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Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

November 4, 1999

Reviving Communities

Leave a Comment / Old Stories /

I was fortunate to be among a small group of United Jewish Fund (UJF) campaign leaders who visited St. Petersburg, Russia and Vilnius, Lithuania to witness the work that is being done in both communities by the American Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI).

All who went on this mission returned enlightened with an awareness of what is being accomplished in each community on a day-to-day basis. Most importantly, we came away with a stronger commitment to participate in Jewish life here in Los Angeles and help in the efforts of the UJF campaign.

We got to see how vital UJF funded services are to people in desperate need. In my 26 years of professional work in the Jewish Federation movement, no mission had more of an impact on me than this one to St. Petersburg and Vilnius.

More than 30,000 Jews live in the St. Petersburg area and close to 35 percent are elderly. The greatest challenge faced by them is their ability to maintain some measure of economic security. Approximately 10,000 seniors are in need of hot meals, home care and other support. The high cost of medication remains a major problem.

We visited the Hesed Avraham, a multifunctional outreach program that provides care to the needy based on three principles: Jewish values, community orientation and volunteerism. We met with elderly people in their apartments and saw their difficult living conditions. They expressed appreciation for the food boxes that are delivered on a regular basis and noted that it would be impossible for them to live and sustain themselves without the help of the JDC’s programs.

There is no question that there are additional needs that are going unmet in St. Petersburg. There are insufficient funds available to feed, clothe and provide needed medication for all of the elderly Jews who require our services. Most are living on pensions of less than $20 per week. It is virtually impossible to meet their basic needs on such a meager income. Their only opportunity to live some semblance of a normal life is through the help provided by the JDC.

We also visited with members of the young and emerging Jewish community in St. Petersburg. We witnessed several Ulpan classes that were provided by the Jewish Agency and spoke with parents of children who are participants in the Selah and Chalon programs.

These programs provide assistance to young people who wish to study in Israel during their last two years of high school. The Jewish Agency provides a full annual scholarship of $8,000 per student to those who qualify. There is a significant waiting list of people who wish to participate.

Our trip to Lithuania was nothing short of astounding. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Lithuania regained its independence and the Jewish community came to life. Although these communities are small, they are vibrant and looking toward building a brighter future.

About 5,500 Jews live in Lithuania, the majority in Vilnius and the small communities in Kovno, Siaulai, Klaipeda and Ponevezys. The JDC provides a social service package, similar to that in St. Petersburg, for the elderly of Vilnius.

The enthusiasm of the young people involved in Jewish activities is unshakable. They want to participate in Jewish life, learn more about Jewish culture and raise Jewish families. We visited the Shalom Alaichem School, the Jewish Community Center and several Jewish youth clubs.

We visited the remaining synagogue in Vilnius, and traveled to Kovno, where we met with 40 elderly members of the community, all of whom receive both food and other assistance from JDC.

Despite the tough economic and social situation, a miraculous renaissance of Jewish life is taking place. In less than 10 years, Jewish programs and institutions have developed to address various aspects of Jewish life. These include a Jewish school, welfare services, children’s clubs, cultural activities, student unions and art festivals. This is truly remarkable given the history of this community.

We are doing miraculous lifesaving work around the world. We should all be very proud of how our United Jewish Fund dollars are invested. Those dollars are making a difference for the needy and for those seeking new opportunities for Jewish expression.

Bill Bernstein is associate executive vice president of the Jewish Federation. He was accompanied on his trip by his wife Brooke, Renee Katz, Dodi Gold, Alan Shuman, Stan and Marilyn Ross and Valerie Salkin.

Reviving Communities Read More »

Moses: A Life

Leave a Comment / Old Stories /

If Jonathan Kirsch’s purpose in writing “Moses: A Life,” was to offer the reader a mightily researched, comprehensive chronicle of midrashic, scholarly, secular, Christian and even some Muslim commentaries about Moses and the events immediately surrounding his life as told in the Bible, he has succeeded. Anyone seeking explanations for a given period or event related to Moses need simply look to this well-organized volume. Even the most learned will find previously unfamiliar material explained in a clear, intelligent and accessible fashion. While not everything he has collected is exciting, there is a tremendous amount of fascinating material for anyone interested in Moses and his family as well as some wonderful insights.

Kirsch beautifully demonstrates the notion that “Moses worked a revolution in the history of human faith when he rejected the funerary cult that so fascinated the ancient Egyptians.” He rightly points out — based on the insights of Gerhard von Rad — that “through Moses the Torah creates a theology that had nothing at all to say about an afterlife and that ‘this was a great achievement.'”

I think Kirsch, correctly and even bravely, takes the ancient rabbis and modern preachers to task for their “long and continuing tradition of emasculating the real Moses and turning one of the Bible’s most potent and powerful men into something of a wimp.” He attributes this softening of Moses’ image to rabbinical authorities after the failed rebellion against Roman occupation adopting a survival strategy that would serve Jews well for 2,000 years. This survival strategy was simply “to go along and to get along,” thereby making the Moses depicted in the Bible “awkward and inconvenient.”

Kirsch strengthens the point in his analysis of one marvelous midrash: Moses saves the life of a dove by feeding a marauding hawk with “a bloody hunk of his own flesh.” When he is at his best in this book, Kirsch arrives at the ironic insight that the Moses of the Bible “would not have recognized himself in the shimmering icon of the Good Shepherd that was fashioned by the teachers and preachers who came much later.”

Kirsch does not spoonfeed the reader these analyses. To back them up he supplies copious amounts of midrashic narrative and other source material — the man has done serious time in the stacks. If there is a problem with the book, it lies in the fact that it is perhaps too much of a collection and not enough of an analysis. Kirsch has assembled enough material here to answer some important questions. But most readers will want more. I would have preferred Kirsch to have arranged the commentaries thematically rather than chronologically, and that he had spent less time discussing how our image of Moses has changed, and more as to why.

Because Kirsch does it so well here and there, I would be interested in reading more as to what the “imagined” Moses reveals about our ancestors’ values and about our own. What ideological, theological and political purposes were served by transforming and transmuting Moses from man to myth? What’s happening to his image today and why?

In his study of Thomas Edison, Wyn Wachhorst has suggested that, “As a form of myth, the culture hero functions to resolve mechanically contradictory cultural values into a single paradoxical reality.” This seems to be the case with Moses. The legend and lore surrounding him are an attempt to resolve tensions within and to reveal a unique truth about the Jewish people. That truth is hiding just beneath the surface of Kirsch’s book, aching to be discovered.

One Man’s

Moses-mania

If you find yourself squirming while reading parts of the provocative and fascinating “Moses: A Life,” that’s exactly what author Jonathan Kirsch hopes you’ll do. “You will not find this a comfortable book,” says the author.

The Moses of popular imagination —stern leader, upright moral icon, president of the NRA — gives way to much more shaded character in Kirsch’s book — a man capable of great barbarity as well as breathtaking kindness.

In his Century City office, Kirsch, who is also a nationally respected copyright lawyer — he represents The Journal on a pro bono basis — eagerly defends the more complex portrait of Moses that emerges in his work. “The idea that a leader should be perfect is not a Jewish idea,” he says. “It is a Greco-Roman idea.” The Moses of the Bible and rabbinic literature is alternately cruel and angelic, saintly and bloodthirsty. When his soldiers return to say they have killed the men of an enemy nation, for instance, Moses berates them for sparing the lives of the women and children.

No, the man was not bipolar. As Kirsch discovered, the Moses character was the “puppet of various biblical authors,” each with his or her own agenda. In the two years Kirsch spent researching the book, it was not the “flesh and blood” historical Moses he heard speaking to him, but the voices of these disparate authors.

Kirsch has carved out a welcome niche in publishing by focusing on the Bible’s lesser known stories. A college history major, he entered journalism (Newsweek and the late New West), then law, before beginning a third career as popular biblical exegete. His first book, “The Harlot by the Side of the Road,” explored the Holy Book’s R — and NC-17-rated stories, bringing to light not only the meaning of the texts, but the reasons for their suppression. The book was a best-seller. “One book led organically to the next,” he explains. “The life story of Moses is filled with these so-called forbidden texts, which are among the most illuminating and challenging.”

What the reader will take away, Kirsch hopes, is that the Moses story presents “urgent moral lessons to be learned. How do you deal with someone who’s different? How do you treat the stranger?”

For Kirsch, the Mosaic “bottom line” is found in his parting speech to the people of Israel: “I have set before you the blessing and the curse, therefore choose life.” Kirsch clearly revels in those last words. “‘Therefore choose,'” he repeats. “Moses gives us clear choices. There are no clear answers.” — Rob Eshman, Managing Editor

Moses: A Life Read More »

A Temple’s Pride

Leave a Comment / Old Stories /

When visiting Berlin you can’t miss the golden dome of the New Synagogue on Oranienburger Strasse. It towers over the city skyline and stands as a reminder of the rich history of Berlin Jewry. Crowned with the Star of David, the dome also reminds us of persecution and near destruction.

When the synagogue was built in 1866, approximately 28,000 Jews lived in Berlin, making up four percent of the population. The new house of worship and study was built in the center of the Jewish community, in the then-popular Islamic style of multicolored brickwork with terra-cotta decorations. A newspaper called it a “fairy-tale building” that “leads us into the fantastic wonder of modern Alhambra with all the thousand-fold magic of the Moorish style.” “The building is most gorgeous,” wrote Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland after visiting the site.

The main assembly hall could accommodate 3,200 persons. It had one of Berlin’s largest organs and Royal Music Director Louis Lewandowski conducted a mixed choir. Outstanding rabbis served the synagogue, including Regina Jonas, the first and only woman rabbi in Germany. (Jonas died in Auschwitz in 1944.)

Max Liebermann, the impressionist painter and president of the Berlin Academy of Art, was a member of the congregation. Albert Einstein played two violin concertos for an audience of 3,000 at a memorable synagogue concert in September of 1930.

No one at that concert could have imagined that within a few years the New Synagogue would turn from a center of Jewish intellectual and cultural life into a refuge from persecution.

On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler came to power.

During the night of November 9, 1938-the so-called “Kristallnacht”–when synagogues and Jewish businesses throughout Germany were destroyed– Nazi forces also tried to set fire to Berlin’s New Synagogue. However, Wilhelm Kruetzfeld, the chief of the district police precinct, confronted the SA-men with drawn pistols and forced them to leave. He alerted the fire brigade that came to extinguish the flames.

Most of Berlin’s 14 synagogues fell victim to arson during that night while the police stood by and watched. Within a few months, the New Synagogue, however, was restored and served its congregation until 1940 when the Nazis confiscated the building. It was destroyed during allied air raids in November of 1943.

Before World War II, 160,000 Jews lived in Berlin. After the war there were only 7,000.

In 1966, on the 100th anniversary of the synagogue’s dedication, the Jewish community of Berlin decided to restore the building’s great domes and create a center for the promotion and preservation of Jewish culture in the small area left standing. Since its opening in 1991, over two million visitors have come to view the center’s exhibitions.

One of the displays of the exhibitions centers on Wilhelm Kruetzfeld. According to documents, Kruetzfeld was summoned by his superiors to justify his actions the day after his intervention. He argued that the synagogue, as a historic site, was entitled to protection under preservation laws. They let him go.

“I guess Kruetzfeld was an old-fashioned law-and-order guy,” muses Artur Hecker, a retiree who works part-time at the exhibit. “He obviously knew about the planned attacks and chose to intervene. He probably also had friends among the members of the congregation and didn’t want to be part of the Nazi terror campaigns. He was transferred and later opted for early retirement,” Hecker explains.

Kruetzfeld died in 1953. A small plaque near the synagogue’s entrance commemorates the “courageous chief.” A training academy is named after him.

A larger plaque proclaims: “The remnants of this house of God should forever remain a place of admonition and remembrance. VERGESST ES NIE! (Don’t ever forget!)”

Heeding this advice, Berlin has created two other sites that document the Nazi era.

On Stresemannstrasse, close to the bustling and new Marlene Dietrich Platz, the “Topography of Terror” exhibit stretches along the ruins of the former Gestapo interrogation center. Through text and photos it documents the Nazi reign of terror from 1933 to 1945. The panels present profiles of courage and resistance: men, women, Jews, socialists, communists, Christians. A Holocaust museum is planned to sit on the now vacant lot.

A train ride from downtown, in a posh suburb by a lake, the House of the Wannsee Conference displays another exhibit on Nazi atrocities. At this elegant villa, Hitler’s top officers discussed in 1942 the so-called “final solution”– the implementation of the decision to deport to the East and murder the Jews of Europe. Rudolf Eichmann served as secretary to the Wannsee Conference. (He was tried and executed in Jerusalem in 1962.)

While paying for the admission, the cashier suggests waiting a little because a group from the military just started a guided tour. The Bundeswehr— here?? “Ja,” he says, “it’ll be good for them.”

The display cases explain what he means: “The Final Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe” was to involve over 11 million people. Not one of the Wannsee Conference participants objected to the plan. No Kruetzfeld among them. In fact, the implementation depended on the cooperation of all ministerial departments, including the military.

In panel after panel, visitors to the Wannsee House–some 50,000 a year–are confronted with the question how it was possible that governmental and communal organizations could cooperate so smoothly in the preparation, planning and implementation of this genocide.

Texts and pictures tell a compelling story. As I follow the Bundeswehr group, I am drawn to the photo of an unnamed girl. She arrived in England in December of 1938. She looks dejected, wears braids and clutches her doll and a bundle. I was an infant when she left and, although both of us were German, I was not Jewish and therefore stayed. By the end of the war, I was a pig-tailed refugee just like her, clutching my doll and a bundle.

As an adult I have made my pilgrimages to the sites that fill in the blanks of my German heritage, and my heart echoes the New Synagogue’s admonition never to forget…

Valerie Kreutzer was born in Berlin and now lives as a freelance writer in Seattle. She worked for the U.S. Information Agency and Voice of America as a writer, editor and broadcaster for 23 years.

Marking Kristallnacht

“Kristallnacht: Searching for Justice: Restitution for Holocaust Survivors” a panel discussion with Lisa Stern, litigator for Holocaust survivors; David A. Lash, director, Bet Tsedek Legal Services; E. Randol Schoenberg, program chair, L.A. Museum of the Holocaust. Moderated by Rabbi Yisroel Kelemer. Nov. 9, 7:30 pm. Congregation Mogen David, 9717 Pico Blvd.,

A Survivor Remembers: Miriam Bornstein, wife of Rabbi Marvin Bornstein, will speak on experiencving Kristallnacht as a little girl in Germany. Nov. 9, 7:30 pm, B’nai Tikvah Congregation, 5820 West Manchester Ave. (310) 645-6262.

A Temple’s Pride Read More »

Never Forget

Leave a Comment / Old Stories, Worldwide /

When visiting Berlin you can’t miss the golden dome of the New Synagogue on Oranienburger Strasse. It towers over the city skyline and stands as a reminder of the rich history of Berlin Jewry. Crowned with the Star of David, the dome also reminds us of persecution and near destruction.

When the synagogue was built in 1866, approximately 28,000 Jews lived in Berlin, making up four percent of the population. The new house of worship and study was built in the center of the Jewish community, in the then-popular Islamic style of multicolored brickwork with terra-cotta decorations. A newspaper called it a “fairy-tale building” that “leads us into the fantastic wonder of modern Alhambra with all the thousand-fold magic of the Moorish style.” “The building is most gorgeous,” wrote Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland after visiting the site.

The main assembly hall could accommodate 3,200 persons. It had one of Berlin’s largest organs and Royal Music Director Louis Lewandowski conducted a mixed choir. Outstanding rabbis served the synagogue, including Regina Jonas, the first and only woman rabbi in Germany. (Jonas died in Auschwitz in 1944.)

Max Liebermann, the impressionist painter and president of the Berlin Academy of Art, was a member of the congregation. Albert Einstein played two violin concertos for an audience of 3,000 at a memorable synagogue concert in September of 1930.

No one at that concert could have imagined that within a few years the New Synagogue would turn from a center of Jewish intellectual and cultural life into a refuge from persecution.

On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler came to power.

During the night of November 9, 1938-the so-called “Kristallnacht”–when synagogues and Jewish businesses throughout Germany were destroyed– Nazi forces also tried to set fire to Berlin’s New Synagogue. However, Wilhelm Kruetzfeld, the chief of the district police precinct, confronted the SA-men with drawn pistols and forced them to leave. He alerted the fire brigade that came to extinguish the flames.

Most of Berlin’s 14 synagogues fell victim to arson during that night while the police stood by and watched. Within a few months, the New Synagogue, however, was restored and served its congregation until 1940 when the Nazis confiscated the building. It was destroyed during allied air raids in November of 1943.

Before World War II, 160,000 Jews lived in Berlin. After the war there were only 7,000.

In 1966, on the 100th anniversary of the synagogue’s dedication, the Jewish community of Berlin decided to restore the building’s great domes and create a center for the promotion and preservation of Jewish culture in the small area left standing. Since its opening in 1991, over two million visitors have come to view the center’s exhibitions.

One of the displays of the exhibitions centers on Wilhelm Kruetzfeld. According to documents, Kruetzfeld was summoned by his superiors to justify his actions the day after his intervention. He argued that the synagogue, as a historic site, was entitled to protection under preservation laws. They let him go.

“I guess Kruetzfeld was an old-fashioned law-and-order guy,” muses Artur Hecker, a retiree who works part-time at the exhibit. “He obviously knew about the planned attacks and chose to intervene. He probably also had friends among the members of the congregation and didn’t want to be part of the Nazi terror campaigns. He was transferred and later opted for early retirement,” Hecker explains.

Kruetzfeld died in 1953. A small plaque near the synagogue’s entrance commemorates the “courageous chief.” A training academy is named after him.

A larger plaque proclaims: “The remnants of this house of God should forever remain a place of admonition and remembrance. VERGESST ES NIE! (Don’t ever forget!)”

Heeding this advice, Berlin has created two other sites that document the Nazi era.

On Stresemannstrasse, close to the bustling and new Marlene Dietrich Platz, the “Topography of Terror” exhibit stretches along the ruins of the former Gestapo interrogation center. Through text and photos it documents the Nazi reign of terror from 1933 to 1945. The panels present profiles of courage and resistance: men, women, Jews, socialists, communists, Christians. A Holocaust museum is planned to sit on the now vacant lot.

A train ride from downtown, in a posh suburb by a lake, the House of the Wannsee Conference displays another exhibit on Nazi atrocities. At this elegant villa, Hitler’s top officers discussed in 1942 the so-called “final solution”– the implementation of the decision to deport to the East and murder the Jews of Europe. Rudolf Eichmann served as secretary to the Wannsee Conference. (He was tried and executed in Jerusalem in 1962.)

While paying for the admission, the cashier suggests waiting a little because a group from the military just started a guided tour. The Bundeswehr— here?? “Ja,” he says, “it’ll be good for them.”

The display cases explain what he means: “The Final Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe” was to involve over 11 million people. Not one of the Wannsee Conference participants objected to the plan. No Kruetzfeld among them. In fact, the implementation depended on the cooperation of all ministerial departments, including the military.

In panel after panel, visitors to the Wannsee House–some 50,000 a year–are confronted with the question how it was possible that governmental and communal organizations could cooperate so smoothly in the preparation, planning and implementation of this genocide.

Texts and pictures tell a compelling story. As I follow the Bundeswehr group, I am drawn to the photo of an unnamed girl. She arrived in England in December of 1938. She looks dejected, wears braids and clutches her doll and a bundle. I was an infant when she left and, although both of us were German, I was not Jewish and therefore stayed. By the end of the war, I was a pig-tailed refugee just like her, clutching my doll and a bundle.

As an adult I have made my pilgrimages to the sites that fill in the blanks of my German heritage, and my heart echoes the New Synagogue’s admonition never to forget…

Valerie Kreutzer was born in Berlin and now lives as a freelance writer in Seattle. She worked for the U.S. Information Agency and Voice of America as a writer, editor and broadcaster for 23 years.

Marking Kristallnacht

“Kristallnacht: Searching for Justice: Restitution for Holocaust Survivors” a panel discussion with Lisa Stern, litigator for Holocaust survivors; David A. Lash, director, Bet Tsedek Legal Services; E. Randol Schoenberg, program chair, L.A. Museum of the Holocaust. Moderated by Rabbi Yisroel Kelemer. Nov. 9, 7:30 pm. Congregation Mogen David, 9717 Pico Blvd.,

A Survivor Remembers: Miriam Bornstein, wife of Rabbi Marvin Bornstein, will speak on experiencving Kristallnacht as a little girl in Germany. Nov. 9, 7:30 pm, B’nai Tikvah Congregation, 5820 West Manchester Ave. (310) 645-6262.

Never Forget Read More »

A Debate on Focus

Leave a Comment / Old Stories /

Jewish community leaders across the country are buzzing nervously these days about a family feud within the Jewish philanthropic world that could help shape the political profile of American Jewry for years. It’s one of those spats where both sides are a little bit right and a little bit wrong, and everyone else wishes they’d just cool off before they break something and get us all in trouble. So far, sadly, there’s no sign of temperatures dropping.

The feud pits the nation’s two biggest and richest Jewish welfare federations against a little-known agency that serves as a sort of public-policy think-tank for Jewish federations nationwide. The agency, the Jewish Council on Public Affairs, or JCPA, is supposed to coordinate the federations’ policies with those of national Jewish organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and Hadassah. The federations in New York and Chicago think it’s actually off pursuing its own liberal agenda. They want to shorten the leash.

The council claims to be the most broadly representative group in American Jewish life. Its members include a dozen of the biggest national Jewish organizations, Orthodox to Reform and left to right, plus 120 local Jewish federations and community-relations councils. Its annual policy statement, hammered out through a year-long process of negotiation among the groups, ranges from Israel to school prayer to abortion, welfare reform and the environment. What results is an astonishingly broad consensus across the Jewish spectrum.

The problem, say New York and Chicago federation leaders, is that the consensus isn’t genuine. They say the council operates through a flawed process that leaves too many Jews outside. “There is a portion of our community who question if it is even appropriate for an organization to speak on behalf of the Jewish community on some of these issues,” wrote the president and executive director of New York UJA-Federation, James Tisch and Stephen Solender, in a June 30 letter to the council. The Chicago federation endorsed most of the New Yorkers’ complaints in its own letter Aug. 6.

The New Yorkers want the JCPA to prune its agenda and focus on things “germane” to federations, like aid to immigrants and care for the Jewish elderly, plus no-brainers like Israel and anti-Semitism. They particularly want the council to abandon subjects like affirmative action and school vouchers, where they say the old Jewish consensus of the 1960s and 1970s has collapsed.

Jewish conservatives are hailing the tiff as evidence that Jewish liberalism is finally in retreat, something they’ve prayed for since the Nixon administration. But insiders on both sides say conservatives have little to celebrate. The issues the two federations want the council to focus on — increased federal aid for immigrants, seniors and the poor — are big-spending liberal ideas, not right-wing causes.

In part this is just local politics, especially in New York. The federation there has long been at odds with its local Jewish Community Relations Council, which is dominated by a poorer, more conservative population and often resents federation’s “Park Avenue liberals.” Not surprisingly, the community council doesn’t have much use for national JCPA, either. Some say the New York federation is leaning on JCPA in a machiavellian bid to bring its own community council closer.

But many outside New York and Chicago say the dispute’s causes run deeper, and may actually be more worrisome than any simple ideological shift. Some say it’s about money: a bid by federations and their donors to control Jewish public policy and make it serve fundraising needs, rather than the wishes of average Jews. “Every poll shows the majority of the Jewish community cares about the prophetic charge to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and heal the sick,” insists Marcia Goldstone, outspoken director of the Indianapolis Jewish Community Relations Council. But money talks. Federation leaders concede money is a factor, but deny it’s a power-grab. They just want to make every dollar count when cash is tight. “The question is whether the issues that JCPA is tackling are germane to the UJA-Federation mission,” says New York’s Tisch, son of Laurence and CEO of Loew’s Corp.

Beyond money, the dispute reflects an alarming decline in the Jewish community’s ability to take positions of any sort with credibility. More and more, it appears, Jews are simply unwilling to agree. Federation leaders call it “lack of consensus.” But that’s only half-true. Jews aren’t more divided than they were three decades ago. Dissenters haven’t become more numerous. They’re simply less willing to defer to the majority.

This comes in many forms. Orthodox Jews are more defensive, more fearful of a liberal majority that seems ever further from tradition. Republicans are more defiant, less willing to let their money be used to advance a liberalism they consider bankrupt.

As for federation leaders, they’re more dependent each year on smaller numbers of bigger donations. Each gift becomes more important, and each threat to withhold a gift more frightening. Each time another conservative complains about “JCPA liberals,” supporting the council seems more like an expensive habit.

In part JCPA’s problems are of its own making. Over the last decade it’s abandoned part of its mandate. It was born to juggle the different needs of its two constituencies, national agencies and local federations and councils. The local councils wanted it to be their voice on the national stage. The agencies — especially the fiercely competitive ADL, American Jewish Committee and American Jewish Congress — wanted it to keep low and not compete with them. Balancing them was JCPA’s key to survival. In recent years, under executive director Lawrence Rubin, JCPA has tilted sharply toward the local councils. Three years ago it changed its structure, downgrading the power of the national agencies. Some agencies responded by dowgrading their role in JCPA. “They became de facto another defense agency,” said ADL national director Abe Foxman. “That turned us off.” The result, ironically, was to reduce JCPA’s visibility and clout. Given all those troubles, it’s a wonder the New York and Chicago federations haven’t received more support from other cities. The reason is that most communities realize clipping the JCPA’s wings is more expensive than supporting it.

“JCPA doesn’t merely take positions for the sake of it,” said Burt Siegel, director of the Philadelphia Jewish Community Relations Council and dean of local council directors. “Black politicians stood with us on Soviet Jewry because we stood with them on poverty and health care. JCPA offers an opportunity to help shape society in many ways that make life better for most Jews.”

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

A Debate on Focus Read More »

ADL Passover seder for the schools in Los Angeles Unified School District

Leave a Comment / California, Education, Holidays, Old Stories /

All evening Taumisha Freeman sat dutifully, listening to the story of the Exodus out of Egypt, tasting matzah (“It needs salt”), reciting the plagues, without any expression. It was hard to know if she was bored or if, given the fact that she had never been around anything Jewish before, it was just too strange to be here at this intergroup Passover, sponsored by the Pacific Southwest regional office of the Anti-Defamation League.

But Freeman, a junior at Crenshaw High School, who worships at Mosque 27 in Los Angeles, finally cracked up when “Chad Gadya” was sung. Her table was assigned to make the sound of the ox –what in the world does an ox sound like?–and finally, after the cats and the dogs and the geese and the whatever took their turns, her table attempted a gruff “moo,” causing Freeman to break into big bellyfuls of laughter. Who can resist this song? Certainly not any of the 250 teenagers who were in attendance that night.

For the fourth year in a row, the ADL has held a Passover seder for the schools in Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) that participate in Children of the Dream, a program that brings Ethiopian Israelis to L.A. and L.A. inner-city students to Israel, to promote interethnic dialogue and understanding.

A world-renowned program that has been highly successful since its inception in 1992, the ADL initiated the seders to expand on the common theme of oppression. This year’s seder was held on March 23 at Temple Israel of Hollywood, where Rabbi John L. Rosove, playing an African hand drum, and Cantor Aviva Rosenbloom, on guitar, led the service.

Also at the head table, under the big blue banner of the ADL, was Speaker of the Assembly Antonio Villaraigosa; David A. Lehrer, ADL regional director; Howard Sherwood, an ADL board member; William S. Lambert, Children of the Dream’s founder; and the elegant Dr. Gloria Haithman, Spiritual Assembly leader of the Baha’is of L.A., who appealed to the multicultural crowd with her own story of repression.

Participating LAUSD schools were the Downtown Business Magnet, Los Angeles and Sherman Oaks Centers for Enriched Studies, Bravo Medical Magnet, and Jefferson, Jordan, Kennedy, Hamilton, Crenshaw and Venice high schools, along with a local Catholic school, Sacred Heart. The Hamilton High contingent brought along the school’s magnificent Gospel Choir.

“I truly believe that all students should participate in some kind of multicultural activity,” says Patricia Bayard, a social studies teacher at Crenshaw, who was sitting with Freeman and two of her other students. This is Bayard’s second seder, and although she still hasn’t gotten used to the matzo crumbling into tiny bits every time she takes a bite, she believes this kind of event promotes a better understanding among diverse groups. “It isn’t a lecture, but a chance to hear, to observe different things,” she says. “Some students are too shy [to participate], but they do observe, and it makes a difference.”

Junior Angela Norris, 17, a student in Crenshaw’s gifted magnet, believes the interchange of races and faiths is a good one, but she wouldn’t mind if people came to her neck of the woods, too. “I think it helps; I think everything with other cultures helps,” says Norris, who had never attended a Jewish holiday service. “It’s good for me to come here. [I have] a better understanding of their culture, the same as if they went to my church, they’d have a better understanding of mine.”

ADL take note: Next year in South Central.

For more information about the Children of the Dream program, call Bette Weinberg at the ADL, (310) 446-8000. — Charlotte Hildebrand Harjo, Staff Writer

ADL Passover seder for the schools in Los Angeles Unified School District Read More »

Tough Choices for Hate Law Boosters

Leave a Comment / Old Stories /

For Jewish leaders, lobbying sometimes involves tough choices between winning and doing the right thing. That dynamic is very much in play this week as many Jewish groups, with a boost from President Bill Clinton, fight desperately to save a new hate crimes law that has become cannon fodder in the nation’s culture wars.

The bill has been blocked by Republicans because of provisions that are not central to the Jewish groups that support it. But Jewish leaders haven’t even considered changing the bill to advance the parts that would most directly benefit the Jewish community. To do so, they believe, might produce short-term gains but at a terrible long-term cost. And to do so, many believe, wouldn’t be right.

The Hate Crimes Prevention Act has several components.

The first is one Jewish groups have long advocated. It would expand on earlier legislation and make it easier for federal authorities to investigate and prosecute local cases when bias is suspected as the cause of violence.

The rationale isn’t to create special categories of protected citizens, but to make up for obvious inequities in the way laws are enforced in different areas of the country.

The second component expands existing hate crimes laws by adding crimes based on the victim’s gender, sexual preference and disability to the categories covered by earlier laws — race, ethnicity and religion.

It is this part of the legislation that has caused such an agonizing dilemma for many Jewish leaders.

From the outset, they supported this expansion because a hate crimes measure that does not seek to protect all those most likely to be victims is a sham.

But the inclusion of gays and lesbians, predictably, incensed Christian right forces and their friends in Congress. Suddenly, the measure was redefined by politicians, preachers and an impressionable media as a gay rights law, written to provide “special” protections for gays and lesbians.

Those who opposed the measure for other reasons, including their opposition to anything that expands federal powers at the expense of the states, found this a convenient hook on which to hang their political hats.

Gay rights groups, understandably, focused on the gender preference aspects of the bill; their militant press releases and public statements became ammunition for opponents.

Almost lost was the idea that this law is meant to protect all minorities who have been subjected to hate violence and victimized again by halfhearted local prosecution.

Lost, too, was the fact that it was crafted in large part by the Anti-Defamation League, a group that fights all forms of racism and bigotry, but whose first commitment has always been to battle anti-Semitism.

Advocates point out that sexual preference is only the third most common basis for hate crimes, behind crimes based on race and religion. Calling it a “gay rights” measure, they say, is a straw man set up by those who oppose all hate crimes laws — or those who seek favor with conservative voters by slamming gays and lesbians.

Because of that opposition, the measure was recently stripped from the Commerce, State and Justice appropriations bill. This week, Jewish activists were working frantically to get it reinserted. President Bill Clinton said his recent veto of the spending bill was due, in part, to the removal of hate crimes language; Jewish activists are hoping it could be revived as part of a budget agreement.

Still, this week’s lobbying represented a longshot rescue effort.

So what are Jewish leaders to do? Most continue to view the new hate crimes bill an essential element in their effort to protect Jews and other minorities, but they also see the handwriting on the wall: the inclusion of gays and lesbians makes the measure highly vulnerable, especially in this Congress.

Despite that reality, Jewish groups seem disinclined to seek changes that would scale back or eliminate the inclusion of gays and lesbians under the bill.

“It might be politically pragmatic, but it would be impossible to justify in the face of what we have always said is the compelling reason for this law — the existence of hate crimes, and disparities in the way they are treated,” said one Jewish activist who has been involved in the fight. “Changing the sexual preference language would be a clear signal that Congress believes some kinds of hate crimes are more okay than others.”

Changing the legislation would blow apart a broad hate crimes coalition that has been responsible for the slow but steady accretion of new laws that Jewish groups say are clearly benefiting the Jewish community, as well as other minority groups.

And giving in to the political pressure would boost politicians, who come perilously close to endorsing outright bigotry and even violence when they play to conservative voters, by branding every initiative that would benefit gays and lesbians as beyond the political pale.

The Jewish community is not monolithic in supporting gay rights; Orthodox organizations, for example, refused to take a position on the current legislation because of the inclusion of gays and lesbians.

But those groups have avoided the overt gay bashing that continues to be heard on Capitol Hill — bigotry tidied up and legitimized by the full force of Congress, dangerous to homosexuals today and possible other minority groups tomorrow.

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Centennial Celebration

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Before there was Vista Del Mar Child Care, the Jewish Home for the Aging, or the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles — there was B’nai B’rith International. And what the aforementioned institutions have in common with the world’s largest Jewish organization is that they wouldn’t have existed without it.

Now, with the millennium upon us, B’nai B’rith’s Los Angeles Lodge — renamed Al Jolson/Los Angeles Lodge in 1987 — will celebrate its centennial at the Radisson Hotel in Culver City on Nov. 14.

Los Angeles was a different world on Nov. 28, 1899 when optometrist Siegfried Marshutz established B’nai B’rith’s Los Angeles Lodge, the organization’s first West Coast chapter. That year, the Pacific Stock Exchange had just been established; a hillside real estate development boasted a “Hollywoodland” sign; and the Olive Street Synagogue opened to serve the city’s entire Jewish population of 2,500 (out of 102,000 Angelenos), mainly concentrated around downtown.

Forty-one charter members initiated the original Los Angeles Lodge ‘847. The Lodge was a branch of B’nai B’rith’s national organization, which was founded in New York’s Lower East Side on Oct. 13, 1843. Among its numerous contributions to social outreach, the national organization established the Anti-Defamation League in 1913 and the Hillel program in 1923. An active participant in post-Holocaust Jewish activism, B’nai B’rith International supported the formation and development of Israel, and is currently the only Jewish organization with a permanent seat at the United Nations.

The Los Angeles Lodge has always been one of the B’nai B’rith’s greatest assets. Over the past century, the Lodge has been an active contributor to the welfare of the Jewish community and Los Angeles at large. It created a national template with its orphans facility; it became instrumental in the founding of Vista Del Mar Child Care, the Jewish Home for the Aging, and the Los Angeles Jewish Community Council (a precursor to the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles); and it has raised millions for charities, disaster relief, youth and educational causes.

With B’nai B’rith bureaus spreading throughout the Southland by 1929, the Lodge created the B’nai B’rith Officers Conference of Southern California, to be redubbed the B’nai B’rith Council of Southern California. Today there are over 8,000 members in over 40 chapters throughout Southern California.

Two years ago, Steve Koff became B’nai B’rith’s regional director of Southern California when the national organization re-organized its West Coast division. Koff says that the Lodge’s 100th anniversary celebrates “a century of the Jewish community coming together for community purposes.”

Working in food industry where many minority groups had a vocal presence, Koff became increasingly aware that “they did not have a great deal of knowledge on the Jewish community.” In an effort to enable other groups to better understand the Jewish community, Koff joined B’nai B’rith. He has not been sorry.

“We’ve made a lot of progress,” says Koff.

While his main directive since assuming his post has been reaching out to new members, particularly younger generations, Koff is proud of some recent additions to the organization, such as the local Latin-American group Reunion Union. Part of a Latin American Network of the B’nai B’rith (which includes branches in Las Vegas, Houston and Dallas), the Valley-based chapter, says Koff, will help assert “a Jewish awareness” in communities beyond the Jewish circles.

Siegel Vann, assistant director for B’nai B’rith’s Center of Public Policy and Latin specialist, says that the chapter allows Jews from Spanish-speaking cultures to “speak their language, articulate their identity, and concentrate on issues related to Latin American Jews.” The Reunion Union was formed five years ago in the aftermath of the bombings in Argentina.

When Mark Joseph became a member of the organization’s Encino lodge in 1979, he came to the B’nai B’rith with a specific intent.

“When I joined I had a couple of children and I was looking to meet other Jews with children,” says Joseph. Today, the attorney, 52, is regional president of Southern California B’nai B’rith, a post he’s held for over two years.

Obviously impressed with what B’nai B’rith had to offer, Joseph says that the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization program has instilled his kids with some invaluable attributes — Jewish pride and an affinity with community. The regional president adds that anyone who joins a B’nai B’rith group will come away with “the good feeling they get when they see they’re doing good things with our Bagel Brigade and food banks.”

“We live in the age of ‘what’s in it for me,'” continues Joseph. “B’nai B’rith is about giving something back to the community.”

With the evolving Latin American affiliate and a web site debuting this month, the Los Angeles Lodge and B’nai B’rith is continuing to do what it has always done — react and adapt to the needs of its community and the landscape of its environment.

As Koff puts it simply, “We hope to be around for another 150 years.”

B’nai B’rith Los Angeles can now be found on the Internet at: www.bnaibrithsocal.org. The B’nai B’rith Los Angeles Lodge will celebrate its 100th anniversary with a centennial banquet on Sun., Nov. 14 at the Radisson Hotel in Culver City. Guest speaker will be B’nai B’rith International President Richard D. Heideman.

To RSVP and find out more about the centennial banquet, call (818) 227-6588 or e-mail socal@bnaibrith.org.

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Festival Becomes Eclectic

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The tale of an orphan’s search for acceptance. A lawyer’s fantasy of a Holocaust survivor’s revenge. A book that may save your marriage.

These are just a few of the interesting choices made for this year’s People of the Book Festival.

Featuring more than 30 authors, including Nathan Englander, the very hot short story writer; Persian-Jewish novelist Gina Nahai; Alan Dershowitz and best-selling author Janet Fitch, the festival runs Nov. 10-21 at three Jewish Community Centers: West Valley (the Bernard Milken Campus), Westside and Valley Cities.

New for this year is the inclusion of the first women-authors panel discussion, “The Unbreakable Bond: Grandmothers, Mothers and Daughters,” which will showcase Fitch, the author of the Oprah Winfrey Book Club selection “White Oleander” and popular newcomer Hope Edelman.

“It just seems like something that would appeal to several generations of the family,” said Festival Coordinator Seville Porush. “So, we’re encouraging grandmothers to come with their daughters and granddaughters.” The panel, originally scheduled for Wednesday, Nov. 17 has been changed to Tuesday, Nov. 16 at 7:30 p.m. at the West Valley JCC.

People of the Book is the brainchild of Porush, program director for the West Valley Jewish Community Center. For this, its third year, Porush said the Book Festival committee decided to make a few improvements based on their experiences running the event the past two years, along with suggestions from The Jewish Book Council of New York.

“For example, this year we are holding all of the events in our three largest [Jewish Community] Centers,” she said. “The past two years we did it at a number of synagogues and center locations, too many to manage. We weren’t able to form that bond that makes a JCC festival work. It seems to be jelling this year and we’ve learned a lot; hopefully the festival will continue to grow and expand.”

Porush and her committee strove to make the festival a well-balanced mix of local and national authors. Local luminaries include Rabbis David Wolpe and Steven Leder; psychologist Betty L. Polston (see page 13), Ellen Jaffe-Gill, author of “The Jewish Women’s Book of Wisdom” and Risa Munitz-Gruberger and Rabbi Jeffrey A. Marx, co-authors of “What’s Right, What’s Wrong? A Guide to Talking About Values for Parents and Kids.”

Marx and Munitz-Gruberger will host a parenting program and discussion at all three of the festival’s locations on Family Day, Sunday, Nov. 21. The Family Day programs are all free, although the centers are requesting parents call for reservations for the special Children’s Program on “Mr. Belinsky’s Bagels” which will include crafts and bagel-making, plus a visit from the “Mr. Belinsky” character.

Adults can take their pick of discussions: from the ethereal (“Spirituality for the New Millennium”) to the concrete (“Finance and Investment Options”) to the historical (“Oswego,” a staged musical reading about 1,000 Holocaust survivors brought to safe haven in the United States).

“Our main purpose is to feature books of Jewish content, preferably by Jewish authors, both new books in the field along with some of the old standards people may have not had time to acquire — in other words, something for everyone,” said Fran Shuster, a former librarian and current chair of the Festival’s book selection committee.

For those who love art as well as books, West Valley JCC is hosting two shows in tandem with the festival: the “Beacon of Light” display in the Finegood Gallery with items from the Breed Street Shul in Boyle Heights and “Pages of My Life” in the Art Space on the Center’s first floor. “Pages” is a collection of photographs and watercolors by California artist Gay Wellington which are available for sale; a portion of the purchase price will be donated to the Festival and to the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Los Angeles.

Costs for the festival range from as little as $2 for certain individual authors to the $18 program and kosher brunch for featured author Dershowitz. Series packages are available starting at $60.

For more information or a schedule of Festival events, call (818) 464-3300.

More Books in Orange County

The Jewish Community Center of Orange County launches its first Jewish Book Fair this year with several thought-provoking programs.

Nov. 7 at 2 p.m: A talk marking Kristallnacht with Marc Carrel, senior advisor to Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, examining the response of the Sacramento community to hate crimes. A portion of ticket sales will help replace books destroyed by the arson fires at Sacramento’s Congregation B’nai Israel.

Nov. 11 at 7 p.m: Israeli mystery novelist Batya Gur.

Nov. 14 at noon: author Nathan Englander.

Nov. 16 at 7:30 p.m.: Lionel Okun, “Jews in Places You’ve Never Thought Of.”

Nov. 21: Susan Dworkin, co-author of “The Nazi Officer’s Wife.”

For information and reservations call (714) 755-0340.

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The Circuit/Around Town

Leave a Comment / Circuit, Entertainment, Old Stories, Theater /

A play with both wit and heart is a compelling combination, and it’s one that playwright Donald Margulies’ pulls off in his mostly rewarding “Collected Stories.”

“Stories” drew critical praise and a 1997 Pulitzer Prize nomination following it’s world première at Costa Mesa’s South Coast Repertory. Happily, in director Gilbert Cates’ current Los Angeles production at the Geffen Playhouse, the play’s intelligence and emotional power remain intact.

“Stories” takes place almost entirely in the book-lined Greenwich Village apartment of Ruth Steiner (played by Linda Lavin). She’s sixtyish and a bit prickly — an accomplished fiction writer who lives alone. Lisa Morrison (Samantha Mathis) is her promising young graduate student, an ambitious writer-in-the-making who comes to Steiner for a tutorial.

We’ve seen this before, of course — the dance between an irascible older mentor and the bright-eyed disciple, and so we know from the outset that these two impassioned artists — one dominant and aging, the other on the rise — will inevitably clash as their relationship deepens and changes.

What makes this familiar setup fresh and involving is Margulies’ wise, funny, wry dialogue and Lavin’s strong performance. While “Stories” is principally concerned with how artistic passions can propel and destroy intimate relationships, the play is truly about a number of subjects, both large and small, which Margulies has great fun exploring: the writer’s morally iffy creative need to cannibalize friends’ lives for material, the power of regret, even the reasons behind our gossip-obsessed pop culture. All of it is discussed with zip and arch intelligence.

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