September 7, 2000

Getting Clocked

Leave a Comment / Singles / Susan Josephs

My friend Lauren got married at 24. For two years, she lived in peace. After all, she had conducted her life according to the Proper Schedule and deserved to be left alone by concerned family and peers. When she got together with her single girlfriends, she could only sympathize with their plights. It’s not fair that people respect the right to a private life only upon the exchange of nuptials, she agreed, and remained silently thankful that people did not whisper about her potential future as an old maid.

If only Lauren knew that two years after her wedding, the whispers would focus on her. If only she knew that married people who declined to procreate according to the Proper Schedule became consigned to the same fate as her unmarried girlfriends. Today, Lauren knows these things and wonders whether life would have been simpler had she remained single.

Lauren is now 32. She and her husband have a cat but no children. One day, they would like to read bedtime stories to their little ones. Today, they would like to travel the world and pursue other dreams before it’s too late.

Only recently, Lauren and her husband have articulated to family and other pertinent parties that their way of life represents a conscious choice grounded in hours of rigorous and often painful thought and discussion. Before this articulation, they endured comments such as “Hey, are you guys practicing?” or “You can’t wait forever!” Throughout her marriage, Lauren has attended weddings of other friends and witnessed the births of their children. She wonders, do they gaze quizzically upon her flat stomach and think, it should be by you next?

These days, Lauren and I listen to each other with empathy. “You mean you get that too?” I’ll ask her incredulously as I fume over comments regarding why I have not married my boyfriend of seven months. “It never ends,” she said about the unsolicited advice of well-intentioned people who view our personal lives as half-baked. “You’d think when I got married that people would have been satisfied and left me alone.”

Thanks to my friendship with Lauren, I am no longer under the impression that the Jewish community views married life as off-limits from public scrutiny. I used to believe that wedded people enjoyed an existence unmarred by knowing glances, unwanted comments and unfounded rumors to explain why they have not adhered to leading lives the way they should be lived. I have learned that there is indeed a Proper Schedule that extends far beyond making an appearance under the chuppah, and those who do not follow it must suffer the consequences if they wish to remain members of the Jewish community.

While Lauren and I both grew up in Modern Orthodox Jewish families, I checked the following schedule with friends from different backgrounds who have confirmed its accuracy. It begins with marriage, which should occur sometime between the early and mid-20s. The first child should be present after two years and the second child should follow approximately two years later. If that second child does not appear eventually, eyebrows shall be raised, and comments about lonely only children turning into dysfunctional adults will soon follow.

The schedule views three or more children as optional but certainly worthy of bonus points and special rewards. Essentially, once the married couple produces two grandchildren for their parents, the Jewish community can breathe a sigh of relief and cast its searchlight upon other foundering individuals in need of assistance.

Granted, this schedule works perfectly for a substantial number of people. In fact, I know of individuals who view the outside pressure from family and community as a welcome catalyst for positive transformations that took place in their lives. But for Lauren and me, the pressure only threatens to sabotage the lives that we have been working hard to construct based on years of soul searching. Applying this pressure on people who intend to live by decisions of their own making can damage relationships between loved ones who don’t know alternative ways of expressing themselves.

It’s downright irresponsible for people to claim to know what lies within our souls and therefore feel qualified to point us in the proper direction. Tick-tock, tick-tock. These people will gladly imitate the sound of our respective biological clocks. They might even allude to the possibility that we act most selfishly. Think of our poor parents who must endure comments about the whereabouts of their grandchildren. Think of the community that loses Jewish children daily to intermarriage and the personal growth movement. Think of yourself not as a self-contained entity but a link in an ancient and covenantal chain.

Ultimately, these people do not have to lead our lives. After pointing us in the proper direction, they can go home and forget about us until the next deadline on the schedule.

Ultimately, why Lauren has a husband but no children and why my boyfriend has not become my husband remains for us alone to answer.

Getting Clocked Read More »

A Killer Walks

Leave a Comment / Israel, Other Voices / Rabbi Dov Fischer

It was three years ago this week that Palestinian Arab murderers bombed Jerusalem’s cheery, cafe-lined Ben Yehuda Street into a nightmare of death and destruction – murdering, among others, Yael Botwin, a 14-year-old girl from Claremont. This past week, Mahmoud Abu-Hanud, the butcher who masterminded the murders, finally was uncovered. Yet, paradoxically, he still walks free, while three Israeli soldiers lie dead after their failed effort to apprehend him.

If the good news is that this murderer who topped Israel’s most-wanted list was wounded in the shootout with Israeli soldiers, the bad news is that he managed to elude capture and make his way safely and securely to the nearby city of Shechem (Nablus), which now is controlled by Yasir Arafat’s Palestinian Authority. The authoritarians who run that Authority have announced that Abu-Hanud will not be handed over to the Israeli defense forces. And in the World of Oslo, there is nary a thing that Israel can do about it.

Is there any hope for bringing Abu-Hanud to justice? Over the past six years, on 45 different occasions – that’s right, 45 times – Israel formally has requested that Arafat extradite terrorists for prosecution. Under the Oslo accords, Arafat is obligated to honor such requests. He has to. But this is Arafat, and this is Oslo. Consequently, he never has done so, and there is little reason to believe that he will in this lifetime. Instead, in an Arafat attempt to get Abu-Hanud out of the media spotlight quickly, the Palestinian Authority may stage one of its infamous quickie trials.

Typically, terrorists “tried” by the Authority either are set free, are given extremely lenient sentences, or are permitted to “escape.” Earlier this year, Israel’s foreign minister declared forthrightly that “the high incidence of supposed jailbreaks by dangerous prisoners” from Palestinian Authority prisons effectively serves as a political cover for “the Palestinian Authority releasing Hamas activists from jail.”

So if it is justice that we wish to pursue, it will not be through Arafat’s Palestinian Authority that Yael Botwin’s murderer is punished.

That compels us to pursue justice – to “think outside the box.” Indeed, there is another option for getting this butcher before the bar of justice: American law formally authorizes the prosecution in the United States of individuals who murder Americans abroad. Thus, Abu-Hanud may be tried for murder right here in California, just like Buford O’Neal Furrow Jr.

In the aftermath of the tragically failed Israeli attempt to nab Abu-Hanud, seven member-organizations of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations have urged President Clinton to demand that the Palestinian Authority surrender Abu-Hanud to the U.S. for prosecution. And a citizens’ group of American survivors, all wounded in Abu-Hanud’s attacks, have issued a statement noting that “Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has referred to Arafat’s justice system as a ‘revolving door.’ Terrorists detained by Arafat are routinely set free or given shockingly lenient sentences. Abu-Hanud must be brought to the United States and face American justice.”

The response of the Los Angeles community to the challenge has been rather dramatic. During the past two summers, local Zionist Organization of America activists successfully initiated public campaigns on this issue. Two years ago, 30 Los Angeles rabbis – transcend-ing denominational and political barriers, ranging the full spectrum from Orthodox to Reform and from those who support Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria to those who support the Peace Now agenda – signed a petition urging President Clinton to press Arafat to capture Abu-Hanud and to transfer him to the United States for prosecu-tion. This past summer, more than 400 Los Angeles-area teenagers signed a similar petition and pledged a combined total of more than $5,000 to a reward fund for information leading to the capture of all the terrorists who murdered Yael Botwin and 19-year-old Yitzhak Weinstock, grand-son of Rabbi Simon Dolgin, rabbi emeritus of Congregation Beth Jacob.
(Tragically, the Clinton administration persistently has resisted offering such rewards, although the State Department routinely offers similar rewards for information leading to the capture of other terrorists who have murdered Americans abroad. For a first-hand look at this double standard, readers can view the State Department’s reward Web site at www.heroes.net.)

Yael Botwin’s third yahrtzeit could have marked an auspicious occasion to rejoice that one of her murderers finally was apprehended. Instead, another round of pain and frustration – for Yael’s family, for families of the fallen Israeli soldiers, and for Jews everywhere – now begins.

We can try to alleviate some of that pain by promoting the call to justice. We can call the White House to urge the president to pressure Arafat to hand over Abu-Hanud. We can call our U.S. senators and representatives and ask them to demand that Arafat stop sheltering those who murder Americans. With the High Holy Days approaching, we even can ask our rabbis to help raise public consciousness of this unnecessary outrage by recalling from the pulpits the tragedy of Yael Botwin and of the fallen Israeli soldiers and demanding, for once and for all, that Arafat hand over the butchers whom he and his Authoritarians are protecting.

He can hand them to the Israelis, as Oslo requires. He can hand them to the United States as American law provides. His choice. But it is time.

A Killer Walks Read More »

Speaking Out

Leave a Comment / Israel, Worldwide / Michael J

Amid a last-ditch push to salvage his peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak this week asked a unique gathering of world leaders here to play an active role in the Middle East peace process.

Speaking to more than 150 heads of state at the U.N. Millennial Summit on Wednesday, Barak said Israel is prepared to accept less than 100 percent “of its dreams.”

Israel has demonstrated a willingness to “make painful decisions for the sake of peace,” he said, citing as examples the negotiations with Syria and the Palestinians and the complete withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

Barak called on U.N. member states to encourage reconciliation and discourage or oppose any unilateral measures – a reference to Sept. 13, when Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat has threatened to declare statehood.

His public comments came as he engaged in some private diplomacy as well. His U.N. speech came after meetings with Cuban President Fidel Castro, Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid and South African President Thabo Mbeki, and preceded consultations with President Clinton and French President Jacques Chirac.

Politically embattled at home, Barak’s visit to the United States is being seen as his last attempt to achieve a peace deal following the collapse of the Camp David summit in July.

The summit failed after the two sides could not agree on the future of Jerusalem.

Clinton met Wednesday afternoon separately with Barak and Arafat, apparently in an effort to see if there was enough movement to warrant future negotiations.

Following Clinton’s meeting with Barak, the Israeli side said it expected the U.S. president and other world leaders to press Arab states in the next 48 hours to encourage Arafat to show greater flexibility on Jerusalem.

In his six-minute speech to the assembled dignitaries, Barak singled out by name Arafat, who was seated in the audience behind a placard bearing the name “Palestine.”

“We are at the Rubicon, and neither of us can cross it alone,” Barak said in his measured and staccato English.

“History will judge what we do in the next days and weeks: Were we courageous and wise enough to guide our region across the deep river of mistrust, into a new land of reconciliation, or did we shrink back at the water’s edge, resigned to lie in wait for the rising tide of bloodshed and grief?”

Barak, following the premier of Belize to the podium, had opened his speech by reciting, in Hebrew then in English, the famous biblical “beat their swords into ploughshares” quote from the prophet Micah.Barak went on to state both the centrality of Jerusalem in the history and faith of the Jewish people, and its spiritual and emotional connection to other peoples of the world.

“Jerusalem, the eternal capital of Israel, now calls for a peace of honor, of courage, and of brotherhood,” said the Israeli premier.

“We recognize that Jerusalem is also sacred to Muslims and Christians the world over, and cherished by our Palestinian neighbors. A true peace will reflect all these bonds. Jerusalem will remain united and open to all who love her.”

Throughout Barak’s speech, Arafat looked on impassively.

In his speech a short while later, the Palestinian Authority president said: “We remain committed to our national rights over East Jerusalem, capital of our state and shelter of our sacred sites, as well as our rights on the Christian and Islamic holy sites.”

Arafat countered that his people, too, had made concessions, agreeing to establish a state “on less than a quarter of the historical territory of Palestine.”

He added: “We have made a strategic decision committing ourselves to the peace process, offering significant and painful concessions in order to arrive at a reasonable compromise acceptable to both sides.”Meanwhile, the historic gathering of world leaders provided a golden opportunity for activists to promote their cause celebres outside.

Among the Jewish protesters were members of Americans for a Safe Israel and followers of the late, militantly anti-Arab leader Meir Kahane.

During the afternoon, their ranks swelled from half a dozen just before Barak addressed the United Nations to several dozen after. But they were assigned, ironically, a spot adjacent to the Communist Party of Iran. So, to be heard over the Iranian communists, the Kahanists were forced to scream their “Barak is a Traitor!” and “Palestine Never!” slogans.

A few sections down, Bob Kunst had no need to yell.

The president of Shalom International of Miami was there solo, sandwiched between the Free Tibet movement and a group of angry Korean doctors.

But Kunst was busy giving interview after interview to the American and foreign media drawn to his signs, which read “No More Nazism” and “Remember the Holocaust.”

His target was Poland and its government’s consent for a disco and shopping center near Auschwitz.”I have to schlep all the way from Miami Beach because nobody’s got the cojones to speak out on this,” said Kunst, who noted one exception, AMCHA – The Coalition for Jewish Concerns, which had recently demonstrated outside the Polish consulate in New York.

“Where is Israel on this one, where are the American Jewish leaders?” he said “Why are they allowing dancing on Jewish graves?”

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Creating Something Green

Leave a Comment / Politics / Charlotte Hildebrand

Medea Benjamin wasn’t expecting to run for the U.S. Senate in November. She had a busy enough life already: community activist, mother of two, co-founder of Global Exchange. But last December, when Global Exchange garnered international attention after its WTO protests in Seattle, Benjamin was approached by the Green Party and asked to run against Dianne Feinstein on the Green Party ticket.

“At first I told them that I wasn’t interested in electoral politics,” Benjamin laughed. “I’m a social activist and I love doing this, but then … someone gave me Dianne Feinstein’s record on positions that are very near and dear to me: trade agreements that violate workers’ rights, issues around the death penalty, privatization of our schools, and I thought, she really doesn’t represent what a majority of people in California care about. We have to challenge her.”

Benjamin grew up in a Jewish family in Freeport, N.Y., during the late 1960s, a time of civil unrest and Vietnam War protests. She went on to study economics and nutrition, receiving a master’s degree in both. For the next ten years, she traveled in Latin America and Africa working as a nutritionist and economist for the United Nations, the World Health Organization and the Institute for Food and Development Policy. In the ’80s, she founded the San Francisco-based Global Exchange with her husband, social activist Kevin Danaher.

Although Benjamin doesn’t consider herself religious, she looks to a Jewish tradition that values social justice and equality issues. “If you look at what these last few years of the Clinton Administration has done for us, we are in the greatest economic boom ever, yet we have a fifth of our children living in poverty, 47 million people without health care, public schools falling apart, and more people in prisons in California than higher education,” Benjamin said. “This is a political system gone awry!

“So I tell people, when you go to the voting booth in November, vote out of your passions and dreams, not out of your fears,” she said. “Anybody who considers their priority to be social justice, then you have to vote for Ralph Nader. And certainly anyone in California, looking at Dianne Feinstein’s record, you have to vote Green.”

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Finding a Shul That Fits

Leave a Comment / Family, Membership / Adam Wills

Steven and Leya Booth had to find a congregation, and they didn’t have a lot of time. As part of his conversion, Steven signed up for an Introduction to Judaism course at University of Judaism (UJ) last September. The instructor gave the class a specific assignment: Find a congregation to join before the course ended in March 2000.

The 29-year-old Valley couple, now newlyweds, had announced their engagement the month before and were each working full time and then some. Steven would finish the class and convert to Judaism less than two weeks before the wedding. The pressure was on.

“I was looking for a place where we would both be comfortable going, because I wanted to go a lot, and I wanted to bring her with me. And if she wasn’t comfortable, she wasn’t going to go,” Steven says.

The Booths were longing for an affordable way to connect with other Jewish couples their own age, and in this they aren’t alone. Many young newlyweds face issues similar to those that Steven and Leya wrestled with in their quest for a synagogue: How do you find a congregation that is inexpensive, close enough, welcoming, youth-oriented and with a level of observance that meets the expectations of both people?

Even in a city filled with synagogues, that search is not as easy as it would seem.Steven and Leya had been involved in Kosher Meet Market and Traveling Shabbat Singles, but that was when they were single. The affordable options they found for Jewish DINKs (dual income, no kids) were slim.

“There’s no Hillel environment for people who are married,” says Steven. “The Jewish community just doesn’t produce anything for people once they’re out of Hillel until they have enough money to be real contributors. That’s irksome.”

With $70,000 in student loan debt between them and a condo in Encino, the Booths were primarily focused on taking those first steps toward establishing their careers – each work and volunteer at least 60 hours every week. Low-cost membership is a primary concern for young couples like the Booths, since their finances are limited.

Steven and Leya also have jobs in the Jewish community, so they wanted to make sure that the congregation they joined would feel more like coming home than going back to work.

“I want a synagogue where I like the people and make actual friends, not just acquaintances, to go see movies and pray with,” Steven says.

The son of a Catholic mother and secular Jewish father, Steven didn’t know much about Judaism growing up. The closest thing the Orange County native had to a Bar Mitzvah was when his dad gave him a mezuzah for his 13th birthday. After graduating from UC Santa Cruz in 1997, Steven decided to pursue an MBA in nonprofit management at UJ to explore his Jewish heritage.

“Living in the dorms there, you’re eating kosher food, you’re around people doing Jewish things, you ask a lot of questions and they speak Hebrew at you all the time,” Steven says.

Two years into his MBA, Steven was working for Jewish National Fund and seeing Leya.

Leya, who is currently pursuing a master’s in special education at CSUN, grew up in the Valley attending a Conservative synagogue. Leya’s parents gave her the freedom to choose her own level of involve-ment when she was growing up but bristled when she told them she wanted to keep kosher and observe Shabbat regularly. After her confir-mation class folded, Leya dropped her Jewish involvement until college.

Hillel helped her rediscover everything she loved about Judaism. A decade later, Leya is still actively involved with Hillel at Pierce and Valley Colleges.

“I discovered through Hillel that I liked living Jewishly, and I wanted to give back to the Jewish community,” Leya says.

The Booths asked peers for recommendations and used the Web to explore their options, looking over a congregation’s site before stepping in the door. They considered seven congregations in all.

Distance was a major issue. Steven and Leya are both Reconstructionist, but the idea of commuting over the hill to either of the Westside congregations was out of the question.

“We definitely wanted to find Conservative, because we weren’t going to find Reconstructionist here,” says Leya.

Steven wanted to find a smaller congregation with a warm, welcoming atmosphere where he could participate during the service.

At the first disqualified congregation, Steven says the cantor’s “singing was beautiful and wonderful, but I couldn’t match his range. I couldn’t sing along with him, and so I felt left out. I want to participate.”About another, he says the congregation had an “amazing cantor, but it was like being in an opera.”

For Leya, the congregation has to walk the walk.

“If I’m going to go to a Conservative synagogue, I want it to be more Conservadox,” she says.Leya looked for one of three tell-tale signs to disqualify a Conservative congregation: if they said the second line of the “Shema” out loud, if they stood during “Kaddish” or if there was applause during a sermon.

Leya says she was turned off by one congregation when she saw a photographer, videographer and people signing a wedding guestbook at 4 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon.

“That just freaked me out,” she says.

Steven and Leya say that children are at least three years away, so child-care programs and Hebrew schools weren’t on their minds yet.

“I really wasn’t thinking kids,” Leya says. “I was thinking where we are right now. I’m not thinking past two years.”

“Both of us rejected almost everything. When Steven found one he was happy with, ironically, it was something I was happy with,” Leya says.

The Booths ended up choosing Temple Ramat Zion in Northridge. Within 15 minutes of sitting in the synagogue, they knew they’d found the right one.

“It’s the way the rabbi runs it,” Steven says of Rabbi Steven Tucker. “He does the service in Hebrew, it’s very traditional and the people are friendly.”

Steven says that he was also enthralled by Tucker’s sermons – another major selling point.

The couple has since become actively involved with committees at the temple, and while Ramat Zion meets most of their needs, the Booths say they’re disappointed that the congregation lacks a chavurah for DINKs in their 20’s and 30’s.

“As we’re getting closer to 30, most of the 30-something chavurot are parents with young children,” says Leya. “We’re not quite ready for that group.”

Finding a Shul That Fits Read More »

Letters to the Editor

Leave a Comment / Letters to the Editor, Opinion / Jewish Journal

ADL

The Anti-Defamation League has an 87-year history of speaking out against appeals to religious, racial or ethnic bias in political campaigns. In December 1999, ADL wrote to each major party presidential candidate expressing the League’s concern about excessive religious speech in election-season political discourse.

Should ADL have given Sen. Lieberman a pass because he is Jewish and the League is a civil rights agency founded by the Jewish community? (“The Honeymoon’s Over,” Sept. 1) Just as ADL disagrees with those who say that racial and ethnic minorities cannot be racist, ADL believes that all candidates, regardless of whether they are in the religious majority or minority, must strive to be a leader for Americans of all faiths. This is the American Dream of which Sen. Lieberman has spoken so eloquently.Next year, when ADL is confronted with a similar issue involving statements made by an evangelical Christian candidate, had we not spoken out now, we would legitimately be asked where we were when Sen. Lieberman injected religion into the political arena. Are we to answer that it is okay for Jews, but not for Christians? Consistency and logic required that ADL react to Sen. Lieberman as we did to Gov. Bush and Vice President Gore.

Tamar Galatzan
Western States Associate Counsel
Anti-Defamation League

The Anti-Defamation League is happy to accept donations of U.S. currency that declares “In God We Trust,” but condemns Sen. Lieberman for promoting the same concept as a basis for ethics and morality. If there is so little anti-Semitism in the United States that the ADL’s priority is to condemn faith-based morality, they can take me off their mailing list.

Dr. Robert J. Meth, Marina del Rey

Germany’s Nazi Present

I found David Meyers’s article (“My German Question” Aug. 25) truly shocking. We are talking about a country that even now is in the midst of a disturbing revival of neo-Nazi activity that includes cases of beatings, fire bombings, death threats to foreigners and local Jews, synagogue defacement and graveyard desecrations on an almost weekly basis.

Having lived and traveled in West Germany during the 1970s, I can personally attest to having inadvertently purchased cases of fine Mosel Valley wine from a well-heeled merchant who was later identified to me as an ex-member of the Waffen SS, having served a mere three years in jail for murdering over 1,000 Jewish civilians in Russia.

Yes, Germany has paid reparations to many. But the country has not yet fully or freely come to grips with restitution for the theft and confiscation of art, businesses, real estate, life insurance policies and bank accounts from millions of its victims.

There’s a reason why no one in Meyers’s circle of German acquaintances wanted to discuss the Shoah. Anti-Semitism is a pathological disease of the German mind and culture which has not yet been rooted out from society, even after the perpetration of some of the most horrendous crimes in human existence, possibly because of widespread denial and avoidance of the facts in the German educational system.

Steven Schoenberg
Los Angeles
Green Party

If presidential candidate Ralph Nader was not of Arabic descent, Assembly candidate Sarah Amir was not Iranian, and U.S. senatorial candidate Medea Benjamin was not from San Francisco, would you cover their Green campaigns?

Andrew Liberman , Los Angeles

Editor’s Note: Be sure to read our coverage of Green Party candidates on page 10.

Pope Pius IX

For years I have been an admirer of Pope John Paul II for his finally taking the reins and attempting to right so many of the wrongs the Church has inflicted on the Jews through the ages, so I am completely baffled as to his allowing the beatification of Pius IX. It seems totally out of character for the pope, and I can only venture that there was some behind-the-scenes political cross collateralization that has resulted in the honor.

Sam Fibish, Toluca Lake

Joseph Lieberman

Being a survivor of the Holocaust and living in a free country , it made me proud to learn of the nomination of Sen. Joseph Lieberman for vice president on the Democratic ticket. It is rewarding to know that there are no barriers in this land of opportunity and challenges, regardless of race, religion or color.

Janet Arzt, North Hollywood

What a blessing it is to have Joe Lieberman on the road to the White House, with or without yarmulke or tzitzit.

In the U.S., anti-Semitism, hate and bigotry are freely expressed in the name of freedom. Maybe Lieberman is the antidote.

Keyle Birnberg-Goldstein,West Hills

Trauma Centers

In response to Wendy Madnick’s article (“Learning From Tragedy,” Aug. 25), I’d like to address the comment about “some idiot at Northridge Hospital” who was, in her mind, responsible for not locating her brother initially after his injury and hospitalization.

I provided medical social work services to our trauma victims from 1985 until last year. I suppose one could identify me as that person, for it was my responsibility to identify our John or Jane Doe patients once they were admitted to our critical care unit after a major trauma. Obviously, they are unable to communicate with us, may have no identification on them and have no one presenting to the hospital on their behalf. Every effort is made to locate next of kin, either through the L.A.P.D. missing persons unit or through various media sources.

Every year our trauma centers provide life-saving emergency medical treatment to hundreds of victims of motor vehicle accidents, gunshot wounds, crime victims and victims of home injuries, often with little or no reimbursement to the hospital and medical staff accepting a trauma call.

Our trauma surgeons, respiratory therapists, nurses and social work staff deserve our support.

Eileen Sudeck, Granada Hills

UCLA PLATO

This letter is to correct a possible misconception given by your article(Â³The Jewish Experience in the UCLA PLATO Society,Â²Aug. 25). We offer over75 study discussion groups a year covering a wide variety of topics such ashistory, science, philosophy, literature, music, art, economics,archaeology, etc. Jewish topics are only a small part of our curriculum.

Susan Siegel
President
PLATO Society of UCLA

JDate Coverage

Our sages have taught us that one who is without derech eretz is likened toa wild, unruly animal. I didnÂ¹t expect that this would be a useful piece oflearning until now. Michael Aushenker’s comments regarding the age of thepartiers certainly showed his lack of consideration and hisself-centeredness (Â³JDate Parties Offline,Â² Aug. 25).

The underlying negative tone throughout the article is not necessary toreporting of a singles event. It should also be noted that this was thefirst year for such an event, and the organizers are to be commended fortrying something different .

If anything, Jewish singles searching for a Jewish mate should beencouraged, and not be subjected to the howling of an ill-mannered writer.

Valerie Kern (via e-mail)

West Coast Jewish Theater

The article on the West Coast Jewish Theater (WCJT) and Naomi Jacobs(Seeking a Home, Sept. 1) left out the name of the man who wrote, directedand produced Â³Der Onshtel Makher.

Howard Teichman is a brilliant playwright, director and member of the boardof WCJT. He should not have been ignored.

Hindi BrooksSanta Monica

Letters to the Editor Read More »

Whose Money?

Downsizing Government

Leave a Comment / Politics, United States, Worldwide / Avi Machlis

The enthusiasm that greeted the nomination of Sen. Joseph Lieberman as the Demo-cratic vice-presidential candidate was fully shared by Errol Fine.

Fine is the owner of Pat’s Restaurant in West Los Angeles, one of the city’s premier kosher establishments, which catered a number of parties and receptions honoring the Orthodox nominee.

The smallest party was a family affair of some 40 people at the Biltmore Hotel, featuring honey-glazed salmon and primavera salad with almonds and strawberries.

Another event for 150 people was held at a private home, while the largest order was for 300 guests at the Museum of Tolerance.

Fine, a native of South Africa, took the orders in stride, including delays while the Secret Service cased the delivery vans from stem to stern.

After all, he recalled, during the 1984 Olympic Games, Pat’s Restaurant had supplied kosher victuals for 3,000 people when The Jewish Federation threw a community-wide bash feting the Israeli team.

To the disappointment of local synagogues, Lieberman did not stay in Los Angeles over Shabbat. He left immediately at the close of the convention on Thursday to join running mate Al Gore on a steamship for a campaign swing along the Mississippi River.

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Jewish Angst

Leave a Comment / Rob Eshman / Gene Lichtenstein

Lieberman’s Presence

Recently, a Chinese-American doctor was monitoring my heart as the speed and incline were increased on the treadmill during a stress test. Perhaps he wanted me to relax; perhaps he was bored and was trying to make conversation. Apropos of nothing but my presence on the treadmill, he casually tossed the question at me: “What do you think of Lieberman as the vice presidential candidate? Were you surprised?”I gave a perfunctory answer, yes and no, and then heard myself say, “When I was a boy, his nomination would have been astonishing. Jews were outsiders then. But now we’re part of the U.S., just like any other white American.”

I realized what I was saying, or rather to whom I was speaking, just as the words tumbled out of my mouth. I thought: Why am I feeling so aggressive towards this doctor? And so I set about redressing the situation.

You know, I said, it’s probably the same for Asian-American professionals like yourself. “This last decade you’ve all moved from being outsiders to part of the white mainstream. Physicists and mathematicians, doctors and computer experts; you’re all insiders now.”

It was the best I could do.

But I realized that, unlike most Jews, mainstream Americans seemed to take Joe Lieberman’s candidacy with equanimity. It was nothing special or unusual. To be sure, marginal citizens who were anti-Semitic crowded the Internet with hostile messages. Most were anonymous and, more to the point, it was they who were now the outsiders. Not us.

In fact, it was primarily the Jews in America who were concerned about Lieberman’s nomination. Pride on the one hand, anxiety on the other, accompanied by a series of critical comments about the candidate. He was too pro-business; too conservative. He had the wrong stand on vouchers and on affirmative action (meaning not the Jewish majority’s position).

And then of course there was his religious stance. Too much and too outspoken about it. There was, after all, a separation of church and state in this nation, as ADL’s national director, Abraham Foxman, commented when he criticized one of Lieberman’s speeches. Foxman was upset because Lieberman in a speech had urged his listeners to “renew the dedication of our nation and ourselves to God and God’s purpose.”

This was the Christian right’s position. It called up images of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, and it posed a future challenge to our Bill of Rights. As Foxman wrote, “…there is a point at which an emphasis on religion becomes inappropriate and even unsettling in a religiously diverse society such as ours.”

From There to Here

A great deal has been written about how we proceeded from there (the first half of this century) to here in America. The explanations include so many markers along the way: education and adaptation; the Second World War and the Holocaust; American culture and the mass media; Israel and the Cold War. They all contributed to our journey.

Perhaps because so much of my professional life has been concentrated in the mass media, I tend to give considerable weight to the influence of culture on the shaping of an American sensi-bility. Part of the story is that Jews have become central consumers of culture. We are the mainstay of theater in most American cities, and the same can be said of art, music and book buying. In a sense, we are the key audience … and, not surprisingly, the benefactors and supporters of culture, as well.

That by itself would explain some of the Jewish impact on American culture. But only some of it. The Jewish imprint on the American sensibility owes much more to the makers of our culture. Jewish authors, musicians and artists helped develop our “high culture” just as writers and producers shaped our popular culture (i.e. tele-vision and films and radio and, in an earlier day, vaudeville). In the process they have imparted to the rest of the nation a way of perceiving and feeling that is Jewish – in essence, a Jewish imprint. In this sense it is not too much to say that America has become in part a Jewish nation, just as it is in part a Black one.

It seems to me that this, along with the presence of a large number of Jews in colleges and universities, has helped lead to the breakdown of barriers that separated us from earlier generations of American gentiles. This breakdown of barriers has in turn helped generate the large numbers of Jews who have married outside their faith.

No one ever said that success and change did not carry in its wake a new set of problems.

What’s Next?

The irony should not be lost on us. Now that the barriers have largely come down, now that we are included in American society (with Joe Lieberman a candidate for vice president), we are frantically looking for a new and different set of barriers to erect in their place. To put it another way: Now that we are bona fide Americans, we are desperately searching for ways to remain Jews.

Those who have remained Orthodox or have turned to Orthodoxy have little problem here. Lieberman makes a wonderful example. The same can be said for those of us who have held fast to traditional forms of observance. Much of this is spelled out in a new and interesting book, “Jew vs. Jew: The Struggle for the Soul of American Jewry” by Samuel Freedman, a professor of journalism at Columbia University.

Freedman gives us the latest updates on the war between Jewish modernists and the Orthodox as they struggle over political issues – e.g., education, feminism, Israel – that ultimately become battles over identity. It is a bitter war fought for control over the Jewish gates: That is, according to Freedman, the victors may well become the arbiters of just who in America is a Jew. Freedman suggests that in the end, traditional religious belief will triumph and that observance will define Jewish identity.

Nevertheless, the majority of America’s Jews are not traditionally observant; certainly not Orthodox in their practices or beliefs, as Lieberman is. Which accounts, in part, for the somewhat frantic calls from Jewish leaders and organizations: rebuild Jewish education; learn Hebrew; spend time in Israel; combat intermarriage. These are all tactics designed to recast new Jewish barriers, self-made in this case. Can one be a Jew without Judaism? An American, albeit with a Jewish soul?

These are questions that touch all of us, though they are rarely voiced, almost every day of our lives. It is why Joe Lieberman’s candidacy has sparked so much feeling among American Jews. He is an American political leader who is pronouncedly Jewish. An observant Jew who could even be an American presidential candidate somewhere down the road. With considerable effort he has remained connected to Judaism while forging ahead as an American politician.

In the midst of this dialogue, which preoccupies almost all of us, stand the non-Jews of America: unconcerned, faintly puzzled, wondering what we are fussing about. If they only knew.

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How the field guide was compiled

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The Journal contacted about 80 synagogues and other organizations that conduct High Holy Days services, from across the spectrum of religious observance. About 40 percent of the synagogues contacted returned information.

We assumed that synagogues which chose not to respond to our requests for information had few or no seats available to unaffiliated Jews.

The field guide is meant to be an informal overview of what’s out there for unaffiliated Jews who want to worship in community during the High Holy Days. A complete listing of all synagogues in the area served by Los Angeles Jewish Federation begins on page 29, or visit www.jewishjournal.com.

We encourage readers to contact and visit as many synagogues listed in the larger directory as they can before the holidays.

Size

Figures below represent number of member households. To estimate the number of people in the room when the entire congregation prays together, you can double or triple the membership figure for all but the smallest synagogues.

Tiny (75 or fewer households)

Temple Beth Israel, Highland Park Cong. Beth Ohr, Studio City Cong. B’nai Ami, Chatsworth Temple Rodeph Shalom, El Segundo Southwest Temple Beth Torah, Gardena

Small (75-200 households)

Cong. Beth Shalom, Santa Clarita B’nai Tikvah Congregation, Westchester Jewish Learning Exchange, Los Angeles Makom Ohr Shalom, Woodland Hills Cong. N’vay Shalom, West Los Angeles Cong. Or Ami, Agoura Hills Shir Hadash, Los Angeles Sholem Community

Medium (200-500 households)

Adat Shalom, West Los Angeles Arbeter Ring/Workmen’s Circle, Los Angeles Beth Chayim Chadashim, Los Angeles Temple Beth Emet, Burbank Beth Shir Shalom, Santa Monica B’nai David-Judea, Los Angeles Etz Jacob Congregation, Los Angeles Cong. Kol Ami, West Hollywood Malibu Jewish Center and Synagogue Temple Menorah, Redondo Beach Mishkon Tephilo, Venice Sha’arei Am, Santa Monica

Big (500-800 households)

Temple Beth Hillel, North Hollywood Kehillat Israel, Pacific Palisades Leo Baeck Temple, Bel-Air Cong. Ner Tamid, Rancho Palos Verdes Temple Isaiah, West Los Angeles Temple Israel of Hollywood

Mega (more than 800 households)

Temple Beth Am, Los Angeles Temple Emanuel, Beverly Hills Stephen S. Wise Temple, Bel-Air Wilshire Blvd. Temple, Los Angeles Sinai Temple, Los Angeles Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel, Los Angeles University Syngaogue, Pacific Palisades Valley Beth Shalom, Encino Temple Judea, Tarzana Adat Ari El, North Hollywood Temple Aliyah, Woodland Hills

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