Mountain States ADL Board Chair-Elect Jim Kurtz-Phelan shares his passion for Israel, the law, and working to ensure fair treatment for all.

 

How did you first become involved in ADL?  I participated in an ADL Speakers Bureau beginning in 1982 after the Lebanon War that year led to a lot of political attacks on Israel.  I was invited to join the Rocky Mountain Regional Board in the late 1990’s by Barry Curtiss-Lusher and Neil Oberfeld.

How are you involved now?  I’m a regional board member, national commission member, and chair-elect.

What do you do in your professional life?   I am an attorney at Berenbaum Weinshienk PC specializing in all aspects of commercial real estate.

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?  An attorney (I’m not kidding!)

Where were you born? El Paso, Texas.  From where do your ancestors hail?  Ireland, Scotland, England, Central Texas and Massachusetts.

What’s your favorite holiday?  Passover – its focus on freedom, justice and revolution, as well as the universality of the holiday, are compelling to me.

What’s your favorite food?  My taste is too diverse to pick one and too unhealthy to admit publicly what I really like. If pressed to choose, I’d say Zaidy’s (restaurant) reuben sandwiches.

What are you reading?  “On Bittersweet Place,” a debut novel by former Denverite Ronna Wineberg; “The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914;” “Lawrence in Arabia;” and “Hard Choices” by Hillary Clinton.

What’s a special place you have visited?   Israel–three times. It enabled me to develop an emotional connection to the land of Israel.

What’s one thing every person should know or experience?   The sublime beauty of a spiritual journey.

What teacher or class stands out to you the most in your education and why?  Several classes and studying for my conversion to Judaism with Rabbi Daniel Goldberger, of blessed memory.

What are you passionate about personally?  Fair treatment of all people and the survival of the State of Israel.

What can’t you stop talking about?  My first grandchild: Macy Ilana Motykowski.

Where can we find you when you’re not working?  In the garden or reading at home. I love gardening because it’s relaxing and lets me participate in the renewal of life.

What would be impossible for you to give up?  Family photographs and videos.

If you had to teach something, what would you teach?  Real estate law.

Tell me a story that immediately pops into your mind that was a defining or significant moment for you.  I spent a month and a half living with a family and traveling with a group of ten American college students in Peru in the summer of 1967 as part of the Experiment in International Living.  I was a community ambassador from El Paso, Texas.  On a Sunday morning in Lima toward the end of our stay in Peru, an Experimenter from North Dakota and I set out on a city bus to visit the slums in the foothills surrounding Lima.  After being invited into a modest home perched on a hillside to share tea and “cognac” with the husband and wife, she and I stopped by a bar in the barrio to decompress and discuss our experiences that summer.  After being surrounded by a horde of children eager to see what Americanos looked like and to challenge us to a foosball game, we were “rescued” by a group of Peruvian men at a nearby table who invited us to drink beer with them and share stories in Spanish.  The Spanish flowed much more smoothly after a few beers.  One of the men went to his home and came back with gifts for both of us, including two that he gave to me:  one of his own paintings of Iquitos, Peru and the Amazon River, and a small ceremonial bow with arrows finished with tropical bird feathers.  I was struck by the generosity and humanity of these poor people, capping off a summer experience that completely changed my perspective on life.

Why do you choose to make a financial investment in ADL?  Because I support ADL’s mission to fight anti-Semitism and discrimination against all peoples and believe in the importance of its many programs and advocacy efforts on behalf of this mission.

Complete this sentence: For me, the ADL is …the conscience of and advocate for the Jewish People.