Beth El Honors Congregants Who Achieve

Each year, spotlights the achievements of individual congregants. Writers, economists, artists, sculptors, physicians, musicians, scientists, psychiatrists, teachers and lately a politician have stood at a podium to express their interests and passions.

This year, the Temple committee, chaired by Florence Cooperstein, honored six individuals from the congregation.  

• Dr. David Alper is well known in Belmont as a podiatrist for 25 years and also from his 24 years as Chairman of the Belmont Department of Health. Alper is also one of the founders of the Belmont Youth Commission and received “Citizen of the Year” in 2005. Less well known is Alper’s interest in blacksmithing; he may have the only blacksmith forge in Belmont, for him a healthy outlet in hammering metal after performing  delicate foot surgery.

Also less well known is Alper’s early training overseas. In 1984, Alper earned a fellowship at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. At the time, podiatry was not an established specialty in Israel or in Egypt. On short notice, the Israelis picked up Alper in a jeep, drove him to the Suez Canal and a ferry to Egypt. He lived near the Pyramids for a month and taught Egyptian physicians.

• Dr. Stephanie Brody is a psychoanalyst who teaches at Harvard Medical School and practices in the Lexington. The current trend in mental health, Brody suggests, is to contain costs by relying on medication rather than talking therapies. Medication is useful but Brody believes that the relationship between therapist and patient helps the patient reach liberating insights and understandings. These achievements surpass the ability of medications, which deal with effects and not causes. Brody continues to champion for the talking therapy approach.

• A salesman by trade, Lee Daum has had a passion for barbershop quartet music and singing for nearly three decades. A trained cantor, Daum has also performed religious music at synagogues in the area, including Beth El where he uses his skills with guitar to teach and to run children services. He sang barbershop right out of college and is past president of the Sounds of Concord, a local barbershop singing group numbering over 40 singers and winner of many national competitions. Daum’s group also sends quartets out to make house calls on St. Valentine’s Day to serenade couples with songs and flowers.

• Amy Grossman loved sewing in high school. Now a consultant for entrepreneurs and non-profits after years of teaching, marketing and raising a family, she is back to her sewing passion. She makes many of her own clothes. Passionate interests often generate careers. Sewing propelled Grossman into fashion, its marketing and design, after which she taught marketing. Grossman is also a lifelong learner which led her to create evening programs for retirees and older students, first at Pine Manor College and then a highly successful program at Brandeis with a million dollars in revenue.

• Rick Reibstein is an environmentalist who, as a lawyer and expert in environmental policy, advises companies how to comply with the laws protecting us from dangerous chemicals. Reibstein takes particular pleasure in finding ways for businesses to choose production methods that don’t require state supervision or license – that is, environmentally friendly. Reibstein is also a budding novelist waiting to flower; he has been at work for years on a novel about an individual changing the world for the better, his kind of hero.

• Elected to the Belmont School Committee in 2010, Dan Sharfman is seen around town as an avid runner on one of his many mile jaunts. On his runs, citizens sometime stop him to talk about Belmont schools. Sharfman, who works in information systems for non-profits, welcomes the interruptions. Although he admits that their reputation has suffered, he is proud to be a politician. He enjoys the give-and-take of democracy, the clash of interests and ideas. Unlike governments by unrealistic utopians or by brutal dictators, democracies solve problems through their citizens, who consent to move from disagreement toward change and compromise.