L ifestyle /C ulture
Jews of Philly Fashion: Rachel Mednick
initially drawn to fashion by
the creative possibilities of
design. Mednick joined the
fight for sustainable clothing
as she gained a greater under-
standing of the waste, pollution
and subpar labor practices
that produce the world’s new
garments. Mednick, who is a member
of the sustainability committee
of the Philadelphia Fashion
& Garment Industry Task
Force and a member of the
Philadelphia Fashion Incubator
Advisory Council, spoke
about good jeans, landfills and
Jackie O.

FASHION JESSE BERNSTEIN | JE STAFF
It’s the newest edition of Jews
of Philly Fashion, introducing
you to the Chosen few who
dress our city. They might mix
wool and linen, but they’ve got
some strong opinions on mixing
stripes with florals. In this space,
we’ll talk to designers, sellers,
buyers, influencers, models and
more. This week, we spoke to
Rachel Mednick.

FOR ALMOST 10 YEARS,
Rachel Mednick, 33, worked
on selling new clothes to
new parents — her children’s
clothing line, Lucy & Leo, is
still stocked at stores across
the country, including three
in Philadelphia and one in
Kennett Square. But Mednick’s
new project is quite different.

These days, Mednick, an
adjunct instructor at her alma
mater Drexel University, is
trying to convince consumers,
clothing producers and the
budding designers in her
classes to radically rethink
their relationship to new
clothes. Which is to say: buying
Lebowitz Continued from Page 21
her work, especially younger
audiences, will be entertained
by her persona and offered a
fascinating cultural history of
a New York long gone.

Scorsese occasionally lets
Lebowitz’s past interviewers —
Alec Baldwin, Spike Lee, Olivia
Wilde and others — stand in for
himself. The friends’ conver-
sations are interspersed with
clips from Lebowitz’s lectures
and interviews over the years,
footage of celebrities that come
up in conversation, old adver-
tisements and other materials
that create a viewing experi-
ence like thumbing through a
scrapbook. 22
FEBRUARY 4, 2021
and make wearing the same
outfit over and over again
cool. We don’t need so many
clothes, and need to wear what
we already have in our closets.

is going into the landfill every
second, according to the Ellen
MacArthur Foundation. Shop
your own closet and be creative,
learn to see clothing as fabric,
not as “shirt” or “dress.” Can
Dream Shabbat dinner guest? you take your cardigan and put
Michelle Obama.

it on backwards to create an
entirely new look?
What’s something you can’t
believe you used to wear?
What person’s style do you
Those choker necklaces that admire?
look like tattoos. They were
Jackie Onassis. I love a
really cool in the ’90s.

classic vintage look.

much, much less of it.

“We’re making way too
much. And we’re consuming
way too much,” Mednick said.

“And it just gets incinerated or
put in a landfill in a place like
Africa, and I don’t think that’s
right. It’s our trash. It’s our
problem. And we need to deal
with it here.”
The Fishtown resident was
What’s the best quality in a
friend? Honesty and heart. I believe
the good friends tell you the
What’s the last book you read? truth, even if it’s hard to hear,
“The Editor,” by Steven and will be there for you no
Rowley. Jackie O is on the cover, matter what.

which made me grab it immedi-
ately. I am now reading “Such Can any style tip be truly
a Fun Age” by Philadelphian universal?
Jeans and a white T-shirt. A
Kiley Reid.

good pair of jeans that fit well
What clothing trend would can make anyone look good.

you like to see make a
What item of clothing should
comeback? Not so much come back more people be wearing?
The ones already in their
but continue: I would love to
closets. We have a huge
see people continuing to shop
fashion crisis
right now — one
vintage and secondhand as
garbage truckload
of clothing
their main form of shopping,
Who’s an exciting designer
in Philadelphia who people
aren’t talking about enough?
Kim McGlonn
from Grant Blvd. She is one of the
smartest people I have ever
met, and using her brand as
a change agent in both the
fashion industry and in the
Philadelphia community.

One of the best episodes in
the series is “Board of Estimate,”
where Lebowitz offers some of
the most refreshingly candid
commentaries about the links
between money, gender and
art available in contemporary
entertainment. She claims her troubles are a
result of hating money but loving
things. She loved writing until
she got her first paid writing
assignment, when she began to
hate it. She discusses the odd
jobs she took when she moved to
New York, which included cab
driver and cleaning lady.

Many of her friends made
more money as waitresses,
but she refused to work in a
restaurant. “You could not get a shift
in a restaurant unless you
slept with the manager,” she
explained. She also refused to rent an
apartment in the East Village,
though that was where many
of her peers lived at the time,
and opted for a pricier home
uptown because, she said, she
didn’t want to get raped on her
way home.

Lebowitz is not particularly
religious, but she offers her
takes on Judaism’s prohibition
of bacon, her great-grandfa-
ther’s experiences immigrating
through Ellis Island and how
she kissed her Nancy Drew
book when she dropped it on
the ground as a child because
she loved books so much she
thought the Hebrew school
rules about kissing dropped
prayer books applied to secular
volumes as well.

She remembers one particu-
larly nasty encounter when she
presented her driver’s license
to a woman issuing fishing
licenses during a vacation on
the West Coast. At the time,
she said, West Coast IDs had
photographs, but East Coast
ones did not.

“She goes, ‘What’s the
matter, you don’t have photo-
graphs on your license in Jew
York?’ I was really shocked.

I said ‘No.’ ‘Why not?’ I said,
‘Because we can read.’”
The series is generally at its
best when viewers get a glimpse
of the true friendship between
Scorsese and Lebowitz. During
their visit to the New York
Public Library, their aura of
celebrity melts away and they
become two regular old New
Yorkers chatting about their
immigrant heritage amid
stacks of genealogy records.

For all it’s charms, “Pretend
It’s A City” is too long. Lebowitz’s
relentless complaining, though
witty, starts to grate if the
episodes are binged too quickly.

The series would have been a
fantastic documentary, but at
seven episodes it feels endless
— like a visit to an eccentric
relative that drags on for more
time than you bargained for.

It’s worth your time, especially
if you need something diverting
to fill endless days of quaran-
tine, but fair warning: Pace
yourself. l
Rachel Mednick
Photo by Alejandra Buljevich
JEWISH EXPONENT
What talent would you most
like to have?
I would love to be able to
play musical instruments with
ease. I love the idea of it, but just
don’t have the knack for it. l
jbernstein@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
spanzer@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0729
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



T orah P ortion
CAN DL E L IGHTIN G
You’ve Got a Friend
BY RABBI TSURAH AUGUST
Parshat Yitro
BEFORE I BECAME a rabbi,
I was a management consul-
tant to large corporations.

One of my roles was to help
them find leaders for new
enterprises. There were basically three
different types of leaders: people
who built new businesses;
people who maintained and
grew businesses; and people
who transformed businesses
that were in trouble. Yitro was
a transformer.

Initially, I was going to focus
this dvar on Yitro’s brilliance as
an organization consultant, the
crucial role governance plays
in society and the imperative of
having a common document of
ethical behavior.

However, I left the world of
consulting to become a rabbi and
chaplain. And while I still see
Yitro as an exemplary organi-
zational change-agent, the lens
I now see through has changed.

One of the best pieces
of advice I received in my
“practical” rabbinic training
was “know what hat you are
wearing.” So, today, as I don my
Karpo Continued from Page 9
kippah on my way to officiate at
a funeral, I will focus on Yitro
as kinsman, friend, trusted
companion and chaplain.

Along with the high drama
of political intrigue of the past
four years, another drama has
gripped us — the pandemic.

The pandemic has wreaked
havoc on all of our lives in so
many ways. One of the most
crushing of all is the physical
suffering and death it has and
continues to cause. During this
time, each of us is called to
ease the suffering — of friends,
family, neighbors and all those
with whom we share at most six
degrees of separation (or 6 feet).

There are myriad needs and
ways to help. And we want
to help. But how can we do
the most good? Yitro is here,
in this week’s parshah, to
offer a model that works. It is
very similar to the approach
of pastoral care that is taught
to clergy in Clinical Pastoral
Education, known as CPE, and
it works for all of us who want
to reach out to help alleviate
the suffering all around us.

We met Yitro earlier, when he
invited Moses, who was seeking
refuge from the threat of death
from Egyptian authorities,
of the bimah, whose voice shakes
the very structure of the building.

But there is also the Sidney
Karpo that most of us don’t see:
the one that patches the roof and
the sidewalk, the one that fixes
broken doors and windows, the
one that puts up the sukkah.”
Upon retirement, Karpo
and his wife moved to Florida,
but he returned to the area five
years later after her death.

Karpo is survived by
children Shelia
Banner (Ronald), Lynn Karpo-Lantz
(Aron) and Alan Karpo (Shari);
seven grandchildren; and 16
great-grandchildren. l
Karpo retired at the age
of 80 not because his voice
failed him, but because he was
suffering from knee issues and
other ailments. He was offered
the chance to sit during services
but declined.

“If I can’t stand, I’m not
doing it,” he said.

At the time of his retirement,
synagogue co-presidents Jack
Belitsky and Joe Cooperstein
praised Karpo in an email.

“The cantor has always
conducted himself as if we are
the center of the Jewish world
in Northeast Philadelphia,” they agotlieb@jewishexponent.com;
wrote. “There is the Sidney Karpo 215-832-0797
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM Feb. 5
Feb. 12
into his family. Moses married
Yitro’s daughter, Tziporah, with
whom Moses had two sons,
Gershon and Eliezer.

Then, as the drama of our
Exodus unfolds, we don’t hear
about Yitro. He is in Midian
with Tziporah and sons, as
the Israelites’ journey out of
Mitzraim unfolds:
Through Bondage, Plagues,
Terror, Dread, Regret, Anger,
Blame Hunger, Thirst, Regret, Fear,
Hope, Despair ...

And now, enter Yitro. He is
wise, skilled and experienced
enough to know the difference
between helping and “fixing”
— and he cares about Moses
and the people.

First, Yitro astutely gives
Moses and his family time to
reunite alone before meeting
individually with him. Wise
move, Yitro! Moses needed
that intimate time with
Tziporah before engaging with
her father. And Yitro needed
the time to take his own gauge
of the community and time
to prepare himself for this
important meeting.

When Moses and Yitro
Polling Continued from Page 10
companies and media outlets
of purposely publishing fake
polls as a suppression tactic
meant to convince Republican
voters to stay home.

“They basically start with a
narrative and then manufac-
ture polls that are either skewed
by sample or demographics,”
McLaughlin said.

Pollock and Sheskin saw it
differently. Sheskin, a professor of
geography at the University
of Miami and director of the
Jewish Demography Project,
posited that a mistrust of
institutions kept Republicans
JEWISH EXPONENT
do meet, Yitro takes time to
reestablish their relationship
and build ease and trust with
Moses. I’ve distilled the process
that Yitro used, down to the
quintessence/ikar of his process:
• Choose a time when you
won’t be pressed for time.

• “Check in” with some light
conversation. • Ensure
privacy and
confidentiality. • Listen to everything without
comment or interruption.

• After listening, offer
feedback and understanding
of what was shared.

• Empathize.

• Affirm, affirm, affirm.

• Show respect for beliefs.

• Build trust.

• Take time to just be present.

• Share a meal.

• Take time alone to assimi-
late all that was heard, seen
and felt.

• Spend more time simply
being present, observing
without commenting.

• Invite further discussion to
“tell me more.”
• Ask if advice and/or
resources are wanted.

• Be available for future
discussions. from taking part in polls.

And neither he nor Pollock
believed the overstatement of
Democratic margins was the
result of deliberate malice.

Rather, they provided evidence
that there were flaws in
sampling methodology.

When it came to polling
Jewish voters, Sheskin demon-
strated how subtle differences
in question formation could
lead to different outcomes in
getting voters to identify as
Jewish. Those differences in
questions by pollsters from
RJC, J Street and the Associated
Press, Sheskin showed, could
have drastic consequences.

Some question formations
could result, for instance, in
5:07 p.m.

5:15 p.m.

In preparation for the
program I am doing for JFCS
Facebook Live next week, on
how to reach out to friends who
have had a loss, I reached out to
friends and clients and asked
them what were some of the
best and some of the worst ways
people had reached out to them.

It was no surprise to me that
the best were some version of
the things above. And these
can even be done over Zoom
or the phone. The worst were
attempts to immediately “fix”
the pain and suffering with
advice or their own religious
beliefs. Thank you, Yitro, for
being here for us, Bim Heyra
B’Yameinu. l
Rabbi Tsurah August is the chaplain
for Jewish Family and Children’s
Service of Greater Philadelphia.

The Board of Rabbis is proud to
provide diverse perspectives on
Torah commentary for the Jewish
Exponent. The opinions expressed
in this column are the author’s own
and do not reflect the view of the
Board of Rabbis.

a higher percentage of Jewish
voters who call themselves “Jews
of no religion,” a group that
tends to vote Democratic. But
other polls that only yield Jews
with specific religious affiliation
might skew Republican. Either
way, a non-representative sample
is the result, Sheskin cautioned.

On winning messages for
Jewish voters in 2022, Sheskin
and McLaughlin came to
similar conclusions, identifying
support for Israel as key for
any candidate. But American
Jews, they concluded, are more
likely to base their vote on the
economy than Israel. l
jbernstein@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
FEBRUARY 4, 2021
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