H eadlines
Blood Continued from Page 1
Scolnick, graduating from high
school this year, the mother
just realized it was time for her
to move on, too.

“When I realized I had been
doing this since she was 3, and
that she was making changes
in her life, I felt it was time
for me to start exploring other
opportunities,” Scolnick said.

For Scolnick, the journey
started in 2003 when her
mother was diagnosed with
multiple myeloma, a blood and
bone marrow cancer.

Before the diagnosis, there
was no foreshadowing. Axelrod
was healthy.

But at her annual physical,
Axelrod’s doctor noticed
something wrong and referred
her to an oncologist, who made
the diagnosis.

For more than a year, though,
Scolnick’s mother was still fine.

From left: Michelle Scolnick and her daughter, Emily Scolnick, at the
Carol H. Axelrod Memorial Blood Drive at The Shipley School in February
2020. 
Courtesy of the Scolnick family
According to Scolnick, her mom
had smoldering myeloma, the
slow-moving, precancerous stage
that doesn’t require treatment.

Every two months, Axelrod
had to visit the doctor to make
sure she was still in that stage,
and Scolnick often went with
her. Her July 2004 checkup was
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as normal as the others.

The doctor did blood work
and asked Axelrod how she
was feeling.

“Fine,” she answered.

Later that day, he called her
to say her kidneys were failing.

Axelrod needed to start treat-
ment immediately.

Over the next few years,
she underwent two stem cell
transplants and a massive dose
of chemotherapy designed to
kill the diseased bone marrow.

Doctors wanted to harvest
Axelrod’s stem cells and then
give them back to her, so they
would multiply cancer-free.

Scolnick’s mother was only
in her late 50s. She wanted to
try what her daughter described
as “the most aggressive treat-
ment option available.” But in
the end, it was her cancer that
proved too aggressive.

“Each treatment would seem
to work, then stop,” Scolnick
said. “Then she’d move on to
something else, that would
seem to work and then stop.”
In July 2007, Axelrod’s nose
started bleeding and wouldn’t
cease, a dangerous situation
for someone being treated for
myeloma, which can cause
blood clots. Axelrod entered
the Lankenau Medical Center
in Wynnewood, and even
emergency room doctors
couldn’t stop the bleeding.

They had to give her blood
and platelet transfusions to
replace the original blood.

JEWISH EXPONENT
Carol Axelrod with her granddaughter, Emily Scolnick, in March 2008.

Courtesy of the Scolnick family
Hospital employees knew my mother. She
had a great sense of humor and stayed upbeat.”
MICHELLE SCOLNICK
But after a few days, Axelrod’s
body started to reject those,
too. There was only one way for
her to survive: find donors with
similar enough blood that her
body wouldn’t reject.

Luckily, over the course
of a week, Lankenau doctors
worked with the American Red
Cross to find those anonymous
donors. After the successful proce-
dures, Axelrod left the hospital
and lived, on her own, for
another year. She just had to
visit the hospital each week for
transfusions. In the year following the
procedure, Axelrod celebrated
Scolnick’s 10th wedding
anniversary and Emily’s
third birthday. The relatively
new grandmother also got
to take her granddaughter to
Gymboree and music class.

Scolnick made sure to take
pictures of the two of them
together. “My mom was there,”
Scolnick said. “We’re so lucky
we have that memory.”
Axelrod died on July 1, 2008.

That fall, Scolnick approached
Lankenau doctors about repaying
them with a blood drive.

The doctors said yes, and
the Scolnicks turned out family
members, friends and acquain-
tances. Once word spread who
the drive was honoring, hospital
employees turned out, too.

“Hospital employees knew
my mother,” Scolnick said. “She
had a great sense of humor and
stayed upbeat.”
It became the most successful
blood drive in the hospital’s
history to that point, Scolnick said.

The family eventually
turned the collections into
quarterly events, one per season
every year, at locations around
the region. Between 2017-’20,
the family held annual drives
at The Shipley School in Bryn
Mawr, where Emily Scolnick is
a student.

For those events, Emily
Scolnick, not her mother, ran
point, scheduling appoint-
ments, writing recruitment
emails and speaking at assem-
blies to encourage students and
their parents to donate.

“I wish I had gotten to
spend more time with her,”
Emily Skolnick said of her
grandmother. “Her legacy has
certainly lived on.” l
jsaffren@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



H eadlines
Shapiro Continued from Page 1
on his “Big Fights” bus tour
that is serving as the opening
stage of his 2022 gubernatorial
campaign. And he uses it for
two reasons.

It clarifies his own role as a
public servant, and it reminds
citizens that they have a role to
play, too.

“Each of us has a responsi-
bility to get off the sidelines, to
get in the game and to do our
part,” Shapiro continued in his
address. “Folks, by being here
tonight, you’ve stepped off the
sidelines. You are in the game,
and now it’s on all of us to do
our part.”
Shapiro closed his speech
just seconds later to a round
of applause from the hundreds
of Montgomery County
supporters in attendance.

The attorney general opened
his campaign earlier that day
in Pittsburgh. But he saved his
primetime kickoff event for his
home county.

The 48-year-old grew up in
Montgomery County, gradu-
ated from the Akiba Hebrew
Academy and attended Beth
Sholom Congregation in Elkins
Park. As an adult, he moved
back to the area with his wife,
Lori, and began attending Beth
Sholom all over again.

Shapiro came of age in a
Conservative Jewish household
that kept kosher, and now he’s
raising his own four kids the
same way.

For Shabbat dinner each
week, Lori Shapiro even makes
homemade challah.

On Oct. 15, with the bus
tour in full swing across the
state, the Democrat finished an
event at 6:30 p.m. in Scranton
and raced home for Shabbat
dinner. The Shapiros said their
prayers and ate, just like they
do every Friday night.

“It keeps me grounded,” he
said. “It is at least one night
each week where we know we’ll
all be together.”
Shapiro’s friends and neigh-
bors say his faith is not just
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM The crowd gathers in the late afternoon on Oct. 13 for Josh Shapiro’s campaign rally.

genuine, but deep.

His rabbi at Beth Sholom,
David Glanzberg-Krainin,
pointed to one piece of
evidence in particular: the
Shapiro kids following in their
father’s footsteps by attending
the same Jewish day school,
now called the Jack M. Barrack
Hebrew Academy.

“Sending your kids to
Jewish day school is a serious
commitment,” Glanzberg-
Krainin said.

According to
Nancy Astor-Fox, a Merion resident
and the chief development
officer for JEVS Human
Services, Shapiro’s Judaism
extends into his political work.

JEVS helps “individuals
with physical, developmental
and emotional challenges as
well as those facing adverse
socio-economic conditions,”
per its website. Astor-Fox
said Shapiro has visited the
not-for-profit’s various
programs and connected
its leaders with political and
community authorities.

“He’s a righteous Jew,”
Astor-Fox said.

Jill Zipin, a Horsham
resident, concurs with that
description. Zipin is the chair-
woman for Democratic Jewish
Outreach Pennsylvania, a
political action committee.

In the past, Democratic
Jewish Outreach was only a
federal PAC, supporting candi-
dates who reflected Jewish
values. But Zipin started the
state PAC to support Shapiro.

Zipin said the committee’s
13-member board aligns with
Shapiro on several issues. Yet
there’s one, access to the vote
and support for the democratic
process, that matters more
than others right now.

In November,
after Democrat Joe Biden won
Pennsylvania and the presi-
dential election, then-President
Donald Trump filed lawsuits
challenging the result in
court. Shapiro defended
Pennsylvania’s process, both in
court and in the media.

Republican requests to
invalidate millions of votes
were rejected by state judges.

Congress certified Biden’s
Electoral College victory on
Jan. 6.

“That says everything to
Jewish voters,” said Laurin
Goldin, a Jewish Abington
resident who attended the Oct.

13 rally.

Maybe to some, but not all.

Grant Schmidt, a Jewish
political conservative from
Haverford Township, does not
plan on voting for Shapiro. He
thinks the attorney general has
not done enough to prosecute
criminals. Philadelphia has seen more
than 400 homicides in 2021.

Schmidt believes that Shapiro
isn’t working hard enough with
Philadelphia District Attorney
Larry Krasner to stamp out the
crime issue.

“He keeps trying to go
after firearms. That’s not the
root of crime,” Schmidt said
of Shapiro. “It’s the lack of
willpower to prosecute.”
Shapiro is the only
Democrat in the gubernatorial
race. Gov. Tom Wolf is also a
Democrat, but he is finishing
his second term and unable to
run for reelection.

Nine Republicans are
running in the party primary
election set for May 2022.

“I’m hopeful and optimistic
about our future,” Shapiro said. l
“Josh Shapiro is defending
democracy,” Zipin said. “The
GOP seeks to limit and take
away the right to vote.”
Zipin said that democracy is
a Jewish issue.

“Jews have, throughout
the last hundred years, fled to
the United States in search of
a better life,” she said. “That
better life is not just economic
and religious freedom, but
political freedom as well.”
To Shapiro’s friends and
neighbors, though, it’s not just
the depth of his Judaism that
impresses them. It’s also that
he’s a self-loving Jew, rather
than a self-loathing one.

He’s literally out there on
the campaign trail quoting the jsaffren@jewishexponent.com;
215-832-0740 Talmud.

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OCTOBER 21, 2021
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