Tifereth Israel Synagogue packed its sanctuary Friday evening, Jan. 17, and had a full house for dinner following services in what was billed as the Conservative congregation's first annual 'Grandparents Shabbat.'

Led by Cantor Alisa Pomerantz-Boro, grandchildren, grandparents, great-grandparents and even a great-great grandmother sang the Shabbat prayers together and enjoyed upbeat musical entertainment featuring Alfred Jacobs on accordion, Randy Phillips on balaphone, Larry Bullfinch on clarinet, Ted Stern on guitar and Sanford Blaze on keyboard.

The program included a surprise performance of "freedom songs" by a combined troupe of African-American students from Lincoln High School and Jewish children of Tifereth Israel Synagogue— an enthusiastically received preview of the Agency for Jewish Education's Jan. 20 Festival of Jewish Learning concert honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King.

Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal had all grandparents stand in the sanctuary to be honored. He asked them to add up how many grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren they had.

First, Rosenthal had those grandparents with only one grandchild sit down, which took care of Nancy and me. Nevertheless, our grandson Shor still could look to his great-grandparents, Sam and Sydel Zeiden, who could claim a total of five descendants— four grandchildren and Shor. But they, too, were soon seated.

The count climbed to 10, then through the teens, and then eventually to 24— the record claimed by Antoinette McLennan, 85, who was congratulated by Rabbi Rosenthal. She has eight grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren and one great-great grandchild.

McLennan, who turns 86 on Jan. 31, was accompanied to the special Shabbat services by her daughter Barbara Herbert, granddaughter Desiree Lange (with husband Jim Lange) and great-grandsons Clayton and Harrison Lange, respectively 3 and 1.

When one considers how many more descendants McLennan will have in yet another generation, one can appreciate the Jewish maxim, "to save one life is to save the world."

Rosenthal told a brief story for the grandchildren and great-grandchildren, whose ages ranged all the way down to a babe in arms, Nicole Lackenbacher, who that evening was given the Hebrew name Na'ah by her parents, Jacqueline and Miguel Lackenbacher.

The rabbi's story concerned a man who owned a fabulous diamond that ancient kohanim wanted to purchase for the breastplate of the High Priest. A delegation went to the man's house and asked to buy the diamond for 50,000 shekels, but the man said he couldn't at that point sell it to them. They conferred and increased their offer to 100,000 shekels. Again he refused.
Finally, after another conference, they angrily offered 150,000.

The man went upstairs and got the diamond, but would accept only the 50,000 shekels originally offered. He explained: "When you offered 50,000 shekels, I thought it a fair price and I mentally accepted, but I could not get the diamond for you because my grandfather was asleep in the room where I kept it, and I did not want to wake him up. While you were conferring, he
awakened and so I am now able to sell you the diamond."

Rabbi Rosenthal said all the children should pay such respect to their grandparents.

In preparation for Grandparents Shabbat, children of the synagogue wrote essays about their grandparents. The first-place essay, distributed at the services in a booklet with other essays, was by Jordan Jacobson. Titled "My Two Nanas," young Jacobson's essay said: "I have two Nanas. One Nana lives in Switzerland. We call her Oma. My family visits her during the summer sometimes. I love her very much. She is my mom's mom. My dad¹s mom lives in San Diego. A couple years ago she came to visit us for a few days. She was tired and lay on the couch in the living room. I started to put stuffed animals on her and then I got more stuffed animals from my room. Soon she was covered with animals from her chest to her toes. Only her head was uncovered. She seemed to like it because she was laughing. My mom took a picture of us.

"This is one of my favorite memories of her. I love her very much. I don¹t think she remembers the story or me. She has Alzheimer's disease. I will always remember her in my heart. She was always a lot of fun."

For me, Jordan¹s essay was all the more touching because I realized with a start that I knew his grandmother and had written about this sweet and dear lady on more than one occasion. Ruth Jacobson, like her husband Herbert, had served in the Coast Guard. She revived Post 185 of the Jewish War Veterans and served for many years as its commander as well as a board member of the Veterans Memorial Center in Balboa Park.

Samantha Silva, no doubt, also could relate to Jordan's essay. "My grandpa was an amazing man," she wrote. "My grandma too. He helped serve in Vietnam— not fighting the war, but helping their power company. My grandpa also lived in India and so did my mom for a little while. He went to engineer school in Syracuse, N.Y. After that, he moved and settled in Detroit, Mich. There, Nono (Harry is his real name, but I call him Nono, which is grandfather in Italian) worked for a local power company.

"When Nono retired, he became president of the Detroit Zoological Society. He was involved in the construction of the new chimpanzee exhibit. He worked with chimps and let viewers see the real lives of them.

"My grandpa did a lot of cool things in his life. Unfortunately, my grandpa died about two years ago from a disease called Alzheimer's disease. He was a good man and I loved him very much."

From Tikva Cohen came a poem:

I remember I was on a beach
I was afraid I would get a leech stuck on me
But then a hand was on my head
And I felt my fear go dead
I looked up and who did I see?
My granddad so close to me
I felt the warmth of his face
My fear left without a trace
He took my hand
And I took a stand.
From now on
When I need courage I think of one
My most important to me
My granddad so close to me.

From the sanctuary, congregants went to the social hall for a dinner prepared by the synagogue's catering committee headed by Jerry Barbour: challah and wine, mushroom soup, chicken, mixed vegetables, lemonade or ice tea, and cake — the kind of meal grandchildren and grandparents could really dig into.