calendar
JULY 1–JULY 7
TUESDAY, JU LY 5
Join Rabbi Alexander
Coleman, Jewish educator and
psychotherapist at the Institute
for Jewish Ethics, at 9 a.m. for a
weekly journey through the Torah
portion of the week with eternal
lessons on personal growth
and spirituality. Go to ijethics.

org/weekly-torah-portion.html to receive the Zoom link and
password. Are you a woman looking to improve
your financial skills? Join a supportive
group of women the first Tuesday of
every month from 7:30-8:30 p.m over
Zoom to learn about a range of finan-
cial topics, share tips and ideas and
alleviate your stress and anxiety around
money. Contact Laura Flowers, finan-
cial empowerment program coordi-
nator, at 267-256-2274 or lflowers@
jfcsphilly.org for more information.

PARSHA FOR LIFE
WOMEN & MONEY
BINGO WITH BARRY
Join Barry at Tabas Kleinlife for an
afternoon of bingo from 12:30-3:30
p.m. on July 5, 6 and 7. Free park-
ing and free to play with snacks
available on July 7. For more infor-
mation, call 215-745-3127. 2101
Strahle St., Philadelphia.

WE D N E S DAY, JU LY 6
HOARDING SUPPORT
Join Jewish Family and Children’s Ser-
vice and like-minded individuals from
April 13-July 27 from 5:30-7:30 p.m., in
a supportive community where
you will learn tools to address
compulsive acquiring and saving
while deepening your understanding
of clutter and how you got here.

To register or for more information
on sliding scale options, contact
Rivka Goldman at 267-256-2250
or rgoldman@jfcsphilly.org.

TH U RSDAY, JU LY 7
JRA FOOD PACKING
Volunteers will assist with Jewish
Relief Agency’s pre-distribution
preparation from 9 a.m.-noon.

During this time, volunteers will tape
boxes, pack toiletries and assemble
family-friendly food bags. This is a
great opportunity for team building
and for small and large groups to
come volunteer at JRA. For more
information about JRA’s volunteer
schedule, visit jewishrelief.org/
calendar. 10980 Dutton Road,
Philadelphia. JE
seamartini / iStock / Getty Images Plus
FRI DAY, J ULY 1
social announcements
LIVE YOUR
BEST YEARS AT
OXFORD ENHANCED
SENIOR LIVING!
Call f
Incentiv or
es! DISCOVER THE OXFORD DIFFERENCE:
● ●
● The community is close to shopping, theater, dining and
St. Mary’s Medical Center
Enjoy independent living with peace of mind, knowing there
are three levels of care on-site
Dedicated service from many long-term staff means a familiar
face each day
Call us at 215-750-7575 to arrange a visit.

Learn why Oxford is the premier choice in the area.

26 JUNE 30, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
2 9 0 E tsa W ni c h e rets
A v .e
Langhorne, PA 19047
oxfordenhancedsl.com M
yra Kanze, a longtime
subscriber to the Jewish
Exponent, turned 100 on June 18.

She grew up in Wynnefi eld, then
moved to Overbrook Park with her
husband, Marvin Kanze, and the fi rst
three of her four boys. She later
moved to Havertown and then to
Valley Forge Towers. She is now a
resident at the Horsham Center for
Jewish Life assisted living facility.

Kanze raised four boys, helped
her husband start an air condition-
ing business and started a framing
business. She knitted and crocheted
and made dresses and cookies.

Four generations of her family
celebrated her birthday, including
her four boys, 10 grandchildren, and
13 great-grandchildren.

GOLDBERG AND JACOBS
B arbara and Donald Goldberg
and Evelyn and Alvin Jacobs
celebrated the 70th anniversary of
their double wedding on April 6.

The wedding took place at the
Broadway Hotel on Broad Street with
300 guests in attendance. There
were 30 members in the bridal party.

The Goldbergs have two children
and four grandchildren and live in
Laguna Woods, California.

The Jacobs have two children, two
grandchildren and one great-grand-
child and live in Glen Mills.

Photo by Joel Perlish
MYRA LOUISE KANZE
ANNIVERSARIES Courtesy of the Goldberg
and Jacobs families
BIRTHDAY



last word
Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer
HONORED WITH COVENANT FOUNDATION AWARD
SASHA ROGELBERG | STAFF WRITER
Courtesy of Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer
T here’s not just one way to be
Jewish. It’s true for everyone,
Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer believes, but
it’s the cornerstone of her work to make
Judaism more accessible to young peo-
ple, particularly those with disabilities.

As chief program officer of Jewish
Learning Venture and director of JLV’s
Whole Community Inclusion, Kaplan-
Mayer, 51, has spent the last decade pro-
viding guidance to synagogues, parents
and Jewish organizations on how to
increase accessibility in the Jewish com-
munity; championing Jewish Disability
Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion
Month programming in Philadelphia;
and writing and publishing multiple
books on disability inclusion.

On June 15, the Covenant
Foundation, an organization ded-
icated to honoring and supporting
Jewish educators, announced Kaplan-
Mayer as one of three recipients of the
Covenant Foundation Award for her
commitment to improving accessibility
in Jewish education.

“I felt excited that this honor could
bring more recognition to what our
mission at Jewish Learning Venture is,
both in terms of, specifically the work
I’ve led around the Whole Community
Inclusion, but also, I was aware that
it could bring that recognition to the
larger agency,” Kaplan-Mayer said.

Originally a merging of the Auerbach
Central Agency for Jewish Education
and the Jewish Outreach Partnership,
JLV has maintained its roots of giving
more young Jews the opportunity to
engage in a Jewish education, but it
has evolved to focus on ways in which
Jewish organizations can better pro-
vide opportunities for Jewish children
on the margins.

Though Kaplan-Mayer has focused
on children with disabilities during
her time at JLV since 2011, she hopes
to expand the organization’s reach to
better include Jews of color and young
LGBTQ Jews in upcoming jkidPRIDE
and jkidforall programs.

Kaplan-Mayer’s foray into the world
of Jewish accessibility was one of neces-
sity. Working at the Philadelphia-based
Reconstructionist synagogue Mishkan
Shalom in 1998 and the ACAJE from
2001-2003, Kaplan-Mayer realized
though well-intentioned, she lacked
the skills to fully address the needs of
children with disabilities with whom
she worked.

She remembers one child who strug-
gled with his sensory system being
overwhelmed. He would suddenly run
to the bathroom and run the water
to calm himself down. In hindsight,
Kaplan-Mayer understands that this
was a self-soothing activity. But now
she knows how to incorporate breaks
or provide weighted blankets or other
objects to help meet students’ needs.

Her son’s autism diagnosis after his
birth in 2003 further drove Kaplan-
Mayer to pursue accessibility in Jewish
spaces. “I was just like the typical Jewish
educator — I didn’t have knowledge!”
Kaplan-Mayer said. “And then after my
child was diagnosed with autism, and I
wanted him to have a Jewish education,
I suddenly realized, oh, let’s really give
people tools.”
She was able to give her son George
Kaplan-Mayer, 19, a bar mitzvah cel-
ebration catered to him, but she also
recognized the different ways in which
people find meaning in Judaism. For
George Kaplan-Mayer, spiritual mean-
ing came from the little moments in
between the big celebrations.

“The depth of his Jewish life is the
everyday moments of what Judaism is:
You sing a song; you say a prayer; you
light the Shabbat candles,” Kaplan-
Mayer said. “I knew that his intellec-
tual disability did not mean that he
didn’t have a spiritual life.”
The foundation of her and JLV’s work
is meeting people where they are. If a
young person wants to make challah or
latkes for five minutes or listen to just
one Jewish song, it has the potential to
be spiritually fulfilling to them.

“Our spiritual lives are not the same
as our intellectual lives,” Kaplan-Mayer
said. “Once you grasp that, you have a
much deeper access to, I think, spiri-
tual curiosity.”
Kaplan-Mayer graduated from
Emerson College in 1993 with a bach-
elor’s in creative writing and theater.

She got her master’s degree at the
Reconstructionist Rabbinical College
in Wyncote in 2001. Though a teacher
for much of her life, Kaplan-Mayer’s
training in divergent thinking through
creative writing and “reading the room”
through theater gave her the skills to
become a leader at JLV along with the
organization’s team of educators.

JLV’s focus on creativity allowed
them to be nimble throughout the pan-
demic; it’s what Kaplan-Mayer believes
is the key to keeping an open mind and
staying true to JLV’s mission.

“We as human beings put such enor-
mous limitations on what we can do,”
Kaplan-Mayer said. “Thank God that
creativity comes, or maybe creativity is,
through God.” JE
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
27