USCJ Review - Fall 2004
Unique Community Program Binds Seniors Together
One town, three synagogues, and a couple of people who got tired of missing out on cultural and social programming because of scheduling conflicts between groups – a unique set of circumstances leading to the birth of a unique organization, Jewish Seniors of Springfield (JSS).
Bob Steinhart heads the HAZAK chapter at Conservative Temple Beth Ahm in Springfield, NJ. (HAZAK was created by the United Synagogue for mature Conservative Jews, 55 +. It now has over 80 chapters and some 8,000 members.) He was sitting in a history class with Sam Reiter, a leader of the seniors group at the town’s Orthodox synagogue, Congregation Israel, when they began discussing the scheduling problems for Jews active in local seniors activities, including the group at the local Reform temple, Temple Sha’arey Shalom. “There’s a lot of cross-attendance,” Steinhart says.
Soon, Reiter called a meeting of seniors leaders from the three synagogues. The result was a joint calendar, listing the events run by all three groups. A start-up grant from the Wallerstein Foundation for Geriatric Life Improvement has allowed the JSS to run its initial programs for free, but in order to become self-sustaining, it will begin charging a modest fee for all events. The hope is that this will not keep seniors from participating.
This past year, JSS offered a six-part lecture series on American history, led by Essex County college professor Eugene Lieber and held at Sha’arey Shalom; a six-part series on modern composers with musicologist Bob Butts, hosted at Beth Ahm; and an end-of-season music program at Congregation Israel. Kosher refreshments are served at all programs and most also include the option of free blood pressure screening through the congregational nursing effort that is also a joint program of the three synagogues. The expanded seniors communal calendar, which now comes out twice a year, includes JSS programs as well as events sponsored locally by Hadassah and Jewish Women International.
The goal behind the creation of JSS was to provide a venue for social and educational programming for Jews of all stripes, says Reiter, “to break down any barriers that might exist.”
Even Springfield’s mayor, Clara Harelik, has a JSS connection: Her parents, members of Congregation Israel, are “heavily involved.” Harelik says the program “gives seniors a focus,” while also improving the general community. Springfield has about 14,000 people, about 6,000 of them Jews and about half of those affiliated with a synagogue, Steinhart says.
April Modlinger of Springfield runs the Not Just Lunch seniors program at Beth Ahm, where she is a member, and sits on the JSS board. Not Just Lunch is an outgrowth of the synagogue’s good will committee, Hevra Ezrat Torah, which includes about a dozen volunteers performing a variety of services including hospital visits, sending shivah meals to mourners, and reaching out to “vulnerable families” isolated from the community.
Not Just Lunch, which attracts a slightly older core of seniors than HAZAK, is not a JSS program but, like other local programs, is open to everyone. Says Modlinger, for Springfield’s Jewish seniors, there’s “something to do almost every day of the week, if they want it.” Not only does the rich array of programming fill a need, she adds, but it has helped to create one. People’s expectations have been raised; they now expect to have several programs a week available to them.
Modlinger says she likes to keep a light tone at Not Just Lunch, so the congregational nursing service is not made available. But she praises its accomplishments in the congregation, especially the “outstanding work” done by Jackie Herzlinger, the nurse in charge.
Herzlinger, an oncology nurse and hospice professional, is passionate about the need to take the model of the parish nurse – integrating spiritual and medical healing in readily available service to members of a congregation – into the synagogue. “I want to make parish nursing Jewish,” she says.
As she wrote in the March 2003 issue of Sh’ma magazine, “The presence of professional nurses working in our congregations can provide a missing link between the synagogue and the community, and between health and wholeness, a link that will once again bind God, the individual, and the community together in a covenant of health.”
Herzlinger doesn’t charge for her own services but does pay the three very parttime nurses – all Jewish – also available for the congregational nursing program, which has yet to secure adequate ongoing funding. “This is a pilot project and it’s desperately important for this to keep flourishing, because people are watching it,” she says.
“By far the largest number of calls for service, visits, and consults is from the senior population. We serve seniors who come to the events here, whether or not they are from Springfield. I have records for over 300 active seniors. That does not include the homebound and those who don’t come to JSS events.
“Nurses, usually two of us, take blood pressure during the 45 minutes before almost all JSS events, which draw between 80 and 120 people. We usually have 30 or so people who come over to us for blood pressure readings.
“Many use blood pressure as a reason but have other agendas. We talk privately and quietly in the corner. If more time is needed, an appointment is made for in person or telephone contact. We follow up on everything.”
Karan Marvin, who works in public relations and belongs to Beth Ahm, was so taken with Herzlinger’s presentation at a panel on alternative medicine that she offered to do some pro bono work to publicize the nursing project.
“The value of the program is to let members of the congregation know there is alternative medical support out there,” Marvin says, noting that sometimes people don’t even have the vocabulary to describe the medical problems they have. Herzlinger helps them find it. “It’s a wonderful program. More and more congregations are going to be involved in this.”
JSS has no summer programming, although Beth Ahm hosts an August barbecue. But then they jump right back in, all of them together. If there have been any problems accommodating Jews of different denominations, no one’s talking.
“We haven’t had any problems and anticipate none,” Steinhart says. When it comes to keeping the community together, “this whole thing has been just great.”
The author is a freelance writer living in New Jersey.
