OyChicago articles

Orit Vardi stands in front of Growing 2008, the mural being created under her supervision by 30 youth in the Bricolage program.

Over the past year, while walking or running under the Bryn Mawr underpass at Lake Shore Drive, I’ve admired the sparkling colors and tiles, wondering who was responsible for this gorgeous mural. Then, a few months ago, my friend Orit mentioned that she was hiring teens to create another mural for the Bryn Mawr underpass.

Wait - did they already do one on the north side of the street? Can I help? Will you hire me? She responded accordingly, “Sure, if you’re under 18.”

I got past my disappointment (eventually) and spoke with Orit, about her experience in Avodah: The Jewish Service Corps, her job at Alternatives, and Bricolage, the program responsible for the mosaic murals.

Avodah is sort of like The Real World, sans camera. For one year, seven Jewish young adults live together in an Andersonville apartment and each work at a different nonprofit. They learn about social justice and each other’s Jewish backgrounds and religious practices. Orit explains, “We spent the year learning about different issues in the city, looking at Jewish roots and values, discussing the Jewish outlook on social justice, and talking about how we can bring all of those things together in the work that we do and in the lives that we lead. It’s been a really inspirational year.”

Many of the issues the group learned about during the year - housing, homelessness, environmental justice, incarceration – have directly affected many youth that Orit counsels at Alternatives, where she works in career and employment services. She helps youth ages 16-24 who don’t have many resources at home to prepare for their first jobs, write resumes, research colleges, explore careers, conduct interviews, fill out applications and more.

For 30 fortunate youth, the Bricolage program is their first summer job. Teens under 18 have to go through an extensive application process, including an interview with Orit, who supervises the program.

Hard at work, using mirror tiles to outline large images

In its third summer, the Bricolage program is well under way. I couldn’t believe the progress that had been made since the first tiles were installed on July 2. Only a few weeks prior I had run past and noticed mirror tiles forming simple outlines across the wall. It looked vastly different the other day when I stopped by to check it out.

As I walked up to the site, a car drove by honking at the teens and someone leaned out the window and yelled, “It looks beautiful!” And it does.

The mural is progressing. Ceramic flowers and butterflies made by community groups fill the center of the wall, forming a community garden.

The theme for this year’s mural is, Growing 2008. The images focus on nature and history in the Edgewater community.  The middle of the mural features a community garden that was literally made by the community. Different community groups, including Heartland Alliance, church groups, book clubs, youth groups, and others made ceramic flowers and butterflies earlier this year that the teens then glazed and included in the mural.

Sculpted leaves jut out of the wall, adding texture and variety to the mural’s community garden.

Another section contains a family tree, featuring a photo wall of past and present community members. Throughout the mural are historic Edgewater buildings, leaves, flowers, animals, and patterns that represent different ethnic groups in Edgewater.

The family tree portion of the mural depicts past and present Edgewater community members.

The two artists leading the process are high school art teachers Tracy Van Duinen and Todd Osborne. They created the design along with the help of the community – condo associations, senior centers, the Edgewater Community Council, individual families and others are all involved in planning and executing the designs along with the youth.

Artist Tracy Van Duinen touches up some cement before debriefing about the day with the youth apprentices.

Van Duinen explained that this is a way for teens to get involved in their community in a new way. Orit agrees that the youth are definitely feeling a sense of community from the project. The media usually portrays teenagers in a negative light, but during this project, she says, every single day, “you have community members walking by, talking to them and asking them questions, clapping, telling them just how wonderful they are, and how they’re really leaving their print on the community.”

With only a few weeks left, the mural is almost complete. Each purple line in the grid above represents a street in the Edgewater neighborhood.

Besides a sense of pride at their accomplishments, youth are gaining both art skills, professional skills and a sense of community. The project culminates with a huge community event on Saturday, August 9th which the mayor and alderman both plan to attend.

This sense of community and the importance of giving back to the community was a theme in Avodah as well. Orit only worked with one Jewish teen during this past year, but she notes that the Jewish component of her work is expressed through implementing Jewish values instead - looking at Jewish texts and ideologies and reaching a state of equal justice for all. “Judaism is involved even when you’re not at a Jewish organization or working with a Jewish population.”

Stop by and check out the mural at Bryn Mawr under Lake Shore Drive. It’s almost complete, and on a sunny day the light ripples across the tiles bringing the images to life. Last year’s mural, Living 2007, is on the north side of the street; Growing 2008 is on the south.

Brooke and Mike 'can't help falling in love' at Graceland

My first instinct when my Prince Charming asked me to marry him was to head down to City Hall for a no muss/no fuss wedding—at 10:30 a.m. to avoid the lunch rush. When my Mom, with tears in her eyes, asked me if I was not going to have her under the chuppah with me, I realized that I not only wanted her there, I wanted my Judaism there too. Chuppah, Mom and all.

My mother was a single parent and worked very hard to take care of me and my sister after our Dad died. She sent me to Jewish Day School, Jewish camp and on trips to Israel. She made sure that I would have the skills and knowledge to be a strong Jew in a non-Jewish world. So on second thought, no offense David Orr Cook County Clerk, you’re no rabbi. 

I am such a proud, hard core, in your face, I-bring-the-Jew-to-the-table kind of girl, that I don’t know what I was thinking. I take pride in speaking Hebrew, wearing my “Herzl is my Homeboy” t-shirt and knowing my Jewish history. I corrected a tour guide at the Coliseum in Rome who generically claimed slaves built the Coliseum. Oh contraire, JEWISH slaves built the Coliseum. I can’t believe I was going to skip the chuppah. I realized then that I still wanted my wedding to be small and Jewish but I also wanted it to be unique.

Thinking of what was different and Jewish, I first though of Curacao’s synagogue. A quick cruise from Florida, a stop at the synagogue. How lovely. But a residency requirement from Curacao nixed that. Being a CTA fan, I considered renting an El train. Three hours gets you and your guests wherever there is track and you can even have food and drinks! But, ultimately, it was a comment from Patty, the event planner at Graceland, which made up my mind.

Prince Charming—also known as Mike—and I had been to Memphis and were charmed by the city and its close/solid Jewish community. When Patty gave us the price of having a wedding at Graceland she mentioned that it included the minister. When I told Patty I was Jewish and would be using a rabbi she said, “I don’t think we’ve had a Jewish wedding here before.”  Light bulb!  I asked her to check on that and two days later she called to say that if Mike and I chose Graceland, we’d be the first Jewish couple to marry there. In my own little way I was going to be a pioneer.

Because we started planning this July 4 wedding on June 5—that’s four whole weeks!—things started to come together quickly. We had the place (Graceland) and the city (Memphis) but no rabbi, hotel, restaurant, etc. Keeping with our Memphis/Jewish theme we decided to have dinner on a Riverboat on the Mississippi and serve BBQ brisket, cornbread challah, greens, corn and an oh-so-southern Red Velvet cake.

To make the wedding a bit more Elvis-like, we had a Cantor officiate instead of a rabbi—thank you Cantor David Julian for making our wedding more meaningful than I could ask for. And to make it more “us” we made our own chuppah (which was then schlepped from Chicago to Memphis by car—thanks Mom) and ordered blue suede kippot, as is only right at Elvis’s house.

Blue suede 'kippot'

It wasn't city hall on a Tuesday and I'm glad. It was a great ceremony, blending the best of the unconventional feel we wanted and Jewish traditions that are so important to us. Being the first Jewish couple to wed at Graceland secures for us a special place in history and I couldn't have been more excited to say my "I do" in front of family, God and Elvis.

Brooke Mandrea has been asked 6 times, said yes 4 times, but has only gotten married this once. She is a city girl who rarely ventures north of North Avenue. When she is not being a Jewish pioneer, she works on Overseas Programs and Projects at the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago. Luckily, that is exactly what she would want to do even if she didn't have bills to pay. She is also a voracious reader but only a few pages at a time.

Rich Levy, the head tomato

Even if you don’t personally know Richard Levy, you probably do know his salads. The founding president and CEO of Salad Spinners Corp—or head tomato as he’s most often referred to—invented the business Salad Spinners, a creative salad and sandwich lunch option, seven years ago. Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and raised in Highland Park, Levy started his career in the food-service industry nearly a decade ago as an analyst in the meat processing and baked goods manufacturing industry in South Africa. Soon after, he headed back to Chicago, where he immersed himself in learning the inner-workings of the restaurant biz. Today, Salad Spinners has four downtown Chicago locations and a catering business. Levy’s business donates money to local (preferably grassroots) philanthropies of his customers’ choosing. In addition to his entrepreneurial prowess, he’s active in Chicago’s young Jewish community and, through his business, does his best to give back to the community. In fact, during Passover, in the spirit of the holiday, Salad Spinners serves up matzoh with each of his salads to accommodate his fellow Jewish patrons.

So whether you’re a fledgling entrepreneur, a U2, Sting, and Springsteen junkie, or you just really like a “big salad,” like Elaine from “Seinfeld,” Richard Levy is a Jew you should know!

1. What did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to own a pet store and/or be a game ranger in Africa where I grew up. It’s like having a larger pet store.

2. What do you love about what you do today?
The independence. Being able to make my guests happy. Being able to create whatever I want and not have to answer to anyone.

3. What are you reading?  
Small Giants by Bo Burlingham.

4. What’s your favorite place to eat in Chicago? 
China Grill or anything by Lettuce Entertain You.

5. If money and logistical reality played no part, what would you invent?
Engines that can run on combustible sewage or garbage.

6. Would you rather have the ability of fly or the ability to be invisible?
Do I really get to choose? OK—fly—because…well let’s just say that I can’t stand walking.

7. If I scrolled through your iPod, what guilty pleasure song would I find?
Lots of Barry Manilow, and Neil Diamond…kidding…seriously don’t print that…I am really into old Eddie Grant, Johnny Clegg, and The Replacements. Also, I function well on a steady diet of U2, Sting, and Springsteen.

8. What’s your favorite Jewish thing to do in Chicago—in other words, how do you Jew?
I hit up the bris and bar/bat mitzvah circuit—lots of lox and bagels for free! Kidding. I think Federation is outstanding in the way they get young Jews to connect from all over Chicagoland. Our JUF Mission to Israel—two buses full—was proof of that.

Leah Jones is always plugged in to Jewish life in Chicago

As I write this, Leah Jones is in San Francisco—and pictures from the trip are available now on her Flickr page. She’s enjoying herself, but she’s feeling out of sorts because, though she shared a three bedroom in the city’s Mission neighborhood during the summer of 1996, nothing looks familiar. She hasn’t told me any of this personally. In fact the last time (and first time) we talked was the Friday before her trip to California. The truth is, I don’t know Leah.

Leah Jones is a professional social networker. In her role as a Digital Culture Evangelist at Edelman Public Relations she aspires to boost the digital savvy of every PR professional. She places people on a 1-10 scale—with a 1 being someone whose digital smarts end with Outlook and a 10 being an all out digital geek—and aims to help make each and every one a better digital communicator.

“We want everyone to understand how to make technology work for clients,” she says. In addition to serving as the “sort of wrangler” for EdelmanDigital.com and writing the Friday 5—a weekly email newsletter to the staff with five tips on getting the most from one kind of media such as Facebook, Flickr or Twitter—she travels to other Edelman offices to lead digital bootcamps.

As someone who believes in the power of social networking, but refused to join Facebook until this year (and yes, I heart Facebook. I was wrong) and recently participated in The Modern Letter Project, I was interested in chatting with Leah about how she got into social networking, whether its good for the Jews and where she thinks it’s headed.

When I was a kid, my friend Christina’s family not only had a computer—they had this wacky thing called Prodigy that, as I understood, allowed their computer to talk to other computers. I had a Speak and Spell. Christina was a 10; I was a 1. I wondered where Leah fell on the early technology scale.

“I wasn’t into Prodigy or computers as a kid but my brother was. He is six years older than I am and has been on the web forever. His experience made me comfortable with it,” she says. But she was still an early adopter. Leah’s online life can be traced back to high school. “In 1992-93, there was an Indiana bulletin board on telnet that I would dial into and write bad poetry,” she says.

Like many of us who went to college in the early-mid 1990s, access was an issue. “In college, during my freshman year, we only had one computer lab with internet access and it was only for business students,” Leah says. She graduated from teen angst poetry and then from college, going on to Friendster and ultimately blogging.

She had recently moved to London for a five-month job and was looking for a way to keep up with friends, family and co-workers when she started Leah in Chicago. It was during that stretch that she realized the reach of blogging. “It was the first time I answered an article request that I found on Craig’s List, and Craig—Craig Newmark [the founder of Craig’s List]—left a comment on my blog. That was the first time I was like whoa; anyone can get to this,” she says.

Armed with the knowledge that any old stranger—or worse, boss or parent—can read the personal details of your life, many bloggers struggle with what to share and what to keep to themselves. “I started out very careful because I was working in education; I would say after a year or two I loosened up.”

And when she did, traffic spiked. “The biggest growth in traffic was when I started converting and blogging that experience in December 2004. That’s when I really started reading and commenting on other blogs and building a community,” Leah says.

Today, she’s one of the leaders of the Jewish online community. She has 600 Facebook friends and is a member of 27 groups—many of them are Jewish or Israel related. On Twitter, (the micro-blogging site that allows you to send updates—or tweets—in the form of short, text-based posts) Leah follows 309 people and has 1,383 people following her. On Flickr, she has 153 friends. “I love Flickr and del.icio.us as ways to get to know people. The links people share and the images they choose to share say a lot about them,” she says. 

When she went to Israel last June, Twitter saved her ass. “I was going to a Twitter meet-up and when I got there my host wasn’t there. I sent a Twitter message saying: “ ‘I’m in Tel Aviv without a backup plan’ and someone picked me up.” Pretty cool.

At home, social networking keeps her connected to the Jewish community. “Young Jews in Chicago are doing things. On Facebook, I am a member of every major Chicago Jewish group and I get invited to events all of the time,” Leah says. And it’s not just her. “Last night I was on the bus and these women were talking about Kfar and Facebook. It’s a great way to find out if there’s an event going on, but I want to see groups get out of Facebook a little because it doesn’t give you Google power,” she says. 

“Google is important because for many people, the online experience starts with a Google or Yahoo search. If your group is buried deep in the results (beyond the second or third page) and it is only on Facebook, people will have a much harder time finding you,” says Leah.

Looking ahead, she believes mobility will be increasingly important. “The next big thing might not be Twitter but what Twitter allows you to do—send group texts to get information and find out where people are.” And maybe that’s the appeal--getting to actually see your friends in the flesh. “Or, maybe the next big thing will be more traditional—like Shabbat dinner; getting offline and actually meeting people,” she says. And if you read her blog, you know that’s something Leah herself has been committed to doing this summer.

So, does Leah Jones ever unplug? “I would like to unplug more than I do,” she says.  “For the first time ever, I kept Shabbat when I was in Israel this summer. I had everything off and I was like, ‘Oh, this is what my life used to be like.’ I don’t do it very often, but I have been cutting down—though you can’t tell by the amount of activity I have online.” 

Check out some of Leah’s online activity here:
www.accidentallyjewish.com
www.edelmandigital.com/blog
www.twitter.com/leahjones
http://www.flickr.com/photos/accidentallyjewish