April 12, 2001

How Jewish Voters Still Count

Leave a Comment / California, Politics, Womans Voice / Marlene Adler Marks

You really did read it here first: That the Los Angeles mayoral primary, with six formidable contenders, would come down to a June 5 mayoral face-off between the Eastside kid, former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa, and the son of liberal Los Angeles, James Kenneth Hahn, was predicted in this column several months ago. No, I’m not a fortune-teller. But as my grandfather would say, "I do know my customer, the Jewish voter."

Tuesday’s election results assert that the Jewish "customer" still counts, now more than ever, in the even playing field that is L.A. politics.

As the Los Angeles Times exit poll reveals, Jewish voters are a huge chunk of the declining white electorate — 17 percent, or one in three. Villaraigosa’s successful re-creation of the progressive Tom Bradley coalition joining a rising ethnic minority — in this case, Latinos who Tuesday made up 21 percent of the vote — and liberal whites, was largely dependent upon Jews.

It will remain for another time to analyze just how Jews influenced both the tone and outcome of the primary; how the upscale Jewish voter found comfort with a candidate who himself, at least in part, reflects the immigrant-laden union politics that dominates some segments of Latino Los Angeles.

At the moment, the big story is that Jews rushed to embrace an encompassing, ethnic vision of our city rather than a white-dominated conservative, pro-business view. For those who had criticized the Jewish "establishment" for ignoring Latino causes, Tuesday’s answer was, we still have heart.

Also on Tuesday, and just as I predicted, the two Jewish mayoral candidates killed each other off in appealing to the city’s conservative voters.

However, real estate developer Steve Soboroff and veteran City Councilman Joel Wachs did not split the Jewish vote. What interested me this week was that liberal voters in the San Fernando Valley joined their fellows on the Westside in support of Villaraigosa. Yes, there are liberal Jews in the Valley; a fact that, among other things, should be a warning to those aching for a separate Valley city.

Soboroff and Wachs split the Valley’s rebellious conservative voter. There are plenty of them, but not for two candidates. Soboroff and Wachs jointly pulled 32 percent, compared with Villaraigosa’s 30 percent, guaranteeing that the notorious enmity between the two will continue. Together, Wachs and Soboroff destroyed the Riordan coalition that in 1993 brought many Jews into the Republican column for the first time. We’ll be watching to see a) how Hahn moves to the right; b) how the son of beloved county Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, with his traditional black base in the central city, appeals to Valley voters; and c) how the predicted endorsement of Hahn by Villaraigosa’s former buddy, Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, influences the mix.

As I made the rounds of election headquarters late Tuesday, it was clear what strange bedfellows our urban politics have created.

I was at Soboroff’s Radisson hotel headquarters in Sherman Oaks at 10:30 p.m., in time to see the fortunes of Richard Riordan’s chosen successor go south, leaving some of his supporters muttering that the results must have come in from "East L.A."

Then at 11:15 p.m., before joining the huge Antonio lovefest at Union Station, I was over at the Holiday Inn off Vineland, to find Wachs, his shirt still pressed and his hair unrumpled despite a depressing evening, embracing the last few stragglers of well-wishers.

"I should have stressed the arts connection more," Wachs conceded.

In fact, Wachs has reasons for regret. From any perspective, he and Villaraigosa ran the most interesting, and complex, campaigns, almost mirror images of each other in their attraction of opposite political bases.

As a friend of mine, Jonathan Zasloff, a UCLA law professor, has noted, in any other city Wachs would have been the "liberal" candidate, with the greatest appeal to Jews. His natural constituency includes gays, Hollywood, the rent-control crowd and the MOCA/LACMA/Bergamot axis interested in a vision of Los Angeles in which arts and lifestyle are more than music CDs from Starbucks. Yes, this is the Ed Koch guard, and it is larger than the paltry 11 percent who rallied this week behind the councilman. Yet Wachs, who reiterated that he intends to leave local politics after his L.A. City Council term ends in two years, projected himself too narrowly. He seems to suffer from a failure of will, never making his interests seem what they are, critical to humane life in our tense metropolis.

There are so many stories to be told in the historic cobbling together of Villaraigosa’s new coalition. One surprising wrinkle: the appeal of the Latino candidate to Russian Jewish voters.

"I found Antonio to be wonderful in person, genuine, honest — almost painfully so," attorney Boris Gorbis told me, recalling his first meeting with the man who might be Los Angeles’ first Latino mayor in nearly 130 years. Soboroff had targeted the Russians, assuming that this group’s long-standing affiliation with conservative candidates meant they’d go for him.

"When you grow up an outsider in the seaside Ukrainian city of Odessa, you know you’re not included," Gorbis told me. "Villaraigosa had a similar experience here in L.A."

"There are similarities in our stories that transcended the divides," Gorbis said.

How Jewish Voters Still Count Read More »

Nighttime Devotion

Leave a Comment / Books, Entertainment / Dennis Gura

“Entering the Temple of Dreams: Jewish Prayers, Movements and Meditations for the End of the Day” by Tamar Frankiel and Judy Greenfeld. (Jewish Lights Publishing, $16.95)

Jews have a long history of publishing various types of devotional literature. Historically, just as men and women lived in different religious circles, so too was devotional literature generally, but not exclusively, targeted to one gender.

During the past few years, an effort has been made to retrieve women’s devotional literature and present it to a contemporary Jewish world. Works like the late Norman Tarnor’s “A Book of Jewish Women’s Prayers” and Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin’s “Out of the Depths I Call to You: A Book of Prayers for the Married Jewish Woman” offer some of the most moving and powerful of the women’s prayer traditions, called techinot. Traditionalist Jewish publishers, such as Artscroll, have catalogues full of devotional novella, short stories, and tales recounting inspirational deeds and lives.

Frankiel and Greenfeld surely did not mean to write a women’s devotional, as such, but they seem to have caught the spirit of that form of literature.

Women’s devotional literature occupied a distinct and important area in Jewish life. In traditional society, women were more or less locked out of both the intellectual traditions of the beit midrash and the communal prayer traditions of the beit tefilah. But Jewish women even then were not passive, not content to let their intellectual and spiritual juices just quietly simmer away. Instead, through devotional literature, private prayer, home ritual and the like, they created for themselves an important and vibrant arena.

Hence women, and men writing for a women’s market, developed a devotional literature for the relatively uneducated. These women certainly knew Jewish ritual and prayer, but not in depth and not through the intensive study that the traditional Jewish world would have most boys aspire to. So a literature grew that finds an echo in Frankiel’s and Greenfeld’s book.

“Entering the Temple of Dreams” has a melange of purposes: part exegesis; part introductory mysticism; part meditation technique; part self-guide in the conduct of home liturgy, with a dash of New Age technique; Chassidic-style storytelling; and religious apologetics.

One senses two hands at work in this project, with perhaps different agendas. Frankiel, an academic, writer and active teacher in the Los Angeles Orthodox community, seems to provide the traditionalist approach. Greenfeld, apparently the model for the movement choreographed to the five-part bedtime prayers, is a cantorial soloist (and obviously not Orthodox). A point of unity seems to be a shared sense of mystical experience, a concern with dreams as a portal to mystical experience, and a common quest to find a woman’s religious voice as part of Jewish life. It is gratifying to see such collaborations across denominational lines.

In the first chapter, a conceptual framework is given, with a brief outline of how Jewish sources have viewed sleep, dreams and the like. Unfortunately, it is also the most confusing chapter, blending apologetics with citations from scientific sleep research. Sometimes the notes are more illuminating than the text. At other times, they make blanket statements without citing any source at all.

But this is not an academic or even a scholarly book. It is an attempt to reintroduce a powerful prayer ritual to an audience of spiritual seekers. As such, it draws from those components of Jewish religious life that seem to have the greatest resonance these days: mysticism and kabbalah.

For their endeavor to bring to a wider, generally uninformed Jewish population the great wonders and beauties of Jewish religious life and ritual, Frankiel and Greenfeld deserve accolades. Particularly strong are the chapter-by-chapter exegeses of the bedtime prayers: while perhaps drawing a bit too heavily from Zohar, their short, well-written and moving explanations of these five different prayers are a good introduction to the structure and sense of Jewish prayer from a Chassidic-kabbalistic perspective.

The Hebrew typesetting, translations and transliterations of the five prayers are very well done. As such, this would be an easy book to keep by the bedside precisely for what it teaches: not only how to say the bedtime “Sh’ma” but why it is not just for kids but for all of us, as we wander off into our nighttime lives of dreams, angels and wistfulness.

The book is not without its problems. The technique and psychological material reads like so many of the other free-ranging meditation, mystical, spiritualistic, New Age books that populate the self-help section of Barnes and Noble. This is a good book to read in bits and pieces, and somewhat selectively. Some of it works, but not all. Perhaps a dose of Jewish rationality, so speak, would have helped focus the book a bit better. Nevertheless, for what it does offer, Frankiel and Greenfeld give us a book that can be turned to repeatedly — in fact, nightly.

Nighttime Devotion Read More »

Defending Greenberg

Leave a Comment / Worldwide / Peter Ephross

Rabbi Irving “Yitz” Greenberg has built a reputation as a man of letters, but not of the kind that have swirled around him lately.

In the latest volley in an escalating war of words, a majority of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council is defending Greenberg, the embattled council chair, against a campaign to unseat him over his role in the Marc Rich pardon scandal.

Thirty-five members of the 50-plus-member council were preparing a letter this week backing Greenberg, who is under pressure to resign for lobbying on Rich’s behalf.

Even his backers admit that Greenberg made a mistake when he sent a letter on museum stationery in December asking President Clinton to pardon the financier. Yet this week’s letter went on to say, “We have complete confidence that the museum will continue to flourish under Rabbi Greenberg’s leadership.”

The pro-Greenberg letter came in response to another letter, signed by 18 current and former members of the council, that was made public last week.

That letter recognized Greenberg’s “long and distinguished career as an educator and as a leading proponent of Jewish thought.” But it called on him to resign for his role in the Rich pardon, saying he had unintentionally “entangled the museum in a political controversy inimical to its mission.”

The scandal is the latest involving the museum, which has drawn close to 16 million visitors and widespread praise since it opened in 1993, but has also made headlines for political squabbles and infighting.

Depending on whom you talk to, this latest crisis may or may not be partisan in nature. In any case, it also appears to be driven by other forces, including disagreements over the future direction of the Washington-based museum.

But Greenberg’s detractors say it is his actions alone in the Rich scandal that led to their campaign.

“There is no rationale to involve the museum in the pardon of Marc Rich, the pardon of a fugitive,” said Deborah Lipstadt, one of the signatories to last week’s anti-Greenberg letter.

“This museum was created to commemorate the vision of the Holocaust,” and the damage done by Greenberg’s lobbying for Rich “can’t be repaired” by an apology, said Lipstadt, a professor of modern Jewish and Holocaust studies at Emory University in Atlanta.

Lipstadt said Greenberg’s actions on behalf of Rich are exacerbated by the fact that Greenberg also directs Michael Steinhardt’s charitable foundation, which helped establish Birthright Israel. Rich contributed $5 million to Birthright, which sends North American Jews on free trips to Israel.

“No one is suggesting a quid pro quo, but appearances count,” Lipstadt said.

Judging from the latest letter, most of the council disagrees with Lipstadt’s faction.

Among the signers of the pro-Greenberg letter are several prominent members of the museum council, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel and two former members of the Clinton administration, Dennis Ross and Stuart Eizenstat. The council oversees the museum.

Greenberg “made a mistake on Marc Rich, but for 40 years, he has worked as a teacher and a Jewish leader” to commemorate the Holocaust, Wiesel said.

A longtime council member, Greenberg is an Orthodox rabbi best known in the Jewish community for his writings on the Holocaust and his leadership at two organizations that promote Jewish pluralism and learning: the Jewish Life Network and CLAL — The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership.

The pro-Greenberg faction criticizes the tactics of his critics.

Greenberg apologized at a January council meeting, and his apology was accepted by the council and the museum’s Executive Committee, his backers say. The matter was not raised at February and March council meetings, they add.

In addition, Greenberg was presented with the letter calling on him to resign on April 4, just one day before the letter’s contents appeared in the New York Jewish Week.

The way in which Greenberg’s critics conducted their campaign was “stealth terrorism,” said Menachem Rosensaft, a council member and Greenberg supporter.

For his part, Greenberg said last week that he would not quit over his role in the scandal surrounding Rich, who became a major philanthropist to Jewish and Israeli causes after fleeing to Switzerland in 1983 to escape prosecution.

“I have no intention of resigning,” Greenberg said, adding that he would pursue the museum’s goals “vigorously” until his term ends in January.

President Bush can then appoint another member of the council to be its chair, and many believe he will appoint someone with closer ties to the Republican Party than Greenberg, who was named to the post by Clinton last year.

In 1998, the museum came under fire for its on-again, off-again invitation to Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to visit the museum. Arafat eventually declined the invitation.

Soon thereafter, John Roth, an appointee to head the museum’s Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, was criticized for making comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany. Roth eventually resigned his post under pressure.

In addition, there have been political tensions on the council of the museum, which receives funds from the U.S. government, since the museum opened.

Observers say the council’s Republican-leaning members have been miffed since 1993, when Harvey Meyerhoff was removed as chairman in what Matt Brooks of the Republican Jewish Coalition called a “humiliating and offensive manner.”

“Clinton politicized the museum in a way that was not done under Bush and Reagan,” Brooks claimed.

Greenberg first came under fire earlier this year, after a public speech characterized as anti-Israel by an opinion writer in the Wall Street Journal.

Greenberg said the opinion piece not only was “an outrageous misrepresentation,” but portrayed the opposite of what he actually said.

Both Lipstadt and Ruth Mandel, the council’s vice chair and another signatory to the anti-Greenberg letter, deny that the present campaign is politically motivated.

Any partisan feuding has only been heightened by tension between Greenberg and the museum’s director, Sara Bloomfield.

Bloomfield was unavailable for comment.

In their letter, the pro-Greenberg faction wrote, “We also believe that it is in the best interests of the museum and council that the Rich matter be considered concluded. The unfortunate public letter of our colleagues can only serve to distract from our important work in Holocaust remembrance — an issue around which unity is uniquely important.”

If the past is any teacher, it seems unlikely that this unity will occur soon.

JTA correspondent Sharon Samber in Washington contributed to this report.

Defending Greenberg Read More »

Briefs

How the Grinch Stole Shabbat

Leave a Comment / Community / Rabbi Ed Feinstein

Oh, the Jews up in Jewville,
they loved their Shabbat,
from the oldest of old folks
to the youngest of tots.

With candles and wine
and chocolate chip challah,
they felt oh so good
till way past Havdalah.

They all went to shul
to hear Rabbi Schulweis,
who told them, “It’s important
to treat everyone nice.”

And after the service
they each took their tallis
and ran to tables
for cookies and challahs.

But there was one among them,
though he was born Yiddish,
who didn’t like candles or challah
or “Kiddush.”
In fact, Shabbat made him so angry
and bluish,
you’d hardly have guessed that he
was born Jewish.
Since his bar mitzvah,
he grew not an inch.
He was tiny and hairy,
and they called him the Grinch.

He lived on a mountaintop
far above town.
On each Shabbat evening
he’d say with a frown:
“What’s the big deal,
with their candles and brachas,
to me the whole thing is a pain
in the tuchis.

I don’t feel any different from Friday
till Sunday.
I don’t need your Shabbat —
give me any old Monday!
I’ll show them, I’ll show them:
I’ll steal their Shabbat!
I’ll take all the wine and
the candles they’ve got!”

So he set about building
a Shabbat-stealing machine.
It was nuclear powered,
it was noisy and mean.

He built the world’s first
Shabbat candle blower-outer
that blew out the candles
with ucky green powder.

Then one Friday night
while they welcomed Shabbat,
the Grinch saw his chance
to hatch his ugly plot.

While they all sat in shul,
so polished and clean,
the Grinch from his mountaintop
brought down his machine.

While the cantor sang prayers
and the rabbi told fables,
the Grinch came down chimneys
to attack Shabbat tables.

As the Jews in the shul
davened louder and louder,
the Grinch he revved up
his Shabbat candle blower-outer.

He snuffed all their candles,
he stole all their challahs,
he dumped out their “Kiddush” wine
all over their tallis.

There was no one to stop him,
they were all still in shul,
as he pour all their chicken soup
right in the pool.

He ate all their kugel.
he ate up their herring.
He ate all their desserts
without even sharing!

That Grinch he stole Shabbat
from all their mishpoches,
from such terrible things
some people get nachas.

He ruined their Shabbat,
he didn’t think twice.
He even stole Shabbat
from Rabbi Schulweis.

The Grinch stole the Shabbat
from Jewville’s fine Jews.
He went up all their streets
and down avenues
until he finally arrived
at the road by the crevice,
the very last street
where they drink Manischewitz.

At the end of the block
lived little Suzie le’Jew,
who couldn’t make it to shul;
she was home with the flu.

Of all Jewville’s Jews
little Suzie was smartest;
she studied the longest,
she studied the hardest.

She knew “Kiddush” and “Motzi”
and “Birkat” by heart
she knew “Sh’ma” and “Amida”
and the in-between parts
that only the cantor and Yossi could say
if only the rabbi would let people pray!

Now this little Suzie
slept snug in her bed,
while candles and challah
danced in her head.
When all of a sudden she heard such
a clatter,
and in through her window came
the Grinch on a ladder.

Now Suzie in darkness
she just couldn’t see.
“Who is this visitor?
who could it be?”
She thought maybe zeyde
had forgotten his key,
or perhaps cousin Herschel
had dropped in for tea.

So she jumped out of bed
gave a kiss and hug.
She whispered, “Good Shabbos”
into his hairy mug.

Now the Grinch didn’t know
what hit him that night,
everyone he would meet
ran away in great fright.

This was the first Shabbat kiss
he had got
since he was a kid back in
Rabbi Jay’s tot Shabbat.

At that very moment
his heart started to beat.
He felt warm and tingly
from his head to his feet.

Out of his eyes
came flowing the tears,
from all of the hugs
that he’d missed all these years.

“I’ve done something awful,”
the Grinch started to cry.
“I’ve done something awful,
and I don’t know why.”

“We believe in teshuva,”
Suzie wisely explained.
“We believe that your ways
can always be changed!”

“But what can I do
to earn love in your eyes?
What can I do
to apologize?”

“The Jews of our town are forgiving
and true
The Jews of our town will learn
to love you

But first you must show
your words come from the heart.
Clean up your mess,
that’s a good start!

Put back the candles
and put back the challahs,
put back the “Kiddush” wine,
put back the tallis!

But hurry up, Mr. Grinch,
it’s time to be nervous,
’cause here come the Jews
home from the service!”

The Grinch he moved fast
like a mighty tornado.
The Grinch he moved faster
than even Sigfredo.

He put back their candles.
He put back their challahs.
He put back the “Kiddush” wine.
He cleaned up the tallis.
He set all the tables with
gleaming white dishes.
He filled all their plates with brisket
and knishes.

So the Jews of old Jewville
came home singing songs,
and they never found out
there was anything wrong.

The Grinch did teshuva
and changed all his ways;
he learned to love Shabbat
all of his days.

All of his meanness
and anger and stink —
he got rid of all,
he needed no shrink.

Instead he had Suzie,
his wise little teacher,
who taught him that
inside the heart of each creature
is God’s special light
’cause in God’s image we’re made,
and so there’s no reason
to ever be afraid.

The Grinch loved the Torah
so much that one day
he signed up to be a rabbi
up at the UJ.

And so, my dear friends,
this Shabbat, let’s not miss;
turn around to someone,
give a hug and a kiss.

Suzie has taught us
that even a Grinch,
with enough hugs and kisses,
can turn into a mensch.

How the Grinch Stole Shabbat Read More »

Your Letters

Leave a Comment / Letters to the Editor / Jewish Journal

Sheldon Teitelbaum

I was sad for Xavier Becerra, and for the entire Jewish community, because of some of the obnoxious, arrogant and inaccurate things Sheldon Teitelbaum said during his interview with the mayoral candidate (“One on One With Xavier Becerra,” March 30). When Becerra talked of adding 300 teachers to LAUSD, Teitelbaum said sarcastically, “How many kids on the Westside attend public schools?” Well, I know that my son and many other Jewish kids attend an excellent LAUSD school on the Westside that has remarkable teachers and an amazing principal. When Becerra talked of hiring more police, Teitelbaum cracked, “Since when was law enforcement a problem for the Westside, give or take a freeway chase or two?”

Without intending to, Teitelbaum made us, as Jews, look like elitist and isolated folks, when in fact there are hundreds of thousands of Jews in Los Angeles who do care about public education, crime prevention, and mutual respect between classes and races. I happen to be voting for Antonio Villaraigosa, so my concern is not that Teitelbaum’s remarks are going to cost Becerra some votes. My concern is that Teitelbaum seems deeply out of touch with the realities of how Jews participate in our multiracial city and that he’s portraying a level of disrespect and indifference that most Jews do not share.

Leonard Felder, Ph.D., West Los Angeles

President Bush

The Passover offering from Progressive Jewish Alliance’s Douglas Mirell and Daniel Sokatch was a 15-point partisan attack on President George Bush and his “fanatic ideological conservatives” (“Where’s the Outrage?” April 6). We “fanatics” really objected to the one item in their diatribe which actually deals with Israel. Mirell and Sokatch castigate the president for the “abandonment of a meaningful role … in helping to resolve the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

The president, in office less than 90 days, has been very meaningfully involved in resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He welcomed Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with open arms. The president correctly blamed Yasser Arafat for the violence, told him to stop attacks on Israel and has refused to meet with him. Bush instructed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that he needed to play a constructive role in the region and expressed concern about anti-Jewish hate speech in official Egyptian newspapers. The president had the State Department rap Syrian President Bashir Assad for comparing Israeli voters to Nazis. Finally, Bush vetoed an anti-Israel United Nations resolution.

While members of our community may or may not have voted for Bush, we expect that in this time of crisis, all members of our community will unite behind Israel and those who support her. While the Progressive Jewish Alliance may have 14 other reasons to disagree with Bush, on Israel the president has exceeded all expectations.

Nathan D. Wirtschafter, Valley Village

Bennett Zimmerman, Santa Monica

Israeli Arabs

I applaud the articles by Gerald Bubis (“Jewish Ethics and Israeli Arabs,” March 30) and Gary Wexler (“Defining Arab Issues in Israel,” March 30). The New Israel Fund (NIF) has worked for over 20 years to promote equality, fairness and justice for all of Israel’s citizens, especially those populations that have traditionally been at a disadvantage — women, children, Arab citizens, Mizrahim, new immigrants and non-Orthodox Jews. Please note that the correct phone number of NIF’s Los Angeles office is (310) 282-0300.

David Moses, Regional Director, New Israel Fund, Los Angeles

I appreciate and cherish the history of Jewish ethics and values, yet I take exception to Gerald Bubis citing ethics during this latest Muslim war. I suggest Bubis concern himself with finding Muslims with an ethical approach to Jewish survival amongst our enemies.

Lou Averbach, Santa Monica

Referring to the 25 percent who did not agree with his premise of how to treat the Israeli Arabs, Gerald Bubis wrote: “A small minority, led by one vocal person, maintained that the only solution was to deport Israeli Arabs to one or more of the existing 22 Arab countries.” That one vocal person he was referring to is me.

The event Bubis was a participant in was University of Judaism’s Day of Learning on March 18. This event began with a dialogue among three rabbis of the Reform, Conservative and Orthodox movements, very ably moderated by Dr. Robert Wexler. The panelists were respectful of each other, although their views differed.

Bubis was not fair during the question-and-answer portion when he cut me off immediately after I said a few words and he realized where I was going with my position. At a time when it is so critical for Israel’s security, all options should be considered.

The issue of Israel’s relationship with the Arabs deserves a much more open discussion. I therefore challenge Bubis to a debate with his views and mine. I have confidence in an American Jewish audience to hear both sides and decide for themselves.

Bernard Nichols, Los Angeles

Buford O. Furrow Jr.

Justice has not been served (“Furrow Sentenced,” March 30). Buford Furrow is alive, Joseph Ileto is not.

Paul Davis, Van Nuys

Rabbi Ed Feinstein

A very grateful thank you to Rabbi Ed Feinstein for the profound yet disarmingly simple thoughts that he expressed in his Torah Portion (“Learning to Listen,” March 30). His words rang true in my innermost core. I smiled with recognition as I read the piece. I know of what he speaks. Though our circumstances are different, I know about being thrilled to be here, even though the going can get very rough. There is just too much to be amazed at. Yishar koach to you, Rabbi Feinstein.

Judy Weintraub, Los Angeles

Mike Tyson

Before Rabbi Harold Schulweis swoons to a dead faint over Mike Tyson’s act of kindness (“Recognizing Goodness,” March 23), we have to ask: Is this the same foul-mouthed Mike Tyson who went to prison convicted of raping a women in his hotel room and who chewed off the ear of his opponent in the boxing ring?

Howard Winter, Beverly Hills

Kosher Coke

The article about kosher-for-Passover Coca-Cola says that seven out of ten staffers in your informal test preferred the taste of Kosher Coke to that of regular Coke (“Return of the Real Thing,” March 30). The article implies that your result is meaningful (at least you say nothing to disabuse a reader of this conclusion).

Actually, if there were no difference and your comparisons are “blind,” the probability is 17.2 percent that seven or more people out of 10 will say they prefer kosher-for-Passover Coke. There is another 17.2 percent probability that seven or more will say they prefer the corn syrup version. So there is no statistically significant evidence in your test for any difference between the two kinds of Coke. For a test with only 10 trials to be statistically significant, the verdict would have to be nine to one or unanimous.

You don’t seem to be able to get beyond half-truths and falsehoods in your coverage of the Middle East in the issue, but it is probably beyond my power to write a letter that does much to correct that. However, kosher Coke is simpler than the Arab Israeli conflict, and the deficiency in your coverage of it is clear.

Howard Weisberg, Pacific Palisades

Correction

We regret that due to an oversight in production, thefollowing information was omitted from the April 6 American Jewish Congress ad:The address of American Jewish Congress is 2950 31st Street, Suite 368, SantaMonica, CA 90405. They can also be reached by telephone at (310) 450-8740 or viae-mail at gratner@iwon.com .

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Fit After 50

Charity Obstacle?

Leave a Comment / Culture / Sharon Samber

With tax cuts the talk of the town, Jewish philanthropic agencies are worried about another part of President Bush’s fiscal plan: the repeal of the estate tax.

Officials of many funds are concerned that charitable giving will suffer if the estate tax, which levies a high tax on the estates of recently deceased individuals, is repealed. Some are calling for reforming rather than ending the tax.

Marcia Hazan, trustee with Foster Family Foundation in San Diego, said she "absolutely" stands to gain if the tax is repealed, "but as my father always says, it’s a privilege to pay taxes. Particularly, I feel that way because I didn’t earn the money; he earned the money."

Hazan and other representatives of family foundations and philanthropies discussed the issue at a Jewish Funders Network meeting last week in Atlanta, where philanthropist Edith Everett called for reform of the estate tax. Everett suggested making adjustments for family farms and people with smaller estates but objected to a repeal.

Everett said that hundreds of people approached her and thanked her for speaking out. "There wasn’t a single person who said, even in a nice way, ‘I disagree,’" Everett said.

Everett and hundreds of other philanthropists, including William Gates, Sr., and George Soros, have signed a petition asking that the estate tax, which many believe serves as an incentive to leave one’s wealth to charity, be preserved. Responsible Wealth, a project that brings together people who are concerned about increasing economic inequality, are organizing the petition.

The Bush Administration argues that the estate tax, or so-called death tax, impedes economic growth because it levies another layer of taxes on people and creates a disincentive for seniors who want to save money for their children or grandchildren.

Only the wealthiest 2 percent of all estates pay any estate tax at all.

Some studies have estimated that repeal of the estate tax could reduce charitable gifts and bequests by close to $6 billion annually.

Jewish organizations have stayed quiet on the issue, worried about offending some of their biggest donors if they take an unpopular stance. United Jewish Communities, the North American Jewish community’s central fundraising and social services agency, has not taken a position.

Others close to the issue note that while no one gives to charities simply because of the estate tax, it does provide a powerful incentive. The warning, then, is that those contemplating charitable gifts will still give something if the tax is repealed but may give significantly less.

The Jewish Council for Public Affairs is looking into the issue, and while the Reform movement’s Union of American Hebrew Congregations has not come out officially against the proposed change, its Commission on Social Action has spoken out against it.

Another major concern is lost revenue to the government, which could mean cuts in services and programs if the estate tax is repealed. Some estimates show that eliminating the estate tax would cut $28 billion from the government’s coffers.

The repeal of the estate tax is drawing more attacks than the rest of the 10-year, $1.6-trillion Bush plan for cutting taxes.

An executive at one Jewish nonprofit said she views the estate tax as a codification of Jewish beliefs into law.

"Tax cuts that benefit the wealthy are unfair and are not the best reflection of Jewish values," she said.

Charity Obstacle? Read More »

Success and Shopping

Leave a Comment / Books, Culture / Laurel Ives

Best-selling author Judith Krantz lives on a quiet street in Bel Air — the exclusive area west of flashier Beverly Hills. Her home is a tasteful European- style palace hidden by a high wall — somewhat surprising for the author of 10 blockbusters. I am admitted through the imposing iron gates, and the writer opens the front door herself. "Hi, please call me Judy," says the tiny woman — 5 feet 2 1/2 inches, she claims — before me, whose talent for spinning a yarn about beautiful heroines, sex and money have produced sales of more than 80 million books in 52 languages.

She ushers me through the vaulted entrance hall into a feminine sitting room filled with antiques and soft floral furnishings.

Like her living room, Krantz presents a polished and opulent appearance. Her short hair is expertly dyed blond, her make-up immaculately applied. She is wearing a creamy Chanel jacket, white slacks and a crisp man’s shirt. Only extravagant gold earrings and a gold bangle hint to the flamboyant side of her personality. Krantz is 72, not that she looks it. Two facelifts have left her in a strangely ageless place, looking neither middle-aged nor old.

"When I turned 70 I felt suddenly wise. I thought: I’ve had an interesting life and it was time to get it down before I forgot it. A magazine also asked me to write 600 words on coming of age sexually in the 1940s. 600 words! I realized you could write three chapters just on how important it was to be a virgin and save yourself for your husband," said Krantz, who notably ignored this convention in her own life.

She decided to pen her memoir and called it "Sex and Shopping: The Confessions of a Nice Jewish Girl" (St. Martins, 2000). "I added ‘An Autobiography’ at the bottom just in case anyone thought it was another novel," she says.

Krantz didn’t start writing books until she was 50 and her two sons had left home. Before then she wrote for magazines for many years, contributing to Good Housekeeping and Cosmopolitan in its golden years under editor Helen Gurley Brown. A glimpse of her early talent surfaced when Brown asked her to compile some of the readers’ sexual fantasies. Krantz found the results tame, so she spruced up the story with a couple of fantasies of her own. "Helen called me up and said: ‘You know, we’re very old-fashioned. Three of these scenes are going to have to come out.’ I said: ‘Which three?’ And they were all my own."

Eventually she got bored with magazine journalism, and her husband, movie and TV producer Steve Krantz, encouraged her to write a book. It took her less than a year to write "Scruples," the story of gorgeous Billy Winthrop, who opens a successful boutique in Beverly Hills. After one rejection, it was bought and published in 1978, and soon after reached No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list, the first time in a decade that a novel by an unknown had done so. Krantz never looked back. A year later the miniseries with Lindsay Wagner appeared on American television. The auction of Krantz’s next novel, "Princess Daisy," set a world record at $3.2 million, and her next eight novels were best-sellers in the United States and Britain.

Literary acclaim has been harder to come by. Early on, a critic accused her of inventing the so-called sex-and-shopping genre, and the label has stuck. "For years I got angry every time I read that," Krantz said. "Didn’t they realize that my topic was actually successful working women? It was quite obvious to me that the reader always wants to know what the heroine is wearing. Finally, after some years, I embraced the term, as I realized it was helping to sell my books."

The explicit sex scenes got her into trouble, too. "When I first started writing, nobody had read anything by Jackie Collins in the States, so my books were the first really sexy novels to be popular," she said. "Interviewers had great fun on TV castigating me as if I was a pornographer. Worse was my mother’s reaction — she was incredibly embarrassed that her daughter could write this stuff, even though I was 50! My two boys and I have also never talked about my work. They are supportive, but there is one person who wrote those books and another person who is their mother."

From her autobiography it is clear that sex and shopping have played an important role in Krantz’s actual life, too. She was born in New York into a wealthy if unaffectionate family.

Her mother, Mickey Tarcher, dropped out of school at 14 to work in a candy factory to help support her family. After she married J. D. Tarcher, who became a successful advertising executive, she earned her college degree, a master’s in economics and a law degree. She spent her career at the Legal Aid Society and her time at home raising, and often criticizing, her daughters, Judy and Mimi, and her son, Jeremy. She also endured a lifetime of cheating from her husband; when he died in 1960, she sold the weekend home he loved and its contents within two days. She dressed her children cheaply, withholding material rewards as consistently as she withheld emotional ones.

"My mother admired my academic achievements," Krantz once told an interviewer. "There was the feeling that I would be the smart one and follow in her footsteps — not ahead of her, behind her. And we looked very much alike. Considering the hardships she went through, she was really as good a mother as she knew how to be. [My father] was a greater mystery than my mother. He was a totally dominant alpha-male in his business, then he came home and shut up. When you have parents who are both mysteries to you, you’re more likely to write fiction.

"The idea of unconditional love didn’t exist in our house — love was based on performance. Where did the idea come from that you get unconditional love from your parents? Where was I when that happened?"

Krantz was sent to expensive private schools but was unpopular and came to believe that this was because she didn’t have nice clothes. "My deep and early fixation on clothes, which grew stronger every year, has stood me in good stead during my life, as a fashion editor but even more so as a novelist," she writes.

When she returned to New York from a year in paris in 1949, at age 21, Krantz thought she "was a woman of the world. I was wearing a black suit made by a French dressmaker and I had experiences none of my friends had." Then sex before marriage was "almost unbelievable" and unmarried girls lived at home. But Krantz had her own key and for five years had numerous boyfriends. She received many marriage proposals because "that was how it was then" but had a "strong feeling you should sow your wild oats for as long as you can."

Krantz has always attracted men. "I wasn’t beautiful, but I was cute," she said, referring to her button nose and big eyes. "Cute is easy. Cute is what men are not afraid of. They think, she’ll laugh and giggle when I talk to her. Being small is also good. We get the small guys, the middle-sized ones and the tall ones!" she said.

In 1954, her promiscuous years abruptly ended when Barbara Walters introduced her to Steve. It was love at first sight. Six months later they were married. "We were strangers, but we’ve been happily married ever since," she said.

Krantz soon gave birth to her sons and concentrated on being a mother and shopping. Steve let her keep all the money she made from writing and paid her income tax. "Every penny of my earnings went on my back for 25 years," she says. "At one point I remember looking in my closet and seeing four outfits that had cost $4,000. That was more than our yearly rent."

Now, thanks to Steve’s successful career — he was responsible for children’s cartoons like "The Incredible Hulk" and "Marvel Superheroes" — and Krantz’s as a novelist, the couple live the lifestyle of a character from one of her novels. Krantz says her personal wealth has taken some of the thrill away from shopping: "It’s more exciting when you can’t afford it." However, Chanel is still her favorite designer. "After each trunk show I go to the Chanel Boutique here in Beverly Hills, where I have a wonderful sales person. She shows me all the photographs, and I order my outfits for the next season. For the evening I tend to buy Oscar de la Renta."

She is also passionate about bags. "I go the whole way. Gucci isn’t nearly expensive enough, so I buy Hermes. I just ordered a new one in blue. I agonized for a while because they cost around $5,000, but then I thought, I am not Shirley MacLaine, I won’t live again."

Krantz employs a live-in housekeeper, a cook, and a full-time assistant. She also does Pilates with a personal trainer three times a week. When she first moved to Los Angeles, her Pilates classmates were Candice Bergen and Ali MacGraw.

Her husband is now retired and occupies himself with golf and painting. Son Nick is a stockbroker, son Tony is the chief executive of Imagine Television, and the Krantzes, married 47 years, have two grandchildren.

Last November, Hadassah Southern California saluted Krantz at its third annual Women of Distinction gala at Beverly Hilton Hotel’s International Ballroom. Krantz spoke about a magazine assignment she had back in the 1950s to capture “Golda Meir as a housewife,” an encounter that wound up serving as inspiration for the budding writer.

“She was particularly proud of her stuffed carp,” reported Krantz on the late prime minister of Israel.

Is Krantz going to retire? "No way," she said. "I am a workaholic. When I am writing I am as happy as a lark. Currently I am looking for an idea for my next novel." It is still incredibly important to Krantz to get on the New York Times best-seller list, and she is competitive with rivals like John Grisham, Tom Clancy and Danielle Steel. "Grisham’s books are horrible. None of those boys’ books interest me remotely," she says. Steel? "I’ve only read one of her books," she said dismissively.

Krantz has been talking for two-and-a-half hours now, and I suspect she prefers doing that to answering questions. But I am keen for a tour of her house. Hardcovers of the collected Krantz are lined up on her desk. "There are almost two feet of books here," she says. Miles away at the other end of the room is a circular table cluttered with framed best-seller lists. In the downstairs powder room hangs a painting by Chagall.

Krantz shows me the beautifully tended garden complete with swimming pool and olive grove. This is all very lovely, but I am itching to see her wardrobe. Nervously, I ask, and for the first time that day there is a frosty silence. But she agrees. "You’ll be the first journalist to see it; just don’t make me out to be horrible," she says.

Her bedroom is so large that the king-size bed looks tiny. Outside, a terrace looks out across the trees and neighboring golf course. "Cindy Crawford and Richard Gere bought a house on the other side of that course but broke up before they could move in," she says. Her wardrobe does not disappoint. It is a lengthy walk in an L-shaped closet stuffed with Chanel dating back to 1964. All the jackets, blouses, trousers, skirts and evening wear are neatly divided into separate sections. She pulls out a favorite lime green jacket. "This is just perfect. I’ve been photographed in it many times over the years," she says. She shows me her collection of bags and cashmere sweaters. One side is devoted to lingerie and nightwear, but Krantz doesn’t linger there. "I saw this house four times, and all I could remember was this closet," Krantz said.

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Family Dinners

Leave a Comment / Culture, Family / Jane Ulman

"Give me the ‘A,’" my husband, Larry, says.

"There’s no ‘A,’" answers Danny, 10.

"Then give me the ‘R,’" Larry responds.

"No ‘R,’" says Danny, as he gleefully draws a circle for the body.

I’m sitting at Maria’s Italian Kitchen on a Sunday evening, eating and watching my husband and my four sons, ages 10, 12, 14 and 17, play multiple games of Hangman. Or, as my husband prefers to call it, "Stump the Dad."

This is a family dinner. This is what health-care professionals swear will protect my sons from a life of drug, alcohol and tobacco addiction.

This is what I swear will have me begging for an extended stay at UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute.

"So," I interrupt, looking to start a conversation, "What do you think about carbon dioxide emissions?"

"Mom…" they moan in unison, rolling their eyes.

"What about salmonella in ground beef?" I ask, vowing to bring along some reading material next time.

But it could be worse. For one thing, I didn’t have to cook this dinner. For another, they’re not calling each other names ("Dirty Diaper" is this week’s epithet of choice) or making rude bodily noises (which usually involves some kind of competition).

According to Robert Putnam, author of "Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community," family dinners occur 33 percent less frequently today than in 1970.

And for many good reasons.

First, let’s talk about the logistics. Let’s talk about the fact that my husband, who, thankfully, is not Jim Anderson or Ward Cleaver, generally returns home after 8 p.m.

Let’s talk about the fact that I generally spend my late afternoons and early evenings picking up carpool, schlepping some child to karate or piano or the orthodontist as well as watching — or feeling guilty about missing — a soccer or baseball game. And that’s before someone invariably pipes up with "Oh, I forgot to tell you that I need 24 kosher cupcakes (or car repair mesh wire and five 3-foot strips of balsa wood or one dozen large, live crickets) for school tomorrow."

Plus, let’s talk about the fact that, for me, cooking — from the preliminary trip to Ralphs to the postprandial cleanup — is about as enjoyable as pulling up weeds, having my gums scraped or standing in line to ride Pirates of the Caribbean.

There’s also the fact that there is not a single dinner menu that appeals to the two vegetarians, the one pescetarian and the three omnivores (one of whom eats only "white" foods) that comprise my family.

Growing up, of course, we were forced to eat whatever was served. Occasionally — and my mother will confirm this — this meant tongue with raisin sauce or pheasant with fresh buckshot or, the worst, wax beans, which even the dog, who sat vigilantly under the table, refused to touch.

In Judaism, the family is sacrosanct; it is the primal, civilizing building block of society. And our tradition mandates that the family, this cohesive and essential unit, engage in certain culinary celebrations — from the weekly Shabbat dinner to the annual seder, from the bar mitzvah banquet to the wedding feast — with certain requisite and ritualistic foods. But nowhere is there a commandment, not in any of the 613 mitzvot, requiring us to sit down together regularly for an evening meal.

No, the concept of family dinners is a modern myth, a psychological and sentimental hoax perpetrated on us already overextended and overburdened mothers by people who have forgotten the taste of tongue with raisin sauce. By people who don’t watch Woody Allen movies. And by people who also think that quality time and home schooling are viable — and valuable — ideas.

So just say no to family dinners that require more than 10 minutes to prepare or pick up and that require the skills of air traffic controllers to coordinate.

And forget that National Merit Scholars, those academically talented high-schoolers who excel on the PSAT test, share the one characteristic of eating dinner with their families at least three times a week.

Instead, remember that what’s truly important is to give our kids a sense of stability and solidarity. To make them feel loved and protected. To nourish them emotionally and physically.

This doesn’t happen at prescribed times with preplanned, multidish meals featuring the four food groups.

No, this happens serendipitously and unexpectedly.

It can happen over a dinner of Team Cheerios, at a table with mismatched bowls and disposal-chewed spoons. It can happen during a spur-of-the-moment midnight run to Krispy Kreme. It can even happen on a Sunday evening at Maria’s Italian Kitchen over pizza, chopped salad and uninterrupted games of Hangman.

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