H eadlines
Musical Continued from Page 1
the musical because, upon
moving to Cherry Hill with
his parents as a high schooler,
he lived in “the very apart-
ment unit where the two hired
hitmen in this case lived at the
time of the murder.”
“This has haunted me for
years,” Schatz added.

But his new musical,
premiering in June at the
Geffen Playhouse, is ensuring
that this tragedy continues
to haunt the community that
it rocked so many years ago,
according to former M’kor
Shalom congregants.

“It’s offensive,” said Shelly
Gordon, a Palm Beach, Florida,
resident who belonged to M’kor
Shalom from 1990 to 2008.

“It was just a horrible
experience for everybody,”
added Martin Mellman, a
Cherry Hill resident and M’kor
Shalom member from 1990 to
2005. “To profit from such a
tragedy is sickening,” said Jim
Kennedy of Cherry Hill, whose
family called the synagogue
home for 45 years.

Gordon, Mellman and
Kennedy are no longer
members of the Reform
congregation. So they are less
12 FEBRUARY 24, 2022
concerned with their feelings
than with the memory of Carol
Neulander, who Mellman
described as “a very sweet lady”
who “never hurt anybody.”
The congregants expressed
outrage that the Neulanders’
three children, two of whom
testified against their father,
had to relive the experience.

“It reopens old wounds,”
Kennedy said.

“To make this into enter-
tainment is an insult to her
memory, to their family, to
the congregation,” Mellman
added. “How could someone who
knew the family, or knew of the
family, lived in the community,
possibly do something like
this?” asked Gordon of Schatz.

M’kor Shalom President
Drew Molotsky echoed the
former congregants. Through a
public relations representative,
he sent a statement on behalf of
the institution.

“This musical is about our
history. It involves our friends
and our community, and it is
very serious to us,” he said. “To
make light of it or to exploit
it for entertainment value is
not something we will ever
condone.” According to Schatz,
however, the blowback is, at
least in part, a result of the
M’kor Shalom in Cherry Hill
Courtesy of M’kor Shalom
Rabbi Fred Neulander
Jewish Exponent archives
playhouse’s original descrip-
tion of the show as containing
“both chutzpah and humor.”
“A Wicked Soul in Cherry
Hill” is not comedic or light-
hearted, Schatz said; and it is,
he argued, both serious and
respectful of the tragedy and
its consequences.

The playwright/composer,
who lives in LA and has a long
list of musicals to his name
produced around the country,
said that he’s using art for
one of its intended purposes:
to answer unanswerable
questions. He added that, “It’s
a very Jewish thing to believe
that the questions are more
important than the answers.”
But sometimes, according
to Deborah Baer Mozes,
founding artistic director of
JEWISH EXPONENT
Matt Schatz 
Theatre Ariel on the Main Line,
real-world concerns outweigh
the goal of artistic honesty.

Baer Mozes considers two
factors when choosing a play
for her salon theater: the subject
matter and how it’s treated.

“There are certain subject
matters I would have trouble
directing,” she said. “Like plays
about abuse.”
The director said she would
not produce “A Wicked Soul in
Cherry Hill.” But she acknowl-
edged that, as a member of the
Philadelphia Jewish commu-
nity who met Neulander, she
Photo by Jenna Hymes
couldn’t separate her personal
connection from her artistic
consideration. When she can, though, and
when she decides to take on
a loaded subject matter, Baer
Mozes tries her best to handle
it with care.

“It would have to be written
in a way that wasn’t sensa-
tionalizing the case but was
really grappling with the moral
issues in a way that had moral
integrity,” Baer Mozes said. l
jsaffren@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
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