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Jewish Journal

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July 31, 1997

Up Front

Leave a Comment / Old Stories, Up Front /

The Play’s Not the Thing

According to reviews, “Mendel and Moses,” a musical playing at the Canon Theatre in Beverly Hills, isn’t much of a play. But it is provoking — at least in some corners of the Jewish community — significant controversy.

Rabbi Benzion Kravitz, founder and director of the anti-cult group Jews for Judaism, is appalled that not only did The Jewish Journal run a review of the small-stage show about a stereotypical Jewish man who goes back in time to visit Moses, but that we even printed ads for the show. Didn’t we know that Jeremiah Ginsburg, the play’s writer and director, is a devout messianic Jew, whose ultimate aim is to proselytize Jews to Christianity? Didn’t we understand that the play is part of a devious scheme to entrap unsuspecting Jews into Christian fundamentalism? How dare we lend credence to such deception.

Contacted by Up Front, Ginsburg didn’t deny that he is a messianic Jew. Indeed, he advertised his 1991 off-Broadway musical, “Rabboni,” as a way “to share the Gospel with your Jewish friends and family.” But he said that “Mendel and Moses” is not affiliated with Jews for Jesus or any other missionary group.

“If I am a believer, how is that relevant to what the play is about?” he said, impassionedly. “I have been persecuted mercilessly for trying to bless our people. The evil forces of Lucifer and Beelzebub are out to destroy the Jewish people, and all I am trying to do is defend them.”

Whatever. Let’s assume that Ginsburg, 61, would like you to believe exactly as he does. Even if that is the case, his play at the Canon is not propaganda. It contains no overt Christian content. Some devil imagery here, some Lucifer language there — nothing you wouldn’t see on “Rosanne” or “The Simpsons.” No proselytizing takes place during the performance, or surrounding it.

Should we refuse to run ads based not on the content of the object advertised but on the religious beliefs of the advertiser? We don’t think so. If Ginsburg’s play itself reflected a philosophy anathema to the Jewish community, then, of course, we would reject his ads. But it doesn’t, so we won’t. — Robert Eshman, Associate Editor

Deer Me

In our recent review of the excellent new cookbook “Great Chefs of America Cook Kosher,” we said, with supreme cocksureness, that kosher venison is not available anywhere “in this universe.” Not so, Dr. Doreen Seidler-Feller wrote to correct us. A little research proved the good doctor — and kosher foodie — right. You can mail-order fresh-frozen glatt kosher venison from Norman Schloff’s Musicon Deer Farm at (914) 294-6378. Schloff raises 400 head of deer in Goshen, N.Y., and slaughters them under Orthodox Union supervision. He’ll ship the frozen meat next-day air for prices that begin at $3.50 per pound, with a $40 shipping fee and a 10-pound minimum.

For the less culinarily inclined, you can eat Schloff’s farm-raised deer at Levana, a glatt kosher gourmet restaurant in Manhattan, at 141 W. 69th Street (212-877-8457). The deer’s tenderloin comes sliced, propped against a homemade venison sausage, and napped with a juniper-berry sauce. All for just $39.95. As for us, we’ll be eating crow…. — R.E

The Keshet Chaim dance troupe will perform Aug. 10 at the Ford Amphitheater.

Shall We Dance?

Keshet Chaim is the United States’ premier Israeli dance troupe. Sure, it has the costumes, music and precision of other expert ethnic dance companies. But this group also has the kind of infectious spirit that almost always gets audiences up out of their seats and onto the stage, dancing the hora with abandon.

On Sunday, Aug. 10, at 7:30 p.m., Keshet Chaim, whose name means “Rainbow of Life,” will bring its show of Eastern European, Yemenite and Israeli dance to the Ford Amphitheater, across from the Hollywood Bowl. The unique event will bring artistic director Eytan Avisar’s Keshet Chaim together with the Rev. Della Reese’s UP Choir and Sue Fink’s Angel City Chorale. The energizing UP Choir, under the direction of Robert L. Henley III, will perform gospel and spiritual music. Angel City sings pop, jazz, folk and choral music. In the spirit of the event, the “Kids for Peace” mural, created by Gayle Gale, will be on display.

This concert is a one-time-only, three-for-the-price-of-one event, a truly L.A. way to pass a summer evening. For tickets ($20 for adults), call (800) 209-5277. — R.

Sponsoring Sephardim

The National Association of Sephardic Artists, Writers & Intellectuals (NASAWI) is 11 months old, and already it has sponsored concerts, lectures and a Sephardic Arts Festival at the Skirball Cultural Center. This week, it publishes the debut issue of a 24-page newspaper, and later this year, it will begin a glossy bimonthly, Ivri, which means “Hebrew” and also “border-crosser.”

The editors say that it’s the perfect word to describe Sephardim, whose ancestors endured several diasporas.

The idea for NASAWI actually began with a border-crosser of sorts: Jordan Elgrably founded NASAWI after a worldwide search for his Jewish identity.

Elgrably, a 39-year-old author and journalist, is the son of a French-Moroccan émigré father and an American mother of Lithuanian-Jewish descent. But his mother’s family regarded his father as foreign, non-Jewish, and the bias pressured the couple to divorce when Jordan was 2.

Thus, he grew up in an “American, assimilated, Ashkenazi world, with the idea that being Jewish was going to be defined by reading I.B. Singer, Philip Roth and Saul Bellow,” Elgrably says. “By my early 20s, I felt I wasn’t whole, and that the only way to put the fragments back together was to figure out my relationship to my parents and their pasts.”

And, so, Elgrably emigrated to France, where his father’s family had lived for a generation; he stayed there almost 10 years. He studied at the American University in Paris and at the Sorbonne and frequented the circles of the Sephardic intellectual elite. He then moved to Granada, Spain — where his ancestors had lived before the 1492 expulsion — and ultimately became a correspondent for Vogue Espana.

NASAWI was born after he moved back to Los Angeles, in 1990 — specifically after he interviewed author Victor Perera for the Washington Post. Guatemalan-born Perera, like Elgrably, had written an autobiographical novel about his Sephardic roots. The two writers reflected that there was no national organization to promote work by Sephardic artists, so they decided to create one.

Since January, NASAWI has produced events such as a literary evening and a flamenco concert (yes, flamenco has Jewish roots). There will be a Sephardic multicultural evening on Aug. 28 at the Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring, a Yiddish cultural center.

“Our goal is to promote a more universalist view of Judaism, with roots in the East,” Elgrably says.

For more information on NASAWI, call (213) 650-3157. — Naomi Pfefferman, Senior Writer
Read a previous week’s Up Front:
July 25, 1997 — UP FRONT: Cookin’ Up Vegetarian Goodness; Jewish Big Shots; The Life and Times of Three Women; and Arabian Lailot (Nights).July 18, 1997 — UP FRONT: A Jewish Doctor of…Sex? Cooking Up Books; and The Rescue of Ethiopian Jews Soon to be a Major Motion Picture.July 11, 1997 — UP FRONT: Books that Cook and Finding the Journal…Everywhere.

Up Front Read More »

A Warning to Revolutionaries

Leave a Comment / Old Stories, Torah /

Once, I was a revolutionary. I belonged to the generation of long hair and crazy ideas. We did more than invent rock music and protest an unjust war. We believed that we could create a new society, populated by new people — people freed of the prejudices and life-choking rigidities of the past. We believed that we could change the world, and bring greening to America.

America did change. But our dream went unfulfilled.

My parents, in their youth, were also revolutionaries. They left their families to build the new State of Israel. Anu banu artza livnot uli’heebanot ba: “We have come to the land,” goes the old song, “to build it, and in turn, to be built by it.” The Zionist revolution offered the dream of the New Jew — released from the poison of galut, free, strong, proud, self-reliant, embracing the best of ancient Judaism, but with backs strong and faces tanned from rigorous work on the Land. The State of Israel miraculously exists today. But where is this greater Zionist vision?

Bamidbar, the Torah’s fourth book, is about why revolutions fail. It is a warning to revolutionaries, a rebuke to those romantics who still believe in the one cataclysmic event that will forever free human beings from their chains. It is a response to those who foresee that, out of the apocalypse, the New Man, the New Woman, the New American, the New Jew will emerge. Here, Bamidbar offers, is the ideal case study: The people Israel freed from Egyptian slavery with signs and wonders. Those who stood in the presence of God on the quaking, flaming Sinai. The people who heard Truth from the mouth of God. And, still, they are unchanged, unrepentant, chained to their fears. The dream is beyond them. Offered the gift of true freedom, they clamor for meat. God offers them the Promised Land, and all they do is scheme to

A Warning to Revolutionaries Read More »

On What It Means To Be Armenian in America

Leave a Comment / Entertainment, Old Stories, Theater /

About a decade ago, I was interviewing Professor Richard Hovannisian, the eminent UCLA authority on modern Armenian history.

He lamented the state of the Armenian Diaspora in Los Angeles, with its infighting and confrontations between church leaders, and its American-born generations forgetting the mother tongue and marrying out at an alarming rate.

“Hey,” I said, “that sounds exactly like the Jews.”

“Yes,” responded Hovannisian, “except you’ve got your country, and we haven’t.”

Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Armenians, proud of the oldest civilization in Christendom — always conquered but never vanquished — have finally regained their own country.

But, judging by Leslie Ayvazian’s play, “Nine Armenians,” at the Taper Forum, the redeemed portion of the ancestral land is not a happy place.

Embroiled in constant warfare with its Moslem neighbor, Azerbaijan, and bedeviled by a stagnant economy, the Armenia presented to us is a country bereft of basic amenities, a place where starving citizens have burned their trees and furniture for some spark of warmth during the harsh winters.

As the fate of Israel and the memory of the Holocaust pervade the consciousness of American Jews, so do Armenia and the genocide of 1.5 million of their ancestors permeate the consciousness of American Armenians.

These twin markers of the Armenian experience are a constant underlying presence in the play, with the remembrance of the genocide as a festering wound. The scar has never healed, because the Turks have never acknowledged their guilt and the world — in contrast to the Holocaust — still largely ignores the deep tragedy.

Playwright Ayvazian and director Gordon Davidson work hard to show that, otherwise, the three-generation clan of the play’s title leads a warm, haimish, American family life.

There is the normal quota of affection, bickering, humor, death and growth, and an extraordinary amount of hugging and yelling — apparently, two Armenian ethnic traits.

Yet, with all this, few of the characters are developed fully and deeply enough to warrant the full engagement of the audience or to transmit a distinctly Armenian persona and distinctiveness to the non-Armenian.

A laudable exception is the family matriarch, Grandmother Non, portrayed by Magda Harout. Whether imparting Old World wisdom, showing her granddaughter how to really express suffering, or leading a lively regional dance, Harout infuses her role with warmth and élan.

“Nine Armenians” ends on Aug. 31. For tickets and times, call (213) 628- 2772.

On What It Means To Be Armenian in America Read More »

Back of the Bus

Leave a Comment / Old Stories, Womans Voice /

True story. Last week at the Westside Pavilion, just
outside Nordstrom, six women, dressed in the garb of
Islam, were standing by the mall’s ATM. Four wore
colorful scarves, exposing the face and a bit of hair; two
were completely in black, with only small slits, 1 inch by
4 inches, revealing huge, dark eyes. From a distance, the
human form disguised, they looked like a gathering of
wrens.

I needed to use the bank machine, but the women did
not move. They blocked my way. I was irritated. They
stood around, yakking in an Arab dialect I couldn’t
understand. In a flash, a whole feminist discourse popped
into my head; I split into two, debating with myself about
the rights of women under religious totalitarian societies.
Better come back later, when they’re gone.

As I walked away, I heard the familiar metallic tinkle
of nervous female giggling. I looked back over my
shoulder. The older of the women — the grandmother? —
was clearly trying to make a decision.

“Can I help you?” I said, walking up to them. They fell
on me like a sister. Grandma forced a Visa Gold Card into
my hand. “Machine,” she said. She wanted to take $5,000
out of her account. Impossible, I know. I went through
the motions of making a withdrawal anyway; she adroitly
entered her PIN number. The machine rejected her
request. We repeated the process three times — seven
women trying to conduct business. My shoulders relaxed.
Though we failed in the attempt, we were happy in the
effort. Behind the slit, a young girl’s eyes were bright.

“Bye,” the women said, gaily. I wondered who among
us was liberated.

No doubt, you’ve heard: In Israel, women are moving
to the back of the bus. We’re not so different from
fundamentalist Arab states after all. The policy, approved
last week by the Israeli Cabinet, calls for separate
entrances and seating for women in the rear of Egged
and Dan buses to B’nai Brak. Unless overturned by the
Supreme Court, it would immediately apply only to
transit lines through observant communities. But who
knows where it will end: Separate seating on El Al?

Of course, we are aghast, we American Jewish liberals.
We speak out, in the name of Rosa Parks, and against Jim
Crow. A shiver goes through those of us who remember
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We’re heading backward, into
the darkness.

But even as we are preparing to fight this bus policy,
as part of the larger battle on behalf of religious
pluralism in Israel, I detect a tonal difference among
those who are battling the political forces of extreme
Orthodoxy. I hear anger, yes, but also compassion, a
declaration of understanding that the enemy is not the
woman in veil or the sheitel. It is the dogmatic mind that
abuses her in its pursuit for power.

I have my theories on why this sensitivity is emerging
now.

The fact is that Jewish liberalism, feminist or
otherwise, has failed to take itself, and the issue of
religious expression in Israel, seriously. It
underestimated both the anti-Semitism on the left and
the forces of theocracy on the right. Jewish liberals were
comfortable, even arrogant, for too long, and the
important work of coalition building with moderate
religious forces in Israel was not done. The Who is a Jew?
battle over religious conversions has pit Reform and
Conservative movements against the triumphant haredi.
These movements are coming alive late in the game

Let one case make the point: For a decade, Women at
the Wall has fought the lonely battle for rights of
religious access in Israel. Painted as an obscure group of
fringe feminists, Women at the Wall got little organized
support in its lawsuit demanding the right to pray at the
site of the ancient temple. (The noted exception is ARZA,
the Reform Zionist organization.) As it became clear that
the women worshipers were not bra-burning radicals but
serious religious adherents, insisting on their equal rights,
liberal Jewish groups in America were even more at a
loss to see the relevance of their plea.

The American liberal community could have been
making common cause with religious Israelis for years
but did not. Only this past spring did it awaken to the
real danger to civil liberties in Israel, when Conservative
Jewish men and women were accosted on Shavuot while
trying to hold religious services at the old Temple site.

In conversations and in news reports last week with
liberal Jewish activists, I detected a new respect for
Israeli Orthodox women, even to the point of
“understanding”why some may want separation. This
makes political sense: in fightingto get the bus policy
overturned, American Jewish groups must get the
approval of women in a community they have long
ignored.

In the ongoing war for Israel, you can’t tell a friend or
foe by sheitel or veil. Those of us who seek to create a
tolerant Israel are going to have to practice tolerance
ourselves.

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

All rights reserved by author.

SEND EMAIL TO MARLENE ADLER MARKS
wvoice@aol.com

Read a previous week’s column by Marlene Adler Marks:

July 25, 1997 — A Perfect Orange

July 18, 1997 — News of Our Own

July 11, 1997 — Celluloid Heroes

July 4, 1997 — Meet the Seekowitzes

June 27, 1997 — The Facts of Life

June 20, 1997 — Reality Bites

June 13, 1997 — The Family Man

Back of the Bus Read More »

LettersPublic vs. Day Schools

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

It was with dismay and embarrassment that I read
your cover story “Beyond Their Means” (July 18). As a
committed Jew, I am appalled at the attitude of the
people quoted in the article who seem to think that their
children have the “right” to a Jewish day school
education. It astounds me that these people would sell
their wedding rings, borrow from relatives, and mortgage
their futures in order to seclude their children in the
enclaves of privilege which day schools have become.

As the parent of three young children, I am strongly
committed to their Jewish education, but in no way do I
think that they are “entitled” to — or in need of — a
private school in order to create morality or Jewish
identity. To the contrary, I believe that the isolation of
Jewish youth in day schools only serves to remove them
from the opportunities for learning which this
multicultural city provides through its much maligned,
but often excellent, public schools. Morality and identity
cannot be taught in a vacuum. In order to learn who they
are and what is right, children must exist in a broader
world; to know, live among, and appreciate those whose
religions, homes and bank accounts bear no resemblance
to their own.

It may be more difficult today to carve out the time
for religious education outside of the day school arena,
but this is where we teach our children life lessons about
meaningful choices. Perhaps soccer needs to be bumped
further down the list of priorities, or a birthday party
must be missed in order to get a religious education on
the weekends. If “Hebrew” school is not meeting the
needs of the community, then perhaps more emphasis
must be put on religious school and less on simply
learning Hebrew for the bar mitzvah event. And finally,
there is the home, which bears the ultimate responsibility
for children’s morality and identity.

The Jews of this community must re-evaluate what
they’re doing with this whole day school frenzy, and
whether the results will ultimately create better, more
moral citizens, or simply more isolated ones.

Gail Levy

Playa del Rey

*

Robert Eshman used some heart-wrenching anecdotes
in his story on the high cost of Jewish day schools
(“Beyond Their Means?” July 18). The Anti-Defamation
League is devoted to the cause of religious freedom and
to the continuity of the Jewish people. Jewish day school
education, Jewish camps, and an Israel experience have
all proved to be important in bolstering Jewish identity
and values.

The premise that “the decline of public schooling,
beginning in the 1970s” was the precursor of the day
school movement, however, is one with which we would
take exception. Not only have the public schools played
an historically dramatic role in the success of Jews in the
United States, but many Jewish parents today are finding
the public schools hospitable and intellectually
challenging places for their children.

We have no argument with Jewish parents choosing to
send their children to Jewish day schools, nor with
Eshman’s description of a proposed special endowment
fund to subsidize tuition costs. We are profoundly
concerned, however, with the other solution: vouchers.

The constitutionally mandated separation of church
and state is a core American value vital to protecting
religious freedom. Vouchers threaten the wall of
separation because they provide public funds for private
instruction. While some Jewish parents would
undoubtedly appreciate a $1,000 to $2,000 tuition credit,
tax dollars would also go to schools that teach Aryan
Nations doctrine, Palestinian-Arab schools where
students ready themselves for a jihad against
Israel, or schools that preach Nation of Islam leader Louis
Farrakhan’s vision of a society free of whites, gays,
Catholics and Jews.

Tamar Galatzan

Western States Assistant Counsel

Marjorie B. Green

Director of Schools and Education

Anti-Defamation League, Pacific Southwest Region

Los Angeles

Agree to Disagree

It would be easy to start a response to Baruch C.
Cohen’s commentary (“The Failed Experiment,” July 18),
by saying, “Written like a lawyer.” But that would not be
fair to others of his profession. What Cohen has
attempted to do, only points out the fallacies in the
reasoning of his arguments, which mimic the reasoning of
the Agudas HaRabbonim. When I went to college, I
learned about syllogisms: an argument with two premises
and a conclusion. I also learned that, “I ate a green apple.
I got a stomach ache. Therefore, all green apples give
stomach aches,” is a faulty syllogism.

When Cohen and his little group of Orthodox
clergymen establish their own premises to justify the
desired conclusion that Reform, Conservative and other
branches of Judaism are not truly Judaism, they have set
up their own faulty syllogism, and they dishonor the
service and memory of a long parade of great Jews who
have done honor to the Torah.

If, when I enter a Reform or Conservative synagogue
to worship or study Torah, I am not practicing Judaism,
what is it? Certainly not Islam, or Buddhism or anything
else but Judaism. It is a singularly arrogant stance for
Cohen and his kindred spirits to assume that they speak
for anyone but themselves in establishing what is, or is
not, Judaism.

This is an issue that will not be solved. Why don’t we
just agree to disagree, and put space in the Journal to
better use.

Milton I. Bremer

Sherman Oaks

*

Baruch Cohen’s comparison of the effects of the Reform
and Conservative clergy to that of the European Holocaust
is outrageous. If that was your intent in running his
article, “The Failed Experiment,” then congratulations on
desecrating the memory of those who suffered at Nazi
hands and humanizing the Third Reich. With an attitude
like that, it is no wonder that similar atrocities continue
today in Bosnia, Rwanda and Cambodia.

In the meantime, is everyone who needs to be fed,
fed? Is everyone who needs to be comforted, comforted?
Why is the Jewish Journal so involved with this petty
little squabble over who has the largest market share of
“genuine” Jews, when God has already assured us that we
will be around forever? Instead, how about spending
more time on how we can fulfill the requirement we read
every day “to act justly, to love kindness and to walk
humbly with your God”? You don’t have to be a member
of any organization to do Jewish things like these.

And as for those who whine about not being able to be
members of a synagogue, our shul, B’nai Tikvah in
Westchester, is open every Shabbat morning, free of
charge, to anyone who cares to come in to pray and
learn.

Warren Scheinin

Redondo Beach

Check Spellings

I would like to suggest that individuals viewing the
list of dormant Swiss Bank account names, recently
published in the Los Angeles Times, consider viewing all
possible spellings of a last name, when both spelling and
pronunciation of the name could be questionable.

As a self-described genealogist, I have located close to
1,000 family members. Based on my 15-plus years of
research, last names from Poland and Russia do not
always follow the English spelling guidelines.

The spelling and pronunciation of last names varies
throughout the world, because of the many differences in
alphabets. There are certain sounds that are absent from
German and English, but are present in Russian. There are
sounds in Russian, that are not present in Polish, and
sounds in Romanian, that are not present in Russian,
German or English.

A name spelled as Zucker in English, was not
pronounced or spelled as such in Poland. It was probably
Czuker, Zuker, Tsuker, Zukher, Tsukker, Zukhar, Tsyker,
or Sojkher.

Readers must understand that a “G” sound in the
Ukraine is pronounced as an “H” in English. Because
Cyrillic writing looks nothing like English or German
lettering, a name pronounced Halpert, could be listed as
Halpert based on the sound of the name, or Galpert based
on the closest translation of the written Cyrillic name.

A last name with a “J” is pronounced as “Y,” when it
appears after vowels. Therefore, when translated to
German or English, the spelling may have changed to a
“Y.”

Some useful resources to help one interested in finding
the various spelling of their last names, are:

1. “A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Russian
Empire,” by Alexander Beider (760 pages),

2. Daitch Mokotoff Soundex System,

3. Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles,

4. Family History Library-Church of Latter Day
Saints.

Terri Bricker

Los Angeles

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

Attention: Letters.

All letters must include full name, a valid address and phone number. Pseudonyms and initials will not be used, but names will be withheld on request. Please indicate that you are sending your letter in response to the web page.

LettersPublic vs. Day Schools Read More »

The Good Son

Leave a Comment / Old Stories, Personal Voice /

My birthday used to be celebrated as if it were a national holiday. From the backyard pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey days to the touch football games on the beach at Easthampton, July 16 was a date inscribed in infamy.

My children forgot my birthday at their own peril. So they never did. Even when my son, Jason, was living in Australia, he told me that he could feel my disappointment when his card arrived two days late. “Mom, lighten up; I’m thousands of miles away,” he said by phone on the 16th. No slack was cut.

This July, my son, a Portland, Ore., deputy district attorney, announced that he would be prosecuting his most important case — 11 counts of assault and harassment against a wife beater. “I’d like to see you put this guy away,” I said. He told me to come up and said that we could celebrate my birthday too.

I was in a courtroom when I went into labor with Jason. I was watching his father, an independent candidate for New York’s 5th District congressional seat, defend himself against a challenge from the Democratic Party over a ballot slot he had won by petition. My mother was with me, and when I announced that the baby was coming, she said: “Hold on, let’s wait for the verdict.”

The verdict was an 8-pound, 2-ounce boy who held his head erect from the moment he was born and who began sizing up the world immediately. He let out a big laugh when he was less than 2 months old and has pretty much kept me laughing for 28 years.

Jason was born with an internal appointment book that knew, automatically, when he was going to tackle the challenges of life. I was his mother, not his personal schedule maker, so he learned according to Jason time, not mine. My task was, as he so aptly says now, to watch over him — not to be mistaken for overprotecting. I was, essentially, his defense attorney. To his credit, he never came to me with a bogus case.

There was the time when he received an acceptance letter from UC San Diego and was notified a week later that it was a mistake. He called me at my office in Los Angeles, and I told him to get his paperwork together, that we were driving to San Diego.

Right before we entered the registrar’s office, Jason turned to me and said: “Let me handle this. I’ll give you the signal if I need you.” We walked in, and I immediately checked to see if the windows would open high enough to throw a desk out.

Jason presented his position to a righteous clerk who quoted University of California education rules. He asked to see the code that she was using to determine his future. She lugged out a large tome crammed with small print and opened to the necessary page. Jason read the material to himself while I tried to gauge which piece of furniture I should affix myself to when the campus police tried to take me away.

Quietly, my son pointed out to the clerk that the rule about grade-point averages didn’t apply to grades which were achieved in honors classes — marks which are automatically rated higher — and that he more than qualified for entry. She read for herself.

“Well,” she said, “we’ll have to call Sacramento about this.”

“Call now,” he gently requested.

She did. Sacramento concurred with my son.

“You’re one lucky young man,” she said. “We’ll send you the paper work.”

Jason looked my way. “No,” I said, “I want to pay his fees and know his dorm-room number before we leave today.”

A few days later, Jason told me about a dream: “I was pulling a heavy rope that was attached to a huge cage. You were in the cage, Mom, and I announced to no one in particular that if I wasn’t taken seriously, I was going to unlock the cage, and there was no telling what would happen.”

As I sat in the Portland courtroom and watched him select a jury, make his opening argument and approach the bench to dispute a defense statement, at some time during the proceedings, I wasn’t watching my son anymore. I was watching a man responsible for the consequences of someone else’s life.

At the recess, he asked what I thought about the jury, and I took out my notes, and we agreed that No. 8 had to be bumped. I felt honored to be asked.

“Happy birthday,” he said to me when he dropped me off at the airport. “Happy Birthday,” he sang to my answering machine.

Linda Feldman, a former columnist for the Los Angeles

Times, is the co-author of “Where To Go From Here: Discovering Your Own Life’s Wisdom,” due out his fall from Simon & Schuster. All rights reserved by author

The Good Son Read More »

Lessons from the Mahane Yehuda Tragedy

Leave a Comment / Israel, Old Stories /

Tragically, the horrible terrorist attack against civilians at the Mahane Yehuda marketplace in Jerusalem leaves all of us numb and, at the same time, reminds us that the memories of Jewish history live on.

The attack took place during the period known as the Three Weeks, a period between the 17th of Tammuz and the ninth of Av, when our enemies broached the walls of Jerusalem and then destroyed the Temple. Traditionally, it is a period of mourning, when no weddings or simchas take place. The attack by the Hamas terrorists reminds Jews everywhere that, 2,500 years later, our enemies still want to lay siege on Jerusalem.

What should we make of all this? And how will it affect the peace process?

Obviously, nothing would please those who want to destroy the peace process more than to trigger a siege mentality that places the Middle East on a war footing and allows the terrorists to achieve their ultimate objectives. On the other hand, to naïvely accept Yasser Arafat’s condolences is to turn a blind eye to the overwhelming evidence that his rhetoric and the behavior of his senior police officials encourages the work of the terrorists.

Arafat assures President Clinton that he is fighting terrorism, but we have no clue which terrorists he is fighting, since he refuses to believe that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are anything less than patriots. Less than a month ago, in an interview with a Russian newspaper, Arafat was specifically asked the following:

Q: Is Hamas a terrorist organization?

A: The Hamas is one of many patriotic organizations.

Q: Even its military wing?

A: Even its military wing.

Many Israelis blame the lack of progress in the peace process as having exasperated the situation and contributed to the current terrorist attack.

Personally, I don’t find that particularly persuasive. When the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was making the most progress in the peace process, the fundamentalists still unleashed their terror. Then, following Rabin’s murder by a Jewish fundamentalist, Prime Minister Shimon Peres moved the peace process forward at an even faster pace, but the terrorists still unleashed their bombs on the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

There are important lessons that Israel must learn from the Mahane Yehuda attack.

The first, I think, is that the Palestinian Authority, which Arafat undoubtedly will make into an independent Palestinian state, will never adequately be able to protect Israeli citizens. Despite all the international pressure, the man on the street in Gaza and in Jericho will simply not turn on his brother Palestinian and hand him over to the Israeli occupier.

The more land turned over to Arafat means a larger geographic area from which the terrorists will feel free to continue their operations. If Israel cedes sovereignty over portions of East Jerusalem to Arafat, then make no mistake about it: A terrorist can leave his bombs at the King David Hotel, walk a few blocks and enter another country, a country that has shown little inclination to apprehend terrorists or bring them to justice.

No country in the world would tolerate a situation like that, let alone the United States, which Israelis often look to as a moral barometer. If they looked carefully, they would see a country that’s zealous about protecting its national-security interests.

Just look at the bipartisan way in which American presidents have conducted foreign policy toward Cuba, which is 90 miles — rather than just a few blocks — from the Miami shoreline and is certainly no grave threat to the national-security interests of the world’s only superpower. The only thing Cuba can invade us with is sugar beets and cigars, and, still, the United States has almost a paranoiac fear about a possible attack from Cuba. If, indeed, such an attack was ever launched from Cuba, the United States wouldn’t think twice before launching a counterattack on Cuban soil.

Yet Arafat is incredulous when he hears that Israel might enter Palestinian territory to apprehend the terrorists who have murdered hundreds of Israelis and whom he calls patriots. And the international community, led by the Arab world, would join in the annual chorus of condemnation against Israel at the United Nations General Assembly.

The second lesson we must learn from all this is that a significant minority of Palestinians hold fundamentalist views that teach them that Israel is a cancer in their midst which must be expunged. They hold such views now, and they will hold such views after a final peace treaty is concluded.

Therefore, Israel must assume that wherever the final Palestinian state will be, a sizable minority of fundamentalists will pitch their tents alongside.

If Israel should compromise and divide Jerusalem, then it means that living in East Jerusalem, next door to Arafat, will be someone who believes that if you blow up Israeli women and children, the G-d of Islam intercedes and grants such martyrs 17 wives, a heavenly banquet and eternal bliss in heaven. No government should allow its citizens to live in such mortal danger without a policy that adequately protects them.

In concluding a final peace with the Arabs, Israel must ask itself: What would the United States do under similar circumstances? Would the United States or any other country take such risks?

And then Israel, before moving forward with the peace process, should launch an aggressive campaign aimed at the international community to get them to force the leaders of Islam to stand up and tell the truth about their religion in newspaper and television ads around the world, but particularly in the Middle East.

To get President Hosni Mubarak, King Fahd and King Hussein to assemble the spiritual leaders of the Moslem world and ask them to tell their constituents in the mosques and in public ads in the Arab newspapers that those who perpetrated the attack at Mahane Yehuda were going directly to hell and not heaven; that they have dishonored their religion and their families; that they should be given a traitor’s funeral rather than a patriot’s.

Then, the Arab world would be credible in urging Israel to jump-start the peace talks.

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HUC Dean Redux

Leave a Comment / Education, Old Stories /

More than a quarter century ago, Dr. Lewis Barth became one of the youngest college deans in the United States, assuming the post at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles. Eight years later, he stepped down. Now, at 59, Barth is back, having returned to his old chair last month.

To say that HUC has changed in the past 26 years would be an understatement. Barth, easy-going and soft-spoken, is certainly aware of the changes and challenges that have been handed to him. Among other things, he says, he needs to raise the visibility of his college, improve the morale of his faculty, and secure a position of prominence for HUC within this city of competing Jewish institutions.

During the administration of Barth’s predecessor, Rabbi Lee Bycel, the Skirball Cultural Center was transformed from a small but respected museum on the HUC campus to a highly visible independent institution in the Sepulveda Pass. While some have worried that the Skirball’s presence within the community has eclipsed HUC’s, the college has sincemade strides of its own, solidifying its relationship with USC. The two institutions now share a number of programs, including USC’s newly established Department of Jewish studies.

Barth aims to further increase HUC’s visibility by playing to its strengths. His early strategy calls for bringing the full rabbinic preparation curriculum to his campus, including the prestigious ordination ceremonies. Supporters who have been pushing this policy change for years contend that in this one stroke, Barth could jump-start fund raising, increase the college’s enrollment and raise its profile.

In taking on such a challenge, Barth joins Reform Judaism’s relatively youthful new national leadership team of Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman, president of the three Reform campuses (Cincinnati, Houston and Los Angeles), and Rabbi Eric Yoffie, director of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

“This is a historic moment for me,” says Barth, a native Angeleno who is also a nationally recognized scholar for his writings about Midrashic literature.

Barth has spent much of his career at HUC: In addition to his first term as dean (1971-1979), he has taught and done scholarly research. As a teacher, he has earned high marks from both students and colleagues. Rabbi Lawrence Goldmark, the new president of the Southern California Board of Rabbis, says that Barth is “the consummate teacher.”

“Lew is a tremendous motivator, meticulously prepared, and he’s popular with his students,” says Goldmark, a member of the youth group that Barth led at Temple Israel almost 40 years ago. “These are the kinds of skills I believe Lew will transfer successfully to the dean’s office, and lead the college to new heights.”

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‘We Do Not Just

Leave a Comment / Israel, Old Stories /

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s tough response to Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat’s call of condolence echoed from Los Angeles on Wednesday, as Israel’s consulate fielded nonstop calls from journalists and concerned Angelenos.

“We are touched by [Arafat’s] expression of concern and condolence,” said Israeli Consul General Yoram Ben Ze’ev. “But it is not enough. We do not expect Arafat to be able to stop all terrorism. [But] he can and should do more.”

The peace process, stalled since the spring, will undoubtedly remain on hold until Arafat meets Israel’s expectations in combating Palestinian terrorists. But Ben Ze’ev was not prepared to say that it was finished.

“What we tried to do in Oslo was to change the politics of the Middle East so that terrorism is no longer an option,” he said. “Since then, we’ve had more terrorism than before. I don’t know that Oslo has failed. Certainly, it has not delivered what we wanted. But it is part of a longer process. We knew there would be many obstacles along the way.”

But Ben Ze’ev said that peace efforts will not slip easily back on track. “We do not take this easily,” he said. “We do not just turn the page.”

Many analysts credit the last spate of Jerusalem bombings, in February and March 1996, with bringing about the electoral defeat of then-Prime Minister Shimon Peres. Netanyahu won the office with the promise of increasing Israelis’ sense of security. Did Wednesday’s market bombings mean that Netanyahu failed the voters?

“It’s not a time we discuss politics,” said Ben Ze’ev. “At least at this time, we don’t distinguish between right or left or center. There is no right or left or center now. There is a nation in deep grief.”

Expressions of that grief poured into the consulate all day on Wednesday. Several Arabs were among the dozens of callers expressing condolences. “One of them was named Jihad,” said Deputy Consul General Ido Aharoni.

The consulate informed callers with friends and family in Jerusalem that a complete list of the dead and wounded would not be available until Friday. In the meantime, consular staff gave callers the telephone numbers of Jerusalem’s three major hospitals — Hadassah Ein Kerem, Hadassah Har HaTzofim and Sharei Tzedek.

“We tell them they need to check with the emergency wards,” said Aharoni.

Not a Coincidence

Carmen H. Warschaw, chair of the Los Angeles Jewish Federation Council’s Jewish Community Relations Committee, issued the following statement regarding the latest act of violence in Israel:

“Today, we again mourn the loss of innocent lives in Israel that occurred in Jerusalem. Our heartfelt condolences are extended to the victims and their families of this latest tragic act of violence. All of us in the Los Angeles Jewish community are touched by the loss of innocent lives anywhere.

“It is surely not a coincidence that this bombing occurred only one day after the announcement of the resumption of a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians. Additionally, we support Prime Minister Netanyahu’s call to Yasser Arafat that he take immediate action against terrorist organizations and their infrastructure. This senseless act of terror must not diminish desire for peace nor our work for greater understanding among all of the peoples in the region. Any loss of innocent life is tragic.

“Once again, we offer our heartfelt sympathies to the families of the victims of this senseless act.” — Robert Eshman, Associate Editor

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Concerned Christians

Leave a Comment / Congregations, Judaism, Old Stories /

Strains of somber organ music resonated in the large sanctuary as the eight Holocaust survivors told their stories. As each spoke about horrors endured, loved ones lost and, ultimately, faith reclaimed, the congregation punctuated their speeches with murmurs of “Thank You, Jesus.”

Clearly, this was no ordinary Holocaust memorial. The survivors spoke as part of the First Annual Varian Fry Committee of Concerned Christians Awards at the Church on the Way, a prominent Pentecostal church located in the San Fernando Valley. Co-sponsored by Stephen S. Wise Temple, the educational gathering brought together more than 900 Christians of seemingly every color and age, as well as some Jewish guests, to honor Holocaust survivors and their rescuers.

“I was blown away,” said Dean Jones, one of the event organizers. “I never expected the survivors to be so spiritually dynamic and to bring so much hope to that congregation.”

Jones, a veteran actor (his credits include “The Love Bug” and “Clear and Present Danger”) and member of the Church on the Way, said that he expected the event to serve as a model for similar ones nationwide. As spokesperson for the 8-year-old Committee of Concerned Christians (CCC), he sees Christian awareness and involvement as critical in the fight against anti-Semitism. Recognizing the history of Jewish persecution and noting that much of it came from people professing to be good Christians, Jones firmly believes in the work of the Committee in curbing anti-Semitism worldwide.

“It’s mind-boggling that the Holocaust happened in this century,” said Jones. “I believe that Christian people who really want to follow Christ have a lot of credibility to regain with Jewish people the world over.”

The CCC’s main goal is education. Most of the organization’s efforts are directed toward providing instructional materials for schools and churches throughout the country. These include “The Diary of Anne Frank” as well as educational videos on the Holocaust. Funding comes from private donors.

Co-founded by Los Angeles Jewish businessman Ben Friedman, CCC has enlisted more than 2,000 Christian priests and ministers of all denominations. These clergymen have agreed to devote at least one sermon a year to teach about the Holocaust and the dangers of anti-Semitism.

Acknowledging the limitations of the organization, Jones said: “It’s true that the skinheads are not going to be sitting in church, hearing a sermon on the dangers of anti-Semitism. However, if the religious community is sensitized and united, and they take a firm stance against any outbreaks of intolerance, I believe that anti-Semitism can be contained.”

According to Friedman, the organization’s biggest obstacle today is the indifference of Jews. Friedman said that Jewish media and organizations have been resistant to publicizing his group.

Indeed, many in the Jewish community wonder why Jews should bother lauding steps that should have been made long ago.

“How much Jewish blood had to be shed before a major figure in Christianity finally debunked a belief that has been either implicitly or explicitly passed on for centuries?” said one local Jewish activist, who did not wish to be named.

“The beneficiaries of this are the Jews,” countered Friedman. But he stressed that “the real goal of CCC is for Christians to understand that they have to appeal to Christians to solve the problems of Christians hating Jews for the last 1,600 years.”

Ebi Gabor, one of the survivors who spoke at the church gathering, concurred. She was 16 years old when she was taken to Auschwitz from her upper-middle-class home in Hungary. “Churches are the most influential, and the most convincing. We need their help to educate people about what happened,” she said.

Almost every seat was filled in the church on June 4. A large gospel choir stood at the back of the pulpit, while a five-piece band played on the side. The stage was flanked by two large video screens that projected words to hymns and psalms.

In his opening prayer, Dr. Jack Hayford, senior pastor of the Church on the Way, invoked, “the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, and Ruach HaKodesh.” As he spoke, many congregants murmured words of praise or raised their arms and heads upward in prayer.

Throughout the evening, the mood was somber yet uplifting. The attendees were clearly disturbed by an intensely graphic 15-minute clip from the miniseries “War and Remembrance,” of the journey from the cattle cars to the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

Cantor Nathan Lam of Stephen S. Wise Temple, who helped initiate plans for the event a year ago, sang “Sim Shalom.” After the proceedings, Lam recalled that his initial concern about the group’s intentions were unnecessary. “It was truly an evening of spiritual brotherhood, with everyone respecting the other’s religious beliefs and being moved by the other person’s sincerity.”

There are tentative plans between the two congregations for a “thanksgiving” event, either during Sukkot or during the actual November holiday.

Rabbi Eli Herscher spoke about his own background (his family left Germany in 1935) and noted that the key to the evening lay in the fact that “we are here, Jews and Christians, as partners in memory.” Both he and Lam received standing ovations.

Named for the first American to be given recognition by Israel as Righteous Among the Nations, the Varian Fry awards were presented to Barbro Osher, Consul General of Sweden, in recognition of her country’s work in saving the lives of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, and to Dr. Marcel Verzeano, an associate of Varian Fry who helped smuggle thousands of people out of Vichy France.

Hayford spoke of how only “halfway into the 40 years of [his] ministry” did he learn about the history of anti-Semitism in Christian tradition. “I didn’t know that the viciousness of the Inquisition, the Crusades or other pogroms were often conducted in the name of Christ.”

He stressed the importance of education and awareness in combating intolerance, ignorance or just apathy, especially by those who consider themselves true Christians.

“The Bible teaches us that repentance is what you do when you finally understand. And that’s what we’re trying to do, now that we finally understand,” he said.

For more information on CCC, call (818) 848-3442.

Shlomit Levy is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer.

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