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Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

May 29, 1997

Torah Portion

Leave a Comment / Old Stories, Torah /

Because of our sins were we exiled from our land, and displaced far from our soil.” Thus the festival Musaf prayer expresses the theology of this week’s Torah portion: Obedience and loyalty to God brings rewards of prosperity and security. Sin brings exile and its terrors.

For a very long time I wrestled with this prayer. It seemed the height of Jewish neurosis: Not only must we suffer exile, we must also suffer guilt; as if it were our own fault. Do we really imagine that Jewish repentance and righteousness would have stopped the advancing armies of the Roman Empire? And even if such a thing could be affirmed about the destruction and exile 2,000 years ago, how can we, the witnesses of the Holocaust say such a prayer today? Perhaps Jeremiah could see the chastening hand of God in the Babylonian conqueror Nebuchadnezzar, but for us to even hint that the Holocaust might be subsumed under the same categories of divine reward and punishment — to even imagine that Hitler was the instrument of God’s justice — is simply an obscenity.

The Talmud wrestles with this as well and asks a very useful question: What specifically was the sin that got us thrown out of Israel? Talmud Yoma offers a startling answer: The First Temple was destroyed in 586 B.C.E. because of the sins of idolatry, immorality and bloodshed. “Why was the Second Temple destroyed, seeing that in its time they were occupying themselves with Torah, [observance of] precepts, and the practice of charity? Because therein prevailed sinat chinam, senseless hatred. This teaches that senseless hatred is considered as serious as the three sins of idolatry, immorality and bloodshed together.”

The Jewish people

suffered two millennia

of exile because of our

inability to recognize

our common destiny

The Talmud’s opinion is more than just sermonic. Its historicity is corroborated by the Roman historian Josephus and other sources. When the populace of Judea took up arms against Roman rule in 70 C.E., they were in a remarkably strong position. The Jewish community of the Roman Empire was large, wealthy and well-connected. Some historians estimate that fully 10 percent of the Roman Empire was Jewish. Coinciding with the revolt in Jerusalem, parallel insurrections broke out in Alexandria and other Jewish centers tying up Roman military assets. At the same time, the Parthian empire invaded the Roman eastern frontier. Rome, notoriously overextended in governing such a vast empire, was severely strained. Jerusalem was heavily fortified and within the city walls the rebels had ample supplies of food, water and weapons. The Judean revolt was a nightmare for the Roman Empire.

What then caused the swift collapse of the revolt, the destruction of Jerusalem and the subsequent exile of the Jewish people? According to Josephus, it was the unending internecine rivalry among the factions defending the city. Unable to agree upon one leader or one strategy, the Jewish defenders of Jerusalem spent more energy fighting one another than they did fighting the Roman invaders. One faction, excluded from the high command, burned all the city’s food stores in protest. Others simply abandoned the fight. It is a supreme irony that Masada is seen today as a symbol of Jewish fortitude and courage. Those heroic zealots who defended Masada and ultimately chose suicide over captivity had earlier deserted the defense of Jerusalem and fled to Masada when their leader was not chosen to head the revolt.

The rabbis of the Talmud were right. “Because of our sins were we exiled from our land.” It was senseless rivalry and spiteful hatred that brought the destruction of Jerusalem and the Holy Temple. The Jewish people suffered two millennia of exile because of our inability to recognize our common destiny, or need for one another, and our unwillingness to put aside rigid ideological differences and share in the common defense of people and homeland. And if we haven’t yet learned that lesson, we will surely find ourselves in exile once again. For the sin of sinat chinam brings swift and sure punishment. So teaches this week’s Torah portion. Shabbat Shalom.

Ed Feinstein is the associate rabbi at Valley Beth Shalom. He replaces Rabbi Steven Z. Leder, who will be completing a book (along with synagogue responsibilities at Wilshire Boulevard Temple) during the next six months.

All rights reserved by author, 1997.

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Spectator

Leave a Comment / Entertainment, Old Stories /

Israel Through an Artist’s Eyes

By Diane Arieff Zaga,

Arts Editor

If you didn’t know that David Rose was one of our priceless assets, proceed to his pen and ink drawings on exhibit at the University of Judaism’s Platt Gallery. A look at this lively body of work suggests that virtually everywhere 20th-century Jewish history was being made, David Rose was there.

Very different in tone, style and intent is the work of 19th-century photographer Félix Bonfils. The Stephen Cohen Gallery presents his fascinating photographs of 19th-century Palestine. Like other commercial photographers working in the Near East during the late 1800s, Bonfils pictures are an outsider’s ethnographic exploration of an exotic culture — its working people, social life, native customs and dress. These views are infused with a recognition of their relation to stories told in the Bible. Bonfils’ small albumen prints, which feature Biblical places and references with an almost abstract quality, convey a strong sense of mystery and timelessness. Solitary figures appear against vast desert landscapes or sitting motionless near the water’s edge. The results are astonishingly beautiful. Both exhibitions open this weekend.

Above, left, David Rose’s illustration of the children’s area of a kibbutz bomb shelter near the Golan Heights, 1972. Below, Félix Bonfils’ “The Dead Sea,” c.1880.In his role as artist-reporter, Rose began early. “When I finished art school,” he told The Journal, “I went to Palestine. This was during the 1930s and I was very interested in the Zionist movement. I tramped around the country with a knapsack on my back. I knew some Hebrew and some Yiddish, and I just went from kibbutz to kibbutz. It was one of the most interesting experiences of my life.” Rose’s work from that time — which depicted the campfire cameraderie, irrigation efforts and other aspects of pioneer life — was widely exhibited. Some of it is on permanent display at the Israel Museum.

The artist’s Platt show, entitled “Celebrating 100 Years of Zionism,” is being sponsored, appropriately enough, by the Consulate General of Israel, but the subject matter in this body of work extends far beyond the life and times of pre-State chalutzim (pioneers). In the decades that followed, Rose continued to document life in modern Israel while on assignment for the Histadrut, the Anti-Defamation League, Jewish National Fund and other organizations. Equally important are Rose’s drawings of Jewish life worldwide: Polish Jewish refugees in Denmark, fleeing German Jews who were turned back at the Swiss frontier and drawings that depicted Nazi concentration camps.

In his six decades as a professional artist, Rose worked for everyone from Israel Bonds to Walt Disney. “The reason my career is strange,” he said, “is that I had to straddle two different directions — commercial art to support my family and fine art to pursue my career.” Disney Studios beckoned Rose shortly after his wanderings through 1930s Palestine, prompting him to move to California. During his four years there he worked on such legendary animated features as “Fantasia,” “Snow White” and “Pinocchio.” During World War II, Rose was assigned to a unit under film director Frank Capra that made films for the U.S. War Department.

After the war, Rose enjoyed a successful commercial art career in film and TV advertising as an illustrator and art director, but he continued to cover dramatic moments in contemporary Jewish history as they unfolded. On assignment to furnish courtroom drawings for Reuters, CNBC and NBC, he attended the trial of the infamous French war criminal Klaus Barbie. “Most of my parents’ family in Poland perished during the Holocaust,” Rose said, “so as these broken people, the survivor witnesses, each took the stand and gave their accounts, there were times I was listening to their testimonies that it so affected me my eyes clouded with tears. I had to stop drawing and wait until I could collect myself. That was the most moving moment I ever had during that kind of work.”

“Félix Bonfils – Views of Palestine c. 1880″ runs from May 30 – July 5 at the Stephen Cohen Gallery, 7358 Beverly Blvd., LA. (213) 937-5525. The David Rose exhibition at UJ’s Platt Gallery runs from June 1-15 with an opening reception on June 5. 15600 Mulholland Dr. in Bel Air. (310) 476-9777, ext. 203.

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A Woman’s Voice

Leave a Comment / Old Stories, Womans Voice /

Though the June 3 Los Angeles municipal election has garnered little attention in the general press, there are two races of special interest to The Journal readership.

First, we must note the changing of the guard in the Valley/West Los Angeles council seat, being vacated, after 32 years, by Marvin Braude. Braude’s unique and pioneering focus on slow growth and environmental issues helped define a new brand of Jewish political activism, one that had nothing to do with Israel, and almost nothing to do with urban and minority issues as they were defined in the Tom Bradley years. As early as 1975, Braude confronted the black-Jewish coalition by opposing creation of the Community Redevelopment Agency, which was trying to rebuild downtown Los Angeles. He walked (or, rather, rode his bike) to the beat of his own drummer, representing a white-collar constituency that was wealthier, younger and more ethnically assimilated than, for example, the 5th District Jews of the Fairfax and Pico-Robertson area, represented for nearly 20 years by Zev Yaroslavsky. Braude’s politics were based on fiscal conservatism in the suburbs; in a way, he created the mold.

When I first began covering city hall, two decades ago, Braude mystified me. I remember thinking that his district’s obsession with clean air was bizarre for Los Angeles. But by 1997, Marvin Braude’s visions have become the norm. The issues in the runoff between community activist Georgia Mercer and Braude’s longtime aide Cindy Miscikowski are the ones that he helped name — congestion, growth and neighborhood control. Neither Mercer nor Miscikowski can run against his record; they can merely quarrel over who is a more contemporary version of the old man.

Political observers say that the close runoff reflects a district that is split between the Valley (Mercer) and the City (Miscikowski), but distinctions between the two groups, other than geographic, are hard to find. Both Valley and City voters in the 11th District are concerned about noisy airports (Van Nuys and Santa Monica), traffic, juvenile crime and how to develop a sound business base without caving in to private interest groups. If there is a perception that secession of the Valley is inevitable, neither Mercer nor Miscikowski is leading the charge.Today, almost everyone wants to secede from Los Angeles.

In her now-famous campaign mailer, Mercer charged Miscikowski with using insider connections, including aid from her land-use lawyer/husband Doug Ring, to procure a gated community for her own Brentwood Circle neighborhood. Mercer struck a chord in voters, but one of resentment and jealousy, not elitism. Gated communities are a dicey issue — 143 other Los Angeles neighborhoods applied for gates, only to have them denied. Miscikowski must be sensing that change. Her own campaign mailer defends the Brentwood Circle gates as an example of how she empowered a community to get what it wants from city hall.

In their concerns, Jewish voters (representing 26 percent of the total registered voters in the district) are indistinguishable from their neighbors.

“We decided that there was no need for a special Jewish-issues piece,” said Miscikowski consultant Rick Taylor. “We felt that every issue cuts through all the communities, at least this time around.”

Larry Levine, campaign consultant for Georgia Mercer, said much the same thing. “There’s a small group of voters that still seeks a candidate with a Jewish surname,” he told me. “But, as for the other voters, no, I can’t think of any other issue that singles out the Jewish voter. At least not in this race.”

Both Mercer and Miscikowski have sizable Jewish support. A Miscikowski mailer cites her years spent working at the Skirball Cultural Center; Mercer’s mailer shows a photo of her son’s bar mitzvah and a reference to her being honored by Woodland Hills’ Kol Tikvah synagogue as a “Voice of Hope.” Jewish life and the Jewish community are now the norm, not the fringe.

In the last decade, the demographic center of Jewish life has moved right into the heart of the 11th District. Not for nothing was the Skirball Culture Center built at Mulholland and the 405 freeway — the presumed heart of Jewish Los Angeles. Finally, the Jewish community has caught up to Marvin Braude.

*

Meanwhile, community activist and former teacher Valerie Fields faces lawyer/parent Ken Sackman in a runoff for the Westside/Valley’s Fourth District board of education seat, being vacated by Mark Slavkin.

Fields has lined up practically the Who’s Who of Jewish community and elected leadership. Sackman has virtually all the newspaper endorsements.

Why the split? This race is a generational divide. Fields has paid her dues, having served throughout the Bradley administration as the mayor’s liaison to the Jewish community and the constituents of the San Fernando Valley. She has connections from city hall to Washington, and believes that these will help the school district cut administrative red tape.

But Sackman, though a political neophyte, impresses everyone he meets as an angry, astute attorney, a parent who thinks his two young children deserve better than to have their education micromanaged by the board downtown.

At base, the Fields/Sackman runoff reflects a community that is only now recommitting itself to public education. After a generation spent fleeing to day schools and private education, Jewish parents are giving charter and LEARN reforms a closer look. Schools such as Palisades High are now gaining community support. But if the Los Angeles Unified School District Board continues to be a hothouse of racial infighting; if the board undercuts parent control, then that new support could wither.

Regardless of who wins on Tuesday, this revived interest is good news.

All rights reserved by Marlene Adler Marks, 1997.

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LettersJewish Education

Leave a Comment / Education, Letters to the Editor, Old Stories /

We were pleased to read Beverly Gray’s column entitled “Congregation of Learners” (May 16). The column on the Experiment in Congregational Education, sponsored by the Hebrew Union College Rhea Hirsch School of Education, pointed to the important work in enhancing congregational education being carried out by this project.

While the column focused on the work at Leo Baeck Temple, we feel it is vital for your readers to be aware of the national scope of the Experiment in Congregational Education. In 1993, seven congregations from all over the United States joined the project. Leo Baeck was among them. In January, 1997 seven additional congregations became part of the Experiment in Congregational Education, including Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills. This important project would not have been possible without the support of grants from the Mandel Associated Foundations, the Nathan Cummings Foundation and the Gimprich Family Foundation.

Leo Baeck Temple, as well as the first tier of seven congregations, received financial support from the Covenant Foundation to enable its participation in the project.

In this time of concern about the future of Jewish education, particularly congregational education, we are grateful for The Jewish Journal’s attention to such efforts.

Professor Sara S. Lee,

Director, Rhea Hirsch School

of Education

Dr. Isa Aron,

Director, Experiment in Congregational Education

Hebrew Union College

Jewish Institute of Religion

*

I was personally offended by the characterization of Reform Judaism in the opening paragraphs of Beverly Gray’s recent commentary (“Congregation of Learners,” May 16). I grew up in a Classical Reform congregation; I was inspired by the sophisticated and profound beauty of its music and was intellectually challenged by its coupling of theology and reason. My experiences as a child and young adult in that sacred setting propelled me into the rabbinate.

Gray’s comment that the synagogue of my youth might be considered “not far from Christianity” was not worthy of your publication. Further, her remark that the synagogue aesthetic of the Classical Reform synagogue reminded her of her “best friend’s Lutheran church” demonstrates that she has spent little time in either setting.

The Experiment in Congregational Education program, sponsored by the Hebrew Union College, under the expert leadership of Professor Sara Lee, provides an opportunity to revolutionize supplementary Jewish religious education in this country. It is a shame that Gray chose to discuss it in a manner that disparaged the Reform movement, which gave birth to this worthy endeavor.

I personally look forward to the day when the regular commentators of The Jewish Journal can write about the various movements within religious Judaism without irresponsibly condemning any of them.

Rabbi Michael A. White

Temple Isaiah

No On Scheinbaum

Mr. Bustany is certainly entitled to his opinions (Letters, “An Outsider’s View,” May 16). But when The Journal features part of his statements as a large print masthead over the Letters page, it does a disservice to the Jewish community and to the State of Israel. The Journal is unilaterally endorsing his position together with its underlying hazards and intentions.

Yes, indeed, cloning an additional 61 Stanley Sheinbaums in the Knesset would make “peace between Israel and the Arabs a snap.” Unfortunately, the snap would be Israel’s spine breaking. And the peace would be analogous to that which took place during World War II, in Norway, when the Germans installed a puppet government under the traitor, Quisling.

Bustany loves Scheinbaum. But Scheinbaum forgets that what the Arabs really want is for the Israelis to jump into the Mediterranean Sea.

Milly and Irv Justman

Los Angeles

*

If American Jews would have cloned 61 Stanley Scheinbaums in the past, there would be a lot less of them today and they would be speaking German or Japanese.

As for the bleeding heart reference to what the Zionists and Israel had done and are doing to the Arabs: They took a barren desert and transformed it into a productive state. Democracy was introduced into the region. (In how many of the Arab governments, anywhere, are Jews permitted to vote?)

The gall to speak of the self-respect of the Jewish people hanging on by a thread. Does Mr. Bustany forget the Arab’s history of terrorism and violence? A history that still continues today with indiscriminate slaughter against civilians. Has he heard of the official Arab proclamation to kill anyone who sells land to an Israeli? A proclamation which, by the way, was carried out recently.

Obviously, Mr. Bustany just ignores things like this. Israel does not need to apologize. Nor does it need critics like Mr. Bustany. Throughout history, appeasement always has to be paid for later and, at a much higher price. Or, if Britain had cloned 61 Neville Chamberlains…..

Stanley M. Gottleib

Culver City

Inspiration To All

I was deeply touched by the article entitled “Growing Pains” (May 16), about Rabbi Alan Lew and his wife, Sherril Jaffe, regarding their struggle to deal with their rebellious daughter.

I, too, am the mother of a daughter. At the beginning of my journey, I am still treasuring every word, smile, and even nearly every scream of my 18-month-old. Yet, I am unaware of the challenges she is to present to me and my husband.

We know that the most loving and well-meaning parents are faced with children who pose challenges to them. Challenges they could not have predicted.

What I found poignant about this article is how willing the couple was to be candid. This openness is a great service to our community, which likes to keep its imperfections well hidden. In honesty can be found healing — for this family and, for other families.

I wish this family success and happiness as they come to accept the uniqueness and imperfections in each other; and as they continue to find solutions that suit their own situation. May their openness inspire others, and help to generate resources for others in their situation.

Sandy Lasarow

Los Angeles

No Cheap Shot

The “No To Peace Now” letter by Stanley M. Gottleib (May 16) contains an egregious error by the writer. It was, of course, Neville Chamberlain, not Clement Atlee who is remembered for his infamous “Peace In Our Time” statement.

Surely, your editors knew this. The letter should have at least carried an italicized correction at its conclusion. Allowing it to appear as written constitutes a decidedly cheap shot and a not so subtle attempt to belittle the writer’s point of view.

Hal Denner

Sherman Oaks

Editor’s note: We read the letter as Atlee’s comment on Chamberlain, made after the Second World War, when he was prime minster. Perhaps we were in error. The cheap shot is Mr. Denner’s projection, and the attribution of motive to us is misplaced.

What is Peace

In his response to my Letter to the Editor “Opposing Har Homa,” Stanley Gottlieb claims that “…American’s For Peace Now’s definition of peace is that whatever Israel does wrong…”.

That statement is not true.

Americans For Peace Now and our Israeli colleagues, Shalom Achshav, have one objective — to help Israel become secure.

Toward that objective, APN and SA have, on many occasions over the years, supported Israeli governments then in power:

They organized the largest public gathering in Israel supporting Prime Minister Begin’s Camp David agreement; often supported Prime Minister’s Rabin and Peres in their efforts to move the peace process forward.

Before the Hebron agreement was signed, our Israeli partners met with Arafat and urged him to accept Netanyahu’s proposal on Hebron, and when that agreement was signed, they publicly congratulated the prime minister on that accomplishment.

In contrast to the implication in Mr. Gottleib’s letter, we have repeatedly joined with the Israeli and U.S. governments position in publicly urging Arafat and the Palestinian Authority to clamp down on terrorism and honor their agreements if they want the peace process to move forward.

Mr. Gottlieb seems to say that raising an objection to Israeli government policies (such as building at Har Homa) “…is a sign of internal strife and weakness.” I disagree. I believe it shows Israel’s strength. Israel is a democracy and a democracy demands that informed public opinions be voiced.

Shalom Achshav in Israel was started in 1978 by retired Israel Defense Force officers who believed that the only longterm security for Israel was in a negotiated peace.

The late Moshe Dayan is credited with saying “You don’t make peace with your friends, but with your enemies.” And that meant talking with the Palestinians, which was completely against then-current Israeli government policies. Americans for Peace Now was started in 1982 because of pleas from Shalom Achshav to help in this struggle.

We believe in building a strong, secure Israel that has the wisdom and courage to negotiate for peace. I hope Mr. Gottleib shares that vision.

Richard S. Gunther

Immediate Past President

Americans for Peace Now

Spicy Bible Stories

In Robert Eshman’s review of Jonathan Kirsch’s new book, “The Harlot by the Side of the Road” (Jewish Journal, May 9), it is stated that “…for many generations, the very parts that render the Bible NC-17 have been excised from public consumption.” The author was quoted as saying, “We’ve suppressed these stories” and concluded with “For centuries we’ve avoided them and pretended they’re not there.”

Nothing could be further from the truth as far as the Jewish people are concerned. The weekly Torah readings in thousands of synagogues include it all… from the seemingly endless design details of the mishkan to the spicy, conniving adultery and premeditated manslaughter by King David.

What is true is that too few of us participate in hearing or studying Torah text in its original form, even though it is publicly available 52 weeks a year.

Kirsch’s book, therefore, reinforces our premise that a professional artistic presentation and interpretation of traditional texts reaches a far wider audience in a less threatening way than rabbinic sermons or scholarly works. We hope that his book will stimulate an appetite among readers to explore the original.

John H. Rauch

Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity

Correction

On May 16, in On The Scene, The Journal indicated that the 32-cent stamp of Raoul Wallenberg and a group of survivors, designed by Bart Silverman, could be obtained by sending a donation to Temple Knesset Israel. A postal official called to say that, of course, the stamp is also available for 32 cents at any post office.HR>

SEND YOUR OWN LETTER TO THE JEWISH JOURNAL AT ab871@lafn.org

Attention: Letters.

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Dear Deborah

Leave a Comment / Dear Deborah, Old Stories /

Dear Deborah,

My husband and I were very depressed this past Mother’s Day. Both of our mothers passed away years ago, my husband’s by suicide. Also, both of us came from parents who divorced when we were young, and neither of us had very good relationships with our mothers.

We do not have children, so we have no reason to celebrate this holiday–and no grandmothers either. We are both left feeling either sad, guilty, angry or just plain depressed every Mother’s Day, as if we’ve stored up all our feelings for our mothers for one day of the year, although I also feel sad on her birthday.

I do not want next year, or any other year for that matter, to turn out like this. Do you have any suggestions?

Blue

Dear Blue,

Why try to chase away your blues when it is perfectly natural for you and your husband to feel sadness about your mothers on Mother’s Day? Instead, create some ritual in which you actually do have an arena in which to feel sad and reminisce together without it becoming an unbearable wallow-fest. A visit to each of their graves or an annual revisiting of your family photo albums are examples of possible rituals.

Then afterward you might celebrate how fortunate you are to have a supportive partner with whom you share so powerful a common bond. Consider volunteering at a homeless shelter or nursing home to bring some comfort to some mothers who are down-on-their-luck or forgotten. In comforting one another as well as others, you partake in a powerful cure.

Un-Real Estate

Dear Deborah,

I am a single 34-year-old divorced woman, successful in my work, competent in the world, yet stuck in the middle of my parents like a 5-year-old. My parents haven’t gotten along all my life. They claim to stay together because of money…of which there seems to be plenty.

Five years ago, my father bought a house “for me.” What I thought that meant was that he’d paid the downpayment and I’d pay the mortgage and repairs. I thought it was a gift.

The truth is, he seems to have bought it for himself. He and my mother live in a different city, and he comes here whenever he likes to get away from her –and he stays with me. At first I didn’t mind, but now it’s really putting a crimp in my social life and my sense of peace. He just shows up whenever he wants, and it’s gotten to the point where he’s staying with me almost half the time. Also, he treats me like he treats Mom, expecting me to provide dinner, do laundry for him, etc. Lately, my mom has started showing up to get away from my dad. Also, each complains bitterly to me about the other all the time.

I’ve tried to speak to him, but he says it’s his house too, and I have no right to turn him away. His name is on the deed, not mine, but he says I will inherit the house. In the meantime, I’ve invested so much in the mortgage and upkeep, I feel like I should have some claim on it.

Can you help me to figure this out?

Crowded

Dear Crowded,

Sounds like it’s time for a thorough spring-cleaning of your little bed-and-breakfast as well as your psyche.

Let’s get this straight. You make the mortgage payments, pay for the repairs and run an inn for some very demanding guests — in addition to your full-time job. You feel incapable of saying no to their demands, and the benefit is…what? In 40 years you get to keep the house? Is that what you want?

This house has become a metaphor for your role in your parents’ marriage. They take turns dumping their marital debris on you, just as they heap demands upon your hospitality. And as long as you continue to allow it, you are purchasing this house on the extortion plan.

Here are your choices:

1) Tell your parents that not having privacy or the choice about whether to have guests and when to have them is not acceptable.

2) If they are unwilling to respect your wishes, offer to buy them out.

3) If they say no, offer them to buy you out.

4) If all else fails, move out, rent an apartment until you have saved up for your own home, and learn that you had to spend several years, great effort and thousands in mortgage payments on the lesson that you refuse to be a human garbage dump and that, in order to grow up, you need some boundaries with your parents.

If these choices seem a little overwhelming now, picture your future. Same house, white picket fence, spouse, children — and your parents’ rotten marriage still parked in the living room.

Davening For Dollars

Dear Deborah,

Our son is invited to the bar mitzvah of a successful, bright classmate. The boy has announced to all his friends in school to please give him cash only because he wants to save up for a trip to Israel, which his parents cannot afford. We were surprised by this behavior and wonder if his parents know that he is busy shnorring from his friends. We think it is pretty tacky. What do you think?

J. S.

Dear J.S.,

The boy is asking for what he wants, and one must admire his chutzpah and determination. One might also note that he is not asking for money for a fantasy road trip to follow a Smashing Pumpkins’ tour. If, however, what you want is an etiquette opinion, you’ll have to take it up with Emily Post or Miss Manners.

Bottom line is that the young man may not know which one is the fish fork, but odds are, one day, you’ll be reading about his accomplishments in the Wall Street Journal — or perhaps The Jerusalem Post.

I vote for cutting the boy a check.

All letters to Dear Deborah require a name, address and telephone number for purposes of verification. Names will, of course, be withheld upon request. Our readers should know that when names are used in a letter, they are fictitious.

Dear Deborah welcomes your letters. Responses can be given only in the newspaper. Send letters to Deborah Berger-Reiss, 1800 S. Robertson Blvd., Ste. 927, Los Angeles, CA 90035. You can also send E-mail: deborahb@primenet.com

Deborah Berger-Reiss is a West Los Angeles psychotherapist.

All rights reserved by author

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The Boom Years

Leave a Comment / Old Stories, Rob Eshman /

If you look out the window of Room 120 at Sinai Akiba Academy, you’ll see a hole. The hole is the size of a city block. It goes four stories deep into the earth, near where Wilshire and Beverly Glen boulevards cross. One year from now, the hole will be fitted with a parking garage to accommodate 462 cars. Atop the garage will sit two new school buildings, whose new classrooms, play areas, labs and staff rooms will serve 772 pre-school and day-school students. Remarkable as the scope of this $25 million construction is, consider this: there’s more.

Across town, Wilshire Boulevard Temple is steaming toward completion of its $22 million Audrey and Sydney Irmas Campus. This four-and-a-half acre oasis of open space and Jerusalem stone-banded buildings, at the intersection of Olympic and Barrington, will serve more than 600 children from pre-school through eighth grade, and offer state-of-the-art programs and facilities for all ages.

These two massive projects are but the latest in a construction boom that has forever changed the face of Jewish Los Angeles over the past 10 years. Stephen S. Wise Temple is putting the finishing touches on its $30 million Milken High School. Temple Beth Am’s Pressman Academy, which moved into its new building in 1995, has doubled student enrollment in its K-8 program, from 120 to 250 students in just three years. The Harkham Hillel Hebrew Academy, which began as a day school in a room at Congregation Beth Jacob, has moved into a multi-million dollar facility at Olympic and Doheny, while its enrollment has swelled to 700. Shalhevet Academy has gone from zero to 130 students since it was founded in 1992.

Several factors underlie the demand and expansion, according to Dr. Gil Graff, director of the Bureau of Jewish Education. The most mundane may be that there are simply more school-age Jewish children out there. “We are in the echo of the baby boom,” says Graff. Recent influxes of Russian, Persian and Israeli Jews have only swelled the number.

But Graff also notes that the deterioration of public schools, the increasingly high-quality education that Jewish schools offer and the sense among parents that the Jewish aspect of these schools gives a “values-added dimension” to education all play a role in raising enrollment.

The day school allure hasn’t been lost on synagogues. They have built and enlarged their schools in order to serve their members’ needs and to bring in young families as new members. These calculations have played out against a larger Jewish communal sense that, in the words of Sinai Temple’s incoming Senior Rabbi David Wolpe, “Education is the salvation of American Jewry, even though it’s a slower salvation than all the other salvations we’re used to.”

The building boom is the clearest sign that salvation may be afoot. But the structures themselves are only part of the story.

Wilshire Boulevard Temple Senior Rabbi Harvey Fields delights in taking visitors around the new Irmas Campus. He has done it countless times — for donors, potential donors, members, even journalists. First stop is an architectural model inside a temporary bungalow. The finished campus, built on the site of a medical tower destroyed by the Northridge earthquake and a former psychiatric hospital, will boast park-like open space surrounding gently curving main buildings. The chapel will double as a screening room. There’s to be an arts center, three stories of classrooms, a gymnasium where parents can work out after they drop their children off for school, a dining hall that spills out onto a quad, a pre-school playground designed down to the tiny tricycle track that threads around the jungle gym.

In the surest Wrightian sense, the form of the new campus reflects this new kind of function. Where the old temple, built in 1928 near Wilshire and Western boulevards, is a looming monument protecting a peaceful inner courtyard, the Irmas Campus is open and turned outward. It is, in a word, welcoming.

“We didn’t need to build another temple,” says Fields, who stresses that the temple’s main synagogue and rabbinical offices will remain at the imposing mid-Wilshire location. “We wanted a combination between a community center and a religious center. It’s a campus for Jewish education for all ages.”

The temple’s Westside Task Force began polling members several years ago to determine what they wanted in a new site, and consulted numerous educational experts, according to Temple President Mark Siegel. What emerged is basically this: The Jewish schools of the future will no longer be just for children. “We built a campus for the entire congregation,” says Siegel.

The temple’s task force put as much thought, effort and fund-raising into developing programs for the campus that would educate every Jew, from toddlers to the seniors. The campus’ Mann Family Early Childhood Center will offer classes for grandparents, mommies, daddies, single parents, divorced parents, multiple- birth parents, interfaith couples, working parents and older, “delayed” parents.

“It’s a different breed of parent today,” says Betsy Brown Braun, the Mann school’s founding director. Parents want a strong Jewish component, and they want, and need, to be part of their child’s education. “They want their children to feel joy about their Judaism,” says Braun, a mother of triplets. “And they want to feel it too. It’s about an identity.”

The larger campus will offer a similar range of educational programs. A task force chaired by Evon Gottlieb came up with a 13- page wish list, most of which seems to have been granted. Alongside its nursery and day schools, the temple will offer inter-ethnic Mommy and Me classes, arts centers for children, adults and seniors, outreach programs for singles and couples, computer labs and a social-action center.

Such an expansive notion of the idea of a Jewish school, says Fields, is the whole idea. “The Jewish future is about creating opportunities for community and education,” he says. “This is the next step.”

Sinai is taking the next step too. Its new construction offers much-needed space for a school that has grown to take over almost every available room in the existing synagogue structure. Along with the parking, there’ll be a two-story multi-purpose room, a lot-sized rooftop play area and a total of 80,000 square feet of classroom space. With its new elbow room, the school will be able to offer family education, parenting programs and extensive religious and study programs for all ages, according to incoming president Jan Zakowski, who has shepherded the project since its inception. Such programming, she says, “changes a family’s level of observance.” Zakowski is confident the demand for such services already exists. “People will come when they know it’s there,” she says.

The construction and programming at Wilshire and Sinai represent a nearly $100 million investment in a philosophy of family education — making room for baby as well as for mommy, daddy, the grandparents — everyone. Synagogue schools such as Valley Beth Shalom and Stephen S. Wise helped pioneer the idea, and now it has become doctrine, in part because synagogues see education as the first step toward active synagogue life for most young families. “They’re rethinking Jewish education beyond just dealing with kids,” says Ron Wolfson, director of the Whizin Institute for Jewish Family Life at the University of Judaism. Sinai and Wilshire both looked to the Whizin Institute for advice in drawing up plans and programs. “They see the connection between family, education, work and intake into synagogue life,” says Wolfson.

Of course, no one is saying that these new programs — or the new buildings that will house them — will address all the issues facing Jewish education. Parents still complain about what they believe is too-high tuition and too-few scholarships. According to the Cato Institute, the national average for combined elementary/secondary private schools tuition is $4,266. This year tuition for Sinai Akiba day school will cost parents between $7,500-8,500. Preschool at Wilshire Boulevard will cost members $3,975, non-members $5,275. At Sinai, about 9.5 percent of the students receive some sort of financial aid. (Since building projects at both institutions are being funded by donations, neither expects tuitions to increase as a result.)

Other issues the schools face include low teacher salaries and striking the balance between secular and religious studies.

But concerns like these hardly staunch the demand, which Graf says he expects to remain high. Indeed, no one has raised the spectre of the Jewish education boom some day petering out, leaving all this new construction underused.

“I’m optimistic,” says Graff. “As Jewish education builds deeper roots in the community, demand will only grow.”

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Netanyahu’s First Anniversary

Leave a Comment / Old Stories, Politics, Power /

As the first anniversary of Binyamin Netanyahu’s election as prime minister approached this week, Israel looked back on a tumultuous year in which the public was more sharply divided and over a wider span of issues — political, social, and religious — than ever before.

Netanyahu reached the prime ministry as a novice. Young, energetic, and generous with promises of changes in Israel’s way of life and outlook — particularly the pursuit of excellence and the “Americanization” of the economy and system of government — he generated great expectations among large sectors of the population. But the bottom line at the end of his first year is a sharp sense of disappointment, more in the man than in his policies.

Perhaps the clearest indication of that mood is the results of a Gallup poll published in Ma’ariv on the occasion of Netanyahu’s first anniversary in office. It shows that a full 62 percent (vs. 31 percent) of the population is dissatisfied with the prime minister’s performance as a whole; almost two-thirds of the public (65 percent vs. 21 percent) are dissatisfied with his performance in the sphere of administration and public probity; and 52 percent of the electorate (vs. 29 percent) believes that the former (Labor) government was better than the present one.

Netanyahu ran on an aggressive platform promising “peace with security.” Today, the sense of pessimism that has overtaken Israel is reflected in the finding that a majority of the public (56 percent) believes there is a greater chance that Israel will go to war with the Arabs than make peace with them (23 percent).

Upon being elected, Netanyahu promised to work toward national unity by being the prime minister of “all the people.” But, today, 56 percent of the population (vs. 28 percent) believes that in the course of his tenure, Israeli society will be marked more by growing division than by enhanced unity. Finally, and perhaps most instructive, the Israeli electorate ranked Netanyahu in 16th place among his 18 ministers (with a rating of 5.6 out of 10). If elections were held today, the Gallup poll showed, Labor’s Ehud Barak would defeat Netanyahu by 5 percentage points.

Cited as Netanyahu’s main accomplishments this year are his massive budget cut, at the start of his term, and progress in the sphere of privatization. However, the litany of his failures dominates the year in review. Chief among the criticisms has been Netanyahu’s failure to bring “excellence” to government. He was blocked in his attempt to appoint “professional” (rather than politically dictated) ministers to the Finance and Justice ministries. His choice of officials and advisers has been widely questioned (due largely to their lack of experience). And his short-lived appointment of party hack Ronni Bar-On as attorney-general was an outright disaster that culminated in a legal scandal (whose final resolution remains in the hands of the High Court of Justice).

On top of that, Netanyahu virtually declared war on the country’s “elites,” especially those entrenched in public service (e.g., the Justice Ministry, Foreign Ministry, and defense forces) but proved incapable of replacing them with qualified alternatives. The confusion resulting from his habit of simply bypassing the establishment’s professionals, as well as his own ministers, has resulted in a swarm of pointed barbs, even from within the Cabinet itself. Trade and Commerce Minister Natan Sharansky characterized Netanyahu’s amateur style of management as a “circus,” and, after the Bar-On fiasco, Netanyahu was forced to consent to the establishment of a ministerial committee to review the method of appointments.

A second prominent trait receiving much attention is the prime minister’s personal knack for alienating key partners and supporters by demonstrating insensitivity and failing to keep promises. Considerable grumbling has come out of the Likud itself on his score, mostly related to broken promises of political appointments. On the other side of the ocean, the rift between Netanyahu’s government and the Conservative and Reform sectors of the American-Jewish community, over the Conversion Bill, is virtually unprecedented in the history of the state. But perhaps the most disturbing instances of this syndrome have occurred with Israel’s partners to the peace process in the Arab world and beyond.

Both Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan’s King Hussein have chastised Netanyahu for misleading them and thus damaging the trust so focal to relations between national leaders. It’s hardly necessary to elaborate on the grim state of relations between Netanyahu and Yasser Arafat. Washington has been yet another source of messages of impatience and discontent, especially after Netanyahu ignored American advice not to build on Har Homa. Not only has Secretary of State Madeleine Albright made it clear that she will not visit the region until a formula can be found to resume the peace talks, this week a high-ranking American official threatened that the United States would pull back from its mediation effort altogether.

Thus, despite stumbling his way through much of his first year in office, Netanyahu has scored a major achievement, from his standpoint. “One would have to be an idiot . . . not to see the long list of failures for which Netanyahu is responsible,” wrote Ma’ariv columnist Yosef (Tommy) Lapid last week. “But on the key issue on which he is being judged, Netanyahu has achieved what he wanted . . . He has frozen the peace process, which in his eyes, and in the eyes of his voters, is a recipe for national destruction. . . . He can’t boast about his achievement publicly, because vis-á-vis the world at large, and the Americans in particular, he is committed to carrying out the Oslo agreement. . . . [Yet] what is happening today is what a small majority of Israelis and a great majority of Jews decided upon a year ago.”

That, however, was a year ago. Now, as Israel sinks deeper into diplomatic isolation, enjoying neither peace nor enhanced security, while unemployment rises and the economy flags, far more than the 0.7 percent of the electorate that handed Netanyahu his victory last year has given him a bad report card. He has admitted to making mistakes and pledged to mend some of his ways. Whether and how he will keep that promise remains to be seen.

Approval Rating

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s approval rating after one year in office, according to a Gallup/Ma’ariv poll of Jewish Israelis, is at 31 percent. The following is a sampling of questions from the poll:

Results drawn from a sampling of 491 individuals from adult Israeli Jews. Sampling Error: 4.5 percent.

* Are you satisfied with Binyamin Netanyahu’s performance in general:

31 percent satisfied

62 percent not satisfied

7 percent undecided

* Which government is better, the current one or the previous one:

29 percent current

52 percent previous

19 percent undecided

* Do you prefer Netanyahu’s government to continue its tenure until the year 2000, or to move up elections:

42 percent until 2000

49 percent move up elections

9 percent undecided

(Netanyahu voters:

70 percent until 2000

22 percent move up elections

Peres voters:

11percent until 2000

84 percent move up elections)

All rights reserved by author, 1997.

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Too Hot Kitchen?

Leave a Comment / Community, Old Stories /

Today the once-legendary Spanish Kitchen restaurant is a study in decay, the “K” missing from the neon sign, the arched storefront crumbling and covered with graffiti. It stands next door to the Yavneh Hebrew Academy, in the midst of a thriving Orthodox community on Beverly Boulevard, between Fairfax and La Brea. &’009;

In the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s, of course, the eatery was a fashionable Hollywood watering hole, where Buster Keaton and John Barrymore dined. Then, one night in 1961, owner Pearl Caretto stacked the chairs on the tables and locked the door, never to return. There were no explanations, and the interior has remained just as Caretto left it, with the old-fashioned meat grinders on the counter in an eerie time warp. Since then, there have been rumors about ghosts and about why the popular restaurant closed so abruptly. People have wondered if Pearl’s husband was killed by the mob or in a lovers’ quarrel.

Not just the Orthodox are unhappy about the latest newcomers to the area: the various trendy, upscale shops, restaurants and coffeehouses (Modernica, Lumpy Gravy, Red, Insomnia, etc.) that attract a Melrose-y kind of crowd.

Last year, Los Angeles businessman Ron Mavaddat received an unexpected answer to the mystery. He chanced to see two women unlocking the restaurant’s rusty gates. They turned out to be Caretto’s granddaughters and, they told him, the gossip about the place was bunk. Their late grandmother simply could not run a restaurant once her husband developed Parkinson’s disease.

Mavaddat learned that the restaurant was for sale and that Yavneh was interested in buying it. The businessman came up with a better offer, and, he thought, a better idea. He and his colleagues at Prime Pacific Investments would purchase the restaurant and restore it to what it was in its heyday.

The deal closed in early 1996, and the new owners soon found support from historical preservationists, from merchants and from some residents who had regarded the building as an eyesore. &’009;

What the corporation did not expect, says Prime Pacific attorney Wayne Avrashow, was the vehement opposition from Yavneh, from religious leaders and from more than 50 neighbors, Orthodox and non-Orthodox, who have written letters to the city’s office of zoning administration. All are protesting the restaurant’s application for a conditional- use permit to serve alcohol, which was refiled last week. And all feel that their once-peaceful neighborhood is under siege by establishments like the Spanish Kitchen.

The reason for the tension is that the area has changed since the restaurant was in its heyday; no longer is it “replete with bars and boisterous greasy spoons,” according to the Los Angeles Times. Rather, over the past two decades, many middle- and upper-middle-class families have moved into the Spanish-style homes between Fuller and Martel avenues; among them are a growing number of Orthodox Jews who frequent two schools (Yavneh and the Etz Jacob Hebrew Academy) and at least three synagogues within several blocks.

But not just the Orthodox are unhappy about the latest newcomers to the area: the various trendy, upscale shops, restaurants and coffeehouses (Modernica, Lumpy Gravy, Red, Insomnia, etc.) that attract a Melrose-y kind of crowd. &’009;

Other residents complain that these establish-ments create noise and traffic and that the Spanish Kitchen will simply compound the problem. And for the Orthodox, there is an additional issue: a culture clash that was evident as a reporter recently stood in front of the Spanish Kitchen. Passersby included young hipsters dressed in black –and a very different kind of young person dressed in black: yeshiva bochers wearing their traditional long coats and fedoras.

Chaya Shamie, who teaches at the Bais Yaakov School for Girls and has lived on Fuller for 13 years, illustrates the Orthodox perspective with an example. She cites the fashion show, with blaring music and scantily-clad models, that once took place at one of the trendy establishments and kept her family up late. Her children peered at the spectacle through the upstairs windows. “We in the Orthodox community try to shelter our children,” she explains, “but when you tell them not to look, of course they’re curious.”

However, Yavneh’s Rabbi Avrohom Fireman and Rabbi Yoel Bursztyn of Bais Yaakov, which will move into Yavneh’s building, when Yavneh relocates, in about a year, say the issue is not one of the Orthodox vs. the Spanish Kitchen. They say they are simply concerned about the safety of their students should a restaurant serve liquor next door.

Beverly Wolfe is Jewish. Her husband, Robert, is not, and neither want another restaurant to open near their trim, pink house on Fuller.

Their resentment began several years ago, when Beverly’s late father, Paul Pink (of Pink’s Hot Dog Stand), consistently could not find a parking spot because of all the restaurant patrons. Paul was elderly and had trouble walking, so Beverly led the fight to obtain permit parking on the street. “But I can’t stand that I have to pay to park my car in front of my own house,” says Robert, who is also routinely disturbed by the loud voices of patrons who have been drinking at the local eateries. &’009;

Meanwhile, Prime Pacific, working with Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Feuer, has come up with 41 conditions for the proposed permit to serve alcohol. For example, the restaurant will serve only two drinks per patron before 6 p.m., on weekdays, and there will be no free-standing bar. “I can’t point to any other neighborhood in this city where the conditions are so strict,” Feuer says.

Wolfe, dissatisfied, counters: “The Spanish Kitchen may now be an eyesore, but at least it’s a quiet eyesore.”

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‘Mendel & Moses’

Leave a Comment / Entertainment, Old Stories /

When Mendel Moscowitz is transported from Brooklyn to ancient Egypt, the juxtaposition of a whiny New Yorker on the eve of the Exodus is supposed to create the setting for campy high jinks and musical hilarity.

Billed as “Fiddler on the Roof” meets “The Ten Commandments,” original musical “Mendel & Moses” feels more like “The Little Rascals” meets Soupy Sales. It has an amateurish “let’s put on a show” quality with an overabundance of shticky one-liners that even Sales might be embarrassed to use.

The action begins after a Passover seder, when Mendel questions God about the meaning of the holiday. Gabriel, straight out of the Bible and dressed in full Egyptian regalia, takes Mendel back to Egyptian slave days.

“How far is Egypt? Do I get frequent-flier miles?” asks Mendel, played by veteran actor Ciro Barbaro.

“Here I am in Egypt without my Mylanta,” he says. And the canned music kicks in. Oy.

The warmed-over Catskills schlock appeared to leave the audience at Sunday’s performance a little queasy as well.

Written by Jeremiah and Wendy Ginsberg, the show is a misguided hodgepodge of styles. In the opening scene, Mendel’s family is singing about Passover while three women dressed in red are inexplicably rendering Bob Fosse-esque dance moves. In another scene, a slave sporting a goofy burlap outfit attempts to deliver a serious monologue about the brutality of slavery — a moment that is misplaced among the wacky musical numbers.

And when I say wacky, I mean lyrics such as “lice aren’t nice, so take my advice, avoid the lice.” And perhaps the most egregious example: “eenie-meenie-minie Moses, catch the Pharaoh by his toes-es.” Even the Little Rascals might have come up with something less grating.

The cast, most of whom have a list of impressive credits, do their best to compensate for the material. Still, in the intimate Century City Playhouse, their acting has the overblown feel of bad childrens’ theater.

While the creators of the musical are attempting to teach us about Jewish history, they are also feeding us a full course of unpleasant Jewish stereotypes, including a squealing Jewish American Princess as Eve and even Mendel himself, who convinces Moses that he should help alleviate slavery because he’s a good businessman.

The only audience members who seemed to enjoy the broad humor were those in the under-10 set. Not marketed as a play for children, “Mendel & Moses” could ramp up the silliness, cut many of its songs and offensive stereotypes, and perhaps find new life as a holiday show for children.

After all, there was something charming about a stern Moses dancing a duet with a befuddled Mendel. But the joke gets old for those of us who are well past our Barney years.

Mel Brooks gave us biblical parodies with as much sophistication as slapstick. “Mendel” gives us only the urge to shout “let my people go” by intermission.

“Mendel & Moses” is playing on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 3 p.m., at the Century City Playhouse, 10508 Pico Blvd., in West Los Angeles. Tickets are $20 and $22. Call (888) 566-8499.

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Orthodox Women Rabbis

Leave a Comment / Judaism, Old Stories, Womans Voice /

The time has come to educate women and give them the titular and legal authority to right that which has gone so terribly wrong in the Orthodox world

The furor raised in Orthodox circles by 27-year-old Haviva Ner-David, who is studying in Israel to become the world’s first Orthodox woman rabbi, should have been no surprise to anyone. Old habits die slowly, some say never. Although halacha (Jewish law) does not technically forbid a woman from becoming a rabbi, the Orthodox claim that tradition prevents a woman from becoming one. Furthermore, because a few minor limitations on a woman’s public role in a synagogue would prevent her from fulfilling some of the responsibilities of a pulpit rabbi, the Orthodox claim she should not seek ordination at all. This argument, of course, is fallacious. Aside from easy solutions to such minor obstacles, most male rabbis also do not perform the role of pulpit rabbis; nevertheless, they are ordained.

Still others argue that female ordination distracts and detracts from the most important issue in the Orthodox community, that is the issue of the agunah (the married woman who is unable to obtain her Jewish divorce from a recalcitrant husband). To the contrary. It is precisely the agunah issue that should inspire Orthodox women to become rabbis and have the right to interpret halacha.

Historically, the rabbis have been the sole interpreters of Jewish law, the judges of conflicts affecting Orthodox Jews and the deciders of Jewish legal issues. The Orthodox rabbinate has been comprised only of men. Ergo, Jewish justice and legislation has been the exclusive domain of men. And they have miserably failed in that job, especially in the areas of Jewish law that adversely impacts women, such as the get (divorce) and chalitzah (the body of law that prevents a childless widow from remarrying unless her deceased husband’s brother releases her to do so).

The myriad examples of rabbinical impotence and incompetence in this area of Jewish law are staggering. Witness the male rabbis who failed to obtain a get for a woman even after they turned over the extorted funds to the husband. Read accounts of the severely beaten wife being urged by the rabbis to obtain her get by giving her abusive husband the money to appeal his battery conviction. Listen to the tale of the widow whose child died before her husband did in an auto accident, and was thus forced to beg and barter her freedom from her brother-in-law because, as a childless widow she was bound to her husband’s brother by Jewish law. Notice the Orthodox rabbis squirm to admit that the effects of Jewish divorce laws wreak abominable horrors on Orthodox women and children, but that they “cannot change halacha.” It is time to respond with the paraphrase of a popular quote: “There is nothing wrong with Jewish law, only with the people who interpret it.”

It is no secret that men are the sole constituents of both the Orthodox pulpit rabbi and of the rabbis who head yeshivot. Women do not count in the minyan, they are not called up to the Torah, and their role in the synagogue is strictly silent and invisible behind the mechitzah. Furthermore, major yeshivot have been traditionally seats of Talmudic learning, reserved exclusively for men; thus, rosh yeshiva rabbis need not answer to any woman. It is no accident, therefore, that few Orthodox rabbis would deign to offend their male constituents, dare incur the wrath and disdain of their colleagues, or risk being shunned by the Orthodox rabbinate by decrying that any halachic interpretation of Jewish divorce law that allows Jewish men such unfettered power to abuse women and children is a chillul Hashem, and should not be tolerated.

When Orthodox women denounced the rabbis’ ineptitude with claims that, ‘where there is a rabbinic will, there is a halachic way,’ these claims were dismissed by the rabbis as ravings of ignorant women. At the same time, women were deliberately prevented from learning Talmudic law because the rabbis claimed that the sages forbade the study of Gemara by women.

How right they were. It is precisely this forbidden education that has opened women’s eyes to the need to help themselves. In a Canadian Orthodox community, women organized a mikvah strike when they became frustrated with the rabbis’ inability to help a woman obtain her get. Not surprisingly, the mikvahs did not remain closed for long before the men assured that the agunah obtained her get. But Orthodox women are beginning to recognize that such “Lysistrata” strategy is not only demeaning to both women and men, it has very little impact on the agunah problem at large. Orthodox women are now realizing that using their intellect and education will be far more effective in bringing global solutions to oppressed women and children in the Jewish world.

While the title “rabbi” does not automatically confer wisdom or godliness in the eyes of the public, it does validate the opinions of its possessor. It is an unfortunate truism that in the Orthodox community, when a rabbi makes a halachic decision that may be contradicted by an eminent scholar who does not hold the title “rabbi,” the populace will automatically accept the rabbi’s interpretation, even if the rabbi’s opinion is indefensible. (This phenomenon is not unique to the Orthodox community. A university professor with a Ph.D. may be spouting nonsense during his lecture, but if his theory is rebutted by a scholar who lacks the Ph.D. initials after his name, it is unlikely that many will disregard the professor’s assessment.) Thus, when Rabbi Avi Weiss proposed, at the International Conference on Feminism and Orthodoxy, that in lieu of ordaining women as rabbis, these Talmudically educated women should be given the title morot (teachers), he was oblivious to the psychological impact that the title “rabbi” confers upon its recipient. Can anyone deny that in a halachic debate between rabbis and morot, the rabbis will always prevail, regardless of the validity or their opinion?

Orthodox women do not seek to become rabbis simply to “be like men.” To the contrary, Orthodox women have been traditionally trained to take private, rather than public, roles in the Orthodox community. However, when male rabbis consistently shirk their duty to do justice for all Jews, there is little alternative to allowing women to test their remedies. The time has come to educate women and give them the titular and legal authority to right that which has gone so terribly wrong in the Orthodox world.

Is this phenomenon likely to occur within the next few years? Are we destined to see mass ordination of women by 1998 or 1999? Not likely. But those who predict the permanent demise of such a movement will have a better shot at stuffing an escaped genie back into its bottle.

Alexandra Leichter is a family-law attorney in Beverly Hills, and is a member of the Modern Orthodox Westwood Village Synagogue.

All rights reserved by author, 1997.

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