STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Carlyn Ring figured that a string of beads could talk louder than she ever could.

And, so, she filled up a work studio in her Adams Gulch home with hundreds and thousands of beads with which she created jewelry to sell on behalf of Tostan, an organization fighting for a better life for abused women in Senegal and other African countries.

Ring created that jewelry and knitted hats to give away to Wood River Valley residents in need of warm winter clothing into her 90s, in part of because of her Jewish faith’s emphasis on mitzvahs, or doing good deeds to make the world better.

Carlyn Ring sold these handmade necklaces at Ketchum Arts Festival and other events to raise money and awareness of Tostan, which means “breakthrough” in the Wolof language.

It was a concept she was very knowledgeable of, having co-founded the Wood River Jewish Community.

Ring, who formalized the congregation in 1983 alongside Helen and Ben Goldberg, Naomi Fine and Steven Luber in the Goldberg home, passed away peacefully at her home on Wednesday. She was 95.

Ring recalled gathering together in Goldburg’s living room thumbing through phone books trying to decide who was Jewish that they might invite to the new congregation.

“Our community became family because many of us didn’t have family close,” she said.

As the group grew, they rented out the Tram restaurant, Sun Valley Lodge Dining Room and Trail Creek Cabin for High Holy Days and Seder services. And finally, they began holding regular services at the Presbyterian Church of the Big Wood, spending a few years there before moving on to St. Thomas Episcopal Church.

In 1989 Ring was elated to see the Wood River Jewish Community receive one of 1,564 Torah scrolls that had been rescued from Jewish communities in Bohemia and Moravia that had been wiped out in the Holocaust. She recalled the emotional experience of opening the Torah while Sue Mendelssohn played the violin.

“The Wood River Jewish Community had a most unbelievably beautiful ceremony to celebrate its arrival,” she recalled.

In July 2023—145 years after the first Jewish people arrived in the Wood River Valley—Ring was on hand as the Wood River Jewish Community dedicated its new synagogue. The Lewis Family Center is just the third synagogue in Idaho.

“Having our own space is bittersweet in a way,” she noted. “While it’s nice to have a home to call our own, I thought it was so magnificent that a Christian community would tell us: Welcome. Let our home be your home.”

Even in her 90s, Ring kept busy. She cheered on her son Richard Feldman, a professional bicycle racer and owner of Durrance cycles who is a four-time National Cyclocross Champion, eight-time National Time Trial Champion and nine-time world Master Time Trial champion.

She cheered on her daughter-in-law Kelly Feldman as she led the Sun Valley Community School Girls Soccer team to district championships. And she cheered her granddaughter Katie Feldman as she became the first American woman to cross the finish line in the 90-kilometer classic Swedish Vasaloppet, the largest cross country ski race in the world, in addition to taking fourth in the 50K American Birkebeiner and second in the Bouler Mountain Tour.

She even found time to attend a few cooking classes offered by a young woman from Israel who spent time in the Wood River Valley teaching Jewish congregants about their faith from an Israeli perspective.

A special gathering will honor Ring’s legacy this coming summer. Donations in her memory can be made to the Hospice of the Wood River Valley and the Wood River Women’s Foundation.