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Husband and wife team of Russel and Rori Picker Neiss bringing different aspects of Jewish learning to Limmud Winnipeg
By MYRON LOVE Rori Picker and Rusell Neiss say they are excited about their upcoming first visit to Winnipeg. The couple, Jewish educators – originally from New York, who have been living and working in St. Louis for the past ten years – will be here on the weekend of March 9-10 – as presenters at our community’s 14th annual Limmud Fest.
Russel Neiss is promising Limmud attendees that those attending his presentation will be in the first audience to view the digitized version of “The Story of Purim,” an award winning Jewish educational filmstrip which is part of a recently rediscovered lost cache produced by the NY Bureau of Jewish Education in the 1950s.
“We’ll view the slides and table-read the script together as we see how much the field of Jewish engagement and education has (and hasn’t) changed over the last 70 year,” notes Russel Neiss.
Russel is a 2005 graduate of City University of New York. The recipient – in 2020, of the prestigious Covenant Award (which recognizes educators who have made a noticeable impact on Jewish lives through innovative educational practices and models), served for several years as vice-principal of a Jewish day school in the New York area.
In 2014, Russel changed careers. He became a software engineer specializing in the development of software programming for Jewish educators for an organization called Sefaria. The nonprofit organization is dedicated to digitizing the entire body of Jewish religious writings in order to make them available so that anyone can engage with the textual treasures of our tradition.
“A couple of years ago,” he reports, “I came across a cache of film strips produced by the New York Bureau of Jewish Education in the 1950s. These films would have been shown to students in the 1950s and ‘60s. They have not been viewed for more than 60 years.”
At Limmud, he will be showing a film called “The Story of Purim.” “We’ll view the slides and table-read the script together as we see how much the field of Jewish engagement and education has (and hasn’t) changed over the years,” he says.
His second presentation – on Sunday afternoon – will focus on “what the atheist computer scientist Richard Stallman can teach us about how Torah learning can thrive in the world today while delving into the interplay between Hacker Culture, the Free Software Movement and the teachings of great Jewish thinkers like Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein and Rebbe Nachman of Breslov.”
Rori Picker Neiss will also be doing two presentations – one of which will be a study of leadership as exhibited by Moshe Rabbenu in the matter of the Golden Calf. For those who may not know or remember the story in the Torah, some days after leaving Egypt, Moshe climbed Mount Sinai to commune with Hashem. After some time had gone by and he didn’t return, the frightened Hebrews, believing that he wasn’t coming back, gathered together everything they had that was made of gold and created a golden calf to worship – an act of blasphemy that resulted in severe divine consequences – including the Israelites having to wander in the desert for 40 years until the last of the offending generation had died out.
“What we can take away from this episode,” Rori observes, “and what Hashem made clear to Moshe- is that leadership is not about the leader and fame and glory. Leadership should be about doing what is in the best interests of the people.”
Her second presentation will be an exploration of what the early rabbis thought about Jesus and Christianity as seen through a censored Rabbinic passage.
Rori Picker Reiss has the distinction of being one of the first half dozen Orthodox women to be ordained – through the Yeshivat Maharat organization – founded in 2009 – to serve as clergy.
“I welcomed the opportunity to study Talmud and our religious texts,” she says of her decision to enroll in the Maharat program. ‘My ordination presented me with a number of different ways to serve our community.”
In St. Louis Maharat Rori served as Director of Programming, Education and Community Engagement at the modern Orthodox Bais Abraham Congregation. She was also Rabbi in Residence at Holy Communion Episcopal Church, chair of the cabinet of Interfaith partnership of Greater St. Louis and a member of the Board of Trustees for the Parliament of the World’s Religions.
Previously, she worked as acting Executive Director for Religions for Peace-USA, program coordinator for the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, assistant director of Interreligious Affairs for the American Jewish Committee, and secretary for the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations.
While there may be some among the Orthodox community who may be uncomfortable with the concept of women serving as clergy, Rori reports that she was generally well-received in St. Louis and was able to build many relationships both within the Orthodox and the wider communities.
Rori and Russel have recently moved back to New York City where Rori has been appointed the Senior Vice-President for Community Relations for the Jewish Council for Public affairs.
For more information about this year’s Limmud and to register, please visit www.limmudwinnipeg.org or contact coordinator@limmudwinnipeg.org or 204-557-6260
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Talented Winnipeg composer Sara Kreindler teams up with her mother Reena Kreindler to create new satirical show to premiere here in May
By BERNIE BELLAN It’s been many years since I’ve heard from Sara Kreindler. Sara’s name first appeared in The Jewish Post & News in 2002 when a satirical musical titled “A Touch of Class” was reviewed by the late Arnold Ross. That particular production featured songs from popular Broadway shows that touched upon themes such as “greed, poverty, oppression, and social unrest.”
When she appeared in that show, Ross noted, Kreindler had just recently returned to Winnipeg from England, where she had obtained a doctorate in Social Psychology from Oxford University.
While at Oxford, Kreindler found time to compose a satirical musical titled “Charity,” which played to rave reviews there, and was performed five times.
Continuing in the theme of writing satirical musicals, Sara has now teamed up with her mother, Reena, to write a new musical titled “A Perfect Man,” which is set to run at the Gargoyle Theatre from May 6-17.
According to a press release we received, “A Perfect Man” is “a satirical musical, set on a fictional analogue of ‘The Bachelor’.
“The story follows an anthropologist who arrives to research TV’s hottest reality-dating show — only to discover she’s been made a contestant, and the bachelor is her high school crush. Past and present collide against an exuberant pastiche score that uses vintage musical styles to highlight modern absurdities.”
“Praised as ‘a musician [who] can make biofuels funny’ (CBC), Sara is known for whip-smart satire on a panoply of topics. Her digital musical, ‘Larry Saves the Canadian Healthcare System, created during her former life as an academic, has garnered over 84,000 YouTube views. Naturally, she had a field day with the subject of reality dating.
“The topic just begs for campy zaniness, which I think we all need in these times — but also for a more cerebral critique of what these shows say about the culture that spawned them,” says Kreindler. And thanks to the romance context, the satire is woven into a deeper, more personal story. “It’s satire with a heart.”
Here is some more information about Sara Kreindler, taken from a 2009 article I wrote about her:
“Born in Israel, Sara’s precocious talent was nurtured by her mother, Reena, whose own particular talent is literary, not musical. According to Reena, however, Sara was singing from the time she was a baby, and she began to study piano at the age of four.
“As a young girl, Sara began writing her own songs and poems, along with the “occasional musical”, notes Reena. Yet, Sara’s rare talent put her at odds with the typical interests of other children her own age, on top of which she attended a school to which she was exposed to a fair degree of antisemtism.
“As a result, Sara says, being bullied was a common aspect of her childhood. On one occasion, when she was nine, she notes, Sara fought back against one particular bully by reciting the following little ditty:
“I write so many epigrams to you that all the people laugh.
I’m tired of writing epigrams.
I want to write your epitaph!”
“Sara went on to compose a musical titled ‘Flutesong’ while she was a student at Vincent Massey Collegiate, she says. After doing her undergraduate work at the University of Manitoba, majoring in Psychology, Sara won a Rhodes Scholarship to attend Oxford University.
“Sara eventually earned a doctorate in Social Psychology and returned to Winnipeg, where she began teaching at the University of Manitoba, but she said she didn’t enjoy the “mass production” style of teaching upwards of 300 students at a time, so she switched careers and began doing health research for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority.”
All the while Sara has been continuing to compose and perform her own songs, often teaming up with her mother, as she has for “A Perfect Man.”
Showtimes and ticket information for The Perfect Man are available at:
http://www.thegargoyletheatre.com/upcoming-events/the-perfect-man
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Rabbi Kliel Rose to leave Congregation Etz Chayim for new post in Ottawa
The following email from Congregation Etz Chayim Executive Director Morissa Granove was sent to members of the congregation on Friday, April 10:
“Dear Members and Friends,
“As we know, Rabbi Kliel recently spent a weekend with Kehilllat Beth Israel where he has since been offered a position. After much thought and consideration, he has made the decision to sign a contract in Ottawa. He will continue to lead our congregation through Yom Kippur.
“This news marks a significant ending for our Etz Chayim community, and at the same time with change comes opportunity. Congregation Etz Chayim will soon embark on our own Rabbinical search with excitement as we look for our perfect candidates and explore the new possibilities that will help us to continue to shape a strong future for our synagogue and members.”
Kliel Rose took up the position of rabbi at Etz Chayim in August, 2018.
In an article announcing his appointment to the position in the June 6, 2018 issue of The Jewish Post & News, Myron Love wrote:
The congregation has been without a permanent rabbi since last summer when Rabbi Larry Lander chose to retire – after ten years here – and relocate to Toronto.
Kliel Rose is already a well-seasoned rabbi. He was ordained in 2004 by the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.
He previously served as spiritual leader at the West End Synagogue in Nashville and Temple Enamu-El in Miami Beach. His current posting is Beth Shalom Synagogue in Edmonton.
Following the example of his parents, Kliel Rose has been active in interfaith dialogue and human rights work for which he was honoured in 2014 with the Human Rights Hero Award by Truah: The Rabbibic Call for Human Rights.
He has also participated in the Kellogg Management Education for Jewish Leaders program at Northwestern University and was most recently chosen to be among 20 rabbis from different denominations chosen to train in the Clergy leadership Incubator – a two-year program, under the leadership of Ranni Sidney Schwarz, intended to educate younger rabbis in innovative thinking, change management and institutional transformation.
In Edmonton, Rose also served as Jewish chaplain at the University of Alberta and took the lead on a program called “Faith and Inclusion”, whose mandate was to support individuals with cognitive and physical learning challenges to feel more welcome within various faith communities.