly connected to our behavior toward G-d and toward each other. In this context, what we do and how we live our lives have purpose, or even cosmic purpose and meaning.
Social Justice News
Missouri Jobs With Justice Rabbi Doug speaks at breakfast meeting.
After a long COVID-19 hiatus, Missouri Jobs With Justice reinstituted its Faith-Labor Breakfast last week. This monthly event has been a marvelous way for faith leaders and labor leaders to come together to work on issues of economic and racial justice. Rabbi Doug was part of a planning committee for the program and a speaker at the event. Weekly Feature
Jews and Food — Another Untold Story
(and Definitely Worth a Read) By Ellen Karp
Book clubs introduce me to wonderful narratives I would never stumble upon myself. My latest fave: Appetite for America by Stephen Fried, a history of the Fred Harvey company, which invented the American hospitality industry alongside the railroads of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It also changed how Americans traveled, dined and toured the American Southwest.
For this easterner, there were plenty of revelations. One of the biggest, given the prevailing anti-Semitism of the day: the pivotal roles played by two Jewish men who grew the Fred Harvey enterprise.
Harvey was always on the lookout for promising young talent, and Dave Benjamin was a favorite teller at his bank in Leavenworth. Benjamin eventually became second in command of the entire Harvey empire — said empire composed of "60 trackside dining rooms & lunchrooms, 25 hotels including La Fonda in Santa Fe and El Tovar on the South rim of the Grand Canyon, a cattle ranch, several large dairy and poultry farms, 7,000 employees in 80 locations." *
Benjamin and his family were also prominent members of B’nai Jehudah, and he ran United Jewish Charities — the forerunner of the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City — for 18 years.
Herman Schweizer, a German immigrant (Fried refers to him as a bold character straight out of Blazing Saddles), started out managing the Harvey eating establishment in Gallup, New Mexico. He proposed and ran Harvey’s American Indian art ventures, which whetted Americans’ appetites for Southwest jewelry, art and culture. He became a collector and curator of Native American art, crafts and pottery, amassing art pieces for such private collectors as the Harveys and William Randolph Hearst.
In later years, he was active in Temple Albert in Albuquerque (my synagogue when I lived there).
* From NY Jewish Week, “The Jews Who Tamed the Wild West,” Stephen Fried, August 3, 2010
Our mailing address is: Congregation Kol Ami 4501 Walnut Street ℅ All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church Kansas City, MO 64111
