Los Angeles Jewish Home

We have a remarkable legacy here at the Los Angeles Jewish Home: for nearly a century, we have been providing exceptional care for elderly men and women in Los Angeles. It began in 1912 when a small group of caring Angelenos gave shelter and hope to five homeless Jewish men at Passover.

In 2011, Passover continues to have special meaning for the Home. Last week, for the 99th year in a row, we celebrated Passover. On the second night, we opened our home to residents, families, and anyone around the community for our traditional Los Angeles Community Seder. Word of this special Seder spread far enough so that USC graduate student Benjamin Gottlieb decided to cover the event in the USC Annenberg School of Communications blog, Neon Tommy.

Check out the video report he made!


Also, take a look the photo album by Andy Holzman of our Community Seder on the Daily News website!

We'd like to extend a huge thank you to Benjamin for stopping by and producing some great footage, to the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism for including our tradition on their school's blog, and to Rabbi Rita Hertzberg for leading an amazing Seder.

Labels: Andy Holzman, Annenberg, Benjamin Gottlieb, Blog, Community, Cross Post, Daily News, Hertzberg, Media, Neon Tommy, Passover, Pesach, Photos, Report, Seder, Seniors, USC, Video, Vimeo

Cross posted from the Daily News.


By Al Martinez, Columnist

The came like an army of saints, sometimes in multiples and sometimes one at a time.

Their mission was simple but compelling: to get us through a time of grief and anxiety.

I sing today of the Skirball Hospice program, medical personnel and volunteers working out of Encino to bring comfort to the dying and their families, in their homes, in rest homes or in hospitals.

They came to our house when doctors and chemo and machines could do no more for our daughter Cindy, who died last week of cancer.

Their job wasn't to keep her alive but to ease her gently into heaven without pain or the discomforts that often attend a person's last days. They bathed her, medicated her, prayed for her and held her hand.

One can imagine that kind of caring on a battlefield where a solder lay dying of his wounds in the blood and dust of combat, and being cared for by a medic or a hospital corpsman, because cancer too is a ruthless and mighty enemy with killing fields of its own.

The concept of hospice care is rooted in the 11th century as an element of moral compulsion to tend the terminally ill. Skirball Hospice began in Los Angeles in 2001 as a program for the Jewish Home funded in part by the Skirball Foundation. Its services are offered to the terminally ill and families 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Caring never sleeps.

We knew of them from Cindy's doctor, who recommended that she be placed under home hospice care, which is what she wanted, close to the things she loved, including three cats, Tigger, Sarah and Star, who rarely left her side.

A social worker came first, explained the insurance-covered, nondenominational program and then was followed by a multicultural army of nurses, assistant medical personnel, bathers, various other attendants and a rabbi. They were African-American, Asian, Latino, Russian and Caucasian. It didn't matter to them what our ethnic mix was. It never matters at Skirball.

Then came the drugs at various times, the morphine and tranquilizers and whatever else was required to sedate our daughter in her final weeks and to keep her free from pain. There came a hospital bed, too, a portable toilet, oxygen and items I've probably missed in the bustle of the process.

Some staff members appeared in person periodically and others as needed, responding to telephone calls deep into the night. They were there for us all in the final days of Cindy's life, holding our hand as well as hers.

When it became clear that the final moment was approaching, they sent a woman to bathe her and sit by her side until the night and the essence of Cindy merged at 1:35 a.m. I will be ever grateful to the hospice group members for the grace and gentility they displayed in guiding her into eternity. They are special.

Al Martinez writes a column on Mondays and Fridays. He can be reached at almtz13@aol.com.


Read the original column here.

Labels: Al Martinez, Cancer, Caregiving, Cross Post, Daily News, For the Spirit, Hospice Care, Jewish Home Services, medical staff, nurses, Palliative Care, Skirball Hospice, Staff, Volunteer

One of our very own Jewish Home residents holds a record with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Nettie Berkson, 95, has been to every home opening game since the franchise moved to LA in 1958. Although this year Nettie will be spending the game at the Jewish Home, her 52-year streak was certainly one for the books. As a matter of fact, it was so impressive, the Dodgers actually wrote a story about it.

"When the Dodgers came out in 1958, I became a Dodgers fan and went to the first Opening Day at the Coliseum," Berkson said. "Baseball was a good reason to go out. I bought season tickets the year Dodger Stadium opened [1962] and have had them every year, but gave them up this year because it's gotten hard for me to do. I guess I'm a lifetime fan -- I'm 95 years and still going."

 This isn't the first time Netti's dedication to her home team was noticed by the media. Prior to attending her 50th opening game in 2007, she was covered by both the Daily News and the Wall Street Journal.

Nettie is one of the many remarkable residents here at the Jewish Home.

Nettie Berkson and family with Dodgers owner Frank McCourt in 2010.

Labels: Cross Post, Daily News, Dodgers, Nettie Berkson, Opening Game, Remarkable Residents, Residents, Sports, Staff, Wall Street Journal

Cross posted from the Daily News.


By Dennis McCarthy

The story goes that the rabble rouser was having breakfast with her husband one morning soon after arriving at the Jewish Home for the Aging when the wiseguy sitting at the next table came over and introduced himself.
"I'm Harry Schackman," the wiseguy said.
"I'm Dorothy Creager and this is my husband, Morty," the rabble rouser replied. "Nice to meet you."
Harry sat down and spent the next half-hour filling them in on their new digs and all the gossip. When he got ready to leave, he turned and said to Morty kiddingly, "Watch your wife, I'm madly in love with her."
Now most guys would have told the wiseguy where to go, making a pass like that, even kidding, but Morty just smiled.
If he had a buck for every time some guy told him his wife was a knockout and he'd better keep an eye on her, Morty would have been a millionaire.
"The guy's a nut case, Morty," Dorothy said, watching Harry walk back to his table.
Within days, though, the rabble rouser, her husband, and the wiseguy were fast friends. Their rooms at the home were right next door to each other.
After Harry would visit his wife of 70 years, Belle, who was ill and living in another section of the home, they would all hang out together.
One day, about six years ago, an ailing Morty asked Harry to make good on the wisecrack he made the first day they met.
"I'm going, Harry," Morty said. "Take care of my wife."
A month later, Morty died. Soon after that, Harry's wife, Belle, passed away.
"After a few months, Harry asked me out to dinner," Dorothy says, "I was so nervous. I hadn't dated in 62 years. We went to some nice restaurants. He wined and dined me. He was a real gentleman."
They'd eat and talk about their lives. Dorothy showed Harry an old column I had written about her 19 years ago when she was a 71-year-old student at Cal State Northridge working on a degree in psychology.
Dorothy wanted to start a fraternity/sorority for senior citizens on campus. Someplace they could go to blow off some steam after a hard day in class.
Why should the kids have all the fun, she said? Seniors needed a social life on campus, too.
"Morty and I went to one of the sorority dances and everyone thought we were the chaperones," Dorothy told me back in 1992.
Her Animal House for seniors never got off the ground, but Dorothy's reputation as a rabble rouser was born. After graduating, she began teaching classes at senior retirement homes for the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Harry's background, on the other hand, is a little shadier. His son, Ed Schackman, says his dad was "a street wise guy from Cleveland and later Detroit."
"He hustled for a living, knew guys in the Jewish mafia and spent a lot of time in Vegas in the early years. He drove a lot of guys around."
Let's just leave it at that, says Ed, who threw a big shindig recently for his dad's 100th birthday and Dorothy's 90th - inviting both families.
That's the short story on the rabble rouser and the wiseguy. The long story is that they're an item over at the home these days.
Harry had to move a block away to another section of the home for health reasons, but Dorothy visits him every day.
"We're company for each other, care for each other," She says. "Our families want us to be happy and we are."
So, in the end, the wiseguy turns out to be a stand-up guy - keeping his promise to Morty.
Watching out for his wife, the rabble rouser.
Dennis McCarthy's column appears in the Los Angeles Daily News on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. You can e-mail him at dennis.mccarthy@dailynews.com.


Read the original story here.

Labels: Aging, Around the Home, Couples, Creager, Daily News, Dennis McCarthy, Eisenberg Village, Love, Marriage, Residents, Romance, Senior Living, Sexuality, Staff

Dennis McCarthy, a columnist for the Daily News in Los Angeles, stopped by the Los Angeles Jewish Home the other day to hear the remarkable life story of one of our residents. Abe Daniels, a brand new resident and veteran of the Second World War, was a Marine pilot on the Pacific front.


Read the entire story here.

Labels: Around the Home, Daily News, Daniels, Dennis McCarthy, Feb 7, Friendship, Staff, Veteran, Weinbaum, WWII