The live, interactive program will provide advice on how family caregivers can work with care professionals to develop an effective plan of care. Caregivers will learn how to identify key issues and problems, locate needed experts and outline expected outcomes to ensure that a loved one is cared for in the best manner possible.

Pre-registration for the webinar is required. To sign up, visit the registration link at privatedutyhomecare.org.

Fran Donnellan

It’s probably one of the most important yet dreaded conversations you can have with an aging parent, and it often begins something like this: “You should NOT be driving.” Not surprisingly, the conversation usually goes downhill from there. In this column, I’ll outline some information and suggestions to help you address this issue for a more positive outcome.

Many of us continue to be good, safe drivers as we age. AARP offers an excellent class to help keep seniors safe on the road. However, let’s be honest: normal changes to eyesight, hearing, range of motion and reflexes can negatively affect driving skills. For example, as we get older, we need more light to see things. Glare from the sun, oncoming headlights, or other street lights may trouble older drivers more than before. Peripheral vision may also narrow. Add cataracts, macular degeneration or glaucoma, not to mention arthritis, diabetes, Parkinson’s and other neurological diseases, a stroke, sleep disorders or Alzheimer’s disease and you’ve just gone from unsafe to downright dangerous behind the wheel.

Pointing out such disturbing facts can be most helpful when you’re also armed with facts about reasonable alternatives to driving. Nobody would choose to be a danger behind the wheel if they knew about (and were accepting of) safe and affordable alternatives. Money saved on gasoline, insurance premiums, car maintenance and repairs (not to mention medical bills and lawsuits) can go a long way to help fund alternatives like public transportation, cabs, a private chauffeur or retirement community living. Some elders use their cars only to go to the grocery store, bank and restaurants, and to attend religious services. Many grocery stores and restaurants will deliver for a small fee. Houses of worship may have programs to aid seniors, such as the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona grants to three local synagogues for taxi transportation for Jewish seniors (see azjewishpost.com/2010/jfsa-grants-support-additional-senior-programs/). Reviewing the alternatives with your parent can help them realize they can still be independent and in control, without putting lives at risk.

Waiting for third-party authorities to intervene may work in other states, but in Arizona you could be in for a long wait. Our “extended” driver’s license does not expire until age 65. The photo and vision screening only need to be updated every 12 years. Drivers ages 60 and over receive a five-year license. A lot can change in five years.

Is it any wonder Arizona roads are filled with so many drivers who shouldn’t be behind the wheel?

The law requires drivers to report to the DMV any condition that may affect their ability to drive safely. If someone is involved in an accident and it’s found that his or her health condition was a contributing factor, they may be prosecuted and their insurance may be void. Think about that.

The evidence in favor of older drivers giving up their keys is not hard to find when you begin to look. So why do so many elders insist on driving anyway? It’s not only because of habit. To them it may be pure principle. Driving a car, just like owning a home, symbolizes individual freedom and the American dream. The thought of giving up either is difficult indeed. You can empathize. Nobody willingly gives up their independence. The sooner people realize they can still be independent without these symbols, the happier they will be.

Having worked in retirement community settings for the better part of 25 years, I can tell you older people truly thrive when they are in control of their own destiny. Many safe drivers soon give up their cars after moving to a retirement community because they realize they are more comfortable leaving the driving to someone else. They can go more places and they do. They can still be in control without putting their own and other lives at risk.

Age is the usher to many natural changes. Such changes should be anticipated and accepted, rather than denied and fought. Accepting the new reality is part of a healthy grieving process when it comes to overcoming any type of loss, whether it’s the loss of a spouse, a job, or the ability to see or hear or drive. Once the new reality is honestly acknowledged and accepted, the individual usually experiences a euphoric new sense of freedom to reinvest in life.

Families can know all of this and still find conversations and decisions difficult. That’s natural. A trusted third party such as a doctor, accountant, attorney, elder care professional or family friend can often diffuse tension and help ease transitions.

Fran Donnellan has served in leadership roles for 25 years at select Arizona retirement communities. She is a past member of the American College of Health Care Administrators and a former/founding member of the board for the CareGiver Training Institute. She earned her bachelor’s degree in social work from the University of Missouri and studied geriatrics at Arizona State University. She currently serves as executive director for The Fountains at La Cholla in northwest Tucson.

Lillian Silverman at her 100th birthday party with her grandson from Tucson, Jeff Jacobson, and his wife, Rachel, and son, Sam, in 2010. (Courtesy Alan Jacobson)

On July 4, 2011, the Brooklyn borough president proclaimed the day “Lillian Silverman, 101st Birthday Celebration Day.” The Arizona Jewish Post learned of this energetic senior’s special recognition through her family, many of whom reside in Tucson. From children through great-grandchildren, three generations have inherited Lillian Rudnick Silverman’s generous spirit. Silverman’s grandson, Jeff Jacobson, says that his grandmother instilled the understanding in her children and grandchildren that “life is more than just about themselves.” She has inspired her family, says Jacobson, to do what they can to give back to their community and work to make positive changes in the world, even when faced with adversity.

Silverman has two children, Florence Jacobson, 77, and Leonard Rudnick, 71. Rudnick began working at age 15 helping mentally handicapped children. He went on to a career working with youth with learning disabilities, eventually running a program at New York Medical College. Tucson Unified School District brought Rudnick to Tucson in the 1970s to work with learning disabled students, but that job somehow evaporated when he arrived. The setback motivated Rudnick to return to school himself, and he became a chiropractor in 1975. For years Rudnick worked pro bono for the Arizona Ice Cats as their team chiropractor. He currently volunteers with the Pima County Sheriff’s department while still maintaining a chiropractic practice that includes travel and lecturing on his groundbreaking use of low-intensity lasers for treating pain and healing wounds.

Florence Jacobson, who retired to Tucson in 2001, remembers that her parents had been heavily involved in B’nai B’rith for many years, virtually running their local lodge in Brooklyn. She vividly recalls how in 1950, when she was 14 years old, her mother sat her down and told her not to be alarmed, but there was a possibility that her father would be arrested. When the teenager asked why, Silverman explained that her first husband, Abraham Rudnick, had been involved in gun running for the nascent State of Israel. Though there was, in fact, no arrest, a worse tragedy struck when Rudnick died at age 42, forcing his wife to find work in order to support her two children. Jacobson says her mother rose above that adversity, marshalling her energies to work a full-time job, check in daily with her elderly mother who lived nearby, as well as care for her two children. “We didn’t know how poor we were,” Jacobson recalls, “and family responsibilities made it difficult for Mom to volunteer much after Dad died.”

Like her brother’s, Jacobson’s career path led her to work with special needs students. She retired to Tucson after teaching at the junior high level, a job she says “was rough, though I never enjoyed anything as much as working with those kids.” Jacobson’s “giving back” extended to volunteer work at her children’s schools, serving as PTA president and on the education committee of her synagogue. She lauds her mother’s example of living strong and staying physically fit and mentally engaged. The 101-year-old Silverman, she says, continues to walk at least an hour daily in her Borough Park neighborhood and stays engaged in the world. “She’s a real pistol, a gutsy lady who can name all the justices on the Supreme Court today and still relishes reading the science section of the Sunday Times.”

Jeff Jacobson, 41, Silverman’s grandson, is an attorney in Tucson. He says that his grandmother and those in her Brooklyn community demonstrate a belief in the importance of neighbors helping each other. His grandmother’s formula for living — loving people unconditionally, separating the problem from the person and helping others when you can — inspired him to serve in the Jewish, as well as the greater community, he says. Jacobson currently sits on the board of the Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona and has served on the boards of Congregation Or Chadash and the JCF’s Project Dor Habah, which encourages participation in Jewish community activities by people in their 30s and 40s. He has also established the Wills for Heroes Foundation, which offers free wills and powers of attorney to first responders in the Tucson area.

Wayne Rudnick, 44, another of Silverman’s five grandchildren, is also committed to giving back to the community. A Tucson chiropractor, he assumed his father’s position as the University of Arizona’s Ice Cats team doctor. As a child, he recalls, he spent hours walking the neighborhood in Brooklyn with his grandmother. “Everyone knew her,” he says, “and she seemed to be part of an internal neighborhood social-support system. I remember how Grandma would cook all this food and deliver it to neighbors in need.”

At Lillian Silverman’s 100th birthday celebration in Brooklyn in 2010, Rudnick saw how good deeds may come full circle: “There are New Yorkers in Grandma’s neighborhood who remember her taking care of their grandparents and now they are stepping up to check in and do things to help care for her.”

Such neighborhoods, with long-established families whose generations stay in place, are rare in American life today. But a desire to give of oneself to help others in the community is luckily a tradition that many families carry on. Witness the example of Payton Rudnick, one of Silverman’s 11 great-grandchildren: In August 2010, for his Bar Mitzvah project, Payton started collecting soccer equipment and clothing for a nonprofit organization, the Peace Passers. “I am really passionate about soccer, so that was something that I felt good about working in,” Payton says. “I looked for something where kids could give back something that has value for them, not just by asking for adults to give checks.” Payton, who celebrated becoming a Bar Mitzvah on May 28, 2011 at Congregation Or Chadash, continues to work with Peace Passers, which sends soccer equipment to children in Africa, Central and South America and the Caribbean. He has surpassed his collection goals, stated on his website, givethroughsoccer.com.

The centenarian, in a lively phone conversation this week, told the AJP the recipe for her contented longevity. “Share and give of yourself. What’s important is not so much what you give, but that you give with love.” When asked if she had been out for her daily walk yet, she exclaimed, “Oh my yes. I must walk and if I don’t, that’s like one part of my medication that I didn’t take. It’s a gift to be healthy and walking has done more than just keep me well. All my life I’ve  walked in my neighborhood and I’ve come to know all the children and mothers that I see on the street and they all know me. The children sometimes ask their mothers if they can go home with Lily and of course they don’t, as we only know each other from passing on the street. But it’s still nice to connect to those around you.”

We wished Silverman continued good health and her gracious reply was, “Thank you for calling, I’ve enjoyed talking with you. Good health to you and get out and walk!”

Prof. Dafna Benayahu and her team at Tel Aviv University’s Sackler School of Medicine say their findings explain for the first time why older people who have exercised throughout their lives age more gracefully. They have discovered how endurance exercise increases the number of muscle stem cells and enhances their ability to rejuvenate old muscles. The researchers hope their finding can lead to a new drug to help the elderly and immobilized heal their muscles faster.

The results of the study were published last year in the journal PLoS ONE.

The real rat race

The muscles and skeleton in our bodies work together, explains Benayahu. “When we age, we experience sarcopenia, a decline in mass and function of muscles, and osteopenia, which refers to bone loss,” she says. As a result, our musculoskeletal system is more susceptible to daily wear and tear, which also explains the increased risk of falling in the elderly.

Investigating a rat population, Dr. Gabi Shefer from the research team says that the findings show that exercise increased the number of satellite cells (muscle stem cells) — a number that normally declines with aging. The researchers believe that a decline in the number of these cells and their functionality may prevent proper maintenance of muscle mass and its ability to repair itself, leading to muscle deterioration.

Comparing the performance of rats of different ages and sexes, they found that the number of satellite cells increased after rats ran on a treadmill for 20 minutes a day for a 13-week period. The younger rats showed a 20 percent to 35 percent increase in the average number of stem cells per muscle fiber retained — and older rats benefited even more significantly, exhibiting a 33 percent to 47 percent increase in stem cells.

A good reason to get up and dance

Endurance exercise also improved the levels of “spontaneous locomotion” — the feeling that tells our bodies to just get up and dance — of old rats. Aging is typically associated with a reduced level of spontaneous locomotion.

The combination of aging and a sedentary lifestyle significantly contributes to the development of diseases such as osteoporosis, obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, as well as a decline in cognitive abilities. If researchers can discover a method to “boost” satellite cells in our muscles, that could simulate the performance of young and healthy muscles — and hold our aging bones in place.

“We hope to understand the mechanisms for the activation codes of muscle stem cells at the molecular level,” says Benayahu. “With this advance, we can let ourselves dream about creating a new drug for humans — one that could increase muscle mass and ameliorate the negative effects of aging.”

Grants for this study were provided by the EU-FP7 Excell project; the Israeli Ministry of Health; and the U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation, jointly with Prof. Zipora Yablonka-Reuveni from the University of Washington.

Source: American Friends of Tel Aviv University (www.aftau.org).

Fran Donnellan

If you’re a baby boomer lucky enough to have aging parents, chances are you’ve been noticing changes in your parents’ activity level, health, diet or mental state. You want to help, but you’re not always sure how. You need information, but don’t always know where to turn. In this series of columns, I hope to enlighten adult children with information they can use to help their aging parents thrive, regardless of their situation.

To get started, let’s go back to that place and time when you first began to worry about your parents’ health and well-being. Perhaps it began with a thought like this:

My parents should not be driving.

My parents need to get out more.

My parents are not enjoying life the way they used to.

My parents shouldn’t be eating that way.

My parents really need to exercise.

My parents shouldn’t be living alone.

Each one of the above statements expresses a desire to influence the way your parents live, not because you want to take control, but because you care. You’re concerned that your parents aren’t living to their fullest potential, or worse, that their current lifestyle could be unsafe. But let’s face it, you’re still uncomfortable with the prospect of parenting your parents.

Even so, experts like Virginia Morris, author of “How to Care for Aging Parents,” agree that it’s important to talk openly with your parents about:

• Their fears, needs, priorities and wishes;

• Finances;

• Health and medical care (what should you know if you have to make their decisions one day);

• Housing options (where they might want to live if they couldn’t remain at home).

Pick the right moment

By far the best time to bring up these questions is before a crisis occurs. If there is a triggering event, be sure to pick a moment that will not add additional stress. Do not blindside them. A large family gathering is probably not the place. Consider scheduling a special time to talk; let them know that there is something important you would like to discuss. Ask them when and where would be good for them. It might be useful to set up a recurring time to talk about upcoming decisions and let the rest of your time together be free of difficult decision-making.

Your parents most likely have noticed the changes in their behavior and lifestyle that you have begun to notice, and they may not want to acknowledge them. Make sure to ask questions that will help you understand their experience and perception of the aging process. Be willing to follow their lead. There will probably be some surprises that will help you be a good resource and support for them throughout this time of change. Listen.

You no doubt know your parents well and realize how best to start this dialogue, but seeking the counsel of someone who has personal or professional experience with seniors may be of great help. You may want to confer with an outside expert on your own before starting the dialogue with your parent or ask your parent if it would be okay to include that person in your discussions. Having someone from the “outside” also may diffuse some of the tension that can accompany family discussions about coping with change.

The inkling that your parents may benefit from additional support may become clear suddenly, perhaps as the result of a specific event, or may be a gradual realization, as the subtle clues of diminished happiness and fragile health add up. But it can’t hurt to be prepared. You will have some of the groundwork laid and know how your parent feels about many potentially tricky issues.

So, talk early, and talk often. And stay tuned to the next senior section of “Are your parents thriving?” in the Arizona Jewish Post.

Fran Donnellan has served in leadership roles for 25 years at select Arizona retirement communities. She is a past member of the American College of Health Care Administrators and a former/founding member of the board for the CareGiver Training Institute. She earned a bachelor’s degree in social work from University of Missouri and studied geriatrics at Arizona State University. She currently serves as executive director for The Fountains at La Cholla in northwest Tucson.

Sharon Arkin (Sheila Wilensky)

In her 40s, Sharon Arkin had an epiphany. “I can still do the kinds of things I did when I was 18,” she realized. “I’ve never really changed very much.” Arkin, who turned 72 last month, maintains a list of activities that might stagger an 18-year-old.

She’s a clinical psychologist and Alzheimer’s disease assessment, treatment and risk specialist. She runs Bed and Bagels of Tucson and is active in Servas International, a hospitality exchange program. She hosts lodgers from around the world, and has stayed with homeowners in Turkey, Italy, Peru, India, Costa Rica and Australia.

Arkin volunteers for nonprofits including the Sierra Club, Audubon Society, International Rescue Commission, and the Owl and Panther expressive arts program for refugees who’ve experienced torture and traumatic dislocation. She speaks Spanish, German and basic Hebrew.

This month, Arkin traveled in China and Israel, but first she took off on an annual adventure with one of her Israeli grandsons. She and Matan, 13, bicycled along the Maine coast and participated in an inter-generational sailing class in Boothbay Harbor, Me.

“I have an unusually high energy level. I don’t sleep a lot,” says Arkin. “My mantra has always been take risks, get hurt, heal fast.”

Growing up in Chicago, Arkin was “very culturally interested” in Judaism, but it wasn’t until years later that she became a Bat Mitzvah at age 45. After receiving her bachelor’s degree at age 22 from American University, in Washington, D.C., she married an Israeli who was a Holocaust survivor and a refugee from Kazakhstan.

From 1964 to 1980, Arkin worked for the U.S. Department of Labor’s War on Poverty, the unofficial title for legislation introduced by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, which included Head Start, Medicare and Medicaid, and work study programs that aimed to raise the living standards of the nation’s poor.

Arkin is proud to have been part of that effort. She worked full-time for the Labor Department while getting her master’s degree in counseling at the University of Maryland in 1970. “I had three kids who were born in 1963, 1966 and 1969,” says Arkin. “I had all three on a Saturday or Sunday after working on Friday, and went back to work six weeks later.”

Following her divorce in 1980, Arkin took a course at the Adler School of Professional Psychology in Chicago, and eventually earned a doctor of psychology degree (Psy.D). “I had taken a lot of Adlerian parenting classes. I started [doing] democratic parenting,” she says. “I thought Freudian psychology was a lot of BS.”

While doing coursework in Chicago, Arkin lived with her mother, Bee Schultz. She began to wonder if something was wrong when “every night for dinner my mother made baked chicken legs and canned green beans. The telling thing was that she stopped conversing about world events,” notes Arkin. “My mother couldn’t compose a two-line thank-you note after my father died. She was 75.”

At first, the doctors thought Arkin’s mother was depressed, but her condition escalated to “total memory loss,” Arkin says. “She started introducing herself by her maiden name after being married 49 years. That’s how I got into Alzheimer’s treatment.”

After completing a doctoral internship working with Alzheimer’s patients at the University of California at Irvine, Arkin started a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Arizona’s department of speech and hearing sciences in 1993. She conceived and directed “Elder Rehab by Students,” an Alzeimer’s disease intervention research and student-administered Alzheimer’s rehabilitation program funded by the National Institute on Aging. The program operated from 1996 to 2001, measuring the effects of a multi-modality intervention on language performance, rate of decline, physical fitness, and mood of persons with early to moderate stage Alzheimer’s.

The Elder Rehab program garnered a 2001 Mind Alert award of the American Society on Aging. Arkin has published numerous professional articles and editorials in journals such as Clinical Gerontologist and the American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Having worked with Alzheimer’s patients for so long, Arkin is keenly aware of how quickly anyone’s health can turn. “If I end up losing my mobility and have to sit in a wheelchair I’ll study birds,” she says. “If I lose my cognitive ability I don’t want to live.”

Meanwhile, Arkin has “done just about everything. I’ve rafted the Grand Canyon, been to Machu Picchu. Oh, I want to take my grandsons to the Galapagos,” she adds. She’s even attempted memoir-writing classes but decided, “I can’t take the time to stop doing stuff and sit down writing about what I did in the past.”

Tucsonan Bobby Present, right, defeated Barry Danser of London, left. (Courtesy Bobby Present)

Tucsonan Bobby Present competed in the Maccabi Games in Vienna, Austria, this summer, playing in the masters tennis men’s 55+ category — and doing well until an injury forced him to default for the first time in his tennis career. “It was unfortunate timing,” he told the AJP, because he’d won his first two matches.

On his blog, http://tennisinvienna.wordpress.com, Present notes that the games were “the first large-scale Jewish event in Austria in more than 73 years,” with a concert on the first night featuring music composed by Austrians who perished in the Holocaust.

During opening ceremonies, Present says, the Israeli delegation entered first, with the Austrians last and the rest of the countries in alphabetical order. The parade of athletes was followed by emotional remarks from the mayor of Vienna and president of Austria and a multimedia spectacle “with Theodore Herzl brought to life, gymnastic and dance performances, acting out the history of Jews in Vienna — including the deportations, destruction and ultimate re-building. Truly amazing!”

Lillian Mizrahi, left, one of many Peace Corps volunteers over age 50, poses with her Macedonian host "mother" -- who is younger than Mizrahi. (Peace Corps)

Lillian Mizrahi is not your typical Peace Corps volunteer. A Jewish woman from the Bronx who is now 69 years old, Mizrahi first considered joining 40 years ago, when she moved to Los Angeles from New York, but her life got busy with children and a career.

“Two years ago, I got a postcard that said, ‘Baby Boomers, we want you,’” said Mizrahi, who worked as a talent executive with E! for nine years.

She attended a few Peace Corps meetings, even bringing along a friend who went on to volunteer in South Africa. “I took the steps thinking somewhere along the way it wouldn’t work, but it worked,” Mizrahi said.

With her children grown, Mizrahi felt it was the right time to help restore America’s former good image abroad. She was sent to Macedonia’s capital, Skopje, where she now works with KONEKT, a nongovernmental organization that seeks to increase philanthropy among Macedonians. She also tutors adults in English.

“I’ve been here 17 months, and it’s a wonderful experience,” Mizrahi said in a phone interview.

On March 1, the Peace Corps commemorated 50 years of promoting peace and friendship around the world. Events will be held around the United States throughout the year.

The program, which was started in 1961 through an executive order issued by President Kennedy, traces its roots to a 1960 challenge from then-Sen. Kennedy to the students at the University of Michigan to serve their country by living and working in developing countries. The Peace Corps’ purpose is to promote peace and friendship by sharing skills, helping promote a better understanding of Americans and helping Americans develop a better understanding of other people.

More than 200,000 Peace Corps volunteers have served in 139 countries. Mizrahi is among the 7 percent of current Peace Corps volunteers who are older than 50.

“They are encouraging more seniors to join because of their wealth of experience,” she said.

Although she had offered to take an assignment in a rural community because of her prior experience living on a kibbutz, Mizrahi says the placement in a city ended up being a perfect fit.

In Skopje, Mizrahi is also part of a small Jewish community made up of Americans, Israelis and Macedonians. She has held Seders, and this winter she hosted a large Chanukah party. Mizrahi attends holiday services at the local Jewish community center, and was there for the March 7 opening of the Macedonia Holocaust Museum, which has been in the works for 10 years.

Funding for the museum has come primarily from a special fund created in 2000 from the assets of Macedonian Jewish families who perished in the Holocaust and left no heirs. Additional funding comes from Israel and the United States.

Mizrahi said joining the Peace Corps after working in entertainment was like “going from the ridiculous to the sublime.” She said, “TV is a young people’s business.”

Mizrahi says she loves the Robin Hood concept of taking from the rich to give to the poor.

“In the Peace Corps, we take trained individuals and give them to the untrained to transfer skills which will still be there after [they’ve] left,” she said.

So far, Mizrahi has helped organize a philanthropy conference for the Balkan region, an Earth Day celebration, harvest festivals and 5K runs. She also has helped with a spelling bee and a Habitat for Humanity building project.

The Peace Corps provides Mizrahi with an apartment and a stipend for living expenses. Mizrahi says her son and daughter share her sense of adventure and are proud of her, and that being so far away is made easier with technology like Skype and e-mail.

Mizrahi says she hopes the Peace Corps has a long future, and without hesitation she encourages other older adults to join. She says people should think about what they could handle and where they will be comfortable, but ultimately the organization does a good job of making a match.

“If you want to do it, it’s a wonderful experience,” she said. “And your kids will be impressed with you.”

Alene Schwartz has lost more than 125 pounds in three years. (Bryan Schwartz)

Alene Schwartz weighed 265 pounds in 2008 when she embarked on an exercise and diet — or as she says, “live it” — program. “I just decided that as I got older, I wanted to have the strength to pick up a grandchild, bend down to get something, and take care of myself,” says Schwartz. “Basic needs made me do it.”

Now 63, she weighs 137 pounds. But it’s about more than losing weight, she told the AJP. “I changed my belief system about who I was. The journey itself became powerful for me.”

Schwartz has worked with a trainer for the past three years. She started out doing five to 10 minutes of daily exercise. At first, she says, “my trainer had more faith in me than I had in myself. I didn’t want to disappoint him.” But Schwartz learned by working out at the gym that “I needed to be successful. One perfect push-up kept me going.” As for food, “I had already tasted everything delicious in the world,” she says, “which helped me be able to give up too much food.”

“My hand and my nosh would have a small talk. Do I really need this?” Ultimately, her answer became “nope.” In social settings people eat, Schwartz points out. “Our society is predicated on food. The only venue to get together is going out to eat, or coming over for coffee.” Sticking to a commercial high-protein, low-carb, low-fat food plan she started in 2009, she’s able to avoid extra eating.

Schwartz was nominated by a neighbor to be on the KVOA-TV channel 4 “Tucson’s Biggest Loser” segment; a two-minute clip about her aired on Oct. 26.  Although she had lost more than 100 lbs. in three years, her personal struggle with weight had a much longer history.

In 1979, Schwartz underwent an older version of today’s popular gastric bypass surgery. The operation went fine, she says, but the aftercare didn’t. A University Medical Center surgeon found that she was dropping brain cells and was seriously deficient in vitamin B-12. Although an injection of B-12 stopped the degenerative process immediately, says Schwartz, she still experienced double vision, imbalance and speech problems. Diagnosed with a condition known as brainstem encephalopathy, Schwartz spent a year at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital where, she says, “they turned a team of 40 doctors on me for research and development. I’m the only one I know [with the condition] who survived, other than a case later documented in Greece.”

Schwartz began taking a drug that was not yet on the market, and it stabilized but didn’t improve her condition. “I still have no balance. They can’t correct that,” she says, but doctors “feel some of my neuropathways may be regenerating. Every day is exciting.” After having no core control for more than two years, Schwartz can now walk with her trainer’s help and walk by herself in water.

Overcoming the double whammy of obesity and later, disability, has not been easy but it’s definitely been satisfying, asserts Schwartz, with Bryan, her husband of 45 years, by her side.  “It’s been a combined effort. He’s my chef,” she notes, adding that he’s lost 60 pounds.

“Something that’s given me so much pain my entire life, overcoming it has given me so much joy,” says Schwartz. She admits that the hardest part of staying slim is maintenance: Her workout schedule includes weight lifting with her trainer three days a week, yoga two days a week, and Pilates two days a week.

Schwartz has always been involved in the community, and hasn’t been inhibited by her weight or disability. She’s currently assistant treasurer of Congregation Anshei Israel’s Women’s League and volunteers at the Pima Council on Aging. She was the first woman assessor in Arizona while working for Pima County in 1972.

Perhaps more than anything else, Schwartz says she now enjoys social activities that “I never did as a teenager, [such as] trading clothes with girlfriends. I went shopping finding clothes for them but I couldn’t find anything for myself.” These days it’s a treat to go shopping with friends, she says, smiling. “My girlfriends decide what styles I need now. These are tiny pleasures. I shopped for my first belt in the past year,” after going from a size 28 three years ago to her current size 8.

“I’m just happy,” says Schwartz, “to let people know that they can see themselves differently.”   She is still working on her own transformation. “I have a new project. I want to start writing my memoir. It’s all very humbling. If I do something that 30 to 40 years ago I couldn’t do,” she told the AJP, “I say ‘just a minute.’ I have to process and start crying.”

A 1905 postcard ashows a badkhn insulting a bride at her wedding ceremony. (Mel Gordon Archives)

BERKELEY, Calif. (JTA) — The Chmielnicki massacres weren’t particularly funny.

From 1648 to 1651, nearly 100,000 Jews were slaughtered throughout Ukraine by Bohdan Chmielnicki and his roving bands of Cossacks. It was arguably the worst pogrom in history, leaving hundreds of Jewish communities in ruins.

Yet according to Mel Gordon, a professor of theater arts at the University of California, Berkeley, those years of terror led to the canonization of what we now know as Jewish humor. A lot of what we laugh at during Purim festivities stems from that horrific period.

And it happened on one day in July 1661 when the badkhn — a kind of cruel court jester in East European Jewish life — was spared a ban on merrymakers.

“We’re funny because of the badkhn,” Gordon told JTA.

Gordon, who has authored numerous books on theater, cinema and popular culture, lectures widely on his badkhn theory at Jewish and non-Jewish venues.

“Everyone says that Jews are funny because they suffered so much,” he said. “That’s ridiculous. You think the rest of the world hasn’t suffered? What about the Armenians, the Biafrans, the American Indians? None of them are known for their humor.”

Nor are Jews funny because they’ve “always been funny,” another common falsehood, Gordon says. It’s only in the past 100 years, with the rise of Hollywood and nightclub society, that Jewish humor has become a staple of American popular culture.

“At the turn of the 20th century, the Jews were commonly perceived to be a humorless, itinerant nation,” he wrote in “Funnyman,” a 2010 book co-authored with Thomas Andrae about the short-lived Jewish comic book superhero.

So it’s not genetic, and it’s not because of suffering or social marginalization, that led to this thing we call Jewish humor — it’s the badkhn.

The badkhn was a staple in East European Jewish life for three centuries, mocking brides and grooms at their weddings. He also was in charge of Purim spiels in shtetl society.

His humor was biting, even vicious. He would tell a bride she was ugly, make jokes about the groom’s dead mother and round things off by belittling the guests for giving such worthless gifts. Much of the badkhn’s humor was grotesque, even scatological.

“They would talk about drooping breasts, big butts, small penises,” Gordon said. “We know a lot about them because they were always suing each other about who could tell which fart joke on which side of Grodno.”

It’s that same self-deprecating tone that characterizes the Yiddish-inflected Jewish jokes of the 20th century, Gordon points out. Who is the surly Jewish deli waiter of Henny Youngman fame if not a badkhn, making wisecracks at the customer’s expense?

Before the 1660s, there were at least 10 different stock comic types in shtetl life, Grodon says. One would rhyme, one would juggle, one might sing. Wealthy folks would hire a variety for their simchas, or festive celebrations.

But in the summer of 1661, a decade after the Chmielnicki massacres and its resultant famines, leading rabbis from Poland and Ukraine — the “Elders of the Four Councils” — met in Vilna to discuss why such evils had befallen the Jewish people.

The elders decided the Jews were being punished by God. A return to strict observance was the only solution. Levity and luxury were to be avoided.

As one of the new conditions, wedding festivities became much more somber, and holidays such as Purim and Simchat Torah less raucous. The traditional Jewish comics were outlawed.

During one discussion on July 3, 1661, Gordon relates, a rabbi asked his colleagues, what about the badkhn? He’s not really funny, the rabbi said. In fact, he’s abusive.

The elders agreed, and the badkhn was exempted from the ban — he wasn’t a merrymaker and wasn’t encouraging levity. And that’s how the badkhn became the only Jewish comic permitted in the shtetls, Gordon says, and how his particular brand of sarcastic, bleak humor set the tone for what we know today as Jewish comedy. Before the 1660s, the badkhn was the least popular Jewish entertainer – now he was the sole survivor.

“Jewish humor used to be the same as that of the host country,” Gordon said. “Now it began to deviate from mainstream European humor. It became more aggressive, meaner. All of Jewish humor changed.”

The badkhn’s role was secure from the 1660s to the 1890s and the beginning of the great Jewish migration to America and to the larger cities of Russia and Ukraine. Gordon’s father, who came to America in 1929 from the Polish shtetl Bielsk-Podlasky, remembers the badkhn of his youth.

“He was always drunk in the cemetery, telling jokes to kids,” Gordon recalls. “He came out of hiding for Purim and weddings.”

Little remains of the badkhn today outside Chasidic communities, where they are the stars of the yearly Purim spiels. When Gordon lived in New York in the 1980s, he would take journalists to Chasidic synagogues in Brooklyn every spring to witness these raucous celebrations.

But the badkhn’s influence is still felt in mainstream culture, Gordon says, from the Borsch Belt humor of the 1920s and ‘30s, to contemporary Italian and African-American comedians who trade in barbed insults and self-deprecation.

“Even today, almost all Jewish entertainers have badkhn humor,” Gordon said. “Sarah Silverman is completely badkhn.

“What did my father find funny? Dirty jokes. Because that’s the badkhn humor he grew up with.”