fbpx

GET HOME DELIVERY! CLICK HERE »

ADVERTISE
pick up locations
HOME DELIVERY
donate

Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

June 28, 2001

An Educator Speaks

Leave a Comment / Education, Parenting /

Eileen Horowitz, an elementary school teacher for two decades, taught general studies at Adat Ari El Day School for six years. She became principal of Temple Israel of Hollywood Day School in 1995. This February, Horowitz was one of 11 graduates of the Bureau of Jewish Education’s intensive three-year Machon L’Morim program, which gives day school educators advanced instruction in Judaica. She and her husband have two grown children as well as a new grandson.

Beverly Gray: Tell me about your background.

Eileen Horowitz: I grew up as a Conservative Jew in New York in the 1950s, and was not offered the opportunity to pursue any religious training.

BG: Because you were a girl?

EH: I don’t know if it was because I was female, or because there wasn’t a mom at home to encourage it. I belonged to the youth group, went for High Holy Days and kept a kosher home with my dad, but I didn’t get the formal education.

BG: How did you make up for that?

EH: As I got older and had children, we moved to California and became members of Adat Ari El. At my daughter’s bat mitzvah rehearsal, I said, “I could do that.” They offered a class for adults, so right after my daughter’s bat mitzvah I signed up for my own. What was very significant for me was that my mom died when I was nine. She was 42 when she died. So when I was 43, I had my bat mitzvah, and that radically changed my life.

BG: Your day school students must have regarded you as a role model.

EH: Yes, they did. And the wheels began to turn in me. I began to pursue other avenues, which led me to the [principal’s] job at Temple Israel of Hollywood. It’s a very spiritual environment, very creative, very eclectic, and it felt like I was going home.

BG: Why did you keep on studying Judaica?

EH: I went on a trip to Israel for day school teachers who had never been [there]. That piqued my interest in knowing more. And my son became a ba’al teshuvah and entered a yeshiva. This was a departure from our everyday life, and I had questions. So I began to do some more exploration.

BG: And you signed up for Machon L’Morim.

EH: We had some of the finest educators in the city. And we just bonded as a group. One member developed a brain tumor and passed away. One member became pregnant, and another member’s husband had a stroke. We had grandchildren born and children married, so we went through the life-cycle events together.

BG: How was your coursework?

EH: The Torah study we did in class is very different from reading Bible stories for children. It really made me question my own belief system. I guess I had clarity where a lot of my classmates didn’t. Sometimes they got tired of me saying this, but my faith in God became stronger because I understand very clearly that God is directing me, and has led me on this incredible journey.

BG: Has what you’ve learned helped in running a day school?

EH: I believe that teaching about God in a school setting is a very powerful thing. So I use that in my discipline. When children are sent to me, I will say to them, “What would God think of you for using those words today?” Or “Are you acting in God’s image today?” I take them into the chapel when I have that conversation with them, so that they are aware of a greater presence than themselves. In today’s culture, when we know how out of control kids can be, it’s very grounding.

An Educator Speaks Read More »

World Briefs

Leave a Comment / United States, Worldwide /

Israel Buries Bomb Victims

Israeli soldiers cry during the burial of Sgt. Ophir Kit, 19, at the Mount Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem on Sunday. Kit and Sgt. Aviv Izak, 19, were killed last Friday when they responded to a call to help a jeep with Israeli license plates that supposedly was stuck but turned out to be a Palestinian suicide bomber who detonated his explosives as they approached the vehicle.

Israel Tightens Hebron Blockade

Israel tightened its blockade of the West Bank city of Hebron on Tuesday after a fierce gun battle pitted Palestinian gunmen against Israeli settlers and troops. The battle erupted Monday after Palestinian snipers opened fire on a settler enclave in Hebron, wounding five Israelis, one of them a 7-year-old boy. Twelve Palestinians were wounded in the ensuing battle. The head of Palestinian security in the West Bank, Jibril Rajoub, later called the sniper attack a “mistake.”

ADL: Editorials Are Pro-Israel

An overwhelming number of the largest daily newspapers in the United States support Israel and criticize the Palestinian Authority on their editorial pages, according to a survey carried out by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

As a follow-up to a December 2000 survey, the ADL based its latest findings on more than 50 editorials from major U.S. newspapers between May 22 and June 18.

Slave Labor Lawyers Pressed

The leader of Germany’s Jewish community called on lawyers to forgo part of their payment for handling Nazi-era slave labor cases.

Paul Spiegel urged the lawyers on Sunday to give up some of the estimated $51 million due them, as a gesture of respect for the former slave laborers.

“Earning money should not come before moralistic intentions,” Spiegel said.

In another development, the Jerusalem Post reported that Israeli officials are criticizing Spiegel for saying that some 30,000 people who entered Germany as Jews in the past several years were not Jews according to Jewish religious law.

“It’s strange that the leader of German Jewry is advising the German government on who is a Jew,” said Israel’s deputy absorption minister, Yuli Edelstein, himself an immigrant from the Soviet Union.

Maccabiah Move Hurts Hotels

A decision by the organizers of the Maccabiah Games to house the athletes along the coast and not in Jerusalem will result in a loss of $1 million for Jerusalem hotels, the chairman of the Jerusalem Hotel Union said Tuesday. A Maccabiah spokesperson said that due to the smaller than expected number of participants in the Games, organizers had decided to let the athletes choose for themselves where they wanted to stay, and the athletes had chosen to be close to the sports facilities in Haifa and Caesarea.

Swiss March for Slain Rabbi

About 500 people marched in Zurich to call on Swiss officials to find those responsible for the June 7 shooting death of a 71-year-old rabbi visiting from Israel. During the June 20 march, a rabbi said “Kaddish” at the spot where Rabbi Abraham Greenbaum was killed.

Briefs courtesy of Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

World Briefs Read More »

Pope Pays Homage at Babi Yar

Leave a Comment / Judaism, Worldwide /

In his first visit to a Jewish site since a controversial May appearance in Syria, Pope John Paul II paid tribute this week to thousands of Ukrainian Jews killed by the Nazis in one of the bloodiest slaughters of the Holocaust.

The 81-year-old pope bowed his head and prayed in silence for five minutes Monday beside the ravine at Babi Yar, where the Nazis gunned down nearly 34,000 Jews during three days in September 1941.

As many as 150,000 Jews and 50,000 others were killed there over the course of two years.

Jews had looked to the Babi Yar visit with particular anticipation, as it was the pope’s first major participation in such a ceremony since his trip to Syria.

During that visit, the pope stood silently by as Syrian President Bashar Assad said Jews had betrayed Jesus and had tried to betray and kill the Prophet Mohammed.

Throughout his papacy, John Paul II has frequently paid homage to Holocaust victims and condemned anti-Semitism.

Recently, as part of a policy of self-examination that marked the Christian millennium, he asked forgiveness for Catholics who were anti-Semitic or who failed to help persecuted Jews.

But Jewish groups felt the pope — who has tried to atone for centuries of Christian persecution of Jews based on the church’s views — made a major error by failing to confront the Syrian dictator.

The chief rabbi of Ukraine, Yaakov Bleich, accompanied the pope to Babi Yar. He reportedly urged the pope to open Vatican archives so that children who were born Jewish but were saved and raised by Catholics during World War II could learn about their origins.

During the ceremony, Bleich handed the pope a statement saying, "Babi Yar is a name that still inspires awe and disgust as one of the prime symbols of evil and cruelty."

Bleich said, "It is here that Hitler and his henchmen successfully created a Kiev that was ‘Judenrein,’" the German term for "cleansed of Jews."

During the Soviet era, Communist officials further obliterated Jewish memory by erecting a monument that failed to mention that most of the victims at Babi Yar were Jews.

Only in 1991 could Jews erect a second monument to the Jewish victims.

The pope went to Babi Yar on the third day of a five-day visit to Ukraine. One of the themes of his trip was to encourage reconciliation and harmony among religions.

On Sunday, he met with leaders of various Ukrainian religious denominations and told them that the Babi Yar massacre was "one of the most atrocious of the many crimes" of the 20th century.

He said the Jewish people "suffered injustices and persecutions for having remained faithful to the religion of their ancestors."

Bleich told reporters he was very happy that the pope had paid homage at Babi Yar, and he praised the pope’s role in improving Catholic-Jewish relations.

"Thanks to the efforts of John Paul II, we can hope that there will never be more Babi Yars," he said.

Pope Pays Homage at Babi Yar Read More »

Remembering Babi Yar

Leave a Comment / Judaism, Worldwide /

A great sadness came upon me after hearing of Pope John Paul II’s recent visit to Kiev, Ukraine. The pope’s trip to was an attempt to bring harmony between Ukrainian Greek Catholics and the Russian Orthodox Church. There, he visited and prayed at the Babi Yar Memorial. He offered a prayer for the Holocaust victims and was joined by Ukrainian Chief Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich. The pope prayed in silence, recited his prayers in Latin and told Bleich, "G-d bless you."

My sadness was not with the pope’s noble gesture, but with the memories of the horrific name of Babi Yar.

I was a young teenager when I first heard of Babi Yar. In September 1941, Jews were told to gather in Kiev to be relocated to a safe haven. They were told to bring their valuables and clothing. When the unsuspecting Jews arrived in the capital they were immediately lined up near a ravine in Babi Yar and mercilessly machine-gunned to death.

For three days, thousands of Jews were led by the Nazi occupiers to the ravine and brutally murdered. Some were still alive while other were dying and begging for mercy. The heaving of the bodies was seen for days. The cries of the wounded and the dying were unbearable. The Nazis didn’t even bother to cover up the dead.

Over the years, new groups of poor Jewish families were subsequently brought to the ravine, killed by machine guns and thrown in the human pile of decomposing bodies. The stench of the dead was in the air for years. Every Jew in the Ukraine knew of Babi Yar and consider it the most holy resting place for their brothers and sisters. Many still go there to say prayers for their martyred families.

After the war, the Soviet Union covered the ravine with a park, as if to obliterate the horrific crime done to the Jews. Since millions of Soviets were killed, no special recognition was to be given to dead Jews. In the early 1960s, construction of houses and parks was extended over the ravine, completely ignoring the pleas of the Jewish population for a respectful monument for their dead to be erected.

Sasha Gurevitch, a woman who lived in Kiev during the systematic slaughter of the Jewish population, said, "every time the Soviets build something over the Babi Yar graves a catastrophe would happen; the buildings would collapse or the earth would open, causing the bodies of the dead to be revealed." The ravine flooded, and bodies would appear.

In the late 1960s, the Soviet Union finally recognized the "official Jewish suffering," and a monument was placed in the park. However, it paid tribute only to the massacred citizens of Kiev, not mentioning the Jewish massacre. In 1991, Jews built a menorah on the site, symbolizing that the martyred massacred victims were Jews. It was at this Russian monument, and not at the nearby menorah, where the pope prayed.

Gurevitch once told me that as she grew older she would visit the park with her family. A garden had been planted there, bursting with beautiful flowers. Young and old would meet; here was a place for all visitors. She once asked her parents, "Why don’t the roses smell?" She was told, "Because they were planted in the Babi Yar hell and watered with Jewish blood." Since then, I can’t bring myself to "smell the roses" without remembering Gurevitch’s words.

I truly appreciate the pope’s role in recognizing the need to apologize for anti-Semitism and the church’s passive action during the Holocaust. His taking the time to visit Babi Yar while trying to make peace between Ukrainian Greek Catholics and the Russian Orthodox Church is great. It shows the enormous need for condemnation of all types of religious intolerance, especially to the Jews living in the Ukraine.

In spite of all things, my sadness may change to gladness. In a strange way, I believe that the pope’s visit will enable me to once again enjoy the smell of bright red roses.

Remembering Babi Yar Read More »

Overweight and Counting … Down

Leave a Comment / Family, Health, Kids & Teens, Parenting /

Reena Dulfon, 14, trudges home every day after school, and no matter how much she begs, her mother won’t pick her up in the car. Robin Dulfon is not being a mean mom, but is helping Reena accomplish her goal. And though Reena sees this 30 minutes of daily exercise as a chore — after all, it’s all uphill — she’s secretly proud of walking the distance.

Mother and daughter have twice participated in Dr. Lydie Hazan’s eight-week PowerPlay Program for overweight and obese children and teenagers.

When Reena first entered the program a few years ago, she was a shy and baggy-outfitted 12-year-old, weighing 170 pounds, unsure if this would be just another boring visit to the doctor. But her single mom, a registered nurse, is acutely aware of the health issues involving overweight children.

“She made me do it,” Reena said, “but it was fun.” They learned about nutrition, how to read labels and count calories, and did aerobics, hip-hop and other exercises.

“It worked! The first week I lost a couple pounds, and then lost one pound a week,” said Reena, who is now a svelte 146 pounds and still counting … down.

Obesity in children is no small matter, but a health crisis of epic proportions. According to a July 2000 Newsweek article, one out of three children in this country are seriously overweight.

That statistic seems hard to believe, until you look around. Go to any mall or playground and see the results of a fast-food, fried-food diet. Children as young as 3 are being referred to Hazan, and that’s not exactly what she had in mind when she started her clinic.

“I thought I would make a difference to the older children, but I have 6-year-olds crying in my office because they are so ashamed [of] getting teased at school. I have a 7-year-old in the program that weighs 242 pounds.”

Five years ago, as an energetic Los Angeles emergency-room pediatrician, Hazan began to notice the correlation between severe asthma attacks and obesity.

“To give you an idea of the enormity of the epidemic, kids would come into the E.R. and have to be intubated [have a tube inserted to help breathing] twice a year. One night a girl almost died because we couldn’t tube her, she was too big,” Hazan said. “After that, I swore I would make sure she lost weight.”

Hazan found, however, that there were no resources for overweight and obese children in Los Angeles. And it wasn’t only Los Angeles; the entire country was lacking.

Eventually, Hazan hooked up with the Center for Disease Control’s Dr. Bill Dietz, a pediatrician specializing in overweight and obese children.

“By talking with Dietz, I soon found out there were no immediate solutions available, so I started thinking about long-term [solutions]. I developed PowerPlay based on that,” Hazan explained.

PowerPlay is a comprehensive eight-week weight-loss program that combines medical, psychological, nutritional and physical treatment, and that seeks a balance between what goes in and what goes out. A child cannot double his exercise routine for a day and expect to pig out the next, although, Hazan confesses, there are some compromises. But consistency is key, for both children and parents.

“Lead by example” is Hazan’s mantra for what she believes makes the program work. “When a child enters the program, the whole family begins to lose weight,” she said.

As a first step, Hazan gives each child two medical screenings, during which health problems, such as type-two diabetes, are often detected.

“It used to be that type-two diabetes was considered an adult-onset disease, but no more,” Hazan said.

After the medical screenings, the program provides nutritional consultation with a licensed dietitian, daily fitness classes, group and/or individual therapy, art and music therapy and continual progress assessments of both child and parent. Hazan estimates a weight loss of 10 to 30 pounds can be accomplished during the eight-week session.

“When talking to the parents, I try to demystify the whole stigmata — that weight is health — and that’s it.”

Still, Hazan fights against cultural and societal pressures. She finds the stigma attached to being overweight crosses all cultural boundaries, a little less for African Americans, a lot more for Latinos, and a whole mixed bag for Jews.

Being overweight or obese is a “huge epidemic among Orthodox Jews,” Hazan admitted. “And especially among Orthodox girls,” for whom Hazan has developed a special program.

“First of all, there are no healthy places to eat. All of the kosher restaurants serve fried foods on white or rye breads, with huge portions. Secondly, there is Sabbath, a celebration where instead of a three-course meal, there are four-course meals that start on Friday and continue until noon the next day. Challah is loaded with calories,” Hazan said.

Nevertheless, Hazan has developed a few tricks. “I’ll talk to the kids and work out a compromise for Sabbath. ‘OK, you can have half a portion of kugel, if you take a walk afterwards.'”

“I know why doctors avoid this [issue],” Hazan sighed. “It’s a very frustrating field. Kids stop losing weight, stop being motivated, and you have to be the cheerleader, the evil endorser of the program. Parents love me for that, because their child must be accountable to me.”

Robin Dulfon couldn’t agree more, appreciating that her daughter “knew I wouldn’t be nagging her anymore.” She added, “I’m such a believer in this program, I want Reena to do it again!”

Reena isn’t so sure about that, but both agree that PowerPlay is effective. Her weight loss “makes me happy,” Reena said, “and makes me look better. My friends at school really didn’t say much about it, but my family members said, ‘Wow! You look good.’

”

Overweight and Counting … Down Read More »

Drastic Rule Change

Leave a Comment / Education, Parenting /

When Talia Hill started kindergarten, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) didn’t know how to handle her. Hill had been diagnosed with mild cerebral palsy, moderate hearing loss and seizures. This combination made her unsuited for any of the district’s self-contained special-education services: a program for the hearing-impaired, for instance, would not accept a child who used a walker.

Ultimately, Hill found a home at Yeshivath Ohr Eliyahu, a school that prides itself on welcoming children with disabilities. For six years, Hill’s education at Ohr Eliyahu was bolstered by services provided through the LAUSD, including a one-on-one aide during the secular portion of her schoolday, and a special computer and scanner adapted to her needs. She also received hearing, speech and occupational therapies on a public school campus several times weekly.

Now all this has come to an end. The services Hill enjoyed were mandated through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), federal legislation adopted in 1975 that transformed the concept of educational entitlement for children with special needs. But when IDEA was reauthorized by Congress in 1997, several key provisions changed.

This change has been devastating for the families of Jewish children with special needs.

Local school districts were no longer required to serve special-needs children who were not enrolled full-time in the public system. Early this year, private school students living within the LAUSD service area were stripped of their individualized entitlements. Instead, the district has offered a modest consolation: its experts will consult with faculty at the child’s day school for a total of 10 hours per school year.

It is often estimated that 10 percent of all American schoolchildren need special-education help. Hill’s case is more complicated than most, but hundreds of local Jewish day schoolchildren have spent a few hours each week at public schools for expert help with their learning disabilities and physical problems.

Beth Jawary, educational director of the Etta Israel Center, which serves children with developmental and learning disabilities, feels the LAUSD has been particularly harsh in its implementation of the new federal guidelines. As she puts it, “I haven’t heard of any other district coming in and taking equipment from a child,” as happened to Talia Hill. Like other affected families, the Hills are now scrambling to pay for services that once were free, services that can cost upwards of $100 an hour. The alternative is for Talia to leave the friendly day school that reinforces her family’s religious values and face the uncertainties of a large, impersonal public school.

LAUSD representatives said that it is acting within well within the Federal guidelines.

“The district is not taking away services to students,” said Donnalyn Jacque-Anton, assistant superintendent and director of special education. “They’re being offered a Free and Appropriate Public Education. That’s what the law requires, and it’s being offered to students in the public school setting.”

The current policy covers students between the ages of five and 21, she said. No change has been made in the services offered to preschoolers with special needs, she added.

The LAUSD also maintains an on-staff administrator whose job it is to handle special-education issues as they relate to children at private and charter schools.

Confronted with this crisis, the Bureau of Jewish Education of Greater Los Angeles (BJE) has sought to lighten the burden on families with special needs. For the first time in recent memory, the BJE has authorized a petition drive, through which parents can call upon the federal government to reconsider its 1997 policy changes. The BJE has also joined with Jewish Big Brothers to apply for a grant that would fund the training of volunteers to tutor day school children with learning difficulties.

Ron Reynolds, BJE director of school services, is one of several experts who meet regularly to discuss ways of helping Jewish youngsters with disabilities. There has been serious talk of starting a self-contained special-education classroom in some centralized location, but the logistical and financial obstacles have so far proved daunting.

“We in the Jewish community who struggle to provide access to Jewish education for everyone who wants it are overwhelmed when we contemplate what would be required to provide for those with special needs,” Reynolds told The Journal.

Dr. Irving Lebovics, director of legislation and civic action for Agudath Israel of California, favors applying pressure in the political arena. He’s actively lobbying the state Legislature, making the case that it often costs a district far more to give a special-needs child a full-time public-school education (which can run in the $40,000 range annually) than to allow that child to come into the public school only for specialized services that may add up to less than $10,000. Lebovics says, “I would hope that we could get some kind of interim fix in Sacramento, on the basis that we’re saving the state money.”

Rabbi Shlomo Harrosh has long championed classroom inclusion of special-needs children. His Perutz Etz Jacob Hebrew Academy, which has only 130 students, can’t possibly afford the resource room that some larger day schools offer to those needing specialized attention. As part of the Yeshiva Principals’ Council, Harrosh has worked to establish an after-school Talmud Torah for children who must attend secular school in order to receive special-education services. But no funding has materialized.

Harrosh insists, “These kids should be our first priority, because that’s what Judaism is all about: helping the needy and the poor. The problem is money — and this city has a lot of money.”

Drastic Rule Change Read More »

The Tyranny of Carpooling

Leave a Comment / Education, Holidays, Parenting /

Sigmund Freud says we owe our children travel, education and nice clothes.

Judaism says we owe them a religious and ethical upbringing.

But who says we owe them carpooling?

Who says that after years of catering to them and carting them around, we aren’t entitled, as Howard Beale, the newscaster in the film “Network,” urges, to roll down our car windows, lean out and scream, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”

Nope, I’m not going to take being chained to an SUV and a restrictive time schedule. I’m not going to take listening to the incessant bickering over who sits in front, who picks the radio station and whose backpack is blocking whose way. And I’m not going to take using my car as an office, complete with telephone, coffee cup holder and Post-it Notes.

Worse, I’m not going to take the fact that during 12 years of carpooling, to and from school alone, I’ve driven — trust me, I’ve checked the math — the equivalent of seven round trips to New York City. But instead of Mount Rushmore, the Mississippi River and the Statue of Liberty, I pass the Sherman Oaks Galleria, the Anheuser-Busch Brewery and six gas stations.

But gripe as I might, I still have to take a couple of more years.

And that’s why 20 moms and one dad from Abraham Joshua Heschel Day School are sitting in my living room and inserting push pins, each representing a respective address, into a 2-by-3 foamboard-backed Thomas Brothers map of the San Fernando Valley.

We are attempting to figure out how to transport our collective 30 children, entering grades kindergarten through eight in September, from the 91436 zip code in Encino to the corner of White Oak and Devonshire in Northridge. We are trying to do this in the most efficient, cooperative and least obviously selfish way possible.

I watch the four moms with incoming kindergartners, who are new to the school. Nervous and naïve, they don’t know what it’s like to find chewing gum stuck to their leather interior. They don’t know what it’s like to wait impatiently for a chronically late kid or to have their own youngster learn new and creative words for body parts and bodily functions. And they don’t know what it’s like to have another mom forget to pick up carpool one afternoon.

“Tell me that the driving isn’t that bad,” one of the new moms says to me.

“It is that bad,” I answer. “But it’s worth it.”

But I wonder, in hindsight, if I would commit to driving my four sons to a school 12.5 miles from my house for a total of 14 years. I wonder if this is really the cruel and unnatural price we have to pay for living in this sprawling city with the country’s worst traffic congestion.

“What do you do?” people often ask me.

“I drive carpool,” I answer in my more whimsical, or wacky, moods. “I have excellent references.”

Yes, carpooling has become my identity and, it appears, my destiny. As a result, I’ve become comfortable with the fact that I’m never going to win the “coolest mom in the carpool” contest. Indeed, with no compunction but with some embarrassment to my sons, I’ve outlawed chewing gum, food, fighting, rap music and excessive noise.

In essence, I’ve outlawed fun.

For me, the purpose of carpooling is merely to transport a group of kids to and from school in a safe, civil and timely manner. Nothing more.

But that’s not entirely true.

For carpooling has enabled me, as Judaism commands, to provide my children with a religious and ethical upbringing at a Jewish day school in which they have thrived.

It has also enabled me, as Freud recommends, to provide them with travel and education. And while the travel is tedious and repetitive, the education, experiential and often unexpected, is not.

Over the years, my children have learned to be prompt, flexible and amicable. They have learned to shut a car door without slamming it. They have learned to say please and thank you.

Additionally, over the years, they have learned to deal with a variety of personality traits and quirks. And they have learned that, while some parents and kids can be rude and manipulative, others, perhaps the majority, can be extraordinarily generous, thoughtful and accommodating.

As for the nice clothes that Freud advocates, those are for me. I’ll need them in exactly six years, when my youngest gets his driver’s license and I trade in my SUV for a two-seater sports car.

The Tyranny of Carpooling Read More »

The School Project Nightmare

Leave a Comment / Blogs, Uncategorized /

The fourth grade take-home assignment seemed fairly straightforward: take a huge hunk of butcher paper, lay your kid down on it, and trace a life-size version of their favorite American tall-tale protagonist.

My daughter selected Johnny Appleseed. She carefully colored in his plaid shirt, and Abba helped pencil in the work boots and shirt collar. She then colored his demin pants in a pleasant shade of indigo, and cut out a hole for her face.

“Good work,” we told her, then took a few photos, rolled it up and sent it back to school.

A few weeks later, we were strolling around the classroom during open-school night and saw what other children had brought in. Johnny Appleseeds with cut-out denim scraps artfully arranged on their pants, an aluminum foil belt buckle and a real corncob pipe.

Another gal had brought in Annie Oakley with a red taffeta dress, parasol and sparkly heels. Paul Bunyan with real bandanas and a huge golden belt buckle. Do you think these kids really came up and executed those life-size images? I don’t think so.

Maybe this is only a problem at our public school, I thought, because so many of the parents hailed from the creative and entertainment worlds. I began to talk to other parents at private Jewish day schools and Beverly Hills public schools. The same parental over-involvement was in evidence everywhere.

At one elementary school in Beverly Hills, the fourth-grade kids were asked to design T-shirts depicting a recent book they had read. Whereas my friend downloaded and printed out a simple airplane T-shirt transfer, other parents went over the top. They hand-embroidered characters and wove in dazzling patches of silk. Others purchased expensive paint sets and created tasteful depictions of Harry Potter performing his magic.

In short, the parents had taken over the kids’ projects. As a result, the other kids, who lacked such resourceful and artsy parents, felt like second-class citizens. Their own kid-inspired creations, no matter how good, wouldn’t be able to compete with grown-ups.

It’s time for all of us to stop this collective nonsense.

To be fair, sometimes the schools are the main culprits. One Jewish day school on the Westside assigned each fourth-grader a different county in the state to study.

My friend’s daughter had the bad luck to get stuck with a small rural county no one has ever heard of. She had to unearth many miniscule details, such as its annual rainfall and topographical features. None of this information was available in the Junior Almanac or on kid-friendly Web sites where you can be guaranteed not to run into porno.com. The mom felt she had little choice but to spend hours on the Internet and in the library.

Schools also sometimes ask for more than is humanly possible if you’re not Martha Stewart. Another friend said the final straw in ridiculous school projects was when they were asked to make an “edible” book report (what ever happened to two-page longhand reports, anyway?). My friend ran out to the store and bought graham crackers, icing, miniature marshmallows and licorice strips, all with the intention of creating a log cabin for “Little House on the Prairie.” By the time the house collapsed a third time, she turned to her daughter and said words we all need to memorize, “Forget about it!”

The School Project Nightmare Read More »

Hands Off My Volcano

Leave a Comment / Education, Parenting /

One evening not too long ago, I strolled through the science fair at a local middle school. The work of the students was not much in evidence, but the fingerprints of their parents were everywhere. No matter how often they are warned by teachers to let their children do the science projects, many parents just can’t let go. They’ve got to jump into the game, using the creaky excuse, “It’s for the sake of my child. Winning a prize here could mean a lot on that college application a few years down the line.”

There seems to be no limit to the parental interference — or subterfuge. I’ve been on a national speaking tour this year and have unearthed some alarming stories, even at wonderful schools. Some of the smartest, most devoted parents are using bizarre, often unethical, nearly illegal maneuvers in the name of protecting their child’s academic standing. A middle-school teacher told me he received an e-mail from a student demanding a point-by-point explanation of her grade on an English exam. Problem is, this was the student’s English teacher. He knew the girl’s writing style and vocabulary. He also knew her gentle nature. The teacher quickly figured out that the e-mail was not written by his student. That’s right, it was written by her dad.

Driven by anxiety that their children will not measure up, parents bend the rules and force their children to do the same. Some have confessed to me that they enroll their children in unnecessary tutoring or test-prep classes and urge them to keep it secret from the school.

Along with lessons in deviousness, children are learning from their parents that actions have consequences. That is, their teachers’ actions do. Frustrated teachers tell me that today’s parents have a very low tolerance for average grades. If a student receives a “C,” not on a report card but on a single test, it’s not uncommon for the parent to phone the teacher and issue a reprimand.

Even “C” students get the message: You are not responsible for your grade, your teacher is. If you don’t like it, it can be fixed — not by working harder, but by complaining.

Why are normally reasonable and ethical parents resorting to such extreme maneuvers? Stock wisdom says that nothing fundamental ever really changes, but our world is fundamentally different from the world we grew up in. The startling and rapid changes we see in the economy, in family life, in religious institutions, technology and education leave us breathless and excited, disoriented and anxious. As sensitive, protective parents, we want to armor our children with a thick layer of skills to prepare them for this uncertain future. We have convinced ourselves that they must excel at every level. If that means tilting the playing field, so be it. We’re ready. But what about our children?

Rabbi Menahem Mendel of Kotsk, the great, uncompromising Chassidic leader, once said, “If you truly wish your children to study Torah, study it yourself in their presence. They will follow your example. Otherwise, they will not themselves study Torah, but will simply instruct their children to do so.”

No parent wishes to leave a child with a legacy of lessons in lying and cheating. Quite the opposite. We care so much about teaching our children ethics and respect that we send them to religious school to study Jewish rules about being a good person. But our children learn far more from our actions than they do from any character-education curriculum. By teaching them to exaggerate, break rules, disrespect adults and be devious, we won’t end up with children armored for the future but with children armored only for a solitary climb to the top of the college-admissions pile. Once they are adults, the bad habits they learn from us are more likely to hurt them than to give them an edge.

When I look at all those science projects so clearly lacking the clumsy, painstaking touch of a young hand, I can almost see Mom or Dad toiling away, their child at their side, begging for a turn with the glue gun. But today’s determined (and fun-deprived) parents are not giving an inch. A papier-mâché volcano! Messy poster paints! Baking soda! Vinegar! Here’s an excuse to play and ensure a good grade for my child. The joy of creation, the satisfaction of doing all that hard work, maybe even the thrill of winning a ribbon — what parent can resist? For the sake of their children, more of them should.

Hands Off My Volcano Read More »

Slavery: Conflict or Commonality ?

Leave a Comment / Worldwide /

It’s starting with a few tentative steps, but it could eventually become a stampede; lawmakers on Capitol Hill may soon consider pending legislation creating a national museum focusing heavily on the issue of American slavery.

The movement to create a new museum of African American history provides an opportunity to help mend the rift between Jews and blacks, but also presents a potential dilemma: the effort will inevitably lead to comparisons between slavery and the Holocaust.

If Jews react primarily defensively, and if they turn the moral push for recognition of the black community’s own catastrophic past into a victimization turf war, they will only widen the gulf between the two communities. And ultimately, they will do the cause of Holocaust remembrance a disservice.

“Why should the Jewish community feel threatened by this?” asks Rabbi Marc Schneier, president of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding. “This is not a competition to see whose grievances are worse; the African American community has suffered terribly in this country.”

The National Museum of African American History and Culture Act of 2001, sponsored by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.), Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and Rep. J.C. Watts (R-Okla.), is a legislative first step in creating a museum jointly funded by public and private contributions.

Blacks, increasingly, want a museum in Washington that acknowledges their collective pain and teaches all Americans the historic fact that continues to affect American life: slavery.

In this they are consciously emulating the Jewish community, which created the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on the Mall, that seems to be achieving all of the founders’ goals, and then some.

The Holocaust Museum attracts more than 2 million visitors annually, and it has become a catalyst for Holocaust education and scholarship. Millions of non-Jewish visitors leave with a new understanding of the facts of the Holocaust; for many Jews, visiting the Museum has become a way to emotionally connect with a historic event that continues to exert a powerful pull in Jewish life.

And the Museum guarantees that the real lessons of the Holocaust will not be lost with the passage of time.

The black community wants and deserves something similar.

The impact of slavery on countless human lives and on American culture remain mostly a footnote in history classes. Surveys show that most Americans know pitifully little about the subject. That ignorance has provided fertile soil for a kind of revisionism that portrays the Civil War as simply a dispute over states rights.

There is no national center where blacks can go to memorialize the victims of slavery, honor those who fought it and make an emotional connection to the historic traumas that help shape their own lives.

It was amazing and entirely appropriate that the U.S. government, pressed by a well-organized Jewish community, established a national museum about the Holocaust; it is equally fitting that the nation do the same for slavery.

So far, though, there are few signs the organized Jewish community is aware of the push for a black museum.

The lawmakers who have introduced the legislation have not made much noise about their proposal. Nor has a divided African American leadership actively started reaching out to other groups.

Some black leaders dismiss the idea of a museum as a diversion from providing more tangible help for their traumatized community.

Ultimately, black leaders will have to do what Jewish leaders did more than a decade ago — get together behind a realistic goal, organize a massive fundraising effort in their own community and aggressively lobby government officials.

Once the effort gains momentum, it is likely many Jews will support the effort — but also that it will touch off ripples of concern.

Inevitably, supporters will argue that the Holocaust Museum precedent obligates the government to act on their request.

The Holocaust was horrific, but it happened in Europe, and the perpetrators were Germans, they will say; slavery occurred in our own country, sanctioned by the U.S. government.

That argument is not meant to diminish the Holocaust, but merely to express the very real moral obligation this country has to acknowledge a tragedy it helped perpetrate. It is fitting that a Holocaust Museum exists on the Mall, and it will be fitting that an African American museum joins it.

A more difficult issue to deal with will be the question of reparations. Already, supporters of slavery reparations are making comparisons to the ongoing economic effort on behalf of Holocaust victims.

But there is a critical difference: Holocaust reparations are going to living survivors, while reparations for slavery would be many generations removed from the crime itself. The comparison is a point of potential friction with the Jewish community.

Still, the drive for a museum of black culture and history “could be very positive, in terms of strengthening black-Jewish relations,” said Rabbi Marc Schneier. “A museum dedicated to slavery doesn’t take away from Holocaust remembrance; it will only strengthen a general resolve to fight all forms of racism and bigotry.”

In other words, a museum of American slavery would do exactly what the Holocaust Museum has done so well since 1993.

Slavery: Conflict or Commonality ? Read More »