August 3, 2023

When Molly Fink was born, she was deaf. Her mother, who led a healthy lifestyle and didn’t eat sugar or take medication during her pregnancy, got a viral infection in her third trimester. This led to the cilia in Fink’s ears never forming.

However, it would take doctors a while to determine that Fink couldn’t hear. Her mother gave birth in Israel in the early 1980s, and when they moved to Missouri, Fink was diagnosed as deaf at two years of age. 

“My parents were told to put me in a home for children,” Fink said. “As I was born with a 93% hearing loss, I was going to be deaf and dumb.”

Though her parents were being pressured to put her into a home, a nurse at the hospital gave them a phone number for Sister Arlene, a nun who was deaf in one ear and had a teaching degree. 

“She looked exactly like the fairy godmother from ‘Cinderella,’” Fink said. “I remember when I told my parents the comparison, they just laughed and wholeheartedly agreed.”

Sister Arlene spent hours with Fink every day; her patience seemed to be never-ending. 

“I would do the same thing over and repeatedly and each time with the same enthusiasm and joy she would delightfully clap her hands and say ‘Oh, Molly!’” Fink said. “She taught me how to develop my own system of hearing and understanding. She stood behind me and as I got older at further and further distances and would speak.”

Along with Sister Arlene, Fink’s mother’s friend, Bonnie Hyatt, a speech pathologist, and her tutor Rosaline Sonnenwirth, who was with her from fourth grade until she went to college, Fink became confident in her speech, language and hearing skills.

“[Sonnenwirth] demanded excellence at all times, and while I had women cheering me on in my ability to speak and hear, she championed me in the world of excellence and intelligence,” she said. “She demanded the best and truly believed in the vision that I would fully acclimate into regular society with no one being the wiser that I was hard of hearing.”

Looking back on her time as a child and teenager in Missouri, Fink sees that there were a number of blessings, as well as challenges she had to overcome. 

“I can recall each person, each teacher who believed in me because so many people didn’t and made sure that I knew they didn’t believe in me,” she said. “I had a lot of teachers, adults and my friends’ parents openly tell me that I sounded funny, I was told I was not intelligent, and they were unsure as to why I tried so hard.”

Fink wouldn’t give up, though, at times, it was difficult to get by. Now, she sees that everything happened for a purpose. As an Orthodox Jew, she has faith that God has always had a plan for her. 

“The saying goes something like God gives the cure before He brings the ailment,” she said. “As a child I believed that I was raised by and belonged to the smartest, funniest, best looking and most thoughtful family on earth. As an adult, I still think the world of my family. Perhaps not superhuman, but incredible people who I am unbelievably blessed to have in my life and to have had form my life and nurture me.”

Because she felt loved and supported, Fink grew up wanting to help others. She became a certified regressive hypnotherapist co-active life coach and today, the wife and mother practices in Los Angeles. 

“I was burnt out from therapy,” she said. “I grew my company but didn’t feel fulfilled. A friend of mine suggested I try regressive hypnotherapy as I am always open to new modalities of healing. I went in for one session and knew I had found the missing link for my vision of how to heal people.”

With regressive hypnotherapy, combined with life coaching, clients do not stay long term. They can fully heal themselves and have their own toolkit from which to work.

“Professionally, I show people the origin of their coping mechanisms and help people realign with their true selves,” Fink said. “I use the current desires that a person has in their lives to help identify the underlying trauma that created the current way (coping mechanism) they interact with life.”

In her day-to-day work, Fink is helping patients heal, just like she did, and in her free time, she’s working on getting the late sister Arlene’s book published.  

“She wrote a book where she vehemently defended her position that deaf children should be taught only oral speech and not ASL,” Fink said. “She felt that we as human beings strive to maintain homeostasis at all costs. We are wired to be lazy, especially when we’re younger. Children who are given ASL will never take the time to learn to speak and interact with the hearing world. She was unable to publish [it], but before she died, she gave me and my father a copy and asked that he get it published. My father passed away in 2019. I have redirected my focus as of recent to getting the book published.”

While Fink certainly experienced her ups and downs with deafness, she chooses to stay positive and fulfill her special mission God gave her. 

She said, “In real screenshot moments, I see my life as incredibly joyous, and other moments [as] very painful. On the other side of real pain lies tremendous growth and freedom.”

Fink continued, “As I believe I am a microcosm of God, my face, my internal monologue and how I treat myself and other people is a direct reflection of God here on this earth. I am living that so that I can make this world a better place, in my own Molly Fink way.”

Rebecca Masliah had her dream job as a Marine mechanical engineer. Shortly after graduating Cal Maritime Academy in Vallejo, CA, she booked her first job on a flotilla. And so she set sail from Bellingham, Washington to Alaska, stopping at ports in Canada and Alaska and servicing the boats as needed. “It was so beautiful. I’d never been to British Columbia before, and it was simply awesome.”

Masliah dreamt about this job ever since she was a young girl.  Nevertheless, she is willing to put her career on hold — the one she worked so hard to achieve — and enlist in the IDF.

The 23-year-old Masliah was born in a French-Moroccan household in Los Angeles. She describes herself as Modern Orthodox, and has attended Jewish religious schools since kindergarten. “I went to Maimonides Academy and then to YULA Girls. I always wanted to study maritime, and the only place in California to do so was in Maritime Academy. To go from a Jewish community to a place with no Jews was a sort of culture shock. I was one of maybe six Jews on campus, and I had to work very hard to keep my practices and keep kosher. I used to go a lot to Chabad Berkeley to do Shabbat and holidays, and they accepted me warmly.”

“At Maritime, for the first time in my life, I met people who didn’t know what kosher means, and needed to explain it to them. Some people there were pretty antisemitic. Everyone knew, of course, I was Jewish. I had the Israeli flag on my door and the IDF flag in my room. There was one girl who posted something against me on her social media and my school did nothing about it. She wrote that my religion is scary, that I controlled everybody, and said a bunch of messed up stuff.”

Masliah, who served as the Academy’s student body president for two years, tried to get the university administration involved, but to no avail. “I even went to the police, but nobody helped me. Nobody did anything about it, and she never got in trouble for the things she said. It was pretty crazy and upsetting, but thankfully I had many friends who made sure I was safe there.”

This was the first encounter Masliah had with antisemitism, and it left her frustrated that, despite all her efforts, nothing was done. However, Masliah didn’t let the insensitive remarks and disregard of the campus stop her. She fought to have kosher meat on a ship she was working on. “It took some time and effort but at the end they agreed to have kosher meat for us. If you want to study Maritime, the only place you can do so in California is at this academy, and just because I’m one of a few Jews who are attending it doesn’t mean there won’t be more after me. I wanted to make sure that other Jewish students, who will attend the academy in the future, will be able to have kosher meat.”

Masliah says that her experience with facing antisemitism and ignorance about Judaism made her think about enlisting in the IDF. 

Masliah says that her experience with facing antisemitism and ignorance about Judaism made her think about enlisting in the IDF. “To be with people who didn’t know what I was talking about, who had no clue about Israel and Judaism and were even antisemitic, made me want to make sure that we will always have a Jewish state. We need Israel as a home, we need a place to feel comfortable. As Jews, we often feel very assimilated in those countries which we live in, but history had shown time and time again that no, you never know what’s going to happen. I’m a big Zionist, and we need to ensure Israel will always be there. I want to do my part and serve in the IDF and contribute my share to this country.”

Masliah is planning to go to Israel with Garin Tzabar, a unique program which is run by the Israeli Scouts Movement. The program, which was founded in 1991, provides a comprehensive support system and framework for Jewish young adults (ages 18-24) who wish to join the IDF as lone soldiers. It provides them with full accommodation assistance with Israel civil services and IDF bureaucracy, arrange “adoptive families” for them at the kibbutz, and help them integrate into Israeli society after their release from the army.

“My parents are supportive, although a little scared because I want to go to combat,” she admitted. “I’ve done something similar when I worked with the US Affiliate Navy, but it’s not the same, of course. Masliah’s 19-year-old brother is also in Israel now, studying at a Yeshiva in Jerusalem. 

“I hope to get into the Navy, because I have all this experience and the stakes are pretty high. I’ll get in but I’ll be happy to be placed anywhere. My plan is to serve at least two years and then come back here and keep working.”

Masliah’s decision to enlist after graduating college and securing a job is somewhat of a rarity. 

While many children of Israeli immigrants choose to enlist in the IDF, there aren’t as many American Jews enlisting. For one, they don’t usually have the same connection to Israel, most don’t have a family there, and usually don’t speak Hebrew. Those who choose to enlist usually do so right after high school. In that respect, Masliah’s decision to enlist after graduating college and securing a job is somewhat of a rarity. “I am the first one to join after college,” she agreed. “I don’t know anyone else who has done so. It was in the back of my head for a while, but wasn’t my plan. Because I’ve spent so much time away from the Jewish community, I thought, ‘Wow, I want to be there, I want to contribute and do my part. The more time I spent away from home, the more I wanted to go.”

Kayco — one of the largest producers and distributors of kosher foods and beverages — is partnering with Whole Foods, to expand the selection of kosher foods available in Whole Foods stores nationwide. More than 50 new items from Kayco have been introduced over the past year.

More and more, consumers are seeking kosher certification as a product attribute. Recognizing this trend, Kayco and Whole Foods curated a range of products, which cater to a wide variety of tastes; they include basic kosher items (cooking wines and broths) and essentials (egg noodles, potato pancake mix and matzo meal), as well as unique, specialty foods. Kayco’s kosher brands include Gefen, Heaven & Earth and Manischewitz.

“Whole Foods was looking for kosher products with a ‘better for you’ focus.” – Harold Weiss

“Whole Foods was looking for kosher products with a ‘better for you’ focus,” Harold Weiss, head of sales at Kayco, told the Journal. According to Weiss, their most popular products include mainstream fare like Kedem organic grape juice, Gefen pickled beets and water chestnuts, as well as new offerings, such as Heaven & Earth Almond Butter Date Bites and Haddar Tahini. Made with Valencia almonds and California dates, the kosher Almond Butter Date Bites have clean and simple ingredients and are individually wrapped. Haddar Tahini has both plain and seasoned varieties.

“The traditional products that were kosher at Whole Foods were matzos, broths, matzo ball mixes, grape juice and other traditional items,” Weiss said. “The new items meet today’s food trends and [are] being received very positively.”

 Whether someone has certain dietary requirements or simply likes to elevate their palate by trying new things, with the expanded assortment, there’s something for everyone. They even carry gluten-free kosher products, including gluten-free matzo, broth, candy, cookies, noodles and condiments. 

This new opportunity will allow Kayco to further expand their product line. “We are looking at new products from Tuscanini, a kosher brand that is authentically Italian and imported from Italy,” Weiss said. “Stay tuned.”