Rabbi Address chats with author Lisa Skinner on this week’s Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast

On this week’s episode of the Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast, the guest is Lisa Skinner, author of the book, Truth,Lies and Alzheimer’s; Its Secret Faces.

According to the Alzheimer’s Association, it’s estimated that nearly 6 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s in 2021. That number is, in fact, projected to nearly triple to approximately 14 million by 2060. 

Even though this disease continues to increase in prevalence and severity in our society, it is still quite a misunderstood disease. No one patient is the same… making it difficult for caretakers and loved ones to find beneficial solutions tailored specifically to the individual. 

That is why it is crucial for both those struggling with the disease, and loved ones looking for answers and guidance, to be able to identify key symptoms, behaviors, and possible solutions in order to promote their overall health and wellbeing. 

Lisa Skinner, behavioral expert in the field of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, navigates the heartbreaking challenges of having a loved one diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias in her recently revised book, Truth, Lies and Alzheimer’s: It’s Secret Faces.

Through a rich trove of stories culled from her years in the eldercare industry, Lisa Skinner offers insight into the difficult questions families face, including:

* How do I respond to a loved one’s false belief? * Am I abandoning my parent if I place them in the care of professionals? * How do we make the best of our time left together? 

Skinner’s original thinking and counter-intuitive solutions provide family members, spouses, children, caregivers, and others with the tools they need to effectively manage the symptoms of brain disease. Readers of her book will feel empowered to work through the difficulties of the disease, and return to what matters — enjoying their remaining time with their loved one.

Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast Now Available on Roku Streaming Service

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About the Guest

Lisa Skinner

Lisa Skinner is a behavioral expert in the field of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. In her 20-year career as a community counselor and reg...

Rabbi Address interviews Rabbi W. Jack Romberg, author of a book about his great-uncle’s experiences as a German solider in World War I and an American solder in World War II.

On this week’s episode of the Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast, Rabbi W. Jack Romberg discusses his book, A Doorway to Heroism: A decorated German-Jewish Soldier who became an American Hero, an account of his great-uncle’s life as a decorated German soldier in World War I, a resister in Cologne at the start of Hitler’s reign of terror, and a Silver Star decorated U.S. Army soldier.

Imagine a German Jew who was a decorated German soldier in World War I, a resistant in Cologne at the start of Hitler’s reign of terror, and a Silver Star decorated U.S. Army soldier.  Three heroic actions, at three different times, in three different places.  This is the story of Richard Stern, whose photograph of his protest hangs in multiple German museums, showing a rare Jewish protest in Nazi Germany.  He was Rabbi Romberg’s great uncle.

We have just passed the 75th anniversary of World War II.  Most of those veterans are gone, and their stories should be preserved, especially those as unique as Richard Stern’s.  How many American soldiers served the opposing army in World War I, let alone as decorated German soldiers?  How many German war veterans actively opposed the Nazis in the 1930s?  How many Jews, after making it safely out of Germany decided they had to get into the American army despite their age exemption to fight Nazi Germany?  His actions that earned him the Silver Star got a burst of publicity in New York City.  Richard Stern’s history connected to the Holocaust is unique. There have been articles published about him by CNN and a newspaper in Israel.  This book tells his full story along with how the Shoah impacted his family.

Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast Now Available on Roku Streaming Service

You can add the Jewish Sacred Aging TV channel to your Roku streaming subscription by visiting this page: https://channelstore.roku.com/details/600964/jewish-sacred-aging.

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About the Guest

Rabbi W. Jack Romberg

W. Jack Romberg retired as the rabbi of Temple Israel in Tallahassee, FL in the summer of 2019.  It was his second career.  He intended to enter rabbinic school after graduating from University of Pittsburgh in 1976 with a BA in history focusing on Germany, but his father asked him to help in the family’s furniture manufacturing business.  In 1995 he decided to pursue the lifelong dream to be a rabbi, entering Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1996, earning a master’s degree in 1999 and ordained in...

Rabbi Address with Dr. Jessica Zitter, director and producer of Caregiver: A Love Story.

On this week’s episode of the Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast, Rabbi Address chats with Dr. Jessica Zitter, director and producer of the documentary, Caregiver: A Love Story.

Over the past decade, we’ve gotten better at caring for the dying.  But now we have a new crisis on our hands: the plight of those who care for them. Caregiver: A Love Story highlights an essential, yet largely unseen workforce—the family caregivers of America. 

While most documentary films about death focus on people who are dying, Caregiver: A Love Story directs our attention to the millions of family caregivers who support them at home. 

When 59-year-old Bambi decides to forgo further treatment for her cancer and die at home, her husband Rick leaves his job to become her primary caregiver—a role for which he has no experience and little support.  

Their journey begins on a high note. Her pain is finally under control and family and friends flock to her bedside. Death may be fast-approaching, but there is an air of celebration, even optimism. The atmosphere changes quickly when family members must return to their homes abroad and Rick is left to manage Bambi’s growing needs on his own. Without a full night’s sleep in months, the around-the-clock responsibilities eventually send Rick into a state of physical, financial, and emotional exhaustion.

Caregiver: A Love Story challenges viewers to acknowledge the growing strain placed on family caregivers and to envision a new approach.

Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast Now Available on Roku Streaming Service

You can add the Jewish Sacred Aging TV channel to your Roku streaming subscription by visiting this page: https://channelstore.roku.com/details/600964/jewish-sacred-aging.

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Listen to the Audio Podcast

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About the Guest

Dr. Jessica Zitter

Dr. Zitter practices critical and palliative care medicine at a public hospital in Oakland, California. She is a passionate advocate for humanism in medicine, utilizing her broad platform as a speaker, writer, and producer of media.

Dr. Zitter is the author of Extreme Measures: Finding a Better Path to the End of Life, which chronicles her personal evolution as a physician. It’s stories depict the burdens placed on patients and families as they approach the end of life in our ICUs and hospitals.

Her work is featured in the Netflix short-documentary Extremis, which was nominated for an Oscar and two Emmys in 2017.

She is a regular contributor to The New York Times, and her articles have appeared in The Atlantic, Time Magazine,

Rabbi Address chats with Julea Gasner of Yad LaKashish about the group’s services for aging residents in Jerusalem.

On this week’s episode of the Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast, Julea Gasner of Yad LaKashish describes the challenges the social service organization faces providing resources for aging residents in Jerusalem.

Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast Now Available on Roku Streaming Service

You can add the Jewish Sacred Aging TV channel to your Roku streaming subscription by visiting this page: https://channelstore.roku.com/details/600964/jewish-sacred-aging.

You can also watch this week’s show in the player below.

Listen to the Audio Podcast

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About the Guest

Julea Gasner

Julea Gasner has been with Yad LaKashish for 4 years and has been working in the non-profit world for over 35. Originally from Toronto, she has been living in Israel since 2009 with her husband and family.

Rabbi Address chats with this week’s guest, Rabbi Stephen Fuchs

On this week’s episode of the Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast, Rabbi Stephen Fuchs, former president of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, and author of the new book, And Sometimes the First Jew, which chronicles the accomplishments, adventures, and “firsts” in Germany for Rabbi Fuchs and his wife Vickie, who are both children of Holocaust survivors. Rabbi Fuchs tells of the arrest and brutal treatment that his father, Leo Fuchs, received at the onset of Kristallnacht and how he was able to survive.

Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast Now Available on Roku Streaming Service

You can add the Jewish Sacred Aging TV channel to your Roku streaming subscription by visiting this page: https://channelstore.roku.com/details/600964/jewish-sacred-aging.

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Listen to the Audio Podcast

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About the Guest

Rabbi Stephen L. Fuchs

Rabbi Stephen Lewis Fuchs was born in East Orange, New Jersey on March 16, 1946. Upon graduating from East Orange High School, he matriculated at and graduated from Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. After five more years and four summers of full-time study, he was ordained as a Rabbi at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio where he earned his MA in Hebrew Letters and a graduate certificate in Jewish Communal Service from the Hebrew Union College branch in Los Angeles, CA.Rabbi Stephen Fuchs and Victoria Steinberg Fuchs, a now-retired elementary school teacher, married on June 9, 1974 in San Francisco, CA. They currently reside in Sanibel Island, FL where Rabbi Fuchs is the spiritual leader at Bat Yam Temple of the Islands. They have three children and five grandchildren.​While studying at Hamilton and at HUC, Rabbi Fuchs worked as a teaching tennis pro at Spring Garden CC in Florham Park, NJ and at the famed Concord Hotel in the Catskills Mountains.“I’ve learned more about people through teaching and  dealing with them during those five summers than I did in all the years I’d studied in college and graduate school,” he says.​In 1992, Rabbi Fuchs earned a Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) degree in biblical interpretation from Vanderbilt University Divinity School in Nashville, Tennessee. He received a Doctor of Divinity Degree, Honoris Causa, from the Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion in New York in March of...

Rabbi Richard Address talks with author and spiritual director Yesh Ballon on this week’s Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast

On this week’s episode of the Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast, Yesh Ballon discusses his new book, Unthinkable Dreams—The Year That Mom Died and the Towers Fell.

Yesh Ballon’s mother died two days before the 9/11 attacks. Always an iconoclast, even in death, Jean Hymson Ballon found a way to make things more interesting than they had to be. With air travel halted, the rituals for honoring and mourning her death were upended, propelling her family into chaos, conflict, and deeper grief. Unthinkable Dreams—The Year That Mom Died and the Towers Fell is the chronicle of the drama, discoveries, and occasional delights that one family experienced in the months before and after their matriarch’s death.

Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast Now Available on Roku Streaming Service

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About the Guest

Yeshaya D. Ballon

Yeshaya Douglas Ballon, spiritual mentor, teacher, artist, and retired architect, is the author of Unthinkable Dreams: The Year That Mom Died and the Towers Fell. Yesh’s previous books include: A Precious Heritage: Rabbinical Reflections on God, Judaism, and the World in the Turbulent Twentieth Century; and Blessings—A Spiritual Gift for My Family and Friends. Yesh received certification from ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal as a Mashpia Ruchani (Spiritual Director) and as a Vatik (Sage-ing® Mentor). More info at: www.yeshindeed.com. 

Rabbi Address chats with this week’s guest, Rav Laurie Braun

On this week’s episode of the Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast, Rav Laurie Katz Braun, D.Min., a Reform rabbi and director of outreach for the Youth Mental Health Project. The Youth Mental Health Project is a grassroots nonprofit organization whose mission is to educate, empower, and support families and communities to better understand and care for the mental health of our youth.

Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast Now Available on Roku Streaming Service

You can add the Jewish Sacred Aging TV channel to your Roku streaming subscription by visiting this page: https://channelstore.roku.com/details/600964/jewish-sacred-aging.

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Listen to the Audio Podcast

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About the Guest

Rav Laurie Katz Braun, D.Min.

Laurie Katz Braun, DMin, is a rabbi, writer, parent, and mental health advocate based in New York and Pennsylvania. She has provided spiritual guidance and mental health advocacy for families and youth since her very first professional role–serving on the Religious and Cultural Support Team at a Residential Treatment Facility in California. She has served communities in New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Michigan, and is honored to join the team at the Youth Mental Health Project.

Rabbi Address chats with Rabbi Michael Perice, right, senior rabbi of Temple Sinai, Cinnaminson, New Jersey, on this week’s program.

On this week’s episode of the Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast, Rabbi Michael Perice, senior rabbi of Temple Sinai, Cinnaminson, New Jersey, discusses his calling to the rabbinate and his decision to reveal to his congregation his successful battle for recovery from substance abuse.

Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast Now Available on Roku Streaming Service

You can add the Jewish Sacred Aging TV channel to your Roku streaming subscription by visiting this page: https://channelstore.roku.com/details/600964/jewish-sacred-aging.

You can also watch this week’s show in the player below.

Listen to the Audio Podcast

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About the Guest

Rabbi Michael Perice, Senior Rabbi of Temple Sinai of Cinnaminson

Rabbi Michael Perice is currently serving as the Senior Rabbi at Temple Sinai of Cinnaminson. He was ordained from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College with a Master of Arts in Hebrew Letters (M.A.H.L.) and the title of Rabbi.

In 2015, Rabbi Perice was named one of the top 20 emerging leaders in the the Burlington County region for his rabbinic work. He is also a noted orator, having delivered the opening invocation at the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and at Philadelphia’s 17th annual Mayor’s Centenarians’ Celebration.

Prior to Temple Sinai, Rabbi Perice served as student rabbi at Congregation Beth Tikvah in Marlton, Lions Gate Continuing Care Community in Voorhees, and Temple University Hillel in Philadelphia. He also completed a unit of clinical pastoral education at Einstein Medical Center, where he served as a chaplain during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Rabbi Perice was born and raised in Cherry Hill, N.J., where he grew up attending Congregation M’kor Shalom. From a young age, Michael worked at his family’s funeral home, Goldsteins’ Rosenberg’s Raphael-Sacks in Philadelphia, where he learned the values of community, public service and compassion.

Rabbi Address chats with this week’s Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast guests, Rabbi Edwin Goldberg, center, rabbi of Congregation Beth Shalom of The Woodlands, in the Houston area; and Rabbi Elaine Zecher, senior rabbi of Temple Israel, Boston. Rabbis Goldberg and Zecher are authors of the new CCAR Press book, Because My Soul Longs for You.

On this week’s episode of the Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast, Rabbi Edwin Goldberg, rabbi of Congregation Beth Shalom of The Woodlands, in the Houston area and Rabbi Elaine Zecher, senior rabbi of Temple Israel, Boston, discuss their new CCAR Press book, Because My Soul Longs for You.

Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast Now Available on Roku Streaming Service

You can add the Jewish Sacred Aging TV channel to your Roku streaming subscription by visiting this page: https://channelstore.roku.com/details/600964/jewish-sacred-aging.

You can also watch this week’s show in the player below.

Listen to the Audio Podcast

You can listen to the audio podcast version in the player below, or subscribe to the podcast in one of the popular platforms by clicking one of the buttons below the player.

About the Guest

Rabbi Elaine Zecher

Innovation in ritual and prayer, profound engagement in social action, leadership, scholarship, and a palpable love of Jewish life are hallmarks of Rabbi Elaine Zecher’s rabbinate. As the senior rabbi of Temple Israel of Boston, she leads the largest congregation in New England, forging close personal relationships within the congregation and the larger community.

Rabbi Zecher speaks passionately about social justice; she is a tireless worker in interfaith partnerships, and an advocate for progressive legislation and policy. She is noted as well for her personal warmth, deep humanity, quick wit, and humor. She is an engaging teacher who makes scholarship accessible and captivating.

Committed to developing creative liturgy and prayer, she was instrumental in developing new prayer books for Shabbat and weekdays, as well as the Machzor, which is used on the High Holy Days. Active in the national Reform Jewish movement, she served as Vice President for Leadership of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR).

Rabbi Zecher is a graduate of Brandeis University and she was ordained from Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion in 1988.  She is married to Dr. David Eisenberg and has three adult children.

Rabbi Edwin Goldberg

Rabbi Edwin Goldberg currently serves as the rabbi of Congregation Beth Shalom of The Woodlands, in the Houston area. He received rabbinic ordination and a doctorate in Hebrew Literature from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (in 1989 and 1994, respectively).

Rabbi Address chats with authors Richard Leider, center, and David Shapiro, on this week’s Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast

On this week’s episode of the Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast, authors Richard Leider and David Shapiro discuss their new book, Who Do You Want to Be When You Grown Old?

Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast Now Available on Roku Streaming Service

You can add the Jewish Sacred Aging TV channel to your Roku streaming subscription by visiting this page: https://channelstore.roku.com/details/600964/jewish-sacred-aging.

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https://vimeo.com/619385485

Listen to the Audio Podcast

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About the Guests

Richard Leider is founder and chairman of Inventure: The Purpose Company, a coaching and consulting firm. Leider has created a wide array of programs and experiences for clients, such as AARP, Caterpillar, Ericsson, Habitat for Humanity, and MetLife. He is ranked by Forbes as one of the top five most respected executive coaches, by Linkage as one of the top fifty executive coaches, and by the Conference Board as a “legend in coaching.” He is an executive fellow at the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management, a guest lecturer at Harvard Business School and Duke Corporate Education, and the author or coauthor of nine books. He was named a 2020-21 nonresident public fellow at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study.

David Shapiro is education director of the Center for Philosophy for Children, an organization that brings philosophy and philosophers into schools and community centers throughout the Puget Sound area. His scholarly interests include applied ethics, philosophy of human rights, and philosophy with children.