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With her grandparents seated on the front row, Katherine Bernstein led the assisted-living congregation in blessing the bread and grape juice symbolizing wine while another teen played the piano and a half-dozen other young people chanted Hebrew prayers for the Jewish sabbath service known as Shabbat.

“I was so nervous,” the 17-year-old high school senior said about leading elders in her faith in the sacred rituals.

Organizing and helping conduct monthly Jewish religious services at the Abbotswood Retirement Community is something Katherine never would have thought of had she not been taking care of her grandparents two summers ago and contemplating a project for her Gold Award in Girl Scouts.

It is also something that other temples and churches could easily replicate at retirement and assisted living facilities.

“The basic idea is to bring the congregation to them,” said Rabbi Fred Guttman of Temple Emanuel, where Katherine’s family worships.

Katherine came up with the project in 2008 while taking care of Martin and Shirley Bernstein, her paternal grandparents, who are in their 80s and have Alzheimer’s disease. They lived at Abbotswood at the time.

“Everything in their lives seemed to be changing so fast,” Katherine said.

Grandaddy and Granny, as she called them, could no longer drive themselves around, had trouble walking and were suffering memory loss.

Her father had planned to hire someone to take them out to do the things they wanted to do.

“She said, 'Oh, I want to do that ... I want to be able to spend time with them,’ ” recalled Katherine’s mom, Gail Bernstein.
 

Around Greensboro they traveled in the grandparents’ Toyota Corolla with the elder Bernsteins giving the same daily directive: Lox Stock and Bagel for lunch; stop and get a Diet Coke at the gas station; drive through downtown Greensboro, where Martin Bernstein worked for so long; go to the Hebrew Cemetery, which he had helped to oversee while on the cemetery committee for years; and to Baskin-Robbins for ice cream.
 

Katherine reminded herself that each new day would be a new experience for them.

“She has such incredible patience, and she doesn’t get frustrated ... even if they ask the same question 10 seconds later,” Gail Bernstein said. “Katherine could answer her granddaddy’s questions even before he finished asking them, but of course she would never do that.”

Watching her grandparents struggle with memory loss was at times heartbreaking for Katherine.

“We would get back to Abbotswood and my grandmother didn’t know she lived there. Sometimes my granddad would get frustrated; he’d ask why he couldn’t drive. It was weird for me to tell him that he couldn’t drive.”

On Fridays, Katherine’s grandparents often wanted to go to the temple for sabbath services. Her grandfather is the oldest living past president of the temple.

“Unfortunately, it became increasingly difficult just to get them there,” she said.

Sometimes, at the last minute, for example, one or the other would decide to take a nap first.

Katherine, who had just completed her Silver Award for Girl Scouts, was also looking for a project for her Gold Award that would fill a need in the community.

Katherine, who knew that other Jewish people lived at Abbotswood even though it’s not a Jewish retirement home, took her idea to Guttman, who helped her put together a condensed Shabbat service.

In the ensuing months, she wrote a Shabbat service booklet that included all of the main prayers in Hebrew and English.
She also met with Allison Pait, the wellness director at Abbotswood, who helped with the logistics of finding a space and settling on a time.

“It couldn’t be just any day; it had to be Friday,” Katherine said about the Jewish sabbath.

Pait also gave her the names and room numbers for Jewish residents so that she could put fliers in their mailboxes.
Katherine also posted fliers in the elevators and on various doors around the lobby, to let other residents know the monthly service would be open for anyone to attend.

“She poured her heart and soul into this program, and it was pretty obvious,” said Pait, who said she is used to hearing from young people who want to get volunteer hours at an assisted living facility.

But this was a first, Pait said. She was also impressed with Katherine’s follow-through — as were others. The Temple Emanuel Sisterhood and an anonymous contributor gave Katherine a set of candlesticks and a Kiddush cup for the ceremonial meal.

She also got other Jewish young people to help out.

“She even got one of the girls to play piano during the service,” Guttman said.

But Katherine is a perfectionist — whether in putting on a history presentation or conducting a biology lab — and she initially had a hard time relying on others. Her idea of leading had been to do everything herself.

She worried in the beginning that those friends who told her that they “likely could make it” might not show up.

“By myself I am a terrible singer,” she admitted.

So she held a Facebook group meeting ahead of time to review parts of the service and gauge participation — usually between six and 12 girls.

Eventually, she let someone else design a flier. She also learned to tap into people’s strengths — by encouraging someone who was better at hospitality than singing to come early and greet residents instead.

The initial Shabbat on Sept. 26, 2008, drew eight Jewish residents.

“By the middle of it, I just forgot that this was my project,” said Katherine, who basically took on the part of a rabbi. She did not read from an actual Torah, the sacred book of scripture, but the service booklets included all that needed to be read and said.

A year later the number of residents has more than tripled at the monthly service.

Along the way, residents had constructive suggestions: Adjust the time so it won’t conflict with bingo, and ask her helpers to speak slowly and very loud and clear when they read.

But it was also clear that she had tapped into a spiritual need.

“We thought it was just wonderful, just a wonderful idea to bring it to us,” said Miriam Sandler, an Abbotswood resident. “Some of us can’t get out to go to the temple. It was warm, and it was nicely done.”

Katherine, who graduates from high school in June and plans to go off to college, has turned over the leadership of the monthly service — along with the service books, silver and music — to the local B’nai B’rith Youth Organization. Her last service as the leader was in May. After a summer break, the youth group will hold services again this month.

While she shies away from taking full credit for its success, the Shabbat is a legacy she appreciates far more than the Gold Award it earned her.

“I am truly overwhelmed by how grateful the Jewish residents at Abbotswood seem to be,” Katherine said.

Contact Nancy McLaughlin at 373-7049 or nancy.mclaughlin@news-record.com