Sustainability in retirement communities and enlightened ways of dealing with death are topics on Boomer Generation Radio

Feb 25, 2014

In the February 25 episode of "Boomer Generation Radio," David Jones, project director for Kendal Corporation of Kennett Square, PA, and Dick Klein, a resident of Kendal's Crosslands retirement community, discuss the importance of "environmental sustainability" for retirement communities. Kendal has an extensive set of sustainability initiatives around energy savings, water conservation, landfill waste reduction, building materials sourcing, and food selection.

In the second half hour of the program, Rabbi Address speaks with Dr. Erica Brown, writer and educator, who is scholar-in-residence for the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington DC. Her latest book, Happier Endings: A Meditation on Life and Death, describes how people of all faiths deal with death in enlightening ways, including a mother who arranged for her children to sprinkle her ashes on a favorite ski slope, an ex-nun who prepares people to die, a group of women who ritually wash the dead, and a family whose grandfather’s Ethical will is read by his survivors each year.

Dr. Erica Brown, author of Happier Endings: A Meditation on Life and Death

Dr. Erica Brown is a writer and educator who works as the scholar-in-residence for The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington and consults with for the Jewish Agency and other Jewish non-profits. Erica’s latest books are Happier Endings: A Meditation on Life and Death (Simon & Schuster) and Leadership in the Wilderness: Authority and Anxiety in the Book of Numbers. She is also the author of the books, Inspired Jewish Leadership, a National Jewish Book Award finalist, Spiritual Boredom, Confronting Scandal, In the Narrow Places, Return and co-author of The Case for Jewish Peoplehood. Erica writes a monthly column for The New York Jewish Week and the website Psychology Today and writes a weekly column for JTA on Jewish leadership.

She was a Jerusalem Fellow, is a faculty member of the Wexner Foundation, an Avi Chai Fellow, winner of the Ted Farber Professional Excellence Award, recipient of the 2009 Covenant Award for her work in education, and winner of the 2011 Bernie Reisman Award for Jewish Communal Service (Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program, Brandeis University). Erica has degrees from Yeshiva University, University of London, Harvard University and Baltimore Hebrew University. She lectures widely on subjects of Jewish interest and leadership and writes a weekly internet essay called “Weekly Jewish Wisdom.” She tweets daily on one page of the Talmud at DrEricaBrown and  tweets an inspirational quote or question called Happier Days. She resides with her husband and four children in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Boomer Generation Radio airs on WWDB-AM 860 every Tuesday at 10 a.m., and features news and conversation aimed at Baby Boomers and the issues facing them as members of what Rabbi Address calls “the club sandwich generation.” You can hear the show live on AM 860, or streamed live from the WWDB website.

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