November events

​Here are two dates to remember:
7pm Thursday, November 15
7:30pm Saturday, November 17

Being November, we are thankful that we have the opportunity to attend two great events. 

The first is called "Wine and Wisdom: Conversations with God (moderated by Rabbi Kalfus)." Bring your questions and curiosity, and we will see where the discussion leads us. This event is Thursday, Nov 15 (7pm) in the Social Hall. Click here for more information.

The second is Jewish Women's Theater at TAS. Jewish Women's Theater is an *amazing* readers' theater, often held in people's homes. Several TAS members saw JWT and were so impressed by this moving and powerful show, that they were motivated to bring it to TAS and share with the TAS community. It may be called Jewish Women's Theater, but men are welcome and would enjoy the performance. The show is Saturday, Nov 17 (7:30pm) at the Temple. Tickets are only $25, so it is very affordable. Bring your friends! Click here to view the flyer.

Remember that it is easy to find Sisterhood's upcoming events on our website: http://tassisterhood.org/upcoming-events.html (be sure to put ".org" - ".com" will take you to the website for the Temple Ahavat Shalom Sisterhood in Florida!) You can bookmark http://tassisterhood.org/upcoming-events.html for easy access to all our planned events.

We continue our series of incredible (and sometimes little known) Jewish women with the story of Phoebe Yates Pember, who was the first woman appointed as administrative matron (in 1862) to Chimborazo Hospital in Richmond, Virginia. This hospital had remarkable size of nearly 5000 beds during the Civil war and treated 76,000 patients. Pember was the fourth of six daughters born to a prosperous Jewish family of Charleston, South Carolina. Her husband had died of tuberculosis at the age of 36, and as an energetic supporter of the Confederacy, she welcomed the opportunity to contribute to the care of the wounded. Her reception was less than cordial, with one of the ward surgeons complaining to a friend in disgust that “one of them had come.” But with the support of the surgeon-in-chief, James McCaw (who later became Dean of the Medical College of Virginia), she was able to improve the food and care of the patients, ignoring the opposition and prejudice. Her biggest battle was for control over the most popular medication, whiskey. This commodity was costly and at $4 million, was 20% of the Army Medical Department’s appropriation in 1865. It was also a symbol of authority in the hospital and there was constant friction over its control between male and female contingents. To make matters worse, a few of the patients were contemptible malingerers. One day at the end of the war, one of them tried to force her to give him more whiskey. He called her an indecent name and grabbed her shoulder, but then beat a hasty retreat when he heard the click of a pistol she had concealed in her pocket. She was not very happy about having to ration the supply of alcohol, and as she wrote, “there were some doubts afloat as to whether the benefit conferred upon the patients by the use of stimulants counterbalanced the evil effects they produced on the surgeons”; as she described it, “when the patient was being made ready for an amputation, it was customary for the surgeon to match the patient drink for drink.”
We are thankful for powerful women like Phoebe Pember who made a difference!

And we are thankful for your support of the TAS Sisterhood.