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Jewish Journal

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January 7, 1999

The Human Element of Diplomacy

Leave a Comment / Israel, Old Stories, Worldwide /

The all-night sessions, heated confrontations and threats of walkouts that marked the recent Wye Accord negotiations had their parallel 20 years ago, when the Camp David Agreement lay the groundwork for the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.

Back then, as now, the personalities and human interaction among the three pricipals — the leaders of the United States, Israel and the Arab side — were as important as the issues and political strategies highlighted in the news.

This lesson was brought home at a remarkable meeting last month, when many of the leading participants in the Camp David negotiations gathered for a 20th-anniversary retrospective at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba.

At hand were two of the then-key players, former U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and former Egyptian Prime Minister Mustafa Khalil.

Prominent Jordanian and Egyptian peace advocates also participated, as did such Israeli veterans of Camp David as Simcha Dinitz, Elyakim Rubinstein and Meir Rosenne.

The president of Ben-Gurion University, Avishay Braverman, said that he had extended an invitation to Carter, but the former president was not able to attend.

The case for human relationships as the ultimate force in diplomacy was put forward in an address by Harold Saunders, who, in 1978, served as U.S. assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs.

In diplomacy, and especially peace-making, “we must widen the angle of our lens from the traditional focus on government and institutions to include human beings outside government,” Saunders said. “Many of today’s deep-rooted conflicts are beyond the reach of government. [Negotiations are] not just about concrete issues; they are about human relationships…. These conflicts are not ready for formal mediation, because people do not negotiate about identity, fear, historic grievances or acceptance.”

The human equation was important to Carter, who, before the Camp David summit was convened, told the CIA that he wanted to be “steeped in the personalities of Begin and Sadat” and asked for exhaustive personality profiles of the two leaders, said Saunders.

The task fell to psychiatrist Jerrold Post, who found that Sadat’s and Begin’s personalities could hardly have been further apart, making their ultimate accord even more astonishing.

Sadat was a “big picture” man who detested details and felt he was destined to play a transcendent role in history. By contrast, Begin’s mind focused on exacting details, legal precision and nuances of language. In addition, he was marked by the searing impact of the Holocaust, and he instinctively recoiled from what he felt as pressure exerted by a superior force.

How the two leaders were perceived, especially by their domestic enemies, bears considerable resemblance to the current situation in the Middle East, Post said in an interview with The Jewish Journal during the conference.

When Sadat came to Jerusalem in November 1977, he “was seen by the radical Arab world as a traitor,” Post said. “Begin was expected to cement the Greater Israel, and when, instead, he compromised, many of his followers felt that he had betrayed them.

“Now, 20 years later, Arab rejectionists rail at Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as a traitor. On the other side, many who voted for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to reverse the Oslo agreement now feel that they have been betrayed.”

Despite the collegial and civil tone of the conference, current regional animosities occasionally broke through. Israeli tempers frayed when Arafat adviser Bassam Abu Sharif recited a list of grievances against the Netanyahu government.

And when Abu Sharif later proclaimed that Palestinians and Israelis should walk hand in hand for peace, former Begin aide Yehiel Kadishai called out: “Say it in Arabic to your people, not here in English.”

No startling historical secrets were uncovered by the participants, but the purpose and success of the conference lay elsewhere, said its organizer, Dr. Dror Ze’evi, head of BGU’s Chaim Herzog Center.

“While we got some good historical material for later analysis, the main achievement of the conference was the fact that it happened,” Ze’evi said. “It’s a success when in a time of tension, senior Jordanian, Palestinian and Egyptian diplomats and scholars sit down with Israelis to talk seriously and quietly about their past conflicts and current problems.” — Tom Tugend, Contributing Editor

Jewish Teens Charged with Vandalism

In a surprising twist, two Jewish teens were arrested Jan. 4 in Calabasas on charges of hate-crime vandalism and felony vandalism following the discovery of a swastika painted on the wall of a local elementary school.

School security guards at Chaparral Elementary discovered over New Year’s weekend the graffiti, which included the swastika and a “white power” slogan, and they called school principal Mary Sistrunk.

“The graffiti was all over the school, but it was mostly initials,” said Sistrunk, adding that such attacks at the school were rare. “Fortunately, we were able to get it cleaned up before the students got here.”

The suspects, both from the Calabasas area, also attacked cars in the surrounding neighborhood in what Det. John Manwell of the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Department called a one-night rampage.

“I talked to the kids, and another one who was not involved in the crime but knew the suspects, and I don’t believe there was any real racist or anti-Semitic motivation. They just did it for pure shock value,” said Manwell. “Still, it’s very upsetting. Hopefully, [their arrest] will send out a message that this sort of thing is not going to be tolerated.” — Wendy Madnick, Valley Editor

911 from 9 to 5

Remember those affecting billboards that promoted the Jewish Federation as “The Other 911?”

The ad campaign claimed that for Jews in need, the Federation was the place to call for help.

That’s true — but it depends on when you call. These days, when you try the Federation’s main number (323-761-8000) after 5 p.m. and before 9 a.m., you’ll get a recording that says the office is closed. There is no number to call in case of emergency — you’re being evicted from a nursing home, say, or you need a rabbi for a deathbed visit, or a family crisis demands the instant and usually expert help of Jewish Family Service.

The Federation’s recorded message offers only two numbers to call for immediate assistance: Security for the building that houses the Federation itself, and the Federation’s press relations and publicity department.

The Federation is now looking at ways to help those who call after hours, but has not yet reached a decision, said Federation executive vice president John Fishel. In the meantime, for any non-press-related emergencies, you’ll need to call, um, 911. — Robert Eshman, Managing Editor

The Literary Scene

The fact that Jews are people of the book has been borne out by the growing attendance at The Literary Scene, a 5-year-old discussion group sponsored by the Women’s Department of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles.

The bimonthly meetings, which take place on Monday mornings, between September and June, used to be held at Federation headquarters. But so many eager readers now participate that, as of the new year, the group will be meeting in a spacious hall at Temple Beth Am.

The Literary Scene features books by Jewish authors, as well as works that touch on Jewish topics. Recent selections, which have engendered heated debate, include Philip Roth’s “American Pastoral” and Susan Isaacs’ “Lilly White.”

The discussion on Jan. 11 will focus on “Out of Egypt,” a family memoir by Andre Aciman, a Harvard professor who grew up within the Jewish community of Alexandria.

Participants are able to purchase all books in advance, at discount prices. A $3 charge for each session helps defray the cost of coffee and bagels. Recent meetings have attracted some 60 attendees from all age groups and with widely varying perspectives. To RSVP or arrange for book discounts, call the Women’s Department at (310) 689-3686. — Beverly Gray, Education Editor

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My Dinner at the Rabbi’s House

Leave a Comment / Old Stories /

When an important local rabbi invited me to his house for Shabbat dinner to discuss my column — which he doesn’t like — I was appalled. How patronizing, I thought, to summon me to his home so that he can tell me, with home-court advantage, to change what I do.

For days, I stewed. Aren’t there more important problems in the world than my little column? After all, Rabbi Yitzhak Adlerstein is director of the Jewish Studies Institute at Yeshiva of Los Angeles.

My resentment slowly gave way to curiosity. The rabbi is not the only Orthodox Jew who has had a problem with my column. Several months ago, a young Orthodox man, recognizing me from my picture in the paper, confronted me and informed me that he was starting a petition to have me fired.

“Why?” I asked this man, who had approached me in a synagogue just after services.

“Because you’re not Jewish enough,” he replied.

While the vast majority of the feedback I get is positive, that’s easy enough to ignore when you’re me. I like to focus on the negative, which isn’t a way of life I recommend, nor would it be a good title for a motivational speech. Still, it’s kind of a habit of mine.

I called Adlerstein to accept his invitation.

“You’ve heard I’m Orthodox?” asked the rabbi.

“Yes. And you’ve heard I’m…not?”

“Yes,” he answered, chuckling. “Don’t worry, this will be harder for me than for you. After all, you’re a good writer, and writers are always jealous of each other.”

With the compliment, and an incredibly avuncular voice and tone, the rabbi had changed everything. He might still be a sexist who would prefer I cook and mate and not have opinions, but he had a voice like a soothing old story. How bad could he be?

When I arrived on Friday night, the house was lovely and the table crowded with four of the rabbi’s seven children, his wife and his daughter-in-law, a Yale student in a perfectly coifed auburn wig. Over potato kugel, gefilte fish and the best challah I’ve ever tasted, the rabbi and I talked about everything from Woody Allen to the meaning of life. By the time the dishes were cleared and the single malt Scotch brought out, I was really starting to like the guy.

And then the criticisms began. The rabbi doesn’t like The Jewish Journal. He also doesn’t like the Orthodox newspaper. And he isn’t fond of the so-called “Modern Orthodox,” who make too many compromises and sometimes let their children watch television.

“Rabbi,” I said, gingerly, “allow me to submit that the Jews are a critical people, and you are a critical guy who probably wouldn’t be happy with anything.”

“Yes,” he answered. “That’s true. I am critical.”

After five hours of talking, I finally got to the heart of what’s bothering the rabbi about me. Not only have I eluded to having premarital sex in my columns, but I’m also not married, a disease my columns might spread.

“Do you think God cares if I’m married?”

At this question, the rabbi winced, as if in pain. His fingers tensed and his head fell backward. “Of course. God cares about everything,” he said.

It bothers him to see me searching, he told me, because Judaism has all the answers. If you follow the guidelines and live according to God’s wishes, you will have a happy and fulfilled life. It’s that simple.

“That sounds great,” I said. “But isn’t that what they would tell me over at the Church of Scientology, or at a cult?”

The difference, he said, is that Judaism is time-tested. It works. Not only that, but the guidelines aren’t as strict as they seem, allowing for interpretation and questioning.

Looking around the table, it was hard to argue with Adlerstein’s logic. His family is loving, his children sweet, patient and intelligent. His life, at least from the outside, seems complete.

Studies show that religious people, on the whole, tend to be happier. Their marriages are more durable, their sense of community stronger. But that’s not me, I told him. Judaism is important to me, but I wasn’t raised Orthodox, and I have other priorities right now. Marriage just isn’t something I’m rushing to do.

And I didn’t tell the rabbi this, but the only guy I’ve ever seen myself with for life saw himself with a tall blonde named Carolyn. The premarital sex thing I can hardly do anything about now, nor would I take it back if I could. Where does that leave me with the big guy upstairs? Not exactly on his A-list, apparently.

To the rabbi, I am like a person on fire, and he has a bucket of water called Orthodox Judaism, which he thinks can extinguish the flames. If I, and others like me, would just settle down and follow God’s wishes, we wouldn’t be struggling with the meaning of life and with our relationships.

Before I left, I asked what would make the rabbi happy, other than my becoming Orthodox and getting married. Three things, he said: study Judaism in a class or with a tutor, speak at a youth convention and come back for Purim.

The class? Learning is always good; I agree to that. The speaking? I hate public speaking. Purim?

“Only if you’re breaking out the good Scotch,” I joked.

“Of course,” he said.

Teresa Strasser is a twentysomething contributing writer for The Jewish Journal.

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A Divine Voice

Leave a Comment / Old Stories /

God spoke to me once when I was 12 years old. Although it happened years ago, I remember it as clearly as if it were today. Revelation is a tricky thing. I am reminded of the Midrash that when God gave the commandments at Mt. Sinai, God speaks to the Children of Israel in a divine voice so powerful they are too terrified to hear anything beyond the very first word of the first commandment. Since even that was too much to bear, God arranged it so they only heard the first letter of the first word. The first word is Anohi (“I am”), and the first letter is an alef, which is silent. So the rabbis teach us that what the Jewish people heard when God spoke was the Divine Silence of the mitzvot. Within that Divine Silence, each woman and man experienced her or his own unique divine revelation.

That was my experience, too. It happened on a Boy Scout trip to the High Sierras in the summer after sixth grade. It should have been one of the great summers of my life. Instead it was a disaster. In that one summer, I went to camp in Catalina, Jewish summer camp in Saratoga and a High Sierra backpacking experience. I was miserable, anxious and homesick during each one.

I sat on the sidelines during the entire time at Catalina, depressed and unwilling to participate in much of anything. I was actually sent home early from Camp Saratoga (an experience that left me one of the few kids in history to be told he “failed” camp!), and I was profoundly homesick in my pup tent high atop the Sierra Mountains — even though my father went on the trip with us.

Now I suppose I could simply chalk it up to a summer of raging adolescent hormones. It was certainly that. But that wouldn’t really tell the whole story. For adolescence is not only a time of great physical upheaval, it is often the most emotionally disorienting and confusing time in our lives as well. It certainly was for me.

When I was growing up, I was always the smallest kid in class. Whenever we took class pictures and lined up according to height, I was inevitably at the end of the line. I’m not sure if anyone has done a double-blind study of such things, but I can tell you from personal experience that the simple logistical decision of lining up kids for a picture can seem to have near cosmic significance to the fragile ego of a child. I was certain that being at the end of the line was as much a judgment on my social stature as it was on my physical size.

It was this less-than-secure sense of self worth that I shlepped with me to all those camps that summer, particularly prevalent high atop the mountain in the Sierras.

It must be something about mountains. For it was there in this week’s portion that Moses had his encounter with God, and it was on a mountain that I had mine. I have often wondered how long Moses had to stand and watch before he noticed that the bush was burning but not burning up. The Torah tells us that only after his internal realization did God effect a divine revelation. In my case, I was alone in the tent when I heard God’s whisper. To this day I don’t know why. I only know I heard an unmistakable message to stop whining, and start worshipping — to stop focusing on all I wasn’t and start realizing all that I was and the miracles that were everywhere if I was willing to open my eyes and see them. I was only 12, but my life has never been the same.

Steven Carr Reuben is rabbi at Kehillat Israel in Pacific Palisades.

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UJ Stages ‘The Quarrel’

Leave a Comment / Old Stories /

About 10 years ago, give or take a year, I was invited to director Arthur Hiller’s home to attend a reading of a work in progress. About 80 to 100 people turned out and listened raptly as two wonderful actors, script in hand, read the work in progress. It was a play called “The Quarrel,” written by two friends, David Brandes and Rabbi Joseph Telushkin and based on a short story by Yiddish writer Chaim Grade. I mean no exaggeration when I say that everyone seated in Hiller’s spacious living area knew they were listening to a play that was special.

On the one hand, it was a character sketch of two quite different Jewish men who encounter one another by accident in the middle of a city park. On another, it was a powerful drama about two Holocaust survivors who knew one another as children and who now grapple with one another over such matters as faith, disillusionment and belief or the lack thereof.

It came as little surprise to hear, several years later, that the script had become a small independent film, and that it had won 8 international awards. And it comes as no surprise again to discover that it had also been cast as a play. That play will be performed locally at the University of Judaism, Tuesday through Thursday, Jan. 26-28, and on Saturday, Jan. 30.

The stage production is part of the UJ’s Dortort Writers Institute, which brings eminent novelists, poets, playwrights and screenwriters to the university. The institute is named after David Dortort, the television producer of “Bonzana” and “The High Chaparral” who will himself be honored at a pre-theater dinner on Tuesday, Jan. 26.

For tickets and information, call (310) 476-9777, ext. 201.

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On Guard in the West Bank

Leave a Comment / Old Stories /

Is this me? Eight o’clock on a Tuesday evening, I’m strolling down the ordinary street of my town, carrying an M-16 rifle. Tonight, it’s my turn again to do shmirah, guard duty, a chore required about once a month of every male resident here at Beit Yattir, the West Bank village where I live part time.

The slender M-16 is a meter long and weighs about 7 pounds. I like it. I appreciate the smooth simplicity of its design, and its oiled, metallic weight feels good in my hand. And beyond the physical satisfactions of a gun, I understand that I am in the presence of the Angel of Death. Fear and reverence abide with me as well.

I shove the curved ammunition clip up into its shaft, where it locks in with a satisfying thump and click. As a safety drill, I pull the bolt back twice to check visually that no bullet is in the chamber; then I move the selector switch from safety to semiautomatic and, aiming the rifle away from the houses, pull the trigger. Click. No bullet. The gun is at rest, all its power latent.

Part of what I like about shmirah is that it so clearly distinguishes my Israeli present from my American past. In my past, there are no firearms. My grandfather, who escaped from the Czar’s army, circa 1900, was the last male in the family to do military service. We’re urban American Jews, lovers of peace and the life of the mind; less nobly, we shrink from the notion of responsibility for our own protection.

I slip behind the wheel of the security Jeep, tucking the M-16 into the space between the front seats. With another man — and another rifle — for company, I’ll spend the next five hours slowly driving the roads of our village, concentrating on the dark, unpaved perimeter roads (most of them no wider than the vehicle), shining a searchlight over the black, rocky landscape as if expecting to pinpoint intruders coming to disturb our nighttime quiet.

In actuality, an intruder would have to be a half-wit to get caught by the Jeep’s searchlight. Anyone out there would see our lights coming from far away, lie still behind a rock, and wait for us to pass.

Shmirah is partially symbolic: We are letting our Arab neighbors know that we are on guard and that, as driveway signs sometimes put it in the United States, any intrusion will be met with an armed response.

My training for this duty was minimal. First, a fellow resident named Itamar, a skinny, cheerful guy about 30, taught me to handle the unloaded rifle — how to hold it, how to stand balanced for the best shooting, how to fire. We were in his living room, with two of his children, 3 and 5 years old, looking on with interest — mostly at me, since I was a stranger, whereas the weapon was a familiar object. It felt peculiar to stand aiming a rifle at the bookshelves in this pleasant fellow’s parlor.

A week later, some 15 of us went for practice to the outdoor shooting range in the nearby village of Maon. About half in the group were women who, though free of the obligation of shmirah, wanted gun training in case they ever needed to use one. We were coached through firing 15 rounds with an M-16 (five standing, five kneeling, five lying down) and then an equal number with an Uzi — the rifle stock kicking back into the shoulder, the explosive blasts sharp in the ear. Afterward, we strolled down across the no man’s land between us and the targets to see how well we had done. There the holes were, some of them pretty good shots, chest or stomach high, definitely sufficient to stop the human animal. I was ready.

My shmirah partner and I chat as we drive, getting to know each other, then gradually fall silent, thinking our own thoughts. A wild rabbit, panicked by our spotlight, leaps away over rocks. In the early part of the evening, residents out for a walk or returning by car from work wave a greeting to us. At 9:30, we open the main gate for the local bus to Beersheba. The evening drags on. Around 10:30, the boys playing on the basketball court finally switch off the lights and disperse to their homes. Two dogs bark continuously in the Arab village below us. For a while, we park up on the hillside to enjoy the elevated view: the roofs and yards of our village, the highway traveling through hillsides to Jerusalem, the lights of Jewish and Arab towns stretching to the horizon. Then we go on our rounds again.

Shortly before 1 a.m., we wake two of the young soldiers sleeping in a trailer at the north edge of the village. Three soldiers are assigned to Beit Yattir on two-week rotations, and one of their jobs is to take over late-night guard duty on foot, walking the perimeter fences and checking the gates until sunup.

They are slow to wake. We wait outside until they stumble from the trailer with their M-16s slung over their shoulders, zipping up their khaki army jackets against the cold. We hand over the two-way radio that will connect them to the regional security base near Hebron, then park the Jeep. At last, my shmirah partner and I are finished.

Back in my house, I extract the ammunition clip from the M-16, check the chamber again, lean the rifle against the bedroom wall, to be returned in the morning. Something about even these small formalities excites me, as if I am a little boy playing soldier, pretending danger and courage.

It is a foolish pretense, I remind myself. Although there has never been a terrorist intrusion at Beit Yattir, the neighboring village has not been so lucky; it is not completely out of the question that I will one day be forced to face my fellow man with my weapon and his between us.

But not tonight. Tonight, I can enjoy the ordinary peaceful quiet of our rural village. Nonetheless, before I go to sleep, I double-lock the door. This, I note, was always my final gesture of the day in America, too. There, no less than here, a brutish danger lurks outside somewhere, unpredictable. Double-locking the door behind me, I recognize myself again.

David Margolis writes from Israel. He can be reached at djmargol@netvision.net.il.

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A Better Strategy

Leave a Comment / Old Stories /

History never precisely repeats itself. I was cleaning up after dinner the other evening when I heard my daughter, Samantha, now nearly 17, on the phone; she was talking with a guy named Vinnie.

“Vinnie?” I said, as she hung up. “I think we should be focusing on Jewish guys now, don’t you?”

“He’s a friend, Mom,” said Samantha.

And to my surprise, I let it go at that because I wasn’t sure what else to do.

I had had my own Vinnie when I was just about Samantha’s age: an Elvis look-alike, down to the huge, dark pompadour over his forehead. I thought he was earthy and exotic, exciting, if not dangerous. He worked in the gas station across the street from the bakery where I did the afternoon shift. I could see him, and his black leather jacket with the turned-up collar, through the window, as he washed windshields and pumped fuel. It made the hours fly by.

Vinnie was a secret. I told him never to call me at home. I knew that a trial awaited me if Vinnie’s existence was revealed. Yes, a trial, literally speaking. Our dinner table would convene as night court. I would present my own lawyerly defense of Vinnie, citing my rights as a free woman in America to explore the vast terrain of good-looking guys before I settled down with a nice Jewish man. But the court would not be moved, and, eventually, I would burst into angry tears. Before I could finish presenting my logic and my evidence, my parents would invoke the name of my grandfather, who, they promised, would sit shiva for me if I married “out.” Truly, I was lost.

Now that I’m a mother myself, I understand my parents’ concern. I, too, hope that my daughter will marry a Jewish man, and for most of the same reasons. The best of those reasons remains that it is easier for a husband and wife to get along in the storm-tossed seas of marriage if their values, beliefs and rituals are similar. Though opposites do attract, intermarriage remains a hard business, at times requiring the suppressing of spiritual growth of both parties. A parent can argue, without a trace of ethnocentrism or paranoia, that a marriage and a home life organized around Judaism’s ethical principles, its calendar, Shabbat, and its love and concern for family harmony has a wonderful future going for it.

And, yet, I don’t want to guilt-trip my daughter, either, since that would certainly backfire.

What to do?

Just a few days after the call from Vinnie, I saw a newspaper advertisement paid for by the New York branch of the Conservative movement. The ad was selling, of all things, the benefits of Jews marrying Jews. And the ad’s tone was, with but one exception, so balanced, so smart, that it can only help those who, like me, are struggling for the right strategy on this ticklish issue.

“When You Tie the Knot, Don’t Break the Chain,” the ad’s headline read. And then it went on to make the common-sense argument that marrying a Jew is good for you. Here’s a line or two that I liked:

“If you were born Jewish, the rich and remarkable heritage that is Judaism is yours. All that is wonderful, all that is joyful, all that is sacred in Judaism belongs to you and to those who come after you.”

This ad is quite a distance from the “your grandfather will sit shiva” approach of a generation ago. In fact, the ad succeeds, I believe, because it captures the way many of us — especially those who are now parents — regard Jewish life today: “wonderful,” “joyful” and “sacred.” We are committed to community, to raising Jewish children, and to providing the spiritual and educational experiences that will be of lasting value in our children’s lives.

Yet, strangely enough, though we are much more fully engaged in Judaism than we ever expected to be when we got married, many of us parents are still “laid back,” hesitant to force Judaism upon our children where their own future marriages are concerned. We want them to choose it naturally, as we did.

But maybe saying nothing is as bad as saying too much. Maybe our children need to know what is expected of them, and that we’re looking to them to keep the faith, indeed.

To be candid, I’m not thrilled with the ad’s declaration that “interfaith marriage dilutes Jewish identity and removes future generations from the Jewish fold” — since this is not provable and disregards the great contribution of Jews by Choice toward the very renewal so many of us are enjoying. I think the attack on intermarriage is ill-considered and wrong.

Nevertheless, with that exception, it’s a relief to hear the other words, which break the ice and encourage parents and children to discuss marriage and Jewish family life in a new and thoughtful way.

“Don’t be a weak link in a chain that has proven unbreakable for more than 5,000 years,” says the ad. “Marriage within the faith. It really does matter.” That’s the point, indeed.

Join Marlene Adler Marks, senior editor of The Jewish Journal, this Sunday morning at the Skirball Cultural Center when her “Conversations” guest will be Los Angeles historian Mike Davis. Her e-mail address is wmnsvoice@aol.comHer book, “A Woman’s Voice” is available through Amazon.com>

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‘They Should Leave as Soon as Possible’

Leave a Comment / Old Stories /

What can be done to help Russian Jewry? Loads, according to Simon Frumkin. He should know.

The road to liberating Russian Jews has been a long and tortured process, and few people know this more than Frumkin, who has spent decades battling to facilitate Jewish flight from Russia.

Although not of Russian-Jewish ancestry, the 68-year-old Lithuanian-born Dachau survivor has long served as a prominent voice for Russian Jewry. In 1968, Frumkin founded the Southern California Council for Soviet Jews, and later co-founded and led the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews — two lobbying organizations crucial to the Russian-Jewish freedom crusade.

The social activist, also instrumental in forming the Association of Holocaust Survivors from the Former U.S.S.R., continues his tireless efforts on behalf of Russian Jews, lending his talents to countless periodicals and organizations, including Steven Spielberg’s Survivors of the Shoah Foundation.

Last week, Frumkin shared his thoughts on the challenges facing the estimated 500,000 to 2.5 million Russian Jews remaining in the former Soviet Union, where the fall of communism has helped usher in the rise of anti-Semitism.

Jewish Journal: In your essay “The Anti-Semites Are Right — Jews Should Leave Russia,” you are not very optimistic about the future of Jews living in Russia. You even deem the Communist Party the Russian equivalent of the Nazis. On what do you base your pessimism?

Simon Frumkin: I’m not optimistic…because there’s never been any reason for optimism for the future of Jews in Russia…. In czarist Russia, Jews were not permitted to come into Russia (proper)…. In spite of that, anti-Semitism was rampant. Most of the people in Russia never saw a Jew, but they hated them anyway.

As soon as the revolution began, Jewish religion was eliminated. For the first and only time in history, a language — Hebrew — was named to be an enemy of the people…. Zionists were imprisoned…. There was official anti-Semitism. There were purge trials. There were plans by Stalin to send all the Jews to concentration camps, which had already been built. Luckily, he died just in time.

JJ: What are Russian Jews living outside of Russia doing to help the Jews residing in Russia?

SF: They’re not doing anything. To begin with, they can’t, because many of them can’t even speak English. They do write letters and fiery editorials in Russian-language newsletters, which nobody reads. Other than that, they have not developed into a political force.

JJ: Is President Boris Yeltsin’s government doing enough to curb anti-Semitism and protect the Jews there?

SF: They’re not doing anything. They really can’t. Their hands are tied. Yeltsin is not functioning. He’s ever more irrelevant. It is difficult to say who is in power…. In the last thousand years of its recorded history, Russia never had 10 years when things were good. Never….

On Dec. 5, a big march took place…in the center of Moscow, where (several hundred) fascist communist kids…with swastikas and black shirts demonstrated…demanding that the government abolish the law which punishes incitement of racial and ethnic hatred, because they said it violates their freedom of speech…. It was not shown on TV; they were not interfered with. That was that….

The average Russian is racist…. My granddaughter goes to Bancroft Junior High in Hollywood…they have a lot of Russian and Ukrainian kids there — the fact is that about 30 percent of the immigrants from the former Soviet Union who come to America these days are not Jewish — but here [my daughter] is in her social studies class, and they’re discussing what is wrong in the world and how could we make things better. And a little (Ukrainian) girl…says, “Well, one way is get rid of all the Jews.” This is what she hears from her parents…. Nothing has changed…. (Russian anti-Semitism) is not worst now then it was; it’s as bad as it always was. Except now it’s popular.

JJ: What can Russian Jews living outside of Russia do to help the Jews in Russia counter the growing tide of anti-Semitism there?

SF: They can learn the name of their congressmen…. (Many Russian Jews) don’t know how the political system works…don’t trust the government…because they were taught that the government is the enemy. Most of them are not aware that anything was done for them to facilitate their immigration from the Soviet Union. They think that it just happened…. When they find out about the demonstrations and the letter-writing campaigns and the prisoners of conscience (etc.), they are amazed….

At one point, the fate of Soviet Jews was an important item on the agenda in Washington. This is no longer so because American Jews feel that the problem has been solved….

JJ: Although many Jews in Russia have already received special refugee visas from the United States to emigrate, many of them have yet to exercise their so-called “Lautenberg status.” What’s being done to encourage them to leave?

SF: There are about 30,000 or so refugee visas given out each year to the United States, of which about 20,000 go to the Jews…. There are about 10,000 to 15,000 Jews “sitting on their suitcases” with visas in hand, who have refugee status…who, in the meantime, are depriving (others) by not leaving. I think that’s a crime…. There should be a time limit, that if you don’t utilize your visa within a year, the visa should be taken away and someone else should go…. We must realize that the United States government is aware of it to the point where it’s getting more and more difficult for a Jew to get a refugee visa in Russia.

JJ: If the economic crisis in Russia continues to worsen, what will conceivably happen to the Jews living there?

SF: I think they’re going to get killed. I don’t think there is a future for Jews in Russia…. They should leave as soon as possible.

For information on Russian Jewish immigrants and related organizations and activities, call (818) 769-8862. To donate furniture or toys for newly arrived Russian Jewish immigrants, contact the Association of Soviet Jewish Émigrés at (213) 878-0995.

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Jewish Federation Prepares for New Millenium

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As the new millennium draws near, how is the Jewish Federation preparing for it? An initial answer to that question became apparent two weeks ago at a meeting I attended in our new West Los Angeles office.

Young Jewish adults, ranging in age from late 20s to early 40s, crowded into the Sawtelle Boulevard office. This is the generation we must actively engage in organized Jewish life if we are to be successful in strengthening a vibrant community in the 21st century. The stakes are high. Failure will mean that this potential pool of well-educated, successful Jewish leaders will look elsewhere for their volunteer involvement and commitment.

Among those in attendance were representatives of more than 14 young-adult groups, all under the Federation and United Jewish Fund banners — ACCESS, the UJA Young Leadership Cabinet, L.A. Couples, Valley Couples, the Bridge Club and the New Leaders project, to name just a few.

The diversity of Los Angeles’ Jewish community was well represented: There were singles, newlyweds and parents with young children; some lived on the Westside, others in the San Fernando Valley or the South Bay. Some entered communal activism to help raise funds; others become involved out of a sense of social justice; still others are committed to do Jewish things.

The young men and women in this community are, in so many ways, different from their parents, and certainly from their grandparents. They have grown to adulthood in a Jewish world where Israel has always been there and where the memory of the Holocaust is increasingly distant. They are products of the most affluent and well-educated Jewish generation our country has ever seen. They are beneficiaries of an American society where being Jewish is no longer a barrier to their entry into professions or occupations. They are Jewish because they want to be, not because they have to be. And those at the Sawtelle meeting were there because they care enough to be involved.

It became apparent during the meeting that, with all our efforts to reach young adults, we need better coordination. And that, in part, is why we called the meeting — to create a citywide young-leadership coordinating body in order to share best practices, and to move toward maximizing limited community resources.

The Federation has also responded to the need to better involve our community’s aspiring leaders. It recently rewrote its bylaws to include a clause that ensures representation of young adults on our board and, more importantly, on the executive committee — where most communal policy and practices are formulated. This means that the young leaders in our community can, and will, influence our communal agenda in the decades ahead. They need to help the more seasoned community leaders understand their issues to assure that we supply them sufficient resources to engage the ever-expanding groups of younger communal members in a meaningful fashion. They need to help us to develop the most effective means to reach their peers.

For instance: During last week’s meeting, one young man indicated that he had only recently become involved in the Jewish community. He explained how his needs had previously little or nothing to do with Jewish life. His stepfather had suggested he explore volunteer opportunities. This young man is now involved in the Federation’s effort to use the Internet to reach his Jewish contemporaries throughout Los Angeles and inform them about the range of exciting Jewish programs and activities that they can use in our community.

I strongly believe that we are on the right path in bringing together many of the best and brightest young adult leaders in our community, and challenging them to think creatively and be proactive. We will continue this approach to the extent that you, our supporters, think it is a priority and, through the United Jewish Fund, provide us with the resources to do so.

Lionel Bell is president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles.

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Pledging to Produce

Leave a Comment / Old Stories /

Fifty-one years after going door to door and soliciting funds to help the fledgling State of Israel get off the ground, Jake Farber is at it again. But instead of trudging along Highland Avenue and seeking contributions of any size, Farber today meets in boardrooms and living rooms with major donors, whose contributions tend to run in the four- to six-figure range.

“It’s a little different today,” said Farber, general chair of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles’ 1999 United Jewish Fund.

The major challenge for the UJF today is to raise the ante from the flat campaigns of the past few years, which have yielded about $40 million in annual contributions, Farber said.

“This is the second-largest Jewish community in the United States,” Farber said. “We should be able to raise $50 million.”

To achieve that end, Farber, who headed the UJF’s Major Gifts Division last year, is urging more face-to-face solicitations — to reach the many people who don’t give at all and to encourage those who do, to increase their pledges.

“We have a lot of excellent volunteers who do this work, but it’s a tough business,” he said. “I’m not asking for myself. The need in this community and overseas is so great. Close to 50,000 people live below the poverty line in our [Jewish Los Angeles] population. Approximately 15,000 of those are confined to their homes. We give them social help, bring meals to them.”

Farber himself knows about poverty firsthand. Raised by a single mother in Boyle Heights during the Depression, he said that his family had little money. His mother still put whatever she could into the blue-and-white tzedakah box.

“She was a widow and worked all the time,” said Farber, who was 8 when his father died. “We had nothing and lived in a tiny house with two bedrooms.”

His mother worked as a seamstress to support him, his brother and sister. As a teen-ager, he delivered newspapers and did other odd jobs. After attending Roosevelt High School and serving in World War II, he enrolled at the University of Southern California, where he graduated in 1950 with an accounting degree. Farber joined his father-in-law’s metal recycling firm, Alpert and Alpert Iron and Metal, becoming president in 1980 and chairman of the board in 1996.

Both he and his wife, Janet, have become committed to communal work over the years. Farber chaired the UJF Machinery and Metals Division; serves as a Jewish Federation/Valley Alliance board member; and is a major contributor to the campaign to construct a new sports and youth complex at the Bernard Milken Campus in West Hills.

A board member and immediate past chair of Camp Ramah, Farber currently serves on the board and executive committee of the University of Judaism; he is also a board member of the Anti-Defamation League.

Farber and his family have been members of Temple Adat Ari El in North Hollywood since 1960. He was vice president and chair of the drive to build a day school at the synagogue. Janet has served as the Federation’s Women’s Conference president and chair of the Women’s Valley Alliance campaign, among other posts.

The Farbers are parents of three grown children and live in Sherman Oaks.

Bill Bernstein, UJF campaign director and Federation associate executive vice president, praised Farber for bringing a “wealth of experience and knowledge” to the job of general campaign chair. “He truly believes in the principle of tzedakah, and that ever Jew should have an opportunity to live a decent life,” Bernstein said.

Farber replaces 1998 general campaign chair Sandy Gage.

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Lessons in Civic Responsibility

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Five years ago, a school group from Oakland laughed and jeered throughout a screening of “Schindler’s List.” This fiasco convinced Steven Spielberg that many students needed careful preparation before viewing his film. So the director asked Facing History and Ourselves to develop appropriate study materials. Last fall, the Boston-based organization was tapped to create the classroom guide accompanying the new CD-ROM from Spielberg’s Survivors of the Shoah Foundation.

Facing History and Ourselves was founded in 1976 by veteran educator Margot Stern Strom. As a Jewish child growing up in Memphis, Tenn., Strom never learned about the Holocaust. Slowly, she came to realize that her teachers had never told her the truth about history and her place in it.

When she herself became a teacher in Brookline, Mass., she committed to helping her students explore social injustice, and how it affects their own lives. Her ultimate goal: to show teen-agers what it means to be a participant in history, not merely a passive bystander.

“I’m hoping,” says Strom, “that we can walk in one another’s shoes and learn from one another.”

Facing History has developed a curriculum that uses the Holocaust as a starting point for showing students how to make a positive difference. The organization produces textbooks and audiovisual materials, but the core of its effort lies in the training institutes at which middle school and high school teachers learn to apply the lessons of history to their own classrooms.

In 1993, the program came to the Los Angeles area. Dan Alba, who directs the local office, estimates that 700 teachers from Southern California public and private schools have attended the week-long institute. Once they receive their initial training, the teachers become part of a vast support network that encourages creative uses for what they’ve learned.

One of the program’s most enthusiastic supporters is Jose Ramos, who teaches social studies at East Los Angeles’ Garfield High School. Ramos has put together a popular elective course for his seniors, 89 percent of whom are Latino. Ramos’ course weaves together the lessons of the Holocaust with the kind of ethnic stereotyping they see in their own lives. It goes back in time to the Jim Crow South, looks at the questions raised by the crisis in Kosovo, and explores today’s anti-immigrant sentiments.

The key, says Ramos, is that “the kids need to understand the common threads of oppression.” By the end of the semester, when students visit the Museum of Tolerance and invite a Holocaust survivor into their classroom, they are newly sensitized to the meaning of that era in history.

But Alba is careful never to make judgments about which group has suffered the most: “You can’t compare people’s suffering. Pain is pain.”

For Jan Stewart, who teaches humanities at Taft High School in the San Fernando Valley, the Facing History curriculum is powerful “because it helps students understand that no group has been able to escape another group’s wrath.”

Stewart, who is African-American, contends with a student body that blends Latinos, Anglos, Persian Jews, and immigrants from Southeast Asia. In her class, students have been moved to delve more deeply into their own ethnic heritage. But Stewart’s larger achievement lies in inspiring them to find “the courage to do the right thing in your own way.”

One African-American alumna, working at her first job, was brave enough to protest when her boss told anti-Jewish jokes. A major test of the program’s values came when a Persian student was stabbed to death in a street crime with racial overtones. The initial fear on the Taft campus was that other Persians would be moved to retaliate. But a multiethnic coalition from Stewart’s class announced, “We want to use this as a rallying point for peace, not more violence.” Working together, the students created a memorial for the slain teen.

Though Facing History and Ourselves has largely focused on public education, the organization has recently devised curricula geared toward Jewish day and religious schools. A grant from the Covenant Foundation has allowed Jan Darsa, senior programmer in the Boston office, to develop a brand-new text, “The Jews of Poland.” Darsa sees this text as a valuable tool for Jewish identity-building, as well as a resource for teaching the more universal implications of what happens when democracy fails.

To Darsa, her work “empowers [students] to think about their civic responsibility, but also about what it can mean to be a Jewish voice in this country.”

She will be sharing strategies with Los Angeles’ Jewish educators at a workshop slated for April.

Jan Darsa can be reached by phone at (617) 735-1613, or by e-mail at jan_darsa@facing.org. Call Dan Alba, program director of the Los Angeles office, at (626) 744-1170, or e-mail him at dan_alba@ facing.org.

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