One Minute With Livia Mezrich
March 14, 2008

Name: Livia Mezrich

Occupation: Founder/curriculum and program developer of Rimon/The Modeai T. Mezrich Center for Jewish Learning in East Windsor.

Address: East Windsor.

Family: Married for 39 years to Joseph, an investment strategist for Nomura Securities in New York. They have three children: Aliza, who holds an MBA from Columbia University and is married to Ron Goldgewert, a business strategist. They live with their two children Aaron Joel and Ariella Chaya in Teaneck. Two single sons who live in NYC: Abe Mezrich who does marketing and PR for Didit.com and Mark Mezrich who works for MTV in product development. A brother, David Reuveni, lives in Brooklyn.

Community activities: Founder of the Rimon Center for Jewish Learning three-and-a-half years ago. Creating programs at the Center, 483 Dutch Neck Road, East Windsor. Purim Extravaganza, including a Purim Shabbat dinner Friday March 21, 6-9 p.m. and a series of talks by Shulamith Solomon on Women in Teaneck. On the board of Greenwood House, a Jewish nursing home in Ewing and a board member of Abrams Hebrew Academy in Yardley, Penn. Member of Economic Development Committee in East Windsor Township.

Hobbies: "I love to take walks. Daily I go to my computer and connect to the Internet to find out what is going on in Israel through reading the English language Israeli papers."

Self-portrait: "I love to organize, I love people -- greeting and meeting new people and talking to them at Rimon. I'm passionate about my Judaism and wish people would connect to their roots in Judaism. I feel bad people are missing out and don't know the beauty of their religion and heritage. It's important that people find a way back to their Judaism."

Motto: "‘You should love your neighbor as yourself'. I try to live up to that and put myself in someone else's situation."

Greatest achievement: "My family and my children. I'm also very proud of founding Rimon -- a center for learning about Judaism. We focus on education and connecting people to Judaism. We bid for the building (it was East Windsor's former Senior Center) at an auction five years ago and won. The night we bid on it was the night of my father-in-law's yarhzeit. We named the building for him. While he was studying in a yeshiva in Eretz Yisrael, Nazis invaded the town of Mezrich, Poland and only his sister survived."

Bad habits: "My worst habit is not filing the paperwork."

Favorite TV Show: "Seinfeld. I believe Seinfeld is responsible for lowering my blood pressure."

Favorite food: "Avocados. I like to eat them sliced up in a salad."

Best childhood memory: "Going to Camp Masad -- a religious Zionist camp where we spoke Hebrew. I looked forward to it all year long. I went as a camper at age 8, lived in a regular bunk when my mother was Camp Mother. When I was older I became a counselor."

People don't know that: "I got over being very shy when I lobbied for environmental issues against pesticides. I worked very hard for legislation to get landscapers to place flags on lawns where they put down pesticides."

Last book I read: "Yiddish, A Nation of Words, by Miriam Weinstein. Basically it's a book about the history of Yiddish. I didn't think I'd be interested in it but I couldn't put it down."

The biggest asset in the local Jewish Community: "The spirituality and search for connection that is going on. People are searching trying to make connections. At Rimon, we are finding people who grew up who grew up with a Christian background who learn they have a Jewish background and now are trying to come back to their roots."

The biggest problem in the local Jewish Community: "The worst thing is that we are a product of pediatric Judaism where the emphasis is on children getting a Jewish education but we don't think about adults. Their level of knowledge of Judaism hasn't caught up with their higher education. Adults are Jewishly illiterate but are searching. You can't tell your kids to marry someone Jewish unless they know what Judaism is about."

If I had more time: "I'd like to visit Israel more and even live in Israel a couple of months a year."