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September 14, 2000

My Son and Joe

Leave a Comment / Other Voices /

The night Vice President Gore picked Sen. Joe Lieberman as his running mate, I committed a cardinal sin of parenthood. I roused my 9-year-old son from bed and brought him over to the TV.

“This is a night I want you to remember for the rest of your life,” I told him, as the evening news went over the announcement from every angle. “This is the night that every Jewish mother could finally turn to her son or daughter and say, ‘you too could one day become president of the United States.'”

After explaining who Lieberman was and why this day was so historic, my son’s only question was, “So why isn’t he wearing a yarmulke?”

All right. That’s another story.

But that’s not the point. My son didn’t even realize that he was not supposed to aspire to the presidency until that night. He lives in a time and place where adults, and children, all around him are able to do just about anything they set their sights on. It’s true that most of his baseball heroes are not Jewish, but he knows the name of every Jewish player who ever lived and just assumes that most Jews just choose not to enter the Major Leagues.

But all the professions are open to him; any school he could dream of going to would take him, provided he had the grades; any artistic or creative talent he had could be duly cultivated and developed. He did not know that there were any limitations to his dreams.

But I did. Oh, it’s not that I actively harbored a hope that my son would one day become president of the United States. I’m not sure I would wish that job on anyone, let alone a child of mine. But somehow, I knew that as free and tolerated as we are in this country, there were unwritten rules, unmarked borders past which we dared not go.

And suddenly, when I saw Joe Lieberman standing up there beside the scion of one of Washington’s elite political dynasties, I felt that we had crossed one of the final frontiers.

Now, others may see me as naive. Certainly members of my parents’ generation – my parents included – are still wary about the selection of Lieberman. All the latent anti-Semitism in this country, they argue, is going to come out in this election, in ugly charges during the campaign and, most persuasively, at the voting booth in November. Some of this has already begun to surface, and more is likely. They are also concerned that should things go badly for a Gore-Lieberman administration, somehow, the Jews will be blamed.

I do not discount this view, especially since it is shaped, at least in part, by the experiences of my parents’ generation. The Holocaust will forever stand as testament to the ability of a “civilized” and “progressive” society to turn against Jews in the most horrific ways. The Shoah is also the strongest argument against getting too comfortable in the Diaspora.

Even in America, just a generation ago, Jews were inclined not to be too Jewish in public. Observant men, as a rule, did not wear kippot in the street, and even traditional families – like Lieberman’s – sent their children to public schools and gave them names that helped them blend in with the rest of America. Ultimately, this is not our country and these are not our people.

I understand all of this. And yet. And yet there’s Joe Lieberman nominated for vice president. I am a member of a different generation and I have never experienced anti-Semitism first-hand.

So I can hope and I can believe. And I can’t help but look at the nomination of Lieberman as one of the proudest days ever for Jews in America. Here was a Jew – an observant Jew, no less – who, without compromising his principles, has led a life of exemplary public service and was chosen to help lead a national ticket purely on the basis of his accomplishments.

And I actually know people who know the person who may become vice president of the United States! They’ve davened with him in shul, or sent their kids to the same camp as he sent his, or joined him in walking to Capitol Hill to cast an important vote on Shabbos. It’s like the ultimate game of Jewish geography.

The point is he’s one of us. What he juggles in the Senate is a more public and high-stakes version of what many of us do every day in our own, more private lives. Wouldn’t it be an amazing feeling to know that every time you head out the door of your office early on a Friday in the winter, you’d know the vice president of the United States was doing the same thing?

His commitment to public service came out of his commitment to Judaism, and his religious observance informs his public service, most notably in his moral critique of President Clinton in the wake of the Lewinsky affair that has earned him national recognition. He is, in my opinion, a walking kiddush Hashem, someone who brings dignity and glory to the name of God and our way of life. And besides inspiring us in our Jewish observance, he may also inspire more of us to participate in public life, which too few of us really do.

Not every Jew will agree with his politics, and, in the end, of course, the Gore-Lieberman ticket may very well lose. But one of the two major parties in this country has put him forward as the man to help lead this country at the start of the new century. And now I can honestly turn to my son and say – there is nothing to which you cannot aspire.

My Son and Joe Read More »

Olympic Moments

Leave a Comment / Sports /

That Jews have been prominent in the history of ancient and modern sport, and specifically the Olympic Games, should not come as a surprise. We tend to forget that one of the sparks that ignited the Maccabbees’ revolt was – as the Jewish historian Josephus Flavius recorded some 2,000 years ago – that some high priests in Jerusalem’s Holy Temple neglected their holy duties and instead, exercised in the nude, Greek style. Josephus also recorded that Herod the Great [Herod The Wicked, to some], King of Judea, saved the ancient Olympic Games from bankruptcy by endowing them with gifts and revenues upon which “he was generally declared in their inscriptions to be one of the perpetual managers of those games.”

The involvement of Jews in athletics during the late 19th century coincided with their rise in the ranks of the middle class in Europe and the United States. Participating in sports was just another way by which the Jewish middle class pursued its social and psychological integration and assimilation.

In 1896, one of the men who helped usher in the modern Olympic Games was Dr. Ferenc Kemeny, a Hungarian Jew. Dr. Kemeny became one of the most ardent supporters of Pierre de Coubertin, the romantic French aristocrat credited with the establishment of the modern Olympic movement. While his Jewishness was not pertinent at the time, it became so when he and his wife committed suicide rather than be forced to wear the yellow star that identified Jews during the Holocaust.

Similar tragic fates awaited the first two German Olympic champions, Alfred Flatow and Felix Flatow (not related). After winning several gold medals in gymnastics during the 1896 games in Athens, Alfred Flatow died in Auschwitz, Felix Flatow, in Theresienstadt. As a former Olympic medalist, Felix Flatow received a special invitation from the Sportfuhrer, Hans von Tschammer und Osten, to the opening of the Nazi Olympic Games in 1936. He courageously declined. His rationale: Since he was excluded from his sport club by the Nuremberg Laws, he should not participate in the Olympic celebrations either. Among the modern games, the Berlin Olympics of 1936 generated perhaps the most pregame controversy. To placate American and world opinion, the Nazi sports authorities felt pressured to organize training camps for Jews. Among those invited to train there was half-Jewish fencer Helene Mayer, living comfortably in California at the time. Eventually, all Jews, even European record-holding high jumper Gretel Bergman, were excluded from participation in the Games. Mayer and another half-Jew, ice hockey player Rudi Ball, were included on the German team as tokens, averting an American boycott. Mayer, who ironically exemplified a statuesque Aryan blonde, raised a few eyebrows with her Nazi salute on the victory stand as she received a silver medal. She shared the stand with two other half-Jewish fencers: Ilona Elek of Hungary who won the gold and Ellen Preis of Austria, who took the bronze. There also were several other Jewish fencers in Berlin who won medals. Among them was Endre Kabos, winner of two gold medals for Hungary. He later died in the Holocaust.

The most heated debates about the Berlin Games raged in the United States, where a boycott was supported even by the U.S. ambassador to Germany, William E. Dodd, and Consul General George Messersmith. Despite their strong objections, the American team participated. The only two Jews on the U.S. track team, Sam Stoller and Marty Glickman, were replaced in the 4-by-100-meter relays with two African-American athletes, Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalfe. Glickman continues to believe that an anti-Semitic coach was behind the switch.

Another tragic anecdote involves the Polish fencer Roman Kantor, who had taken part in the 1936 games, and Nazi Gen. Reinhard Heydrich, an avid fencing aficionado. The feared head of the Gestapo provided Kantor with money and travel papers after the Jewish athlete fled from the Soviet occupation zone in 1939. His story ends, like so many of his contemporaries’, in the Majdanek Nazi concentration camp.

It is easy to see that, of all the Olympic events, fencing might be considered the ultimate Jewish sport. It is not an exaggeration to say that Jews won more medals in Olympic fencing – based on their representation in the general population – in the first half of the 20th century than any other ethnic group. Hungarian Jewish fencers were especially dominant in the Olympics, winning a total of 20 medals. Ivan Osiier, the leader of Copenhagen’s Jewish community, garnered a silver medal in Stockholm in 1912. He holds the record for participating in more Olympic Games – seven – than any other athlete.

The exact number of Jews participating in the Olympic movement as athletes, coaches, referees and officials may never be known. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, more and more former athletes are willing to reclaim their Jewish heritage.

There are many records held by Jewish Olympians. Two outstanding Jewish gymnasts, Agnes Keleti from Hungary and Maria Gorochovskia from the Soviet Union, amassed 18 medals in the 1952 and 1956 Games. Keleti defected from the Melbourne Olympiad after the revolution in Hungary and made aliyah to Israel, becoming its national coach. Gorochovskia, on the other hand, had to wait until the collapse of the Soviet empire before making aliyah. Among other heroes, we all remember and cherish the exceptional performance of Mark Spitz in Munich, winning the most medals (seven) anyone ever garnered in one Olympics.

But Spitz was not the only Jewish swimmer of note in the history of the Games. Alfred Hajos, who was dubbed the Hungarian Dolphin by the admiring Greeks, won two gold medals in the first Olympiad in 1896.

The Olympic Games have influenced Jewish sport on many levels. Among the most important contributions was the establishment of the Maccabiah Games, modeled after the Olympics. The idea of a Jewish Olympiad was raised as early as 1912 in Germany. But World War I interfered with the movement’s realization.

As a world event, no other festival showed all the beauty, hypocrisy and tragedy of the Games than the 1972 Munich Olympics. The shadows of Palestinian terrorists and their victims are etched into the consciousness of the world. These images remained when Avery Brundage, president of the International Olympic Committee, announced at the Munich Games the dictim: “The Games Must Go On.” And, so, the Games have gone on for the Jews. And it is somehow comforting, and poetic justice, that two young Israelis, Yael Arad and Oren Smadja, won Israel’s first Olympic medals four years ago in such an “un-Jewish” sport as judo. They and others are this year anticipating writing a new chapter to the long history of Jews and the Olympic Games, a saga filled with tragedy and triumph.

George Eisen wrote this article for the Baltimore Jewish Times.

Olympic Moments Read More »

Letters to the Editor

Leave a Comment / Letters to the Editor /

Jesus Day

I don’t understand the brouhaha over Gov. George W. Bush’s proclamation calling June 10, 2000 Jesus day in Texas. What would we Jews have thought if Christians would have criticized Bush when he declared Honor Israel day or a week of Holocaust remembrance? Anyone who would have raised their voice would have been brandished a bigot. Why are we Jews so afraid of the mention of Jesus Christ? Should we really be frightened because Bush, in an interview, named Jesus Christ as the political philosopher with whom he most identifies?

Sen. Joseph Lieberman wears his Judaism as a badge of honor and appears to talk about it incessantly. If a Christian came forward and said they found this offensive – inasmuch as Jews only represent 2.5 percent of the population of the U.S. – this person would be brandished a bigot. Bigotry cuts two ways.

We Jews have achieved more success and acceptance in this wonderful country than in our history. This is America. It is not us against them or them against us. I believe The Jewish Journal perceives that its readers are hypersensitive liberal Democrats who excuse President Clinton’s despicable conduct and ignore the fact that he has set a rotten example for young people and adults by his personal behavior. Personally, I would prefer having Bush in the White House using Christ as his role model, than Clinton or Al Gore whose only role model is the latest poll.

Fred C. Sands, Los Angeles

BCI

I rarely take the time to write something positive, but I am trying to do better. Maybe practice will make perfect.

I truly enjoyed Debra Askuvich’s story on BCI using the “Survivor” theme (“Survivor, Shmurvivor” Aug. 25). She is a talented young writer and wrote with enough humor to keep me interested. I have been involved in the leadership of the Jewish community for over 25 years and tend to skim over much of the Jewish press. Considering my limited attention span – a sad symptom of middle age – that is a great compliment.

I hope we will see more of her light touch.

Sima Schuster, Tarzana

Teresa Strasser

As a longtime reader of your newspaper, I was appalled to read Teresa Strasser’s most recent article and to see the accompanying picture of her mother and new husband.

I consider myself a very unprejudiced person, but I thought that it was very inappropriate to see the large photograph of a Jewish woman in the arms of a Black man (her new husband) published in our Jewish newspaper. You should be setting a better example for our young Jewish people who might be reading Ms Strasser’s column.

I hope that in the future you will consider the effects upon your readers of what you publish.

Name Withheld Upon Request Mission Viejo

So Teresa Strasser has a new Black stepfather (“Shotgun Wedding,” Sept. 1). are we supposed to wish her Mazel Tov?

What was her purpose in writing such an article in an Anglo Jewish Newspaper? Is The Jewish Journal trying to promote intermarriage?

Rose M. Ptashkin, Los Angeles

I was stung by an aspect of Teresa Strasser’s writing: The simile she used concerning one of the world battles of World War II – Iwo Jima.

She denigrated and reduced the significance of those people who actually faced warfare. I realize that she is not old enough to have been subjected to the facts of war, but that does not take away her obligation to do her homework before uplifting herself and her agenda at the expense of grave reality.

Mildred Hochheiser, Laguna Hills

L.A. Jewish Theater

While it did not actually state so the article about the West Coast Jewish Theater (WCJT) (“Seeking A Home,” Sept. 1) implied that the WCJT is Los Angeles’ only ongoing Jewish theater company.

I must respectfully point out that there is at least on other such company. The Jewish Women’s Theatre Project, which is also located in Los Angeles, was created in 1996. Since 1997 it has produced 20 new plays, works which challenge preconceptions and stereotypes, and explore the enduring questions of Jewish identity.

Jan Lewis, Los Angeles

B’nai B’rith Convention

The Jewish Journal is a news outlet of the Jewish community, yet volunteer organization news is limited. It is disturbing that neither the Sept. 1 or Sept. 8 issues carried any news about B’nai B’rith’s International Convention in Washington, D.C., Aug. 24-29.

B’nai B’rith remains a vital, important grass-root membership organization whose delegates elect its leadership, sets policy and approves budgets.

Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and Hillel remain key affiliates that engage our members, and who contribute to the independent campaigns they carry out. How to increase 23 percent of B’nai B’rith’s budget for youth services was a heated debate. While acknowledging the need for major gifts and awards from grants, the delegates refused to turn its program over to the big givers whose worth is important and imperative, but would have left the grass-roots out of decision making.

The program was inspiring.

George W. Bush addressed the assembly by satellite, pledging America’s ambassador would headquarter in Jerusalem. Hadassah Lieberman, speaking for the Gore-Lieberman ticket (on the day the ADL-Lieberman story broke), limited references to religious affinity to praising B’nai B’rith for its commitment to “shared values,” and spelling out the Democratic Party platform for Campaign 2000.

She demonstrated her ability to communicate with people, moving beyond the security people to hug, kiss and shake hands with all who could touch her.

Richard D. Heideman was reelected as president of B’nai B’rith after a busy airing of all candidates seeking election, including a challenge to Heideman’s constitutional right to serve a second two-year term.Membership, need for great giving, volunteers for community service and the launching of programs to strengthen Jewish family, Heideman said, makes B’nai B’rith unique as an organization, now 167 years young,the glue to bind us as a people “united… dedicated to the highest purposes of humanity.”

Hyman H. Haves, Pacific Palisades

Personally Speaking

We are fortunate to have The Jewish Journal every week.

We want to take this opportunity to thank you for printing the wedding picture of our son and “daughter” (yes, she is truly our daughter) in your Sept. 8 issue (Kelli and Arthur Kahn).

Our children were married July 22, 2000 in Englewood, Colo. and are now making their home in Highlands Ranch, Colo.

We were very lucky to have Judge Herbert H. Galchinsky of Denver officiated at the ceremony.Your newspaper is a first-class publication and covers so many aspects of the world.

Eileen and Bob Kahn, Oak Park

Additional High Holy Days Listings

Below is information inadvertently left out of our “Field Guide to the High Holy Days” ( Sept. 8).

The Movable Minyan is a small independent congregation with a mix of family types and age groups, unusual in that even its High Holy Days services are led by congregants, not clergy. The minyan uses the machzor “On Wings of Awe” and a participatory music style, with guitar and lute accompaniment. The donation for the full series of services is $100. Children under 13 are admitted free, and structured activities are provided. Call the minyan’s hotline, (310) 285-3317, for service location and times.

The Los Angeles Jewish Home for the Aging will host a full series of services. Tickets for non-JHA residents are $36 for the series. Call (818) 774-3015 to get more information and purchase tickets.

Temple Beth Torah of Granada Hills is a small Reform congregation celebrating 50 years of service to the north San Fernando Valley. Seats are available for their High Holy Day Services with Rabbi Arnold Stiebel and the Temple Beth Torah choir led by Cantor Sharone Rosen.

Their liturgy is based on CCAR’s “Gates of Repentance.” They have special services on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur mornings for preschool and elementary school-age children.

Ticket prices may be applied towards membership. For more information, call Temple Beth Torah at (818) 831-0835 or visit their Web page at www.bethtorah-sfv.org.

Westwood Kehilla is an Orthodox, outreach-oriented synagogue that will be offering special explanatory services for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The explanations and discussions will be in English while the abridged prayers will be in Hebrew with transliterated/translated prayer books provided. For more information, call (310) 441-5289.

Correction

In addition, the listing in the Congregational Directory for Jewish Renewal congregation B’nai Horin was incorrect. The correct contact information is: (310) 470-9390, ext. 2; peggi@mediaone.net.

Nanny Numbers

The Jewish Journal receivd numerous requests for the contact numbers of nannies and agencies mentioned in our cover story, “The Great Nanny Mystery” (Sept. 1). Here’s the information:

Nana’s World, Esther Matalon, Owner 14542 Ventura Blvd., Suite 201 Sherman Oaks, Calif. 91403 (818) 995-91444

Gan Yaffa (310) 556-2159

Gan Edna (323) 930-0414

Letters to the Editor Read More »

Powwow Jew

Leave a Comment / Travel /

I can't recall now if my first trip to the Quapaw Powwow in northeast Oklahoma was the time I drove with my husband and infant son down miles and miles of dark country roads into the middle of nowhere, or that time – in the version of my failed screenplay – I drove with a carload of relatives, squeezed into the back seat between my sisters-in-law and the two family Chihuahuas, down miles and miles of dark country roads into the middle of nowhere. Whichever it was, the feeling was the same: I had never been this far away from the things I had known and grown up with: the bright lights and busy streets of the city, Jewish people who looked like me, language and music that I had known as a child. Here I was, literally, in the middle of nowhere, between nothing and nothing, feeling as if I had landed on the moon. Only I was the alien among a company of natives.

When we arrived at the powwow that first time, people appeared out of nowhere walking down the road, and a lone Indian in a wide-brimmed hat with a feather directed us to the parking lot. In the screenplay, the lone Indian was a tall Creek who had a crush on one of my sisters-in-law and, when he saw us, peered into the window with a wink and a sweet smile. In that version, he swept my sister-in-law off her feet, but in reality I don't think he said a word as he motioned us forward onto the powwow grounds.

We drove down a winding road, past tents and teepees and lean-tos; past visions who appeared in the headlights wearing the most exotic costumes I had ever seen – jingles and bells, feathers, beaver tails, porcupine quills, sequins, shells, satins and silks. Now, after 13 years, I can place the type of outfit with the type of dancer – grass dancer, fancy dancer, straight dancer, etc.- but back then, it was nothing less than extraordinary.

Today going to the powwow is pretty normal, if you consider vacationing in 99-degree heat and 150 percent humidity normal. Quapaw, which takes place on Fourth of July weekend, is more or less a family affair, meaning my husband's mother's relatives were here when the powwow began 128 years ago.Then it was a small gathering of families who lived around the town of Miami (pronounced MI-AM-AH) and the Spring River. Today, people arrive from all over to see prize-winning dancers from across the United States and Canada, one of the many stops along the powwow highway. In fact, if you plan it right, you can attend a powwow every weekend of the summer. But while tourists and townies attend, Quapaw is still an intimate gathering where cousins and friends are called into the center dance arena for special acknowledgments, and where anyone can do a two-step or a snake dance.

The center dance arena is where all the action takes place. That first time, as I stood with my husband on a hill overlooking the arena, I saw a group of men sitting in a circle with their backs to the audience, bent over in concentration, while dancers circled around them. From faraway, low chants, then some high calls arose and drifted over the dancers. What those people in the circle were doing I couldn't imagine – saying a silent prayer? – until it finally occurred to me they were bent over their drums, and the song and chants were coming from them. The dancers – some flying, some searching like wild animals, some regal queens bouncing up and down – circled around, moving to the rhythm of the loud, incessant drumbeat. When I glanced over at my husband, he was mouthing the wordless chant of the drummers, which at the time totally took me by surprise. But then again, everything during that first trip took me by surprise – everything was nothing I had ever known before.

I now know that what happens on the outskirts of a powwow is sometimes more interesting than what takes place inside the dance arena. For 13 years, my mother-in-law had been telling me stories about the spook light, and on this trip we had a chance to visit it. The spook light, a moving, some-times hovering, shimmering light, has been studied by scientists from around the world, who attribute its glow to gaseous fumes or car light reflections but in reality don't know what the heck it is. This time, we were up late enough – powwows can go on all night – to catch a glimpse of it, if it were indeed visible.

Sometime past midnight we headed out of Quapaw, past the bridge, down dirt roads surrounded entirely by woods, until we came upon parked cars with their headlights off and people standing nearby, talking quietly among themselves. We drove down the road, away from the other cars, and turned off our lights. There was a new moon, so it was very dark outside – I had never seen it so dark – and very quiet. The fireflies looked huge and bright, and at first I mistook them for the spook light, until they flew off, dragging their dimmers behind them.

As we sat there in the eerie silence, one of the cousins started to tell stories, ghost stories, about a restless little boy in a hooded green parka, who appeared in the middle of the night, staring into the eyes of a sleeping relative, and about some guys who went out drinking, friends of a cousin, who, when they walked down the road, got on all fours and turned into dogs. The longer we stood huddled together listening to this cousin's stories, the closer the woods crept in, the creepier it became. After about half an hour, we were so freaked out we jumped into the car and drove away without seeing the spook light. My husband's sister did see a lone man walking along the side of the road as we sped off (another cousin said he had green hair) but if he turned into a dog, we didn't stop to look.

Being a Jew among Indians has grown easier over the years, but it can still be hard. My children are both Jewish, but when they're in Oklahoma, their dark complexion (which could easily be mistaken for Israeli) looks pure Indian. When I see them running around with their aunts and cousins at the powwow, they look as though they belong here; even my husband seems to shed his city ways. At times, I feel like the only Jew in Oklahoma, although I know that's crazy, given the fact that there are thriving Jewish com-munities in Tulsa and Oklahoma City. Still, it can feel lonely.

That night, before driving to see the spook light, I asked my husband to join me for a walk down (what else?) a country road at dusk. I had been feeling a kind of fish-out-of-water uneasiness and needed some company. As we walked, not saying much, I looked up and spotted a sliver of moon – the new moon. It struck me that this was the moon of Rosh Chodesh, the ancient celebration, when fires were lit on the Mount of Olives announcing the crescent moon, and where women put aside their work and gathered together to gain spiritual strength. Suddenly, I didn't feel so alone: I am connected to this Rosh Chodesh moon, which becomes an anchor, a security blanket, that spreads across the Oklahoma sky.

Powwow Jew Read More »

This Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Leave a Comment / Finance /

There’s a new Jewish movement springing up worldwide, and it’s not another denomination. Online magazines are putting fresh spins on old ideals, making Jewish culture more accessible than ever. These cyber-periodicals – aimed at young Jews with flashy graphics and bold, sometimes controversial approaches – are not your grandmother’s Yiddish newspaper. And some of them make relatively venerable sites, such as Virtual Jerusalem, look like, well, your grandmother’s Yiddish newspaper.

A New “Generation”

When The Journal visited Generation J’s laid-back Needham, Mass., offices back in April, a Web master was uploading graphics, while then-editor Jennifer Schulman wandered around with a Generation J latte mug in search of some fresh java.

Schulman, 30, steered Generation J – “Gen J” as it is shorthanded – for its first two years. Originally from Paramus, N.J., she worked in Boston for five years as a production coordinator for Tom Snyder Productions (“Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist”). So Schulman was an ideal choice to helm a smart, youth-oriented Jewish culture magazine.

“Yossi keeps reminding me that there must be a Jewish value in every story,” she said, referring to Yosef Abramowitz, who runs Jewish Family & Life (JFL) and founded Generation J. Gen J started when JFL was contacted by the United Jewish Com-munities (UJC). “We had the same idea internally when we got the call,” Abramowitz said.

Married to rabbi and author Susan Silverman, Abramowitz, 36, started Gen J as an actual magazine – as in paper – but the expensive format lasted only two issues. So he enlisted Schulman to launch it online.”It was boring,” said Abramowitz of her original prototype. “She said, ‘I thought this was what you wanted,’ and I said, ‘No, you’re the audience, not me.'”

Eventually, they struck the right balance. Sections on everything from spirituality to politics comprise the magazine, in which, each month, writers explore different themes: body image, homosexuality, money. Jokey headlines abound (“The Waters Split Like Bruce and Demi”).

Gen J has since broken away from UJC support, and when Schulman moved to D.C. in May, Jodi Werner, another Jersey girl, took over. The 24-year-old English MFA candidate first stumbled onto the site in the course of some research.

“I was doing a project for a mag publication class, and I came up with a concept very similar to Gen J,” said the Emerson student. Soon, she was writing for Schulman.

“I’m not looking to make drastic changes,” continued Werner, who is building on Schulman’s legacy – Judaism filtered through a pop culture aesthetic.

In addition to Gen J, Abramowitz – with an annual budget of $1.7 million from grants, including Steven Spielberg’s Righteous Person Foundation and the Charles and Adrian Bronfman Philanthropy Foundation – runs several sites, including Jewish Vibrations. Whereas Gen J courts 20-somethings, JVibe – Gen J’s younger sibling – targets teens, ages 13-19. Abramowitz notes that JVibe’s strength is that “80 percent of the material is written by teens for teens.” Ed Case, JFL’s executive director, confirmed that JVibe’s formula works – it was listed as a hot site in USA Today.

Since September, 25-year-old Gabi Sobel has edited JVibe, which has aggressively covered Hollywood. Alicia Silverstone, Winona Ryder, and David Duchovny have all graced JVibe’s pages. Sobel’s dream interview: fellow Brandeis alum/”Will & Grace” star Debra Messing.

JVibe also offers youth the chance to freestyle on issues such as violence in the media. “We call it a rant, and we’ll pretty much publish it as is,” Sobel said.

While he oversees the entire JFL operation, Abramo-witz does not micromanage day-to-day editorial decisions.

“I’m always asking the subtle Jewish values questions,” he said. “What are we doing on this site that makes it unique? What’s the vision for the month, for the section? What do you want 20-somethings to walk away with that’s going to impact their life?”

One organization withdrew funding over a masturbation-themed JVibe, but if his magazines raise eyebrows or push envelopes in the process of encouraging dialogue, that’s fine with Abramowitz.

“It is our goal to reconstitute and reformat Jewish life to be relevant to a whole generation that is largely disenfranchised,” he said. “Our vision of Jewish life is radically different than the established norms. Our model is inclusive, accessible, life-affirming, nonjudgmental celebratory and meaningful without being dogmatic about institutional and denominational loyalties, which frankly are irrelevant for generations X and Y.”

To access Jewish Family & Life’s magazines, go to jflmedia.com

PHOTO

This Revolution Will Not Be Televised Read More »

Spiritual Transformation

Leave a Comment / Membership /

At Congregation Agudath Israel in Caldwell, N.J., more than 100 members gather twice a month to talk about their “spiritual journey.”

They break off into groups of 25 people, gather in members’ homes and discuss things like family peace and caring for the ill, using Jewish texts and their personal lives as springboards.This is definitely not your parents’ synagogue.

Derided as too touchy-feely for some tastes, programs like “spiritual journey” are promoted by their advocates as a way to keep Jews interested and active in their synagogues.

“It ties members to the synagogue when you have intense experiences with a small group of congregation members,” says Amy Lipsey, 40, a self-described “seeker” who says the group inspired her to pursue a master’s degree at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

Agudath Israel’s “spiritual journey” group is one of several innovations growing out of this Conservative synagogue’s transformation project. The congregation was one of the first to participate in an effort called Synagogue 2000. Scores of congregations have launched similar efforts.

With many Jewish leaders criticizing synagogues for being uninspiring, synagogue transformation is becoming something of a buzzword in American Jewish life.

In the past decade, two national synagogue-change efforts – Synagogue 2000 and the Experiment in Congregational Education (ECE) – have guided a number of congregations hungry for transformation, and both are expanding their reach.

Change is necessary, say the Synagogue 2000 and ECE proponents, because too many synagogues remain stuck in old patterns that do not resonate with contemporary American Jews. While earlier generations joined synagogues as “ethnic hangouts,” they say, younger Jews are often on spiritual quests that could be answered – but usually aren’t – in a synagogue.

“American Buddhism is flourishing because of what synagogues have done wrong,” says Rabbi Sidney Schwarz, founding leader of a suburban Washington congregation and author of a new book calling for synagogue change. “Jews are fueling it because they’re looking for spirituality that exists within Judaism but has been successfully masked.”

In most congregations, writes Schwarz, liturgy is not accessible or engaging and most members are only marginally involved, joining simply so their children can attend Hebrew school and have a Bar or Bat Mitzvah.

Like Synagogue 2000 and ECE proponents, Schwarz calls for synagogues to make their services more participatory, to develop healthy lay-clergy partnerships, to focus on the education needs of adults and not just children and to take on serious spiritual issues like the nature of God and the purpose of life. Also toward this goal, a triumvirate of mega-philanthropists – Charles Schusterman, Michael Steinhardt and Edgar Bronfman – created an organization called Synagogue Transformation and Renewal (STAR) this winter that will announce its plans in September. Those familiar with the planning say the new group will not work directly with individual synagogues but will likely serve as a sort of think tank on synagogue renewal efforts and may offer professional development workshops for rabbis.

But transformation and renewal can be difficult concepts to get your hands around.Proponents say it can create trusting atmospheres and spur long-term discussions that might not have otherwise occurred.

But skeptics wonder if those who are attempting institutional change are simply holding a lot of meetings to decide on common-sense practices.

Rabbi Larry Hoffman, who founded Synagogue 2000 in 1996 with University of Judaism professor Ron Wolfson, frequently compares the whole process to therapy in that “you discover how to live so life has purpose and meaning, then you filter all that you do through a lens of purpose.”

Rabbi Danny Zemel, whose Washington congregation was in Synagogue 2000’s first cohort, described the process as “the most energizing, enlivening process I’ve ever been involved in as a rabbi.”

He said he frequently gets calls from other temples wanting to know “what’s changed” as a result of the process, but “it’s not like that.”

“It’s about studying; it’s a process and things happen or might even change, but it’s not like dominoes, one thing falling after the next. It’s because the congregation’s involved in a process, all of a sudden it occurs to you to do certain things.”

Nonetheless, the transformation processes do spawn projects and initiatives, like Agudath Israel’s spiritual journey group.Zemel’s Temple Micah now invites congregants observing a loved one’s yahrtzeit to give a short memorial speech before the synagogue includes that person in the “Kaddish” prayer.

Temple Beth Am in Los Altos Hills, Calif., which was involved in the ECE project, made such changes as offering a family Shabbat school and hiring a full-time staff person to coordinate adult education.

At Temple Emanu-El, an ECE congregation in Dallas, members teach – and learn in – a range of adult-level classes that coincide with Sunday school classes, and a cadre of members is being trained to teach in the Hebrew school.

The Reform congregation, which a board member, Jane Saginaw, says was once “lovely, but staid” is now constantly experimenting with new services and programs, such as a twice-monthly Friday night family service that uses a congregant-created prayer book and consists primarily of singing.

Synagogue 2000 centers its work around “PISGAH,” an acronym that is not only the Hebrew word for “heights” but stands for six “spokes” of synagogue life: prayer, institutionalizing change, study, good deeds, ambiance and healing.

Formed four years earlier than Synagogue 2000, the ECE has a similar approach and has worked with 14 Reform temples. A project of the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC), ECE encourages congregations to make education central to all synagogue activities rather than simply a function of the religious school.

It is not clear whether transformation efforts affect membership numbers, and – although proponents say that if they are successful they ultimately should attract new people – most involved in the process say their primary focus is on intensifying the experiences of people who are already members.

Not everyone is an advocate of change on the institu-tional level, though.

And even some champions of transformation efforts, like Alan Silverstein, question whether Hoffman’s therapy metaphor is appropriate.

While Synagogue 2000 “can elevate the synagogue to another level,” says Silverstein, “Larry really believes the synagogue is more ill as an institution than I think is the case.”

Silverstein points to a recent study of Conservative congregations indicating that more synagogue members are regular participants in Shabbat services than were earlier in the last century. Other studies have found young affiliated Conservative Jews are better educated in Judaism than their elders.

“The assumption that davening life in the non-Orthodox synagogue is broken, failed or does not exist, I don’t accept,” says Silverstein. “Could it be better? Sure. But we’re doing better than ever before.”Even if it is true that synagogues need change, all the talk about process and transformation strikes some as a bit too touchy-feely.

David Liebeskind, a longtime member of Temple Sinai in Stamford, Conn., and a management consultant by profession, says that while he respects those involved in the process, he and several other congregants have grown frustrated with the Reform congregation’s participation in the ECE program.

“I personally wouldn’t waste the resources with these grandiose programs, because I don’t think the payout is going to be as good as spending the time and money elsewhere,” he says.

One Conservative synagogue member in Detroit says she has a better suggestion. Federations would be more helpful if they simply paid for more staff positions at syn
agogues.

“What kind of money are the federations paying Synagogue 2000 people to come to their towns and state the obvious?” she asked.

“The problem is not that shuls don’t know what needs to be done but that they are chronically understaffed,”the congregant said, adding that with more women in the work force, temples can no longer rely on a large pool of volunteers.

Nonetheless, change proponents insist that congregations can become vibrant even without money.While synagogue transformation has caught the public interest, it is still unclear whether the advocates for change will usher in a new era of synagogue life, or whether most congregations will continue business as usual.

Isa Aron, a professor at HUC in Los Angeles who coordinates ECE, says that “interest keeps growing, so clearly this isn’t a blip on the screen.” Because transformation efforts mirror many ideas about institutional change used in the business world, it should resonate with congregants and lay leaders, she says.

“Now it’s a lot easier than years ago,” Aron says. “Now if you go to a congregation and talk about this, not everyone looks at you like you’re crazy.”

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Standing by the Data

Leave a Comment / Uncategorized /

The counting of peoples and characteristics is a science and art, as well as a fairly expensive and labor-intensive undertaking when done properly. Demography is often not an easily understood topic. It’s common to find inflated and even improbable population estimates in major newspapers that gain currency just because they appeared there.

We are perhaps too familiar with Anthony Gordon and Richard Horowitz’s widely distributed Jewish population projection chart that surfaced a couple of years ago. The graphic appeared in ads in The Jewish Journal, as well as in Moment magazine, The Jewish Spectator and as a theme in Alan Dershowitz’s book, “The Vanishing American Jew.” The widely disseminated chart was never submitted for professional or peer review but became part of the “common wisdom” in the United States and Israel, propelled by some political advocates.

The Gordon and Horowitz graphic chart portrays in stick figures a ninefold growth in the Orthodox population over four generations. In the meanwhile, Gordon and Horowitz project the populations of other Jewish denominations such as Reform to decline to a bit more than a tenth of current levels, and the nondenominational Jewish population to shrink even more after four generations. Basically, Gordon and Horowitz show in graphic terms that the non-Orthodox virtually vanish from the American landscape. Seeing that I have serious disagreement with their self-published study, Gordon and Horowitz are, of course, going to disagree with the findings of the 1997 Los Angeles Jewish Population Survey (LAJPS).In undertaking the 1997 LAJPS, I found 10,300 Orthodox households. I used the same general methodology as the previous 1979 Phillips survey and found a smaller percentage of Orthodox households, which in turn found less than the 1953 Massarik survey, which found 17,000 Orthodox households in Los Angeles. Nationally, the 1971 National Jewish Population Survey (NJPS) found that 8.4 percent of the households were Orthodox, and 19 years later, the 1990 NJPS showed that proportion of Orthodox households in the U.S. Jewish population had declined to 6.8 percent. There is a margin for error, but unless demographic trends reversed themselves, I stand by my judgment of the data.

Fortunately we will not have to wait four generations to see whether the 1997 LAJPS findings are out of line with national trends, as the 2000 NJPS results will be available by 2002, if not earlier.

  • I have found no data to support Gordon and Horowitz’s claimed increase in the L.A. Orthodox population between 1979 and 1997. I consulted Bruce Phillips, the 1979 LAJPS’s principal investigator and he concurred with me that there were no such supporting data.

  • Demographic comparisons are usually made by households. All the Los Angeles Jewish population surveys and all Jewish demographic surveys, including the 1990 and 2000 NJPS, use the same household method in allocating Jewish denominational affiliation, whereby the household respondent’s stated Jewish denominational affiliation is allocated to the members of the household. An interviewer doesn’t ask to speak to a 12-year-old or ask about a 12-year-old’s Jewish denominational affiliation; it’s assumed if the adult respondent is Orthodox, the 12-year-old is also Orthodox.

  • Gordon and Horowitz misunderstand the difference between family size and household size, which in L.A. is 2.7 persons for the Orthodox. Birthrates remain highest among the Orthodox, though the Orthodox fertility picture is mixed. A preeminent expert on American Jewish Orthodoxy, Sam Heilman, wrote in 1995 that 22 percent of the most traditionally observant had just over four children per family, 60 percent of those who called themselves Orthodox had just under three children per family and the remaining 18 percent of Orthodox families had children at replacement level (2.1 children per family).

  • The Orthodox Union’s top professional staff and top lay chair were invited for their personal attendance or written input at a 1995 survey planning. Gordon and Horowitz’s claim to demographic scholarship was not public until two years later, when their chart made the head-lines in the locally published Heritage Southwest Jewish Press.

  • Timing is everything. When one undertakes a Jewish demo-graphic telephone survey, it is vital to be guided by the Jewish calendar. By direction and contract, no calls on Friday, Saturday and Jewish holidays were made by the interview firm.

  • Gordon and Horowitz were refused the raw data when they demanded it over the phone in the summer of 1998 because The Jewish Federation sequestered the data for a two-year period of proprietary analysis. Since then, Gordon and Horowitz have not telephoned me. For those interested, a detailed survey methodology report (in the publication “Los Angeles Jewish Population Survey ’97”) and the raw numbers (in the “Needs of the Community” publication) are available from The Jewish Federation planning and allocations department to anyone who wants them. The raw survey data file has been available to the public from the National Jewish Data Archive (www.jewishdatabank.com) since 1999.

A demographic study is a mirror of a community and often elicits great interest for people who are intensely involved in that community. The more intensely invested and involved people are, the greater the difficulty for them to be objective. That is why a discipline of rigorous methodology and analysis are required to ensure that the community is reflected with a minimum of distortion. The 1997 Los Angeles Jewish Population Survey achieved that.

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I Used to Have a Life

Leave a Comment / Family /

I was looking at my three boys the other day as they argued over the remote control. One of them yelled, “Hey, give me that, you little rat.” It made me think that if this is any indication of how they will conduct themselves in their future business dealings or marriages, my kids will never get jobs and probably not move out of our home until they are in their late 50’s. I also realized that, more than likely, the next time I am going to be alone with my wife will probably be on my death bed when she says to the kids, “Just give us a few minutes.” However, even then I imagine either a ball bouncing off my heart monitor and hitting me in the head or my wife telling me she just realized she has to drive one of the kids to a friend’s house but she promises to see me in the next world.

I love my family, but who has this kind of time? As a comedian, I used to laugh at people who had to get up before the crack of noon. I now rise so early each day I could probably apply for a grant from the Board of Farmers. I hated homework when I went to school, and I hate it twice as much now. The great thing about having kids is you get a chance to fail twice in life. Once when you’re a kid, and the other when your offsprings hand in homework assignments you helped them with the night before. I love the look I get when I tell my kids, “I don’t understand the assignment.” I know they’re thinking, “What an idiot my dad is.”

What have I gotten myself into? I used to have such an exciting life. I had my own apartment in the middle of Manhattan. I had more girlfriends than Donald Trump. I had pockets stuffed with cash for whatever I wanted. Now look at me. I have one kid who won’t get out of a bed without me using a crowbar and another son that will be holding onto his “blankey” and sucking his thumb when he is standing under the chuppah, and a third who, in the fourth grade, has already figured out most of my tricks. And to top that, a wife who has convinced me that her sleep is more important than my connubial needs. I used to have a life. I really did.

You may be thinking: Really, Mark, isn’t your life today much fuller, richer and ultimately closer to the way God wants you to live? That might be true, but the problem is that I’m much too tired to enjoy most of it. And the other problem – a much deeper one – is that no one wants to hear me complain. There is not one person in my home who is the least bit interested in how tired or how stressed I feel. Oh, sure, my wife makes believe she cares. “Honey, I’m sorry you are so tired, but could you do me a favor and mop the roof and rebuild the garage before you come to bed?”

Then there are those who tell me that my old life was nothing but a selfish, self-centered, think-only-about-myself, feel-good, narcissistic existence. They are 100 percent right about what they’re saying. Oh, to have the energy to relive those days just once more. To be able to sit in my New York apartment, alone with the stereo blasting, a six-pack of beer and a body so thin that I could just sit and eat all the peanuts and fat-full Entenmann’s I want. To have two tickets to a Broadway show and a date with Miss Sweden, whose extent of the English language is “Yah, yah. Sure, sure,” and whose only care is that I’m happy and smiling at all times. Oh, well, I have to go now. My wife is calling me. It seems my son just threw up in my hat.

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Facing Public Opinion

Leave a Comment / Israel, Worldwide /

Efforts to arrange another peace summit with Yasser Arafat may have failed, but it seems Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak did not leave New York completely empty-handed.

After a round of meetings with world leaders and regional powers at the U.N. Millennium Summit, Barak and his delegation were cheered by what they say is a palpable shift in international opinion: in favor of Israel and its willingness to “go the extra mile” in negotiations with the Palestinians, and against Arafat for his intransigence and inflexibility.

There is reportedly puzzlement and consternation that Arafat continues to reject what is presumably the best offer an Israeli leader can make.

Israel is accustomed to generally hostile treatment by the United Nations. But in meeting after meeting last week with heads of state ranging from Jacques Chirac of France and Gerhard Schroeder of Germany to Yoshiro Mori of Japan and Abdurrahman Wahid of Indonesia, the Israeli delegation was surprised by how well their peace efforts have been received, said Colette Avital, a member of the Knesset who traveled with Barak.

“It’s almost not even necessary to convince people of our position,” said Avital, a former consul general in New York.

“They see we’ve done our utmost and that the ball is in the other court.”

Still, world opinion may not be enough to keep Barak in power.

So it is not surprising that Barak soon appeared to be turning his focus to Jewish public opinion and Israeli domestic issues.

Barak spoke at length twice to American Jews on Sunday: for 90 minutes to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, then for another hour in a folksy gathering of students, volunteers and professionals of the United Jewish Appeal of New York.

During the meetings, Barak, appearing upbeat and good-humored, defended his apparent willingness to compromise on Jerusalem, touted his economic record, pledged to heal the yawning religious-secular schism that plagues the Jewish state, and vowed to fight if the opposition attempts to bring him down.At the first meeting, held in a mirrored, glittery hotel conference room, the audience, perhaps cautious not to antagonize the Israeli premier, asked generally gentle, softball questions.

Yet the niceties ended with a question from Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America. Klein articulated what seemed to be at the fore of most minds, pressing Barak on concessions he has been willing to make regarding Jerusalem’s religious sites and historic quarters.

Klein noted the opposition it has generated from Shimon Peres, Leah Rabin and one public opinion poll. Rabin, in fact, was quoted last week saying her husband, assassinated in November 1995, would be “spinning in his grave” if he knew what had been offered to the Palestinians. Klein then went one step further, asking Barak what mandate he has to even offer such concessions.

“I have a mandate through the ballot, not the polls,” Barak responded, adding that he operates “not by weather vane, but by inner compass.”

He had earlier spoken of the “calculated risks” he was ready to take to achieve peace, but now, shaking his fist as if banging an invisible gavel, Barak declared, “There will never be an Israeli leader who will give up sovereignty over the Temple Mount to the Palestinians.”

The statement drew loud applause, as it did at the second gathering, when Barak repeated it almost verbatim.

Afterward, dozens of Jewish leaders crowded around Barak, straining to shake his hand.

The second event, at UJA headquarters, was held under tight security. Invitation-only guests, numbering some 300, began arriving two-and-a-half hours early, as security guards swept through the building with bomb-sniffing dogs.

Rather than address the audience from the front, Barak sat on a bar stool, surrounded by the crowd, in an American-style town hall meeting.

Again, asked about the peace process, Barak answered with a series of expressions tailored to an American audience, like “It takes two to tango” and “We’ll leave no stone unturned.”

The audience asked an array of questions, from smoking-related deaths in Israel to helping raise the standard of living for Palestinians to uniting the various religious denominations.

Indeed, the pluralism issue was a hot topic at both meetings.

While threatening to abolish Israel’s Ministry of Religious Affairs, Barak said he “never initiated a secular revolution.” Rather, he will work to create Israel’s first constitution and a “modern, democratic state,” while being sensitive to and balancing the needs and traditions of the fervently Orthodox.

“We do not intend to separate religion from the state,” he said. “We are more modest. We intend to separate religion from politics.”

However, when asked how he could be so optimistic about even holding on to power, given the current political climate, Barak countered: “I fought very hard to become prime minister. I do not intend to leave it easily.”

The UJA crowd gave Barak three standing ovations.

However, even as he vowed to fight on, his former Cabinet minister, Natan Sharansky, predicted Monday that a national unity government is imminent.

The former interior minister is also a key figure in a new movement, One Jerusalem, which plans to lobby against any efforts to divide the Holy City.

Speaking before another gathering of the Presidents Conference, Sharansky gave a hint of how emotional domestic debate would be should the fate of Jerusalem be determined by referendum.

Sharansky, a former Soviet refusenik, told the gathering what Jerusalem meant to him, the 1 million-plus Soviet emigres in Israel and Jews around the world.

In 1967, he was one of millions of “absolutely assimilated Russian Jews, lost to the Jewish people” until the Six-Day War, he said. Stirred by the reunification of Jerusalem and the Soviet anti-Israel, anti-Zionist rhetoric, Sharansky said, hundreds of thousands of Jews suddenly began to utter “next year in Jerusalem.”Today, Sharansky added, “what I’m afraid of is, just as the reunification was some spiritual, mystic event for our people,” an agreement “that divides Jerusalem may undermine, even destroy, that connection between Jews who are in Zion and those who are not.”

Sharansky, who described himself as a “dove” among the Soviet emigres in Israel, said Jerusalem is the “common denominator, the glue” that holds Jews together, and Arafat wants the Holy City because “Jerusalem is our soul, and that’s how he can destroy us.”

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Holiday Spirit All Year Long

Leave a Comment / Holidays, Membership /

The High Holy Days are always a special time of year, not in a warm and fuzzy way, but in a meaningful, introspective manner, a time when our awareness of how we treat others – in addition to how we treat ourselves – is heightened. This is the time of year when we take stock of the year that passed; when we pick our conscience apart and work harder to find new methods of self-improvement for the year to come. As 5760 pulls out of the station and the bright lights of the oncoming 5761 approach the platform, here are some opportunities to explore your sense of humanity and compassion by getting involved and helping others who might be less fortunate than you.

SOVA Kosher Food Pantry

“Certainly the holidays are a time to get more motivated, to get involved,” says Tamar Gelb, director of SOVA Kosher Food Pantry, which relies on volunteers all year long to distribute food packages to the needy.

At SOVA, volunteers will work out of one of three locations – Beverly/Fairfax, West Los Angeles, and Tarzana – on four-hour shifts. They can choose from two types of jobs: working in intake, which involves interviewing and finding clients, filling out food order slips, and other paper-work; or in the stock room, sorting out food, stocking shelves and breaking down bulk items received. Both are important roles, Gelb says.

What makes SOVA a unique place to volunteer, she adds, is that “it’s a very hands-on, very personal type of volunteering. They see the client come in and go out with some food, so it’s very first-person.”Gelb also would like to see more people turn to their local synagogues and Jewish organizations in the year to come. “They all need volunteers,” she says.

SOVA Metro
7563 1/2 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles 90036; (323) 932-1658
Open Mon. & Wed. 10 a.m.-2 p.m., Sun. 10 a.m.-12 noon
SOVA Valley
6072 1/2 Reseda Blvd., Tarzana 91356 (818) 342-1320
Open Wed. 10-2 p.m., Fri. 10-noon, Sun. 10:30 a.m.-noon

SOVA West
11310 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles 90025 (310) 473-6350
Open Mon. & Wed. 10 a.m.-2 p.m., Fri. 10 a.m.-1:30 p.m.

SOVA accommodates kosher, vegetarian and diabetic requirements.

ACCESS

Believe it or not, you don’t have to be established and well-off to give back to your community. The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles holds leadership development programs through its ACCESS young adult program, which involves both couples and singles ages 25-40 in meaningful volunteering experiences. Recent community-minded undertakings organized by ACCESS include repainting Ohr Eliyahu Day School and delivering food to people living with HIV/AIDS through Project Chicken Soup. ACCESS holds plenty of social functions, too. For more information, call (310) 689-3650, write to ACCESS@jewishla.org, or visit www.jewishla.org and hit the ACCESS link.

Jewish Family Service

Linda Weigel, program manager of Jewish Family Service’s senior nutrition program, says that volunteers are needed for the organization’s various charitable outlets, including Hirsh Family Kosher Kitchen on Fairfax Avenue. Help is needed in the area of serving and/or home delivering meals.For more information on available shifts, call (323) 937-5843.

Hillel

Free High Holiday services are available for students at area Hillel locations, including Cal State Northridge, Claremont Colleges, Pierce and Valley Colleges, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara and USC. USC Hillel program director Matt Davidson says that his chapter’s social action group – SC Tzedek – welcomes donations of food or clothing, which will be earmarked for various charitable institutions. For more information, contact Matt Davidson at (213) 747-9135.

Jewish Big Brothers

Jewish Big Brothers (JBB) enlists male volunteers to act as surrogate siblings for children 6-18 years old coming from fatherless homes. JBB also offers a disabilities program matching disabled chidren with similarly disabled Big Brothers, and it sponsors Camp Max Straus, a residential camp for children ages 7-12 who are struggling with emotional or social interaction problems. The camp is open to children of all races and denominations.

For more information on getting involved with JBB programs, write info@jbbla.org or visit www.jbbla.org. It’ll have a new phone number once The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles is settled back at 6505 Wilshire Blvd.

Los Angeles Jewish Home for the Aging

Los Angeles Jewish Home for the Aging in Reseda needs volunteers to help residents with recreational activities, assist with arts and crafts, read books and letters and provide companionship.For more information, call Linda Spitz at (818) 757-4442.

Bureau of Jewish Education (BJE)Programs for Russian-speaking Jews

The BJE’s Russian language division is planning a full holiday schedule that will include a lecture by former refusenik Shimon Grilius, a Shabbat celebration at Chabad’s Russian Center, and a havdalah and dessert function at the Westside Jewish Community Center.

Alla Feldman, the Russian-language division’s director, needs volunteers for the Russian Center portion, as well as for the havdalah event. She adds that her department is always look-ing for people to tutor Russian children in English and Hebrew. People can also lend their time and energy to upcoming Shabbat services and weekend retreats.

To volunteer in any capacity, contact Alla Feldman, (323) 761-8618. Newly arrived Russian immigrants seeking free High Holiday tickets can also call at this number.

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