Remembering Sarah Blaustein, HY"D

I thought of the women of Raise Your Spirits on Shavuot, as we listened to Megillat Ruth. I imagined all of them in their places on stage in the show, RUTH & NAOMI in the Fields of Bethlehem.

I didn't sing out in shul, but I did swing my bent knee to the imaginary music playing in my head.

Then I though of them again today.

We broiled this morning in the hot start-of-summer-sun, at the cemetery in Gush Etzion, as we remembered Sarah Blaustein, HY"D, who was murdered on Isru Chag Shavuot 11 years ago.

It's a sad thing to remember, but it's also the catalyst that caused me to found Raise Your Spirits.

My friend Sarah's murder, along with that of my next door neighbor Esther Elvan, HY"D, and other friends and neighbors of Efrat/Gush Etzion, led to a depression in the entire region that could not be shook.

In order to raise the spirits of the area, I came up with the idea for a summer project – a show. Our first production was the Andrew Webber-Time Rice Musical  JOSEPH and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. B"H, it was a celestial hit.
The little women's theater company that I founded to raise spirits, comfort and strengthen all of us who had been so shaken by terror truly became the mouse that roared!!

Now today, eleven years later, hundreds of women have taken the stage as a part of Raise Your Spirits.

Tens of thousands of women from all over the world have come to see the women/girls of Raise Your Spirits.

RYS women/girls have entered the hearts of so many, putting a song on the lips of women and girls from Perth, Australia, to Cincinnati, Ohio, to Bombai, India, to Brooklyn, New York.

Thanks to Arlene Chertoff, Toby Klein Greenwald and me (at left - and our company http://www.bible-arts.com/) for the words we have written over the years. (ESTHER and the Secrets in the King's Court, NOAH! Ride the Wave!, RUTH & NAOMI in the Fields of Bethlehem, and parts of In Search of Courage). And thanks to Yael Valier who joined Toby for In Search of Courage and JUDGE, The Song of Devora.

Thanks to Rivka Epstein Hattin, Mitch Clyman and others for their musical contributions.

Thanks to Toby for her inspired direction.

Thanks to Rivka Schlesinger, Aviva Karpel, Sara Halevi, Elisheva Savir, Tamar Rund, Gayle Berman and everyone else who pitched in, for bringing out the music in our casts.

Thanks to Arlene, Sarah Orenstein, Tamara Spitz, Jocelyn Odenheimer, Batya Daniel and everyone else who turned our performers in to dancers.

Thanks to Eudice, Tammy, Felicity, Toby, Yael, Arlene, me and others for their production work.

Thanks to the Board – past and present – for their guidance and hard work – Arlene, Toby, me, Shelley Bloom, Susan Suna, Jill Kuchar, Tammy Rubin, Felicity Aziz, Ruthie Lieberman and Yael Valier.

Thanks to all those talented women who appeared on stage and those talented women who helped off stage (our artists, our make-up artists, scenery designers, seamstresses, ushers, saleswomen, techies, etc. etc.). We thank all of them. "__________, you are great."

Together we ARE Raise Your Spirits.

And we have raised spirits for 11 years. B"H we're still going strong.

Sarah Blaustein, HY"D, (in life as in death) was responsible for tefillah and Torah study in Kever Rachel.

I think she'd really smile to think that women and girls sing and dance and light up the night in Gush Etzion and beyond, because of her.

May her memory and that of Esther Elvan be blessed.