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At
its third annual Eight
Over Eighty benefit
gala, The
New Jewish Home (formerly,
Jewish Home Lifecare) paid tribute to eight New Yorkers
who, in their ninth and tenth decades, continue to live
lives of remarkable achievement, vitality and civic
engagement. The
event, at
the Mandarin
Oriental New York on Monday,
April 11,
attracted more than 450 guests and raised more than $1
million for the
nonprofit New Jewish Home’s rehabilitation, skilled
nursing, and home healthcare programs,
which together serve 12,000 older adults each year.
The honorees, each of whom were
celebrated in a video vignette, were financier Bob
Appel, singer and humanitarian Harry
Belafonte, ballet great Jacques
d’Amboise, philanthropist Joy
Henshel, Broadway superstar Chita
Rivera, legendary ad man Keith
Reinhard, gossip queen Liz
Smith, and Sesame Street’s Big Bird and Oscar the
Grouch, Caroll
Spinney. These men and women represent the best of
the best in arts and entertainment, advertising,
business, volunteerism and philanthropy. They are movers
and shakers who are still contributing and still making
waves, in the process showing the world that
trailblazing is ageless.
“By 2030, 30 percent of the U.S.
population will be over 80,” said Audrey
Weiner, President and CEO of
The New Jewish Home. “Like the teeming energy New York
itself, the variety of accomplishments and the
personalities of our eight honorees shows us what it
means to age like a New Yorker. In other words, the
sky’s the limit for these vibrant men and women, still
going strong over 80.”
GALA BENEFIT COMMITTEE
Helen and Bob Appel, Carol Becker, Margot
and Norman Freedman, Robin and Scott Gottlieb, Susan and
David Haas, Ruth and David Levine, Melanie Katzman and Russell
Makowsky, Rose-Lee and Keith Reinhard, Elissa and Jim
‘Great Neck’ Richman, Tami Schneider, Elizabeth Grayer
and Aidan Synnott
HONOREE BIOGRAPHIES
Bob Appel is
President of Appel Associates, a money management and
investment firm, and was a partner of the investment
advisory firm Neuberger Berman for 20 years. He is
Chairman of the Board of Jazz at Lincoln Center, to
which, in 2014, he and his wife, Helen, made the largest
individual gift in the organization’s history. He is
also a trustee emeritus of Cornell University and a
committed fundraiser for Weill Cornell Medical College,
home of the Helen and Robert Appel Institute for
Alzheimer’s Disease Research.
Harry Belafonte is
an outstanding performer and producer whose album
“Calypso” became the first recording in history to sell
more than a million copies. He is also a humanitarian
with a long and distinguished record of human rights
advocacy that includes serving as a UNICEF Goodwill
Ambassador and organizing the multi-artist “We Are the
World” recording, which raised millions of dollars for
emergency assistance in Africa. Belafonte’s many awards
include the Kennedy Center Honors and the National Medal
of the Arts.
One of the finest classical dancers of
our time, Jacques
d’Amboise is
also an arts education leader who created a model
program that has introduced thousands of school children
to the magic and discipline of dance and the founder of
the National Dance Institute. As a dancer, Mr. d’Amboise
is most remembered for his portrayal of what critics
called “the definitive Apollo.” A choreographer as well,
his credits include almost 20 works commissioned for New
York City Ballet.
Joy Henshel is
a longtime, esteemed director of The New Jewish Home’s
Sarah Neuman Center as well as being a prolific
philanthropist in the areas of the arts, health, social
justice and Jewish organizations. Her public service
includes her appointment by Mayor John Lindsay to the
New York-Tokyo sister city program in 1966, and two
years of work for the events firm planning and executing
Liberty Weekend, the four-day celebration of the
restoration and centennial of the Statue of Liberty in
1986. Mrs. Henshel is an active trustee of Surprise Lake
Camp, a longtime volunteer at White Plains Hospital, the
mother of four daughters, and a very generous donor to
The New Jewish Home.
Under the leadership of Keith
Reinhard, DDB Worldwide, one of the world's largest
and most creative advertising agency networks, produced
award-winning work for Volkswagen, Anheuser-Busch,
Frito-Lay, Dell Computer, JC Penney, Ameriquest and many
other clients. Reinhard himself gave birth to such
memorable advertising characters and slogans as, for
McDonald’s, the Hamburglar and "You Deserve a Break
Today,” which in 1999 Advertising Age named the best
advertising jingle of the 20th century and one of the
century's top-five campaigns.
After her breakout portrayal of Anita
in 1957’s West Side Story, the great Broadway star Chita
Rivera went
on to earn a Tony nomination for Bye
Bye Birdie and
Tony Awards for The
Rink and Kiss
of the Spider Woman. Her many other spellbinding
performances include those in Nine; Chita
Rivera: The Dancer’s Life, (another Tony
nomination); The
Mystery of Edwin Drood; and The
Visit, for which she received her tenth Tony
nomination. Rivera has received the Kennedy Center
Honors award and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
A writer of humor, wit and empathy, Liz
Smith is
much more than a gossip columnist, though she helped
define the term. Smith began writing in the 1950s and
has never stopped, working for Hearst, Cosmopolitan, Sports
Illustrated, the New
York Daily News, “Live at Five,” Newsday,
the New
York Post, and
now The Huffington Post and New York Social Diary. She
is a best-selling author and has the distinction of
being the only columnist to have had her column printed
in three major New York City papers simultaneously.
For more than 40 years, Caroll
Spinney has
been Sesame Street’s Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, in
the process earning four Emmy Awards, two Gold Records,
and two Grammy Awards. In 2000, the Library of Congress
declared Spinney’s Big Bird a "Living Legend." With J
Milligan, Spinney has written The
Wisdom of Big Bird (and the Dark Genius of Oscar the
Grouch): Lessons from a Life in Feathers. Spinney
recently received the Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award
from the National Association of Television Arts and
Sciences.
# # #
Serving New Yorkers of all faiths and
ethnicities for 167 years, The
New Jewish Home (formerly,
Jewish Home Lifecare) is transforming eldercare as we
know it. One of the nation’s largest and most
diversified not‐for‐profit geriatric health and
rehabilitation systems, Jewish Home serves 12,000 older
adults each year, in their homes and on three campuses,
through short-term rehabilitation, long‐term skilled
nursing, low-income housing, and a wide range of home
health programs. Jewish Home believes that high quality
care and personal dignity are everyone’s right,
regardless of background or economic circumstances.
Technology, innovation, applied research and new models
of care put The New Jewish Home at the vanguard of
eldercare providers across the country. For more
information, visit www.jewishhome.org.   |