The recent blizzard prevented us from sharing a bagel with Milwaukee mensch Lis Shapiro, but not from spending an hour with this warm mom, maestro and role model.
By Mardee Gruen

Hoping that her two sons will live “Yiddishkeit,” appreciate raindrops and grow up to be mensches are Lis Shapiro’s dreams for Ephraim, 10, and Naham, 9.

Having enjoyed a career as a musician, playing flute with the Haifa Symphony, teaching music at a Canadian university and conducting a youth orchestra before she had her children, she said her greatest gift is her family. “Right now, I want to spend my time caring for my family. I just have to trust that everything else will work out in due time,” she said.

She grew up in Canada near Niagara Falls. “My parents, teenagers at the time, survived the war because they were hidden by the Dutch resistance. Afterward, they felt there was no future for Jews in Europe and applied to leave. At the time, the only place that would take them was Canada, so we went,” she explained.

She grew up in a very traditional Jewish home. “First and foremost, we were Jewish. I hate labels, but we kept kosher and observed Shabbat.”

When she and her husband, Gary, moved to Milwaukee eight years ago, there were only two things she checked out — synagogues and schools. He is an oncologist at Sinai Samaritan Medical Center and a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin Medical School in Madison.

They are both involved at Lake Park Synagogue, which they found to be warm and welcoming to newcomers. “We like that the membership includes Jews of all backgrounds, all of whom have developed an incredible closeness,” she said.

They chose to live in the city because they like the sense of neighborhood, aided by sidewalks and parks. “We love living on the east side and in our big, old Victorian house, which always has room for dinner guests and visitors. We sort of have an open-door policy, and I can’t imagine living any other way. Welcoming and helping others is part of being Jewish.”

And, on these cold winter days, Shapiro and her boys can be seen buying hot chocolate for the Salvation Army bell ringers, asking elderly neighbors if they need grocery shopping, or helping them shovel out.

“It’s the way I was raised — to help out and care for each other. My parents went to hell and back, but always see the good in things. It’s really a gift. They appreciate the simplest things in life. I was very blessed to grow up in an environment that was rich in values, though not in material things. My two brothers and I played with empty boxes, thread spools and walnut shells. We always had company and stretched our meals. It’s these values that I want to pass on to my children,” she said.

Though dedicated to her family, she works part-time teaching recorder at the Milwaukee Jewish Day School, where her sons are students, and at the Coalition for Jewish Learning (the education program of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation), where she is the coordinator of adult education. That role includes coordinating CJL’s community-wide “Day of Discovery” to be held Feb. 18, she quietly but expertly plugged.

In addition, she is the co-coordinator with Jody Hirsch, Judaic educator at the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center, of a ulpan program.

“CJL is a phenomenal resource in Milwaukee, which I fear is under-utilized. I think it’s the best-kept secret in town. The creativity center is great, and its professional staff offers a wealth of support to teachers, families, schools and synagogues. There is a vault of material there.

“And, when we made a mess making our own haggadahs at CJL, I didn’t worry about it,” she laughed.

She and her husband, a native of East Lansing, Mich., met in Israel and lived in New York and Minneapolis before settling in Milwaukee. “We find the community to be very special. The day we moved,” she recalled, “I walked the boys around the neighborhood in a double stroller to be out of the way and came home with a dinner invitation. It’s a diverse community where people are good to each other.”

But — she wishes the community could (or would) support a kosher restaurant and establish a coed Jewish high school, though she said, “I’d be surprised if it happens.”

She worries she will only have two choices when her sons reach high school age, neither of which is appealing. “Either we’ll send them to public school and supplement Judaic text studies, or move.”

For someone who admitted she “hates labels,” she defined herself as a Jewish Orthodox feminist. “It’s exciting to see Jewish women so involved in Jewish learning. I want to learn more Judaic text in depth and regret that I was denied talmudic study as a child because I was a girl. But, I have the ability to turn that around. We study parsha as a family every day and the boys really look forward to that time.”

Shapiro believes halacha “is a route to enable us to enlighten our world, and said she wants her children to know “rabbinics so they can become mensches and find their place as proud, caring individuals devoted to community. We must see the dignity in each person given to us by G-d and how that enriches society as a whole,” she said.

For herself, she hopes that in the future she can volunteer “48 hours a day, return to Israel and continue to see the beauty of little blessings in life.”

Her favorite bagels are sesame. We owe her one!