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Jill may be the youngest oldest member of Monmouth Reform Temple. She joined MRT as a 5 year old in the mid 60’s after her family, the Bakers (Jerry and Peg), relocated to Colts Neck from Boston. She was Bat Mitzvah’ed and Confirmed at MRT and rejoined in 2000 when her oldest son, Alex, was just 1.

Many people know Jill as a real estate agent, but her background is actually in Marketing and Management Information Systems in which she has a degree from Boston University. If you have or had a Timex watch with a Disney character displayed on the face (Remember those?), you are the beneficiary of a licensing agreement that Jill championed with Disney when she worked as a Product Manager for Timex. Working for Timex, Jill ventured regularly to Hong Kong, the Philippines, and the annual Watch Fair in Basel, Switzerland.

Jill competed on her Marlboro High School tennis team and continues to avidly play the game in a women’s doubles league and with a group of senior men. She is also quite musical having played the flute and piano and dabbling in temple choir for the joint Thanksgiving celebration with the Presbyterian church.

While Jill is probably best loved for her fun loving, bubbly personality and her fondness for dancing and getting a little crazy, she actually feels she is an introvert who has anxiety in new situations. But regardless, Jill is up for just about anything.

Like most parents, Jill is most proud of her awesome children, Alex and Alyssa, who just get more amazing every day. And like most of our MRT Community, Jill loves the warmth of the MRT family, the many friendships she has developed here, and the comfort of just being able to be herself.

Reach out to Jill to experience her spirit and join in some of the social and service activities sponsored by the MRT Sisterhood.

By Zach Gilstein

Mark, tell me about your family. Rosanne and I have a blended family of 5 children and are thrilled to be celebrating Adam’s upcoming Bar Mitzvah with our family, friends and Temple family.

Where were you born and where did you attend school? I was born in Jersey City in Margaret Hague Hospital , grew up and attended public schools in North Bergen NJ and gradated from East Brunswick High School. I attended University of Dayton, Ohio and graduated with a dual major in Bio-engineering and Chemistry and received my MBA from Fordham University at Lincoln Center.

What is your profession? I started my company in February, 2015, called Office BIZ, which is a distributor of office products, print and promotional.

That’s a long way from bio-engineering and chemistry. My professional career started as Sales Engineer selling chemical process equipment, and then selling high tech sterilization and depyrogenation equipment to the pharmaceutical, healthcare and medical research facilities. I moved on selling equipment to the power industry when Enron forced me to make a serious career change. That got me involved with office products.

What’s fun about being President of Men’s Club? I wouldn’t call it fun yet, as I am still finding my way as to the real role of the Men’s Club within MRT. I am associated with a terrific group of men who lend constant support so we can fulfill the needs and worthy causes in which MRT is involved . I do enjoy the challenge the Men’s Club offers. Personally, I feel I have found an extended family, and I have thoroughly enjoyed the male bonding that has come from the experience so far, and just being associated with MRT has allowed Rosanne and me to make new friends.

What books have you read lately? I mostly read periodicals rather than books, such as National Geographic and Cooking magazines or anything that might grab my interest. I enjoy knowledge I gain from reading such material.

Do you cook? Yes. I do most of the cooking at home and like experimenting with food and introducing new tastes to my family. My favorite recipe is a French Leg of Lamb but nobody likes it so I haven’t had the need to make it. One food I have introduced and was received quite well is Oxtail Stew. Almost everyone in the family seems to enjoy it. It is delicious!

What was the most fun you had as a kid? Playing outdoor sports with friends and just being outdoors. Kids don’t do that anymore. Though we didn’t belong to a Temple, I played on the Temple youth basketball team and was pretty good.

What did you hate most about school? I needed to transfer to East Brunswick High School in my Junior year and I was bullied the first few weeks until I stood up to the individuals. Gaining acceptance in a new environment was difficult and I was miserable. I buried myself in studies and did quite well. I really don’t condone fighting. I find it unpleasant, but sometimes you have to stand your ground and fight for your rights. I tell the younger boys at home that they should let no one bully them and that it is often just a matter of standing up to the bully. My high school experience is one reason why we are members of MRT. Both Rosanne and I feel that MRT fosters an incredibly embracing and welcoming atmosphere where one can assimilate quite readily into a new community.

Who was the greatest influence in your life? My mother.

If you could invite 3 famous people for dinner who would they be? Moses, Jesus and Abraham Lincoln.

What would you serve? Kosher oxtail stew.

Would you like to add anything else? I love my wife and my blended family and my extended Jewish family.

Thank you, Mark!

By Eleanor Rubin

Linda Burns is co-chair of the Membership Committee and a member of MRT’s Board of Trustees. With her co-chair Gena Ansell-Lande, Linda is responsible for recruiting, orienting, and welcoming our new members, as well as connecting new members with established members. In her engagement with MRT, Linda has noted that “you can take on a volunteer job at MRT that is totally different than your ‘day job’, thus allowing you to experiment in expanding your skills”. Linda’s variety of experiences at MRT exemplifies that view.

Linda, a native of West Hempstead, Long Island, has lived in Monmouth County since 1988. Her professional career has been in the Human Resources area for tech and pharmaceutical companies. Currently, she is the Head of HR for the US office of Helsinn, a Swiss pharmaceutical company. She and her daughter Leah joined MRT in 1998, shortly after Linda’s marriage ended in divorce. Linda was attracted to MRT by Rabbi Priesand’s reputation as the first woman rabbi, and was comfortable with the large number of interfaith families at MRT. As Linda engaged with MRT, so did Leah, who served as President of our Senior Youth Group. (Leah has since become a practicing civil engineer.)

At MRT, Linda has jumped into several areas that are new and different from her professional life. She has been the head of the Outreach Committee (welcoming interfaith families), been the chair of the Religious Education Committee (and had a first stint on the Board), led a community outreach project in an early Mitzvah Day, and served in the leadership of the Arts Festival as chair of the Ad Journal. In each of these positions, Linda found a mentor at MRT who asked and encouraged her to become involved and taught her what she needed to succeed. Among those mentors were Roy Eisen, Bob Gabel, Arlene Berg, Gayle Horvath, Alice Berman, Rich Sachs, and Joel Morgovsky.

Beyond MRT, Linda serves on the Board of the Monmouth Symphony Orchestra, where she is the chair of the Program Journal.

Linda appreciates the ways that she had been given an opportunity at MRT to try new jobs and tasks, beyond her “real-world” career, and feels satisfaction in being able to make a contribution to the larger community in which she lives.

By Jay Wiesenfeld

Zach Gilstein is the newly-elected President of MRT as of July 1st, and is a member of MRT’s Board of Trustees. Raised in a Conservative synagogue outside of Philly, Zach migrated to the
Reform movement when he and his wife, Sheila, began attending High Holyday services at MRT (and at a few other Monmouth County temples) for ten years prior to officially joining in 1994, when the oldest of their two sons (Jeremy) entered Kindergarten. One of the key attractions of the Reform HHD service was that, “it was finite-it started and ended on time, as opposed to a Conservative service which lasted for six hours with a constant ebb and flow of people-the Reform service was much more engaging”.

Zach is proud that his sons, Jeremy and Joshua, were both Bar Mitzvah’d and Confirmed and Sheila was Bat Mitzvah’d at MRT. By contrast, Zach moved to Maryland in December of his sophomore year in High School and never completed his Confirmation, and he believes that the post-Bar Mitzvah years are when our youth are mature enough to understand the foundations of Judaism and delve into the more real-world aspects of our faith.

Zach is an avid golfer and tennis player which he does regularly on the weekends and when he can get out of work early. He also loves to do puzzles of all sorts and particularly likes working the The New York Times Sunday crossword and the KenKen puzzles. He is a life member of the United States Chess Federation and during Grad School was almost an Expert player, but now mostly just plays on the computer.

One of the most important things about MRT to Zach is that we have always been a “fair-share temple-one of the founding principles back in 1959 was the kibbutz model, whereby people contributed what they could, and that no one was excluded”.

What would success look like to Zach at the conclusion of his Presidency in July 2017? “That more people are connected to each other, have opportunities to get together and enjoy each other’s company, and that each member finds his or her portal”

By Linda Burns

Lauren		Sarah

Lauren and Sarah are both seniors in high school.  Lauren attends Wall High School where she is a member of the National Honors Society and plays flute in the school wind ensemble.  Sarah attends The Ranney School, at which she swims breaststroke on the swim team and enjoys acting in the school shows.

Sarah is really passionate about working with children and intends to pursue a career that will enable her to continue doing so, perhaps child psychology.  She works as an intern in the lower grades at Ranney, reading to fourth graders and helping them with their analytical skills.  She’s also in the  Madrahim program in the MRT Religious School.

Lauren loves music and looks forward to playing flute in her college symphonic band, though she hasn’t zeroed in on a particular school yet.  She’s studied flute since the 4^th grade and also plays piano and dabbles in guitar and ukulele. Lauren had the honor of performing in Lincoln Center, Kimmel Center, and Temple University with her school’s band. She is also very involved in her school’s Relay for Life, and Music Honors Society.

Given a free Sunday, Lauren would go out to breakfast with friends and then head for the beach to read a good book.  Sarah really didn’t care what she was doing as long as it was with other people.

Both remarked that the thing they loved best about MRT was the feeling of being part of a big family and the great bonds and friendships they have formed.  Lauren and Sarah also enjoy their involvement in the Temple Youth group which has enabled them to meet people from all over the Garden Empire Region (NY and NJ).  They are both excited about the many SMaRTY activities planned for the upcoming year.

For more information about SMaRTY, feel free to reach out to Sarah or Lauren.

If you have a question about financial funds at Monmouth Reform Temple, chances are Stu Tuchband, Finance Committee Chair, will have the answer. Since joining MRT in 1969, Stu and his wife of 56 years, Cora, have been involved in a variety of activities, but for Stu, the primary focus has been finance.

Temple involvement came naturally to Cora and Stu, as they met in the youth groups of their neighborhood synagogue in Brooklyn, NY.  Stu graduated with an engineering degree from Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn (now part of NYU) and after getting married, moved to NJ, earning Master’s Degrees in Electrical Engineering and System Science. While doing his undergraduate work, Stu became captain of the Brooklyn Poly Nighthawks rifle team.  He was also in the Air Force Reserves where he achieved a Master ranking in both rifles and handguns.

Stu worked at Bell Telephone Laboratories until the early 1970’s when he left and founded a telecommunications consulting firm with two other budding entrepreneurs.  He was President and CEO of the consulting firm and retired in 2006.

Stu and Cora joined MRT in 1969 to meet other families with common interests, and to start their children in religious school.  Stu says his greatest benefit from MRT was successfully raising his children in the Jewish tradition.  Second to that was (and still is) making new temple friends and growing those relationships. His earliest interests at MRT were Ritual and Finance and he right away joined both committees.  A former MRT President, Stu was involved with the Monmouth Festival of the Arts, and currently Arts & Deco Committee.

Stu enjoys singing in the MRT choir, blowing the shofar at services, skiing, tennis, reading and birdwatching. When not busy at MRT, he loves to adventure travel (he’s been to every continent), visit his children and grandchildren and tend his garden.

An early recollection from the 1980’s at MRT with Rabbi Priesand is especially poignant:

“In the 1980’s the Temple participated in a social action project to resettle refugees from Viet Nam.  Dozens of Temple members donated their time, effort and funds to help four Vietnamese adults establish themselves in our country.  Over the course of about 5 months my family provided housing for all of them by sharing our home.  It was quite a cross cultural learning experience for the whole family and each of us gained enormously from the experience.  The first to arrive were a brother and sister.  Each had left a spouse behind.  Then, another sister and her husband arrived.  She was pregnant.  For political reasons it took us ten years to reunite the brother with his wife and child.  Over the years we remain close to them and their growing families.” 

Stu’s dedication to MRT goes back decades and continues to stay strong.

By Marjorie Wold

Marjorie (Margie) Wold is a stalwart supporter of the temple and all things Jewish. Margie got her Jewish start as a young girl growing up on Long Island. Although Margie has two sisters, they are both much older (10 and 14 years), so Margie grew up much like an only child.

Margie’s temple life experiences mirror what happened here at Monmouth Reform Temple. When Margie was 9, her family moved to Mahwah, NJ and joined a reform temple (which also initially met in a church), but soon, their beloved rabbi moved to North Carolina. As a result of a new Rabbi transition, a number of families including Margie’s, found that the temple no longer suited them. A dozen families started a Jewish Havarah, holding Shabbat services each week in each of their homes. These services were lay lead and allowed all the family members, including Margie, to run the service. Margie became a Bat Mitzvah at that time with the rabbi who moved to North Carolina leading the service in a restaurant. Margie’s religious upbringing really supports the notion that you can be Jewish anywhere.

Margie received her BA in English and Political Science from Rutgers College. Margie followed her dream to be a reporter with her college newspaper, then at the Princeton Packet. Margie and her husband, Rob, met at Rutgers and moved to White Plains to enable Rob to finish his residency. At that time, Margie worked for SUNY Purchase, and then was able to travel while working for Progressive Grocer, writing Marketing pieces for them.

With the birth of Lindsay, Margie stopped working in corporate America. The Wolds moved to New Jersey, first to Tinton Falls, then to Colts Neck, just when Margie was ready to give birth to their identical twins, Amanda and Jaclyn.

Margie and Rob affiliated themselves with Rob’s family’s temple, but did not feel comfortable with the very conservative approach. In 1999, the Wolds joined MRT where they embrace the culture and Lindsay began 1st grade.

Margie is a big believer in volunteerism and has given so much of herself, first to the Colts Neck PTO where she became President, and now at Jewish Federation and MRT. She became active at MRT through the Arts Festival. Margie has been involved in many committees and heads up most of our public relations efforts. Margie can be found at nearly every event at the temple where she welcomes you with a smile and friendly conversation. I am always amazed at Margie’s uncanny ability to say such complimentary things when she greets you, comments on Facebook, answers an email or at a meeting. We are lucky to have such a great leader!

 By Jill Austin