arts & culture
Beth Or’s Olitsky Gallery
Reopens After Three Years
F or the fi rst time in almost
three years, Congregation Beth
Or will reopen its Olitsky Art
Gallery, a symbol of the reconvening of
the Beth Or community in the Jewish
New Year.

Th e gallery, which opens on Oct. 14
aft er Friday night Shabbat services, will
display the works of two local artists:
Karen Liebman, who has operated the
gallery for the past seven years, and
Cyndi Philkill, a non-Jewish mixed
media collagist.

In past years, gallery openings coin-
cided with onegs held aft er Shabbat
services as a way to schmooze with the
visiting artist and other congregants.

Aft er three years of online and hybrid
services, the reopening of the gallery
following in-person High Holiday ser-
vices will mark the return of an oppor-
tunity to build community.

“I defi nitely wanted it to follow Yom
Kippur because that would get people
used to coming back again — we’re
so happy to see people fi nally coming
back again,” Liebman said.

Liebman and Philkill’s contrasting
styles will be put in conversation with
one another, with Liebman favoring
watercolor and acrylic landscapes and
Philkill depicting a series of portraits
constructed out of paper, paint and
other materials.

“My work is basically based on my
travels,” Liebman said.

Th ough she has 15 years of experience
in painting to her name, Liebman’s art
philosophy is that she always has more
to learn. Th is will be the second time in
the gallery’s 33 years that Liebman will
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display her works.

Also a seasoned artist, Philkill com-
bines more traditional mediums, such
as oil pastels, with found objects. For
the past several years, she’s created col-
lage portraits based on hospice patients
she visited as a hospice volunteer coor-
dinator. “I became very interested in trying
to capture older adults and people that
were in their lives,” Philkill said. “And
not in a morbid sense, but in a sense
that I wanted to bring attention to the
fact that they are so vibrant, they still
have dreams and hopes and passion
and wisdom in their lives.”
Philkill describes her art as “rep-
resentational” but not abstract. Her
mixed media collages aren’t of specifi c
people but rather a patchwork of per-
sonality traits and interests.

With Liebman’s pieces contrasted
with hers in the gallery, Philkill has
already found ways to interpret her
pieces with new meaning. She consid-
ers both the works to be landscapes,
though Philkill calls her pieces “people
landscapes.” Both works are “puzzle-like,” com-
bining diff erent planes or components
to create a coherent image, Philkill said.

Th e two artists only began to under-
stand the similarities of their works
aft er deciding to combine them for the
gallery opening.

“Th at’s the beauty and the power of
art: to create community, to start dis-
cussion,” Philkill said. “And we’re both
really hoping this exhibit will facilitate
that here at Beth Or.”
Liebman and Philkill met through
ARTsisters, a Philadelphia-based col-
lective of women artists founded 12
years ago. About 25 members meet
monthly to provide feedback and sup-
port to the cohort.

“Sometimes, as women and as art-
ists, we can feel a little alone and iso-
lated,” Philkill said. “Th at sometimes
it’s harder to get recognized and fi nd
venues to exhibit.”
Beth Or’s Olitsky Gallery has become
a similar outlet for artists to fi nd an
audience. In 1989, Beth Or member Norma
Jarrett approached the then-new Rabbi
Cyndi Philkill’s “He Always
Made Me Laugh”
Gregory Marx about creating an art
space at the synagogue.

“You need patronage in order to get
into an art gallery; you need money
for an art gallery,” Marx said. “And
Norma said, ‘We have this space. Let’s
show people’s work, both from the local
community and beyond.’”
Th e gallery became a way to both
support local artists and bolster syn-
agogue attendance. On Friday nights
aft er Kabbalat Shabbat services, Beth
Or held gallery openings; the syna-
gogue attracted both new congregants
and art lovers. A designated gallery
space even survived the synagogue’s
move from Spring House to Maple
Glen in 2008.

In March 2020, the gallery, like the
synagogue, stopped receiving visitors.

Th e once-vibrant art space mirrored
the emptiness of the synagogue sanc-
tuary and most other buildings at the
onset of the pandemic.

“We had this beautiful space with
bare walls and wires hanging down
where they used to be pictures. It
almost looked like an empty warehouse
... it looked schwach,” Marx said. “Th e
building was empty; there was no art.”
As Beth Or resumes their tradition
of mingling art and religion, Marx
hopes the gallery will once again be a
microcosm of synagogue life, this time
vibrant and reinvigorated.

“What does it mean to me?” Marx
said. “Th e return to life and beauty
and celebration of art, hopefully bring-
ing people in and sharing not only in
the sacredness of time but also in the
beauty of space.” JE
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com Courtesy of Karen Liebman
SASHA ROGELBERG | STAFF WRITER



obituaries
Philadelphia Rabbinic Leader
Dov Ahron Brisman Dies at 69
JARRAD SAFFREN | STAFF WRITER
Courtesy of the Brisman family
Y aacov Mayer Brisman is sure
that his father, Rabbi Dov Ahron
Brisman, must have slept at some point;
he just can’t remember him ever going
up to bed. Instead, the rabbi was down-
stairs in his study, reading the Torah and
Talmud, learning and thinking.

One time, the mother of one of Yaacov’s
friends called the house at 2:30 a.m.

because her son had not come home that
night. He was at the Brisman residence.

Rabbi Brisman answered on the fi rst ring
and sounded “fresh, newly woken up,”
Yaacov said.

“He was just studying,” the son added.

“He had this incredible diligence about
him.” On Sept. 19, this Talmudic scholar’s
lifelong pursuit of Jewish knowledge and
wisdom ended. Rabbi Brisman died in
his sleep at his home in Philadelphia. He
was 69.

Brisman is survived by his wife Libby
Brisman and their children Yaacov, Matti
Stahl, Fayga Laya Taylor and Gedalia
Zev Brisman. More than 1,000 peo-
ple attended his funeral at Goldsteins’
Rosenberg’s Raphael-Sacks Funeral
Home in Philadelphia, according to
Yaacov Mayer Brisman. About 200 came
to his funeral in Israel.

Rabbis who knew Brisman called his
death “a huge loss” and “a void for our
city.” During his life, the scholar was
not merely a scholar. He also led the
Orthodox Beit Din of Philadelphia, the
Keystone-K Community Kashrus of
Greater Philadelphia and the Orthodox
congregation Young Israel of Elkins Park.

He was the right man for all of those
jobs because he was “a world-acclaimed
Talmudic scholar,” according to his
brother-in-law, Rabbi Isaac Leizerowski,
who leads Beth Midrash HaRav B’Nai
Jacob in Philadelphia. But he was also
the right man because he understood
how to relate to people. Despite being
a “world-acclaimed Talmudic scholar,”
Brisman never took himself too seriously.

“He was your everyday guy. Accessible,
sense of humor, a good friend,”
Leizerowski said. “He was self-eff acing;
he was humble; he was modest.”
Th e rabbi’s indefatigable study of the
a loan, how do you han-
dle a Jewish-owned bank
that tries to do just that?
Th ose were some of the
many modern questions
that Brisman received
over the years, accord-
ing to Rabbi Mordecai
Terebelo, a contem-
porary and friend, as
well as the rabbi for
Congregation Ahavas
Torah in Northeast
Philadelphia. His responses were
Rabbi Dov Ahron Brisman spent a lifetime
oft en 10 pages in length.

engaged in the study of Jewish law.

Aft er the response, he
Torah and Talmud developed the kind of attached a glossary with references and
encyclopedic mind that is rare today. He explanations. His opinion, as Leizerowski
knew “the whole gamut of Jewish stud- explained, was “valued.”
ies,” Leizerowski said.

“He went back to the sources and
Rabbi Brisman’s recall was unmatched, plowed over it,” Terebelo said. “Life and
according to his brother-in-law. He could
sit down with a stack of 500 pieces of
paper, start writing and fi ll all 500 sheets
— without looking at a single note. It was
all in his head.

And then the fi nal product would be
in “the most beautifully written style”
that would remind rabbis of “Talmudic
study from 500 years ago,” Leizerowski
said. During his 69 years, Brisman wrote
books and edited others. And when he
died, he left behind boxes of manuscripts
that could still fi ll as many as 90 books,
Leizerowski estimated.

“His pen was incredible,” the brother-
in-law said. “He was a non-stop fountain
of Jewish thought, of Jewish knowledge.”
Brisman’s scholarship started with his
ability to understand and interpret old
texts. But since the rabbi lived in the 20th
and 21st centuries, it was his ability to
apply them that set him apart.

Questions came to him from all over
the world, according to Leizerowski,
from chief rabbis of cities and countries.

What’s your opinion? How would you
deal with this?
If you buy a new pot, how would you
take it into the mikvah since it’s elec-
tronic and can’t go in water? How do you
deal with going to the hospital and using
all of its electronic features, like doors,
on Shabbos? Since you’re not supposed
to be charged interest when you take out
death takes precedence over everything
in Jewish law. So of course you’re going
to go to the hospital. What’s the best way
to do it?”
Leizerowski said that Brisman viewed
the Talmud as the “blueprint for Jewish
life.” He also believed that the Talmudic
scholar could fi nd an answer to almost
every question in this essential body of
wisdom. And that that was true even
today. “Th ere were things 100 years ago that
were new,” Leizerowski explained. “We
fashion our lives to fi t the Torah philos-
ophy, not the Torah philosophy to fi t our
lives.” Aft er Brisman died, his family had
questions about the laws of mourning,
according to Yaacov Mayer Brisman. But
they had no one to call. JE
jsaff ren@midatlanticmedia.com
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