Cherry Hill Sun

Tag: cherry hill public library

  • Library hosts conversation on retirement planning

    The township library hosted a talk called “Introduction to Retirement Planning” on June 19, part of its ongoing Community Conversations series.

    Alberto Portela Jr., managing director and financial advisor with Northwestern Mutual, told attendees how to plan for retirement and offered strategies they could use to protect their assets. He is licensed in 27 states, working in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and as far as Washington state and California.

    “Part of what we do as advisors is not just engaging with individual clients, but being a part of the greater community and providing information, giving resources to those out there who might not be able to, or maybe not have the time to engage personally with an advisor,” Portela said.

    He opened the discussion by handing out packets of material on retirement and financial planning and asking attendees what they wanted to know about.

    “We find that people are most financially vulnerable not while they’re accumulating money, but while they’re actually taking distributions,” Portela explained. “When we’re in retirement and we’re not earning any money anymore, we’re pulling money out. One distribution in a down market can have a hugely negative effect.”

    He then asked a series of true-or-false questions that participants could answer for themselves to determine where they are in their financial journey. Queries included how much money attendees have coming in and going out, credit scores and how much workplace disability income insurance covers and for how long.

    Portela then laid out the four steps to building a strong financial foundation. 

    First is understanding one’s cash flow and where the money goes, he pointed out. The second step is protecting one’s own income, family and assets. Portela emphasized that an individual’s biggest asset is the ability to earn income and that disability insurance is a good idea.

    “When we run illustrations for disability insurance, we typically see the cost of replacement or the cost of that warranty,” he noted. “That disability in relation to the income is typically between 1 and 2%, so for those that are in their working years, 1 to 2% to protect your most valuable assets probably is a smart thing to do.” 

    The third step toward building a financial foundation, according to Portela, is to develop a savings and investment plan. He recommended putting aside 20% of income for savings and investments; 60% for fixed expenses; and 20% for discretionary spending, with room for flexibility in those numbers.

    The fourth step, he said, is to create a strategy to manage debt, specifically getting rid of all credit card debt, finding lower interest rates on student loans, seeking loan forgiveness and looking for ways to consolidate debt.

    “The way you want to think about whether debt is good or bad, (there are a) couple of factors,” he offered. “One of the things before I think about it is, if I had that money invested, could I beat the interest rate that I’m paying on the debt?” 

    Abigail Twiford/ The Sun
    Alberto Portela Jr. laid out four steps for attendees on buiding a strong financial foundation.

  • Library kicks off summer reading with festival

    The end of the academic year signals the start of summer reading for students. Whether they choose an assigned book or a title of their choosing, reading is meant to prevent the “summer slide,” a significant decline in skills that can occur over the season.

    To kick off its summer reading program and mark 20 years in its present location, the township library held a Color Our World Art Festival on June 14 that emphasized why summer reading isn’t just for kids. Its reading program is broken down into four categories: early literacy for infants to children up to 4 years old; children from 5 to 11; teens and students in grades six through 12; and adults 18 or over.

    All four categories feature prizes that include gift baskets and cards, museum and amusement park passes and eReaders. 

    “It’s just getting more people aware that you can sign up and all the great prizes that we have at the end of the summer,” said PR and marketing coordinator Hope Holroyd.

    To further emphasize the reading program’s appeal to library patrons of all ages, the Color Our World Festival featured a variety of activities, crafts and food trucks aimed at different demographics. While rain meant the event didn’t go exactly as planned, the library team was able to make necessary changes so the rain or shine event could continue.

    “We were all set up outside, and it was great,” Holroyd noted. “And then it started to rain, so we moved the crafts inside, but left the food trucks and the performances outside. So we pivoted. But it’s great. I mean, seeing all the people do the bracelets and get the Henna art, it’s been a good day.”

    Stations in the library were used for creating friendship bracelets and decorating tote bags, and A Flick of the Wrist Splatter Paint mobile unit was set up outside the library entrance. A blackout poetry station was also set up on the library’s main floor. The activity has participants take a used book from a pile, choose an anchor word and others on one page and black out all other text on it. 

    Guests could also have caricatures of themselves drawn by artist Bruce Blitz.

    “The festival day was great,” he observed. “Even though it rained outside, we didn’t care about that, because we had a good time inside. I was drawing cartoon portraits and I had a great time doing it. The people have been sweeter and nicer and the kids were great, so I had a great time today.”

    Artist Bruce Blitz concentrates as he draws the caricature of a child at the festival.

    Henna hand art was also available from a professional, and those who wanted temporary tattoos could choose a design from a selection of templates. 

    Four food trucks were set up in the library’s parking lot. Dan’s Waffles sold a variety of both sweet and savory waffle-based dishes, the Food Bus sold classic festival foods like fries, chicken tenders and burgers, Kona Ice sold shaved ice that attendees could flavor themselves. Also on hand was the township’s Mechanical Brewery.

    “We’ve had a few people that were very engaging,” reported its brewer, Rick Vickers, “and it’s been a nice event, talking to people … We like the event and would be happy to do something like this again. Because we like to interact with the community in this way.” 

    Music was available throughout the festival at the back of the library building. Live performances included April Mae and the June Bugs, Mister Boom Boom Play Patrol Company and DJ Hunt.

    Photos by Abigail Twiford.
    Library patrons make their way around the Color Our World Art Festival, engaging with the several different activities and crafts.

  • Library speaker offers ‘tantalizing glimpses’ of queer history

    Abigail Twiford/ The Sun
    Em Ricciardi gives a presentation to celebrate Pride Month at the Cherry Hill library on June 11.

    June marks Pride Month for the LGBTQ community, and organizations around the area are honoring the occasion with a wide array of events and celebrations.

    The Cherry Hill library is one. It has organized a number of events throughout the month to honor the LGBTQ community and its history. In partnership with Jewish Family and Children’s Service and the township, it presented the talk “Uncovering Queer Figures with the Library Company of Philadelphia” on June 11.

    Em Ricciardi is the cataloger and LGBTQ+ subject specialist for the Library Company. They organize printed materials from throughout history, and curates the Library Company’s Queer History Collection, including printed materials and graphics or visuals. 

    Mayor Dave Fleisher started the event with a few words on Pride Month.

    “I believe that although it’s Pride Month, that the character of a community is defined by how people are treated 365 days a year,” he explained. “And I am very, very proud, not just of the library, but proud to be part of leading a community in a township like Cherry Hill, where people are welcome and treated with dignity and respect 365 days a year.” 

    Ricciardi highlighted historical figures during his talk, from the well-known to the unknown throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.

    “We were the Library of Congress when Congress was meeting in Philadelphia,” they noted. “And we’ve been around for about 300 years. So as you can imagine, a lot of our stuff is super old.”

    Ricciardi also went on to explain that the Library Company is unique in its collection of rare books, because it includes only printed materials, no manuscript or handwritten items.

    They began their discussion of queer history figures with actors and performers, including two female impersonators in an early form of what is now known as drag queens, Julian Elton and Richard Harlow. Though it’s not known for certain if the men were LGBTQ, their norm-breaking performances earned them a place in Ricciardi’s library talk. 

    “He was very aware of the way people would perceive him and judge him if they thought that he was purposefully transgressing those gender boundaries,” Ricciardi noted of Harlow. 

    Ricciardi told the story of Charlotte Cushman, a stage actress and lesbian known for her many affairs and documented relationships.

    “Charlotte Cushman was, in fact, as we can confirm, a lesbian and a messy lesbian at that,” Ricciardi acknowledged. “Cushman had a number of female lovers over her lifetime, and often overlapped them.”  

    The presentation also evoked the story of James How, an individual assigned female at birth. How dressed as a man to marry his wife of 34 years, but it is unknown if How was a lesbian dressing as a man to marry a woman, or a transgender man.

    “In some cases, it was certainly just two lesbians trying to be together,” they revealed. “In other cases, there might have been a trans identity going on. A lot of times, we don’t know exactly why one of the partners chose to dress as a man and the other didn’t.”

    Literature was also discussed as a place where queer figures often appear, specifically writers Fitz Greene Halleck and Sarah Orne Jewett. Neither of them is confirmed as queer, but the use of language and themes in their works is often interpreted through the use of literary analysis as reflecting a queer identity.

    Ricciardi also described how many of the accounts the Library Company has access to only feature white queer figures, since it was much more difficult for people of color to have access to printing throughout history.

    “It is obviously true that people of color throughout history were writing their own works and publishing them,” they observed. “However, it is also true that white people had a lot more access to traditional venues of printing and publishing.” 

    Ricciardi also said that many of the historical narratives the Library Company has access to on queer people of color are white people writing about people of color, instead of people of color writing about themselves.

    They also showed photos of figures from history who seemed to be in same-sex relationships, though none of their identities is known. That prompted Ricciardi to speak about how many queer figures from the past are unknown, only leaving small traces of their lives behind.

    “There are a lot of people out there who we just don’t have any information about …” they said. “We have a number of photographs that depict people crossing gender boundaries, sharing close relationships with people of the same sex or gender …

    “We just have these little tantalizing glimpses into a potential queer life that they might have been living.”

  • Analyst predicts recession during library talk

    As society has adapted to a post-COVID world, the economy has been a major point of contention and anxiety. 

    To help Cherry Hill residents better understand the country’s financial issues, the library hosted a lecture on June 2 by Edward J. Dodson, a retired Fannie Mae financial analyst who dubbed his talk “The State of the U.S. Economy and Our Society.”

    Dodson, who is on the faculty of the Henry George School of Social Science and Temple University’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, but is not an economist, used his two hours to dive into current statistics that give greater insight into America’s financial challenges and how it impacts citizens.

    “I am not an economist, but I worked for Fannie Mae for 20 years, and my role there required me to do market analysis, and so I started out looking at the economy in a very narrow way based on the housing market,” said Dodson, explaining how he would create a quarterly analysis on the housing market for his work.

    Upon his retirement from Fannie Mae in 2005, Dodson began more extensive study for analysis subscribers, continuing until 2019, when he found he could no longer devote that much time and energy to the work. But with a new administration in the White House, he’s back to it.

    “What prompted me to pick it up again was the election of our current president,” he acknowledged, “because I felt we needed a snapshot of where we are as a society, where our economy is right now.”

    He explained that economic cycles come and go like clockwork in a curve that takes place over 18 to 18-and-a-half years. Dodson’s best guess on the current economy is that there will be a significant downturn.

    “I don’t want to scare you on this, but next year, we’re going to have a recession,” he noted. “It could be one of the worst we ever have. (It) depends a lot on what happens this year in terms of tax policy, in terms of other legislation, in terms of what happens with the tariffs and trade and in economics.”

    Dodson went on to describe issues the nation faces, including debt of $36 trillion; individual debt largely made up of mortgages and student loans; the need for infinite growth on a finite planet; and the rising cost of housing caused in part by private equity firms buying up properties.

    “If I’m a renter, I’m paying too much rent,” he pointed out. “I can’t save for a down payment, and I don’t have any parents who can come up with the money for my down payment. And so, if the … market crashes because prices are too high for first-time home buyers, then people who are in starter homes and having babies can’t move up. So so they’re stuck in that little house.”

    Dodson also described how some older adults are staying in larger houses rather than selling.

    “A lot of us who are retired are continuing to hold on to houses we don’t need,” he said. “We should be turning them over to the younger generation of adults with children.”

    Dodson also discussed unemployment and how big-box stores and mega-corporations are putting small owners out of business by using automation instead of human labor, at the expense of a healthy economy. 

    “Small businesses are the source of most new employment in the United States,” he observed. “So if Walmart puts out of business three local grocery stores, they’re not going to hire the same number of people that were employed by those three grocery stores.”

    Members of the library audience wanted to know what they should do to prepare for a possible recession. Dodson told them to get out of debt as best they can and accumulate at least six months of expenses in savings.

    “When all else fails,” he joked, “fill your basement up with canned goods.”

    Abigail Twiford/The Sun
    Edward Dodson, a retired Fannie Mae financial analyst, spoke in the township library’s conference room on June 2.

  • Author’s book tells story of a Steel Pier ‘prince’

    Abigail Twiford/The Sun
    Stacy Nockowitz holds a copy of her middle-grade novel, “The Prince of Steel Pier,” after signing copies at the township library.

    May marked Jewish American Heritage Month, and the Cherry Hill library held a number of events to celebrate, including a visit by author Stacy Nockowitz on May 28.

    The talk – “Welcome home, Stacy Nockowitz: An Author Visit,” – was sponsored in collaboration with the Cherry Hill Education Association, which provided light refreshments and library media specialists from the township’s middle schools.

    Nockowitz is a township native and graduate of East High who became a published author in 2022. A former language-arts teacher and school librarian, she has spent more than 30 years in middle-school education. It is one of the reasons she decided to write her novel, “The Prince of Steel Pier,” as middle-grade fiction.

    Jasmine Riel is the teen librarian at the library and introduced the author.

    “I’m very excited to introduce Mrs. Nockowitz, whom I first met around this time last year in May at the annual New Jersey Library Association Conference in Atlantic City …” Riel recalled. “I remember the moment she mentioned that she grew up in Cherry Hill, because all of the people that I sat with at the luncheon, their heads swiveled toward me because they all knew I worked at Cherry Hill.”

    Nockowitz’s novel won the 2022 National Jewish Book Award for Middle Grade Literature and was named a Sydney Taylor Notable Book for 2023. 

    Her novel is about 13-year-old Joey Goodman, a Jewish boy working as a waiter-in-training at his grandparents’ kosher hotel who spends much of his time in August of 1975 on the Atlantic City Boardwalk. He finds himself in several dangerous situations following encounters with a mobster and his daughter. 

    “The book, though, really is about a boy trying to find his place in his big Jewish family and in the world, as kids do at that age,” the author explained.

    Nockowitz began the talk with her childhood, one of the inspirations for her novel’s setting and background. She chose to set the book in the Atlantic City of the 1970s based on her own history and showed authentic pictures of her family from the time.

    Her grandparents, like Joey’s, also owned and ran a kosher hotel on the Boardwalk. 

    “Atlantic City, which for decades had been this booming tourist destination, was actually decaying … in the 50s,” Nakowitz recounted. “Air travel became a more widely available mode of transportation for people going on vacation …. the luster of Atlantic City really wore off.”

    She then addressed how mob crime and corruption became more prevalent in the city, at a time when old landmarks and family-run businesses were first being torn down and replaced with casinos.

    “So in the mid-70s, Atlantic City was in this time of transition,” she noted, “a time of kind of trying to find itself. And it is the same for my lead character, Joey Goodman.”

    Besides the setting, Nockowitz said other aspects of the book that were crucial for her to include were Jewish religious and cultural markers. In a scene with a rabbi in a synagogue for a kosher observance, Joey’s kippah and talk of religious holidays and services like Shabbat, Chanukah and Passover are all featured. 

    Cultural touchstones such as Yiddish words, Jewish foods, matriarchy and community insularity are also important details in the book.

    “When I was growing up, I didn’t see any of this stuff in books,” Nockowitz acknowledged. “I didn’t see myself in books, in the books that I read … It was like Jewish writers for children didn’t exist.”

    She went on to discuss Rudine Sims Bishop’s essay on what books for children should be: mirrors to see themselves, windows to see into and sliding-glass doors become a part of other worlds.

    “Very few of those books that could act as windows and mirrors and sliding-glass doors existed unless a student picked up a book about the Holocaust,” Nockowitz explained. “Jewish main characters were pretty much absent.”

    She then described difficulties for Jewish authors in today’s publishing world. Antisemitism was one issue brought up, as well as more recent concerns over boycotts led against Jewish authors who do not openly denounce Israel.

    Nockowitz wrapped up the event by reading a passage from the book and signing copies, putting award stickers on them if they were not already on the covers of each child’s copy.

  • ‘A good idea’

    This rise in potentially sensitive or confidential information stored online in the digital age has led to an increase in scams and breaches that threaten the safety and security of vital data. 

    To help combat that, the Cherry Hill library recently held a class on digital security called “Keep Yourself, Your Computer and Your Money Safe Online.”

    Presenter Peter Mokover defined cybersecurity as keeping the “bad guys” out. Attendees received packets of information summarizing what the presentation would include so they could follow along as he spoke.

    Mokover opened with an anecdote about how a friend of his was once tricked by fake emails and a website that appeared to be her legitimate banking website. When she signed in, the scammers were able to access her information and withdraw money from her account.

    “It’s a good idea to see whether, when it says click here, where is it actually going to take you,” Mokover advised, adding that the cursor should be moved over a link to reveal the web address before clicking. “It’s going to take you somewhere, but where? It’s probably a good idea for you to know where before you click.”

    Mokover went over the protection of passwords and usernames, noting that the former should not be used for more than one account, should be kept in a secure location and be hard to guess. He also emphasized that usernames should be made more difficult to figure out by utilizing more than just a name or email address.

    Mokover addressed scams by maintaining how important it is to be cautious with personal information online and over the phone.

    “I would say this next point is not always a bad thing,” he noted, “but at least be cautious or conscious of it. And that’s unsolicited contact.”

    The presentation also covered email security – making clear that sending them is not a secure process – but that it is less likely for one email to be intercepted without specific targeting because of the sheer daily volume of those sent, estimated at hundreds of billions. The main danger of emails comes from unknown attachments that, if downloaded, can result in malware or a virus, according to Mokover.

    As for web security, he offered a range of advice, from knowing to what a user is agreeing before accepting terms of service and not allowing a website to access location without a good reason, like travel.

    Mokover also explained the difference between web addresses beginning with http and https.

    “Https is what everybody ought to be using,” he stated. “It means it’s a secure connection between you and that website, so chances of something being hacked are greatly reduced. If you see http without the letter ‘s’ after it, it’s not a secure connection.” 

    Mokover also stressed not signing up for websites that require password entry with Google or Facebook; both sites make their money through ads and data collection, meaning information is not secure. Regarding device security, he recommended that heat and liquids be kept away from devices and that laptops, tablets and phones be stored in locations not easily accessible.

    He also emphasized the importance of backing up all data on computers to external hard drives that should be kept in a safe place away from a computer, and for extra protestion, to the cloud.

    “They’re called flash drives,” Mokover pointed out. “They’re really important. I do not think these are good for backups. These don’t last very long compared to some of them for reliable backups.”

    The presentation also addressed disposal of old computers. Mokover explained that leaving them out with the trash is illegal in New Jersey. A hard drive should be kept or destroyed by smashing it with a hammer or being drilled into and filled with liquid, he said. The rest of the computer should go to a proper disposal facility.

    Kim Taylor was in attendance for the digital security class.

    “I thought it was very informative,” she said. “I already knew a lot, but this made it seem simpler, easier and more manageable.”

  • Library hosts 10-week class on novel writing

    The Cherry Hill library has offered a wide variety of educational programs and classes for residents of all ages for years.

    One such program is the Novel Writing 101 class, a 10-week series that aims to help those interested in writing and publishing a novel create stronger stories, prose and characters. 

    Ty Drago – a novelist, editor and publisher – teaches the class.

    “I retired,” he said. “I became a full-time writer, yeah. And you know what you can’t do for eight hours a day is write, so you have to look for other things. I like to teach.” 

    Drago has instructed the adult novel-writing class for seven years. He also runs a six-week, short fiction- writing class and has done a number of seminars for children.

    His class is the first of its kind at the library that is free. Drago focuses on different elements of writing week to week, using lecture notes displayed via slideshows and writing exercises to help participants better understand the topics at hand. 

    Drago goes over his five rules for writing: write; finish what you write; edit what you write; submit your writing for publication; and then, go write something else. One class exercise involves taking a long passage and shortening it while keeping the same tone and vibe. 

    “Vibe is very internal,” Drago explained. “It’s not about what’s out here, it’s about what’s inside the character … The point of view is tight and you are inside and feeling everything they (characters) are feeling.”

    Another class assignment is to write 100 words in a way that conveys a broad image to the reader or writing the same length with more emphasis on detail. 

    Drago said this year’s class averages about 18 people a week. Since it takes place over 10 weeks, each class does not always draw the same set of students, though some are consistent participants. It also helps with things like outlining the books students want to write and coming up with milestones.

    Drago also goes into detail on the difference between show versus tell and when to use each.

    “Tell gets a bad rap,” he noted. “Tell has its place … if you’re writing a short story for an anthology that has a limit of 1,500 words, and you’re at 2,000 and you gotta cut off a quarter of that story. You start looking at the shows versus the tells.”

    Showing the audience something often takes up more words than telling it. Students are encouraged to read their writing – both from home and with in-class exercises – aloud for the rest of the class to hear. Drago then critiques the passages, telling students what they did well and what they need to work on. 

    He emphasizes the importance of having a “first read,” the first person to read a work other than the author, and specifically mentions how necessary it is that that person be willing to be honest. 

    The end portion of the class is set aside for the attendees to split into groups and share their ideas and what they’ve been working on. Drago helps when they have questions or want feedback on their work.

  • Library hosts Social Security information session

    As the general population ages, Social Security, retirement and other issues become top of mind. To give residents some peace of mind, the township library recently held a talk called, “Social Security: You Earned It!” 

    The presentation was created in collaboration with AARP and was presented by Sarah Spellman, a speaker for the organization. She began the talk by discussing issues that have arisen around Social Security in recent years, most notably financial challenges related to the declining ratio of workers to beneficiaries. She then went on to list possible solutions and the pros and cons of each. 

    One proposal is to raise or eliminate the wage cap, as only earnings up to $176,100 are currently subject to annual Social Security taxes. Raising or eliminating the maximum would allow for more income into the system through highter taxed earnings. Another solution would be to increase payroll tax for workers and employers. 

    “So rather than having payroll taxes at 6.2%,” said Spellman, “why not increase those by one to two percent possibly? And depending upon which of those you chose, you could impact the problem by either 25 up to 50%.”

    Another solution would be implemented over several years by slowly increasing the full retirement age, currently 67 for those born in 1960 and after. Spellman argued against that on behalf of AARP, which advocates for keeping the minimum retirement age at 62 and full retirement age at 67.

    “The argument for that is that there are some people who are in careers that you physically cannot continue to work that long into your life,” explained Spellman, using underwater welding as an example.

    Another solution would be to reduce payments for high-income earners, which Spellman emphasized would include means testing. The final proposal she discussed was for the govnernment to find other financial sources, using money from the general fund and budgeting the Social Security shortfall, or diverting money from other programs. 

    “None of these are 100% impact,” Spellman acknowledged, “so it’s going to have to be a combination.”

    Attendees at the library talk were each given a paper with all of the possible solutions laid out, so they could list pros and cons of their own. After that, Spellman led a group discussion on what attendees thought to be the best idea. Many suggested raising or eliminating the maximum amount of taxable income and capping payments for high-income earners.

    Spellman then directed the group to AARP’s website; it has a tool that allows users to ask questions about Social Security. Some participants asked questions about when and if they should start taking Social Security, a query Spellman said she could not answer because it depends on an individual’s situation.

    But Judy Greenberg attended the talk and found it beneficial.

    “I think this seminar de-mystified some of the issues surrounding Social Security,” she observed. “We suddenly turn 65, and Social Security becomes front and center for us, and we’re not able to really understand what the whole system is about, how the demographics change in our world, how that system works and how we can best access the system.”

  • Paint and sips at library’s Jewish heritage event

    In honor of May as Jewish America Heritage Month, the Cherry Hill library held a paint and sip event on the evening of May 6 in collaboration with the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of Southern New Jersey and the Jewish Federation of Southern New Jersey. 

    Susan Dermer is on the board of the JCRC.

    “We just have women that are gathering together to celebrate Jewish Heritage month,” she explained, “and the whole focus is strength and resilience of Jewish women.”

    Attendees were given a plastic zipper storage bag with a picture frame, pallet, two brushes, a cup, a sponge, a disposable apron and a piece of paper. The project consisted of painting two wooden symbols important to Judaism, the tree of life and the hamsa, a symbol of the ancient Middle East.

    Photos by Abigail Twiford/The Sun
    Examples of the finished hamsa and tree of life symbol artworks at the paint and sip library event on May 6.

    The tree of life means growth, wisdom and the connection between generations of Jewish women together. 

    “The deep roots passed down through generations together are to honor the legacy of a strong Jewish woman: grounded, resilient and always moving forward,” Dermer noted.

    The hamsa – an open hand with five fingers and an eye in its center – represents protection and feminine strength. 

    Stacey Rosenblum was in attendance at the library event.

    “It’s meaningful, because I’ve actually had hamsa keychains and things from Israel, from other places, and I lost my hamsa,” she said. “Now I get to paint one.”

    The wooden symbols were in the back of the room at the library on a table that held the bottles of paint. Participants were instructed to paint the hamsa first, to ensure it had time to dry. The paper included in the bag could be painted as a background for the tree or the hamsa. 

    As the participants painted and enjoyed light refreshments, Moriah Benjoseph Nassau, director of leadership development and learning for the Jewish Federation, gave a talk on influential and important American Jewish women in history. She began with the Old Testament and Torah figures like Esther, Miriam and Ruth.

    Nassau then went on to discuss poet Emma Lazarus, who wrote “The New Colossus,” the poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty; Zionist leader Henrietta Szold; feminist Bella Azbug, a lawyer and later congresswoman from New York; Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the first Jewish woman on the Supreme Court; and musician Debbie Friedman.

    Nassau also mentioned the first four women to become rabbis for each of the major movements of Judaism. And she addressed the Laurel Thatcher Ulrich quote – “Well-behaved women rarely make history” – and its true meaning.

    “What most people mean when they say it today is, you should stand up and make a lot of noise, because otherwise it doesn’t get put in history books …” Nassau pointed out. “She (Thatcher) means nearly the complete opposite. Well-behaved women rarely make history, and that is okay.

    “We don’t need to be in the history books to make a difference.”

    After the presentation, the library group was instructed on how to put the project together, placing the dried and painted wooden figure onto the glass of the picture frame, then putting a paper border around it, with the paper background on top of both, then putting the back of the frame back on. 

    Three of the attendees at the library event displayed their completed works, two hamsas and a tree of life.

    “It was an important, amazing, fun event,” said another attendee, Chevy Cianci. “I learned about some important Jewish women I didn’t know about, which is pretty cool.”

  • Library marks Poetry Month with a Poe impersonator

    April marks National Poetry Month, a chance to make people around the country appreciate the art form and engage with it in some way.

    The Cherry Hill library took a unique approach to that with a recent event honoring the works of Edgar Allan Poe that featured an impersonator of the writer.

    Actress Helen McKenna – who has portrayed Poe for more than 30 years – donned a black suit, wig and painted-on mustache to perform some of the writer’s most famous works from memory, with the idea that Poe’s spirit had taken possession of McKenna’s body for the library event.

    The performance began with some background on Poe’s life story and childhood as the child of actors whose father left the family and whose mother’s death came when he was still a youngster. 

    “I was taken in by a family called the Allans,” joked McKenna as Poe. “That’s where the middle name comes from. They did not want to adopt me outright, because I was the child of actors, and actors are morally inferior people.”

    Another tragedy in Poe’s life detailed by McKenna was the loss of Jane Stanard, a friend’s mother who also became a close friend and confidant of the writer. The impersonator then performed the poem, “To Helen,” which Poe wrote about Stanard over the course of 14 years. 

    “Her name is Jane, plain Jane,” McKenna explained as Poe. “Of course, you would never call her that. So what name can I give her? Well, there’s Helen of Troy, the great beauty, the connection to the classic civilization. And so I decided to call the poem ‘To Helen.’”

    McKenna also discussed Poe’s volume of work, not just the amount of writing but also the number of genres in which he worked, from horror and mystery to literary criticism. McKenna performed one of Poe’s works as a critic, reciting his review of “Confessions of a Poet.”

    “People were angry. They didn’t like what I was doing,” noted McKenna, who then told the library audience about Poe’s rivalry with Rufus Griswold. He would go on to write a biography of the poet – often described as inaccurate – in the wake of Poe’s death in 1849.

    McKenna asked attendees if they knew how Poe died; they answered with everything from exposure to murder. 

    “So the reason I ask is that I don’t recall,” acknowledged McKenna, a reference to the still unknown cause of Poe’s untimely death at 40. That led to her performance of one of Poe’s most famous works, “The Raven.” 

    After she finished, McKenna told the audience the tale of Poe’s marriage and his wife’s subsequent death from tuberculosis.

    “I understand that I’m talking to a modern audience, so I am fully prepared for you to turn on me when I tell you yes, she was my first cousin, and she was 13 and I was 27,” Poe noted of his wife through McKenna. “So let that sink in.”

    McKenna then recited “Annabel Lee,” a poem in which the narrator laments the loss of his young love.

    The library audience was encouraged to ask questions; one individual wanted to know about the writer’s time in Philadelphia. While Poe is most often associated with Baltimore, some of his best known pieces were written in Philadelphia.

    “I lived in Baltimore for four years, and I died there …” recounted McKenna’s Poe. “I lived in Philadelphia for six years, so longer than I did in Baltimore, and I did a lot more significant writing in Philadelphia than I ever did in Baltimore.

    “So what I like to say is, ‘Baltimore has my body, but Philadelphia has the body of work.”

    Another asked if “The Raven” was actually the tale of a man who had killed his lover, which McKenna as Poe called “hogwash,” but McKenna still encouraged people to find whatever meaning they would like in Poe’s works.

    The event ended with a performance of “The Bells,” after McKenna described how Poe liked to experiment and saw poetry as music.