Steve abrams columbus

My grandfather came to America when he was very young, again, running away from the army. There are lots of great stories about my fathers upbringing but none of them of Jewish content. From this, I assume and I perceive, knowing my aunts and uncles, that outside of a social and cultural kind of concern, Jewish life did not play a major role in the family. Later, toward the Depression, my grandfather lost everything between the stores doing very poorly and an investment in cotton futures that went sour, as so many others did at that time.

So by the time of the Depression, the family was no longer well to do. He left the University of Louisiana after a dispute that had to do with being a Jew. About a week and a half into his sophomore year, his three roommates discovered that he was a Jew and they threw him out of the second storywindow.

He did not get supported by the administration of the university. At that point, he transferred out of the University of Louisiana and eventually found his way to Boulder, Colorado, the University of Colorado, where he did graduate and still has a great love for Colorado the Denver and Boulder areas.

Later in their life, my grandparents moved to New York because most of their children had moved to New York. Indeed, through most of my growing up, the whole family, except sometimes for us, lived in greater New York. My father graduated from the University of Colorado with a degree in accounting although his great love was Shakespeare and the law. He was always a very practical man and his whole life he worked for one company, Schenley Industries which was an alcoholic beverage manufacturing distributor and he retired about five years ago.

He lives in Florida with my mother. The family has begun to scatter, they no longer all live in New York. My mother was born in Poland in the town of Brisque. My grandfather was from a Hasidic family and my grandmother was from a Misnaged family and it was amazing that they got married. My grandmother tells the story of how her father was horrified at their Chasima, their wedding, when all of my grandfathers family came and were dancing on the tables and all over the place.

He was very offended by this behavior. It didnt hold, in any case. My grandfather became a big Zionist and, indeed, shortly after my mother was born, when she was still an infant, they moved to Israel then Palestine. Times were very hard, my grandfather was working as an accountant or a bookkeeper in the almost new city of Tel Aviv. In fact, he and his brother bought the land that eventually became Kikar Dizengoff. Back in the s, my grandmother was increasingly unhappy in Israel, it was all of my grandfathers family in Israel but my grandmothers family had all come to America.

She was increasingly unhappy without her brother and sister and because economic times were hard, my grandfather sold his share of the land in Tel Aviv, left his job and the family in America sent them money and they came to America.

I think in some ways that was very hard on my grandfather. In Israel, he was a professional, in America, he did not know the language and he didnt know his way around. As a matter of fact, from the 30s until he retired, he owned laundromats.

He and my grandmother worked very hard in laundromats. My grandfather, in Poland, was a chess master so my earliest memories of my grandfather are two: 1 teaching me to read Hebrew, and 2 teaching me chess. Throughout my life, we played chess. In fact, the way I knew that my grandfather was failing was when I was about sixteen or seventeen and for the first time, I started beating him in chess.

At my grandmothers advice, I let him win so I only actually beat him twice. I realized that he no longer had what he once had. That was very painful and very difficult. I did not attend his funeral for some reason, at my parents encouragement. I always found that very painful.

However, my grandmother is still alive. She lives in Florida in a nursing home near my parents. She was always extremely independent and shes not independent now and thats also very painful for her. So my mother was born in Poland. My grandmother was Chaim Weitzmans first cousin and, in fact, grew up in part in his household in Europe. There were very close linkages with Zionism from very early days. We have a lot of family in Israel, mostly from my grandfathers side but some from my grandmothers side also.

Whenever I go to Israel, its a lot of fun to get together and to be with them. The family on my fathers side. My father had five siblings and all but one lived in greater New York most of their lives. I was born in Cincinnati because Schenley Industries had its headquarters in Cincinnati at that time and then we proceeded five different times to move back and forth between New York and Cincinnati when Schenley moved its manufacturing headquarters.

So it was just coincidence that when my father retired, we ended up in Cincinnati and that sort of set me in Ohio. I was very active in our synagogue youth group and through that, I developed a very strong interest in Judaism.

When I went to college, my best friend turned out to be someone who wanted to be a Methodist minister. He did more to set my direction than anybody else because to hold my own identity, I had to become a more and more knowledgeable Jew.

Before I knew it, I wanted to be a rabbi as he wanted to be a minister. Then I remembered that when I was confirmed at Temple Sholom in Cincinnati, which is a Reform temple, Rabbi Braf had a private meeting with each confirmant.

However, I did get more and more involved in Jewish life. In college, more and more involved. Which I did. At the same time, I got married. I met my wife in high school in a youth group. We met at a Bnai Brith Youth Organization convention although wed known of each other for a long time. We were both officers of this Region of Nifty, the Ohio Valley Federation of Temple Youths so we saw each other a number of times in that year and we were friendly but we were not particularly close.

In my very first class in college at Ohio University, the first day of classes, the first class I went to, in my normal humble manner I was explaining to the professor why he was wrong about something, a girl sitting in the row right in front of me, turned around to tell me to shut up.

It turned out to be Barbara. That night, we took a walk to Hillel, trying to find our way around campus. We came across a couple who told us this amazing story about how they met the first day of classes and ended up getting married and theyd just graduated and came back for the beginning of school to see their friends. We laughed and chuckled but sure enough, the same thing happened to us.

We got married just a week before we left for Israel. We moved to Israel for about fifteen months. I studied and she did a lot of different kinds of work, mostly in archeology. She also worked in a Super Clean, a laundromat and it was a wonderful experience for both of us. I wanted to stay in Israel. I felt no need to come back but she missed her family very much and was desperate to get home and see the family so we came back. I continued at Hebrew Union College and finished and Barbara did a variety of jobs, a number of jobs, mostly in the personal consulting area.

While at Hebrew Union College, we both were studying and learning and we were growing as Jews. By the time we were coming to the end of our years there, we both began to realize that we did not fit very comfortably into a Reform community. When it came time for placement, I took a position in a Conservative congregation and even there, found it to be too liberal and from my perspective, too distant from the tradition for me to be comfortable.

So while I was in that first position, I went to the Yeshiva everyday. The way that we structured my job, since I ran the religious school, was that in the morning from about eight until about , each day, I went to Yeshiva and I sat and learned. In the afternoons, Id come and run the school and do my other kinds of responsibilities.

By the end of that first year, I decided it was untenable for me to remain there. I left and took another congregation, a traditional conservative congregation in Newington, Connecticut which is part of the Hartford community. And that was a very good shidach in terms of personalities.

I really liked the people and they really liked me but again, religiously, I felt very uncomfortable. Particularly in that my goal of being there was to teach and encourage people to make Judaism more central in their lives. One of the things that I realized very early, was that this was not what the congregation wanted. They wanted someone who could preach an exciting sermon for which they gave me high marks. And they wanted a pastor and I never felt real comfortable with a pastoral role.

There was nothing more important to them than hospital visits. While to me, that was important, that was not nearly the most important thing. As I recognized that the values and concerns between me and the congregation were very divergent, I decided that it was untenable for me to remain in that kind of setting, simply because I wanted to be true and honest to myself.

It was one moment that convinced me of that. My wife and I were coming back from a meeting of the Connecticut Valley Rabbinical Assembly which is the Organization of Conservative Rabbis and we went out to eat with a group of Rabbis who turned out to be the Rabbis of the largest congregations in the area.

We sat and we listened to their concerns and their issues and I remember my wife and I driving home and saying, I never want to be like these people. So we decided to leave congregational life and I took a job with the Jewish Federation in Florida which was very nice. I really enjoyed it. My wife was working at the Jewish Vocational Service in Miami.

She didnt enjoy it as much but we were comfortable. I liked the job but I wasnt so impressed with the community. Barbaras job was ok but she really disliked the community. We felt it was pretty shallow. It had all of the worst of New York values without the wonderful Midwest values that we both hold by and love. Howie knew how to pull it off. He approached me and I said no that I wasnt interested.

We spent our summer vacations in Columbus because Barbaras parents live here. So one Shabbat, when I was there for vacation, after saying no to him several times over the phone, he plopped down next to me and said, Do I have a job for you!

And again, I told him no but we talked about it and again, I said no. He spoke to Rabbi Stavsky and Rabbi Stavskys wife mysteriously ran into my mother in law on my mothers in law driveway across the street and said, Isnt it wonderful? Your kids have a chance to come back to Columbus!

Four days later, I applied. There was no chance in the world, at that point, that I wasnt going to apply. I came to Columbus and to Ohio State University. Immediately, I loved what I was doing. I love working with the students and the teaching. I love trying to build a community in a very challenging environment.

I came to Columbus in I arrived after school began on Shabbat afternoon. My wife and I loved it and we always look forward to Shabbos on campus and come as often as possible which was an overwhelming majority of Shabbosim on campus over the seven years I was here.

After observing these phenomena and the resulting war as the couple enters the battle zone known as "divorce," Steve began developing expertise in helping couples manage and control their own divorce instead of turning their lives over to the "meat grinder" of the legal system. Please check out the "Divorce Services" page for the various services we offer.

It is clear that Divorce Mediation works. So what about other conflicts and disputes? Steve now offers services addressing workplace, business and civil disputes. Using mediation, these disputes can be addressed outside the legal system and are often resolved quickly and at a fraction of the cost of litigation. Since all sides of the dispute help develop and consent to the final agreement, the mediation process is a safe "win-win" approach. There are family disputes that do not lead to divorce, but painfully divide the family.