JULY 15 • 2021 | 27

Topsy Turvy Bus Meets Banana Car

Rabbi Goldberg Wins Health Hero Award 

Hazon usually uses its Topsy 
Turvy bus as a mobile class-
room. When this became 
unfeasible during the pan-
demic, it was used to deliver 
compost and seeds as part 
of Hazon’s Relief Garden 
Initiative. 
During a compost deliv-
ery, a large, low branch took 
off two of the tires on top 
of the bus. The organiza-
tion brought it back to the 
original fabricator, Steve 
Braithwaite, to replace them. 
“It is important that the 
bus is kept in tip-top shape 

because a book about the 
Topsy Turvy bus is coming 
out in January 2022, and the 
release will be followed by a 
bus tour,” said Hannah Fine 
of Hazon. 
Upon picking up the Topsy 
Turvy bus, Hazon found that 
the bus’s battery was dead. 
“Steve’s only vehicle is 
the banana car,” Fine said, 
“and thus, on a sunny, driz-
zly Monday, on a farm in 
Michigan, the Topsy Turvy 
bus was jumped by a banana 
car!” 

Kids Kicking Cancer founder 
Rabbi Elimelech Goldberg, 
aka Rabbi G, received the 
Michigan Hometown Health 
Hero Award for 2021.
“This award recognizes 
individuals and organiza-
tions across the state work-
ing tirelessly to maintain 
and improve the health of 
their local communities,” 
said award organizers. The 
Hometown Health Hero 

award is a major part of 
the Public Health Week in 
Michigan. This year marks 
the 16th year the Hometown 
Health Hero award has been 
presented.”
It has been Rabbi G’s mis-
sion since the founding of 
Kids Kicking Cancer in 1999 
to improve the health of sick 
children and families in the 
community, and he has made 
an enormous impact. 

HAZON

Rabbi G 
with his 
award.

Meijer Gardens Announces
Holocaust Memorial Gift

Frederik Meijer Gardens 
& Sculpture Park has 
received a gift from the 
Jewish Federation of 
Grand Rapids in order 
to establish the first 
Holocaust memorial in 
the city, anchored by Ariel 
Schlesinger’s Ways to Say 
Goodbye.
The Jewish Federation 
of Grand Rapids received 
a generous gift from the 
Pestka family in memory 
of their father, Henry, and 
the millions of Jews who 
perished in the Holocaust, 
for Grand Rapids’ first 
Holocaust Memorial.
Ways to Say Goodbye is a 
20-foot-tall cast aluminum 
tree that has sheets of glass 
between its branches. The 
cast is taken from a fig 

tree in Italy that the artist 
selected. In Jewish culture, 
the fruit tree is venerated 
as a source of life and new 
beginnings. The sculpture 
deals with the themes of 
profound loss and grief 
and will beautifully serve 
as a memorial to Holocaust 
victims in Western 
Michigan. 

Ways to Say 
Goodbye

Adam Fox First Jewish NHL Honoree

(JNS) Adam Fox, a Jewish 
hockey player with the New 
York Rangers, was named on 
July 6 the winner of the 2020-
21 James Norris Memorial 
Trophy.
The trophy is giving annu-
ally to the National 
Hockey League’s 
(NHL) top defen-
seman and Fox, 23, 
has become the first 
Jewish player to win 
a major NHL award.
The 5-foot-11 
athlete and lifelong 
Rangers fan joins 
Bobby Orr of the Boston 
Bruins as only the second 
hockey player in the 67-year 
history of the trophy to win 
it in his second season with 
the NHL, and Hall of Famers 
Doug Harvey, Harry Howell 
and Brian Leetch as the only 
Rangers to take home the 
honor, according to the New 
York Post.

Fox led NHL defensemen 
with 42 assists while finishing 
second in points with 47.
“It’s special,” Fox, who grew 
up in Jericho, Long Island, 
said of receiving the award. 
“I’ve been throwing that word 
around a lot the last 
few weeks and it’s 
now accurate for 
how I feel. You hear 
your name with 
[Orr and Leetch], 
it’s always going to 
be a special, special 
thing.”
He added, “I just 
tried to play my best game-in 
and game-out and help the 
team win. I think personal 
success comes from that. The 
next step is just team success.”
When asked by the New 
York Post in 2019 about being 
one of the few Jewish athletes 
in the NHL, he said, “It’s defi-
nitely nice to represent a com-
munity, for sure.” 

Adam Fox

JNS

