All right, good evening, everyone.

My name is Matt Stern.

I'm a city council member here in New Rochelle.

First, I just want to quickly thank the committee that is really responsible for making tonight a success.

Mark Klee, Heidi Sisfeld, thank you.

Sarah Kay, fellow city council member, and Sammy and Sam, thank you both so much for all your help in making the event, too.

Want to quickly acknowledge Mary Adoramos Herbert here, County Legislator Drudel Holstein, thank you for coming as well.

So thank you all for coming out tonight.

It's thrilling to see such a strong showing for an event that won't have any food.

Just kidding, we will get to eat.

There'll be some gnashing from seasons.

I'm really grateful to see you all here tonight.

This is our third ever Jewish American Heritage Month celebration.

And every year it feels so timely, so important that we come together to confidently celebrate what it means to be a Jewish American, but also to acknowledge that yet again, we didn't really feel comfortable promoting this event too publicly.

And what does that mean for Jewish people today?

It was somehow just a few years ago when for the first time I heard the description of almost every Jewish holiday as they tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat.

And it's all true.

I have a lot of pride for our contributions in music and movies, journalism, literature, politics, some sports, science, and so much more.

There's no doubt that we punch above our weight, and the fact that our ancestors have achieved this while also facing thousands of years of discrimination that forced us into exile after exile and nearly wiped us out.

Well, I think that's worth eating a good meal over.

But here we are again in 2026, and I cannot walk my son into his daycare at Temple Israel without being so grateful for the security guards out front and our new bulletproof doors.

I participate in a group of leaders uh from the Jewish and African American communities in Westchester who are engaging in four weeks of dialogue together.

We're having uh conversations about our upbringing, how our identities have shaped us, the struggles that we've had, and what it means to be allies for each other.

And when some of the Jewish folks in the room shared renewed fears that uh we feel today of being subject to violence or discrimination, like we've seen in Minnesota or Pittsburgh, or even from some of our neighbors here in Westchester, the honest reaction that we got from our peers was well, that's what we've always felt.

And sometimes it's different.

In the Jewish community, I think we have largely felt comforted by the police presence at our synagogues, whereas that might not be or might not land the same way in the black community.

I heard stories of some who don't feel comfortable shopping at certain stores, people who track family members on that find my phone app constantly to make sure that they're getting home safe.

Um, and a dozen little ways that we've all started to modify our behavior to protect ourselves from acts of discrimination.

Does that feel familiar to you?

In the study last year, more than half of American Jews said that they had had experienced anti-Semitism in the last 12 months.

Forty-eight percent have taken actions to increase their personal security and sense of safety, and 14% of those people had even considered plans to leave the country.

Do our neighbors, our friends and colleagues know this.

I don't know about you, but I I think with pride of our Jewish American heritage, partly through the lens of justice that we fought alongside the black community for civil rights, march beside Dr.

King, and I think of those who were killed in the pursuit of that justice.

Yet twice in the last month, both in that black Jewish dialogue group and on a podcast that I heard with Van Jones and uh who's speaking with an Israeli journalist, it was clear that as much as those stories may be part of our identity, they're not widely known outside of our community.

I strongly believe that for us to thrive, we must try.

We have to try to do it together.

And there are so many many other celebrations just like this one being hosted here, whether it's Haitian American heritage, Asian American, Arab American, Irish, German, LGBTQ, so many other great celebrations.

And while fortunately everyone may not feel such a palpable sense of fear for this moment, many still do.

So I invite you all to join me and join the leaders of events outside of our own to listen and learn, share a meal, and hopefully make a new friend and find some common ground.

We never know when a friendship can change the community.

So tonight we are very fortunate to hear from Barbara Davis, our city historian about the fascinating history of Jewish New Rochellians.

And we'll also hear an exciting update about how our libraries will be sharing more about the Jewish components of our Jewish identity, and we're so grateful for their attendance here tonight, too.

It's now my special honor to welcome our mayor, who's been a great ally, your dear Ramos Herbert.

Sorry.

You were taking pictures of each other.

Um really hard to, Matt, that was really good.

Um I was like, oh dear.

Um, but yeah, really, really, really beautifully put and written.

So I'm perpetually humbled to serve in this role, in particular on a wonderfully diverse council like this.

And I'm really just so grateful that in New Rochelle, uh, this this is what we do.

We come together as a community, we celebrate our diversity, but also know how to celebrate and step up for one another when when we need to.

And events like this remind me of all that I learned by serving in this culture in this community, rather.

You know, I see my children growing up here.

I was just mentioning my my son is 12 on going on 13, so it's the bar mitzva circuit for him based on the calendar of events.

Um, but as a little boy who's growing up, you know, African American Latino boy from a Methodist church, he's celebrating Bar Mitzvahs with his friends, and he came back Saturday.

He's like, Ma, what's Mazotov?

And we look it up and we you know, and when it's to quote my kids understand the outdoor celebration and the festival and just the different ways that they are growing up, just aware that we can still celebrate our own cultures while being in community with others, and that we don't have to fight that.

We can care for each other, we can celebrate each other, we can celebrate our families, and we can be there when times are hard.

And so, as mayor, I want to thank our community for doing that.

And I'm so thrilled to celebrate our Jewish American um community today.

Seven synagogues, and I I tout it.

Um, when I go to other mayor meetings, that's a thing.

Um, you know, they're like, really?

And I'm like, yeah, and it's it's a whole range and spectrum of Judaism.

But I said this at an event recently.

Take the mayor title aside.

I'm a better better person and mother because of the opportunities that I have here in New Rochelle to grow and learn alongside other communities and to celebrate, but also stand as a firm ally.

So I'm really looking forward, well, in perpetuity, I'm excited to hear Miss Barbara when she speaks, because I learned something new about our city every single time.

Um, and I'm excited to learn more about the library, and just really grateful that each of you all came here tonight.

So enjoy.

And I have the privilege of introducing our city manager, Wilfredo Melendez.

Thank you.

Thanks, Mayor.

Uh, thank you to City Council, to Matt and Sarah.

Um, really value your passion, not only for your residence, but also for your heritage.

Um, so thank you to the Jewish American Heritage Committee, to our HR group, uh, to the diversity inclusion office, Sammy, and all the work they do, our comms office, and our employee resources group.

There's a bunch of employees here at City Hall that helped put this these events together.

So, you know, today's an opportunity to recognize the accomplishments, contributions, and achievements of our Jewish American neighbors from early settlers to modern leaders in business, education, arts, culture, and sports.

Because I can I can name a pr a couple pretty good uh Jewish American baseball players.

So um, so today's an example of the power of unity and an importance of coming together, and this especially in events like this to support diverse communities such as ours in New Rochelle, ensuring safety and the dignity to all our residents.

We as a city, we stand firmly against anti-race anti-Semitism and all forms of hate, ensuring that the safety and the security work very closely with our synagogues and our our departments here, ensuring that the dignity of the Jewish Americans here in New Rochelle and all aspects of their lives are respected.

As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of this nation, it's important to recognize the presence of Jewish men and women in this land before it was formally a nation.

So on behalf of Neurochell, I want to thank each of you for coming here tonight and join this celebration, and we hope that the joy and the hope that from this month's long celebration can last the whole year.

So with that, um, I want to introduce our city historian, Miss Barbara Davis.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone.

Um, I am delighted to be standing up here again.

And I'll start by telling you that last year I gave sort of a lengthy PowerPoint presentation on the history of the Jewish community in Neurochell.

That is available.

Um, it was recorded, and you can see that online.

I won't have you sit through that again.

Um, tonight's presentation will be considerably more succinct.

Um, and it's in celebration of the 250th anniversary.

We thought that this year, which is the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

This is the year we remember that this nation was founded by we the people.

The new government was forged not by a homogeneous population, all of the same ancestry, religion, ethnicity, but by a patchwork of peoples united by the principles of freedom and democracy.

In this spirit, we are celebrating this year a sampling of individuals who came to Neurochell seeking the American dream.

Individuals from varied backgrounds, varied heritages, but all who had that dream in common.

And each one made NeuroShell a better place.

Each one strengthened the American ideals.

Tonight, in honor of Jewish Heritage Month, I will be speaking about two former long-standing residents of Neurochell.

The two had many things in common.

To begin, they were both Jewish.

They both grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan at the turn of the last century.

Both of their families were refugees of the Russian pogroms, and both became incredibly successful on many levels.

These individuals, Matt, were titans of the toy industry.

You miss them.

Both were become, have a place in the American toy industry of Hall of Fame.

So tonight, our first individual who sought the American dream as the Neurochell resident is Charles Sanford Raisin.

He was born in 1892.

His family escaped Russia, and he spent his early years on the Lower East Side in the heart of New York's teeming immigrant community.

Poverty was extreme in this neighborhood, where a host of different languages and different cultures existed side by side.

He bought it from his boss, Friction Transfer Patent Company Company.

Within two years, 1917, he changed the name to Transogram.

As the founder and president of the company, Raisin would soon be recognized as a pioneering toy manufacturer.

He was the first to manufacture kid-tested products, kid-tested toys and games, probably the most well-known, Tiddly Winks.

How many remember Tiddly Winks?

Also, Trick Track, Ring the Schnazzle, The Little Country Doctor and Nurse Kit, Arrest and Trial, Wink Tennis, Green Ghost, and many others.

Under Raisin's leadership, Transogram was among the first to acquire licenses for popular characters, such as Little Orphan Annie, The Monkeys, and Perry Mason, plus more.

The company became enormously successful while Raisin and his wife were living in Neurochell.

They moved to the Beachmont neighborhood from Brooklyn in the 1930s.

When he died in 1967 while attending a charity dinner at the Plaza Hotel, he was president and chairman of the Board of Transigram, which had four plants in the United States and one in Canada.

Raisin's philanthropy was extensive.

He was the associate treasurer of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, co-treasurer of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, and a former president of Temple Israel.

Yes.

Among a host of accolades, Raisin received the Brotherhood Award of the National Conference of Christians and Jews.

Today his foundation continues funding many things, including uh Pediatric Fellowship at Albert Einstein, and if anybody attends the adult programs in Scarsdale, they are benefit of his foundation as well.

The foundation focuses on medicine and education.

So Charles Raisin was inducted into the Toy Industry Hall of Fame in 1986.

That was the Hall of Fame's second year, and he was inducted along with the president of Mattel and the president of Parker Brothers.

A bronze statue, Phaedris, stands at the western edge of Memorial Highway in downtown Neurochell.

It's a lasting tribute to Charles Raisin.

It's the bronze statue not far from the parking garage entrance opposite the library.

This was dedicated October 20th, 1969, funded primarily by private donations and coordinated by the Municipal Art Commission, the Chamber of Commerce in the city of Neurochell.

And it was sculpted by Harold Castor of Neurochell.

Now we move on to our second profile for the evening.

Her name was Bertha Alexander.

Her mother, Hannah Pepper, was born in Austria, but arrived in the United States from Russia, where she'd escaped the pogroms that had killed her older children and her first husband.

In America, she met and married Maurice Alexander, who had left his native homeland of Odessa as a young man, spent several years in Germany as an apprentice before coming to America.

We believe Hannah was pregnant with Beach with Bertha when she came to the United States in 1895, just three years after Charles Raisin was born.

We know for certain that Bertha adored her stepfather Morris, who operated a doll hospital.

The Alexander family lived on Grand Street on the Lower East Side.

Although living amongst great poverty as well, Hannah and Morris had come to the United States filled with expectations and instilled in their children a sense of ambition and a strong work ethic.

At some point, Bertha became Beatrice.

And by 1923, she had amassed $1,600 to begin her own company.

She was 28 years old.

What was the company?

Well, I have a clue.

Those of you might, some of you might recognize the iconic box.

This was what the treasured Madame Alexander dolls came in.

Yes.

And I have one.

I have a number of them, to be perfectly honest.

Now collector's items.

The company she founded became the Madame Alexander Doll Company.

And her name was Madam after an Italian dollmaker who also went by Madam.

Her first customer, F.A.O.

Schwartz.

The doll company was unique in that Beatrice Alexander pioneered a doll that was more durable, the children could play with without the fear of breaking it.

She also created them that when they went in the sleep mode, their eyes closed.

The eyelashes went down.

After she innovated thematic dolls based on movies and literature, Scarlet O'Hara from Gone with the Wind, Little Women, I have them all.

Alice in Wonderland, to name a few.

Beatrice Alexander and her husband Philip Berman, the longtime president of the company, moved into a brand new home at 315 Oxford Road in Neurochell in the 1930s, about the same time as the Raisins.

They too would live in the Neurochell House for nearly four decades.

The couples were members of Beth L.

Synagogue.

A strong Zionist, she supported the American TechNian Technian Society, Women's America ORT, and the American Friends of Hebrew University, as well as the Women's League.

In the year 2000, Beatrice Alexander was inducted into the Toy Industry Hall of Fame.

And she was among the first inductees into the Neurishell Walk of Fame in 2011.

And I'm going to conclude the program with words from Madame Beatrice Alexander.

You need to believe in people's dreams, especially women's.

Thank you.

So I'm very pleased now to introduce the next speaker who's coming from the Newer Shell Public Library, where I used to be, and she now sits in my desk.

Lisa Itskowitz is the community relations marketing and development coordinator, director, person, and here to tell you about their new collection.

Thank you, Barbara.

I thought it was funny that this evening I am following Barbara's speaking, and I do literally sit in her desk.

I followed in her shoes at the library.

Although you know, Barbara, it took three people to replace what one Barbara did.

I'm here to tell you about a grant that was recently awarded to the Neurochelle Public Library.

It's the Yiddish Book Center's Public Libraries program called Between Two Worlds, Exploring Jewish Culture and Religion through Yiddish Literature.

Neurochell was among 40 libraries nationwide to receive the grant, which we also received in 2022.

Through this program, the Yiddish Book Center is providing materials, as in books, funding, and training to the library to host reading groups exploring the Yiddish literature and how Yiddish literature can spark meaningful conversations about religion, assimilation, identity, and immigration.

Something that doesn't only apply, obviously, to the Jewish community.

This year, the grant also included funds for some ancillary programs related to Yiddish culture and learning.

So we kicked off the program last week to celebrate Jewish American Heritage Month with a virtual tour of the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts.

And I think some of you here were on that.

It was a virtual program.

We'll include a link in our weekly e-blast, which I'm sure you all receive.

And if you don't, please see me after the program, and I'll make sure you do.

Five of them were originally written in Yiddish, but no worries, they've been translated, and uh that's what you'll be reading.

Um there will also be, in addition to the books, Brian enhanced the program greatly.

So we're showing four films, which uh will start off at the end of May with a documentary called The Stettlers, um, which will be screened on May 28th in the Aussie Davis Theater.

We'll also have more virtual and in-person programs, including a live klezmer concert on June, July, sorry, July 21st, as part of our international music and dance program.

So this program is giving us an opportunity to weave into some of the things that we all already do.

And we'll also have a virtual cooking demonstration with the Balabusta chef, which some of you may know.

She's great, and that will be just in time for the fall holidays.

The book discussions will start at the beginning of June with Tevya The Dairy Man by Shalom Alechem.

And many of you may know this book was the inspiration for one of my favorite films of all time, um, Fiddler on the Roof.

That discussion is June 8th, 615.

And each participant in that and all the book discussions will receive a free copy of the book, courtesy of the Yiddish Book Center, which is a nice way to build your own home library.

So I hope we will see you at some or all of these programs.

Please let your family, friends, neighbors, children, anyone know about the programs.

All are welcome.

And as I like to say, the strongest word in marketing, all programs are free.

And just to um, I just added this in as I was listening to the mayor speak.

You know, this this program is not just, we are probably a mostly Jewish audience.

This is not just for the Jewish community.

It is the story of between two worlds, which I think many cultures experience for all the people who've immigrated here.

Um so we hope that you will spread this beyond our community because it really welcomes the diversity of new Roshell.

And honestly, it's one of the things I love, love, love about the library.

It's it's a place for all of New Rochelle.

So please spread the word and thank you.

I appreciate being given the few moments to speak and enjoy the rest of the evening.

And I will turn things back over to Matt to close the program.

All right.

I'm gonna close out um with two things.

One on the library, uh, one of my favorite rooms in the library is the uh EL Doctoro History Room.

Um, you can just ask anyone who works for the library to help you get in there.

Um, and they're in, you know, it's a modest room, but in that uh room you can also find a folder specifically just for Jewish history too.

So it's worth looking at.

Um, and then secondly, um, regarding Barbara's um presentation.

I know Sarah was probably feeling really proud that the two people she talked about were both in her district.

But Barbara Davis lives in my district.

So we are all done for the night.

Thank you so much for coming out.

We have some food and drink in the back.

Um thank you for coming.