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Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

June 12, 1997

Labor’s Move Toward Center

Leave a Comment / Old Stories, Politics, Power /

After a year of licking the wounds of electoral defeat, the Israeli left has crowned a new leader who radiates an aura of victory and an appetite for power. The campaign of the year 2000 has begun.

Ehud Barak, a former armed forces chief who entered politics only 2 1/2 years ago, was elected leader of the Labor Party last week by a resounding majority. The party rank and file gave him 50 percent of their votes.

His nearest rival, Yossi Beilin, an architect of the Oslo breakthrough to peace with the Palestinians, won 28.5 percent. The third and fourth candidates, Shlomo Ben-Ami and Ephraim Sneh, polled 14.2 percent and 6.6 percent, respectively.

Like the Democrats in the United States and Labor in Britain, not to mention the Likud in Israel, the party has leapfrogged a generation in search of a new style and a new appeal.

He projected himself as a man of
the center. He didn’t want to rule
another (Palestinian) people, but
Israel had to calculate its own
security risks. Jerusalem had to
remain under Israeli sovereignty. It
was the pragmatism of Rabin rather
than the vision of Peres.

But, in his victory speech, Barak pledged to continue the peace policies of his mentors and predecessors, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. To reinforce the point, he made a pilgrimage the next morning to Rabin’s grave, on Mount Herzl. In subsequent interviews, Barak seemed more intent on evading commitments that might be exploited by the Likud propaganda machine than on setting out a detailed, or inspirational, platform.

He projected himself as a man of the center. He didn’t want to rule another (Palestinian) people, but Israel had to calculate its own security risks. Jerusalem had to remain under Israeli sovereignty. It was the pragmatism of Rabin rather than the vision of Peres. Predictably, he appealed for unity in a Labor Party that has been riven by camps and dissension.

In the best “after me” tradition of the Israeli officer corps, Barak, who is 55, will lead from the front. The new system of directly elected prime ministers demands it in any case. But if he wants to govern as well as to win, he will have to demonstrate that he can work with partners, not just followers.

It will go against the grain. He has always been a better talker than a listener. But the lesson of Binyamin Netanyahu’s troubled first year in office is that Israel elects a chief executive; it does not elect an emperor. He still needs a party, and his party still needs coalition allies.

Barak, Israel’s most decorated war hero, has a reputation for making his own decisions and trusting no one but himself. Literally and figuratively, he has a killer instinct. Among his legendary operations in the early 1970s were a pinpoint raid on Beirut, which eliminated three Palestinian leaders, and the rescue of a planeload of Sabena passengers held hostage at Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. He entered politics to conquer, not just to serve.

Netanyahu must know that he has a fight on his hands. A Gallup poll, published in Ma’ariv three days after the Labor primary, gave Barak an eight-point lead (43 percent to Netanyahu’s 35 percent). The margin widened when Israelis were asked who would handle security better (49 percent for Barak to 29 percent for Netanyahu) and who would handle the peace negotiations better (46 percent to 31 percent).

In a country where, as Rabin showed in 1992, military rank counts, Barak was a lieutenant general, Netanyahu a captain. Barak was Netanyahu’s commander in the elite “Sayeret Matkal” commando unit. The telegenic Likud leader is the man in possession, with all the advantages of tactical initiative and media exposure that his position entails, but his new Labor challenger brings impressive credentials into the ring.

While Netanyahu was marketing director in a furniture company, Barak managed a complex force of 600,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen with an annual budget of $8 billion, though his term as chief of staff was not without its share of disasters.

In politics, where both are outsiders, Netanyahu served as ambassador to the United Nations and deputy foreign minister. Barak, however briefly in the waning days of the Rabin-Peres administration, had spells as interior minister and foreign minister. Before that, as chief of staff, he took part in fateful cabinet meetings for four years.

Barak will have to cut into Netanyahu’s mass support among religious Jews and Israelis of Middle Eastern and North African origin, as well as among the Russian immigrants, who swung left in 1992 and right in 1996, decisively in each case. At the same time, he has to convince the traditional left (and Israel’s Arab citizens, many of whom abstained last time rather than vote for a “Zionist” prime minister) that he means to deliver on peace.

Although Barak has been careful not to spell out an ideological stance, he will have to persuade Israel’s fragmented, argumentative, highly politicized voters that he is different and better than the Likud incumbent, that he is not just a “Bibi clone.” Charisma and a commitment to Israel’s security, which both men share, will not, alone, turn the trick. Labor chose him as the man who could bring them back to power. Now he has to prove it.

All rights reserved by author.

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The Family Man

Leave a Comment / Old Stories, Womans Voice /

The restaurant billboard advertised its Father’s Day brunch in letters too large to miss.

“If I had a father, we could take him out to eat,” my daughter, Samantha, said, as we drove by.

Samantha’s voice held no accusation; she was entirely matter of fact. But I took it personally anyway; her words signaled that my severed ties with Jim could hurt her as well.

I squirmed helplessly. I can squirrel and save for her hiking boots, singing lessons, the dress for the family party; I’d move the world for my girl. But there’s nothing I can do about getting her a dad.

My friends get angry with me when I turn on myself.

“So what,” says Nessa, her voice growing tight. “So you couldn’t get her a dad. She had her own dad, and she’ll remember him.”

And Arlyne, newly single, gets practically frantic at my self-castigation.

“Listen,” she says as we sip our lattes, “I can’t stand it when a guy uses my children to get to me.”

If that’s what happened, I was a willing co-conspirator.

It is true and can be said without a trace of shame: No mother can resist a family man. I loved the man who loved my daughter. I couldn’t help it.

I had relegated Father’s Day to the ranks of unobserved customs, like Christmas or Chinese New Year, one that others might honor with full regalia but that we, in our family, spent at the movies or otherwise ignored.

And then came Jim. Whatever a dad could mean, he was it.

Last Father’s Day, Samantha and I took Jim to the Getty Museum and then out to dinner. We each felt audacious, risky. Jim had never been a dad. Samantha hadn’t had a dad in a long time. And, after so many years going solo, I no longer knew what a dad to my daughter might be.

“You’re not my father, and you never will be!” Samantha screamed at him outside the Getty parking garage.

“You’re right,” Jim said. He didn’t want to be her father, full of fearsome duty and overweening expectation. But being her dad — authoritative, respecting, care-giving in a benign sort of way — this was something he might be able to do well. He assisted with her homework, discussed her music, attended her concerts and singing lessons. He bought her a guitar. There was no “we” without her; wherever Jim and I went, Samantha was expressly invited to come.

“Don’t you two want to spend more time alone?” she asked. “Don’t you need some personal space, some private time together?”

If only we’d listened.

Our three-way connection seemed preordained, like a trinomial equation set into motion long ago; he was the kind of man I’d promised Samantha years before, one who could love us both.

At the Getty, Jim showed Samantha the red figures painted on black fragments of Greek urns, the remnants of a great civilization that had come and gone. At dinner, he let her taste his wine. I watched them from my side of the triangle and felt myself begin to breathe. We were a threesome; the number three, in Hebrew, is gimel, meaning full and ripe.

He was among the few “dads” to attend the high school parent meetings. He knew the dean, the music coach and her instructors by sight. He e-mailed the math teacher on her behalf, arguing that Samantha understood more algebra than her grades indicated. Sometimes, he spoke for me. Samantha judged her success by his approval and was crushed by his criticism. He was a dad in every way.

We were a family, but not a couple, and that’s why we hung on so long.

Now comes the sad part. The end.

When love fades, is it God’s error? Our own fault? Or just a fact of life?

I give the three of us this much: We meant it for good. Jim loved being a dad. Samantha loved having a dad. He loved being part of “us.” She loved having a larger “us.” And, among everything else, I loved saying, “Table for three.”

Even when things grew bad between Jim and me as man and woman, when our conversations became increasingly about Samantha and less about ourselves, as a dad, he kept at it. Up to the last minute, he judged her party dress for appropriateness, escorted her to family dinners, and gave her guidance on hiking gear; Samantha was still telling her friends about going to the movies with her “parents,” taking great pleasure in an extra “s.” She didn’t lose faith.

“I only want what makes you happy,” Samantha said.

“But Jim…” I started to say.

“I’ll get over it,” she said. “I’m stronger than you think.”

But what about me?

Marlene Adler Marks is editor-at-large of The Jewish Journal. Her e-mail address is wvoice@aol.com.

All rights reserved by author

The Family Man Read More »

LettersConsider Jewish Officers

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

The article entitled “LAPD Black and Blue” by Xandra Kayden (May 23) disturbed me. The tone of the article implied that Los Angeles police officers are not only brutal, but they routinely lie. As a police officer in the LAPD, I know that nothing is farther from the truth. I hold myself to the highest standards, as do the vast majority of officers in my department. We are in this business because we believe in the difference between right and wrong, certainly not an idea contrary to Jewish teachings.

It has been disheartening, as an active member of the Jewish community, to see how readily this community will accept statements about police without any reliable information. How many Jewish officers did this newspaper interview about ex-Police Chief Williams, morale in the department, life during the riots, prejudice (including anti-Semitism) and other hot issues that are in the paper everyday. We are experts in the field of crime and crime investigation, from burglaries to domestic violence, but we are not approached by our own community (with the exception of Na’amat USA which encouraged my participation in a seminar on domestic violence). Instead, “experts” who sit in universities are quoted and accepted because, in our community, education is often deemed more important than practical experience.

I understand that not everyone knows a Jewish police officer, but we are here. I don’t hide the fact that I am Jewish at work. There are Jewish officers at every rank. Instead of ignoring us, use us to work with our community. You may find that your attitude toward the Los Angeles Police Department will be a lot more positive; I know that it will be a lot more knowledgeable.

Debby Kane

Detective

Los Angeles Police Department

Recognize Orthodoxy

One look at the front cover of the May 30 issue of the Jewish Journal sent me to Alexandra Leichter’s article on women in the Orthodox rabbinate. I understand from discussing the article with Alexandra that the Journal was, at one point, hesitant to publish it — the reason being the expectation that the Journal’s readership would not be interested in essentially Orthodox issues. So, I want to thank the editor for publishing the article. I hope more provocative (even if somewhat inflammatory) articles of this type will appear in the future. You have a larger Orthodox readership than you may realize.

In the midst of the swirling debate about the legitimacy of the various forms of Jewish observance, a discussion of Orthodox beliefs, traditional practices and the ongoing debates and developments within the Orthodox community would seem to be a natural element. After all, the Reform and Conservative movements developed as responses to and adaptations of Orthodoxy. I wonder how well most Reform and Conservative Jews (even the religiously committed) understand the departures from traditional interpretations of Jewish law that had to be accommodated to get to these other systems of Jewish observance.

Even beyond the “what qualifies as Judaism” debate, Alexandra’s article is relevant to the community at large as a contribution to the discussion of women’s roles in the synagogue, the home and the community. I don’t think many people would argue that there are no women’s issues left even in the most egalitarian segments of the Jewish community.

Finally, I noticed that Alexandra’s article appeared in the same issue with Chaim Seidler-Feller’s piece on Hillel as a uniquely pluralistic institution. Perhaps the Jewish Journal could occupy a similar role in the print-medium.

Elaine Taubenfeld

Los Angeles

Bad Taste

I was really disappointed by Robert Eshman’s review of “Mama Cooks California Style,”(“What’s Cooking?”, May 9).

I have friends who work to raise money for the Jewish Home for the Aging in Reseda. They spend endless hours trying to help this very worthy Jewish institution. When I heard that the Home was working on a cookbook that would not only set forth some of the best recipes of the residents of the Home before they were lost to us, but would also present Jewish-style recipes using more healthy ingredients that made them in sync with the California lifestyle, I could hardly wait to see it. It did not disappoint. I bought copies for myself and my two daughters so that our traditions could be passed to the next generation. After reading the book and testing some of the recipes, I will give the book as gifts to many of my friends.

I would think that the Journal would be one publication where the book would be reviewed carefully, and with a view to the book’s intentions. I would hope that the food editor would do more than just skim the book — and perhaps even test a few of the recipes before publishing the review, but it seems Eshman did neither.

He stated that “some of the recipes are flat-out unfortunate,” and questioned whether it is really worth making “Corn Crepes with Southwestern Chicken Filling” if you have to use non-dairy creamer and taco mix. I made that recipe, Mr. Eshman, and it was delicious!

I happen to know Harriet Part personally. She has been my culinary inspiration for more than 35 years. When Harriet tells me something is good — it is good. She is a professional Home Economist who has written food columns and taught cooking classes for years. She personally tested every receipe that appears in this book. This was a labor of love for her (only the Home benefits from the sale of this book) and at the very least deserves a fair review.

Suzi Patrusky

Los Angeles

*

Recently, Robert Eshman reviewed a newly published cookbook by the Jewish Home for the Aging, “Mama Cooks California Style — New Twists on Jewish Classics.”

During the same week, the food editor of the Los Angeles Daily News thought the cookbook merited a front page color spread and another page of background and recipes. Melinda Lee of KABC reviewed the book Mother’s Day morning, saying how wonderful she found it. Duttons, Barnes & Noble, B. Dalton, Brentano’s, Walden’s, Bloomingdale’s and Gelsons are all going to stock “Mama”.

So why do we care about Eshman’s lukewarm review? It was not accurate and it was not professional. He left out the subtitle, “New Twists on Jewish Classics,” which explains why this cookbook is unique. The recipe ingredients that he thought sounded terrible together were not together, and last but not least, he didn’t even mention the “I Remember Mama” chapter that is the heart of the cookbook — the recipes and anecdotes from the Jewish Home’s residents, families and friends.

He also neglected to say that the proceeds from the sale of this cookbook go to enhance the lives of the residents at the JHA — and what better way than the Jewish Journal to get this message across, or so we thought.

When we think about the support from mostly non-Jews, it’s hard to understand where Eshman’s head is, let alone his heart.

Harriet Part

Food Editor, Home Economist

“Mama Cooks California Style — New Twists on Jewish Classics”

Encino

Editor’s note: Rob Eshman responds, “Ms. Part is mostly incorrect about my errors. I did mention the book is a fundraiser. Indeed, that was the main reason I felt it merited a review. The ingredients I questioned are indeed used in the same recipe (see page 104). And I did write that the book’s strong point is its homestyle, authentic Jewish recipes. There are some fine, old recipes in the book — Salmon with Egg-Lemon Sauce, Stuffed Veal Breast, Lee Lee’s Russian Tea Cakes, “My Own Little Apple Cake,” and Part’s own chocolate cake. Anyone interested in these gems should buy the book.

“As Ms. Part must be aware, I and other Journal writers have written often about the excellent work of the Jewish Home for the Aging.”

Where is the Future?

As a former member of a Conservative synagogue and the grandson of one of its esteemed clergy, it gives me a great deal of anguish to write this letter. With all the furor going on about the lack of religious pluralism in Israel, the Conservative movement has been fighting arm-in-arm with the Reform movement to gain religious recognition and rights there.

What is the Conservative position regarding Reform religious ceremonies ? Would they accept their conversions, marriages and divorces even though they are not up to Conservative standards? If so, then de facto, the Conservative movement really has no standards but the Reform ones. If not, wouldn’t they be guilty of the same “transgression” they ascribe to Orthodoxy, namely not accepting other interpretations of Judaism ?

The claim has been made that the great majority of Diaspora Jews are Conservative or Reform. Outside the United States, this is clearly not the case since these movements there are small. Even within the U.S., I beg to differ. The majority of American Jews are not observant. The fact that many of them belong to a Conservative or Reform temple is less a matter of true identification with that particular movement than a “marriage of convenience.” Few, if any religious demands are made on their congregants. Ask the great majority of even their regular worshippers what they believe in and/or practice, or are supposed to believe and do, and they would have no clear answers. To call them “Conservative Jews”, or “Reform Jews” is stretching it.

The real judge of this contentious and vital issue will ultimately be history. If our present youth is any barometer, a recent article (“‘Distant Friends’ Reunion,”Apr. 25), will be most enlightening. In the article, committed Jewish teenagers were interviewed about their feelings towards Judaism and the Jewish people. A video was made of these interviews and is currently being shown in numerous Israeli high schools.

I need only quote: “‘The kippah is basically the fundamental aspect of my life’, says Jonathan Wohlgelerter, a student at the Orthodox Yeshiva University High School of Los Angeles. ‘It reminds me all the time who I am and what I am doing. It reminds me that God is above me and that I have to be careful what I am doing.’

‘I don’t wear a kippah and I don’t wear tzitzit, says Ezra Meppin, a junior at Beverly Hills High School and a member of a Conservative temple. ‘It’s hard to keep kosher in social situations…Another thing that might be hard is finding a wife that is Jewish.’

‘I don’t care right now…I don’t know about later on in life,’ Becky Blitz, a Grant High School senior and an active member of Conservative temple Adat Ari El says about dating a non-Jew. ‘Like marriage is your whole life and Judaism is an important part, but…I want to be in love with the person I marry.’

Where does the future of Judaism lie? I believe the answer is obvious.

Larry Schwartz

Los Angeles

Saying It All

We Jews should all learn from Dr. Robert C. Hamilton (who wrote about Lea Rabin in the May 2 issue), a non-Jew that bending backward does not mean breaking your back. God bless you Dr. Hamilton, you have said it all.

Abraham Kattan, Ph.D.

Beverly Hills

Correction

Information about how to register for Jewish tours of China was accidentally omitted from last week’s travel feature. For prices and other travel information, readers should contact Dr. Wendy Abraham, c/o Jewish Historical Tours of China, P.O. Box 9480, Stanford, CA 94309; phone, (415) 968-1927; fax, (415) 725-8931; or e-mail: wabraham@leland.stanford.edu.

The deadline for her fall tour is this week.

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

Attention: Letters.

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LettersConsider Jewish Officers Read More »

Young and Independent

Leave a Comment / Education, Old Stories /

Notes from a visit with a senior class: After seeing friends and peers smoking marijuana and using other drugs , students at Shalhevet High School didn’t wait for their parents or teachers to educate them about the harmful effects of narcotics. Instead, they undertook the challenge themselves. “We were obligated…. Something had to be done,” said Brian Orgen, president of this year’s graduating class.

Although students at the Orthodox school are “pretty straight,” classmate Ariel Belliak quickly added, the student-initiated drug-education program was necessary because “the Orthodox think they are immune to this problem. But really, by not talking about it, they are wide open.”

This independent spirit of self-determination was evident as some of the school’s 25 graduating seniors spoke about what they perceive as a negative view of people their age by their parents’ generation. The message sent was loud and clear: We’re ready to take on the world, or at least college.

“People assume that if you’re 17, you are disillusioned and stupid,” said Zach Gershuni, bound for UC Berkeley this fall. Gershuni is already paying his college bills with money he earned working at his uncle’s store. Because of his youth, customers there “often walk right past you without saying hello,” he said.

As a member of a fencing team, Maytal Dahan is used to being around people older than her who are “naïve” about her age group. “They underestimate kids. They think that you’re not sure what you want to do and where you’re going,” the incoming UC San Diego student said.

Not all young people are looking for trouble, said Belliak, also bound for Berkeley. “Sure, people run amok, and they should suffer the consequences,” he said. But overall, “we have more initiative than they give us credit for.”

“Sure, there are negatives — a lot of them — but positives outweigh them,” Orgen said.

Gershuni offered advice for parents who want their adolescent offspring to develop into well-adjusted young adults.

“There’s a widening gap between graduates who are capable to function intellectually, emotionally and economically, and those who aren’t,” he said. Therefore, “if you want a successful kid, put him or her in a school where they can develop not only intellectually but morally, culturally and socially.”

Young and Independent Read More »

Turn Off the TV

Leave a Comment / Cover Story, Old Stories /

What’s the biggest problem facing today’s high school graduate? Separating fantasy from reality. And television is the culprit.

That’s the view of Steven Carr Reuben, the rabbi of Kehillath Israel in Pacific Palisades, who specializes in teaching parents how to raise ethical children and who travels the country, giving parenting workshops.

Cynical and shockproof, they’ve seen horrific behavior every day of their lives, he says. By immersing themselves in an imaginary world, they have become desensitized.

“By the time kids are 18 years old, they have vicariously experienced everything — death, destruction, exploitation, all the things that make television shows interesting,” he says. “This has to have an impact on their emotions. If psychology has taught us anything, it’s that emotions and our physical body can’t distinguish between what is real and what is vividly imagined.”

Personal responsibility, respect and civility all have declined in American society, he says. The Class of 1997 is graduating into a world where an attack ad has replaced belief in principle as the preferred strategy for winning a political campaign.

“Someone wrote a book several years ago, asking what ever happened to shame. I don’t know the answer. No one blushes anymore. Isn’t there anything to blush about?” Carr Reuben says.

At a recent workshop in Boston, several parents told Carr Reuben that they’re exhausted from frustration at seeing how cynical their children have become.

The problem isn’t what the entertainment industry has done to their children, says the rabbi. He believes the cause lies in the home, with Mom and Dad, who have become too passive.

“They have ultimate responsibility for their children,” he says. “So they need to exercise their control. They can turn the television off.”

Turn Off the TV Read More »

Going Her Way

Leave a Comment / Cover Story, Old Stories, Rob Eshman /

Haviva Kohl is two people. She is, at 18, the idealistic young woman, fresh from her high school graduation, eager to live her dreams. And she is, at 18, the toughened outsider, wise to the ways of the world, even a bit exhausted by it all.

For the past six years, Kohl has been on her own. Not because she had to be but because she wanted to be. It was the only way she could receive a Jewish education.

When she was 12 years old, Kohl told her parents that she wanted to go to a Jewish school. Up until then, Kohl was a fairly regular kid. But when a skating accident upset her dream of becoming a competition speed skater, she began, in her words, “to hang out with bad people.” Her parents sent her to a Chabad-sponsored Jewish summer camp in New York. Kohl met the late Chabad leader, Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson. “He gave me his blessing to go to Jewish school,” she says. For the next long, hard six years, she would draw strength from that blessing.

For a while, her mother, Sandra Martin, awoke at 4:30 each school morning to drive Kohl the 60 miles from the family’s home in Rancho Cucamonga to Bais Chaim Mushke School for Girls in Pico-Roberston. Martin worked at a nearby supermarket all day and then drove Haviva back at night. Both would often become sick from exhaustion, keeping such an arduous schedule. Both realized that Kohl would have to leave home.

While Kohl strained to keep up with schoolwork, she began living as a boarder with local Jewish families. Over the next few years, she would inhabit a broad cross section of Los Angeles Jewish life, serving as housekeeper, cook, baby sitter, nanny, driver, surrogate daughter and stepsister.

She stayed with a Beverly Hills doctor and his wife and four children in a massive home that contained an indoor pool and an elevator. She stayed with a deeply religious family with eight children while the father battled a severe drug addiction. Many nights, when the man’s temper spilled out, she would run from the house and hide at a friend’s until 4 a.m. Kohl stayed with an elderly woman who relied on her boarder to bathe her, and whose screams for help would awaken Kohl night after night. Kohl looked after dozens of children not much younger than herself, and she learned to cope with the inevitable jealousies and resentments.

“Just when you feel like part of the family, they’d remind you that you aren’t,” she says. “The biggest problem was figuring out, ‘Where do I belong?'”

And every day, she woke up and went to school. Eventually, Kohl applied to Shalhevet, a coed observant high school located in the Westside Jewish Community Center. Shalhevet’s president and founder, Dr. Jerry Friedman, told her that if she passed the entrance test, she needn’t worry about coming up with the $10,000 annual tuition.

“I saw she wanted a Jewish education, and she was motivated,” says Friedman, who is proud of the fact that his school has never refused admission based on inability to pay.

Kohl excelled. She was one of two Shalhevet students picked to attend a summer session at Oxford University. At graduation, she was awarded the Bureau of Jewish Education’s Torah and Mitzvah Award for outstanding community service and excellence in Judaic studies. In what free time she had, Kohl volunteered at a teen suicide hot line.

“Haviva is very rare, in a good sense,” says Shalhevet’s principal for general education, Michael Parmer.

Sitting for an interview at a bookstore coffeehouse, Kohl acknowledged that her single-minded devotion to get a Jewish education came at a price.

“I gave up my childhood,” she says. Just saying the words seems to bring a shadow of age across her youthful face. She called a journalist to tell her story, she says, so that other students won’t take their own Jewish education for granted. “People say, ‘What’s the big deal about going to school,'” she says. “I know this may have been the hardest thing I’ll ever do in my life.”

At first, she visited her family once a week. Eventually, the visits dwindled to once a month or less. She missed growing up with her two younger brothers. She rarely saw her father, a musician who was often on tour.

“I would come home and not know where the dishes were,” she says.

Back at home, she would still visit her old friends. Many were beset with the teen plagues of early pregnancy and drugs. She’d hang out with them at Sunday skateboard competitions, even help them build their ramps. But, always, she dressed in the long, modest skirts of an Orthodox woman.

At school, she missed out on after-school activities and parties. Between work and school, she had almost no time for a social life.

“She had to carry a burden,” says Friedman, who related that only one other Shalhevet student, a freshman, has moved away from home to attend school. “It’s a tough life, and because of it, she matured faster than other teen-agers. You have to admire that.”

Kohl gives much of the credit for her success to her mother, who remained supportive.

“I felt it was the best thing,” says Martin. Martin’s own parents and siblings disagreed, but she says that she raised her children to be independent and follow their dreams.

And, Kohl says, that’s what she intends to do. After graduation, she plans to travel to Israel and perhaps around the world. She wants to attend Oxford University, where she was granted delayed admission, and set up Jewish schools in Eastern Europe.

“The people I most respect,” she says, “are the people who know what they want to do and don’t let anything stop them.”

Going Her Way Read More »

Class Acts

Leave a Comment / Cover Story, Old Stories /

“I definitely stand out,” says Bina Hager, 17, of Hancock Park.

And it’s not just because the YULA senior is a strapping 5-foot-10 tall. Consider, for example, the cubist self-portrait that hangs upon her bedroom wall. Or the wildly colored abstract paintings, all Hager originals. Or the 6-foot-high punching bag and the gloves in one corner.

Kick boxing is, well, unusual fare for an Orthodox young woman, but Hager doesn’t mind the raised eyebrows.

“The mockery of my friends reverberates in my mind as I face the punching bag,” she cheerfully writes in an essay. “[But then]…the air crackles as I unleash my hand with unbridled fury…I savor the electricity of that moment…when I channel all physical chaos into artistic order.”

If Hager is an iconoclast, she’s also a Renaissance woman.

Two years ago, she began volunteering at Yachad, a program for children with disabilities; she went on to assist the physical therapists at a summer camp in the Catskills, where a number of experiences were engraved in memory. There was the autistic child, with whom she worked for seven weeks and who finally said her name. And there was the frail 9-year-old boy who was just learning to walk. The process was painful for the child, and Hager “held him, my palms supporting his elbows, as he embarked on a most courageous journey, a journey of five steps.”

Now, she has no doubt about her life’s path: Hager will attend Barnard College and study psychology and special education after attending a yeshiva in Israel next year.

“What working with people with disabilities has taught me is that the little you can give of yourself means so much,” she says.

Alexa Fields, Harvard-Westlake School

Don’t tell Alexa Fields that Latin is dead.

She’ll give you a look and say, “Rident stolidi Latina verba” — “Only fools laugh at the Latin language.” And Latin, specifically her poetry, helped get her into Harvard University’s early admission program, after all.

Fields first took Latin in fifth grade — rather reluctantly — but promptly fell in love with the language.

“I discovered that these ancient people were not deadbeats,” says Fields, who has also taken intensive summer theater workshops at the Santa Monica Playhouse, has studied French in Avignon and varsity lettered in cross country. “They were alive, clever, scandalous, mischievous, and they had great stories to tell.”

Fields read many of them over the years, in the writings of Ovid, Cicero, Horace, Catullus and Virgil’s “Aeneid” — “a real blast, which reads like a soap opera.” Some of Catullus’ poetry is so risqué, she adds, wickedly, that a substitute teacher once assumed the students were fabricating the translation and stormed from the room.

After completing Harvard-Westlake’s entire Latin curriculum last year, Fields decided to follow her own muse; with dictionary in hand, she composed five poems, “Carmina Vitae” (“Songs of Life”), in painstakingly strict hendecasyllabic meter.

One defends the Latin language, another extolls silliness, and the National Latin Honor Society member, for her part, will become the subject of a favorite joke when she travels to the former Roman empire this summer.

“A Latin student wandering in Italy asks where the restroom is,” says the 17-year-old senior, who is considering classes in science, psychology and music at Harvard. “The Italian stares at her for a long time and finally says, ‘You haven’t been here in awhile, have you?”

Zhanna Livshits, Fairfax High School

You’ll find Zhanna Livshits bustling about the multicultural kitchen at Project Angel Food, preparing meals for people with AIDS. Or she might be in the dialysis unit at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, holding the hand of a gravely ill patient.

“I believe that people need each other, need to know they are not alone in their struggle,” says Livshits, 18. For her, volunteerism has become a way of life because “I understand what it is to feel powerless, abandoned, with no one there to help.”

Livshits is speaking of her experience as a Jew in Belarus, where anti-Semites sprayed gunfire into the family apartment. She is also speaking of her early years in the United States, when, as the first in her family to learn English, she took on responsibilities beyond the realm of a typical 11-year-old. She dealt with the gas company and the welfare office. And when her parents couldn’t find work, she secured jobs as a tutor and as a receptionist. The tasks were doubly daunting for Livshits because she has battled stuttering all her life.

“But I am so grateful and admire my parents so much for bringing me here,” says the senior, who vows to become a physician “to make a difference and so that my family never again has to live in poverty.”

The Fairfax High salutatorian is well on her way, with some $9,000 per year in scholarships to attend UCLA.

Nevertheless, she believes that her most important work is with patients such as Lynn (not her real name), a 29-year-old woman whose kidney transplant had failed for the third time.

“She was pale and crying, but, at the end of our time together, she smiled,” says Livshits, who may go into the Peace Corps before medical school. “I don’t have the words to describe how that made me feel.”

Laurie Rubin, Oakwood School

In March, Laurie Rubin’s rich, intensely expressive mezzo-soprano dazzled the audience at the Kennedy Center in Washington with a feisty aria from Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville.” Just two weeks later, she sang at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and snagged first place in the classical voice category of the prestigious Music Center Spotlight Awards.

The thoughtful, vivacious Rubin has entered five competitions in her 18 years and has won first place in four of them.

But what sets her apart from her competitive peers is that she is blind.

Her love of music began when she was a baby, when her parents stimulated her other senses with scents and classical music. By age 16, she was already a seasoned performer, singing in six languages at Jewish and other functions honoring individuals such as George Burns, Ronald Reagan and Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf. Recently, she sang at an event for the Foundation for the Junior Blind, an organization that has helped her build self-confidence.

Rubin was the first blind person to win the Spotlight Award; the first to attend Oakwood; and the first to become bat mitzvah at Valley Beth Shalom, where 600 congregants turned out to hear her chant the Torah portion from her Braille book atop the scroll. She has perfect pitch, learns music by ear, and hopes to become an opera singer, recitalist and cantor.

Nevertheless, a prominent conductor once warned her that no opera company would hire a blind person; some competition judges have been cynical; and Rubin, further, had to fight to be admitted to the gifted program at one school.

At the Tanglewood Institute, she was overcome with emotion while learning the role of Iolanthe, Tchaikovsky’s blind princess who longs to do more than the world will let her.

So Rubin has become an activist; she has been the subject of two educational films about blind people, and has screened and discussed them at Los Angeles-area schools.

“I’m sure at times I won’t get roles, because I am blind,” says the singer, who’s won a $8,000-per-year scholarship to Oberlin College and Conservatory. “But I’ll keep trying because music is music; it expresses what is in the heart, no matter what the politics.”

Adam Rosenthal, Milken Community High School of Stephen S. Wise Temple

Adam Rosenthal is writing a guide for teen-agers like himself, his older brother, Jeremy, and many of his friends, who have become more observant than their parents. Its working title: “Mom, I Can’t Go Out With the Family. It’s Shabbat.”

In January, Rosenthal was elected as the international president of United Synagogue Youth (USY), representing more than 20,000 Conservative Jewish North American teens, and he just completed a year term as regional president of USY’s FarWest Region, which includes Southern California and five states.

Rosenthal’s Jewish involvement has been lifelong, starting with Camp Ramah — where his mother worked — at age 3, and continuing there every summer since. This year will be his second as camp counselor.

But Ramah, which he calls “a Jewish utopia,” existed only during the summer, so Rosenthal became involved in USY at his temple, Adat Ari El Synagogue in North Hollywood. He quickly became a youth leader and also team-teaches a fifth-grade class with his mom.

“I love planning activities that really change people’s lives,” he says.

One such program is Hevrah, which brings together USY-ers and Jewish teens with disabilities for social and religious experiences.

Rosenthal, who attended Los Angeles Unified public schools in Woodland Hills until this year, plans to spend his freshman college year on the USY NATIV leadership program at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He will then

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Dear Deborah

Leave a Comment / Dear Deborah, Old Stories /

“No Relationships, Please,” pastel by Carole Kerchen. From Painting with Passion, 1994

Marriage Material?

Dear Deborah,

I have been married two times, the first time for three years and the second for five years. I have no children from either marriage, and, although I want children, I am afraid to have any because of my track record.

I am now dating a wonderful man who has proposed and wants to have children. I am 35 years old and know that I cannot just give the marriage a few years to see how it turns out. Is it right to marry someone and have children just because I don’t want to miss the opportunity to have children, even if I don’t have much faith in my own chances of happiness in a long-term marriage?

R.B.

Dear R.B.,

When comedienne Rita Rudner said, “Whenever I date a guy, I think, ‘Is this the man I want my children to spend their weekends with?'” she might have been speaking your language.

You ask if it is right to marry someone and have children in order to not miss that window of opportunity. Well, whether it’s right or wrong, women have been doing this consciously or unconsciously from time immemorial. The biological alarm clock rings, and, suddenly, the next man looks pretty good.

So why didn’t your marriages work? Are you a poor judge of character, or are you a poor judge of marriage? Do you expect marriage to be easy, fun, what? I highly recommend premarital counseling, or a program such as the University of Judaism’s “Making Marriage Work,” in which all aspects of marriage — including your expectations and compatibility — are addressed.

The extra few months you spend learning about marriage now before making a decision won’t take you too far off track and will be a sound investment in your future.

Great Wall Of Singles

Dear Deborah,

I didn’t appreciate your flippant remarks to “J,” who asked for advice on approaching women who stand in groups at singles events (“A Single Mission,” May 16). I have found that many, if not most, people (men and women) who attend singles parties are there mainly to hang out with friends on a Saturday night. So they clump tightly together in their little cliques and show no interest in meeting new people outside their group. Someone who walks in to one of these events alone and not knowing anyone is bound to have a difficult time.

My own suggestion is to avoid any “event” whose only purpose is to provide a stressful setting for mingling. Nonetheless, because there are so few places to find a large number of Jewish singles, there are many who feel the need to attend these events. I suspect that groups of friends choose these venues to hang out because it provides the illusion that they’re making the effort to “meet someone,” and thus satisfies parents and others who are “nudging” them.

If you have any real insight or useful suggestions to offer for dealing with this ubiquitous phenomenon, I’m sure there are many of us who would appreciate it.

No Cliques

Dear No Cliques,

The subtext to my “flippant remarks” was that to be successful in said venue, one needs moxie and a good sense of humor. You sound as if you’d rather build a full-scale model of the Second Temple with toothpicks than attend such an event. So don’t go.

Find Jewish singles events with purpose and structure, ones that include all participants — such as classes, workshops, charity work, et al. You may not get the numbers you would at a dance, but what good have the huddled masses been to you anyway, if you cannot approach them? Make friends with one new person, male or female, with whom you share a classroom and, therefore, presumably an interest, and observe your social circle expand.

As for your “nudging” family theory, I have yet to meet a reasonable single who attends such mixers more than once for that reason. If it’s a waste of time and doesn’t accomplish the goal of meeting people, most adults should be able to explain that to his or her parents.

Divorce Avalanche

Dear Deborah,

I am a parent with three teen-age children, and I am trapped in the middle of a nightmare divorce that keeps on getting worse and worse for everyone involved. Every time I go to my lawyers, I commit to spending increasingly insane amounts of money, and, in the meantime, my soon-to-be ex ups the ante by getting a team of lawyers to challenge my every move.

We are spiraling out of control and wasting the children’s college fund in the process. My lawyers can’t seem to hear what I’m saying and only seem to create more wars between us. To make matters worse, our youngest son’s bar mitzvah is coming up.

My husband and I can barely speak to each other without our lawyers present. How are we going to plan a memorable family event that our child will enjoy, rather than staging another battle in the war?

Dumpy Divorce

Dear D.D.,

It is indeed unfortunate when divorcing parents cannot seem to get a hold of themselves for the sake of their children. After all, you will forever have to parent these children –together or apart — and how you do so will forever affect them.

If, as you say, you have “spiraled out of control,” then perhaps it is time you take a deep breath, dial the Jewish Family Service and ask for the Divorce Mediation office. Sally Weber, project coordinator in Los Angeles (818-587-3333), provides an experienced lawyer-counselor mediation team that will deal with issues, ranging from the divorce mediation to custody issues, and will even help with bar mitzvah peacemaking. This service charges an hourly rate, does not require a retainer and is designed to break the endless, expensive, litigious cycle of acrimonious divorces. “Save the family — even if you cannot save the marriage,” is the philosophy behind the program.

So, unless you and your husband would prefer to pay for the college funds of your attorneys’ children instead of your own, and unless you would both choose to pollute the bar mitzvah and many future simchas with divorce fumes…it’s worth a shot.

Deborah Berger-Reiss is a West Los Angeles psychotherapist.

All rights reserved by author

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

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Families, Then and Now

Leave a Comment / Celebrations/Simchas, Old Stories /

Joel Grishaver.

The Bible is rich in stories of passion, plagues, miracles and betrayals, but what about good parenting?

“In truth, there is no good fathering in the Bible,” said author and Jewish educator Joel Grishaver.

Grishaver, who was asked by the Skirball Cultural Center to create a Father’s Day workshop centered around the topic, said that in the Bible, “the focus is much more on husbands and wives, or the relationships among brothers. Childhood is not the focus. People go from birth to adulthood in one sentence.”

So, instead, Grishaver, the creative director of Torah Aura Productions and a popular speaker on the family-education circuit, has created “Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Me — Fathering Through the Ages.” The June 15 workshop will be a lively and provocative mix of role-playing, art, debate, discussion of Jewish texts and, ultimately, an exploration of family issues closer to home.

Grishaver is an accessible and witty storyteller, adept at weaving traditional Jewish sources into contemporary discussions. In conversation, he illustrates points with references to everything from Rashi to Rod Serling, Moses to Robert Mapplethorpe. His facility with pop culture, combined with an unflagging enthusiasm for Torah study, makes him a provocative discussion leader for second-graders and seniors alike.

One segment of his Skirball workshop will be a “paper-tear midrash,” a concept first developed by Jo Milgrom. Grishaver presents a story, a midrash that may deal with anger and forgiveness, for example. After discussing any parallels to their own experience, family members then create their own visual midrash, using torn paper as the medium.

“Tearing the paper is a way to free people from the constraints of worrying about whether they can draw or not,” Grishaver said.

Another segment will be devoted to what he calls “biblio-drama,” a form of role-playing first developed by Peter Pitzele. To spark discussion, Grishaver will present several stories that highlight the emotions, ethical conflicts and risks faced by biblical parents. Moses’ parents, Amram and Yocheved, for example, had to wrestle with the decision of whether or not to place their endangered male infant in a basket hidden among the reeds in order to save him. Later, an adult Moses faced the dilemma of whether to bring his family to Egypt or to send them home. Jethro was charged with the task of taking care of his own daughter as well as his grandchildren — Moses’ offspring.

“With biblio-drama, people voice the feelings of these characters in sort of a self-created midrash, and, obviously, several layers of thought and feeling emerge during discussion,” Grishaver said.

Another session of the two-hour workshop is “family beit din,” a sort of mock court in which family members are separated and placed into two or three groups that serve as tribunals for cases presented to them by Grishaver. The scenarios are thoroughly modern. The sources he cites are from centuries ago. The essential conflicts are timeless.

A case in point: Mom and Dad are divorced but have good custody arrangements. Both, however, want the child for an upcoming vacation that each is planning, respectively. The child is asked to choose between them. What to do?

A similar scenario was pondered by Jewish sages ages ago, Grishaver explained, in the form of this question: Mom and Dad both ask for a glass of water. Who should the child serve first?

“In the Talmud,” Grishaver said, “the conclusion is drawn that the child should serve Dad, since, anyway, it’s Mom’s obligation to serve Dad too. These were, after all, pre-feminist times.

“In the ‘Shulchan Aruch,’ it’s decided that the child should serve whomever s/he chooses. It’s the 16th-century commentator Marashal who comes up with a pretty enlightened response. The child should put the glass of water on the table and let the parents work it out between them. In essence, Marashal concludes that it’s an unfair question to ask kids. It’s the parents who should decide.”

The Father’s Day workshop dovetails with the publication of Grishaver’s most recent book, “The Bonding of Isaac,” a collection of short fiction and essays about gender’s connection to spirituality. He described the book’s central theme as an exploration “of the dysfunctional myth of the functional family.” Using Torah as his framework, he makes the case that conflict is organic to family units, not some aberrant sign of failure.

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Me — Fathering Through the Ages will be held from 2 to 4 p.m., on Sunday, June 15, at the Skirball Cultural Center. It’s free with museum admission and designed for participants 7 and up. Space is limited to 50 people. Advance registration is recommended. Call (310) 440-4647.

“The Bonding of Isaac” (Alef Design Group, $21.95) may be ordered by calling (800) 845-0662.

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Feeling the Heat

Leave a Comment / Old Stories, Philanthropy /

The ad, which pictures a small child with a worried expression, is one way the UJF is trying to tackle the unfolding “Who is a Jew?” debate in Israel and to limit its impact among American donors to the UJF.

According to Bill Bernstein, an associate executive vice president who oversees the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles’ UJF campaign, donor discontent hasn’t affected local giving. The $30 million plus raised so far this year is on par with the 1996 campaign. But that doesn’t prevent Bernstein and other Federation staff and lay people from worrying about whether that support will remain strong.

Of particular concern is a bill currently making its way through the Israeli Knesset. The measure says that any person converted by a Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist rabbi in the Diaspora could become an Israeli citizen but isn’t considered Jewish in religious matters, such as marriage, burial, divorce and conversion.

“Through all the years that American Jews have supported Israel, there has never been a question about anybody’s Judaism,” Bernstein said. “Now, for the first time, this is becoming a reality — and a problem.”

Todd Morgan, the 1997 UJF general chair, said that the distress signals tend to come from the older donors — those who have intermarried children and grandchildren whose spouses have been converted by Reform or Conservative rabbis.

“These are people who have given money to Israel forever,” said Morgan. “They have a grandchild who wouldn’t qualify as a Jew there. And they say, ‘How can they tell me my grandchildren aren’t Jews? They go to synagogue. And Israel says they can’t be married or buried there.'”

“You can’t expect

American philanthropists who

have given their emotional

heart and soul

and financial resources

to Israel not to feel

offended in some way

by this bill.” — Bill Bernstein

Although, for many, the feelings are heartfelt and based on knowledge, for others, the conversion bill may provide an excuse not to give, some Federation leaders believe.

“Some say, ‘If I’m not Jewish, I don’t have to give to the Federation,'” said Herb Gelfand, Federation president. “They say it jokingly, and they know they’re Jewish. But we hear a lot about it.”

While UJF totals remain unaffected, fund-raisers are beginning to hear from contributors who say that they’re considering not giving, reducing their contributions, or not making good on pledges that have already been made. Many are loyal supporters of Israel, “who feel that this is the only way to express their frustration, anger and absolute concern for what Israel might become,” Bernstein said. “You can’t expect American philan-thropists who have given their emotional heart and soul and financial resources to Israel not to feel offended in some way by this bill.”

But, Bernstein stressed, few are aware of how little of their contribution actually goes to support Orthodox-affiliated groups in Israel. In fact, only one-half cent of every dollar contributed to the UJF here goes to such groups. Most money distributed through the Jewish Agency go to humanitarian and service programs, such as aliyah, resettlement and education.

In Israel, as in Los Angeles — where about 60 percent of UJF contributions are spent — much of the spending is on programs that are based not on ideology, politics or religion but on human needs, said Federation Executive Vice President John Fishel. “We have to continuously remind our donors of that.”

Even so, there are those who simply want to send a message with their money. Several donors believe that by withholding their contributions to humanitarian causes in Israel, the government will then have to ante up the difference and will then have less to spend on Orthodox programs.

The problem is much more one of perception than of reality, Bernstein said. “Unfortunately, the Orthodox community has been targeted,” he said. “Many who are Orthodox here and in Israel don’t support this legislation.”

The Federation, so far, has resisted allowing any but the largest donors to earmark part of their contribution to specific local programs. But just this week, the United Israel Appeal, the U.S. governing board of the Jewish Agency, approved allocating an additional $1 million to the Reform and Conservative movements in Israel this year and another $5 million in 1998. The money, some of which comes from UJF dollars, was welcomed by the Federation’s Bernstein as supporting the movement toward greater pluralism in Israel.

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