By Sharon Wisch-Ray
sharonw@texasjewishpost.com

Rosalind Benjet and TJP columnist Harriet Gross have teamed up for a presentation to the Southern Jewish Historical Society, which will hold its 40th annual conference Oct. 29 through Nov. 1 in Nashville, Tennessee.
Theme of the event is “Jews and the Urban South.” Inspired by this year’s earlier Dallas Jewish Historical Society event honoring six women who made their marks in local politics, Roz and Harriet have concentrated on the trio who were Dallas mayors to create a paper with PowerPoint presentation entitled “They Made It Big in Big D!” They have gathered information in personal interviews with Adlene Harrison, Laura Miller and friends of the late Annette Strauss, as well as from archival sources, and want to thank DJHS for its cooperation and assistance in providing them with oral histories, photographs and PowerPoint assistance.
This same team, with Roz as primary researcher and Harriet as main writer, made an initial presentation to the SJHS two years ago in Birmingham, Alabama, during its 50-year commemoration of civil rights events. That paper cited Rabbi Levi Olan and Stanley Marcus as the two Jews who made early major contributions to desegregation efforts in Dallas. The two women met when both were working toward advance degrees at UT-Dallas.
The forthcoming conference will feature an early bus tour of Nashville’s Jewish sites before the opening address by Vanderbilt University Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos on the school’s outreach to Jewish students and the Nashville Jewish community. Professor Gary Zola, of Hebrew Union College/American Jewish Archives, will be guest speaker at the dinner following Erev Shabbat services at Congregation Ohabai Sholom.
Shabbat morning services will be held at the Ben Schulman Center for Jewish Life/Vanderbilt Hillel, where University of Miami Professor Ira Sheskin’s keynote address will follow lunch. His topic will be “The Changing Demographic Profile of Jews in Southern Cities, 1950 — Present and Future.” A Havdallah reception that evening at Congregation Sherith Israel will feature a concert of Jewish music in many styles, with Saul Strosberg, the synagogue’s rabbi, on keyboard.
Full information on the Southern Jewish Historical Society and this conference is available on the SJHC website: www.jewishsouth.org/upcoming-conference.

Legacy Willow Bend receives deficiency-free inspection

The Legacy Willow Bend life care community in Plano has received an extremely difficult-to-obtain deficiency-free inspection rating in its Health Care Center as well as in its assisted living and memory support levels of care from the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services (DADS).
The organization reviews a lengthy and stringent set of rules and regulations to ensure that physical plant and facility operation requirements are met. Assisted living inspections occur every two years, and DADS has inspectors from a number of professional disciplines, including registered nurses, social workers, nutritionists, pharmacists, architects, engineers and Life Safety Code specialists. Marilyn Israel, the executive director of The Legacy Willow Bend, is proud of the community’s team for this accomplishment, and she was touched by the positive feedback provided by the residents who interacted with the surveyors.
“One of most significant aspects of the thorough survey is the resident input that includes levels of satisfaction with care, therapy programs and culinary experiences at The Legacy Willow Bend,” said Israel. “We deeply value the perspective of those whom we serve, and our residents and families express their gratitude for the care we provide on a regular basis. To know they shared those sentiments with the state surveyors is truly meaningful to us.”
DADS is one of five agencies which operates under the Health and Human Services Commission. The inspection for the Health Care Center involves an in-depth process that spans three days with a team of multiple surveyors. They observe all facets of patient care by The Legacy Willow Bend staff including nursing care, staffing ratios, food service, infection control, medication management, medical records, staff qualification and all aspects of providing quality care. The survey done for the assisted living and memory care departments encompassed one day and explores the same elements.
Other elements evaluated include billing documentation, admissions policies, the process the human resources department follows for hiring and the background and licensure checks that are done with every employee as well as verifying education levels of the staff. Because The Legacy Willow Bend provides memory care, the community is held to a much higher education standard and is required to provide several hours of dementia-specific training. The staff members attend at least 12 hours of dementia-specific training each year. In addition as part of the inspection, surveyors test staff members on everything from their medical skills to emergency evacuation plans and hold meetings with residents and their families for feedback.
A review also was done on operational policies and medical charts as well as staff requirements and training, among other aspects. In every category inspected, The Legacy Willow Bend was found to be in compliance with state and federal requirements. Currently, The Legacy Willow Bend serves 47 residents in assisted living and 16 in memory support. More than 325 people have been served in The Health Care Services Center this year so far.