Power
Three To the
A B’nai Mitzvah story that transcends
faith, generations and community.

By Fredda Sacharow
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM PHOTOS/STEVE STERN
I f
Mary Brodsky had merely adopted
her triplet step-grandchildren after
her husband and both of the children’s
parents died — dayenu.

If she had simply kept them
grounded in the centuries-old religion of their
mother and their grandfather — dayenu.

If the Catholic widow had taught herself
enough about Judaism to organize a seder every
year, complete with homemade gefi lte fi sh, and
to read the children a chapter from My Little
Dreidel on each of the eight nights of Chanukah
— dayenu.

If she had dropped the siblings off at Hebrew
school every Sunday for years, and then driven
three miles down the road to attend mass at St.

Francis in Fairless Hills — dayenu.

But there’s more, much more, in this saga of a
faith that unites two religions, three generations
and four people whose
love for Judaism—and for
one another — transcends
blood ties.

It stars 12-year-old
Madison, Zoe and Jona-
than Kemp, who are prep-
ping for their Bar/Bat
Mitzvah later this month
at Congregation Beth El
in Yardley. It also stars the
woman they call Mom-
Mom: Mary Brodsky, wid-
ow of their maternal grand-
father Jack Brodsky, who is
raising the youngsters as Jews and making sure
they get a proper Jewish education.

“We read in Proverbs about a woman of
valor,” says Rabbi Joshua Gruenberg, religious
leader of Beth El. “I think it might have been
written for Mary.”
Th e triplets’ father, Andrew Kemp, died in
2006 during a stay in the hospital for a ruptured
colon. Th eir mother, Helena Brodsky Kemp,
died two years later of an aortic aneurysm, a
bulge in the section of the body’s main artery
that can burst and cause major bleeding.

Shortly before Helena’s death, Mary Brodsky
had been holding conversations with the entity
she calls “Th e Big Guy.” Feeling lonely and at
loose ends three years after her husband passed
away, she spoke to God from behind the wheel of
of Mary Brodsky (inset) has helped her three adopted step-grandchildren, (l-r) Madison, Jonathan
and Zoe, reach the point of becoming B’nai Mitzvah later this month.

her car, confi ding in him,
“I need a purpose in life.”
Later, when their newly
orphaned status found
Madison, Zoe and Jona-
than in her care, Brodsky
had one rueful thought:
“I really should be careful
what I wish for.”
Th e triplets were 5. Mary Brodsky, a retired
middle manager for the IRS, was about to be-
come a fi rst-time mother in her early 60s.

It wouldn’t be easy — she knew that. Zoe was
born with short heel cords and was in leg braces
for many years. Jonathan, diagnosed early on
with cerebral palsy, uses a wheelchair.

But although Helena had a sister living in
London who off ered to take her nieces and neph-
ew, Brodsky was determined to keep them in the
home in which they’d grown up, observing the
religion on which they’d been nurtured.

Before she died, Helena Kemp compiled a list
she called “Eight Th ings I’m Passionate About”:
“HaShem, Madison, Zoe, Jonathan, Judaism,
My Family, Learning, Tikkun Olam — healing
JEWISH EXPONENT
the world, or at least my little corner of it.”
“Th eir mother taught them the Shema before
they went to nursery school — they said it ev-
ery night,” Brodsky recalls. “One of the reasons I
kept the children is that my husband would have
wanted them to be raised Jewish.”
And Jewish they most defi nitely are.

Reclining in his bed, fl anked by his sisters
and a stuff ed Minion doll from the movie Despi-
cable Me he’s dubbed “Rabbi,” Jonathan Kemp is
holding court.

He’s the baby of the threesome, temporarily
sidelined while recovering from hip-repair surgery
less than fi ve weeks earlier — two months before
the Big Day. He’s explaining why it’s so important
to him to mount the bimah at Beth El to chant
his share of Haftorah accompanying the Tazriah
Metzorah Torah portion, the passages he’s been
learning for the past three-quarters of a year.

“Having a sense of being Jewish, that culture
passed on to me by my mom, has made me a
better person,” Jonathan says, shifting slightly to
get comfortable in the cast that encases his lower
body from chest to foot.

“I want to pass that along to my kids someday.

APRIL 9, 2015
3