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Meet Adele, Resident of The Selfhelp Home
By volunteer, Beverly Frank
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"If God gives you the years, you live." Adele Bernstein
Adele's devoted father, Oscar Shore, taught her to live by these enduring words. Born in Philadelphia in 1914, she's a proud 102 years young. After losing her mother at the young age of 5, her father vowed to raise his only daughter with care, love and deeply rooted Jewish values. With the help of doting grandparents and Sadye, an older cousin mentor, Adele became a very smart, independent woman.
Adele and her father moved to the west side of Chicago. She graduated from Marshall High School and found an executive secretarial job in a real estate office. A friend introduced her to her future husband, Norman Bernstein, a fine man who sold dry goods. Adele stills recalls their first date with a twinkle in her eye. "We double dated, saw Bob Hope's very first movie and met at Chicago's Avalon Theatre (79th and Stony Island)." They married in 1940, raised two wonderful children and has six grandchildren and five great grandchildren. Adele feels grateful for the fulfilling life she's lived with her late husband and family.
Adele believes she's experienced both bad and good luck in her life. The bad luck was losing her mom at a tender, vulnerable age. Her good luck was in having a father, husband, and family who embraced her. She describes her thoughts, "My late husband, son, and daughter are my lucky dividends." Adele truly lives each day, participating in art and poetry classes. She also enjoys meeting new people and has many visitors. She expressed her life today as part of the Selfhelp Home community: "I am fortunate to not live in an institution, but in a special place that truly feels like home. The staff is very caring, and I'm so very lucky to live at the Selfhelp Home."
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All of us at
The Selfhelp Home wish you and your family a joyous Passover.
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A Special Passover Message
By Jonathan Schwartz, Director of Jewish Life
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The term
"Seder Pesach" once meant the Order of the Passover Sacrifice in the Temple. But after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the Rabbis created the antecedent of our modern Seder, modeling it after the Greco-Roman symposium (
sym-together,
posium-drinking wine). At these Hellenistic banquets, guests would recline on divans while servants poured them wine, washed their hands and served light appetizers and dips before a lavish meal. The guests would then engage in a philosophical debate, after which the meal was served.
So is the Passover
Seder really just a Jewish version of the Greco-Roman symposium? The
Seder has its origin in the times of the Mishnah (circa 200 CE) after the destruction of the Temple. Before then, Jews ate the Passover sacrifice with
matzah and
maror, and told the story of the Exodus. But much of the ritual we know as the
Seder did not exist. The four cups of wine, reclining and most of text are all of rabbinic origin.
Did the Rabbis intentionally copy the symposium in creating the
Seder? The answer is a nuanced "no." They incorporated the Biblically prescribed observance into a "contemporary" form, an elaborate banquet employing the customs of the day.
The Rabbis' "new" Seder evolved into a banquet for Passover: much wine (four cups), appetizers and dips (
karpas and salt water), reclining on pillows, having our hands ceremonially washed by others, and most importantly, a philosophical discussion of the story of the Exodus, expanding on questions of freedom and justice, followed by a feast. The Rabbis wanted Pesach to be an experience of freedom and affluence--thus they chose to borrow the dining habit of their aristocratic contemporaries. The goal was to act like free people, and that is how free people of their time engaged in festive meals. Rabbi Dr. Joshua Kulp notes
When the rabbis of the Mishnah wished to create a banquet meal to replace the sacrificial ritual lost when the Temple was destroyed, they did so in a form which was recognizable to them as the proper way to conducting a meal, all the while ensuring that they achieved their ultimate goals of studying Torah and recalling the Exodus. Indeed, we witness here a classic example of typical Greco-Roman practices (questions at a banquet) being combined syncretically with midrashic readings of the Torah (the child should ask the question). In contrast, children would not have participated in a typical Greco-Roman banquet. For the rabbis, a question to open the meal would affix their innovative practice of an ordered meal to their constitutive text - the Torah - all the while being recognized by people living at their time as the proper way of stimulating discussion at a meal.
(The Schechter Haggadah. p. 196):
This is a fundamental difference. Whereas the Greco-Roman symposium was for rich men of the ruling class only, our Seder is for all people, including, of course, woman and even the youngest children. All are invited to eat like royalty, to ask questions and express opinions. Alongside the wine of the wealthy, however, we also eat Matzah, the bread of poverty and affliction. The needy must be invited to share our meal. While we rejoice in our liberation and freedom, we must always remember that the Seder encourage us to savor our liberty without exploiting or excluding others.
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The Gift Shop is blooming come and
see our new gifts for Spring!
We are also looking for volunteers to work in the Gift Shop during the week and Sunday's from 1-4pm. Contact us at info@selfhelphome.org for more information.
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Celebrating the Arts Event
Join us for a delightful brunch at Lloyd's Chicago Restaurant, followed by a matinee performance of the classic Broadway hit, "My Fair Lady" at The Lyric Opera just across the street from Lloyd's. Individual tickets are $225, which includes brunch, bar and the performance. $175 for children 16 and under. Bring the family and celebrate with Selfhelp!
Look out for your invitation soon or visit us online in the next few weeks to purchase your tickets online. For more information regarding reservations or sponsorship email Jeryl Levin at jlevin@selfhelphome.org. The deadline is April 24th.
Thank you to our generous donors who already purchased tickets.
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The Family Resource Group is an ongoing support group at the Selfhelp Home open to all family members with loved ones residing at our home. The group meets on a regular basis every other Monday to share experiences, problems or challenges we are facing and help each other overcome or manage them. Members helping members is the core strategy, and can be a valuable supplement to professional services. Topics include how to take care of yourself while caring for your loved one, dealing with guilt and or loneliness following a move, role reversal in the parent/child relationship, preparing for end of life and resources what's available and where to find them and lastly practical issues regarding quality of life.
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Selfhelp Commemorates Holocaust Remembrance Day
All are welcome to join
- 2pm -Commemoration Ceremony, readings, music and candle lighting.
- 6pm -Selfhelp will show a screening of the award winning documentary Refuge: Stories of the Selfhelp Home.
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On Television! Refuge: Stories of the Selfhelp Home
The award winning documentary,
Refuge produced and directed by our board member, Ethan Bensinger, will once again be televised nationwide during the month of Holocaust Remembrance Day, sharing our story and the story of those that live here.
Refuge will air in Chicago on WTTW-WORLD Channel April 23rd at 10pm, April 24th at 10am & April 25th at 5pm. (Comcast-369, RCN-38 and AT&T Dish -56).
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What's Happening At Selfhelp
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Happy Birthday to all our residents celebrating a Birthday in April!
Lilian Kaufer
Michael West
Becky Polonsky
Annette Pfeffer
Barbara Wonzy
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Editha Salta
Efredal Wolfram
Phyllis Toback
Zoralyn Stahl
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Meet The Newest Selfhelp Team Member
Meet Benna Kessler, LSW, our new Director of Social Services. Benna is a native of North Carolina, and has lived in Chicago for the past 10 years, since moving here to attend the University of Chicago as an undergraduate. She received her MSW at the University of Michigan School of Social Work, where she focused on aging and participated in a geriatric scholarship program. She has worked as a program aide at a day center for adults with dementia, and in several skilled nursing and long-term care facilities as a social worker. She is fluent in Yiddish, loves to travel, and has spent time living in France as a volunteer farmer. She is thrilled to join the Selfhelp Home team.
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Honorable
MENSCHens
- A special thank you goes out to Larry and Donna Mayer for making it possible for several of our residents to attend the performance of DEFIANT REQUIEM.
- A special thank you goes out to Shoshana Dorman for her generousity in coordinating an outing with several residents to see the performance of Bye Bye Hamen, a Purim Scphele at Niles Township Ezra Habonim in Skokie, and the Glenbrook North High School performance of Beauty and the Beast.
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Our Mission Statement
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The Selfhelp Home provides older adults the highest quality of care in a culturally rich Jewish environment. Selfhelp of Chicago, founded in 1938, subsequently established a refuge for Holocaust survivors. Today Selfhelp honors its legacy of empathy and state-of-the-art care as an urban, independent non-profit home offering the continuum of services fro residential living to skilled nursing.
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