The President Speaks

It's not the president you're thinking of.

Several months ago my wife and I were having dinner when I casually remarked, “I’ve been asked if I would consider becoming president of the synagogue. Believe it or not, I decided to accept.”

“Hello!” she said. “Are you nuts? You don’t go to the synagogue except for the ‘Break the Fast’ And don’t get me started about your religious beliefs – or lack thereof.”

“That’s all true,” I said, “but I have been assured that regular attendance is not a prerequisite of the job. And it’s not like I campaigned for it. Certainly, I was far down on the list of prospective candidates. I think the person who approached me did it on a bet, and when he won (or lost), he didn’t know whether to be elated, shell-shocked, or mystified.”

Nonetheless, here we are. The question is, “Why?”

If my beliefs have changed over the years – and I have had frank discussions about those beliefs with our two previous rabbis – I have never denied, rejected, or tried to conceal my Judaism (which would hardly be possible in this community even if I wished to do so). My membership in the Congregation has never lapsed nor has my financial support diminished. For over thirty years I chaired the Lynchburg Jewish Community Council, which raised on average $100,000 annually to assist Israel and worldwide Jewry.

While a physical site for Jews to gather, worship, and socialize is obviously not critical for my own spiritual wellbeing, I believe it is important to maintain and sustain such a place for any Jews desirous of practicing their religion and as a symbol of Jewish identity. Having in the past substantiated my beliefs through monetary participation, I guess you could say now that I’ve moved into a volunteer phase.

The Schewel family has a one-hundred-year legacy of leadership in the congregation, and since I'm the next (and probably the last) in line, why not add my tenure to those of my great-uncle Abe, my grandfather Ben, my father Bert, my cousin Rosel, and my brother Jack? 

Having served on numerous non-profit boards in the community over the past forty years, I’ve often said that what I've gained from the experience far exceeds whatever I've been able to contribute to any one of them. I’ve had the good fortune to learn how complex organizations (like hospitals and colleges) work and to meet so many interesting, smart, and dedicated professionals and volunteers.

I embrace this new role for me as another one of those opportunities.

Many years ago, I received the Humanitarian Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews (now the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities). In my acceptance remarks, I spoke about how Lynchburg was changing, how independent businesses like banks were being taken over by large corporations with headquarters outside the area, and how this trend threatened to create a dearth of leadership and funding for local non-profits and capital projects.

I exhorted my listeners to respond to this situation by dedicating themselves to a higher level of service. “Whenever someone comes to you,” I said, “and asks you to join a board or committee, or to help on a fundraiser, or to give a little money, don’t even think about it. Just say yes.”

I didn’t follow my exact prescription. When Paul Feinman called me about the presidency of the synagogue, I did tell him I would have to think about it. Then I remembered that speech. Haunted by my own words, what else could I do, other than “Just say yes?”

One duty of the job which Paul conveniently omitted was composing an article for publication in the synagogue's monthly Bulletin. When I asked the editor what some of my predecessors had written about, he said the topics were wide-ranging and discretionary. "The Past-President was a classics professor so most of his were abstruse."

All of mine were personal. For four, I basically plagiarized this website, so I'm not revisiting them. The others, reprinted below, while not technically religious, as I'm not qualified to discourse on the subject, tangentially relate to Judaism or a Jewish tradition.

SUMMER CAMP

In June of 1956, on the verge of my eighth birthday (July 27), my parents sent me to a sleepover camp in Highview, West Virginia for eight enlightening weeks. Whether they considered me sufficiently precocious to endure such a lengthy separation or too rowdy to keep around during the idle summer months, I have yet to determine. Frankly, I am reluctant to ask my one-hundred-year-old mother for her insight as I presume her answer will be either disingenuous or disillusioning.

I must have liked the place, since I returned for four more sessions, the last two following one stay-at-home interlude. I was fortunate to be accompanied – at least initially – by some local kids, namely the Somers cousins and the Grosman brothers, although my two closest friends, Kevin and Macey, didn’t make the travel roster.

You have probably concluded by now that the camp was Jewish. If this statement prompts another “why” question – which I never broached with my parents either – the answer is easily deduced after the application of minimal research and a modicum of common sense.

According to Susan Fox, writing in The Jews of Summer, Jewish sleepover camps were established in the early years of the twentieth century as respites from the crowded, unhealthy conditions of urban life; as centers of assimilation, where immigrant children could acculturate themselves to American sports, styles, and cuisine; and as alternatives to camps which excluded Jews or refused to respect their religious or cultural needs.

By the late 1950’s, my first years at camp, anti-Semitism had waned, Jews had become solidly entrenched members of the middle class, and in small cities like Lynchburg and in growing suburbs, where Jewish populations were more dispersed, the synagogue had become the center of Jewish life. With intermarriage on the rise, many parents feared their children were at risk of becoming overly Americanized and of abandoning their heritage.

The role of Jewish camps flipped. They became places where Jewish youth – from late childhood to early teenage – could practice their faith, participate in ritual, and immerse themselves in their culture solely around other Jews.

My parents were moderately observant Jews in a Reform Congregation that had to accommodate members with Conservative or Orthodox beliefs. While they dispatched me to a “Jewish camp” somewhat mindful of its putative mission, I doubt they, or I, knew what they were getting me into.

Our weekdays were replete with traditional camp activities: swimming, canoeing, horseback riding, arts and crafts, archery, riflery, baseball, tennis, and theater productions. At night we lay awake on bunks and shared tall tales, sports trivia, and sexual fantasies. We consumed three copious meals a day but never mixed milk and meat.

Our weekends were anchored to Shabbat: Friday evening, Saturday morning, even Saturday night when, gathered around a campfire, we celebrated Havdalah, chanting prayers, savoring spices and fruit juice, and anxiously awaiting the hiss of candles being extinguished. It was a service I still remember as awe-inspiring, despite my conversion to secularism.

Many alumni and alumnae of Jewish camps recall observing the minor Jewish Holy Day, Tisha B’Av, which is largely ignored in the canon because it falls during July or August, when synagogues are empty and religious school is suspended. Marking the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and a host of other tragedies, Tisha B’Av offers a moment in the summer to educate younger generations on the traumas of Jewish history.

Of course, no summer at Camp White Mountain would be complete without a Tisha B’Av service, five of them, the only five I ever attended.

I learned more about Judaism during those summer months than I did all the years I spent studying for my Bar Mitzvah and Confirmation.

A 2008 study found that those youngsters who attended Jewish camp were more likely as adults to engage in such practices as belonging to a synagogue, supporting Jewish charities, lighting Shabbat candles, and marrying a Jewish spouse. If my family history has any value, I suspect that information is outdated or no longer relevant, as all four campers fall outside the majority.

Assimilation – or worse – has rendered Jewish camps an anachronism.

I tried to find my old camp on the internet, but it no longer exists. The eighty-acre site is now called Timber Ridge Bible Camp and is a ministry of Grace Baptist Church of Woodstock, Virginia. Its Evangelical Christian mission is “to get kids out into God’s creation and build a relationship with their Creator.” There’s more explicit language on the web site, but I believe it’s best left to your imagination.

A TIME TO FAST

It’s that time of year again, and as your president, it behooves me to reflect upon the High Holy Days, or at least one of them: Yom Kippur.

As a lay person and a secular Jew, there’s no way I would presume to be able to uncover some nugget of knowledge regarding religious beliefs or traditions that would somehow be a revelation to you. Therefore, I will confine my thoughts to a practice which has intrigued me for some time and which was easily researched on the internet: fasting.

The biblical foundation for fasting is found in Lev 23.27 and Lev 23.29 when the Lord informed Moses that, on the Day of Atonement, “You shall afflict your souls and present an offering made by fire unto the Lord . . . For whatsoever soul is not afflicted on that very day shall be cut off from among his people.” Based on other verses, the rabbis interpreted the meaning of the phrase “afflict your souls” as fasting.

It was news to me that there are four other prohibitions associated with self-affliction: no wearing of leather shoes; no bathing or washing; no anointing oneself with perfumes or lotions: and no conjugal relations. (Okay, I guess I can abstain for twenty-four hours.) Back in the days (twenty years ago) when I rarely missed a Yom Kippur service, I never recall any mention of these proscriptions. Perhaps I just wasn’t paying attention, although I suspect the last one would have piqued my interest.

There is no shortage of opinions as to what “affliction” means or what might be some other stated or implied reasons for fasting. Here are three.

Assuming humans are made up of both body and soul, the body’s earthly needs (such as eating and drinking) prevent the soul from attaining its spiritual objectives; by ignoring one’s earthly needs on Yom Kippur, his soul or spirituality is allowed to flourish.

Humans should seek to fulfill their desires for the benefit of others (individually or for all mankind) but their desires may become corrupted by egotistic intentions. Fasting is a means of repairing this corruption in that we are denied pleasures (such as food) not intended to be bestowed on others. Once repaired, we can resume receiving pleasures with the understanding that we must strive to bestow them on others.

More simply, on Yom Kippur, by fasting, we turn away from our physical wants and needs so we can focus with greater clarity on the sins or errors we may have committed in our spiritual and human relationships and how we might make amends for those mistakes and emerge as better human beings. 

But suppose you don’t believe in the soul or the spirit or the source of those biblical pronouncements? Aside from any putative health benefits of intermittent fasting, might there be another reason to deprive oneself of food and water for twenty-four hours?

Many years ago, I heard one in a Yom Kippur sermon by a rabbi here at Agudath Sholom, Ephraim Fischoff: “Even if you’re not an observant Jew,” he said, “you should fast on Yom Kippur (or at least once a year) because it will make you think about all the people in the world who don’t have enough to eat.” And there are a lot of them, I might add.

The world produces sufficient food to feed all its eight billion people, yet 733 million (one in eleven) go hungry every day. Half of all child deaths are linked to malnutrition. Nine million people die from hunger-related causes every year.

From another perspective, a few hunger pangs or dry mouth once a year should make us grateful not only for our plenteous food and water but also for the comforts and amenities we enjoy with never a thought for those who might lack the essentials of life.

And so, I have fasted every Yom Kippur for the past forty years (except for an occasional lapse when I forgot the date and declined to make it up). I’ve exercised and fasted. I’ve gone to work and fasted. I’ve attended lunch meetings and fasted. I’ve sat at the bridge table inhaling the tantalizing aromas of coffee and fasted. I’ve traveled and fasted, once having watched enviously my three companions partaking of wine and penne pasta at a five-star restaurant in Siena, Italy.

I believe that if you get past the lunch hour, you’ve got it made. And every year I curse Daylight Savings Time, which should have been abolished decades ago, because it compels us to wait one more hour to “Break-the-Fast.”

“My favorite meal of the year,” says my wife, Barb. “But you don’t fast,” I tell her. “No food has passed my lips since we had ice cream last night,” she says. “What about the four cups of coffee you drank this morning?” I remind her. “You mean you can’t drink coffee?” “No, my dear, not if it’s a real fast.”

“Good thing I’m not a real Jew,” she says. “Now pass the lox and cream cheese."

FAMILY SEDERS

A few days ago, I went to visit my mother. She had found some old photographs and among them was one at least forty years old of my older son David and me reading the Hagaddah at a Seder. It was probably one of the last extended Schewel family seders I attended as the family broke up in 1986 for business reasons.

There were a lot of Schewels in the area in the 1950’s and 1960’s. My grandfather had two brothers, Abe and Ike, and two sisters, Rae Schewel Finkel, a widow, and Ida Schewel Oppleman, who lived in Lynchburg. Ike Schewel and his son Henry left the furniture business in 1954 and severed themselves from the rest of the family. Younger than her siblings, Ida and her husband Joe and their two children, Victor and Selma, were so rarely seen that they appeared to have rejected both their Schewel and Jewish heritage, for some reason that remains unknown to me today.

That still left a plethora of aunts, uncles, and cousins (all removed, as both my parents were only children) to show up for the family’s largest gathering: the annual Passover Seder.

Abe Schewel’s Lynchburg branch included his wife Anna, his younger son Elliot, married to Rosel, and their three children, Steve, Michael, and Sue, all a few years younger than I was. Abe’s daughter Frances was married to a jeweler from Roanoke, Victor Heiner; their two sons, Philip and Eric were several years older than I but close enough for me to admire for their “cool” demeanors, athleticism, and steely good lucks which I was sure drew a swarm of pretty girls. Abe’s older son, Stanford, was a witty, engaging attorney from New York City, who because he always came alone, I naively assumed was just a merry bachelor until my mother finally set me straight: “Marc, don’t tell me you never knew he was gay?”

Rae Finkel’s three offspring had scattered to Staunton, Durham NC, and Peoria IL, but the two closest usually managed to show up for the festivities: Milton Finkel, with his wife Nina, and their children Mary Ellen and Sidney; and Bluma Finkel Gitelson, who sometimes brought her husband Harry but always her daughter Elaine and her two sons, Richie and Jon. Of all these cousins, Richie Gitelson and I seemed to have the most in common, most notably, our thick, black-framed glasses.

Adding to the mix my spinster great-aunt, Tillie Schewel, who occasionally journeyed south from her home in Brooklyn, and a handful of guests brought the Seder dinner total to around thirty-five.

My parents and Elliot Schewel both lived in newly built ‘50’s-vintage ranch-style homes with extended combined living and dining areas, and they alternated as hosts. The extra seating was not a problem for a family furniture business; four or five dinette sets were sent out from the store one day prior to the big event and picked up the day after.

Looking back sixty-five years, here a few images of those past seders that come to mind.

My father Bert had an outgoing, gregarious, magnetic personality, and was never at a loss for an opinion, an appropriate story, or a quick retort. He clearly enjoyed reuniting with the out-of-towners whom he had grown up with, particularly the distaff ones, Frances and Bluma, who were equally fun-loving.

My great-uncle Abe sat at the head of the table like a religious patriarch and valiantly tried to conduct the service with some semblance of order. It was a hopeless task, as both adults and children, especially those at the far end of the room, were more interested in talking and sampling the chopped liver on matzah, at least until it was their turn to read. Even Abe couldn’t resist a chuckle or two when a youngster nudged his leg under the table while reaching for the afikomen sequestered beneath a pillow on an adjacent chair.

An ongoing joke which I didn’t appreciate until years later circulated among the adults regarding the matzah balls. Who had made them this time? Were they better, more tender, than last year? There were many contenders – Rae, Anna, Helene, Rosel, Bluma, Nina – but no one took credit until the men unanimously agreed that they were the best ever.

My father loved to sing Chad Gadya, although my memory of this may be of later years when he conducted the seder after Abe died and or even after the family split up. He knew a splattering of Hebrew and hardly any of the words, yet he would persist to the end through sustained irrepressible laughter.

My father’s cousin-in-law, Victor Heiner, took immense pleasure in pulling me and my youthful peers aside, digging a finger into one of our ears, and magically extracting a pack of gum or a roll of Life Savers (but never any money).

Back then, the apex of technology was a large camera attached to a lighted t-frame capable of soundless recordings on eight-millimeter film. Of course, it induced all kinds of smiles, waves, and antics that we would revel in weeks later when the finished product was fed through a projector and flashed on a screen.

Even if you had never attended another seder past the age of ten, could you ever forget its timeless language, which suddenly appeared in a novel I was reading, Effingers, by Gabrielle Tergit? It follows three generations of a German-Jewish family from 1880 to 1939, which lends an ominous tone to the following quotations:

“Now we are here; next year may we be in the land of Israel. Now we are slaves; next year may we be free.

“Why is this night different from all other nights?

“And if God, blessed be he, had not brought our forefathers out of Egypt, then we and our children and our children’s children might still have been enslaved to Pharoah in Egypt.

“Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. [‘An eternal truth. A new generation will always arise that is ignorant of the work of past generations.’]

“The mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs.”

But beneath the gaiety, not noticeable to me at the time but evident in retrospect, flowed an undercurrent of unease. Many of these family members did not get along, and while they were doing their best, they could not wholly suppress their little animosities.

My grandfather Ben had little respect for his brother and partner Abe, who was a pillar of the synagogue and an accomplished politician but whom he considered a poor businessman. Similarly, my father Bert was coming to view his cousin Elliot as not as committed to the family business as he was and more interested in using it as springboard to other pursuits. Also, it was never clear to me why their cousin Milton had left the fold to open his own furniture store in Staunton rather than operating it as part of the family business.

Nevertheless, year after year, until they died, all the players would show up, including, for a few years, the next generation, my own children and those of my cousins, before, finally, they no longer had the bonds of business – or religion – to bring them together. As my children intermarried and moved away and my own beliefs underwent a sea change, Passover quietly dropped off my radar. But one of my duties now as your president is to review and approve the congregational “Week in Advance.” And as Rabbi Harley has promised to limit the narrative to sixty minutes, my wife loves County Smoak, and you can’t get a better meal deal anywhere, I’ll be there on April 2^nd to reclaim my past.

TWO SATURDAYS, TWO SANCTUARIES

Struggling for a topic for this month’s Bulletin, on Saturday morning, March 28, at 11:00 a.m., I found myself seated in the fourth pew of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church to witness the Memorial Service of Arthur George Costan.

Founded in 1822, the current gray granite Romanesque version of St. Paul’s at Seventh and Clay Streets opened its doors in 1895. Renovated twice since then, in 1960 and 1999, and featuring a magnificent three-manual Schantz organ, the church has retained the warmth, intimacy, and simplicity that even a wandering Jew can embrace.

Art Costan was an E. C. Glass High School co-graduate (Class of 1965) whose friendship had been recently rekindled. Just last October, at our sixtieth reunion we sat together, shared some past and current histories, and arranged with two other classmates to get together for lunch. And, thanks to Art’s persistence, we did, three times, until his untimely death two days before Thanksgiving. Art had some heart issues, but I was told he choked on a piece of meat, and, living alone, had no one around to help him expel it or call for help.

Many people touch our lives during our eighty-year life span, most like a gust of wind that’s gone before we notice it.

In his remembrance, Art’s brother Jay reminded me that as youngsters Art and I shared an obsession with the Civil War and that we would spend hours at each other’s house poring over the movements of Union and Confederate military units across a topographical board imprinted with the Gettysburg battlefield.

Art’s interest in history earned him a major in the subject at Hampden-Sydney and a Masters at Virginia Tech. Like me – although my field was English literature – Art initially intended to pursue an academic career until lured into his family’s business. But it would not be the Southern Air Heating and Cooling Company that his father founded. Art had another talent that I could never hope to match.

Art took up golf at an early age and captained E. C. Glass’s first team. His love for the game induced him to spurn not only the classroom but also Southern Air in favor of a job on the golf course, Colonial Hills, that his father had developed in the mid-60’s. He never left the place, ultimately purchasing it in 1980.

Art was a man who marched to his own drumbeat. If he was highly educated, with an intellectual bent that would immerse him in books on history, philosophy, and politics, inform his Sunday School classes, and produce a lengthy diatribe to the local newspaper on some current controversy, he gloried in the outdoors. Most days he could be found mowing his fairways, fixing his equipment (whether he had the knowledge or not), roaming the course with his beloved dogs, Birdie and Bogey, or snatching a few dollars from a trio of his many golfing buddies in a collegial four-way Nassau. In his later years, he built his dream home adjacent to his golf course, where, sitting on the porch, he could enjoy a gorgeous view of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Meeting Art for the first time, you would hardly envision him as the consummate golfer who twice in the 80’s claimed the City Championship. His loud, brash voice might put you off until you heard him erupt with a boisterous guffaw at some innocuous comment. Pastel knit shits and pale khakis were not his style. Invariably, he could be spotted hundreds of yards away in either a bold plaid, print, or madras shirt, hat, or pair of slacks, and sometimes in all three. As long as the temperature was above freezing, he wore shorts.

I learn more about Art when, after the service, I wander downstairs to a meeting room for a reception and see an exhibit lining one wall. A series of news articles follows Art’s golfing legacy from his high school and college days through his years of collecting trophies and friends. A collage of photographs reveals Art the family man, including a portrait of him as a child amidst his parents and three siblings and several candid shots of him dancing with his wife Ellen (deceased 2020) and cavorting with his son Marshall.

The final revelation is a small gallery of Art’s landscapes, his rendering of the beauty he saw every day in the natural world. With no professional training, he took up oil painting later in life and produced some masterful works, more evidence that here was a man remarkably gifted and refreshingly free-spirited, whom I was fortunate to know, however fleetingly, at two stages of our lives.

Art’s Memorial Service seemed worthy of commentary not only on its own merits but also because it prompted me to reflect on where I had been exactly one week prior: seated in another sanctuary observing with a similar sense of wonder another service, the Bat Mitzvah of Jaimi O’Keefe at Agudath Sholom.

When I told my wife Barb the night before that I would like to attend this Bat Mitzvah, she asked me why. Since she knows I’m not a religious person, her question was a valid one and not flippantly answered. The best response I could summon was, “Well, I am the president, and, since I don’t have anything better to do, I think it would be a nice gesture. Think of it as a semi-obligation I feel compelled to satisfy. Besides, we have a small congregation, and it’s important to support the family of the Bat Mitzvah if you can.”

When it was over, I deeply regretted that I couldn’t persuade Barb to come with me. Because this Bat Mitzvah was hardly what I expected.

Even though I have been your president for a year, I am embarrassed to admit that there are many members of the congregation whom I don’t know. That’s understandable, since I don’t attend a lot of functions, and when I do show up, I’m not the type of person who will walk up to a stranger and introduce myself. I had never met Jaimi, and if I had passed her on the street or encountered her in the lobby of the synagogue, I would not have recognized her.

So, when I enter the sanctuary on the morning of March 21, take a seat about four rows from the bimah, and scan the congregation, I’m looking for a thirteen-year-old girl, her parents, and a group of her contemporaries who have come to share her achievement. While Jaimi certainly looks young for her age – as does her mother, who is sitting directly in front of me beside her husband (Jaimi’s stepfather) – there’s no mistaking her for the typical Bat Mitzvah once she strides to center stage to lead us in prayer. Her handsome seatmate earns his own quizzical stare from me until I am politely informed that he is Jaimi’s husband.

As I watch Jaimi’s performance unfold – and there’s no other way to describe it – I would have to say that she’s raised the standard for Bar/Bat Mitzvah to a whole new level. I would hate to be poor child whose Agudath Sholom Bar/Bat Mitzvah is next in line.

When Jaimi is called upon to sing or chant, her bright, clear soprano voice resonates through the sanctuary with delicacy and authority. Her mastery of Hebrew is worthy of a lifelong scholar, which is not surprising when I read later that she has an eidetic memory and taught herself to speak Spanish. As she glides back and forth across bimah, she can barely restrain herself from breaking out into some jazzy modern dance. Midway through the service, she delights in extracting a tambourine from the pulpit and urging the audience to shimmer and shake along with her.    

Then Jaimi delivers the coup de grace: not one but three d’var Torah, all related to her passion for preserving the environment but also connected to her Torah and Haftarah readings. In Leviticus, Chapter 19, Verse 9, God tells us not to reap our entire harvest, but to leave some for the stranger. Jaimi tells us that in our materialistic society it’s tempting for people to believe they have the right to own everything, but if we honor the word of God, we understand that we are not the owners of our natural resources, only the stewards and that  it is incumbent on us to leave some to our neighbors.

Jaimi asks why her Torah portion, Kedoshim, the Holiness Code, is in the middle of the Torah. Her answer is that it’s important to live in the middle of our range of experiences, in the present moment so as not to let anxieties about the past or future debilitate us. But just as she hesitates to discard an empty plastic bottle “in the moment” and harm the environment, she acknowledges that it may be desirable to look back and try to learn from past moments, no matter how difficult they might have seemed at the time, and emerge a better person. Thus, the Kedoshim, the middle way, the present moment, acts as a bridge between the person you were and the person you are now or the person you wish to be.

In Jaimi’s Haftarah portion, the prophet Amos predicted the downfall of the Kingdom of Israel, which had been chosen by God to be a model to the world of righteous living. But in accumulating great wealth and power, its people succumbed to materialism, corruption, and immorality and were conquered by the Assyrians. Jaimi finds similar hypocrisy in the behavior of the District of Columbia Water and Sewage Authority which boasted of its clean energy system yet failed to repair a deteriorating pipe which burst in January and released 250 million gallons of sewage into the Chesapeake Bay. Such “empty worship” is all too prevalent in society today. A meaningful life, says Jaimi, is defined not by words but by “good deeds and devotion to God.”

Here, strangely enough, is where these two Saturdays intersect. If one were seeking a man who disdained false gods, rejected materialism, and appreciated the gifts of nature, he could find no better example than my friend Art.

I accost Rabbi Harley at the luncheon reception. “Who is this woman?” He says, “Google Jaimi McPeek.”

Jaimi started taking dance lessons when she was ten. At age fifteen she landed her first part in a Broadway show, Catch Me If You Can. Since then, she has been in over a dozen musicals, including Sweet Charity, The Addams Family, and Into The Woods. At seventeen she launched her film career and has appeared in over twenty theater and television movies, including Dream Factory and Grouper Week. She models and has been published in six magazines. She has studied astronomy and chemistry and taught herself quantum physics. She works out every day and enjoys scuba diving. Since moving to Lynchburg, she has worked in environmentalism and is now enrolled in veterinary school.

That’s enough for a lifetime. And she’s only a third of my age.

The only thing missing from her resume is President of Agudath Sholom. There’s an election coming up this month, and if Jaimi’s interested, the position just might be available.