Los Angeles Jewish Home

In 2007, Blaine Handell and Paul Grossman combined their musical talents – Blaine’s vocal styling and Paul’s keyboard mastery – to form the Blaine and Paul Duo. Their first performance was on August 7th of that year at the Jewish Home. On March 26, 2013, the duo celebrated their 1,000th performance. They currently perform five shows weekly – four at the Home and one at various senior care facilities. “I’m 72 and feel like I’m sitting on top of the world,” says Blaine. “We’re volunteers, but we’re well paid - just seeing the residents smile is all we need!” Paul agrees, adding “It gives us great joy because this is the perfect audience for the songs that we love to perform – from the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s. It’s rewarding and great fun!”

On behalf of the residents and staff of the Los Angeles Jewish Home, thank you to the Blaine and Paul Duo for sharing your talents and making us smile!

Labels: Blaine and Paul, For the Spirit, Music, Performance, Volunteer

Community Service Brings Jewish Home Residents and Crespi High Students Together

Recently residents of the Los Angeles Jewish Home shared music, card games, and conversation with over 60 students from Crespi Carmelite High School, a 4-year college preparatory school located in Encino. The school offers young men a Christian education in a Catholic environment. The students – all sophomores – spent time with residents of the Goldenberg●Ziman Special Care Unit and the Factor Skilled Nursing Building at Eisenberg Village as part of the school’s community service program, known as IMPACT week. “We take this time to give back to the community, which also provides great experience and an opportunity for growth for our students,” said vice principal Brian Banducci. “We enjoy seeing our boys rise to the occasion.”

Ann Sayre, a parent volunteer, accompanied one of the groups to the Home. “Unless they have elderly grandparents, it’s hard for the students to know what’s going on in this community,” she said. “Now they can see how helpful they can be and how much it means to the residents. With very little effort, they can make a difference in someone’s day!”

The students gave their visit with the Home’s residents a rave review. “We talked about our families, we sang together…it was a lot of fun!” said one student. When another student was asked what he learned from the experience, his answer was simple: “Patience” - a virtue we should all aspire to.

Resident Dorothy Marquis played Monopoly with some of the students. “They are so darling!” she exclaimed. “Spending time together gives them insight into the lives of seniors, and it made me feel young!”

Thank you to the students, faculty and parents of Crespi Carmelite High School including the residents of the Jewish Home as part of their inspiring IMPACT week.

To learn more about volunteering at the Jewish Home, please contact Stacy Orbach, director of volunteer services, at (818) 757-4442 or Stacy.Orbach@jha.org.

Labels: Board Games, Crespi Carmelite High School, Eisenberg Village, Factor Skilled Nursing Building, Goldenberg-Ziman, IMPACT Week, Volunteer

From the Spring 2011 version of The Chai Journal


By Jewish Home Resident Helen Bragar, 84


You can start perking up the doldrums by attending the exercise class with Shelly, the T'ai Chi class with Greg, or the Chair Yoga class with Rosemary (my favorite). Norm and I have been at the Jewish Home for about four months, and we're enjoying ourselves immensely. After thirty or more years of not knitting, under Arts & Crafts Director Radka Falk's care and supervision, I've already made two baby blankets for two great-grandchildren. We knitters and crocheters have a great time joking, laughing, and/or gossiping any day of the week — except Shabbas, of course. If you don't have plans to make something for your family, fabulous Radka will find something for you to do. Her favorite words, "Keep knitting," are heard at least five times a day. Norman has returned to painting after twenty-three years. Now it's hard to keep him away from his easel. He has completed two paintings and has three others in the works.

The volunteers who work in the Arts & Crafts room are amazing. For knitting on Monday there are Sandy E., Sue Madeline, Bernice, Laura, and Marlene. For the artists on Tuesday, there is Beverly, who teaches, plus Sylvia, Iris, and Lucille. For knitters on Wednesday there is Sandy K., who teaches, plus Minnie Mollie, Shirley, Esther, Joanne, Leigh, and Nan (who brings luscious desserts for the class). For the Thursday Ceramics class there are Charo, Rose, Joan, and Elsie. And on Friday mornings, there is Radka for baking delicious mandel broit that is sold in the dining room.

Activity Director Caryl Geiger heads our Drama Group, our Choir, wonderful memory classes, and is in charge of lunch, movie, theater, and museum outings, as well as obtaining wonderful entertainers for Sunday afternoons. She also arranges get-togethers with school children. It's always refreshing to see and be with smart young people. Different types of fun word, vocabulary, and trivia games are led by our other Activity Director, Jacqui Lewinter. She is in charge of theater and concert outings on Sundays and heads our Chai Journal Committee. Jacqui's in-depth knowledge, coupled with her sense of humor, makes her "Hooray for Hollywood" classes a real crowd pleaser. She also heads the Movie Committee, and most recently added the Library Committee to her schedule.

Then there's the Men's Group, now headed by resident David Glicker, which offers monthly discussion meetings as well as lunch outings and other outside activities such as recently attending a taping of "Wheel of Fortune."

You are missing a wonderful experience if you don't spend Thursday mornings with Joel Lish. Joel, a former music teacher, is an accomplished viola player who has unlimited knowledge about composers, the history of music, and performers. he spends close to an hour playing and then showing either a movie or an opera on the screen. Sometimes he invites other musicians to perform with him and has performed with his orchestra on Sunday afternoons.

Not to be missed are the informative lecture/discussion sessions led by Rabbi Sheldon Pennes and Rabbi Rita Hertzberg. There is a Yiddish Group led by volunteer Murray Kaplan, and, of course, there's Bingo several times a week hosted by residents Ira Durlester and Jeanette Schlesinger, or Ellis Simon, or sponsored by outside organizations.

If none of the above can get you involved, you can always scrounge up players for mah jongg, bridge, Rummikub, gin rummy, Scrabble, or backgammon on your own. There are probably some activities which I am unaware of and left out, or try a new one that you've never tried before. Please get yourself out and do something. Socializing has been proven beneficial to us senior citizens.

Helen & Norman Bragar

The Chai Journal is a quarterly publication written entirely by residents at the Los Angeles Jewish Home.

Labels: Activities, Arts and Crafts, Bingo, Bragar, Caryl Geiger, Chai Journal, Choir, crochet, Cross Post, Drama, Jacqui Lewinter, knitting, Men's Group, painting, Socializing, T'ai Chi, Volunteer, Yoga

The quote in the title line was said by Jewish Home resident Ellis Simon. Now 87, he's been living here for around 11 years! Granted, he's been saying that for quite some time now, but we finally caught it on tape.

Labels: Donate, Freedom, Gift, Jewish Home, Online Donation, Philanthropy, Residents, Simon, Social Media, Staff, Support, Video, Volunteer, Why We Give, YouTube

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

From the Winter 2011 edition of The Chai Journal


By Nettie Freeman


In 1986, I sold my art gallery and picture framing business. My first inclination was what meaningful volunteer task would I wish to venture into. Without hesitation I found myself at the Jewish Home volunteer office. My first assignment was visiting the residents who did not have any friends or family nearby. I spent many hours enjoying the company of so many itneresting people, sharing their life experience and family histories.


After some time, I was to become the buyer of apparel for the gift shop. Because of my personal contacts at the California Mart downtown, I was very happy to be helpful in that capactiy. After three years of volunteering in these very fulfilling tasks, I took on a new volunteering hat at my temple, Valley Beth Shalom. I became a counselor at our counseling office. I spent 20 years in that capacity, and must admit it was a most gratifying experience, helping my clients in their troubled situations.


Now let's fast forward to September 2009. Due to medical challenges, I had to relinquish my driving privileges. My first consideration was applying to the Jewish Home, my familiar landmark. So here I am, back at the Home, in a neighborhood home at Eisenberg Village with three fabulous roommates...and I couldn't be happier. What a great journey I have had with my wonderful experiences at the Home, and yes, I am volunteering again and a new member of the Chai Journal committee.

Labels: Admission, Aging, Around the Home, Chai Journal, Eisenberg Village, Freeman, Jewish Home Services, Neighborhood Home, Residents, Senior Living, Staff, Volunteer