Jewish Child Dies at Camden County Water Park on July 30
A 9-year-old boy from Brooklyn drowned July 30 during a summer camp trip to Sahara Sam’s water park in West Berlin, New Jersey, the New York Post reported.
Police said Hersch Meilich Grossman of Boro Park went into cardiac arrest in an outdoor pool just after 7:30 p.m. They arrived when lifeguards were performing CPR on the boy and had removed him unconscious from an outdoor pool. Efforts to save Hersch were unsuccessful. He was pronounced dead an hour later at Virtua Hospital in Voorhees.
About 750 to 800 people had been attending a private event with the Jewish group Belzer Talmud Torah, Chief Leonard Check of the Berlin Township Police Department said, adding that multiple lifeguards from the park and various camps were present.
The Camden County Prosecutor’s Office is investigating the incident.
The Post reported that a traditional Jewish funeral was held in Yiddish outside the Belzer Bais Medrash in New York the next day.
NMAJH Extends Free Admission Through August
The National Museum of American Jewish History has extended free admission to all visitors through August.
NMAJH said an anonymous donor and the Parkway Corp., which made free admission possible in July, have allowed the museum to extend the program through August.
NMAJH said it had more than 13,000 free visitors in July.
Free admission includes complimentary access to the museum’s core exhibition, as well as access to the special exhibition, Sara Berman’s Closet. The museum will be open daily during August.
Temple Professor Felice Perlmutter Dies
Temple University Professor of Social Work Administration Felice Davidson Perlmutter — who is also the mother of Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist Saul Perlmutter — died July 27 of cancer. She was 87.
A 2007 article in Social Work Today noted that in addition to authoring 10 books and 80 articles on social policy, human services and nonprofit management, Perlmutter helped found Temple’s School of Social Administration in 1974.
Perlmutter’s early book Changing Hats: From Social Work Practice to Administration was considered influential in helping practitioners decide whether to pursue case work or group work or administration. She also was a founder of the National Network of Social Work Managers.
“Social work is still one of the few professions that has as its life’s blood a commitment to being consumer-oriented, to working with disenfranchised populations, dealing with social problems, focusing on social policy and promoting advocacy,” she said for a Social Work Today interview. “The value of having someone with a social work degree in management is their orientation to the clients, services, and advocacy.”
Perlmutter was part of an academic family. She was married to Daniel D. Perlmutter, professor emeritus of chemical and biomolecular engineering at University of Pennsylvania, who survives her, while her son is a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. She is also survived by daughters Shira and Tova, and three grandchildren.
Jewish Family & Children’s Service Program Included in Jewish Poverty Challenge
The Network of Jewish Human Service Agencies said it selected Jewish Family & Children’s Service of Greater Philadelphia for its Intensive Incubation Program as part of the NJHSA Jewish Poverty Challenge.
The program’s goal is to support agencies with their efforts to address Jewish poverty in their communities.
Through a partnership with Start Co., NJHSA will provide six months of expert assistance as JFCS launches the poverty initiative.
“Our proposal would create an innovative peer support program where we would work with our clients, who have overcome personal, health and financial crises, to provide social and compassionate support and resources to clients in similar situations,” said David Rosenberg, senior vice president for programs and strategy for JFCS.
