Jewish Leaders
By Deborah Moon Seldner
article created on:
Portland Jewish Leadership Institute participant Polina Olsen hasn't hesitated to put her newfound feelings of connection to Portland's Jewish community into action.
Olsen, who several times each summer leads a "Walking Tour of Historic Jewish Portland," has pledged the fees for this summer's tours to the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland.
Convened and funded by the federation, the PJLI is designed to strengthen the Jewish community's leadership base for all of the community's agencies, congregations and organizations by teaching participants the personal, leadership and analytic skills they will need in the 21st century. The Jewish Review is profiling several of the 30 participants.
Olsen said after beginning the institute, she realized it would be natural to donate tour proceeds to a local Jewish organization.
The tours, which this summer continue July 23, Aug. 27 and Sept. 17, are based on Olsen's book "A Walking Tour of Historic Jewish Portland." The two-hour tour traverses Old South Portland, where nearly all of the Eastern European and Sephardic Jews who arrived in Portland in the early 1900s settled. Though the South Auditorium Urban Renewal District demolished 54 blocks of the immigrant community
husband Andy travel extensively. A retired software engineer, Olsen
began studying South Portland several years ago when she learned their home in John's Landing was near an old Jewish neighborhood. She said she began taking pictures of old buildings and asking people if the buildings had
figured in that earlier Jewish life. She credited the late Gussie
Reinhardt, Leo Greenstein and Norman Berlant with being invaluable resources about that community.
Olsen said the institute has helped her feel more connected with the
contemporary Jewish community and especially with federation.
"I think federation is very well organized and so on top of things,"
said Olsen. "I appreciate the way they are so inclusive. When you help the
Jewish federation, you are helping all the organizations."
"I'm delighted to have a Jewish organization to donate this money to,"
she said. "It makes it go around in a circle."
Olsen said she has been impressed by the diverse group that federation
succeeded in recruiting for the leadership program.
"It's a wonderful feeling to see all the different organizations and
meet people from all those organizations and to see all the things happening
in Portland," she said.
Olsen already has had a role in expanding the diversity of offerings
in Portland. She founded the Oregon Jewish Folk Arts Society, for which
she teaches Embroidering Jewish Folk Art and Crocheting Jewish Folk Art.
The society periodically offers lectures and demonstrations on other Jewish folk arts at the Hillsdale Library.
She is also a life member of Hadassah and is the Web master for the
Oregon Genealogical Society.
Recently Olsen finished her second book, "The Immigrants' Children:
Jewish and Italian Memories of Old South Portland." The book is on sale at
Annie Bloom's Books and some Powell's locations, including downtown and the Hawthorne store, which is near a current Italian neighborhood.
For information on the walking tours, which meet at the Lair Hill
Market, 2823 S.W. 1st Ave., at 9:30 a.m., July 23, Aug. 27, and Sept. 17,
contact Olsen at ojfas@Comcast.net. Cost is $8 per person.