“Conservation Trees” features illustrations, color photos and simple descriptions.

“This is an ideal resource for tree planters throughout the country,” said John Rosenow, chief executive and founder of the Arbor Day Foundation. “It is important that people know how to properly plant and care for their trees.

“Taking care of existing trees is just as critical as planting new ones,” Rosenow added. “Trees clean the air, keep our water sources pure and conserve energy. Trees provide so many benefits to a community, and that’s why it is so vital to take care of them.”

The booklet includes tips on using shade trees and windbreaks to save on energy costs and attracting songbirds.

To receive the booklet, send a $3 check along with your name and address to Conservation Trees, Arbor Day Foundation, 100 Arbor Ave., Nebraska City, NE 68410, or order online at arborday.org/conservationtrees.

Some of the crafts presented, such as Torah mantles and challah covers, are deeply rooted in Jewish heritage, while others, including Purim puppets, an ushpizin (visitors) quilt and a knit seder plate for Passover, play off centuries of tradition while incorporating a contemporary spin.

Among the fabric craft techniques represented are quilting, needlepoint, knitting, crochet, felting, embroidery, appliqué, needle felting and counted cross-stitch.

Compiled and written by Diana Drew with Robert Grayson, “Jewish Threads” provides tales about how each piece was created, along with step-by-step instructions to help readers fashion the items individually or in groups.

Members of the Los Angeles chapter of the Pomegranate Guild of Judaic Needlework presented Barbara Esmond with this quilt in honor of her term as president of the chapter. The gift was a surprise, as Esmond never completed her term because she went to Israel for a two-month visit and ended up staying 16 years. “That’s a story for another time,” she says. (Phyllis Braun)

The group is named for the fruit that is one of the “seven species” in the Bible. The pomegranate, said to have 613 seeds symbolic of the 613 mitzvot, provides a colorful theme for many of the guild’s designs.

A long-time member of a chapter in Los Angeles, Esmond moved to Tucson almost four years ago to be near her daughter, April Bauer, who has also been a guild member. Although Esmond still attends some guild meetings in L.A. when she visits her sons and their families, she has decided to start a chapter here. She promises that anyone can produce beautiful pieces like hers, even if they’ve never done so much as sew on a button — as was the case with at least one member of the L.A. group.

Esmond had started doing needlepoint before she joined the guild in 1981, but a canvas she bought at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, which didn’t have a pre-printed pattern to follow, had her stumped. She sought the guild’s advice after seeing a mention of their meetings in a synagogue newsletter.

At her first meeting, she heard unfamiliar terms such as “blackwork,” “hardanger,” “huck” and “Brazilian.”

“It really intrigued me, so I stayed,” says Esmond.

At her second meeting, a member showed examples of Brazilian, a form of three-dimensional embroidery. “I decided I wanted to make a chuppah out of Brazilian embroidery when one of my children got married,” says Esmond, which she did. Three of her four children and a niece have used the chuppah so far.

Barbara Esmond models an apron depicting symbols of the Jewish holidays.

Afikomen bag

As for those other mysterious terms, blackwork traditionally uses black silk, although red, aka scarletwork, is also popular – and perfect for pomegranates. Hardanger uses white thread on a white fabric background, with cutwork, reminiscent of papercuts or lace, while huck is a woven embroidery technique.

In addition to embroidery, guild members may also choose appliqué, quilting and needlepoint projects; pretty much anything that can be done with a needle and thread, says Esmond.

Alef Bet sampler with designs based on ancient needlework. The pattern was created for the Los Angeles chapter of the Pomegranate Guild of Judaic Needlework.

Prior to her first Pomegranate Guild meeting, Esmond imagined members working on pictures of rabbis at the Western Wall, which wasn’t the case at all. “I went and saw they were doing all this wonderful stuff,” she says.

But Esmond got more out of the meetings than just beautiful needlework. She also met wonderful people. “When I moved to L.A.in 1978 I was very lonely. I started a business and I didn’t really have friends, I didn’t know people,” she says. “Pomegranate opened up the world to me.”

Many of the group’s projects, such as challah covers and afikomen bags, fulfill the commandment of hiddur mitzvah, enhancement or beautification of a mitzvah. The pomegranateguild.org website notes that when members sit down to stitch, “They are reviving Jewish traditions … Some create their works as heirlooms for their children; others stitch to recreate memories of ceremonial objects or perhaps of family members lost in the Holocaust.”

Matzah cover

But you don’t have to be Jewish to join, says Esmond — the L.A. group had Christian and Muslim members. You also don’t have to be a woman, she adds.

Esmond has a list of 10 or 11 prospective new members in Tucson, and plans to hold the chapter’s first meeting either in early June or in the fall. Dues are $36 per year and include a subscription to the quarterly national newsletter, The Paper Pomegranate. For more information, contact her at 204-3364 or brealjs@yahoo. com.

In partnership with ProFlowers and OPI Products, Inc., JWI will send bouquets and beauty products to 150 shelters across the United States, including one in Tucson, on Mother’s Day. For each $25 contribution, JWI will send a Mother’s Day card to any woman the donor chooses, thanking her for the inspiration to help women in need.

Throughout the year, JWI advocates for domestic violence legislation and creates initiatives that help educate communities, empower women and break the cycle of abuse.

“When women come into the shelter, they are very broken in spirit,” says Anne Marie Bartlett, residential program manager at Cornerstone in Bloomington, Minn., a 2009 Flower Project recipient. “The roses that come to us from Jewish Women International are a beautiful sign that they are cared about, that someone recognizes them as special and that they are not forgotten. For some it may be the first time they have been honored on Mother’s Day. There is something about the beauty of a flower that is so touching to the senses and in its own way helps to revive the spirit. We are grateful to be recipients of this gift of hope.”

To make a donation and send a card, visit jwi.org/fp or call 800-343-2823.

As Tucson temperatures soar to a sizzle point, local restaurants are marking the change in seasons by offering menus with lighter fare.

Pizza is perennially popular but Rocco’s Little Chicago Pizza on Broadway has added gazpacho and lighter beers to its menu specials. “We make everything from scratch,” says Rocco DiGrazia, owner and current president of Tucson Originals, which includes more than 50 local, independently owned restaurants. “We’re a favorite of young people and crusty old Midwesterners, people who remember living in Chicago in the 1940s,” DiGrazia told the AJP.

Tucson Originals continues to focus on local ingredients. And although many area restaurants still specialize in fine dining, “we keep evolving. Smaller and more homespun eating establishments keep popping up,” notes DiGrazia.

Lodge on the Desert, a Tucson Originals member, is the first restaurant in Tucson to serve wine on tap, which, says Executive Chef Ryan Clark, adds a fresher taste to the wine and is also good for the environment, saving on the use of corks and bottles.

The restaurant holds a monthly wine dinner featuring local wineries and is planning a beer dinner promoting local breweries in the next few months, notes Clark. For summer imbibing, “we’re excited about our new organic bar drinks with five different infusions,” he says.

Lodge on the Desert changes its menu every month. They’re so committed to using local ingredients, says Clark, “I’ve had the experience where prairie dogs ate all the radishes at one farm we use. We had to change the menu.”

Spiffing up fare may be accompanied by restaurant renovations for the new season, which was the case at Le Rendez-Vous. It was time to do something new, both inside and out, says owner/manager Gordon Berger. “We’ve added 10 small plates to the menu, including a mini Beef Wellington,” he says, adding, “it may be a surprise to many diners that the dish is probably French.”

Berger, who spent three years cooking at the Palais Royale in Paris, says that Le Rendez-Vous will continue to serve traditional French dishes such as coq au vin and bouillabaisse. But the small plates are “something the younger crowd would appreciate, something new that’s fun.” And people “don’t want huge portions anymore,” he says. “They also want reduced prices.”

Many local restaurants offer sumptuous Mother’s Day brunches. Tavolino Ristorante Italiano, usually closed on Sundays, will be open this year to celebrate with a price-fixed menu, says Larissa Capizzano, assistant manager and events coordinator.

Tavolino, which has been open for 10 years, specializes in holding private functions on their back patio, including engagement parties and happy hour functions, which Capizzano plans with customers. The restaurant’s wine director helps pair wines with selected dishes.

The backyard view of the Catalina Mountains at the Flying V Bar & Grill, Loews Ventana Canyon Resort, is always a draw, says Jennifer Duffy, public relations director. Matching the food with a Southwestern ambiance is a tradition at the grill, with guacamole prepared tableside. Another amenity they offer is two choices for their Sunday brunch, says Duffy. “Most people go to both. The one on the outside patio is funky and casual” with a local blues band, locally brewed beer and a barbecue. The one inside is a more elegant brunch.

Cool, lighter dishes will highlight the Flying V menu this summer. New items will include watermelon gazpacho, California halibut ceviche and tepary bean vichyssoise. The tepary beans are from the Tohono O’odham Community Action nonprofit dedicated to native foods, says Duffy, adding that “it’s unusual to serve the tepary beans in a cold soup.”

Oro Valley’s Harvest restaurant has had new owners, Reza and Lisa Shapouri, since October. “Our entire menu is homemade and we do all our shopping locally,” says Reza. “We make our own mozzarella cheese, our own pasta, all our sauces and dressings. We serve all-natural, hormone-free chicken, grass-fed beef and wild, not farm-raised, salmon.”

His wife, Lisa, a Tucson native, is a self-taught pastry chef. The month before the couple bought Harvest, the restaurant sold around 160 desserts, says Reza. “Last month, we sold nearly 1,200 desserts. Our food speaks for itself. There’s not a day that goes by when a diner doesn’t say, ‘this is phenomenal or outstanding,’” he says.

Ethnic restaurants abound in Tucson, from Campbell Avenue to Oro Valley. Tourists from across the United States, Israel, Egypt and Lebanon have told Joe Abi-Ad, owner of Falafel King, that he serves “the best falafel, hummus and tabouli they’ve ever had. They’re the authentic dishes,” says Abi-Ad. “I don’t modernize them.”

His family has been “involved in food preparation for the last 800 years,” and Abi-Ad has been doing the same in Tucson for the past 35 years. “Many Mediterranean restaurants have come and gone over the years,” he says. “I’ve closed and opened new ones myself but I’m still here.”

Another ethnic restaurant on Campbell Avenue is Yuki’s Sushi and Japanese, run by Leona Watabe. In its casual dining atmosphere a wide range of Japanese dishes are served, including spicy seafood ramen and kamikaze rolls. “We offer a unique dining experience with a combination of traditional Japanese dishes” and modern takes on others, says Watabe. “We have some of the freshest fish available.”

Sullivan’s Steak House has 20 locations around the United States, with Tucson’s on Campbell Avenue and River Road. With nine different types of steak and several choices of sauces, including bourbon peppercorn and Madeira mushroom, the restaurant is a meat-lover’s paradise. For vegetable lovers, there’s an asparagus bisque.

And for a Mother’s Day treat, Tucsonans still have time to “Show Mom Some Love” at Sullivan’s with one of their steaks and a “Momosa.”

With a wide array of Southwestern, ethnic and seafood dining experiences in Tucson, there’s no shortage of restaurants at which to celebrate Mother’s Day with family and friends on Sunday, May 13.

Tucsonan Paul Rubin with journals written by his mother, Roz Kaufmann, and a copy of his compilation, “In Her Own Words: A Life Well Lived” (Photo: Brenda Stosberg-Rubin)

Imagine Paul Rubin’s surprise when he found a suitcase full of journals penned by his mother, Roz Kaufmann, dating back to 1944. Kaufmann was 79 and suffered from dementia when her son found the journals in 2004. She died two years later at age 81.

“All of a sudden my mother came alive again with her most inner thoughts, what was going on in her life and her earlier history,” Rubin, 61, told the AJP. “My dad died of cancer at age 44. I was 13. It’s hard not to cry now. I see the experience of his dying through her eyes, her regrets. During the ’60s we didn’t discuss dying. It was a taboo subject.”

Kaufmann’s children started passing the journals around. “I was pretty much the family historian,” says Rubin, who decided to self-publish “In Her Own Words: A Life Well Lived,” which contains excerpts from the journals. He distributed copies of the book to family members on Thanksgiving to “rave reviews.”

Kaufmann had been “in absentia” for the last 10 years of her life, notes Rubin, whose own children, Max and Anna, both in their early 20s, along with 15 of her other grandchildren, “got to know her in a whole different way” through her writing. Nieces and nephews and friends who’ve read the book have called Rubin to say that “it brought back so many great memories, and that she was always such a good friend, always there for them.”

“It makes me really appreciate what a great woman she was,” says Rubin. “It made me realize how like her I am. I’m also involved in the community and am social.” Kaufmann was active in the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and the Tucson Jewish Community Center. She and her husband, the late Henry Kaufmann, traveled to the former Soviet Union to meet refuseniks in 1978.

That same year, Kaufmann noted in her diary that she attended the General Assembly of the Council of Federations in San Francisco. She stood at a vigil across the street from the Soviet consulate with only 14 others. The next day, as she wrote in the AJP, “upon reflection of the previous day’s pathetic showing, I was outraged that with 3,000 delegates in San Francisco the leadership of the Assembly had not fulfilled their promise to include notice of the vigil in the agenda of meetings” (“What Happens When a Nice Jewish Lady Gets Mad?” AJP, 11/17/78). Kaufmann took the floor microphone and chastised the delegates; before the session was over another vigil was set for that afternoon.

“I had no intention last year of getting so involved in anything big again,” Kaufmann wrote in her diary on March 16, 1979, “but after our visit [to the Soviet Union] and knowing how uneducated so many of our Jews and non-Jews are about the situation, how CAN I NOT do something?”

The Kaufmanns “adopted” the Kogan family from Leningrad, who, after immigrating to Israel, visited them in Tucson in March 1987.

Other historical moments were recorded in Kaufmann’s diaries, notes Rubin. “She was dreading the war in Japan. There was excitement in the air when FDR was re-elected.” His mother wrote on Aug. 7, 1945, “Wow, yesterday we dropped an atomic bomb.” At age 18, she lamented her dating life because “all the guys were away.”

During World War II, Kaufmann “got rejected from the armed services because of a medical reason,” says Rubin. “She was devastated.”

Kaufmann’s activism and desire to assist others has influenced other family members, “who have gravitated to the helping professions like teaching and social work,” says Rubin, a union organizer for 35 years. “I got that from my mother too.”

Since reading “In Her Own Words,” some family members have started their own journals. For Rubin, in addition to the rewards of learning more, “I have certain regrets. I wasn’t as loving to my mother as I would have liked to have been.”

For most of my life, I couldn’t begin to ask such questions. My sister, three years my junior, was the only daughter in our family. And though I hated being a boy, I could be messy, dirty, ruthlessly self-centered, indifferent to my appearance, careless of others to the point of rudeness — behaviors my sister could never have gotten away with. I hated myself for deceiving my family and it broke my heart that they were so easy to deceive.

I felt utterly alone and, as so often when I was child, my estrangement from the world around me drove me to the Torah. There, I found someone I recognized as the direct ancestor of my own unbearable tangle of love and lies.

In a passage I read over and over, Jacob serves his blind, aged father Isaac his favorite dinner as a prelude to receiving his blessing. There’s only one problem with this scene of filial devotion: Jacob is impersonating his twin brother Esau, who older by a moment, is his father’s heir. Esau, a vigorous, hairy, hyper-masculine hunter, is his father’s favorite.

Jacob is a smooth-skinned, domestic, almost feminine farmer. Lest his blind father become suspicious, Jacob conceals his smooth forearms under hairy swatches of fresh-killed kid-skin that will make his arms feel as hairy as Esau’s. If his father recognizes that the manly Esau is really the feminine Jacob, Jacob will be cursed instead of blessed.

Like Jacob, I wasn’t the boy my parents meant to bless with food, shelter, clothing, love. Under the skins of masculinity — the pants and shirts I hated, the roles and games I forced myself to play — was something too smooth, too soft, too feminine to be loved like the male “twin” I pretended to be. Like Jacob, I found deception heartbreakingly easy. As long as I kept my hair short and wore pants and shirts, no one could see the girl cowering beneath.

But Jacob had something going for him that I didn’t have: a mother, Rebekah, who knew him for who he truly was. It was Rebekah’s idea that Jacob masquerade as Esau because she knew he was destined to transmit Abraham’s spiritual legacy to future generations. She sees that Jacob is a first-born trapped in a second-born’s body, and that only by flouting law and love can he become the person he was meant to be.

Not only didn’t my mother know who I truly was, I was sure that the moment she suspected, I wouldn’t have a mother at all.

But for four-and-a-half decades, my skins never slipped.

The first time my mother and I really talked, I was 46, sitting on a box in a dim, cool basement storage room, surrounded by old tax returns and broken computer equipment. An underground room for unwanted things was the perfect setting for the moment I’d been avoiding my whole life — the moment when I would finally tell my mother that I wasn’t her son. I had lived that moment in dreams and nightmares, fantasies and wishes. Now I was about to live it in the flesh.

I dialed her number and waited. Hundreds of miles away, my mother’s phone rang. Don’t answer, I whispered, as though if I couldn’t complete this call I would somehow avoid this conversation.

She answered. “Hello. Jay?”

“Yes,” I told her, “it’s Jay. I need to tell you something, Mom. Something hard. But first, you have to promise me that what I tell you won’t affect your relationship with the children. You’ll stay in touch with them, right?”

“Of course. I’m their grandmother — nothing is going to change that.”

“Good,” I said. “Because soon I’m — I’m moving out. This will be hard for the kids, and they need you to stay in their lives.”

“Of course,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

I wished she would ask me why I was moving out, but she didn’t, so I took a deep breath and recited the words — even I found them hard to believe — that I’d practiced.

“Mom, our family is breaking up because I’m a transsexual and I can’t live as a man anymore.”

The pause that followed my revelation — the most honest thing I had ever said to my mother — seemed to stretch for years, years we had lost, years we now might never have. I thought I was ready to lose her. But in that pause, when truly motherless years were only a breath away, I realized that I had never stopped clinging to the hope of her.

“I’ve heard about this,” she said at last. Her voice, rich and low, trained for a radio career she had never had, was thick with feeling. “I know that you have to be who you are, and no matter what that is, you will always be my child.”

The air above my head felt empty. The sword that had always dangled above me, the terror of what would happen if my mother discovered what I was, was gone.

My voice rose to the pitch I had made my own, and for the first time in my life, we really talked.

Joy Ladin is a professor at Yeshiva University. This article is excerpted from her new book, “Through the Door of Life: A Jewish Journey Between Genders” and has been reprinted with permission from the University of Wisconsin Press.

In reality, abuse doesn’t need an excuse. And the problem doesn’t stop at alcohol. For a long time, there has been a perception that Jews were not afflicted by the same addiction problems plaguing Western society. Thankfully, there are now many organizations and individuals willing to listen and help Jews in distress. If you have a problem or if you have a family member with a problem, you can begin your search with resources online.

Long before people talked openly about these problems, there was JACS, Jewish Alcoholics, Chemically Dependent Persons and Significant Others [http://bit.ly/ jdrink36]. Established in 1979 as a voluntary group for Jews in recovery, JACS now maintains branches in locations including New York, Chicago and Toronto. In Tucson, a JACS meeting is held on Wednesdays at 6 p.m. at Temple Emanu-El (or you may contact Rabbi Richard Safran at bagel95@aol.com).

Perhaps the most moving site warning about potential dangers of alcohol was created by the family of Yehuda Aryeh Mond. At the age of 19, Yehuda passed away from a drug and alcohol overdose. His family created the Yehuda Mond Foundation to spread the word about alcohol and to provide resources to others. One of the highlights of the site is a chilling 40-minute video that includes a young man who shares how as a teen, “I had an orange juice container mixed with whisky in my fridge in yeshiva that I used to take swigs from throughout the day … By the time I was 18, I was on the streets of Yerushalayim throwing up, wondering why I can’t stop drinking.” [http://bit.ly/ jdrink28]

I was interested to see that major streams of Judaism also recognize that problems exist in our own backyards. In its 1993 resolution, “Dealing with Substance Abuse,” the Union for Reform Judaism called for the introduction of “religious school educational programs for all levels, including the very young.” [http://bit.ly/ jdrink29]

The Orthodox Union has called for the elimination of so-called Kiddush Clubs, a mid-service retreat from the sanctuary on Saturday mornings to make kiddush and drink up. In “Why Kiddush Clubs Must Go,” Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb writes, “This behavior is not lost on the rest of the congregation, particularly the youth, including the very children of these participants. This practice glorifies and idealizes alcohol at precisely a time when alcohol and other addictions are clearly on the rise in our community.” [http://bit.ly/jdrink40]

The OU site also carries the piece, “Orthodox Youth and Substance Abuse: Shattering the Myths.” [http://bit.ly/jdrink30] And the Conservative movement has published “From Addiction to Recovery: A Jewish Spiritual Journey.” [http://bit.ly/jdrink31]

Other Jewish resources include Baltimore’s Jewish Recovery Houses [http://bit.ly/jdrink32], New York’s Yatzkan Center [http://bit.ly/jdrink33], Los Angeles’ Beit T’Shuvah [http://bit.ly/jdrink34] and the Haderech 12-Step Treatment Center based in the Western Galilee in Israel. [http:// bit.ly/jdrink37] and the author of countless compelling articles and books on the subject including “The Twelve Steps and Judaism” [http://bit.ly/jdrink39]

Fortunately, there are successes. In “Today I am 20 Years Sober,” the anonymous author writes, “In Judaism it is said that when one saves a life, it is as if one had saved the entire world. God saved the world for me. I am not even sure why. I was not especially good. I am not especially good even now. I was certainly not deserving. He saved my life and I don’t know why. All I can do now is to keep putting it out there — showing myself to you. …

“My sobriety is a credit to God’s Name and none to me. Thank you God. Thank you for all you have given me and all you have taken from me. Thank you for another day of life.” [http://bit.ly/jdrink41]

Mark Mietkiewicz can be reached at highway@rogers.com.

Abraham Verghese, M.D.

In this age of high-tech medicine compassion can often be neglected, but the annual Cindy Wool Memorial Seminar helps provide a remedy for healthcare professionals in Tucson. The third seminar and dinner on humanism in medicine, held March 28 at the Marriott University Park Hotel, sought to support physicians in practicing empathy while embracing cutting-edge science.

This year’s seminar drew around 600 medical professionals to honor the memory of Cindy Wool, who died of acute leukemia three years ago.

Her husband, Dr. Steven A. Wool, and Dr. Hillel Baldwin co-chaired the event, sponsored by the Maimonides Society of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona in conjunction with the University of Arizona College of Medicine. Abraham Verghese, M.D., author of the New York Times best-selling novel “Cutting for Stone,” was the keynote speaker.

“I think we’re actually getting worse at examining the body as we have more technology,” said the physician/author in his talk, “The Patient-Physician Relationship in the Microarray Era.” Currently the Professor for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at Stanford University College of Medicine, Verghese was born to Indian parents and grew up near Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He worked as an orderly for a year before beginning his medical studies in India, followed by a fellowship at the Boston University School of Medicine.

Taking a break from his medical career, Verghese attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, where he received an MFA degree in 1991. After leaving Iowa, he took a position as a professor of medicine at the Texas Tech Health Science Center in El Paso, Texas, and later was founding director of the Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio.

His commitment to the one-on-one physical exam was apparent in his talk in Tucson, where he spoke of “the notion of the body as text.”

“We’ve only been examining the body since the 1700s, not for many centuries,” said Verghese, adding that prior to the invention of x-rays a physician “could tell if there was a cavity in the lung by percussing the chest.”

“I’m not a Luddite, I love technology,” said Verghese, while stressing the importance of the mutual connection between doctors and patients. He told the story of a breast cancer patient who was getting worse despite treatment “at a high-class hospital. Back in her small town, she said, ‘They didn’t examine my breasts.’ That inattentiveness she could not abide.”

Verghese asked the audience to consider how often they’ve witnessed a physician not taking his eyes off a computer monitor while talking to a patient.

Plus, “the average doctor interrupts a patient in the first 14 seconds,” said Verghese, recalling a patient who had chronic fatigue syndrome. “I let the patient tell the whole story for 45 minutes. Once we slipped into the ritual of the exam the patient said, ‘I’ve never been examined like this.’

“What a condemnation of our medical system,” lamented Verghese.

“What the horse and buggy doctor was capable of doing was the power of visiting the patient,” he said. “There could be healing when there wasn’t a cure.”

Verghese’s unique position as a physician and a best-selling author was on the minds of some attendees during the question and answer period. “I don’t have two careers as a physician and a writer,” he said in response to a question. “I’m all physician. To me the writing comes out of that in some strange way. You have to be in the river of life to have something to say.”

More than 40 percent of Americans with mental health issues first turn to rabbis and other clergy, which is twice as many as those who initially approach a psychiatrist, psychologist or family physician, according to national surveys conducted by Mental Health Ministries. A study released in September by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shows that over half of the people in the United States will experience a mental disorder at some point in their lives.

“We want this conference to not just be a great, exciting and interesting day, but tomorrow when a congregant comes in with something going on, [attendees] will be able to help this person,” says conference steering committee member Shira Ledman, president and CEO of Jewish Family & Children’s Services. “We hope that a workshop will trigger an ‘aha’ moment, to raise awareness” about the warning signs of mental illness.

The Rev. Susan Gregg-Schroeder, founder of Mental Health Ministries, based in San Diego, Calif., will deliver the keynote address, “Mental Illness as a Spiritual Journey,” followed by two panel discussions. Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon of Temple Emanu-El will participate with other faith leaders on “Why This Conference Matters: Mental Illness in the Faith Community Setting.”

After-lunch workshop choices will include “Addiction and Mental Illness,” “The Importance of Recognizing Depression,” “Aging and Mental Health Issues: Is It Serious and Can You Help?” and “Suicide Awareness and Prevention.”

“Being an Advocate for a Family Member or Congregant” will feature Rabbi Helen Cohn of Congregation M’Kor Hayim along with Susan Smiley, producer of “Out of the Shadow,” an acclaimed documentary about her mother’s secret struggle with schizophrenia.

A key goal of the conference, funded by the David C. and Lura M. Lovell Foundation, is to help reduce the stigma of mental illness, says Ledman. “I think it would be good for members of the Jewish community to turn out,” she told the AJP.

“We’re seeing the steady growth of counseling services, especially for elders and families. What if an elderly congregant usually attends services but then isn’t there,” says Ledman. “Contact is made and the person is ‘not feeling right, not eating or sleeping,’ which can be signs of depression. Maybe a congregant can help get the person to the doctor” for evaluation.

At JFCS, “we can almost always fit a person in for counseling services. People think they can only go if they’re poor or have to pay $100,” she says, but JFCS has a sliding fee scale, plus grants to ensure that those needing mental health services can be seen.

There will be a resource fair at the conference, featuring more than 20 agencies that deal with issues ranging from serious mental illness to substance abuse. “We want people to take home tools,” says Ledman, so they can support healthy recovery for someone affected by mental illness.

Advance registration is $35 per individual or $25 each for three people from one organization; registration at the door is $40. For more information or to register, contact Terry Alexander at 297-6049, ext. 233, or talexander@icstucson.org, or visit icstucson.org. St. Philips is located at 4440 N. Campbell Ave. at River Road.