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Kaiserman JCC Announces New Class
of Hall of Famers
T he Kaiserman JCC in Wynnewood
opened the JCC Maccabi Hall of
Fame last year to honor Philadelphia
area athletes, coaches and contribu-
tors who represented the region at the
national JCC Maccabi Games.

The fi rst class had 13 inductees, a big
group designed to establish the hall. The
man behind the eff ort, Kaiserman board
member Daniel Weiss, said that future
classes would be smaller.

The JCC revealed the 2023 inductees,
and the group is a little smaller, but not
by much. It includes nine new members
because there are still so many worthy
inductees, according to Barrie Mittica, the
JCC’s director of engagement.

This year’s class includes volunteer
and emcee Michael Barkann of NBC
Sports Philadelphia fame, coach Keith
Bradburd, coach Brian Schiff , swimmer
Beth Adler, basketball players Aron and
Bryan Cohen, baseball players Ryan
and Conor Donavan, dancer Shelby
Rosenberg, the coaches and volunteers
from Bill and Tracey Brody’s family and
the 1984 boys’ basketball team that won
gold in Detroit, the fi rst Philly team to win
gold at the JCC Maccabi Games.

The games are for athletes between
the ages of 13 and 16. The induction
ceremony will take place on April 2.

JCC offi cials are hoping to unveil an
exhibit for the hall of famers at the
ceremony, one similar to the wall honor-
ing Philadelphia Jewish sports hall of
famers in a Kaiserman hallway.

Proceeds from the event will go
toward scholarships for the next crop
of JCC Maccabi athletes from the
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From left: Aron and Bryan Cohen
Philadelphia area. Mittica said the JCC
is hoping to off er as much as $20,000
in scholarship money to local teens.

She believes the experience is import-
ant for young athletes because they
are often too busy playing sports to
participate in Jewish activities with their
peers, like a youth group or camp. The
JCC games become their connection to
Jewish peoplehood.

“It creates positive Jewish adults,”
she said.

This year’s hall of famers speak to that
experience. The brothers Cohen, Aron, who
went on to play at the University of
Pennsylvania, and Bryan, who played
for Bucknell University, participated in a
combined seven JCC Maccabi compe-
titions and won six gold medals. Aron
Cohen said playing on those teams at a
young age helped him develop a strong
work ethic. They also helped him build
connections that he would use later on
in his business career. The brothers own
Full Court Development, a real estate
development company in Philadelphia.

“A lot of people I work with today
come from that world,” Aron Cohen said
of his JCC Maccabi connections.

Bryan Cohen said the brothers grew up
playing one-on-one against each other,
with the older Aron Cohen winning until
the younger Bryan Cohen grew taller than
him in high school. They also spent a year
playing together at the Abington Friends
School in Jenkintown, reaching the
Friends Schools League championship
with Aron Cohen at point guard and
Bryan Cohen at forward. So to go into the
hall together, after a lifetime of playing
together, is just a cool experience.

“We put a lot of time and sacrifi ce
in working out, being disciplined at
basketball. It really paid off to play at
diff erent levels,” Bryan Cohen said. “It’s
something you don’t think about when
you’re young and working hard.”
Brian Schiff , a longtime boys’ basket-
ball coach for the Philadelphia JCC team,
described the games as a life-changing
experience. In 1992, he was writing for
The Jewish Times when he visited a
JCC basketball tryout. He told the coach
it looked fun. The coach asked him if he
wanted to help. Schiff said yes and went
to Baltimore with the team that year for
the games.

The man who had never coached
basketball before, and who admittedly
did not know the Xs and Os, ended up
coaching for the next quarter century.

He was an assistant on that boys’ team
for the next fi ve years before taking
over as head coach, leading the team
to seven golds between 1998 and 2016.

Schiff also assisted Philadelphia Jewish
sports hall of famer Steve Chadwin at
Abington Friends for six years. Along the
way, he learned the Xs and Os.

“It’s humbling; it’s a huge honor,”
he said of his hall induction. “Getting
involved was kind of an accident, and
then it changed my life completely.” ■
jsaff ren@midatlanticmedia.com
Courtesy of Alan Cohen and Cynthis Cohen
Jarrad Saff ren | Staff Writer



local
Local Organizations
Celebrate Tu B’Shevat
Jarrad Saff ren | Staff Writer
Y ou live in Philadelphia or one of its
suburbs in the winter. It’s cold out.

It’s that time of year when you may not
get outside as often as you would like.

But the Jewish holiday of Tu B’Shevat
is an annual reminder of the beauty
and importance of trees and the great
outdoors. This year, the holiday falls
on Feb. 5 and 6, and local organiza-
tions are planning a variety of events
designed to get you outside so you
can appreciate the natural world.

Here’s a sampling of events you can
attend, as well as the intention behind
them. Photo by Naomi Shapiro
Tu B’Shevat Gathering
Laurel Hill West Conservatory
215 Belmont Ave.

Bala Cynwyd
Sunday, Feb. 5, 1-3 p.m.

Laurel Hill West and the Weitzman
National Museum of American Jewish
History are bringing together arboretum
manager Lauren Greenberg (Laurel Hill
West) and Tu B’Shevat educator Nati
Passow (Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate
Action) to off er a tour of the conservato-
ry’s “barks, buds and berries,” according
to an event listing. The Weitzman wants
attendees to understand both the nature
around them and its deeper importance,
said Dan Samuels, the museum’s direc-
tor of public programs.

“The arboretum master gives great
context on the history of these trees and
how they fi t into this region,” he said.

“It’s about asking questions like, ‘What
is our relationship today to trees?’”
General admission is $20 for those
13 and older and $10 for people under
13. Find tickets on Laurel Hill’s website.

Happy Birthday Etzi
Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel
300 S 18th St.

Philadelphia Sunday, Feb. 5, 10 a.m.-noon
A year ago, Temple Beth Zion-Beth
Israel in Center City celebrated Tu
B’Shevat by planting a tree in front of its
synagogue. Members named the tree
Etzi and, this year, they will gather for its
fi rst birthday.

Rabbi Abe Friedman explained that
the community found out a year ago
that it could apply for a free tree from
Philadelphia’s Parks & Recreation depart-
ment. You just have to make a strong
case in your application that you can
take care of the tree. So, the synagogue
explained that preschool students would
tend to it during the school year and
facility staff members would take over
during the summer. The city got the tree
from a nursery, and it was already 4 feet
tall when the congregation planted it.

“Hopefully as they grow up, they grow
up with a sense that the natural world
is something to care for and be loved,”
Friedman said of the students.

Sign up for the party on BZBI’s website.

Families enjoy a Tu B’Shevat event at the Ambler Arboretum.

Meyers. But they also will focus on specifi c
topics that relate more to MLK Day, like
“understanding our privilege and under-
standing ways we can uplift members of
diverse identities,” Meyers said.

“As members of both marginalized and
privileged groups, Jews share a unique
position in society of both understanding
certain aspects of oppression, while also
having the power and responsibility to
uplift others,” an event description reads.

Register for the Zoom on Tribe 12’s
website. The Kehillah of Buxmont and jkidphilly
already had their event in mid-Janu-
ary around MLK Day. More than 40
families visited the Ambler Arboretum to
“enjoy story time, traverse the arboretum
labyrinth, explore the campus gardens
and celebrate the diversity of benefi ts
that trees off er,” according to a Temple
Ambler Facebook post. Then they went
“back into a warm space to talk about
trees and the origins of Tu B’Shevat,”
said Lisa Litman, the director of jkidphilly.

“Why trees need a birthday,” she added.

“We need families to take care of
the natural environment and our natural
resources before they all disappear,” she
concluded. ■
jsaff ren@midatlanticmedia.com
Combining Tu B’Shevat with
the Martin Luther King Jr. Day
of Service
A few local organizations — jkidphilly,
the Kehillah of Buxmont and Tribe 12 —
are focusing less on just getting people
outside and more on using appreciation
for the world around us to motivate peo-
ple to make it better. The appreciation
part comes with Tu B’Shevat, while the
motivation to make the world better
shines through on MLK Day, which took
place on Jan. 16. Last year, both holidays
fell on the same day. And even though
they are weeks apart this year, they can
still complement each other.

Tribe 12 is hosting a guided meditation
and refl ection on Feb. 6 from 6:30-8 p.m.

on Zoom. The meditations will be about
expanding minds and connecting with
Judaism, according to event organizer Jess
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