Orlando, FL – Born in 1921, Pearl Schiffer grew up in the Jewish neighborhoods of New York City, surrounded by people who spoke Yiddish and ate kosher.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
Now 88, she lives in an Altamonte Springs nursing home where nobody speaks Yiddish to her and the food is never kosher. After a life submerged in Jewish culture, community and religion, she finds herself among a handful of Jewish residents in the 240-bed Life Care Center.
She considers herself an outsider among strangers, keeping largely to her room reading paperback novels and completing crossword puzzles.
“Most of the people here, they don’t speak Jewish,” she said. “These people, for some reason or other, have different ideas. I can’t seem to have a conversation. It could be my fault.”
She might feel more comfortable, more herself, in a Jewish nursing home — if there were any.
There are none in Orlando. The nearest Jewish nursing homes are in St. Petersburg and Jacksonville.
As a result, elderly Jews in Orlando-area facilities are often isolated from the larger Jewish community. For many, their only links to Jewish life are visits from volunteers with The Jewish Pavilion, a non-profit outreach organization started in 2001.
About 145 Pavilion volunteers visit 200 Jewish residents in 44 nursing homes and assisted living facilities in Orange and Seminole counties, frequently bringing with them traditional Jewish food and helping celebrate Jewish holidays.
Visits from relatives keep residents connected with family. Visits from Pavilion volunteers keep them connected to the Jewish community.
“It is part and parcel with our mission of bringing Jewish culture and heritage to the doorsteps of the residences,” said Cathy Swerdlow, Pavilion program director.
Just the taste of a piece of soft, challah egg bread can bring back the Jewish experience missing in their lives, said Ellen Hrabovsky, a Pavilion volunteer for five years.
“It sparks that flicker of memory and takes them back to that place. We can’t get them to temple, so we try to bring it to them through their memories,” Hrabovsky said.
The Jewish Pavilion started with the idea of creating a nursing home for Jews in the Orlando area, said Nancy Ludin, executive director of the Jewish Pavilion. That goal gave way to high costs, low demand, and a state-wide moratorium on new nursing homes through 2011, Ludin said.
Like many elderly Jewish nursing home residents, Pearl Schiffer came to Orlando to be close to her family. Accustomed to being surrounded by a large concentrated Jewish population, Pearl came to a place where the area’s 30,000 Jews are spread throughout Metro Orlando.
In the Brooklyn, N.Y., neighborhood where she grew up and the largely Jewish suburb of Ardsley where she raised her children, Pearl was active in the synagogue and the Jewish women’s organizations. She followed the Jewish tradition of spending Saturday on foot and using her best dishes for the Friday night Shabbat dinner.
“I did everything that was kosher because I’m a good Jew,” she said, conceding that it’s much harder at this stage of her life. “In a place like this, you can’t be observant all the time.”
Rody Mansburg is likewise one of two Jewish residents among the 31 people in the assisted living wing of The Mayflower retirement community in Winter Park. One of the first things she noticed when moving in four years ago, besides there being so few Jewish people, was that nobody knew when to light the candles on the small menorah on display during the holidays.
At 100 years old, Mansburg misses many things from her life within the Jewish community of New Orleans — her friends and family, the temples, the charities and organizations she once belonged to. But on Fridays, she misses them a little less with a visit from Hrabovsky and a taste of the fresh challah she brings.
“It’s something to look forward to,” she said. “It’s something Jewish I wouldn’t be getting otherwise.”
The onus lies on their assimilated children, if they have any, who placed them in non-Jewish homes. If they don’t have any we are all responsible. How sad to replace keeping mitzvos & kashrus with a piece of challah. Is there any law that bars Medicaid/Medicare from paying for nursing homes in Miami for example for Orlando residents? If not all we need is to cut the bureaucratic tape and find volunteers to transfer those patients that want a Jewish nursing home.
I don’t live in Miami but I’m sure the Jewish community there can take up this very important cause. Let the family members travel a couple of hours more to visit & not deny them the keeping of mitvos at this stage in their life.
why would the children put their parents in a nursing home that isn’t jewish ?
Numbers 1 and 2: I think neither of you have ever had a parent in a nursing home. It is very traumatic and much more complicated than you think. There are many factors in chosing a home — to the extent you even live in an area with a choice. I suspect that for those residents with family who come to visit, being near family so they can visit is the most important thing. No. 1 says “let the family travel a couple of hours.” It’s not that simple. What if the children work and can only stop by after work? What if the children are also caring for their own children or the other parent who is not in a home. What if there is an elderly spouse who can’t drive or travel a couple of hours. What if family need to be nearby to address late night emergencies. Family also needs to be near for when the nursing home has a care plan meeting, or to check on the care.
Please stop being so critical and show some heart.
It really lies in the fault of the parents. What schools did they put their children in? How did these children get assimilated? If they would have kept the traditions of their parent by being shomer torah and mitzvos, these things would never happen. Now it is too late… They thought they have to live like their goyishe neighbors, move to better neighborhoods , no kosher shopping?? so what, no shuls nearby, so what then things start to fall apart. NOW IT IS TOO LATE….
Then they can complain that they land in a home without Jewish culture or kosher food. This would never happen in our heimishe circles, because we sacrificed… but in the end it was worth it.
There is a Jewish Nursing Home in Orlando. I believe it is Downtown. A friend in Shul had their Parent there. My Zeide, 96, also lives close by there. He retired there to be close to his Doctor son, my Uncle. My Zeide grew up in Brownsville without a Father who was nifter young and was dirt poor. There was no Shul or Yiddish education for him there in the 20s. In the depression he joined the Army to eat he told me. That was a generation that scraped a living together. He is 96 and he is the flip side of the coin to the great Rabonim that lived Torah lives in Europe and immigrated to NY after the war. Ask why these elderly are assimilated? They were dirt poor and there was nothing in NY then. Wake up. All that is in Brooklyn was developed after WW2. There was little prior. Read the Yated biographies on the great American Roshei Yeshivos and you learn how they built from scratch the Yeshivos that are in NY, NJ, MD, MI and IL. The history is shocking.
I do live in Orlando since 1974. There were 10000 jews than, 30000 now. There was already then Kinneret 1, home for the elderly,, some years later Kinneret 2 opened up. There’s also the Jewish Pavilion in Seminole county, with more than 100 volunteers who visit elderly Jews consistently to make them feel part of the Jewish Community. Many of those who already made comments earlier don’t know much about this community and it’s efforts to involve everyone via all kinds of Jewish activities. Therefore I suggest stop talking Norishkeits and do a bit of research as families determine where the eldelry end up, i’m sure affected by toda’s economy.
Incidentally, this article appeared in the front page of the local Orlando Sentinel last Saturday. Had the writer intended to be even handed he would have done more research and find out why these elderly Jews ended up where they are instead of a place more to their liking. There is a vibrant community here!!!