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Jewish Journal

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October 29, 1998

Forging a Common Future

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Allies or adversaries? That is the question confronting Jewish and Latino political leaders as they assess the current and future relations of their communities.

Some legislators, such as Assemblyman Robert Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, disagree that Jews and Latinos are at cross purposes politically. Hertzberg points to elected officials such as Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, a Latino who drew substantial support from the Jewish community.

“The issues that mean so much to Jews, such as education, resonate with Latinos,” Hertzberg said. “I think they see we have a common heritage as immigrants and in places like Boyle Heights, although we don’t live and work and socialize together as much as we have in the past.”

According to statistics from the Los Angeles County Children’s Planning Council, Latinos make up more than one-third of the population of the San Fernando Valley, versus 20 percent of the Westside area (including Santa Monica and West Los Angeles). Most Valley Latinos reside in the area’s northeastern region, including San Fernando and Pacoima, while the Valley Jewish population continues its shift westward.

On the economic front, statistics from the recent Jewish Federation demographic study show a median household income of $52,000 for Jewish families, while the median household income for Latinos as of 1990 was just more than $27,000 (according to a county profile). The county profile also shows 53.5 percent of Latinos employed either in sales/clerical positions or as operators or laborers, with about 11 percent employed in the professions; more than half of Los Angeles Jews hold professional occupations.

Then there is the language disparity. For many Latino immigrants, such as Mary Ballesteros of La Opinion newspaper (who moved to the Southland just eight years ago), Spanish remains their primary language. Thus, Jews — at least those who cannot speak Spanish — and Latinos find themselves communicating at a basic level, if at all.

A few organizations, such as VOICE (an immigration assistance and citizen education group) and the Valley Interfaith Council (VIC), have long worked at bridging the communication gap between Jews, Latinos and other minorities.

“Jews have successfully transitioned from being outsiders to being leaders in government and business,” said Scott Svonkin, a member of the VIC and chair of the Jewish Federation/Valley Alliance Jewish Community Relations Committee (JCRC). “We have a wealth of experience to share, and it is in our best interest as a minority to help the Latino community succeed by forging a genuine partnership with them.”

“The relationship [between Jews and Latinos] is relatively new, and it doesn’t come from the same place, historically, as black-Jewish relations,” said Barbara Creme, director of the Valley JCRC. “We need to approach this from a different perspective and realize it takes time. The black-Jewish relationship took time to evolve, too, and I think the biggest problem we face is people’s lack of patience.”

To help develop and nurture the Jewish-Latino relationship, Creme last year created the Hispanic Jewish Women’s Task Force with the assistance of Margaret Pontius, community services coordinator of the Guadalupe Center in Canoga Park; Virginia Rafelson of Los Angeles BASE (Basic Adult Spanish Education); and Rayna Gabin, field deputy for City Councilwoman Laura Chick.

Pontius, who supervises a wide range of social-service programs at the Guadalupe Center, said that she found it interesting to compare the different perceptions each group has of the other.

“In the Hispanic community, everything depends on class; they tend to see everyone who is not black or Hispanic as rich and, therefore, don’t want to have anything to do with us,” she said. “I don’t think Jews have an accurate picture, either; they think all Latinos are like their cleaning lady, that they don’t have degrees or are professionals, they don’t care about their kids going to good schools or about art or travel. Both sides tend to lump people together unfairly.

“This group [the task force] has been a real eye-opener for all of us. After a time, each side sees we have the same problems with teen-agers or aging parents or even domestic violence. At that point, it begins to be about women sharing, not Jewish women or Hispanic women or Asian women, but just women.”

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Heather Pre-empts Newt

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More than ever, Hollywood and Washington have much in common: dirty politics, even filthier sex scandals and the profane worship of numbers, whether they be exit polls, box office stats or the ratings Nielsen.

So entering the final lap of a tight congressional race, who did Republican candidate Randy Hoffman turn to when GOP leader Newt Gingrich couldn’t make a recent breakfast fund-raiser? None other than “Melrose Place” vixen — and family friend — Heather Locklear.

Both Hoffman and Locklear live in the same Westlake Village neighborhood, Campaign Manager Todd Slosek told Up Front. “Their kids play together. She wanted to help for a long time.”

When Gingrich got tied up in Capitol Hill business, Locklear graciously accepted the last-minute request to take the House speaker’s place for some photo ops with the 200 attendees at the Thousand Oaks country club event, which netted the campaign $50,000, said Slosek.

Although the race received a fair share of media attention before the event — “This is a top-10 targeted seat,” said Slosek of Hoffman’s challenge to first-term Democrat Brad Sherman in the 24th District encompassing the western San Fernando and Conejo valleys — Slosek was surprised that the last-minute invite garnered as much attention as it did. Media outlets from Roll Call to “Access Hollywood” all wanted to know more.

“The magnitude of stars here in Los Angeles foreshadows life in Washington D.C.,” Slosek added, noting that such luminaries as Larry Hagman and Pat Sajak also are Hoffman contributors. Locklear’s rocker hubby Richie Sambora donated a signed guitar for a door prize at a recent Hoffman-sponsored boat cruise.

Will Locklear take Gingrich’s place any more times in the future at, say, impeachment hearings? “I doubt it,” said Slosek. “She’s a very busy woman.”

But Newt has a different take. According to Slosek, Gingrich, in his remarks to the crowd via telephone, said, “With Heather there today, I get the impression that I wasn’t missed very much.” — William Yelles, Calendar Editor Former Skinhead Speaks Out

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Dance With Them That Brung You

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It was more in anger than sorrow that Sen. Alfonse D’Amato met with a group of Jewish community leaders last week to plead his case for re-election.

No Republican senator has done more for Israel and Jewish causes in recent years, the three-term GOP veteran argued. He led the fight to win Holocaust restitution from Swiss banks. He sponsored the 1996 Iran-Libya Sanctions Act. Yet polls show Jewish voters leaning 70-30 toward his Democratic challenger, Rep. Charles Schumer of Brooklyn. Where’s the gratitude, D’Amato wondered aloud.

His listeners were moved. Most had longstanding ties to Schumer, a Jew who’s been a House leader on Jewish issues for decades. Still, many wanted to help D’Amato somehow. “It’s natural,” says New York’s ex-mayor Ed Koch, a Democrat who helped convene the breakfast. “If you want to have righteous gentiles stand up for you, then you have to say ‘Thank You.'”

A few days later, though, D’Amato’s bid for Jewish thanks was trumped by events. On Friday, in a White House ceremony televised worldwide, President Clinton presided over the signing of an Israeli-Palestinian pact he had hammered out, reviving the gasping peace process and pulling the Middle East back from the brink of chaos. Nearly everyone involved agreed it was Clinton’s personal triumph. If that doesn’t deserve a vote of thanks, what does?

Formally, of course, Clinton isn’t on Tuesday’s ballot. In practice, though, he is. “If you want Congress to be talking about Monica Lewinsky for the next year and a half, followed by an impeachment vote, the thing to do is vote Republican,” says Rep. Robert Wexler of Florida, a Jewish Democrat who attended the signing ceremony.

Most Jews will vote Democratic, as usual. Close to 80 percent did so in the last two congressional elections, even the 1994 Republican sweep. American Jews have viewed the Democratic Party for generations as the protector of minority rights and religious freedom. That view has only grown lately, as the Republican right has mounted assaults on key interests like immigration, foreign aid and abortion rights.

This year, though, Republicans say it’s time to think again.

The math is simple. One-tenth of the U.S. Senate is Jewish. That’s a lot of clout for a group that’s barely 2.5 percent of the general population. But of those 10 Jewish senators, nine are Democrats. There’s only one Jew, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, among the Senate’s 55 Republicans. Republicans, alert readers recall, are in charge now.

It’s even worse on the House side: Of 24 Jewish members, just two are Republicans, Ben Gilman of New York and Jon Fox of suburban Philadelphia. Two Jews among 221 Republicans. And Fox faces a tough re-election challenge. He won last time by 84 votes.

The Jewish presence in the GOP hasn’t been weaker in decades. Besides Specter, Gilman and Fox, the only nationally visible Jewish Republican politician is Indianapolis mayor Stephen Goldsmith. Two others might emerge next week: Linda Lingle, running for governor of Hawaii, and Norm Coleman, for governor of Minnesota. A possible third is Randy Hoffman, seeking to unseat freshman Rep. Brad Sherman of Los Angeles in this year’s only Jew-vs.-Jew race. Even if they all win, though, the imbalance between the two parties’ Jewish delegations is staggering.

When Democrats ran Congress, Jewish lawmakers led fights for Jewish interests from Soviet refugee visas to UJA tax deductibility. Since 1994, community leaders have worked hard to forge new alliances with non-Jewish Republicans, with mixed results. Sometimes the alliance is over an issue where there’s philosophical agreement — with New Jersey’s Chris Smith on immigration, for example, or with Newt Gingrich on foreign aid. Lobbyists have also labored to boost the role of Republican Jewish donors.

But Republicans say it’s not enough. If Jewish voters remain three-to-one Democratic, Republicans will tire of courting them. That’s why eyes all over the country are watching the D’Amato-Schumer race.

“Anybody in politics knows you’ve got to maintain your commitments and support your friends,” says one lobbyist. “If you don’t, you’re sending a message to everybody else who supports you. It’s the old principle, you’ve got to dance with them that brung you.”

Sensing an opening, Republicans have mounted a special effort this year to woo Jewish voters. The GOP-linked National Jewish Coalition has coached candidates in a half-dozen states with big Jewish populations. “Many Republican candidates don’t know how to communicate without using words that alienate Jewish voters,” says coalition Director Matt Brooks.

Brooks says his pupils include some of this year’s most watched Republican comers, including California Senate challenger Matt Fong and Florida gubernatorial candidate Jeb Bush. “You have a number of candidates who realize that the Jewish community is in play,” Brooks says. “Hopefully they’ll be rewarded with a significant share of the Jewish vote, and that will make the difference in a close election.”

New York is the test case. D’Amato has made Jewish issues a central campaign theme. He’s hammered at Schumer for everything from voting against the 1991 Gulf War (true) to abandoning the besieged Lubavitch chassidim during the 1991 Crown Heights riots (not true). Last week, flanked by two Holocaust survivors and a rabbi, D’Amato claimed Schumer “does not care” about the Holocaust, having missed some procedural votes on the Swiss bank issue. Schumer was furious.

D’Amato doesn’t want much, just 40 percent of the Jewish vote. That’s what he got in 1992. George Bush, heading that year’s GOP ticket, got 15 percent. One-fourth of New York’s Jewish voters, about 250,000, split their tickets to back D’Amato. He won by about 100,000 votes.

Brooks says he’s aiming for 40 percent in the Fong and Bush races, too. His studies show it’s a key threshold. “Since 1980,” he says, “no Republican running in a district with a major Jewish population has gotten 40 percent of the Jewish vote and lost.”

He may be overly optimistic. His California candidate, Fong, went head to head with Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer in last spring’s open primary. Fong got only 12 percent of the Jewish vote — even though as state treasurer he helped lead the drive for Swiss bank sanctions. Boxer, who is Jewish, got 69 percent.

“Jews are Americans as well as Jews,” says Rep. Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat. “Our values aren’t only Israel and the Holocaust. We also have an interest in how this country is. If we don’t, then we come cheap. I don’t think that serves Jewish interests, and I don’t think it serves the Torah.”

And then there’s the matter of Clinton. “We have an unqualified friend in the White House,” says Florida’s Wexler. “We should all rejoice in that. And remember it when we vote.”

J.J. Goldberg writes a weekly column for The Jewish Journal.

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The Race for Governor

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The day after taking office, California’s new governor will assume at least two key roles: He will become the state’s chief political figure, and, immediately thereafter, he will be placed (by the press) on the short list of presidential hopefuls. It worked that way for Ronald Reagan (who famously made the leap from Sacramento to Washington) as well as for Jerry Brown and Pete Wilson (whose presidential bids were foiled before they could take hold). And, most recently, columnist George Will anointed Republican candidate Dan Lungren as a leading presidential figure, if and when he wins the governorship this November.

The parties’ fascination with the California governor lies, in part, in the promise of all those electoral votes and, in part, in the prospect of all that California money.

So we know the stakes are high — even more so this year, given that the governor and the legislature will have a strong say in the reapportionment which is scheduled for the year 2000. Political control over those redrawn districts could push about 10 congressional seats into the lap of either the Republicans or the Democrats. As a result, our local campaign for governor is actually a national race as well.

Given this potential for the national limelight, it seems almost startling that the political struggle for the governorship has, at times, been invisible. We know that one of the reasons for the scant coverage has been the continuous splash of news about Lewinsky and Co., and that another has been the sudden thump of bank and financial failures abroad, with their subsequent effect on the stock market here.

But it also needs to be stated that Davis and Lungren have been less-than-compelling political leaders. (See the story inside on Green Party candidate Dan Hamburg on page 12.) Not that they are political novices. Davis has a political resumé that reaches back nearly 25 years: He was chief of staff for Gov. Jerry Brown from 1974 to 1982; assemblyman, 1982 to 1986; state controller, 1986 to 1994; and has served as our lieutenant governor since 1994.

Lungren has an equally impressive political history. He served in Congress from 1978 until 1987, when he resigned abruptly, and has been the state’s attorney general since he was elected in 1990. His reputation, for better or ill, is based on his avid enforcement of the “three-strike” law.

However, the experience of both men has not translated into what we might describe as political appeal. Or daring leadership. Or a public personality that has attracted large numbers of voters. Gray Davis, the Democrat, has been cautious, bland, boring in most of his public appearances, while the GOP’s Dan Lungren has been phlegmatic, predictable, unyieldingly conservative.

Lungren has exhibited more warmth and personality than his opponent, but he has also been trapped by his stand on issues: He firmly opposes abortion (which has alienated many women voters), endorses school vouchers (which has put off many teachers and Jewish voters, though not most Orthodox Jews), and is steadfast in his rejection of a ban on assault weapons (which won a repudiation from Mayor Richard Riordan).

Lungren’s strength and weakness are one and the same: He often aligns himself with corporations and big business (particularly agribusiness), is stern on law and order, and, at times, is critical of union officials and environmentalists. When he appeared this week at the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance, the Los Angeles Times reported, he was silent on the murders of two victims of intolerance — Matthew Shepard, the University of Wyoming student, and Dr. Barnett Slepian, the Buffalo obstetrician, both of whom have dominated recent news. Conservatives who already back him believe he is their candidate. They know where he stands. They probably will turn out en masse to vote for him.

But there is also a problem: According to most polls, he has not made the necessary inroads on the state’s moderate Republicans, or on the swing independents. This suggests that conservative Republicans will turn out to vote for Lungren, but large numbers of other voters will not. Thus far, they have not been drawn to his personality or to his stand on most issues. Since Democrats outnumber Republicans in this state by about 8 percent, Lungren remains behind in the polls by about that number.

If one telling charge could be leveled against Davis, it would be that he reveals not a scintilla of charisma. The question is, Even though the Democrats agree with him on many of the issues, will they be motivated to come out to vote for gray Gray Davis?

Naysayers point to criticism within and outside the party: That Davis is a man without beliefs or commitment, who excels at one thing alone — namely, raising money. That’s wonderful for campaigning in California, they say, but it does not necessarily lead the uncommitted to vote, especially when the candidate himself is uninspiring.

All of which leads back to party loyalty and Davis’ stand on key issues: He has been constant in his support of environmental causes; unwavering in his backing of unions, particularly public employee unions; and very much behind the pro-choice movement, the last of which has earned him praise from the National Organization of Women. He is also endorsed by Americans for Democratic Action, who were pleased, among other things, when he opposed giving lie-detector tests to state and local employees.

Safe and pallid though he may be in his public appearances, these positions have given him an edge, in numbers at least, in the current race. The trick now is to persuade supporters to vote, when the candidate is neither a fiery speaker nor a dazzling personality.

This race for governor has not been gripping, but, as we move into the final weekend, the polls show Davis still holding his party affiliation lead of about 8 percent. But you as voter should be aware that, on Election Day, prediction counts for little, turnout for everything. — Gene Lichtenstein

The Race for Governor Read More »

Community Briefs

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Even for an international film producer and inveterate traveler, Arthur Cohn has covered a lot of territory recently.

During the last week in October, the winner of a record five Oscars and producer of “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis” and “Central Station” was feted in Shanghai at his very own “Arthur Cohn Day” by the Chinese government and film industry.

He used the occasion of a retrospective of his works at the Shanghai International Film Festival to premiere his latest documentary, “Children of the Night.”

Conceived as a cinematic memorial to the 1.3 million Jewish children who perished in the Holocaust — and their rescue from the anonymity of statistics — the film resurrects the faces of its subjects, sometimes at play, more often ragged and starving.

Although the film is only 18-minutes long, Cohn spent three years scouring archives across the world for material, of which only six yielded scraps of usable footage.

For the feature film to follow the documentary at the Shanghai festival, Cohn had originally selected his 1995 movie “Two Bits” with Al Pacino. However, government officials in Beijing insisted on “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis,” the 1971 classic about an aristocratic Italian-Jewish family that is ultimately destroyed by the fascists.

Cohn says that he took the Beijing fiat as a signal that “the theme of the Holocaust has been openly recognized by the Chinese government for the first time.”

His reception in Shanghai was remarkable, as press and public mobbed him like some rock star. More than 130 journalists covered his press conference, during which a giant banner above his head proclaimed “World Famous Producer Arthur Cohn” in Chinese and English.

For the screening itself, Chinese fans fought for tickets to the 2,000-seat theater. When the two films ended, the audience sat, as if stunned, for three-minutes, before quietly leaving.

For most Chinese, it was their initial introduction to a Holocaust theme. Said a young hotel manager, “Six million dead … that’s as if they murdered every bicyclist in this city.”

A reporter for the Shanghai Star perceived that “Cohn seems to cherish a special feeling for the Jews.” Indeed, the producer’s next release will be “One Day in September,” referring to the terrorist attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.

The production will be a “thriller with documentary footage,” says Cohn, with Michael Douglas in the central role of the commentator.

“One Day in September” will have its world premiere on Jan. 18 in Los Angeles, under the auspices of the American Film Institute.

A couple of days later Cohn arrived in Hollywood to report on his Shanghai triumph and participate in the first annual International Jewish Film Festival here.

He officiated at the American premiere of “Children of the Night” and presented an award to veteran actor Gregory Peck.

Cohn, who stands a rangy six-foot, three inches, is a third generation Swiss citizen and resident of Basel.

His father, Marcus, was a respected lawyer and a leader of the Swiss religious Zionist movement. He settled in Israel in 1949, helped to write many of the basic laws of the new state, and served as Israel’s assistant attorney general until his death in 1953.

The family’s Zionist roots go even deeper. The producer’s grandfather and namesake, Rabbi Arthur Cohn, was the chief rabbi of Basel. He was a friend of Theodor Herzl and one of the few leaders in the Orthodox rabbinate to support the founder of modern Zionism.

It was because of this support, says Cohn, that Herzl chose Basel, rather than one of Europe’s more glittering capitals, as the site of the first Zionist Congress in 1897.

Of the filmmaker’s three children, two sons have served in the Israeli army and studied at Israeli universities.

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Reaching Out

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Richard Alarcon looks a lot more relaxed these days. Although it is the final weeks before the Nov. 3 election, his race for the state senate’s 20th District seat appears to be a sure win — and the political atmosphere considerably less charged than when he was dealing with the fallout from his primary campaign.

Indeed, a breakfast meeting held on Oct. 19 by the American Jewish Committee provided a warm reception for the city councilman, who spoke on the topic of Jewish-Latino relations — a topic whose pitfalls he knows all too well.

In last spring’s primary, Alarcon campaigned for the Democratic Party’s nomination against former assemblyman Richard Katz. The candidates were running to replace state Sen. Herschel Rosenthal, a former Jewish Community Centers president who was ineligible, under term limits, to run again. The campaign was generally polite, at least for your average political race in Los Angeles.

However, just days before the June primary, the Alarcon forces sent out a political mailer that falsely linked Katz to the intimidation of Latino voters in a 1994 Orange County campaign. When Alarcon subsequently won the June primary by a narrow margin, the mailer became an incendiary device, setting off lawsuits and countersuits between Alarcon and Katz and inflaming leaders of both the Jewish and Latino communities (the latter of which found fault with at least one mailer sent out by Katz).

While both politicians later dropped their suits against each other, the question of political power in the San Fernando Valley — and whether one minority can effectively represent another — remains.

In an August interview, Alarcon said that he was “deeply disappointed” by the response to the election.

“I don’t think the general community understood; they thought this was a Jewish seat when the population in that area is about 52 percent Hispanic. In the 39th Assembly District (a part of the 20th Senate District), Jews are involved in the teaching and business ranks, but they don’t live there, and that was my opponent’s misperception as well.”

As for the offending mailer, Alarcon said that he didn’t think the piece made any difference in swinging the election his way.

“I find it disheartening that all the work we’d done (on the campaign) is now seen in the light of a mailer that went out to 18,000 Latino voters who were going to vote for me anyway.”

Alarcon did not seem too concerned that the primaries caused a dip in his support from Democratic Jewish voters.

“They’ll be hard-pressed to vote for a Republican with no real experience, or for a Libertarian,” he said.

That hasn’t stopped Republican candidate Ollie McCaulley from doing his best to woo Jewish voters, including persuading the AJC to allow him to speak before the Oct. 19 gathering. His 10-minute speech covered all the bases of black-Jewish relations, including the long history of Jewish participation in working for civil rights.

Alarcon began his remarks by saying that he was disappointed the meeting had become “infused with political undertones.” But if there are any lessons he’s learned from his bout with Katz, it is to tread cautiously in the Jewish community. Leader in the polls or not, it will still take that community’s support to ensure his continued success in politics. So Alarcon focused the bulk of his remarks on the commonalities between Los Angeles’ various ethnic minorities, and how diversity, while difficult, gives the city strength.

“We need to establish a dialogue between our communities. There is much that we can learn from each other about taking pride in our ethnicity while embracing American principles,” Alarcon told the group. “Why would I have a problem with the Jewish community when I’m working so hard to represent them?”

Why, indeed . — Wendy J. Madnick, Valley Editor

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Race to the Finish Line

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A couple of snapshots from the campaign trail, as the neck-to-neck senatorial race between Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer and Republican challenger Matt Fong hits the homestretch:

Here’s Boxer, standing on a portable wooden riser to elevate her 5-foot frame, punching the hot buttons on her political scoreboard at a $100-per-person fund-raiser, hosted by Democrats for Israel at a hilltop Bel Air home.

“I’m standing up to the gun lobby, the anti-choice lobby and the polluters and that makes for a tough race,” the passionate campaigner tells some 100 standing supporters.

Tough race is right. As Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose name Boxer invokes frequently, told her, “Each Boxer campaign gives your supporters a near-death experience.”

A few days later, some 300 Jewish present and potential supporters of state Treasurer Matt Fong gather at the Beverly Hills estate of Alan Casden to listen to the Republican candidate, pose for photos and contribute $70,000 to his campaign coffers.

The earnest, low-key Fong stresses his role in pressuring Swiss banks to settle Holocaust-era claims, the need for a strong U.S. defense force, collaboration with Israel on a joint anti-ballistic missile system and elimination of the capital gains tax.

Rosalie Zalis, Gov. Pete Wilson’s senior policy adviser, introduces a late-arriving reporter to some faces in the crowd, obscured in the dim light of a nightfall garden party.

Attorney Jeffrey Donfeld, who served on President Nixon’s domestic council, is impressed by Fong’s strong defense stand and pledge to fight international terrorism.

Donfeld and his wife, Noelle, like a considerable portion of the attendees, are Orthodox, who are attracted, he says, “Because the Republicans are more in tune with the family values that are important to us.”

Israeli-born Dr. Gil Mileikowsky says he voted for Boxer in 1992 but is switching because “Israel is not a priority for her, it’s not on top of her list.”

Despite such sentiments, Israel is not a significant issue in this campaign, says veteran Democratic activist Howard Welinsky while attending the Bel Air fund-raiser for Boxer. “Support for Israel is bipartisan, there is not much difference between the candidates on that,” he says.

Nevertheless, both candidates present their bona fides on Israel in their campaign literature. Boxer’s include support for aid to Israel as a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, four visits to the Jewish state and a lead role in pressing for sanctions targeting Iran.

Fong stresses his backing for U.S. military aid to, and cooperation with, Israel, and respect for Israel’s security needs.

Both candidates advocate moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and oppose American pressure on Israel during peace negotiations.

In the absence of major foreign policy controversies, the focus of the candidates’ debates has been on key domestic issues. In keeping with her Senate voting record, Boxer lines up on the liberal — too liberal, say her opponents — side, while Fong casts himself as a middle-of-the-road conservative — too conservative, say his opponents.

Their differences appear sharpest on abortion rights and gun control, two issues emphasized in most of Boxer’s stump speeches.

She is for full legal abortion rights, with Medicaid funding, and against requiring parental consent by minors. Fong endorses current legislation legalizing abortion during the first three months of pregnancy, but opposes public funding and late-term abortions, while backing the parental consent requirement.

Adding a personal note, Fong, who was adopted as a 6-month old, says, “I am glad my birth mother chose life.”

On gun control, Boxer supports and Fong opposes a widening of the federal ban on assault weapons. Boxer also advocates a ban on Saturday Night Specials, while Fong urges tougher sentences for criminals, rather than more restrictive gun laws.

The two are also far apart on most environmental legislation, with Boxer calling for strict enforcement, while Fong is concerned about the laws’ impact on the state’s agricultural sector.

One ever-hovering issue is the Clinton/Lewinsky affair. Here Boxer is in a particularly sensitive position, both as an outspoken feminist and as the mother-in-law of Tony Rodham, Hillary’s brother.

Although the affair has not dominated the Senate race, Boxer said that she has been “pretty fiercely” attacked on the issue by Fong.

While sharing a van ride with a reporter from her daughter’s home in Santa Monica, where she took a brief time-out to coddle her grandson, Boxer commented:

“No one has defended the president’s personal behavior, not even Bill Clinton himself. But most people draw a distinction between that and his policies, which have been so good for the country.”

Fong, responding to a questionnaire submitted by The Jewish Journal, charged Boxer with “A partisan double standard… by attacking her adversaries accused of sexual impropriety, but maintaining a deafening silence when her friend and fellow Democrat Bill Clinton was accused of similar behavior.”

Apparently only the Jewish and Asian-American media have taken public notice of the fact that the candidates are members of — and draw substantial financial support from — their respective communities.

“Religion has not been a major issue (in election campaigns) since John F. Kennedy won the presidency as a Catholic,” said Boxer, “though I think the Jewish community takes some pride in my achievements.”

Responding to a question, she notes that she is a member of Hadassah and Rodef Sholom, a Reform congregation in Marin County, and serves on the board of the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington. “I contribute to other Jewish causes, but don’t have the time to be personally involved,” Boxer said.

Fong touches rarely on his Chinese background, but told The Jewish Journal that “Members of my family historically have suffered discrimination… in not being able to have the job they want or buying the family home they want.”

Fong won some friends in the Jewish community by imposing sanctions against Swiss banks, but he maintains that he tried to do so quietly and not to “score political points.”

Less media attention has been given to Boxer’s role as a member of the Senate Banking Committee, where she never missed a session during the lengthy hearings that finally forced the Swiss banks to come to terms.

From a national perspective, four of the Senate’s 10 Jewish members are up for re-election, and their fate may well determine whether the Republicans can pick up five seats to reach a filibuster-proof majority of 60.

Political analysts believe the Jewish vote could be a decisive factor in the tight California race, as well as the equally close Senate contest in New York State.

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Recognizing Ourselves on Film

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For those Angelenos looking for a respite from million-dollar hype and “Happy Meal” tie-ins to studio blockbusters, late autumn is also a time when a flurry of small, offbeat film festivals grace local movie screens. Among them is the modest but engaging, Cinema Judaica: The Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival. Now in its fourth year, it’s an annual mixed-bag collection of independent features, documentaries, revival screenings and short films with Jewish-related themes.

The event, which runs from Nov. 1-12, is presented by Laemmle Theatres, and will screen at Beverly Hills’ Music Hall and the Town Center in Encino. As in years past, the festival reaches out beyond American borders and blends together a mix of directorial styles.

Laemmle’s Vice President Greg Laemmle touts the festival as an entertaining way to take the cultural and emotional pulse of the Jewish community, and, after a look at some of the films available for preview, some themes do emerge.

Documentaries outnumber independent features, an accurate reflection, according to Laemmle, of the Jewish filmmaking world at large. Interestingly, women filmmakers dominate the festival slate, in everything from highly personal documentaries to romantic comedies.

The Holocaust is still a powerful draw as subject matter, but the films here are less concerned with telling the larger, historical narrative of the Holocaust than with using it as a launching pad for examining personal identity, relationships with older survivors and second- and third-generation fallout. Being Jewish in America may no longer be the marginalizing experience it once was, but combine it with homosexuality and it becomes a provocatively contemporary subject. Several films — most notably “Treyf,” a documentary by Alisa Lebow and Cynthia Madansky — address the experience of being both gay and Jewish.

Finally, whether intentionally or not, several films reveal the depth and breadth of American-Jewish assimilation. Young filmmakers look back wonderingly at their own Jewish elders (both living and long-dead) with a mixture of yearning, bemusement and a very modern hunger for connection. As a result, the subjects of their longing emerge less as authoritative, everyday voices of a living tradition than as precious, cultural exotica.

Some festival highlights:

Documentaries

* “The Jew in the Lotus” A cinematic companion to Roger Kamenetz’s absorbing book of the same title, this new documentary by award-winning filmmaker Laurel Chiten chronicles the meeting of eight Jewish delegates with the Dalai Lama. At the Music Hall Nov. 5 and at the Town Center Nov. 12.

* “In Our Own Hands” The Jewish Brigade fought Germans in Italy during WWII, and helped smuggle European Jewish survivors to Palestine. Filmmaker Chuck Olin presents the Brigadiers dramatic story through archival footage and interviews with surviving veterans. Olin will be present for a director Q&A session at the film’s first festival screening. Music Hall, Nov. 1 and at the Town Center Nov. 4 .

* “Mah Jongg and Memories” The son of a dedicated mah jongg player, Alan H. Rosenberg has created a good-humored and loving tribute to its legions of elderly, Jewish female aficionados. Nov. 1 at the Music Hall.

Features

* “Awakening” Judit Elek’s brooding touching tale of a young Hungarian girl’s coming-of-age is set in Budapest after the 1956 Communist takeover. (The director will be present for a Q&A at selected screenings.) Music Hall, Nov. 1 and Nov. 7, and at the Town Center Nov. 4.

* “Autumn Sun” Two of Argentina’s most well-known stars are wonderful in Eduardo Mignogna’s charming crowd-pleaser. (After screening at the festival, the film begins a brief, regular theatrical engagement at the Music Hall on Nov. 13.) Music Hall on Nov. 1 and Town Center Nov. 12.

* “The Revolt of Job” A Hungarian Jewish farmer finds a way to outwit his Job-like fate in this powerful film. Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film of 1984. Music Hall Nov. 1, 7, and 11 and at the Town Center Nov. 11.

* “The Truce” Having made a brief round of the theaters earlier this year, Francesco Rosi’s uncompromising film about Italian author and Holocaust survivor, Primo Levi, makes a welcome reappearance at the festival. Starring John Turturro. Recipient of four Italian Cinema Awards. Nov. 2 at the Music Hall.

Laemmle’s Music Hall is located at 9036 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills. (310) 274-6869. Tickets are $8 at the Music Hall and $5 for seniors and children. Laemmle’s Town Center is at 17200 Ventura Blvd., Encino. (818)981-9811. General admission is $7.50 at the Town Center, and $4.50 for seniors and children. Special festival passes are also available. For more information and for a complete festival schedule, call the theaters or visit the Laemmle internet website at www.laemmle.com

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A Viable Alternative?

Leave a Comment / Old Stories, Politics /

Of all the candidates running for political office in the United States, it is a safe bet there is only one who:

* was named by People magazine as “one of the 50 most beautiful people in the galaxy” and dubbed The Hunk on the Hill while serving as U.S. congressman;

* read Martin Buber’s “I and Thou” in the original German; and

* is a Jew with a Muslim woman as his running mate.

Meet Dan (Daniel Eugene) Hamburg, candidate for governor of the state of California on the Green Party ticket.

Whatever one’s political allegiance, in an era of carefully packaged, poll-driven politicians backed by multimillion-dollar campaign chests, it’s refreshing to meet a candidate who doesn’t have to trim his sails, though it’s a given that his boat won’t cross the finish line first.

Hamburg was born in 1948, the same year as the state of Israel, he notes, and grew up in a Jewish, but not particularly observant, home in St. Louis.

Judaism exerted little influence until he enrolled in the Religious Studies Department at Stanford University.

He first feasted on the writing of the Christian liberation theologists, until he discovered Martin Buber, first in the philosopher’s “Tales of the Hasidim,” and then in his most famous work, “I and Thou,” which Hamburg read in German while an exchange student in Austria.

At Stanford, he minored in anti-Vietnam war protests, and then embarked on a somewhat erratic career, steadied by a consistent outlook that stood “at the intersection of spirituality and social action.”

His role models, then as now, were such men as Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela, whose examples he sought to follow during two years teaching in China, and later in Johannesburg, as political consultant to Mandela’s post-apartheid government.

In between, he earned a master’s degree in the philosophy of religion, and, at age 31, was elected to his first office as county supervisor in the Northern California town of Mendocino.

In 1992, running as a Democrat, Hamburg was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from California’s huge, sparsely populated first congressional district, which stretches for 350 miles from the Oregon border to just north of the San Francisco Bay area.

During his two-year term, Hamburg managed to alienate the National Rifle Association, the Christian Coalition and the influential timber and oil companies.

Even the widespread publicity he garnered as the handsomest solon in Washington didn’t help, and he lost his bid for re-election in 1994.

Two years later, Hamburg resigned from the Democratic Party, convinced that “it no longer was a vehicle for social change” and that our existing “duopoly represents one party with two heads.”

He did not remain long in the political wilderness. In the fall of 1996, when consumer advocate Ralph Nader, another of Hamburg’s exemplars, ran for the presidency as a Green, the ex-Democrat joined the campaign.

Nudged by Nader, Hamburg entered the governor’s race this year. Joining him as candidate for lieutenant governor is Sara Amir, born in Iran into a Muslim family, whose women’s rights activities did not please the ayatollahs. She is now a scientist with the California Environmental Protection Agency.

The Greens’ main platform planks go directly counter to the politics of most Californians, as expressed in recent referendums. The platform includes reinstatement of affirmative action, strengthening bilingual education, an “end to anti-immigrant bashing” and abolition of the death penalty.

The Hamburg-Amir ticket also advocates universal health care, ending subsidies to corporations, a living wage for all Californians, full recognition of Native American sovereignty and the “teaching of non-violence in schools.”

Surprisingly, the platform does not stress defense of the environment, the one issue most people associate with Green politics.

Hamburg, though an ardent environmentalist, says he wants to get beyond the stereotype of Greens as tree-huggers.

“We are really as much about justice as we’re about the environment,” he says. “Injustice to people and despoilment of the environment are two sides of the same coin.”

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Halloween Lessons

Leave a Comment / Old Stories /

Halloween celebrations and trick-or-treating: just clean fun or forbidden anti-Jewish activities? Like most issues in the Jewish community, it depends on who you ask. And not surprisingly, a Jewish school’s stand on Halloween observance may not be shared by the students or their parents.

Dr. George Lebovitz, headmaster of Kadima Hebrew Academy, a Conservative day school in Woodland Hills, felt so strongly about the issue that he sent home a full-page description of the Jewish attitude toward Halloween, together with a photocopy of the World Book Encyclopedia entry detailing the origins of Halloween as an ancient sacrificial festival. The Druids lit huge bonfires and burned crops, animals and possibly humans as sacrifices. Eventually, the medieval church transformed Halloween into a Christian holiday.

Lebovitz prefaced his handout with the school’s policy, “Kadima does not demand or require any practices of you at home,” but went on to take a strong stand against Halloween observance, noting that the Torah warns us not to imitate religious practices of other people. “We want to teach our children to give and not take,” he emphasized.

Lebovitz concedes, however, that “a lot, though not most” of his students will be trick-or-treating this year. Richard Posalski, father of a fourth grader at Kadima, received the handout, but still plans to take his daughter trick-or-treating Saturday night. “It’s fun!” Posalski says with a smile.

“My kids go to shul pretty regularly and go trick-or-treating too. It could be thought of as inconsistent, but without giving up your Jewish identity, there are certain concessions you make living in a non-Jewish environment. I don’t think we’re being hypocritical, just inconsistent.”

Rabbi Jeffrey Ronald, director of education at Kol Tikvah, a Reform synagogue in Woodland Hills, says that his school doesn’t deal with Halloween at all, although he personally believes that “Halloween has no place in a Jewish setting.”

“Living in a secular society,” Ronald says, “I don’t think it’s the end of the world if kids do some trick-or-treating and dress up in costumes. I’d rather see them dress up on Purim. Our position is no position one way or the other.”

Over the hill at another Reform religious school — Temple Akiba in Culver City — Miriam Hamrell, director of religious education, initially takes a strong stand against Halloween celebration. “We don’t celebrate it at all here in school,” she says emphatically. She stresses that the school has no Halloween decorations and does not allow costumes. She says the school discourages trick-or-treating, noting that it has become a safety issue.

“But,” Hamrell says, “we let the children do whatever is their family tradition.” She pauses and adds, “You don’t want the child to feel out of place if everyone else is going. You don’t want a kid to feel like an oddball.” Hamrell assumes that most Temple Akiba children will be out in a costume on Halloween eve.

Rifke Lewis, a Temple Akiba parent, has a different take. “I am opposed to trick-or-treating because it’s insensitive, it is rude and it teaches wrong values,” Lewis says. “It says you have a right to demand a treat or else you will trick. You have a right to beg for what you don’t need. You have a right to interrupt people. When I had babies it was infuriating. They’d just about fall asleep, then the doorbell would ring.”

But even some of David Miller’s third- and fourth-grade students from the Orthodox Harkham Hebrew Hillel Academy in Beverly Hills will be out ringing doorbells after Shabbat ends Halloween eve. Miller notes that every year the school’s educational director, Rabbi Peretz Scheinerman, makes a statement condemning Halloween observance. Still a small percentage of students will go trick-or-treating, but will discard the non-kosher goodies.

Harkham Hillel Hebrew Academy traditionally sponsors a movie night on Halloween, to provide a “kosher” and safe alternative to trick-or-treating. Miller believes that, especially because of the religious underpinnings on Halloween, Jews should treat it as just a night like any other. His kids stay home. When his elementary school-age son and daughter were asked if they minded not trick-or-treating, they answered with a resounding “No!”

But what happens in families where the children and parents are at odds over Halloween observances? Dr. Ron Wolfson, vice president and director of the Whizin Institute for Jewish Family Life at the University of Judaism and author of “The Art of Jewish Living,” states that each family must make a decision about what to do and how to deal with the subject. He, for example, allows his children to trick-or-treat, though not on Shabbat.

Families, Wolfson states, are often called upon to negotiate the dual identities we have as Jews and as Americans. He says that if a family has little traditional observance at home, when the children are faced with Halloween or Christmas, the parents will lose the battle with the kids. “But if a home is filled with Shabbat every week, and Sukkot, and Simchat Torah, and Pesach, and Purim, and Chanukah, and you don’t allow your kids to go trick-or-treating, then they’re not so bereft.”

Kadima Hebrew Academy’s Dr. Lebovitz says that nixing Halloween celebrations can give parents the opportunity to address the issue of peer pressure and not going along with the crowd. However, the bottom line, Lebovitz feels, is being able to tell one’s children “No.”

“In many cases the children rule the home which shouldn’t be the case,” Lebovitz says. “[In the case of trick-or-treating] you’re going and demanding something, and if they don’t give you something, there are dire consequences. That’s not the Jewish way. In Judaism, anything that is tainted with religious practices from another religion we go out of our way to avoid. To say Halloween has no religious overtones is absurd. If a parent can’t say no to this, what are they going to say no to?”

Halloween Lessons Read More »