and her prized possessions
Photography by J.J. Lane
For decades, Karen Kalish, founder of the Estelle W. and Karen S. Kalish Foundation, has worked on efforts to fight racism and to improve the reading abilities of underprivileged children. She has also started Cultural Leadership, a program to teach Jewish and African-American teenagers about each other’s heritage and religion; a home-visit project with public school teachers; a program for police recruits to read to students; and a Microcredit Pilot program. At home in a colorful, cavernous house in Clayton, Kalish had serious problems limiting her favorite things to a mere 10.
1. Kalish, wearing her great grandmother’s pearls, sits with her dogs, Yoffe and Toffe, and cat, Oliver.
2. Photo of her father with his seven grandsons.
3. Needlepoint Kalish’s mother made replicating a painting Kalish did in fourth grade.
4. Papier mâché truck from Cuba Kalish bought on a trip there in 2001.
5. Two gifts from Michael Grebby, Kalish’s pen pal in Scotland. They’ve been writing each other for the past 51 years.
6. Tin soldiers from her father’s collection (of 18,000).
7. A sewing machine owned by her grandmother, Estelle Watelsky Kalish.
8. The wallpaper in one of her bathrooms is her degree from Harvard blown up and repeated. “If you got a degree from Harvard at age 55, you’d blow it up, too!” Kalish says.
9. Hard hat from artist Christo that Kalish wore while helping on his Umbrellas project in California in 1991.
10. Silver serving pieces passed down in her family.
