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My grandparents immigrated to the USA, from Hungary, after WWI. My parents were first generation Americans living their entire lives
in New York City, the city of my birth and upbringing. I have three children, all of them have a career working with youth.
Two are teachers and my youngest is a midwife. In July and December 2006, I became a grandfather
of two wonderful boys, Solomon and Andrew. This is the most exciting year in many!!
During my years in college I worked in hotels and racetracks as a waiter and headwaiter in fine dining rooms and nightclubs. I have
owned a restaurant on a golf course in NYC.
I received my B.A. Degree and Teaching Certification from the City University of NY, Staten Island, in 1974. My early career in education
saw me teaching inner city youth in New York, New Hampshire, Los Angeles and the Province of Ontario, Canada. I have received grants from the
NY, California, Alabama and Ontario, the Canada Arts Councils and taught theatre as guest lecturer at many universities and theatre schools in
the USA, Canada, Israel and Hungary. I then studied Special Education in the Masters Program at The College of New Rochelle, NY and worked with
autistic and socially, visually and audially challenged youth in the NY and Los Angeles Public Schools.
In 1978, theatre arts absorbed my attention and I began to pursue the masters of the art of pantomime theatre, studying with the great
French Mime Marcel Marceau, the famous Polish mime Stefan Niedzielkowski and Samuel Avital, Moni Yakim, Claude Kipnis and Tony Montenaro of
the USA. During this time, I entered New York University’s Masters Program in Educational Theatre and have gone on to a career in educational
theatre, peace education and teacher training in many countries and performed and taught the art of mime and storytelling throughout the USA,
Canada, Israel and Europe, with a focus on central and eastern Europe.
When my dear parents passed away in 1996, I moved back to Israel where I had been a professional basketball player and coach twenty years
before. During this period I taught pantomime at Beit Zvi Theatre Conservatory in Ramat Gan, coached youth basketball and worked in ‘Peace
Education’ at Beit Hagefen Arab/Jewish Community Center, program supported by the US and Norwegian Embassies in Israel/Palestine.
In 1997, due to the dangerous and frustrating political atmosphere in the Middle East, I moved to the land of my grandparents and the city
of my father’s conception, Budapest. . I have gotten a great education and witnessed the change from a controlled society to a free market
economy and a now struggling democratic society.
From 1997-2003, I taught English and Job Interviewing at the Kando Kalman Tech, now Budapest Polytechnic.
In 1998, I established STUDENTSCOUT, sports scouting service. Since then, I have assisted over sixty young women, mainly basketball players,
from ten countries, in receiving athletic scholarships to the finest American universities. This passed season they have begun to graduate.
During this time in Budapest, I have been a professor of public speaking at Mc Daniel College and in 2003; I began teaching journalism, job
interviewing, American studies and public speaking at the Budapest College of Communication, (BKF) and pantomime at the Gor-Nagy Maria Theatre
Conservatory.
In the summers of 2001-2004 I assisted in the development project, on a special initiative of the USA Embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia i
Herzegovina and the US State Dept., with a team of “Peace Educators” in Brcko, BiH, a district along the Croatian border, on the Sava River,
that is administered by the United Nations. We work with high school students who have excellent English and communication skills and want
to affect their community in a positive manner. In our summer school we teach them journalism, debate, public speaking, community service and
development. The students then go to live with American families and attend high school for six months.
Before the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Gingic of Serbia I Montenegro, I was invited by his office to teach the “Fundamentals of
Democracy” to hundreds of high students in a special summer camp program.
In the summer of 2005, I directed a private basketball camp in Keszthely on beautiful Lake Balaton. In the summer of 2006, I directed, Camp
Tolerance, at Balatonlelle. 64 students, ages 11-15, from Slovakia, Serbia, Romania and host Hungary, participated in learning tolerance
with a two week camp experience where we all lived, studied, traveled and ate together.
In the passed month, I am organizing a group of very talented artists, who live in Budapest’s colorful 8th District, to create a touring performance
throughout Europe highlighting themes of the multi-cultural and multi-ethnic life that we find ourselves faced with in Europe in the 21st Century.
It has been a great challenge, yet my overwhelming pleasure to be part of this amazing change in the region. It is my plan to make this
my home and continue to work with youth to affect such positive change at a most important time in history.
Philosophy and vision:
My life has been dedicated to opening up opportunities for youth, who will be the leaders of the future. Through sports, arts and academics there
are many avenues toward a healthy and successful life.
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