By Diana Brement,
JTNews Columnist
1 When Lauren Mayo left Seattle for the Young Judaea Year Course in Israel, the Ballard High School grad probably didn’t realize that she’d get to participate in an historic event.
On Oct. 28, Lauren joined the first Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure ever to be held in that country. The race (most participants walked) around the walls of Jerusalem was the inaugural event of the Israel Breast Cancer Initiative Collaborative, a new partnership between Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization, and the Komen foundation, which raises cancer awareness and money for cancer research. More than 6,000 men and women of all religions, many of them cancer patients or survivors, wearing pink, carried pink balloons and walked together, demonstrating their commitment to finding a cure for the disease.
Lauren e-mailed me that Young Judaeans participated in the walk as an organized group activity and said it was a fun event. (Young Judaea is the youth program of Hadassah.) At the end there were speakers and music.
“Survivors and organizers, a male victim of breast cancer even spoke,” Lauren wrote.
Bellingham resident Katie Edelstein walked, too. The Hadassah national board member says she planned to be there the moment the organization announced the event. The event began for her the evening before with a reception at the U.S. Ambassador’s residence. She met Nancy Brinker, Susan G. Komen for the Cure founder and sister of the late Susan Komen, as well as Senator Joe and Hadassah Lieberman. That night, the walls of Jerusalem were lit pink in support of the race.
The day of the walk, Katie wrote, she was thrilled to see “Jewish, non-Jewish and Arab women (and men) coming together and walking side by side in the streets of Jerusalem for a common cause.” It created “an extraordinary image that proved people can work together under the right circumstances.”
Katie said she has been inspired and infused with “greater determination to do what I can to fight the fight against breast cancer.”
A slide show of the day’s events is at www.hadassah.org.
Seattle Chapter Hadassah will be holding a cancer-awareness event called Breast Cancer Exposed this coming spring. Watch for details in early 2011.
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Robin Rogel-Goldstein of Bellevue will be installed as a vice president of Women’s League for Conservative Judaism at its 2010 biennial convention on Dec. 12 in Baltimore. Women’s League is the largest synagogue women’s organization in the world and almost 1,000 women are expected to attend the event.
Robin grew up in Congregation Herzl-Ner Tamid on Mercer Island and was president of the synagogue’s sisterhood before beginning her volunteer career with Women’s League. An active member and former president of the regional branch, she has been a member of the board of directors since 1996 and chair of Z’havah, for younger women, since 2006. Robin has been a Girl Scout troop leader and served on the lay committee for the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle’s J Team teen philanthropy group. She’s a Bar/Bat Mitzvah tutor and private jeweler, too.
Founded in 1918, Women’s League is dedicated to the perpetuation of traditional Judaism in the home, synagogue and community.
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As a tribute to his father, who died of a heart attack in 1986, Seattle resident Jonathan Kaler has created a public service announcement and Facebook page to build awareness of heart attack symptoms and hopefully prevent other deaths.
Jonathan’s writes that his dad Irving died “after seeking help too late,” for his symptoms.
The short PSA can be viewed on YouTube and shows a medical animation of blood coursing through an aorta accompanied by a narration of a “fast-paced mix of actual survivor testimony.” It can be seen at www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjo2P2hSxCg.
Facebook members can go log on to that site and type “Heart Attack Stories” into the search bar to get to Irving Kaler’s tribute page. You’re invited to contribute stories, photos, links and other media, “specifically on heart-attack survival or loss” to the site, in particular to spread the message that time is of the essence when experiencing heart attack symptoms.
“When heart attack strikes, time is life,” writes Jonathan.
Heart attacks can be fast and painful, but they can also be gradual and merely uncomfortable, particularly in women. Please take the time to review heart attack symptoms at the Heart Association Web page, or any number of other sites.
If you think you are having a heart attack, call 9-1-1.