Stu and Karen Zanger
Rockdale will receive a legacy gift from us, Stu and Karen, once we both leave this life. We know that Rockdale has connected us to so much of the goodness in our lives. How could we not wish the same for future generations?
When we brought our very young family “home” to Cincinnati in 1988, it was Rockdale that we chose as our “temple home,” Karen’s first one here, having returned to her hometown as a Jew by choice. Within a week we had received a call asking if we’d like to form a chavurah as part of temple life—something still new at that time. That Sukkot we met for the first time the people who we still consider our “chavurah family,” some of whom even live on either side of us in our “Deershadow shtetl.” Our children all grew up together. We studied widely and taught each other monthly, traveled together for shabbatons, cooked for and blessed and nursed each other, buried, married, divorced, celebrated conversions, and greeted grandchildren. COVID divided us only physically. T hese relationships grew from the seed we had planted at Rockdale 35 years ago.
Some of our chavurahniks happened to be professional farmers, and year by year, they brought Stu along in his quest for delicious veggies and dark, rich soil. First he, and eventually both our daughters learned from Dick and David and Jim how to use raised beds, to grow garlic, to till less and to garden organically. Some of them sold veggies and f lowers in the new farmers market scene sprouting in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. We joined the market community selling Vanishing Granola for a time, and more recently with daughter Jess’s Zoftig Bakehouse. Stu has also served on the board of our local farmer’s market for more than a decade now. And it started that first Sukkot with our Rockdale chavurah and its Jewish farmers.
We knew enough about making television to tell Rockdale’s story in video form on the occasion of Rockdale’s 190th year. In the making of that video, we got closer with all our congregant interviewees—and especially one, Ed Marks, who voiced the soundtrack elegantly. A few years later, he and Anita moved to Florida, but first Ed asked Karen to take his place on the board of Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Cincinnati. During production, we had caught Ed’s Cincinnati Jewish history fever. So Karen was soon drawn into the vast “library” of people’s stories contained in that unique new organization’s 25 cemeteries. Thanks, Rockdale, again!
And then there was Rockdale’s library. Karen made friends there, played with children via stories, and had an entire Jewish world at her fingertips for about 30 years. What better way to grow Jewishly than by living within a mental map of a Jewish library? No words can thank you enough, Rockdale, for all you have opened up to our family. When we are gone, we will gladly help Rockdale continue for those who come after us.
