High Holiday Memories – Eyal Bitton

Eyal Bitton, composer, lyricist and musical director, has recently released a new album entitled, High Holidays Memories: Timeless Moroccan & Sephardi classics.

Currently the Musical Director of Toronto’s Beth Tikvah Synagogue Choir, Bitton has numerous musical and theater credits as well: he wrote the book, music and lyrics for numerous well-received musicals, including King David, Moses: The Musical Saga and Miss Persia, and provided musical direction and vocal arrangements for theatrical plays as well.

In 1962, Ahi Ezer Yeshiva, also known as the Rabbi Mordechai Maslaton Elementary School, was founded by a group of esteemed community members. The group consisted of Mr. David Bibi A”H, Mr. Isadore (Nouri) Dayan A”H, Mr. Nat Mann A”H and Mr. Ceaser Salama A”H. The yeshiva began in a small private home on 70th Street, with a single class of 18 students and one teacher. A second location was added in March of 1964 and a third in September of 1965. In March of 1966, a building was acquired to replace the three locations and in 1970, a building was constructed on Ocean Parkway to meet the demands of its growing population. Today, under the guidance of its administrator, Mrs. Lisa Lederer, Ahi Ezer is proud to be educating 318 students, from Nursery through 8th grade, with a staff of 46 teachers who work in conjunction with their specialty staff.

Ahi Ezer was a pioneer in opening an educational institution for girls in our community, which had and continues to have an emphasis on solid Torah values and middot. The yeshiva was also the first to offer a full eighth grade elementary education for girls. Several years after its inception, they began to offer a program for boys.

Isaac Cohen, Ariel Mizrahi, Morris Jerome, Isaac Mograbi and Charlie Shrem

This past spring semester, the Yeshivah of Flatbush Joel Braverman High School offered a course in Sephardic Liturgical music, taught by Rabbi Moshe Tessone. This course was arranged in cooperation with the Belz School of Jewish Music (BJSM) at Yeshiva University, and with the foresight of Dr. Joel Wolowelsky and leadership of Cantor Bernard Beer, Director of the BSJM at YU.

The Lollapajewza ’08 Music and Arts Festival returns to Asbury Park on Sunday, August 24 with over 50 performers and artists taking the stage and displaying their talents. Over 14 bands are scheduled to play, along with several individual performers and artists, to benefit the Imagine Academy for Autism. Performers range in age from high schoolers to grandfathers. With such a diverse lineup, there’s sure to be something for everyone!

Bands scheduled to perform include: The Perfect Mistake, Saturday’s Saints, Meets West, Wolves of Flatbush, The Invitations, Filthy Animals, Eric Ginsberg and the New Originals, Blue Mood, Sammy’s Cousins, Sounds of Friday, Same Day Service and the Bon Bon Poets. Other artists performing include Sonja Cabasso, Shani Levy, Julian Tawil and David Bernstein as Sefarad, Sammy Chalme, Morris Antebi and Jake Fallas. Pianists David Sutton and Mosey Sutton will also be showing off their skills. This year’s event will also feature artwork and photography by talented community artists. The artwork of Abie Hakim, Sofia Jemal and Sarah Kassab will be on display, alongside photography from Morris and Victor Gindi.

Much scholarly research has focused on “fortuitous events.” What, you ask, is a fortuitous event? Simply put, it’s an unexpected or unintended event. Every day we meet people by chance or through random events that we could not predict. These unexpected happenings have been dubbed fortuitous for a reason; often they lead to life-altering results. Many have met their spouses, started businesses or made a close friend simply by chance. Personally speaking, my newfound job as the editor of Sephardic Bikur Holim of Deal’s newsletter was the result of a “fortuitous event.” I had just recently moved to Deal and one afternoon a friend of mine suggested that I go to a luncheon at SBH headquarters. Being new in town I saw it as a rare opportunity to socialize; little did I know how much more it would be. After lunch our very own volunteer coordinator, Celia Habbaz, passed out a volunteer sign-up sheet. While my volunteer time was very limited, there was a check-off box for “writers.” I figured, “Why not, I can do that from home in my pajamas.” Needless to say, I’ve gotten my money’s worth out of those “editor’s pajamas” and I would never trade them in for any other pair. I believe that many of the volunteers of Sephardic Bikur Holim (SBH) of Deal feel as I do.

The battle is on! That was the attitude of the players at the third annual Special Education Academy of Deal (SEAD) football tournament, affectionately known as the Battle of the Gridiron SYs. The tournament was held on the corner of Park Avenue and Ocean Avenue in Deal, NJ, recently.

SEAD is a special education program, started by Morris A. Cohen, that is available to the children of our community who have learning disabilities, such as Down syndrome, and other neurological challenges. Since its founding, SEAD has given neurologically impaired children the opportunity to attend a school where their special education and therapeutic needs can be catered to, in a mainstream environment. The school currently holds 25 kids, five in each class. The goal of the program is to integrate these chidren into mainstream schools. Special education costs are very high and could well exceed $30,000 per child annually, depending on individual needs. Every teacher is trained and certified in special education and is dedicated to their field. Classroom instruction is set by specialists of various disciplines: physical, occupational and speech therapy, behavior modification, socialization and recreation. SEAD is located in Eatontown, NJ.

My nine-year-old sister, Pearly, participated in the JCC’s very own production of High School Musical. I’ve never seen the movie and unfortunately, I’ve never been to any of the JCC’s plays before this one. Luckily, I had the opportunity to see this spectacular show. I couldn’t, and wouldn’t miss Pearly’s onstage debut as a brainiac/thespian.

She had attended every practice religiously since February, coming home as late as 10 pm from practice and toppling into the nearest chair, exhausted. But as the day of the play approached, she couldn’t have been more excited.

The play was not only my little sister’s debut, it was also good wholesome family entertainment.

Irv Safdieh and Paulette Grazi

ABananagrams and backgammon tournament was recently held at the home of Claire Cohen, to raise money for Yad Eliezer. Nissim Alouf, one of the organizers of the tournament, spoke of the importance of Yad Eliezer, saying, “Yad Eliezer is a tremendous and awesome organization that feeds the hungry in Israel in an anonymous way where the people don’t feel like they’re getting a hand out and the kids don’t realize their parents are poor. It basically instills confidence in their lives, and they’re not wondering where their next meal will come from.” David Cohen added, “Yad Eliezer is a great organization which feeds a lot of people, and Baruch Hashem, from all the money we raised at the tournament we can continue feeding our brothers in Israel.”

Yad Eliezer is the largest anti-hunger agency in Israel. It began around 1980 in the kitchen of the Weisel family in Jerusalem. They prepared a food basket for a neighbor who could not feed her children, and were soon delivering monthly food baskets to hungry families. Their website states that Yad Eliezer has now grown to encompass 15 primary economic and social service programs that impact tens of thousands of individuals.

Parents for Free Choice in Education celebrated Independence Day by holding a rally for school choice at the Leon and Toby Cooperman JCC, in West Orange, New Jersey. The event brought together leaders and activists of the school choice movement, for the purpose of publicizing and educating voters on the issue and launching a grass roots effort for national legislation to implement the plan proposed by the late economist Milton Friedman for universal school choice.

Rabbi Shea Hecht, CEO of the National Committee for the Furtherance of Jewish Education, opened the program by urging the assembled to take on the challenge. “We owe it to the children to do whatever we can to improve their educational opportunities,” he said.