October 26, 2000

Required Reading

Leave a Comment / Rob Eshman / Rob Eshman

So now what? Does Israel dig in and prepare itself for a state of escalating, interminable siege? Does it try to get back to the negotiating table with Yasser Arafat? Does it do both?

Among the millions of words pouring out over the conflict of late, I found two pieces uniquely powerful. One appeared in USA Today on Tue., Oct. 24. Reporter Jack Kelly accompanied an Israeli army detail on patrol in the West Bank town of Ramallah just as Hamas unleashed a furious, well-coordinated attack. Kelly’s eyewitness account proved what Palestinian spokesman have denied all along: ambulances are being used to ferry rocks and guns to fighters. Children are being used as cover for snipers. The attacks are strategically coordinated and controlled, not spontaneous. The Israelis followed orders to use measured firepower (tear gas, rubber bullets, stun grenades, then live fire) as Hamas attackers fired, “with such intensity that bullets can be seen bouncing off the street.”

Most media reports of that skirmish mention only that 60 Palestinian youths had been hospitalized and at least one died. Then again, as Kelly noted, the journalists who did the reporting were largely behind the Palestinian line. When they left at sunset, the Palestinians did too. That’s not a shocker: politicians orchestrated much of the peace process for TV cameras; why is it surprising that the fighting should be as well?

The other piece arrived a day earlier, by e-mail, bearing the subject line, “The most devastating story I’ve heard out of Israel.” It came via a friend in L.A. from Yitzhak Frankenthal, who lives in Israel. I met Frankenthal once, when he was visiting L.A. to raise money for a peace group, Oz v’Shalom, comprised of Orthodox Jews. Besides being a bright and articulate man, a man of seriousness and great substance, he carried with him tragic credentials. On July 7, 1994, his 20-year-old son Arik’s body was found dumped in a village near Ramallah, riddled with bullet holes and stab wounds. The soldier had been hitchhiking home on leave when he was kidnapped and murdered by Hamas terrorists. “Since Arik’s murder,” Frankenthal told me, “nothing upsets me. When I wonder if what I’m doing is right, Arik reaches out to me and says, ‘Thank you, Dad.'”

In his e-mail, Frankenthal explained that he and his close friend, Roni Hirshenzon, had just returned from Mt. Herzl cemetery. Five years ago Hirshenzon went there to bury his eldest son, Amir. Amir was a 20-year-old soldier when he was killed in the Beit-Lid bombing, in January 1995. Two weeks ago Hirshenzon went back to Mt. Herzl to attend the funeral of his son Elad’s best friend, David. David, also a soldier, had been killed in the fighting at Netzarim, the Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip. Several days ago, despondent over his best friend’s death and his brother’s, Hirshenzon’s son Elad killed himself. After Elad’s funeral, Roni Hirshenzon asked Frankenthal to write an open letter to the Jewish settlers in Netzarim. Here’s a good chunk of it:

“To the Netzarim residents, I am writing this letter from the bottom of my heart, shaking with fury, and my soul is trembling from the sound of the sand sacks being emptied over the coffin. Look what has happened to our people and country owing to the absence of peace. The absence of peace has killed Amir in an act of terror, my own son Arik was killed by Hamas in July 1994 and many others have fallen due to the absence of peace. In the past month, over 100 people were killed due to the absence of peace. Elad’s best friend has also fallen in Netzarim due to the absence of peace. And now, Elad has taken his own life only because his best friend David fell in Netzarim. Any sane individual knows that Netzarim will be evacuated when peace will be reached between ourselves and the Palestinians, just as Yamit was evacuated, just as the Sinai was evacuated. Why in God’s mercy do you continue to inhabit this cursed place that has demanded so many lives? Where is your mercy on the children who are in peril? Where is your mercy for a mother who buried two of her children? Is God’s spirit within you? Is your God the belief in a messianic settlement that has nothing to do with the security of Israel? It is virtually paganism that children are being sacrificed to false gods.

“…You really believe that you are protecting the security of Tel Aviv, but this is just a myth. The citizens of Tel Aviv do not need your protection; what they need is protection from you. Do you really think that security will prevail in Israel without peace, that there can be peace without very painful compromises? In any case, the current state of affairs where still there are settlements in the Gaza Strip is not acceptable. It is so unlikely that you shall live in your standard of living whilst your neighbors live at a level equivalent to the one maintained in the ’40s? Had we been in the place of the Palestinians, would we have not done more and more acts of terror in order to get our own state? Why should the Palestinians be any different?

“Again, please don’t tell me that I am a defeatist and that I am prepared to surrender Mother Earth and that I want peace at any cost and that I do not understand the course of history. Not at all. I have been ‘fighting’ for peace together with Roni for many years, not just recently, and we have been doing so in order to prevent more and more unnecessary deaths. For us, the Land of Israel is very important and beloved. A land where our children can live, not a land that consumes its children. Is land more important than a human being? What makes you believe that this forsaken damned hole – Netzarim – that has cost so many lives, is worth bringing our children to the slaughter? … We understand that peace will prevail only if we make painful compromises, but we also know that most of our settler brothers will eventually be annexed to Israel and will become an inseparable part of the State of Israel. Even if we have to compromise on Jerusalem in order to make peace, even if in the Old City only the Wailing Wall and the Jewish Quarter will remain under Israeli sovereignty, and the rest will come under Palestinian sovereignty, the price of peace is worth paying because the People of Israel have never worshipped any sovereignty but God. … I rest the full responsibility for this terrible bloodshed, where our children are killed in Netzarim, solely at your door, residents of Netzarim. …

“Finally I want to quote Miri, Elad’s mother, who cried at her son’s grave, ‘Who ever heard of a mother that buries her son, and who ever saw and heard of a mother that buries two sons? Instead of leading my sons to the chuppah, I am burying them. Whom shall I cry for first, Amir or Elad? I have brought children into the world to give them life. I sent them to the army alive and they returned dead. Who ever heard of a country that gives up its children to indulge the land? Don’t pour soil over Elad, don’t soil his hair. Only a week ago I bought him a new pair of shoes, and he had not yet worn them. I am a mother that cares for her children, how can I leave Elad here? How can I eat whilst he is in his grave? I had five children, and I am left with three. Ever since David died in Netzarim 20 days ago you wrote him a daily letter. How can I be at home whilst Amir and Elad are here on Mount Herzl? Whose grave shall I visit first? Amir’s or Elad’s? I have lost the strength to go on living. What for? Who ever dreamt that I will be visited twice?

“‘Thank you, Netzarim’s settlers: a straight red line is drawn from Netzarim to Mount Herzl. I have brought up my children to contribute to the country, and what did I get in return? Two coffins, two graves, and they were only 19, didn’t even reach the age of 20. I will not be ironing any more shirts for them, won’t make their beds, two empty rooms at home.’

“Before we left the cemetery my beloved Roni turned to me and asked to send you a letter. I hope I have succeeded, even partially, to convey to you the painful feelings we foster on the loss of our sons. I beg you, please, take your belongings and come back to Israel. Come back and help build a democratic society that will address the terrible social hardships we face. You have an enormous potential to become leaders of brotherhood and friendship in the country, but today you act as Angels of Death to our children. Today you are the messengers of the devil, who says, ‘Better land than man.’ Please, wake up, before God forbid we will bury more children.

“With heartache and terrible disappointment at you,

Yitzhak Frankenthal.”

Frankenthal’s letter was published in Israel’s largest daily, Yediot Aharanot. Jack Kelly’s story appeared in USA Today. They are both, I believe, required reading.

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Varied on Vouchers

Leave a Comment / Education, Politics / Beverly Gray

Though many Jewish organizations, including The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles and the Bureau of Jewish Education, prefer to remain officially neutral on Proposition 38, their members often have strong emotions pro and con.

Dr. Ron Reynolds, director of school services for the Bureau of Jewish Education of Greater Los Angeles, also serves in a volunteer capacity as the president of the California Association of Private School Organizations. Reynolds strongly believes that private schools – religious and secular – play a valuable role in the education of California’s children. Citing a 1999 report from the U.S. Census Bureau to the effect that fewer than one-third of all private school students come from families with incomes of $75,000 and above, he decries the common image of private schools as elitist and anti-democratic.

Reynolds is himself a product of public schools in the San Fernando Valley. Still, he is attracted to the concept of vouchers as a way of improving an educational climate he sees as badly in need of help. “I want the public school system to succeed,” Reynolds says. “As members of the public, we all have a strong vested interested in seeing the system succeed. I just don’t know how to do it.”

For him, vouchers have the potential to introduce healthy competition into the status quo and can have the advantage of freeing those children who are currently locked into failing neighborhood schools to find something better in the private sector.

Which does not necessarily mean he supports Proposition 38. Reynolds is bothered by the fact that the Draper Initiative provides for no means testing: children of all economic strata (including the affluent, who are capable of attending costly private schools without government help) would be equally eligible to receive $4,000 from the state. To him, the current proposition moves “too far, too fast.” His own preference would be for a smaller-scale experimental use of vouchers as a way of seeing whether they really improve children’s academic performance. (In this, his position seems not far from that put forth by Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman.) In the long run, Reynolds predicts that the Jewish community as a whole will come around to endorsing vouchers, as he sees inner-city parents doing now. He attributes the fact that most liberal politicians reject vouchers as an indication of the clout wielded by teachers unions and feels that many public officials are out of touch with the beliefs of their constituents on this volatile issue.

There is a vastly different viewpoint at the Progressive Jewish Alliance. Attorney Douglas Mirell, the group’s president, is suspicious that the measure’s author, Tim Draper, is a dot-com millionaire who has spoken out in favor of privatizing all educational services. The Draper Initiative, says Mirell, proposes no standards by which private schools can be judged, nor any procedures for assuring their accountability to the general public. While one basic argument for vouchers is that they will help children to do better on standardized tests, there is no requirement that schools receiving voucher money improve their students’ academic performance in any way.

Mirell also notes that “every dollar that comes into the voucher program will be subtracted from California’s general fund.” Presumably, this could mean substantially less money in the state coffers for such important items as parks, health care and public safety.

For Californians who do opt to put their youngsters’ voucher money toward private school tuition, Mirell sees a Catch-22. After all, “What the heck does $4,000 buy?” As the father of children who attend Jewish day schools, he knows that a quality private education easily approaches and often surpasses $10,000 per year. Those inner-city families whom Proposition 38 is theoretically designed to help can hardly afford to dig into their own pockets to make up the difference between the voucher amount and a good private school’s fees. Mirell’s fear is that the passage of Proposition 38 could spark the rise of diploma mills that, in exchange for a voucher coupon, would provide only the poorest excuse for an education, free of any sort of government oversight.

Opposition to Proposition 38 is presented at www.novouchers2000.com. Support for the Draper Initiative can be found at www.schoolvouchers2000.org. The Anti-Defamation League, one major Jewish organization that strongly opposes vouchers on philosophical grounds, discusses its position on its general Web site, www.adl.org

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The Hope Deficit

Letters to the Editor

Leave a Comment / Letters to the Editor / Jewish Journal

Steve Cooley

Your article on the district attorney’s race (“Jewish Stake in the DA’s Race,” Oct. 20) was neither balanced nor fair. It is obvious to anyone familiar with Gil Garcetti’s failed leadership that David Evanier did not do his homework. Evanier solicited comments about Garcetti from three Jewish activists but sought no comments from the many Jewish activists who support Steve Cooley.

More importantly, Cooley has a broad base of support from all ethnic and racial groups. The district attorney’s race is about the need to restore confidence and leadership to an office and a criminal justice system that has been under attack – and rightly so. Cooley has the vision and leadership to restore that confidence. He has been endorsed by every newspaper in this county.

As a prosecutor in the district attorney’s office for the past 22 years, as a Democrat and a Jew, I am disappointed that The Jewish Journal gave such little thought to such an important race in the upcoming election.

Lael R. Rubin, Santa Monica

I have been a reader of The Journal since its inception and feel I must reply to what I consider a one-sided article regarding the race for district attorney.

Cooley and I both served the City of Los Angeles as reserve police officers; he served with distinction for several years at the Newton Street Station. He has devoted his entire professional career as a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney, the past 14 years as a head deputy district attorney, and has successfully prosecuted many cases of robbery, burglary, rape and other heavy-duty felonies.

One of the differences in the handling of the three-strikes cases between Cooley and his opponent is that Cooley has a gutteh neshoma (good soul). Unlike his opponent, he would not seek a 25-year-to-life sentence for a defendant who, after living a good life of many years, is prosecuted for stealing some food to feed his family.

I have known Cooley as a close friend for over 30 years. He is straight, honest and will bring a level of integrity to the district attorney’s office, which it has not had for the past eight years.

Norman Tyre, Toluca Lake

Violence in Israel

I read Sequoia Schroeder’s letter (Letters, Oct. 20) with some interest. I am a reserve staff sergeant in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), a supporter of the peace process and active in what she and I obviously share – a desire to help our Jewish community “prevent the nightmare of us turning into the image of our old oppressors.”

But Schroeder is way off the mark. Israel didn’t ask for this outburst of violence. Indeed, Prime Minister Barak has offered more than anyone else – including Prime Ministers Rabin and Peres – in his search for peace. At the recent Camp David meeting, never has Israel offered so much to the Palestinians at the opening of a negotiation (let alone during one). What would Israel have to benefit from violence at this time? Nothing. To blame Israel (or even Ariel Sharon, a man for whom I tend not to have much respect at the best of times) for the outbreak of rioting and violence would be as disingenuous as it would be inaccurate.

Don’t misunderstand me. When the fighting stops and some movement to renewing the peace process is underway, I will be there, with my friends, supporting the sharing of Jerusalem, the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the rights of every Palestinian and Israeli child to live in peace and security. We’d just like to get there in one piece.

Dov Ben-Shimon ,Los Angeles

Sequoia Schroeder’s outrage is misplaced. Why isn’t she outraged over the hanging of two Israeli soldiers by Palestinians? Why isn’t Schroeder outraged over the fact that Yasser Arafat keeps his police at bay when Palestinians are attacking Israelis?

It seems to me that not only does Israel need to respond swiftly and strongly to the campaign of terror unleashed against it by its purported partner in peace, Arafat, but in addition it is time for Israel to initiate a public relations effort so that the world, and people like Schroeder, truly understand what is happening in Israel and who is responsible for the violence.

Fred Silberberg, Los Angeles

Does Sequoia Schroeder expect the Israelis to blow kisses as a response to death-threatening action on the part of Palestinians? Or does she think the Israeli forces should merely retreat and allow the Palestinian mobs to overrun Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or wherever they may choose?

Schroeder fails to question how it is that Palestinian children are in the front lines of the violence. What kind of parents are the Palestinians who send their children out to be maimed or killed?

Joseph M. Ellis,Woodland Hills

CNN doesn’t show how Arabs attack Israeli citizens and places. CNN doesn’t tell you that young children are pushed by Palestinian adults, who hide behind walls and houses and shoot at Israeli soldiers while the children are between them. CNN doesn’t tell you that the pictures you see from the West Bank and Gaza were sent by Palestinian reporters who live there.

CNN shows Israel as a monster and the Palestinians as victims. If you want to help Israel, you must stop being silent. It’s time to tell people what CNN doesn’t show.

Dina Harani, Kibbutz Hefzibah, Israel

Harold Schulweis

It is unfortunate that Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis chooses to reprove the clear-eyed view of those in the Jewish community who foresaw the tragedy that is now unfolding in Israel as guilty of a “taunting cynicism” which they are said to express with a “wink and whisper” (“Is Peace a Four Letter Word?,” Oct. 20). On the contrary, individual ability to foresee the folly of popular movements is something to praise, not disparage, as are exhortations to learn from sad experiences.

Gideon Kanner, Burbank

Rabbi Schulweis posed the rhetorical question: “Is Peace a Four Letter Word?” The real question is: Can peace be unilateral? In view of the rioting by supposed peace partners, the obvious answer is “no.” Those Jews who prated endlessly about a peace process now accuse the rest of us, who warned against this self-delusion, of harboring cynical and unworthy I-told-you-so sentiments. To the contrary, we feel sadness and horror, not cynicism, on witnessing the tragic events resulting from the misguided idealism of Israeli politicians.

What is astounding, however, is the refusal of Peace Now advocates to recognize the hatred in the actions and faces of the current generation of Palestinian Arabs who were nursed and weaned on the poisonous milk of anti-Israel and anti-Jew racism. They do not want reconciliation. They are not peace partners.

Seymour Croft.Marina Del Rey

Jonathan Pollard

Jonathan Pollard is lucky the court didn’t see fit to impose the death penalty.

In the 1960s, I served in a position similar to Pollard. I held the highest possible security clearance and to this day am still forbidden from revealing certain details of my work.

I know the kind of information he was privy to and the temptation to tell someone. I also know that disclosure could get people killed. The consequences, up to and including life imprisonment or the death penalty, were made clear to me every day, as I am sure they were to Pollard.

What I am unable to fathom is why American Jews support a man who betrayed his country. To this day, neither Pollard nor his supporters acknowledge the severity of his betrayal. Until then, he will stay, deservedly so, in federal detention.

Jay B. Smith. Venice

Gene Lichtenstein

While wishing The Jewish Journal good fortune with its new management, I would like to express my disappointment that the community has not expressed its appreciation to former editor Gene Lichtenstein. Lichtenstein came to our city 15 years ago and became the first professional to make a serious newspaper possible within the Jewish community. This is not to denigrate the efforts of others who went before, but itis to express my appreciation for a vigorous career and a very significant achievement for our community. Lichtenstein brought talent to the newspaper, gave professional opportunity to many, and himself contributed excellent writing.

It is too often characteristic among Jews to express rhetorically our values of derekh eretz (correct behavior) and kavod (honor) without putting these matters into practice. I did not always agree with Lichtenstein, and we certainly did not share priorities at many junctures, but he did add a great deal to our city and will continue to do so.

Rabbi William Cutter, Hebrew Union College

Rudeness Rise

Hooray for Jane Ulman (“Rampant Rudeness,” Oct. 13) in telling it like it is. As a teacher and counselor at a public high school, rudeness and a decline on the most basic manners is the most noticeable change that I have seen in students over the past 39 years. Not only are many (certainly not all) students rude to teachers in the classroom, but to their parents as well.

Marcia Gould, West Hills

Jewish Family Service

Recently, Michael Aushenker wrote an outstanding article about the introduction of microwaveable meal packaging at Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles (“Making ‘Waves,” Sept. 27). His article did a great job of portraying our purpose and describing the Senior Nutrition Program. I wanted to add, however, that we serve meals at nine dining sites, scattered throughout the mid-Wilshire area, plus the home-delivered meals.

Carrie Hornby, Director
Senior Nutrition Program
Jewish Family Service

Corrections

The last two lines of the Oct. 20 article “In Character” were accidentally omitted. The last sentence should have read: “They’d just look at me, puzzled, and I’d remind myself, ‘I’m not in character anymore!'”

We deeply regret that the enlarged, partial photo in the Oct. 20 article “Jewish Stake in the DA’s Race” was not that of Steve Cooley.

Letters to the Editor Read More »

Mr. Oslo

Leave a Comment / Worldwide / Eric Silver

Uri Savir may not have won a Nobel Peace Prize, but far more than the three national leaders who did, he is Mr. Oslo. For three long months in 1993, the then director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry sat secretly in the Norwegian capital and hammered out an agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organization that kindled hopes of an end to a century of belligerence.

Seven years later, despite this autumn’s reversion to violence, he is still convinced that peace is possible – and that the sooner Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat get back to the negotiating table, the better. What they need, he argues, is the courage to make the kinds of compromises Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Arafat made, and to fight for them.

“Peace,” he insists, “is not made out of consensus. What was so great about Rabin, Peres and Arafat was not just the courage to meet and make a compromise, but the courage to withstand internal opposition. For deals that were unpopular, Rabin paid with his life, Peres with his political life, and Arafat took great risks. But ultimately their countries were better off.”

Bill Clinton, he suggests, deserves a Nobel Prize for his persistence in trying to rescue the process. There’s just one more thing the United States president must do: “He has to lock Barak and Arafat in a room and walk out. This odd couple must talk to each other.”

We met in the Knesset, where Savir is now a 47-year-old Center Party legislator. He is plumper these days than the ambitious young diplomat I first knew 20 years ago, but his glasses still twinkle, the ideas still flow like notes for a seminar on how to resolve conflicts. He took time out from vigorously lobbying against a national emergency government with Ariel Sharon – “that would mean the end of the road, for a long time” – to explain why the Oslo process is not dead.

“Both sides,” he said, “will soon discover that at the end of the day violence cannot resolve anything. Even if the Palestinian were to declare a state unilaterally, the issue of borders, the issue of recognition, the issue of refugees, nothing will be resolved except by the peace process. Oslo did two things that are irreversible. It began the end of the Israeli occupation, and it created a sense of interdependence.

“The Palestinians have to understand, as we have to understand, that nation-building and peace go hand-in-hand. Peace is not just something they give to Israel. If Palestine can be born in an agreement of peace, it will be a different Palestine than if it’s born out of hostility.”

What, then, should Barak do to get the process back on track? The prime minister had to reaffirm that Arafat remained a partner, provided he recognized that violence had no part in negotiations, and provided he made a 100 percent effort to prevent terrorism. “Based on these premises,” Savir added, “we have to make every effort not just to renew the peace process, but to conclude it.”

After the two leaders seemed so close at Camp David in July, I asked, what went wrong?

“Camp David was a mistake,” Savir answered. “You cannot resolve 100 years of conflict in two weeks at Camp David. It was too much a make-it or break-it. We avoided a small crisis then and got a bigger crisis later.”

More specifically, he argued that Israel ignored the depth of Palestinian grass-roots disappointment with the fruits of peace. “We’ll have to redefine the priorities. The peace dividends have to go from the bottom up. The people out on the streets are more the have-nots than the haves. Those who have gained from the peace process are the elites. What we are seeing now is also a rebellion against the elites. We have to invest a thousand times more resources in socio-economic programs and peace-building programs.”

The two parties, he added, failed to learn a key lesson of Oslo: that Israelis and Palestinians should negotiate with each other, not the Americans, and they should do so in secret.

“Had Oslo been conducted the way Camp David was conducted, we’d never have achieved our compromises. We need the Americans for safety nets against crises, for a strategic umbrella, for the aid issues and the security issues. But the core diplomacy has to be bilateral and well-prepared, because that is how you build the necessary trust.”

So where do they go from here? Israel, Savir argued, had to learn that “military power hardly counts any more.” The Palestinians had to learn that international support was not enough. They had to convince Israeli public opinion.

“They have an incredible opportunity to achieve an agreement that will not give them all, but will give them a state on most of the West Bank and all of Gaza, with some hold also in Jerusalem, with a serious solution to the refugee problem.

“They have more to lose than us. Therefore, those who create this violence – even if it’s out of frustration, even if it’s out of some justified claims, it doesn’t matter – they’re making a historical mistake.”

Mr. Oslo Read More »

“Public Schools Are Today’s Door to Assimilation”

Leave a Comment / Education / Rabbi David Eliezrie

The Jewish community, along with the rest of the citizens of California, have a chance to change the educational destiny of the their children in the upcoming election. Appearing on the ballot is a voucher initiative that will enable parents to choose the school that best fits the needs of their children.

The Jewish defense agencies have cranked up their PR machines, joining with the teachers unions with dire predictions of the future if the initiative passes. They are concerned with the future of the public schools, worried about church-state entanglement, concerned about crazy groups making schools. While that may be the position of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the American Jewish Committee (AJCommittee), the American Jewish Congress (AJCongress) and others, there has been a shift in Jewish opinion on vouchers. Vouchers have been earning greater support through the Jewish community.

The critics of vouchers, who have ignored the priorities of Jewish education, have failed to take a look at how similar systems are working in other countries. In Australia, a country that so enthralled us during the Olympics, education choice is alive and well. The government financial support follows the student to the school of choice and the results are very interesting.

Nationwide, 50 percent of Jewish children attend Jewish schools. In the large cities of Melbourne and Sydney the numbers are closer to 70 percent. In remote Perth, 85 percent of the Jewish children attend day schools. The public school system is still strong, with about 70 percent of Australia’s children attending. The competition from a wealth of private schools has made the public system more accountable.

Most remarkable is the intermarriage rate, which is around 15 percent, instead of 50 percent in the United States. This validates the results of the National Jewish Population Study, which states the more Jewish education, in particular in day schools, the lower the intermarriage rate.

Australia and Orange County have almost identical Jewish populations of about 80,000. In Orange County there are fewer than 1,000 children in three Jewish schools, while in Australia there are 12,000 in more than 20 schools. Parents there pay for the religious segment of the education, removing government from involvement with religion.

The public school system was the ticket from the tenement to the promise of opportunity in America. This may have been true decades ago, but times are different. Public schools are today’s door to assimilation. Jewish parents, as all parents, should be given the choice of what is best for their kids.

The Jewish community should support vouchers, not just out of its own needs but for the benefit of the whole society. Educational choice in American cities has proven that it is a way for inner-city children to increase their opportunities.Educational choice has been in operation for decades in this country. Send your kid to college, and grants and tax credits will benefit you. It makes no difference if the school is UCLA or Yeshiva University. We all know that competition on the college level has only increased the choices for students.

Even students who study at the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College and the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary use these government benefits. These movements that oppose support for educational choice for children in elementary and high school use government funds for their institutions on a college level. The ADL, AJCommittee and AJCongress should protest government financial support of religious higher education based on their strict interpretation of church-state separation. Funny thing is, we have never heard a word from them on this issue.

The United States is the only Western democracy that does not allow parents to direct their tax dollars to the school that they think is best for their kids. In Australia, as well as other countries such as Canada, England, France and even the former Soviet Union, tax dollars follow the child. Competition is the central principle of a free society. It’s time that we bring competition to the educational system; the only ones that will benefit are our children.

Rabbi David Eliezrie is the president of the Rabbinical Council of Orange County and Long Beach. His e-mail address is tzedek@sprynet.com

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Help Wanted, Will Train

Leave a Comment / Education / Aviva Mandl

Looking for a job where you can impart knowledge, be a positive role model and get all the Jewish holidays off? One field offering those opportunities desperately needs qualified people: Jewish education. Nationwide, day schools, supplementary schools and after-school Hebrew programs are suffering from a lack of qualified educators.

While education agencies and schools are recruiting through local Hillels, ads in Jewish newspapers and college publications, filling those positions is only becoming more difficult.”We’re experiencing some real staffing problems,” says Yonaton Shultz, director of school personnel services for the Bureau of Jewish Education in Los Angeles. The bureau services more than 165 different programs and schools, incorporating 2,500 educators from nursery through 12th grade, according to Shultz.

Similarly, the greater Boston area needs teachers in a variety of settings, including new positions that combine duties, explains Nathan Kruman, professional development consultant for the Bureau of Jewish Education in Boston.

“Boston has many very exciting positions and many new hybrid positions that combine teaching in the classic sense with other activities, sometimes administrative, sometimes youth, sometimes family,” says Kruman. “There’s generally something available because we’ve built up institutions and added more full-time and part-time jobs over the last 25 years.”

The needs are just as great in Chicago, where there are three organizations that staff Jewish programs: the Bureau of Jewish Education, the Community Foundation for Jewish Education and the Associated Talmud Torah.

Yaffa Berman, director of recruitment and placement for the Community Foundation for Jewish Education, says there are 150 to 225 positions open in the Chicago metropolitan area every year for teachers in early childhood, supplementary, high school and adult education. “Despite major recruitment efforts at major university placement offices, Hillels, the Israeli Consulate, newspaper ads, congregational and day school bulletins and more, the problem still exists,” she says.

Because these positions need to be filled, schools are forced to hire people who don’t meet the standard of excellence preferred. “About 70 percent of the respondents to our call for teachers meet our expectations, leaving us with no option but to lower standards for the remaining 30 percent,” says Berman, “thus compromising the quality of the education that our students are receiving.”

On the other hand, Rabbi Harvey Well, superintendent of the Associated Talmud Torah in Chicago, who fills slots in more than 25 programs throughout the Midwest, doesn’t have the trouble finding people that he once did.

“There used to be a time when we really needed to search high and low for teachers, but now with so many post-rabbinic institutes, it has become much easier and teachers are much more available,” says Well. “There are probably 10 to 20 teachers yearly where… people leave the city, people retire, people decide they want to go into different areas. But it really isn’t the crisis that it once was; it’s much more easily managed.”

Challenges of the times

The challenges are greater for supplementary religious and after-school programs. According to Shultz, when both parents work, a mother isn’t able to do all the necessary carpooling to take her children to the program. Schools that once went Sundays through Thursdays now have to cut their programs back to three and sometimes even two days per week. So even with more teachers than before, scheduling difficulties compound the situation.

“That’s a very hard thing to deal with,” says Shultz. “If one teacher is going to teach at one school Sunday and Tuesday and another school was offering her a job on Sunday and Wednesday and another school was offering her a job on Sunday and Thursday, she can’t take any of those other jobs because they’re all attached to a Sunday, and she’s already committed for a Sunday. So the teachers are teaching less hours. It’s not that they’re less available, it’s just that the schedules are worse. And this is a challenge that our schools are going to have to deal with.”

Qualified teachers, it seems, almost need to be masters of illusion to appear at multiple institutions to give students the education they need to receive. This can be resolved in one of two ways: “One teacher can teach in two schools as long as the schools agree to change their scheduling,” says Shultz.

Another challenge is finding qualified candidates.

“The State of Illinois tells us when it comes to private education, parochial education, that a teacher has to show competence in the area that they’re teaching,” says Well. “[That’s] our main criteria, that the individuals hired should show competence in the areas that they’re teaching. Usually [while] the general studies teachers have [Illinois teaching certificates], the Judaic teachers do not. We offer a full range of educational courses to train teachers and at the end of three years we ourselves give the teachers certificates to show that they have completed the course.”

Many programs offer some kind of training. People who have a pedagogic background or a degree in education can be trained in Judaic content, according to Berman. “And those who have the Judaism knowledge without the pedagogic skills can be trained to use those. We are very flexible,” she added.

Unique solutions

The Bureau of Jewish Education in Los Angeles has started one attempt at a solution: training synagogue congregants to be religious school teachers.

“We believe that there is a whole slew of people out there who belong to the congregation and rather than serving on the ritual committee and rather than being in the sisterhood, they probably would enjoy teaching in the religious school,” Shultz says.

The program, a year and a half long, includes courses on Sundays, being a teaching assistant, and being a student teacher. Participants will be mentored by other teachers on the staff and by the principals.

“We have a triple-pronged program, actually: training of the teachers, the training of the mentors and the training of the principals to supervise the whole thing. We’re excited about both of the programs” Shultz adds.

Boston has a new program that provides both professional development and financial support. Open to 100 educators, the program provides an advisor who works with the educator to identify the educator’s needs, and the educator can fill those needs at schools such as Hebrew College or Brandeis University, or through other local Jewish continuing education programs. The community helps pay for those courses.

“They’ll be able to take courses to the equivalent of up to about to a half of a master’s degree in Jewish education. Then the community will continue to support them, not 100 percent, but certainly a very significant amount. I don’t think it’s happening anywhere else,” Kruman says of the program supported in part by grants from the Cummings Foundation and from the Covenant Foundation.

“In other words, we find jobs for people and we then match them… with a personal advisor who creates with them an individual professional development plan. And that plan will identify their strengths and where they have room to grow.”

Boston also has a New Educators Institute that provides an overview of some of the areas that a new teacher needs to master over the course of approximately six months. Graduates finish those skills while working as teachers and then are eligible to begin the program to work towards their master’s degrees.

Passionless need not apply

The professionals responsible for recruiting teachers emphasize that interested candidates shouldn’t worry about qualifications, since training is often provided.

“[We’re looking for] somebody who wants the job and is serious about it and is ready to really jump on and … take on an active role in shaping the lives of the children who are
a part of our community,” says Kruman. “[Jewish education] is about improving the quality of our life and passing it on.”

Ideal candidates, according to Kruman, should be committed to education, have some experience, know the field, and most of all, enjoy kids.

Well adds, “If you don’t like getting kids excited to learn, then no matter what training you’ve received, in the end it will basically be very sterile or ineffectual. If I’m looking for a teacher, I look for a spark that they have, a link that they want to establish with the kids that they’re going to teach, because it’s been proven that’s been the best kind of teacher.”

Developing teachers has to be a communal responsibility, says Berman. “High quality Jewish education is dependent upon the community taking this challenge seriously and doing something about it.” she says. “We must …hire and retain dynamic teachers who have a passion for educating the future generation of Jewish leaders.”

Shultz adds, “We’re all Jews by choice – those of us who were born into Jewish families and those of us who came in to it. Our children are going to be choosing if they want to stay Jewish or not. We’ve got to have the best people available to convince them that this is something worthy of their time, effort, energy and identification.

“If we don’t bring the best people in, if we don’t have well-trained, knowledgeable Jewish educators, we can close up shop now, because all we’ll end up having is a sham, and kids see through that right away. That’s the challenge that faces our community.”

This article appears courtesy of Zipple.com

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Private Schools: “Many Who Apply Will Not Be Admitted”

Leave a Comment / Education / Sue Stengel

Since August, all of us have been the targets of television advertisements supporting and opposing Proposition 38. No doubt proponents of the initiative will be quick to use the results of a recent Harvard University study that found an improvement in academic achievement of some African Americans, particularly low-income families that received vouchers and are enrolled in private schools.

Before these findings send us rushing to the voting booth to support vouchers, we need to examine Proposition 38 and how it relates to this recent study. The programs examined in the study bear no resemblance to what Proposition 38 mandates. Those programs were privately funded and targeted to low-income and minority students, underachievers and failing schools.

Proposition 38 does not focus on those in our community who are less privileged or underachievers. The $4,000 that will be available to school-age Californians will be available to everyone, no matter how wealthy or high achieving. In California, $4,000 does not come close to covering the ever-growing cost of private school tuition. Consequently, only the wealthiest among us will benefit from the “wisdom” of Tim Draper. We, as taxpayers, will be contributing $4,000 per year to those families who can already afford to pay private school tuition.

The hidden irony in this initiative is that the money taken from California’s budget to pay private schools for taking in students will not come from the education budget, but rather from that portion of the budget which funds community colleges, roads, low-income housing, health care and other social services that serve the poor.

Los Angeles School Board President Genethia Hayes, during a recent presentation to the Anti-Defamation League, cited a survey her office conducted of the South Central Los Angeles area she represents. The least expensive private school charges $4,666 for tuition alone. This does not include the cost of books, transportation, uniforms or other required fees. And before those of you who can afford the additional expense go running to the private school of your choice, be aware that many who apply will not be admitted. There just isn’t space.

Hayes noted that fewer than 1 percent of the private schools in her area (and there are few to begin with) have room for additional students. Most, she said, are full and have waiting lists miles long. And if a family should be lucky enough to find a school that does have an empty seat, an applicant still may not be admitted; perhaps because she doesn’t seem smart enough, isn’t wealthy enough, isn’t of the right faith, the school doesn’t want girls, or she has a disability, learning or otherwise. All of these are permitted exclusions under the ballot initiative. Hayes also stated that most experts estimate it will take up to 20 years for private schools to gear up to provide the extra seats needed in a growing community the size of Los Angeles.

Our public schools are the keystone of our pluralistic society. They are a mixture of races, ethnicities, abilities, religions and sexual orientations, which facilitates an environment where young people learn the civic skills that enable them to become productive members of society when they graduate. The truth is that private schools remain substantially segregated and look little like our society at large.

Unable to benefit from Draper’s concept, minorities and students in California’s poorest communities will remain in the public schools, which will suffer further as public funds are siphoned off into private schools for the wealthy.

As the debate over Proposition 38 heats up, beware of the uses to which the recently released testing data will be put. The beneficiaries of the Draper vouchers will not be those who need the most help.

Sue Stengel is the Western States counsel of the Anti-Defamation League. Connie Rice is co-director of the Advancement Project.

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In The Beginning, There Was Zionism

Leave a Comment / Torah / Rabbi Daniel Bouskila

Zionism. Remember that term? We don’t hear it too often anymore. Many Jews seem uncomfortable with the term Zionism, saying it’s “too strong” or it “breeds nationalism.” Some of Israel’s leading historians have gone as far as declaring this current period in Israel’s history as the “post-Zionist era” – whatever that means. The virtual silencing of the word Zionism in our educational, religious or political vocabularies make the days when we enthusiastically took to the streets to fervently protest the United Nation’s infamous “Zionism is Racism” resolution seem like ancient history.

In light of our current crisis in the place once known as the “Zionist homeland,” I would like to revisit the origins and basis of this once central but now almost defunct term. When I say the “origins and basis of Zionism,” I am not referring to the 19th century national movement founded by Theodor Herzl. Instead, I suggest that the beginning of Zionism comes “In the beginning,” at the starting point of Jewish literature, with Genesis.

In his very first remarks on the Book of Genesis, the great Bible commentator Rashi states that if the Torah is limited to being a legal code of commandments (mitzvot), then the entire Book of Genesis, including the creation story and the patriarchal narratives, is unnecessary to the Torah, since these narratives do not contain legislative portions outlining commandments. Why, then, is the Book of Genesis a part of the Torah, asks Rashi?

His answer, summed up in one word – Zionism: “God created the world and gave [the Land of Israel] to whomever it was right in his eyes.”

You may be uncomfortable with this religious Zionism and might not feel that invoking the Jewish people’s “God given right” to the Land of Israel is a sophisticated discourse for the modern world.

For whatever it’s worth, this religious Zionism served as the central thesis of the Jewish people’s aspirations to return to Israel and Jerusalem throughout our nearly 2,000 years in the Diaspora. Sometimes, conveniently, we want to forget that.

But if Rashi’s divine claim is too religious for you, then read on in the Book of Genesis and let the power of history serve as your guiding light. You will quickly detect that the narratives of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, Leah and Rachel not only tell of the family’s personal and religious struggles, but their journeys in and out of Canaan serve to draw a map for what eventually became known as Eretz Yisrael. Abraham left his home for this “new land,” Isaac was born in this land and never left, and Jacob left the land in his old age with his family inheriting the promise and aspiration to one day return.

If invoking the Bible still seems politically unsophisticated, then turn to a modern political document of 53 years ago: Israel’s Declaration of Independence. The opening line of the declaration states: “The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people… here they wrote and gave the Bible to the world.”

It is this very Bible, beginning with the Book of Genesis, this week’s Torah portion, that serves as the basis for the establishment of a modern Jewish state on this particular piece of land. No matter what political viewpoint you hold, this biblical Zionism is something we all share in common. If not, we might want to reconsider the Uganda option.

Daniel Bouskila is rabbi of Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel.

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Swing States of Mind

Leave a Comment / Womans Voice / Marlene Adler Marks

Finally good news has come for Al Gore.

The Arab American Political Action Committee this month endorsed George W. Bush. Last week, 20 other Michigan-based Arab organizations followed suit, including the Arab-American and Chaldean Leadership Council.

“Gore should take out billboards and announce what they’ve done,” veteran political analyst Joe Cerrell told me.The Gore-Bush election has boiled down to a fight for every swing voter in every swing state. Joe Lieberman is destined to visit every senior citizens complex in Florida. But the first Jewish vice-presidential candidate can’t be all things to all men (the gender most likely to vote for Bush). The focus this week is on Michigan, home to the nation’s largest Arab population. The Bush endorsement by the Arab American Political Action Committee (an organization based on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) is aimed at the nation’s 3.6 million Arab voters.

That’s not all. On Sunday, Green Party candidate Ralph Nader reached out to the Arab contingent. Nader, who is first-generation Lebanese and speaks fluent Arabic, bolstered his double-digit Arab support by telling campaigners at the University of California’s Davis campus that Gore was not sufficiently neutral on Israel.

“If you want to really quell the violence, you say to the Israelis, ‘Back off, these rocks are not reaching the Israeli borders,'” he said.

“Great news!” said Cerrell, who advised Hubert Humphrey while facing a third-party attack from Eugene McCarthy. “This should be made common knowledge to every Jewish voter for Nader.”

Will these two Good News Bears be enough to raise the sleeping Gore? For that matter, will Gore understand that he’s slipping even in the must-win state of California? Cerrell is not a silent man. He and other advisors have reached out to Gore. “We sent him a wake-up call,” said Cerrell.

Will Gore get it? As it stands, Nader is a potential spoiler, pushing as many as eight states into the Bush column. Would Nader’s opinion on Israel be enough to bring back liberal supporters who believe in the consumer advocate?

Only a few months ago, we were jubilant, weren’t we? Scared, yes, but excited. Ready for the big time. The name “Lieberman” meant everything, promising to bring American Jews into the political center, with a White House room of our own. Talk about a shot in the arm for an American Jewish community experiencing a bout of complacency and political ennui! Having a vice-presidential candidate who worked in the civil rights movement, celebrates Shabbat and whose wife was a Holocaust survivor – what could be newer, better?

Now, faster than you can say Shemini Atzeret, the ebullience is gone. Much of the shadow comes from Israel. The prospect of a Sharon-Barak government casts the end of the Clinton era in a particular tragic pall. The rise of Arab American activists make it clear that never again will American support for Israel be so undiluted or unquestioned in our own country.

It’s true that Jews will vote for Gore, many of them just to give Lieberman a hand. But the truth is, this election is not about us. Or at least not only about us. Even a few years ago, it was possible to define an election outcome by the behavior of Jewish swing voters. This year, Latinos, gays, Catholics, females, African Americans don’t just swing, they wave. In the 2000 election, Jews are steadfast. Jews, fearful of pro-gun, school vouchers and the “no pray, no play” sentiment now sweeping up from the Texas governor’s home state, don’t swing at all.

The rise of an activist Arab American electorate is only the latest wake-up call to a Jewish community that took its activist status for granted. Cerrell reminded me that splinter group targeting is by now a venerable practice, dating back 50 years to the attempt to get Black voters to the polls. Discovering the concerns of voters is important, of course, and Jews, like many other groups, have gained a better view of themselves through the process. But if we have come to believe in ourselves as a repository of unique social values, we’re about to be shaken awake, too.

What a time to wake up, when the liberal social agenda is ripped to shreds, and Israel needs us most of all. How awful it would be to find that we speak for no one else but ourselves.

The American electorate is splintering, each ethnicity and interest group helplessly self-defining. That’s the danger, by the way, of the current fashionable talk by both candidates of allowing “faith-based institutions” to provide social services. Such policies would pit Jews, Catholics, Protestants and Muslims against each other for a bit of the federal/state pie.

That’s also why this may be the last election in which presidential debates hold decisive interest for John Q. Voter. The illusion of common interests has gone literally gone down the tube. The three farcical presidential debates can be understood only as a response to a political system where fragmented group consciousness triumphs over national mission. Our candidates are intentionally bland in public, toadying behind the scenes.

The Israeli crisis is a high-stakes example of what a real debate about national destiny is like. Compared to Israel, our Nov. 7 election seem like Trivial Pursuit. While Israelis write to their American cousins about the perils of peace and war and the reemergence of terrorism, both Bush and Gore run away from controversy, trying to convince us that there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between them. Don’t believe them.

The atmosphere at Gore-Lieberman headquarters in Encino is grim. Bush, unlike his father and Bob Dole, has decided California is up for grabs. Mr. Cerrell, please resend that wake-up call.

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