JHUniversity Graduation, Golf Outing, Employee Service Awards and MORE

Dear friends,

There is nothing better than an opportunity to celebrate and this week we celebrated with both residents and staff! On Thursday we had the 2019 graduation of Jewish Home University. This is a program of education that takes place throughout the academic year with lectures on a wide variety of topics. Our resident students love this program and are eager to participate and ask questions. For graduation we hold a formal ceremony complete with caps and gowns. We have a keynote speaker and a valedictorian as well. And, of course, at the end of the ceremony our students take off their caps and throw them high into the air! It is such a wonderful program and each of our graduates has both a sense of accomplishment and a commitment to continuous learning.

We also had our annual Employee Service Awards event this week. We recognize staff for their years of service in five year increments, beginning at the five year mark. We hold a beautiful dinner complete with dancing and staff members brought along a guest to enjoy the evening with them. It’s always such a wonderful event and it is great to see both the employees, and their guests, beaming with pride. We recognized 51 staff members for a total of 595 years of service. I have the great privilege of presenting the awards to the staff members and it is so wonderful to congratulate each one of them. In many instances these honorees told me how much they love the Jewish Home and how happy they are to be a member of our team and a member of our family. I hope you take a second to look at the slideshow, those smiles are really heartwarming!

And, of course, we began the week with one of our wonderful annual events—the 2019 Golf, Tennis and Card Outing! Monday was a beautiful day at Montammy Golf Club and we had record numbers of golfers, tennis players and card players. We celebrated the 25th anniversary of the event and we also recognized a wonderful honoree, Howard Chernin. Howard has been an active member of the Golf Committee for a number of years and he will be joining the Jewish Home Foundation Board this year as well. It was a great day, a great event and wonderful to see so much support for the Jewish Home Family. Thanks to our generous sponsors, the hardworking committee and the dedicated Foundation staff for making this such a memorable day and evening. (Photos here)

Other highlights at the Jewish Home at Rockleigh include the annual Myrna and Alan Cohen Spring Yiddish concert which was held on Sunday. Residents and visitors were delighted by a performance by the David Glukh Klezmer Ensemble. On Monday we began our new semester of Opening Minds through Art and, as always, it was a great program. We also had Karaoke Fun and a meeting of the Women’s Club. Tuesday included Tai Chi, drum circle and some lively table topic discussions in the morning and a program on Shavuot traditions in the afternoon. Wednesday’s “Community Choice” program was on famous faces which included Jimmy Cagney, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Glenn Miller, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and the Andrews Sisters. Residents loved talking about these celebrities and watching clips of some of their films. We ended the week on Friday with dancercise as well as fun and games and in the afternoon, in recognition of the 41st annual Superman celebration (amazing the things our staff knows!) we had a movie matinee featuring the film “Superman!”

In the Gallen Day Center, participants enjoyed music and dancing on Monday followed by a lively “Price is Right” in the afternoon. Tuesday featured another session of our specialized Parkinson’s program with both boxing and a session of Delay the Disease. Wednesday included our Resident Council meeting, trivia fun and another session of our innovative “buddy” program that pairs participants of varying ability levels. Thursday included our Women’s group and another session of Opening Minds through Art. We also enjoyed a session of “Laugh Active,” a new program that we’ve just been trained in, made possible by a grant from the Parkinson’s Foundation. And we closed the week on Friday with boxing and a “music circle” in the morning followed by our monthly Ice Cream Social and music!

Jewish Home Assisted Living residents enjoyed a Sunday program with Rabbi Korenblit entitled “Yom Yerushalayim—Celebrating Israel” which he offered in both assisted living and Memory Lane. On Monday we had fun with “Mind Joggers,” which this week used puzzles that everyone loved. We also enjoyed a visit from Sisters in Spirit and a lively conversation in Memory Lane on “Dear Abby.” We had fun sharing some of the questions that were posed to Abby and determining whether we would have answered them the same way! On Tuesday we had fun with a lecture about Marilyn Monroe which included “46 interesting facts” about her, concluding with Elton John’s dedication of “Candle in the Wind” to her. We followed that with a screening of the film “Some Like it Hot.” Memory Lane’s topic of the day was the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage and that engendered some great conversation. On Wednesday we took a full bus of residents to watch the Rockland Boulders play. It was a tight game that went into extra innings and we cheered loudly when the Boulders pulled out the win! We also had book club and this week’s book was “The Alice Network” by Kate Quinn. Thursday morning we presented one of our residents with a patriotic bouquet of roses to honor the 75th anniversary of D-Day. Lou Tekel was part of the aviation crew and his job was to be the ball turret gunner. He shared memories and stories with staff and residents. We also took a bus trip with Memory Lane residents to enjoy some ice cream and, of course, everyone did! On Friday, Professor Ian Drake was with us to talk about “Our Trade War with China and its Consequences” and Rabbi Korenblit hosted a program entitled “Women who Ruled.”

This was a blog week for me and here is the link: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/on-recognition/

As always, your feedback is welcome.

All the best,

Carol Silver Elliott
President/CEO
The Jewish Home Family