The Inside Press

Magazines serving the communities of Northern Westchester

Just Between Us

Ever Grateful

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Photo by Donna Mueller

What can I say? Like so many, my heart felt shattered at the same time I was assembling these issues. But publishing a community magazine also offers an outlet for my own feelings regarding the stricken communities abroad, and here. Ever grateful for that and the support at home.

True to ‘sharing the heart of our community’, I heard from several local parents getting involved and from area business owners who wasted no time launching fundraisers, earmarking a portion of their proceeds, to help vital organizations get critically needed help and supplies to those most impacted. Children wrote cards, created bracelets, and more.

Before all the carnage took place, it’s perhaps fortuitous that I had already planned articles on coping with grief and sadness during the holidays; I’m glad for the valuable resources to consider in these editions.

Also, grateful to mindfulness expert Jodi Baretz who led an apolitical and humanitarian-oriented open women’s group with coping and stress relieving strategies to help anyone struggling with the psychological ramifications of a war from sadness to personal fears, and for leading the group in a loving/kindness meditation.

“Community is one of the most important things we have when we are going through this,” she said, and that could not be more true. I’ve assembled some poignant quotes from a vigil I attended, including from President Bill Clinton. See more below.

I attended other equally wonderful gatherings at press time, including a #BringThemHomeNow rally and vigil at the Anne Frank Garden of Remembrance in White Plains, and missed others in the interest of producing coherent publications during such a busy and stress-filled period. Janine Crowley Haynes weighs in with an abundance of sensitivity.

Also inside: stories which simply celebrate life and about those who cherish and protect lives, such as at the Mount Kisco Child Care Center, ARC Westchester, and Do Something… stories about those who touch hearts; you’ll find that in Adam Kaufman’s interview with Amy Ferris, author of Mighty Gorgeous, A Little Book About Messy Love.

I’m super proud of Armonk native Lisa Salko who relayed the inspiring tale of the 13 Driver’s Licenses to Stacey Pfeffer–Lisa’s role as Ambassador on this project comes at a time when the need for Holocaust and anti-hate education is an imperative.

The efforts in Briarcliff Manor toward greening, beautifying and sustainability could not be more community driven, so thrilled Michael Gold had a chance to catch up with the chair of the committee to get the scoop.

We also haven’t forgotten the arts. Nolan Thornton shares the inspiring ‘Westchester success’ story of country music superstar Jessica Lynn. We also have Pamela Brown’s profile of ‘Anatomy of Murder’ podcast co-host, Chappaqua’s Scott Weinberger. From the Jacob Burns Film Center, we spotlighted the joy of movies this holiday season, and membership.

And, there’s more.  The usual eclectic ‘mix’, so enjoy.

Please take good care of yourselves and families during this difficult time but also don’t forget to embrace the joy of the season; a holiday train show at the Greeley House may be just the ticket. And per Elisa Bremner, be food waste conscious. On that final note, happy Thanksgiving and happy holidays to you and yours.

 

 

A Community Vigil to Stand with Israel Drew Wide Support

Public officials, including former President Bill Clinton, clergy, and students of Greeley’s Club E.N.O.U.G.H and Student Union conveyed powerful messages of solidarity, comfort, and support to the thousand plus who gathered one week following the horrific October 7 massacre in Israel. As one student stated: “Our fear of having Jewish lives being lost just because of their beliefs is a reality we are forced to believe in. Never again is now.”

New Castle Town Supervisor Lisa Katz: “Tonight, in the face of darkness, let our unity be a beacon of hope as we stand together in solidarity with Israel and the Jewish people in our hearts, in our words, and most importantly, in our actions…

Rev. Dr. Martha Jacobs: “I join with my colleagues in crying and stand as a witness to their anger, rage and deep, deep sadness… but also their hope.” “You know what? Hatred can never win. It only brings more pain and more devastation.”

Rabbi Jonathan Jaffe expressing gratitude to interfaith allies: “In dark and anxious times you have provided us lift and light. I cannot tell you how much we appreciate it.” “May we respond to Hamas inhumanity with our own acts of humanity, with acts of love and kindness and charity.”

Congressman Michael Lawlor addressing the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust: “Today we affirm that we will always be Israel’s greatest friends and ally… we will never turn our backs on them.”

President Bill Clinton offered: “I hope all over America and the world people who believe in peace and freedom and fairness for everybody will be gathering like this. It made me proud to see all of you and proud to be a part of this community.”

County Legislator Vedat Gashi affirmed: “Hamas and their co-conspirators have nothing to do with Islam. That barbarism is antithetical to Islam and to any other faith.”

Additional poignant remarks were offered by state Senator Peter Harckham, state assemblyman Chris Burdick, and Deputy County Executive Ken Jenkins. Concluding the vigil were closing remarks from members of the town’s Holocaust and Human Rights committee, the reciting of the Mourners Kaddish, a Memorial Candle lighting, and additional songs and prayers for Israel.

An ‘Extraordinary’ Testimonial from the Boys and Girls Club of Northern Westchester to Honor 20 Years of Inside Press

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“First of all, Grace is extraordinary. As a person and as the CEO of a local non-profit organization, to have the opportunity to partner with someone like Grace who is so collaborative and creative and can make introductions and connect people… that is a unique gift. Working with Grace is extraordinary!

Secondarily, I value the opportunity not just to work with Grace but with her whole team. Inside Press publications give you an opportunity to have your message go directly into someone’s home, which I believe gives you credibility.

Thirdly, from the perspective of trying to improve brand awareness within our community, the publications that Inside Press produces are extraordinary. People trust you. People know or come to learn that you are part of the community. Not only do we all read all of your publications to keep on top of the pulse of what’s going on in the community, but we are also appreciative that we can share our own messaging with the community regarding very important initiatives to improve programming for children.

Lastly, Grace and her team recognize the importance of collaboration, spotlighting so many different agencies, “sharing the heart of our community” which is beautiful, and in so doing so, The Inside Press educates the community on the importance of a partnership between us all. In this way, we leverage resources we learn about to be that much more effective, provide that much more impact, and to be that much more fiscally responsible. As a long-time reader, I have found Grace and the Inside Press team adept at educating the community on available resources.

We are so grateful to The Inside Press for producing publications that has improved our business by enabling us to better educate the community regarding ongoing programming at the Boys and Girls Club for all children ages 3 to 18, in addition to strengthening families, and therefore, the community.”

Alyzza Ozer
Mount Kisco, NY

“Daddy, what is Zsha Zsha Writing?”

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My grandmother Guta, after whom I am named, my uncle Wolf, and grandfather, Fischel Breitstein

 

One of the reasons I recently started a search for a co-publisher/editor for this small press was to open up personal time and space to finally create a three-generation memoir of survivors, telling the story of my father, Jacob Breitstein, my grandfather, Fischel Breitstein, and myself. As I get older, my energy wanes but my determination grows.

And now. And now… it feels ever more urgent.

First, I want to give full attention to my father’s choppy but heart searing memoir of surviving numerous Nazi labor camps, throughout Poland and Germany, and finally Auschwitz, and of literally watching his younger brother Wolf go up in smoke the night of his arrival. On rare occasions, he shared additional details: he was a teenager who had held back tears through years of ‘labor camps’ and during the unspeakable treatment of being a young man in captivity, including being raped by a Nazi, something I’ve never shared publicly before.

He cried however the first night he had been reduced to a number and that he understood that Wolf, one of two brothers with whom he had been picked up with for the ‘work detail’ — together they survived one hellhole after another — was now burning in an oven, after being gassed alive with hundreds, following a ‘selection’ in which they came face to face with ‘Dr.’ Mengele. He shook silently with his tears streaming in his tight space sandwiched in with other frightened, devastated prisoners on a board for a bed as loud wailing could be a death sentence too the night he understood the magnitude of what was happening and the devil’s backyard that he was now in. Tears streamed even in his state of acute thirst and starvation. Maybe it was the release he needed to get on with the business of surviving.

The other family members in a family of seven who survived was my grandfather who had separated from his family, and while he was gone, male heads of households were slaughtered, his wife and children herded and trapped in a ghetto, their brutal fate, deportation to a death camp, still to come. My grandfather hid for years, and in his 80s, banged out his story with two fingers on a Yiddish typewriter. As a young child, I watched him hunched over the antique typewriter hitting the keys, and marveled at it. “Daddy, I’d say, what is Zsha Zsha writing?” I have his story to translate and tell too. It weighs on me.

The third part of the book will likely be the hardest — growing up in the shadow of the Holocaust, learning about it, trying to make sense of it. I want to share intimately what that all meant growing up with the most modest means in the melting pot of Washington Heights in the company of so many other children of survivors, attending an orthodox Yeshiva where the film ‘Night and Fog’ was presented to second graders. But also, the dysfunction of it all, the terrible fights between my parents, and the different battles I fought with them over basic independence taken for granted in other families under my parents’ ever watchful, worried gaze. It’s the deep dive memoir I have kept putting off, and it’s a source of shame that I have too. I have offered only snippets of it on social media, and now here, and I am sure I have not given my family’s story the justice it deserves. It is a huge burden to feel that if I should die prematurely, their story may never be told.

And now. And now…

There will have to be a chapter I never anticipated, of being a child of Holocaust survivors living with the fresh wounds of October 7, 2023. Because they will feel fresh for many years to come, and it would be impossible for any child of survivors today writing about the Holocaust to separate their family’s tragic history without segueing into the new genocide, the acts of which were every bit as horrific, that took place on Israeli soil, and without addressing the continuing plague of antisemitism and call for our destruction infecting so many.

The survivors and their descendants hadn’t finished telling all the stories of the Holocaust.  We will now be adding the stories of a second Holocaust to the Jewish people’s story of persecution, torture, rape, and murder. The new stories will come for generations. This is not what Never Again was supposed to mean, because Never Again happened, it happened — in our haven, in our home.

Also, I haven’t cried yet, not in earnest, not in a heaping pile of pure sorrow – despite the pain I feel in every bone. I am after all my father’s daughter.  

 

Back to Calm & Peace

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Grace Bennett Photo   by Donna Mueller

While it may seem counterintuitive, ‘back to school,’ with its flurry of activities and family fun events, can also bring a renewed sense of calm and peace. Maybe that involves setting some new goals for yourself… a class, a job search, a new exercise (pickleball anyone?), eating more healthfully, joining a book club, taking in a hot new movie (or two, or three!), a live arts performance, or just browsing anew inside one of the independently owned bookstores, we are so lucky to have in abundance in northern Westchester. If this time of year brings you calm, if it brings you peace, then it’s also likely bringing you joy. Hey, run with that and accept your good fortune with a healthy dose of gratitude.

If you are dealing with hardship in any arena, and I can relate, it might also be a good time to study the art and science of resilience. At a workshop I attended on Navigating Change at Kripalu, a popular yoga and spiritual retreat in the Berkshires, we were advised to face and respect that which is difficult. The challenge, a wise instructor offered, is to shift even slightly to imagining a more positive story than the one you’re living, to eliminate obstacles (she called them ‘goblins’), and slowly take steps, even baby ones, so that the change you are seeking can become your new reality.

So with a greater sense of calm and peace, I had a great time getting these editions ready, from visiting the Miller House to help celebrate a new grant to playing pickleball in Armonk’s Lombardi Park with “the pickleball ladies.”  Kudos to Dawn Greenberg and her team for a 10th year of the Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival, and to the Greeley Boys Swim & Dive Team who are aiming for a third NYS win (which would be unprecedented)!  More notes of congrats: to the Pleasantville Children’s Center on 50 years of excellence, and to Megan Stopera, a Curling champ in Briarcliff Manor, who could be a contender for an Olympic medal! 

As for the Inside Press, well into a 20th year, we have already shared a variety of testimonials and will continue doing so.

In fact, following dinner with a very special neighbor and friend in town – who so many know and admire as a paragon of resilience and perseverance – I asked if she’d be open to writing a testimonial about this press. And voila! I’m very proud and grateful to include Hillary Clinton’s kind words during this publishing period, with only one more ‘cycle’ to go! (Our holiday/winter 2023 editions mail November 10.)

Please enjoy all our contributors’ fine work here. Wishing you all calm and peaceful days this fall season and year round.  –  Grace

Unconditional Love

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Inside Press Publisher Grace Bennett Photo by Donna Mueller

A great deal has been said for and against social media, but one ‘for’ argument: it’s a way to share the joys of being a grandma and/or grandpa! Listen, in these pandemic years, new generations of precious little humans around are a raison de célébrer. If Stacey Pfeffer helps reveal how each grandparent’s love is a study in the human capacity for unconditional love, then mission accomplished.

In the pursuit of a theme of ‘family bliss’, I also thought I’d call out the ‘perfect’ marriage as a myth that social media may sometimes have you believing. Truth is virtually all relationships at some point face or will face any manner of stress that can make or break them. So how to keep that basic truth positive and productive? Alexa Troob was ‘all over it’ and gleaned advice and strategies from local therapists and healers who help couples weather the storms, survive, and thrive. Meanwhile, Beth Besen courageously shares her own sage advice for staying the course! Next feature: When and why throwing in the towel might be the best decision, and how to do that as amicably as possible!

Alexa has a second article here, too. Following a guided tour, she makes a poignant case for saving Buttonhook, Chappaqua’s embattled, sacred forest. Read all about it.

Journalism continues to face unprecedented challenges, so don’t miss Andrew Vitelli’s recap of the ‘Future of Local Journalism’ panel at the Chappaqua Library.

I was proud of the opportunity to moderate the Chappaqua Library panel, “The Future of Local Journalism”
Photo by Denise Mincin

If there is ‘one well deserved cover story’ I hadn’t produced in 20 years of publishing, it’s a ‘close-up’ of New Castle’s annual Memorial Day parade/event which remembers our fallen. I’ve been personally covering it, in words and pictures, for almost as many years as I’ve been publishing, so very grateful to Ronni Diamondstein for contributing both her iconic cover photo and article to ‘bring it home’.

If you haven’t had a chance to watch The Wonderful Mrs. Maisel on Prime (hard to imagine, but…), you might be wondering about our Armonk cover! We advise you just read on to discover the compelling story of Jean Carroll as shared by her granddaughter and local mom and social activist Susan Chatzky with Briarcliff Manor’s Deputy Mayor Pete Chatzky at her side.  

When Ella Ilan told me about a group of North Castle moms who have met regularly through the years, forming a deep friendship circle, over mah jongg and canasta, I thought it would make a compelling local story for Inside Armonk! Thanks to Ella’s story, I’m inspired to learn the games now myself. After all, there’s nothing like girlfriends to share the best of times to revel in and sear into our memories, and the worst of times to help you navigate and hopefully sail to a safer shore.

For fun and in-depth stories, we encourage you to discover Joanna VanTrees, the broadcast personality behind What’s Up Pleasantville? at Pleasantville Community Television. Michael Gold refers to Joanna as “a force of nature” and after reading his article, perhaps it won’t be hard to see why!

There’s so much more in our issues, particularly in the areas of public service and the arts so please don’t skip a thing (and do continue ‘telling ‘em you saw it’ in an Inside pub).

Finally, as the Inside Press has ‘gone quarterly’, we’re taking a print break for a stretch (we publish again mid-August), and an online break as much as possible, although you can still follow our adventures as they arise on yes, you guessed it, social media!  

Happy Mother’s Day! Happy Father’s Day!