14 | APRIL 8 • 2021 

A 

merciful endeavor begun two 
decades ago by a Southfield rabbi 
to bring relief to young cancer 
patients has enlarged to offer encouragement 
and support to physically healthy, but under-
privileged schoolkids in Oak Park.
It’s been five years since 10-year-old cancer 
survivor Leah Vincenzetti became involved 
with Kids Kicking Cancer, the organization 
founded by Rabbi Elimelech Goldberg in 
1999 that teaches self-control and deep 
breathing techniques found in the martial 
arts to help ameliorate ailing children’s pain.
Leah’s journey typifies the nearly 12,000 
youngsters who have become both warriors 
in (and ambassadors of) the organization 
over the course of its existence. Empowered 
with an inner strength learned through 
KKC’s programs, along with Goldberg’s 
mantra of “Power, Peace, Purpose,
” the 
fourth-grader speaks easily about how KKC 
has given her the tools to assuage the fear 
and pain that cancer creates. 
“I’ve been able to teach people power 
breathing so it can help them whenever they 
need to calm down,
” Leah explains during a 
Zoom conversation we had after school one 
day. “Or if you go to the hospital and you 
get nervous, it’s easier when you just breathe 
through it.
”
Breathing through it for Leah calls upon 
another tool in the KKC program: the refrain 
of “Breathing in the light and blowing out 
the darkness.
” The simplicity of the message 
and related programming built around its 
ethos has resonance. The organization has 
grown from a local Detroit outfit to a world-
wide nonprofit, with chapters in nine states 

and six countries across three continents.
The palliative care protocol that KKC 
offers its clients — including those with 
non-cancer diseases through its Heroes 
Circle division — are rooted in the concept 
of somatic breathing: a sophisticated form 
of conscious breathing that teaches how to 
deliver more oxygen to the brain and body.
The science behind deep breathing is 
awash with studies demonstrating empirical 
efficacy in reducing anxiety, pain and the 
effects of trauma. Western medicine has 
been playing catch-up to what many prac-
titioners of the martial arts, like Goldberg, 
have known for thousands of years: The 
mind can play tricks, and each person has 
the ability to control their mind.
And because conscious breathing is both 
an effective and low-cost way people of all 
ages can reduce the body’s level of cortisol — 
the hormone released to curb functions that 
would be nonessential in a fight-or-flight sit-
uation — breathing techniques abound. 
Goldberg packaged his teaching in a way 
that uniquely appeals to children: through 
the guise of learning martial arts.

HEROES CIRCLE IN OAK PARK
KKC and its Heroes Circle’s successful track 
record helping pediatric patients led to a 
series of meetings that began in August 2017 
between its founder and the then-superin-
tendent of Oak Park Schools, Dr. Daveda 
Colbert. The discussions included exploring 
ways programming like KKC’s could be 
adapted to help students struggling with the 
myriad psycho-social problems that often 
plague low-income students of color.

“We realized we had a tool that could 
accomplish great things for a great many 
people, children in particular” Goldberg 
explains. “It could lower the stress and suf-
fering of children facing trauma that may not 
be medical in nature, but more cultural and 
socio-economic challenges; those challenges 
disproportionately fall on children of color. 
“
And the more we were learning about 
childhood trauma, in general, and how 
adverse childhood experiences negatively 
impact the immunological system, we're 
seeing that those children are then becoming 
our patients because stress severely impacts 
the immune system — so many parts of the 
human body — in a negative way.
”
Colbert and Goldberg approached the D. 
Dan and Betty Kahn Foundation to vet the 
idea of creating a curriculum adhering to 
the state of Michigan’s educational guide-
lines while also teaching students how to 
self-regulate, increase their attentiveness and 
decrease their anxiety. 
Like its progenitor, the curriculum would 
be a Trojan Horse of learning: Martial arts 
therapists would come to the school for 
in-person lessons, augmenting the curricu-
lum teachers would be provided.
Larry Wolfe, president of the Kahn 
Foundation, was convinced and gave the 
green light to fund a pilot program that 
would track the children’s progress with the 
help of scientists at Wayne State University 

Rabbi Elimelech Goldberg, 

known to the kids as Rabbi G., founded 
Kids Kicking Cancer in 1999. He and 
his wife lost their first child, a daughter, 
to leukemia in 1981 at age 2.

continued on page 16

OUR COMMUNITY

ON THE COVER

Rabbi Goldberg’s program brings power, 
peace and purpose to young Oak Parkers.

BRYAN GOTTLIEB CONTRIBUTING WRITER

 Inner 
Power!

