Kullmans honored at Touro dinner
By DEAN SHAPIRO, Special to the CCJN
It was a night to long remember for the Kullmans – Ruth and Larry. Members of their family and their many friends, including two mayors and three rabbis, were present among the 200-plus people on hand to pay tribute to the couple for their many years of service to the congregation at Touro Synagogue.
Rabbi Alexis Berk presents an engraved glass chalice to Larry and Ruth Kullman at the L'Chayim Dinner last Sunday night. (Photo by Dean Shapiro)
The Kullmans were honored at the L’Chayim Dinner at the synagogue on May 19 and were presented with a symbolic glass chalice by Touro’s Rabbi Alexis Berk. Her two predecessors at Touro, Rabbis David Goldstein (now rabbi emeritus) and Andrew Busch, were also effusive in their praise for the work the couple has done for the synagogue in many capacities. Goldstein, who retired after 27 years in 2005, spoke in person and Busch, who led the congregation in the immediate post-Katrina years, sent his best wishes via a recorded video from his present home in Baltimore.
Honored guest speakers included former mayor Maurice “Moon” Landrieu with wife Verna and their son and current Mayor of the City New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu with his wife Cheryl. The Landrieus are longtime friends of the Kullmans, as well as employers both past and present. Larry Kullman, a practicing attorney, worked in City Hall during the elder Landrieu’s administration and followed him to Washington, D.C. in 1978 when Moon Landrieu was named Secretary of Housing and Urban Development by President Jimmy Carter. Ruth Kullman is Mitch Landrieu’s current Director of Finance.
Moon Landrieu and his wife, Verna, served as honorary co-chairs of the event, while congregants Lou and Susan Good chaired the synagogue’s L’Chayim dinner committee. The Kullmans’ three children were also in attendance at the guest of honor table.
All who were present at the $100 and up per-plate dinner raised their glasses in a L’Chayim champagne toast offered to the Kullmans by Goldstein, and they gave a standing ovation to the couple when they were presented with a symbolic chalice by Berk.
The guest speakers, in turn, praised the Kullmans’ dedication to the ongoing work of fundraising, community outreach and – especially – the restoration work that had to be done to the house of worship after Hurricane Katrina. Ruth Kullman was synagogue president during the year the storm hit and the two of them labored intensively to get the century-old synagogue back up and running.
During his brief testimonial, Mitch Landrieu alluded to the visit of the Dalai Lama that same weekend, during which the Tibetan Buddhist leader declared that “Goodness comes from within.” The current mayor noted that the description also applies to the evening’s honorees, “Two very special spiritual people,” as he termed them.
The evening, however, wasn’t all just speeches and tributes. There were moments of levity and humor as well. Rabbi Goldstein told stories of practical jokes he and Larry Kullman played on each other and the Landrieus told some funny stories about the Kullmans as well.
But the biggest laughs of the evening came during a video presentation put together by one of the congregants in which the Kullmans’ faces were Photoshopped onto other people’s bodies at noteworthy events throughout history.
The opening shots of the presentation showed Larry Kullman’s face superimposed over that of Superman and Ruth Kullman’s face was superimposed onto Wonder Woman’s. They were “seen” at such events as the moon landing, the inauguration of President Obama, the O.J. Simpson trial and even accompanying The Beatles as they walked across Abbey Road on the cover of their 1969 album. There were visual references to the biblical Book of Ruth and the non-biblical “Book of Larry.”
Probably the picture that got the most laughs was the clip of Larry’s head superimposed over that of Larry Fine, in between Moe and Curley Howard in the opening credits of an early Three Stooges film short.
The Kullmans themselves added a few moments of levity to their acceptance speeches. Jokingly referring to their respective roles in the operation of the synagogue, Ruth told the audience, “He raised the money and I spent it.”
On the serious side, however, the honorees both spoke about how touched they were by the tributes paid to them by the previous speakers. “We did what we had to do in the wake of Katrina,” Ruth said. “We knew that the synagogue was an anchor in very choppy waters. It was important to us and for all of us that it have a future. So we’re doing work that we absolutely love.”
