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Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

August 23, 2001

Togetherness Through Yachad

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Some years ago, when Lauren Mayesh was a teenager, she rarely saw her classmates reach out to people who were different from them. Since March 2000, Mayesh has been the Los Angeles coordinator of Yachad, an organization formed to serve young adults, ages 17 to 30, who are coping with developmental disabilities. Yachad (Hebrew for "together") wants to incorporate its members into Jewish life by providing social and educational outlets at which they can interact comfortably with mainstream Jewish high school students.

What makes Mayesh shep nachas (draw pleasure) is the fact that so many local teens have come forward to give of themselves to members of the disabled community. "The high school kids today are just so special, so involved. It’s beautiful," Mayesh says.

In fact, it’s because of a handful of day school students that the Los Angeles chapter of Yachad exists at all. The national organization, founded in 1984, is a branch of the National Jewish Council for the Disabled, which itself falls under the auspices of the Orthodox Union. (Jews of all backgrounds are welcome to join.) Yachad members, most of whom are clustered on the East Coast and in Canada, enjoy a wide range of monthly activities, which may include holiday parties, crafts sessions and sporting events. They can also take advantage of two summer programs. One is the specially designed Yad B’Yad (hand-in-hand) trip to Israel. The other is a month-long bus tour that, in alternating years, brings Yachad members to the tourist high spots of the East Coast and California. In 1999, when a handful of YULA and Shalhevet students returned from their summer Yachad adventures, they were determined to form a Yachad chapter at which their school friends could get to know the developmentally disabled living within their own community.

One of Yachad’s local founders was Rachel Millman, who at age 15 turned down a teen trip to Israel that she suspected would revolve around talk of hair, makeup and boys. "I wanted something more than that, to give the summer more meaning." Millman said. So she signed up for Yachad’s Yad B’Yad Israel trip. Because the group consisted of only 25 mainstream high schoolers, 16 Yachad members and 10 college-aged staffers, it had an intimacy that allowed relationships to blossom. Any awkwardness at being among those who were different soon vanished. Her role on the trip was to be a travel companion, not a caretaker. But at the local group’s recent first-ever weekend Shabbaton, she felt perfectly comfortable helping her Yachad friends with their clothing and guiding them to the bathroom.

Another of the sparkplugs behind Los Angeles’ Yachad chapter was Jennifer Kessler, now 17. Two summers ago, after her sophomore year at Shalhevet, Kessler shocked her mother by signing up for Yachad’s East Coast bus tour. "I had no idea what I was doing. I had never worked with the disabled," Kessler recalls. Still, the trip changed her life, to the point where her commitment to Yachad began to crowd aside other afterschool activities. But Kessler insists that her newfound interest in the disabled has paid major dividends. In their huge capacity for joy, she finds personal inspiration. "I learned the most important lesson in the world from them. [Yachad] made me happier, since I saw what real happiness was," she says.

Yachad’s Los Angeles branch enjoys a close connection with the Orthodox youth group known as the National Council of Synagogue Youth (NCSY). Los Angeles’s new NCSY director, Rabbi Steven Burg, feels strongly that a link between NCSY and Yachad can be beneficial to both groups, with Yachad members gaining social skills while NCSYers learn tolerance and patience.

The Katz family has special reason to appreciate Yachad’s presence in Los Angeles. Eighteen-year-old Jacob has Down syndrome. He climbed Masada on last year’s Yad B’Yad Israel trip, and has become an active member of the local Yachad chapter. Jacob’s 16-year-old brother Aaron serves on the Yachad planning board, which he views as an opportunity to do chesed (acts of kindness) while also having fun. Aaron acknowledges that he used to feel sad on Shabbat afternoons when he went off to activities, leaving his brother behind. Now they can both enjoy Yachad, which Aaron calls "a place where everyone can be the same."

For more information on the Los Angeles chapter of Yachad, call Lauren Mayesh at 310-273-2998.

Togetherness Through Yachad Read More »

Overseas Studies Suffer

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Many Jewish students are opting not to study abroad in Israel this year due to the tense security situation.

Major universities, such as Hebrew University of Jerusalem, have had to readjust their programs and secure funds in order to continue their programs and ensure enough classes so their students can obtain college units for their coursework.

American attendance is down 200 percent this year at Hebrew University’s Rothberg International School, the largest program in Israel for overseas students, which has been in existence since the 1950s. With only 100 Americans scheduled to attend, down from 300, there are "serious budgetary problems to the Rothberg School," according to Roy Rosenbaum, vice president of the American Friends of the Hebrew University, its fundraising arm.

With losses this year of about $2 million, the school is in a crisis because it counts on student tuition in order to run. As a result, American Friends began an emergency national alumni fundraising campaign to raise the $2 million.

The Hebrew University is not the only university seeing a significant drop in enrollment, although it is the biggest. Ben-Gurion University in the Negev, which usually has a small program, has an even smaller program this year. According to Courtney Max, the associate director of overseas students, there are only 35 students enrolled in the program this year, as opposed to the 65-70 students that usually attend. While their overseas program is intact, students will be faced with less classes from which to choose.

Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv is faring better with a drop-off of 20 percent. Debra Newfeld of Bar-Ilan said that they are planning to maintain "as full and enriching a program for the students as last year."

Some students, like Joshua Kornblitt, a junior at UCLA, are still opting to go. Kornblitt said he’s going to study at Hebrew University for his second semester despite the worries and protests of his parents. "My connection to Israel is too strong," he said. "I can’t wait to go."

Overseas Studies Suffer Read More »

Yeshiva Students Still Going to Israel

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Jennifer Kessler always knew she would spend a year between high school and college studying at a girls’ yeshiva in Israel.

Her modern Orthodox day school in Los Angeles, Shalhevet, usually sends at least a third of the graduating class to Israel, and among the children of her parents’ friends, "everyone" goes to Israel.

But when it came time this year for Kessler, 17, to firm up her plans to attend Midreshet Lindenbaum, a prestigious program in Jerusalem, it wasn’t easy. Her parents, who canceled a family trip to Israel due to concerns about the violence, started worrying. Several other L.A.-area teenage girls that Kessler knew had been planning to study in Israel and decided not to go.

Nonetheless, Kessler remains cautiously committed to her upcoming year in Israel — and is scheduled to depart at the end of August.

In the Orthodox world, that feeling is typical.

While American Jewish tourism to Israel is way down, and American enrollment has dropped sharply at secular institutions like Hebrew University of Jerusalem, post-high school yeshiva programs in Israel are — so far — an exception to the trend.

Nearly 2,400 American yeshiva and seminary students will be departing for Israel in the next month, according to Sheryl Stein, a spokeswoman for El Al Israel Airlines. The number is "a drop" from last year, "but not significant," Stein said. However, she could not provide statistics for last year.

Yeshiva University, centrist Orthodoxy’s flagship institution, reports that almost 1,000 recent male and female high school graduates will be under its auspices in Israel at 36 yeshivot and seminaries and at Bar-Ilan University, the same as last year. Y.U. officials said very few people left in the middle of the last school year, and virtually no students registered for this year have canceled their plans.

Yeshivat Har Etzion, a boys’ yeshiva in the Gush Etzion settlement bloc, expects 45 students this year — the same as last year — and had to turn away a number of applicants.

Of course, these numbers could still decrease if the violence intensifies further — and as a result, the yeshivot are still "on pins and needles," said one official in modern Orthodox academia.

But these potential changes aside, why, at a time when Israel’s tourism industry is on the rocks, are Orthodox students still flocking to the Jewish State?

Kessler said she decided to stick with her plans, in part because she’s not the type to "back out of things" and, having already deferred admission at the University of Pennsylvania for a year, wasn’t sure what she would do if she stayed at home.

But ideology also played a part.

"My mother has always said if people stop going to Israel then the Palestinians have won," she said.

Going to Israel, Kessler said, seemed like an "opportunity to do something good for my people."

In addition to ideology and idealism — and studies have shown centrist Orthodox Jews have stronger feelings of connection to Israel than liberal and unaffiliated Jews — other factors have kept enrollment fairly stable at post-high school yeshiva programs, say observers.

For one thing, pre-college Israel study has become a standard rite of passage for modern, or centrist, Orthodox Jews. In a 1999 study, Rabbi Shalom Berger, a teacher at Midreshet Lindenbaum and faculty member at Bar-Ilan University’s Lookstein Center for Jewish Education, found that close to 90 percent of modern Orthodox young adults spend a full year studying Torah in Israel following high school graduation.

The fact that yeshiva programs are the communal norm means that most potential participants have either friends or family members who recently attended them and can vouch for their safety.

Yeshiva officials say another reason Orthodox study programs aren’t affected the way other Israel programs are is because their primary focus is on study, rather than traveling around the country.

That may explain why at Kessler’s high school in Los Angeles, the numbers of students planning to spend a year in Israel did not drop significantly this year, but the school’s 10th-grade trip to Israel was decimated by cancellations.

While the school usually sends almost its entire sophomore class of 60 to Israel for six months, this year, only 30 signed up and only 15 actually went.

Unlike travel programs, many yeshivot — particularly the academically elite ones — have demanding study schedules that last from morning to night and allow little free time for travel.

And most programs have restricted travel further with intensified safety procedures.

Nonetheless, while the prospect of such restrictions may not be prompting cancellations, it doesn’t make the incoming students happy.

"My Israel experience is going to be really different from other people’s experience in the past," Kessler said. "I’m not going to be able to explore and not going to have the freedom."

Yeshiva Students Still Going to Israel Read More »

The Hidden Co$t ofJewish Education

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My husband Larry and I could be creating a retirement portfolio, renting a vacation villa in Tuscany or buying badly needed furniture.

Instead, we are investing in our four sons, ages 10, 12, 14 and 17. More specifically, we are investing in their Jewish education by shelling out a total of $64,917 — after-tax dollars, for the 2001-2002 school year only — to Abraham Joshua Heschel Day School in Northridge and Milken Community High School in Los Angeles.

Plus, we will be shelling out another couple thousand dollars for books, trips, lunches and a myriad of incidentals as well as fundraising drives, dinners and wrapping paper sales.

Originally, Larry and I selected Jewish day schools for the convenience of "one-stop shopping." But we quickly discovered, as our oldest, Zack, then in kindergarten, confidently belted out "Dovid Melech Yisroel" in the checkout line at Ralphs, that Jewish day schools give youngsters a solid Jewish identity.

And that identity, as Zack begins his senior year at Milken, has only intensified. "If you’re going to call yourself a Jew," he says, "you need some foundation in Jewish principles and some understanding of modern Jewish thought."

Indeed, day schools, as described in the 1995 Report of the North American Commission on Jewish Identity and Continuity, are "arguably the most impactful single weapon in our arsenal for educating Jewish children and youth."

"Except that they don’t have tackle football teams," Danny, 10, complains.

"Jewish mothers don’t allow their sons to play tackle football," I answer.

But Jewish mothers — and fathers — do allow their children to attend Jewish day schools, in increasing numbers. According to Dr. Gil Graff, executive director of the Bureau of Jewish Education (BJE), 9,885 students in the Los Angeles area were enrolled in Jewish day schools in grades kindergarten through 12 during the 2000-01 school year. That number has more than doubled from the 4,219 enrolled for the 1980-81 school year.

The increase is a nationwide phenomenon. The latest figures, a day school census released by the New York-based Avi Chai Foundation, published in January 2000, puts the 1998-1999 day school population, for pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, at nearly 185,000. This is an increase of more than 25,000 from a study done a decade earlier by Israeli demographer Sergio Della Pergola.

But while both the need and the benefits are obvious, the costs are staggering. And tuition doesn’t even begin to cover them.

In Los Angeles, according to Graff, expenses for the operating budgets of all the Jewish day schools during the 2000-01 year, "not building campaigns, but paying the salaries, keeping the lights on, janitorial service, etc.," came to $96 million. Tuition accounted for $73 million, with 39 percent of all day school students receiving some kind of tuition assistance, which varied from $500 to as much as $8,000. As a result, schools had to scramble to make up the $23-million deficit, with fundraisers, donations and grants, including a $2.3-million contribution from the BJE. And some had to carry on with large deficits.

The problem will only worsen, especially in light of the well-publicized teacher shortage. The Department of Education estimates that public schools will need at least 2 million new teachers in the next 10 years. Private schools face an even greater challenge — 500,000 new teachers over the same time period.

Plus, Jewish day schools, with their extensive Judaic studies and Hebrew language programs, incur additional costs. "We are literally adding another third of a curriculum to an existing curriculum," says Dr. Rennie Wrubel, Milken head of school. "The dual curriculum costs money — and that’s our bottom line."

Wrubel, as well as other day school educators, is looking to the larger Jewish agencies to help with the ever-increasing costs, especially in terms of teacher salaries and benefits, and to help make day school education more affordable to more families.

There are some projects in the works. The Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education (PEJE), a group of philanthropist partners, is committed to helping day schools across the country develop the resources and expertise to compete on a level of excellence with independent schools.

This October, PEJE is hosting its Second Donor Assembly, giving major supporters of Jewish day school across the country an opportunity to network and learn new strategies. Additionally, PEJE is introducing the Resource Development Expertise Program, which will provide specific day schools with the services of specially trained development consultants. A test program rolls out this fall, beginning with 15 schools.

Locally, The Jewish Federation intends to become more active in this arena. According to Bill Bernstein, executive vice president for financial resource development, there are plans that are part of a larger effort to seek donors to fund specific programs, including day schools.

"The money is there," says Hillel Korin, PEJE’s director of resource development initiatives. "There isn’t a community in the country that can’t support a day school, or two or three or four."

But until Jewish day schools create endowed funds for salaries, scholarships and facilities, families are stuck paying hefty tuitions. For families like ours, affording day school is a matter of changing priorities and making some sacrifices.

But given Judaism’s historical and heartfelt commitment to education and given the success of Jewish day schools in promoting Jewish identity and continuity, many educators and parents believe that a day school education should be a right rather than a privilege. And that’s a decision that will ultimately have to be made by the entire Jewish community.

"The road to learning is endless," Jacob Ben Asher, a 14th-century rabbi, says.

"Endlessly expensive," my husband points out.

He then adds, "But with four boys, it wouldn’t make sense to invest in new furniture."

The Hidden Co$t ofJewish Education Read More »

Choose the Right Day School

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As fall approaches, many of us are forced to turn our thoughts to selecting a private day school for our children. Quite frequently, this process causes even normally stable parents to suffer symptoms of mental confusion, dizziness and difficulty making rational decisions. A school administrator recently told me that one set of applicant parents put down nonrefundable deposits of $3,000 on four different schools. When their strategy was exposed, the parents simply said, “We wanted a little extra time to make up our minds.”

Even after parents have visited the school, listened to word-of-mouth and researched test scores, many are still unsure about which school to choose. Realizing the importance of this decision, and the hand-wringing it prompts, I have decided to divulge my secret four-step formula for choosing a school. This formula was discovered after years of speaking at them, consulting with them and choosing them for my own children.

Step One: Ignore the Mission Statement.

They all say the same thing. “We strive for academic excellence, but we also treasure the uniqueness of each child. We give them not just roots, but also wings. We raise children not just to be good at things, but also to be good people.”

There’s just not enough variation in the message to be of much use. And they never give the real scoop: “Great arts program, but lots of drugs in the upper grades. Good athletics, but slightly anti-Semitic admissions policy. Great Judaic curriculum, but half the parents don’t give a hoot.”

Instead of poring over the catalog and trying to read between the lines, I recommend moving on to Step Two.

Step Two: Look at the Bigger Kids.

On the prospective parents’ tour you’ll be invited to peek in at the grade your child is currently in and the one he or she will be entering the following year. Try to make a detour to the upper grades. At one school where I speak each year, I invariably mistake the sixth-graders for fifth-graders, they look so wholesome and untrammeled. At another school, I always see the seniors giving the faculty just the right kind of hard time — a sign that they are more interested in animated debate than grubbing for grades. So if your child is applying to kindergarten, try to get a look at the fifth-or sixth-graders; if you’re touring a high school ask to see some senior classes. Their level of vitality or cool and their general spirit reveals important information about what you can expect your child to become.

Step Three: Go See a Play.

The school may only allow you a moment or two in the classrooms on your tour, but everyone is welcome to attend school plays. And a play is more than a performance — it’s a community gathering. What kinds of cars are in the parking lot? Do the parents compete for seats, or reserve them in a stingy fashion? Do they leave after their child has performed? Is every eye in the room looking through the lens of a video camera? Do parents bring big bouquets of flowers for children with tiny parts? How are the parents dressed? Can you see your child in the homes of people who look that polished? That rumpled? How polite are they when it’s time to line up to drive out of the parking lot?

The play itself offers useful information, too. The school’s values and philosophy show up here with far more clarity than in the mission statement. Is the school so politically correct that no big or showy parts are allowed, resulting in Soviet-style blandness and conformity? Conversely, is the school so unenlightened that the show seems sexist or racist?

Step Four: Accept a Compromise.

After you’ve done all the research and followed the three steps above, let your child weigh in. Ask how he or she feels about the different schools. Selecting a school is not a decision that can or should be made by a child. However, he or she is the one who will have to walk those halls each day and, unlike an adult, will not be able to give two-weeks’ notice if it starts feeling too small or too big, too mushy or too competitive.

The Hardest Part: Trusting your intuition.

Realizing that no school is good enough for your child,
and $12,000 and prolonged indecision won’t help you find one. The school you
choose is guaranteed to disappoint you because the closer you get, the more
clearly you will see its flaws. But your child will get a good enough education,
maybe even a great one. And contrary to conventional wisdom, your school choice
does not predict every other single thing that will happen in your child’s life.

It’s your cooking that will do that.

Choose the Right Day School Read More »

Go East, Young Jew

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Yael Barzideh applied to two colleges last year: University of Pennsylvania because she wanted to go there, and UCLA because that’s where her parents wanted her to go.

But when she received an acceptance letter from Penn, she immediately withdrew her

UCLA application, because she really wanted to head East.

“For the sake of a social life, it’s very important to go,” said Yael Barzideh, who graduated from Yeshiva University of Los Angeles High School (YULA) in June.

Like Barzideh, many graduates of Los Angeles’ private Jewish schools head to the East Coast for college — about 50 percent, according to statistics provided by YULA, Shalhevet High School and Milken Community High School. Usually, the more observant they are, the further East they go, with New York, home to Orthodox magnet Yeshiva University, as the most popular destination.

“I know it’s very important for many of my students to apply to colleges on the East Coast,” says Joan Ferry-Scott, director of college counseling at Shalhevet. “Part of it is that they have been in California in a private, small setting all of their lives, and they want a change of scene while still being in a Jewish, active, very exciting setting.”

Ruben “Fudge” Levavi, from Shalhevet, says he chose NYU over UC Berkeley, which “wasn’t far enough.” He wants to live in New York not necessarily because of the strong Jewish presence, but for the opportunity to break with dull familiarity and start again in a colorful city.

“There’s a big Jewish community out there,” Levavi says. “If you want to be a part of it, you have no problem whatsoever. If you don’t, there are so many other groups you could mingle with.”

Leaving home is alluring for students across the religious spectrum, although less observant students are more likely to also consider schools in the Midwest and public schools, such as UC Berkeley or UC Santa Barbara, which are “far enough” for them.

For a large part of the Persian community, for example, family and social dynamics are such that children are either actively discouraged to leave home or they don’t because they find their social niche and future spouse within the local community. This past year at YULA, for example, Persian students made-up about 25 percent of those seniors who end up staying in Los Angeles.

The retention rates are not much of a surprise to Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller, director of UCLA Hillel and Jewish studies lecturer. While there is a critical mass of Jews on a community level, there isn’t at the college level.

“Orthodox students in particular are seeking an intense Jewish experience on a campus with a critical mass of Jews so as to facilitate their ability to practice Judaism fully and successfully.”

To improve Jewish student life at UCLA across the board, UCLA Hillel is building The Yitzchak Rabin Jewish Student Center. Set for completion in August 2002, the center will include a kosher dining room, café, lounge, beit midrash, classrooms and auditorium. UCLA Hillel recently hired an Orthodox couple to assist with outreach and programming.

“This is for the future of our community,” says Rabbi Steven Weil of Beth Jacob Congregation, who collaborated with Seidler-Feller to make UCLA more Orthodox-friendly.

Weil hopes the new center will curtail the college migration, which further depletes the post-college young Jewish community, since many who head East never return home. While statistics on those who return to Los Angeles after graduation are not readily available, many students inevitably find a job or spouse where they study. “We’re going to make it more viable for them — not only for our kids to stay but also to attract kids from the East,” Weil says.

If recruiters from Los Angeles wanted a selling point, they might want to choose the entertainment industry, which is the biggest draw for out-of-towners.

“I did find that when I was Orthodox during college it was very limiting, and it was also hard to find each other,” says Mya Akerling, who graduated YULA in 1994 and UCLA Film School in 1999. She admits that relaxing her Jewish observance and pursuing a career in film have made things easier. “Now that I’m out of college and people have come back, I’m finding that new people are moving from back East who want to be in the entertainment industry. We’re having more of a community.”

Go East, Young Jew Read More »

Kitchen Classroom

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As he welcomed a group of home schoolers to an open house at the Slavin Family Children’s Library of the Jewish Community Library, Dr. Gil Graff of the Bureau of Jewish Education cited an ancient Jewish precept: “Each child should be educated according to that child’s particular needs.”

Graff’s words had a special appeal for home schooling families, all of whom believe that a child’s education need not take place within the walls of a classroom.

A growing number of parents from across the Jewish spectrum are choosing to educate their sons and daughters themselves, finding creative ways to tailor the learning process to each youngster’s individual situation.

There are some 2 million home schoolers in the United States, a figure that is growing by 15 percent each year, according to national estimates. Exact figures are hard to come by because, for bureaucratic reasons, some children are enrolled in public or private individualized study programs, while others remain completely outside the system. This means that no government body has a clear count of exactly how many children receive their education at home.

One of many contributors to the increase in home schooling is the Internet, which can link home schooling families in informal communities, while also providing a quick way for a child in California to get curriculum help from an academic institution in Maryland or Vermont.

Home schooling has traditionally attracted religious Christians who hope to keep their children’s education free of secular influences. Though Christian home schooling networks are strong, Jews have been slow to follow suit. This is hardly to say that Jewish home schoolers don’t exist. Within Southern California’s informal home schooling collectives, like Family-Centered Education of Los Angeles (FaCE-LA) and the South Bay Homeschool Network, there are many Jewish participants.

Parents who home school tend to be independent-minded, and each Jewish family seems to have a different reason for making this admittedly unconventional choice.

Fiona Chalom, a psychologist who teaches at Pepperdine University, removed her eldest daughter from her day school when Rachel became bored with the classroom’s slow pace. Now a newly motivated Rachel is back at school, but a second daughter, Sarah, studies at home.

The language and behavior he saw at his children’s secular private school disappointed Cantor Michael Freed of Sinai Temple. Now that he’s their primary teacher, he finds that family ties have strengthened. In addition, the flexible hours suit his kids’ lifestyle, and they no longer run into scheduling conflicts on Shabbat and Jewish holidays.

“From the time my son was in preschool, I thought that he would be stifled in a classroom setting,” says Janice Batzdorff. Because Aaron, now 9-years-old, learns by speaking aloud, she knew he would be taken to task for disrupting his fellow students. As a home schooler, Aaron can learn in his own way, focusing in depth on those topics that most intrigue him, whether it is the music of Beethoven or the 1929 Stock Market Crash. And, because his father is involved with film production, mother and son can travel to far-flung locations without putting his education on hold.

When Susan Silver’s son Charlie entered fourth grade at a well-regarded public school, he was bullied and physically abused by some of his classmates. Administrators did nothing. Finally Silver, herself a credentialed educator, decided to bring him home.

“We want our child to enjoy going to school and not be terrified of recess,” she said. Home schooling has resulted in “the miraculous experience of going from social nightmare to social heaven.” Through association with other home schoolers whose strong sense of self-esteem makes them affectionate and nurturing friends, Charlie has blossomed.

Though many home schoolers follow a formal curriculum set up through academies like Laurel Springs School and the Gorman Learning Center, some families opt to go it entirely alone. Tamah Kushner, whose three children have never been enrolled in any school, says, “One of the benefits for me is I can find the perfect thing for each child.” She admits that this responsibility can be burdensome: “There are times I’d like to have 10 uninterrupted minutes to myself.” Still, she pities her sister who must cram her own parenting into the few short hours after her kids return home from their school day.

Martine Porter-Zasada was putting in long hours at the computer product testing company she’d founded, when the eldest of her four children, Max, reached school age. He was duly enrolled in an Orthodox yeshiva. Then, seven years ago, Porter-Zasada made an important lifestyle choice. “I wanted to be with my children in a very intensive way,” she says. Now they study Torah together, and have trained to be docents at the Children’s Nature Institute. The kids have formed a writing group, practice gymnastics and recently helped stage a play. Max, now 13, is working on three novels, and has become a reading tutor for an 8-year-old Guatemalan boy through the Koreh L.A. program. His parents have allowed him to focus on the literary arts, which he loves, and to downplay math, which he generally finds less interesting. Max concisely sums up the advantages of his upbringing: “Probably the greatest gift of home schooling is time — time to do things at your own pace, time to learn things, time to make good friends.”

Porter-Zasada advertised in “The Link,” a national home school newspaper that boasts a circulation of 25,000, to try and locate other Jewish families. Her ad ran for a year, but she had little success in finding other observant Jews whose commitment to home schooling matched her own.

Home schooling is a touchy subject in the Orthodox community, which places high value on the yeshiva as a place to learn cultural norms. But one local Orthodox rabbi and educator faced a dilemma within his own family. One of his six children was so highly gifted that the secular coursework offered by his yeshiva was far beneath his abilities. The rabbi, who prefers to remain anonymous, admits, “It’s a shame that not every child can be accommodated by every school. But it’s a fact.” To his mind, home schooling is a far better alternative than public school for Jewish children. What he and his wife discovered was a little-known program within the Los Angeles Unified School District that allows youngsters like their son to study independently, under a trained teacher’s supervision.

In California, many school districts offer college-preparatory independent study programs through which students can make progress toward graduation. The Department of Education attests that in 1999-2000, the last year for which statistics are available, 71,334 students in grades K-12 chose this option. Their number has been rising by about 5,000 youngsters a year.

City of Angels, which has branches throughout Los Angeles, serves some 3,000 students who choose for a variety of reasons not to learn within the traditional classroom setting. Instructor Fern Margolis, who oversees middle school and high school students from her office in Venice, explains the program’s philosophy: “We individualize every class for every student, always within the guidelines of the district and the state standards.” It is her job to give students assignments and provide feedback; at times, as in the case of lab science, she sends them to do coursework at local community colleges.

Because Margolis has a rich background in Judaica, she is much in demand with students who come from observant homes. At times, she has helped teens craft arrangements whereby they remain at their yeshivas to further their religious studies, while coming to her for more challenging secular coursework than they would get at their home institutions. But because most Jewish schools naturally expect a full-time commitment, such accommodations are rare. So, Margolis makes sure that observant Jewish students hook up with tutors to continue their pursuit of Jewish learning.

David Keyes, 17, has a passion for tennis that proved incompatible with the Shalhevet school day. His family consulted with Rabbi Avner Weiss, then of Beth Jacob, who advised that he be allowed his dream of a professional tennis career, while finding a way to continue his Jewish studies on the side. He transferred to University High School because of its excellent tennis team, but a public high school was not a good fit for someone with Keyes’ intense learning style. That’s how he landed with Margolis at City of Angels for most of his academic work. He still plays tennis at University, while also studying privately with an expert on Talmudic law. Keyes explains, “My problem was never that I didn’t want to learn. I love to learn.”

The following are some resources for potential home schoolers:

City of Angels, LAUSD: (213) 625-4188 or (818) 995-4276

Calvert School: (888) 487-4652, or www.calvertschool.org

Gorman Learning Center: (877) 890-0718, or www.gormanlearning.org

Laurel Springs School: (800) 377-5890, or www.laurelsprings.com

Oak Meadow: (802) 387-2021, or www.oakmeadow.com

Jewish Community Library of Los Angeles: (323) 761-8648

Kitchen Classroom Read More »

From Middle to the Top

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Michael Glouberman felt the déjà vu the whole time he was reading the pilot of the Emmy-nominated Fox sitcom, "Malcolm in the Middle." "It was like someone had hidden a camera in my childhood home," says the 33-year-old "Malcolm" writer and co-executive producer.

OK, so Glouberman never tied up his younger brother and hung him on a hook. His mother didn’t punish him by making him run in circles in the living room. Dad didn’t blowtorch mom’s dress and extinguish it in the toilet. Mom didn’t shave dad’s hairy body in the kitchen during breakfast. "That would have been Linwood’s mom," Gouberman says of "Malcolm" creator Linwood Boomer.

But something felt familiar about the quirky sitcom family with the genius middle kid (Frankie Muniz), his three hooligan brothers, clueless dad and drill-sergeant mom. "Mostly it was the way the brothers fought and blamed each other for everything," says the Orthodox Jewish writer, who attended Emek Hebrew Academy with his two younger brothers.

Apparently viewers — and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences — agree. "Malcolm" became an instant hit after it debuted last year, rescuing Fox from a Nielsen black hole. Last month, it raked in eight Emmy Award nominations, two shy of HBO’s "Sex and the City" and four shy of the NBC comedy "Will & Grace."

While "The Sopranos" again stands out with 22 nominations and Holocaust fare predictably dominates the miniseries category (specifically ABC’s "Anne Frank" and TNT’s "Nuremberg"), "Malcolm" surprised observers by edging out NBC’s "Friends" to vie for best comedy.

The sitcom shares a thing or two with competitors "Sex" and "Grace," shows also based on the lives of their creators. "All the humor comes out of real kinds of relationships and interactions," Glouberman says of "Malcolm." "It’s not just ‘setup-joke, setup-joke.’ We write funny scenes. We don’t feel the need to shove jokes in every two sentences."

About a third of the show’s dozen writers are Jewish — including Glouberman, who believes he was destined early on to write for television. "My parents say I was glued to the tube from the time I was 2," confides the Montreal-born writer, who moved to Los Angeles at age 10. "I watched all the trash, from reruns of ‘Gilligan’s Island’ to ‘The Brady Bunch.’" At Yeshiva University of Los Angeles, Glouberman says he was the class clown who "got thrown out of class a lot for having a [smart] mouth." At home, he annoyed his then less-observant parents by pointing out all the food items that didn’t have a heksher.

After graduating from UCLA, Glouberman worked the reception desk at a film distribution company and descended on all the comedy scripts that arrived in the mail. By the age of 25, he was a staff writer on NBC’s "3rd Rock From the Sun," where he helped create the story line in which the fictional aliens decide they’re Jewish because their last name is Solomon. On "3rd Rock," he shared the writer’s room with Boomer, who eventually hired him to work on "Malcolm."

Glouberman has since written seven episodes, mining his own childhood for yuks. One show is based on the time his parents accidentally left his brother standing in the corner all night long. Another recalls how he discovered his dad sitting in a car at 2 a.m., smoking a stogie and wielding a lead pipe lying in wait to catch some teenage hoodlums. Malcolm’s dad is less forbidding; he falls asleep and awakens with cigar ash all over his face.

"Malcolm in the Middle" may be rife with gross-out humor and sight gags, but Glouberman insists it jibes with Torah values. He points out that Malcolm’s mom and dad actually love each other, unlike the bickering parents on Fox’s "Married… With Children." The TV family has dinner together. The kids don’t get away with anything. "The children honor their mother and father, but they don’t necessarily do that in classic terms," Glouberman chuckles.

The show is so hot that observers have wondered what will happen when 15-year-old Muniz and his co-stars complete adolescence. "For a while, they were bleaching the [fuzz] on our lips and having us drink hot lemon juice so our voices didn’t crack," says Justin Berfield, 15, who plays Malcolm’s second-oldest brother, Reese.

For Berfield, a Jew from the West Valley, the relationship between Malcolm and tough guy Reese rings true. "That’s how brothers are — they pick on each other," he says. "Every day, my older brother picks on me somehow."

Sometimes, he confesses, he wishes Malcolm’s family was his own. "Then I would be the older brother in the house, so I could do the beating up, instead of getting beaten up," he quips.

"The Emmy Awards" will air on CBS on Sept. 16.

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Catch a Rising Star

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Elizabeth Berkley’s audition with filmmaker Woody Allen for a part in his latest comedy, "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion," resembled a scene out of an "I Love Lucy" episode.

All the actress knew about the highly secretive project was its setting: the 1940s. So, eager to impress Allen and get the part, she had her hair done in a Veronica Lake style for their highly anticipated meeting.

As she walked the few blocks to the director’s New York office, a sudden downpour engulfed the streets of Manhattan.

By the time she reached her destination, Berkley was drenched. "It was like I had just come out of a shower," she recalls. "I was that soaked.

Despite the inauspicious beginning, Berkley soon got a call to report for makeup and wardrobe for "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion."

Berkley plays another classic staple of 1940s films: the sexy secretary. "She’s the office girl that all the men want," Berkley says, "but she’s the one who always goes home alone at night."

Playing the good girl on the big screen is a nice change for the 5-foot-10-inch Berkley, best known for her role as Nomi Malone, a topless Las Vegas stripper/lap dancer, in the NC-17-rated "Showgirls," which launched her feature-film career among a swirl of controversy and poor reviews in 1995. It followed a more than three-year stint as Jessie, the girl-next-door, on the popular Saturday-morning TV sitcom "Saved by the Bell."

Allen also that the actress had a flair for comedy.

"I thought she could be funny, that she had the ability. This is a girl who’s got a very sort of perky quality, and she’s sexy and she’s got a lot of energy, and if she’s used correctly, she can be a very funny actress. All she needs is a couple of chances to show that," Allen says.

"I only had a small thing to offer her in this film, but perhaps along the line, I’ll have something more substantial for her, and I wouldn’t hesitate for a second to cast her because she’s got that energy."

Experienced filmmaker that he is, Allen may be fully cognizant of Berkley’s acting potential, but it’s doubtful he realizes she’s Jewish.

"He doesn’t know," Berkley admits.

"I still remember the beginning of my Haftorah," says Berkley, who, growing up, attended Adat Shalom Synagogue in Farmington Hills, Mich. and celebrated her bat mitzvah at Beth Abraham Hillel Moses — now Congregation Beth Ahm — in West Bloomfield, both Conservative congregations in the Detroit suburbs.

"People say to me, ‘Why is that?’ And I say, ‘Because I’ve had to sing it for people to prove to them [I’m Jewish]. I don’t know why. It’s just a funny thing. That or the Four Questions or ‘Dayenu.’"

Berkley now attends the Stephen S. Wise Temple in Los Angeles with her parents, Fred and Jere Berkley, who moved to the West Coast when Berkeley was 15.

"I’ve taken singing lessons [there] from Cantor Nathan Lam for quite a few years, so that’s where we’ve gone for the High Holidays," Berkley says. "I love the services there."

She’s also attended services at Synagogue for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles, where she finds Rabbi Joseph Telushkin "pretty inspiring."

But it was back home in Michigan that Berkley developed her strong family values and a love for Judaism that guided her.

"Not only am I grateful for my family, but there’s a real love I have for growing up Jewish, and where I grew up, because there’s a foundation that it’s given me in these crazy kind of worlds that I might come across," says the actress.

"And I have to say, it doesn’t ever leave me. I could be sitting next to someone and be in conversation or see that [the person] has a Jewish star on, and instantly, it’s just a comfort. You can go anywhere in the world, and it’s an immediate, immediate feeling of home."

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Deconstructing Woody

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Woody Allen doesn’t stutter excitedly when he speaks. Nor does he wave his hands in a state of exaggerated panic.

The persona the New York writer and director adopts in front of the camera is, of course, just that. In person, Allen serves up almost none of his trademark shtick.

He’ll toss off the occasional small joke, usually at the end of a lengthy statement that he senses is slipping into self-seriousness. But unlike, say, Robin Williams, Woody Allen isn’t always on.

So much the better; in an age when intellectualism is so out of style that it’s not even fodder for cheap laughs, a thoughtful Allen is downright refreshing.

"I’m not a religious person," he muses, "but in the Jewish families that I’ve known and grew up in there were certain social values that were common to them — appreciation of theater, of classical music, of education, certain professions like medicine, law. When that appears in your comedy, it has the patina of Jewish humor."

His latest film, "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion," regrettably doesn’t have the slightest hint of Jewish humor. It’s a slight romantic farce set in the 1940s that’s filtered through "His Girl Friday," "It Happened One Night" and any of a number of Tracy-Hepburn movies.

Co-starring Allen and Helen Hunt, "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" is a mild diversion that hardly ranks with the director’s best. In fact, the movie offers very little to talk about.

Instead, I ask the 66-year-old Allen, who’s nursing a summer cold and cough, for his thoughts on the present and future of Jewish humor.

"It’s a tough question," he responds, after a brief pause. "It’s a very complicated subject. No one that I know has ever really done a credible study."

"People always talk about Jewish humor, but I find the same things are true in gentile comedians that are true in Jewish comedians. When you look at what Bob Hope does when he tells jokes, or any of those comedians that are out there that are not Jewish, they do self-deprecating humor; they’re cowards, they chase after beautiful women and fail. They do the same thing that Jewish comedians do."

It’s worth noting that "Scorpion" supporting actress Elizabeth Berkley, a nice Jewish girl from Bloomfield Hills, Mich., best known for "Showgirls" and the teen sitcom "Saved by the Bell," never spoke with Allen on the set about their common heritage.

"I don’t think Woody knows I was raised Jewish," she confided earlier with a chuckle. "He probably thinks I’m a shiksa."

Allen, who’s dressed far snappier than his screen alter ego in a navy blazer, blue checked shirt, khakis and shiny brown Florsheims, is still mulling the qualities that make a joke Jewish.

"Is Eddie Murphy or Chris Rock doing Jewish humor? The content is black, but the approach is the same thing I would do. It’s just that the actual experience is different. So, I don’t really know how to define Jewish humor. But I know it when I see it."

Allen suddenly leans forward slightly, as if he has the answer to the puzzle. "I guess it’s that humor that exploits the Jewish social fabric," he gently asserts.

It’s no secret that Allen idolizes the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman who, late in his career, drew on his own parents’ tumultuous courtship and wedding for several outstanding screenplays (most notably, "The Best Intentions"), directed by other filmmakers in the last decade.

I harbor the hope that Woody Allen has a couple of personal Jewish stories in his drawer of potential ideas, waiting — as Bergman did — until after his parents are gone to commit them to celluloid.

"I always wished my talent lay in the dramatic form," Allen confides. "I would much rather be Eugene O’Neill or Tennessee Williams than a comic persona, a comic playwright. But that’s not what happened. That’s not who I am.

"But I would love to try some more dramas before I’m finished working and see what happens. Maybe over the years I’ve developed enough skill at them to be able to do them better than I’ve done them in the past. I’ve always had a greater admiration for Bergman and Chekhov than I have had for the comic people that I’m supposed to like."

Would he draw on autobiographical details and situations for those dramas?

"Yes, I’m sure I would because it’s the path of least resistance, and I always take that." Allen chuckles and hastens away, eager to return to the solitude of writing another script.

"The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" opens Aug. 24.

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