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Jewish Journal

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October 17, 2002

Many Jews OK With Proposition K

Leave a Comment / Community /

The recent publicity centering around Hamilton High School’s Jewish parents’ disapproval of Proposition K — the $3.35 billion school bond issue — gave the impression that the Jewish community was against the proposition.

But Jewish activists are speaking up in defense of the measure, which will appear on the November ballot.

On Oct. 8., the American Jewish Committee (AJC) hosted a discussion with Roy Romer, Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) superintendent, to express its support of the bond issue, which would fund repairs of aging classrooms and build new schools.

"Part of why this meeting happened is that we didn’t want Romer and the community to think that Jews were against this issue," said Susann Bauman, a Progressive Jewish Alliance (PJA) member. Baumann, AJC members and the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, among others, believe that to back the bond issue is to support public education.

While many Jewish parents at Hamilton High School fear that the bond issue’s passage will spell the demise of school district’s magnet programs, Romer assured the meeting’s attendees of just the opposite. "The magnet programs are strong, and the thought [of dismantling them] has never occurred to me," the superintendent said. "I’d like to increase them over time."

Romer also expressed his disappointment in what he perceives to be an overreaction on the part of Hamilton parents who protested the school’s loss of Jeff Kaufman assistant principal and director of the Academy of Music magnet at the school. "Parents supporting Kaufman wouldn’t let go. To use these differences as a club to penalize the 749,000 kids [in the district] because ‘I didn’t get my way,’ is not the way to do things," he said.

But, according to Bruce Phillips, a Jewish demographer and teacher at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, whose son attends Hamilton, Kaufman’s transfer to a junior high school is just one part of the problem with the bond measure. Much of the issue, he said, is distrust of the district, and the memory of 1997’s Proposition BB, which provided the district with $2.4 billion. Phillips accused the district of squandering $600 million of the sum.

"The reason I’m opposing this has to do with the credibility of the school district," Phillips said. "It has admitted that it misspent money with Proposition BB.

"As a very active parent at Hamilton pushing for educational reform, I’ve been lied to consistently, and I’ve had all kinds of manipulation," he said. "This school district is about self-preservation, as opposed to student achievement."

Kris Vosburgh, executive director of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, a group that opposes the bond issue, said, "At some point, taxpayers have to realize when they’re being played for suckers." Vosburgh said that the school district is showing they were unable to handle Proposition BB, and now they’re coming forward for even more money. "There’s something worse than having inadequate school facilities, and that’s paying for inadequate school facilities and not receiving them."

In response to complaints about Proposition BB, Romer told the meeting that school repairs during that period were not priced accurately, but his administration is more experienced and on the ball. "We are really running a straight operation," he said. "There is no corruption. We have more competence in place."

Rabbi Marc Dworkin of Leo Baeck Temple and the PJA agreed. "Under Romer, LAUSD has improved its accountability in the community," he said, citing the rise in Stanford 9 test scores. "Continuing to look at every failure in our society, we’ll never move ahead."

While pro-bond issue Jews appeared confident that Hamilton parents and other opposition within the community are in the minority, there is some unease about the fact that the complaints were made so publicly.

Dworkin believes that Proposition K is crucial for the Jewish community since the majority of the Jewish school-age children in the district attend public schools.

"This is a Jewish issue because our children go to public school, and society is so dependent on the quality education," Dworkin said. "If our children don’t have a future, what do they have?"

Many Jews OK With Proposition K Read More »

The Return of Big Brother?

Leave a Comment / Opinion /

Like America at large, the American university is a teeming marketplace of ideas.

Its greatness lies in its unrestrained commitment to open debate. Conversely, its darkest moments have come when the gateways of debate were closed.

We should know this as Jews and as Americans. In our own University of California system, the specter of communism once prompted state officials to monitor and then require loyalty oaths of employees. Among those who refused to sign the oath was the great German Jewish émigré scholars Ernst Kantorowicz, who escaped the Nazi terror in 1934 only to take flight from Berkeley in 1949.

Now we hear that the Middle East Forum plans to introduce a Campus Watch at American universities. The folks at Middle East Forum assure us that their monitoring efforts will be different from the McCarthy-era witch hunts. But when has monitoring of this sort had a beneficial effect? The goal of Campus Watch is to track "the often erroneous teachings and writings of U.S. professors specializing in the Middle East."

While this sounds noble enough, we must wonder who is going to determine what "erroneous" is. If it is a case of Holocaust denial, then it’s easy enough to identify. But what about scholars who understand the Middle East conflict not as a battle between forces of pure good and pure evil, but rather as a struggle between two legitimate nationalist movements (Jewish and Arab) fighting over the same land.

I fear that in the current political climate such an approach would be characterized as "erroneous." Conversely, I fear that anyone who expresses support for the Palestinian cause, regardless of his or her scholarly merits or his or her empathy for Israel, will be subjected to Campus Watch scrutiny.

The problem is not merely the principle of such monitoring. It is also the implementation, especially in the hands of the Middle East Forum people. A year ago, the Forum’s Middle East Quarterly published the fruits of its investigation into Israeli campus life. The objective then was to show "how a number of radicals actively legitimated the agenda of the country’s enemies." This statement should set us on notice that the Middle East Forum monitors are prepared to resort to dangerous scare tactics to advance their cause. When we read the roster of treasonous radicals, we become even more concerned. The list includes figures such as Ron Pundik and Yair Hirshfeld, who worked as representatives of a duly elected Israeli government to help draft the first Oslo accords. To brand them as "extremists" is absurd, but sadly consistent with recent attempts to airbrush out of history their bosses, the late Yitzhak Rabin and the current Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.

But the strangeness continues. We are also told to watch out for historian Benny Morris, hardly a flaming liberal, and eminent philosopher Shlomo Avineri, who has held mainstream political views since his time as director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. The kind of "monitoring" practiced here is indiscriminate and dangerous, the kind of bumbling attempt at censorship that gradually assumes a more chilling form, as portrayed so brilliantly in Milan Kundera’s novels about communist Czechoslovakia.

Fresh off its Israeli triumph, the Middle East Forum now proposes an American Campus Watch. This effort undoubtedly draws strength from the claim that anti-Semitism is flourishing on college campuses. There is cause for vigilance on campuses, as a small number of faculty and students use the pretext of criticism of Israel to advance an anti-Semitic agenda. But the key point to bear in mind is proportion. The number of voices tinged with hatred of Jews is small, I suspect, compared to the amount of anti-Muslim or anti-Arab sentiment on campus and beyond. More importantly, those few voices do not herald an anti-Semitic tidal wave. As recently as June 2002, the Anti-Defamation League, whose job is to fight anti-Semitism, concluded that "campus faculty and students are the least anti-Semitic among Americans" and that "anti-Semitism on U.S. college campuses is virtually nonexistent."

We must continue to remain on guard against anti-Semitism. But we must also learn to recognize that not all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. Not every supporter of the Palestinian cause is a Jew-hater. Yes, Muslim and Arab student organizations are aggressive in support of that cause. Yes, a handful of professors are outspoken advocates of that cause. And yes, passions can become inflamed and language incendiary. But to tar all criticism of Israel with the charge of anti-Semitism is also incendiary and quite inaccurate.

The American university is a vibrant public square, a place where thinkers of different ideologies and intellectual temperament set up their soapboxes. If we as committed Jews on campus want to be part of the action, we would do well to spend less time compiling inquisitorial dossiers or printing slick brochures that demonize the Palestinians. And we certainly do not need allies like the Middle East Forum, whose questionable tactics have been met with warm embrace by some in our community.

Rather than exercise thought control, we should seek out dialogue with reasonable and moderate colleagues. Where, if not the university, can such dialogue take place? At the same time, we should redouble our efforts to explore the rich and textured history of Israel. Indeed, the time has come to establish new centers, programs and chairs in the field of Israel studies. This is how the serious work of a university gets done. And this is how those interested in Israel on college campuses should be spending their time, energy and money.

David N. Myers is professor of Jewish history and vice chair of the history department at UCLA.

The Return of Big Brother? Read More »

Watch Necessary on Campus

Leave a Comment / Opinion /

American Jews have spent a lot of time worrying about the difficulties facing college students in recent years. As a result, American Jews have put their money and ingenuity to work on behalf of programs that would combat assimilation on campus.

We have poured more funds into Hillel-supported organizations, supported the Birthright Israel project, which has brought students to Israel for their first trip to the Jewish state, and philanthropists have endowed Jewish studies and Holocaust-education programs that have proliferated across academia. All of these initiatives have had positive effects on Jewish college life.

But despite this, we have witnessed an upsurge in anti-Israel activity across North American campuses that has mixed traditional anti-Semitism with the vicious protest tactics of the far left.

While academia has long been a stronghold of the left, the main focus of collegiate extremists has rarely been on Israel in the past. But Jewish students, parents and concerned citizens are only just now coming to realize that there is no greater stronghold for hatred of Israel than American colleges and universities.

The core of this anti-Israel cadre is the growing body of academics in the field of Middle Eastern studies. In his authoritative study of this genre published last year, "Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America" (Washington Institute for Near East Policy, $19.95), scholar Martin Kramer detailed the abyss of partisanship into which this discipline has fallen. Far from a bastion of impartial study, Middle East studies is a preserve of those devoted to whitewashing radical Islam, bashing Israeli policies, critiquing and undermining support for Zionism, and supporting the Palestinian Arab war to destroy the Jewish state.

Though you might think this field boasts of scholars with differing sentiments, in Middle East studies, only one point of view is welcome. Scholars sympathetic to Israel and critical of radical Islam are treated as pariahs in Middle East studies and an endangered species elsewhere in the academy. Even worse, much of this so-called scholarship is being funded by the federal government or by donors from Islamic countries.

Muslim and Arab student organizations, aided by their leftist allies, are making campuses hotbeds of anti-Israel protest. In response, the Jewish community can and should devote energy and money to educating Jewish kids to be informed pro-Israel activists.

But no student can expect to hold his or her own against a professor determined to indoctrinate a class with anti-Zionism and hatred for Israel. The issue of what students are being taught in class about Israel may turn out to be far more important than whether or not Jewish students can be effective advocates. The good news is that a Philadelphia-based think tank, the Middle East Forum, which is led by scholar and author Daniel Pipes, is seeking to begin the work of monitoring anti-Israel activity on the campus with a new Web site (www.CampusWatch.org) that has provided a vital store of information on the topic.

Predictably, the response from academia has been swift and vitriolic. Academics and institutions that have been listed on the site, as well as others who share their feelings, have come out swinging, falsely accusing Campus Watch of "McCarthyism" and suppressing academic freedom.

The truth is just the opposite.

It is, in fact, the campus Israel-bashers who have sought to banish any scholar who disagreed with them from the discipline. Having effectively blacklisted a brilliant scholar like Pipes from a major academic post, the academic mafia that controls Middle East studies is now seeking to ensure that any criticism of their work is branded as extremist.

But it is not Pipes, but the pro-Arab and anti-Israel academy that is creating a hostile environment for Jewish students. Bringing their biased work and course offerings to a wide audience, as Campus Watch has done, isn’t intimidation. It is merely exposing nefarious activity to the light of day, where donors to universities and taxpayers can properly evaluate it.

The Middle East Forum and the invaluable Pipes are to be commended for taking this initiative, and for braving the vituperation of both the academics and their mindless cheering section in the national press. But, unfortunately, no major Jewish organizations, including Hillel or the Anti Defamation League, has chosen to support Pipes’ stand or to criticize those seeking to stigmatize him.

Pipes is taking the heat on this issue, but he and his colleagues at Middle East Forum and Campus Watch should not stand alone. Anyone who values academic integrity, as well as the struggle against the growing scourge of anti-Semitism, needs to stand with him.

i>Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of the Jewish
Exponent in Philadelphia. He can be reached at jtobin@jewishexponent.com .

Watch Necessary on Campus Read More »

Learning to Live on the Knife-Edge

Leave a Comment / Opinion /

What’s it like to be a citizen of a country that preempts its enemies — now that this is the official national security doctrine of the United States? Americans might look to the Israeli experience.

Preemption has guided that Middle Eastern state since its founding in 1948. Israeli strategists decided early on that Israel was so vulnerable it couldn’t wait for disaster to fall, but it had to strike first when threatened. Nor could it wait until it accumulated evidence of evil intent that would stand up in a court of law. Rather, Israelis had to rely on the information accumulated by its vaunted intelligence service, the Mossad, and act on the partial evidence, on the hints, whispers and suspicions that so often make up the bulk of raw intelligence.

Twice Israeli preemption resulted in smashing victories: in 1956 and 1967. In the first instance, Israel attacked Egypt in league with Britain and France, but was forced to give up its gains. In the second instance, it attacked the instant Egypt closed the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba, an action Israel regarded as a casus belli.

However, in October 1973 Israel refrained from preemption when it had information a few hours in advance that Egypt and Syria were going to attack. Not wishing to be seen as an aggressor, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir hesitated — and Israel was nearly destroyed by invading armies.

The United States has never faced life on a similar knife-edge. No matter how heavy the blow, it’s had the territorial expanse and the military power to bounce back. Even when faced with the threat of a massive Soviet nuclear first strike, there was the sense that the United States had the wherewithal to respond.

But now terrorism has placed us on the knife-edge. Weapons of mass destruction make a terrorist act potentially cataclysmic. If a nuclear bomb were to be detonated in an American city, the entire city could be destroyed and the casualties would be in the millions. If an epidemic were loosed to which there was no immediate antidote, humanity could lose one-third of its numbers as it did during the Black Death of the Middle Ages.

Waiting for the first blow to fall is no longer an option, and preemption is an unfortunate necessity.

For Americans this means more war, and Iraq may be only the first. Engaging in war based on an opponent’s perceived intentions is a nerve-wracking enterprise. It can result in seemingly random violence and apparent aggression, because, in these instances, only a few people are in possession of the information that led to the action and that information is rarely made public.

It also results in errors. Again, the Israeli experience is instructive. In 1973, an Israeli hit team out to avenge the murder of Israeli athletes the year before at the Munich Olympic Games, murdered an innocent Moroccan waiter in Lillehammer, Norway, whom they mistook for a wanted terrorist. As Americans pursue shadowy terrorists around the world, we’ll make similar errors.

But by the same token, preemption can be effective. In 1981, Israeli aircraft destroyed Saddam Hussein’s Osirak reactor outside Baghdad, the first effort to thwart Saddam’s quest for weapons of mass destruction. Israel suffered global condemnation — and secret gratitude.

Some lucky few nations are protected by geography and build great civilizations. Great desert barriers protected the ancient Egyptians, while the British could reside in what they called “splendid isolation,” thanks to the English Channel. America has been one of these fortunate ones, blessed and protected by two great oceans. America has now been thrust into that world.

When Osama bin Laden’s terrorists killed 3,000 people on Sept. 11, he robbed Americans of the safety and security and complacency we’d previously enjoyed. He also robbed us of the luxury of suspending judgment before responding. He launched a war that America now has to finish — and finish victoriously. It’s the kind of challenge that comes with nationhood and which the framers of the Constitution fully realized the United States would have to face.

Only one more thing needs to be said: Saddam must be destroyed.

Story reprinted with permission from DavidS@hillnews.com.

Learning to Live on the Knife-Edge Read More »

Professional-Lay Relations Need Examining

Leave a Comment / Opinion /

When people query me as to who our clients are, if the person is Jewish, I often answer, “Half our clients are Jewish organizations. And the other half are people who treat us really nicely.”

Almost always people laugh at the response. Once, however, at a Jewish event in San Francisco, someone told me I was anti-Semitic. My answer to her? “Being realistic about our organizational issues doesn’t make me an anti-Semite.”

Jewish organizations have many issues. But after having worked with more than 100 of them, in the United States, Israel and around the world, I have come to the conclusion that among the top priority issues is how we interact with one another. In the process of pursuing tikun olam (repairing the world), I have seen more Jewish organizations destroy the Jewish spirit of the individuals involved. While they are busy saving the people “out there” they are chopping up the ones close to them.

This is no secret. Any of us who has been involved in organized Jewish life has witnessed this reality, if not personally been subjected to it. Yet, it is like the elephant in the living room that sits heavily in the midst of everything, and everyone wants to tiptoe around it, ignoring its presence. No one wants to publicly speak of the obvious.

I do.

And it is time the rest of us do, too. We must put the issue of inter-personal relations within organized Jewish life on the public agenda. I realized this on Yom Kippur. At one point in the service, our astute young rabbi opened up a public discussion from the bimah about business ethics in view of Enron, Tyco and Global Crossing. After a few minutes of discussion, I raised my hand and said, “We have an issue of business ethics in the Jewish organizational business — the ethics of how we treat one another.” For the rest of the day, people, many of them prominent in the community, continued to approach me, commenting on how correct I was, or asking me to explain further what I believed the issues were. I realized there is a great collective need in our community to explore this matter.

With all the exposure I have had to this issue and all the trans-continental and international airline seats I have occupied after meeting with my clients, I have given this a great deal of thought and weary reflection.

Where does it begin? At the core of Jewish organizational structure is a very particular professional-lay relationship. Notice I have turned its common parlance around and have not called it the “lay-professional relationship.” Describing it as the lay-professional relationship basically states the problem.

In Jewish institutions, as opposed to my non-Jewish clients, the lay people have a lot more hands-on day-to-day involvement with the organization. In many cases this is extraordinary and bespeaks a very heartfelt level of commitment. We would not be the community we are today without this level of lay involvement. Yet, it is not without its problems. And we cannot be afraid or intimidated to approach those problems.

Lay-professional means the lay people are primary. Primary over those who devote their studies, professions and career goals to Jewish life. It says that who gives the money or sits on a committee is more important than who builds a lifetime of service, giving 18 professional hours a day, weekends and holidays (yes, even Jewish ones) servicing what that money actually does.

People will say I am splitting hairs, that it is an equal relationship. But in most cases, we know this is simply not true. The question this begs is: Who really holds control?

When we work with a Jewish organization, there are four words that we most often hear from the professionals throughout the working relationship, as we approach the decision-making process. “But the lay people….” It is a constant mantra. The professionals shake with fear and uncertainty when they say these words. I have come to realize that these four words stifle their creativity, their leadership, their thinking, their self-confidence and their professionalism. I cannot count how many meetings I have sat in where the professionals, who possess the most knowledge, sit silently while their lay counterparts “run” the meeting. This fear and absence of control by the professionals inhibits the Jewish enterprise from being all it can be. There must be important decisions which professionals are allowed to guide, and in some cases are left alone to make.

This issue rarely arises in non-Jewish organizations.

These thoughts are in no way to discount the importance of lay people in Jewish organizational life. It is a partnership. Lay people fund the existence of this enterprise. Good lay people understand the issues, are committed, knowledgeable and integral to the vision, flourishing and survival of the enterprise. However, like in any partnership, roles must be clearly defined. If one partner is shorn of his or her decision-making responsibilities, particularly when he or she understands the issue or situation at hand better than anyone in the room, the partnership is not healthy.

In a changing world, where the Jewish enterprise is threatened on many levels, it is time that the partnership be examined, restructured and publicly addressed. There needs to be respect for the professional’s professionalism, insight, knowledge and vision. The schools training the professionals must meet the challenge of professionals trained to actually lead, not just follow and serve.

From this partnership flows the nature and culture of Jewish organizations. If we begin tikun olam at this level, then we can begin to repair what else needs to be fixed.

Torah values of how we treat one another must be integrated into this restructuring process. There needs to be a code of conduct. Professionals need to be trained in this code as to how to treat fellow professionals, employees and lay counterparts. Lay people need to be trained in this code as to how to treat the professionals as well as each other, including those lay people who are not major funders. In some cases, we actually need to civilize and Judaize our organizational behavior.

We need to call for a conference to address the issue.

Papers must be published in both professional and general Jewish publications which begin to create a new organizational culture. We must open the discussion for robust and healthy debate. Respectfully.

We must create manuals and codes. We have to establish training sessions. How we treat one another is as important as how we save one another.

I am certain someone will ask why, if I find this relationship so distasteful, do I continue to pursue Jewish organizations as clients? I am them. And they are me. I am bound at the hip to the Jewish enterprise. From our perch as marketers, delving deeply into their souls and operations I see Jewish organizations as nothing short of extraordinary, paving the path for daily miracles. I am proud of these organizations and to be playing such an integral role.

I just want to see us be all we can be.

Gary Wexler is an advertising executive and consultant to Jewish agencies.

Professional-Lay Relations Need Examining Read More »

What Women Want

Leave a Comment / Singles /

I picked up a copy of Cosmopolitan magazine in Dr. Rudnick’s office the other day. Leafing through, I started to form a picture that somewhere in there — between the Bedside Astrologer and a story titled "The Seven Dreams You Must Not Ignore" — was the answer to the question: What do women want? The question vexed Freud into the grave. It is the subject of perhaps more analysis than any other except, "Why are we here?" I’m here to find out what women want.

Men who read Playboy have defined what they want: a new, naked 21-year-old every month. Women who read Cosmo have another ideal in mind: The same girl with a cute, new little dress every month and a starring role on a TV series. The one thing both sides of the magazine stand can agree on: You can get a better woman.

Evidently, the key to understanding the mystery of women has something to do with the word "moisture." Every product they buy adds a measure of moisture they were missing. Hydrating, oxygen-rich, luscious, luxurious, energizing moisturizer. One part of the moisturizing routine involves drinking water, and lots of it — 800 gallons per day. If a woman drinks that amount, she’ll cure everything that ails her, except possibly water-weight retention. For that they can always take a pill, but believe me, these people don’t like anything to do with weight except losing it. They hate getting fat, being fat, looking fat, staying fat or thinking they’re fat. For those of you keeping score at home: Fat = bad.

"Light," on the other hand, is good. Lightweight formula, light as air, super light. Oil must be heavy because everything must be oil absorbing, oil-free, non-oily, won’t clog pores. Pores are bad. Trust me, smaller pores are in the national interest. "Clean" is another biggy, right up there with moisture. Clean, glowing skin. Deep cleaning, all-day clean. You really can’t beat the lightly moisturized feeling of clean.

Women can get a little confusing at times. Shiny hair is good, but shiny skin is bad. In addition, every cosmetic product has to conceal and condition, yet simultaneously create a natural look that makes her feel smooth, refreshed, powerfully protected, even-toned, fabulous! Got that? If they really wanted to look natural, what do they need to buy all this stuff for?

Then she wants to get dressed: be an erotic goddess; wear exotic patterns; foxy, fun fashions; and flirty skirts with the freedom of cotton. Panties that move with you.

New shoes. After conquering the moisture issue, shoes are what make women tick, preferably really uncomfortable ones that are hard to walk in. That’s the kind my girlfriend, Alison, likes. They have a whole section of painful, difficult shoes over at Saks. Mention her name if you go there. She wears open-toed shoes at night and then complains that she’s cold, but assures me that beauty knows no pain.

My research indicates that women think about their bodies almost as much as men think about women’s bodies. They want to have a nibble-worthy neck, a lust-worthy bust, gorgeous gams, a pretty posterior, a tempting tummy, exciting armpits. (I didn’t even know that armpits could be exciting.) She would like to have a combination of J-Lo’s abs, Sarah Jessica Parker’s back, Cameron Diaz’s tuchas, Lara Flynn Boyle’s eyebrows, Jennifer Aniston’s husband and anything belonging to Julia Roberts — except her husband.

She wants orgasms, understanding and fidelity — and, if I’m reading this right, she wants it from the same guy. More sleep. A win-win strategy. A hot bath. Confident guys. Flowers. A sense of humor.

Then she wants to put it all together. Strut her stuff with oodles of attitude. Be alluring. Make eye contact. Unleash her inner sex kitten. Give off a sexy vibe. Set his gaze ablaze. Seduce him with an irresistible fragrance. Play rough. Add sizzle to red-hot romance. Fire him up with her fingertips and electrify his senses with man-baiting moves to blast his romantic defense system to smithereens. (Yikes! They’re out to get us.)

It seems what she really wants is alliteration. She wants to be a fun, fearless, flirtatious female, free from food fears. Or subtle, sassy, simple, sexy and seductive in slick, skin-tight styles to snag that sexy stallion with her sinful, shameful secrets.

This is what they’re selling to each other in the magazines we Y-chromosome people don’t read. I don’t know what it says about the cultural zeitgeist, but the editor is a woman — so don’t blame me. Guys aren’t even invited to this coffee klatch. I had to steal my research copy from Dr. Rudnick’s office under my coat.

So the next time a woman tells me that men have put this impossible standard of centerfolds out there to measure up against, I’ll tell them what I learned in Cosmo: You can have it all.

That’s about it. Next time I’m going to read Redbook.

What Women Want Read More »

God vs. the Angels

Leave a Comment / Personals /

This past Saturday, something extraordinarily rare took place: My team, the Anaheim Angels, was positioned to win a post-season series — against the New York Yankees no less. And my friend and radio colleague Hugh Hewitt, who could not use his seats (first row, near home plate), sent them to me.

Only other diehard fans of such teams as the Red Sox and the Cubs can fully understand how much I wanted to go to that game with my young son. After all, who knows when such an opportunity will come again?

But the next day, Major League Baseball announced that the game would be a day game, not a night game, presenting me with an insurmountable obstacle. Friday night and Saturday until sunset are my Sabbath, and while I am not an Orthodox Jew, I am a religious one. I take the Ten Commandments seriously, and the Fourth says, "Thou shall remember the Sabbath Day to make it holy." No amount of rationalizing could convince me that going to a baseball game is a holy act.

And I really did try to rationalize. God will forgive me, I told myself. Hey, all in all, I’m a good guy. Anyway, this is a one-time event — what’s the big deal of one Sabbath afternoon lost in the scheme of all the Sabbaths I will have observed? And I can attend synagogue in the morning and then go to the game. I won’t even buy anything at the stadium (commerce is forbidden on the Sabbath). I tried every rationalization.

But in the end, no argument worked, and I gave the tickets away.

Why I didn’t go is the reason for this column, because the reasons — both religious and nonreligious — can apply to everyone, whether religious or atheist.

One religious reason was the need to affirm in action that God and my religion are more important to me than attending a baseball game, no matter how significant the game. If I had violated the Sabbath to attend it, I would have been saying that in the competition for my priorities, the Angels defeated God. And if a baseball game leads me to compromise my religious beliefs, what would happen if I were really tested? What if I had to risk my life for a persecuted stranger, as Christians in Europe during the Holocaust had to (and only a noble few did)? We practice for big sacrifices by passing the tests of smaller ones.

A second religious reason concerned my children. They have been raised to forego some fun things like watching television on the Sabbath. How could I look them in the face and tell them that some of their desires have to relinquished, but mine don’t? My son will always remember that Dad, whom he knew to be a big Angels fan, gave up his final-game tickets because the game was on a Saturday. I hope that will count for something in his life.

The nonreligious reason is as important. I have devoted many years to studying, lecturing, and even writing a book on happiness ("Happiness Is a Serious Problem," Regan Books/HarperCollins, 1999). One of the themes of my approach is that fun and happiness are often related, but at least as often they are in conflict. For example, eating desserts is a great deal of fun, but it can also lead to great unhappiness, as many overweight people can affirm.

How does this apply to the playoff tickets? Keeping the Sabbath, my weekly day away from the world, away from television, radio and even from newspapers (the reading of which for me, a radio talk show host and columnist, is work), spent with family and friends and at synagogue, is a major source of my stability and happiness. The Angels game, when all is said and done, would have been great fun, but the Sabbath brings me happiness, and I opt for happiness.

A touching epilogue: Hugh could not use his tickets, which he also cherished, because he had a commitment to a church retreat. So here were a Christian and a Jew, each foregoing a very rare pleasure for his God and religion.

Now, two days after the great game, having had another meaningful Sabbath and having enjoyed watching the game Saturday after sunset on tape (without knowing the final score beforehand), I know I made the right decision. I suspect that Hugh feels the same. In much of Western life, religion has descended into simply making people feel good. At its best, however, religion teaches what is ultimately important and what isn’t. Neither a good nor a happy life is possible without knowing that.

That is why God must always be higher than the Angels.


Dennis Prager is an author, lecturer, teacher and theologian with a nationally syndicated radio talk show originating from Los Angeles on KRLA 870 AM.

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Walking the Land

Leave a Comment / Torah /

Every week I go on two walks that I absolutely treasure. Each Sunday, my husband and I walk through a different section of Los Angeles. We have no destination, but our purpose is to exercise. We could choose other forms of exercise. We could be on a treadmill, moving in place without moving in space. Yet this is not as gratifying as walking outside. The walks along the beach or in the hills around the city create another dimension of being.

The other walk is on Shabbat as I go to synagogue, walking the same streets that I drive during the week. Walking, I am much more present in the moment, existing in the place. Weekday mornings I pull out of my driveway, listening to the news on the radio and swerve around the two potholes in front of my home. Then I turn onto Pico Boulevard, knowing exactly how the stoplights are timed as I hurry through rush-hour traffic to get to work. Yet the details fly by.

When I walk those same blocks on Shabbat I notice subtle changes. I notice the tree that overhangs the sidewalk has grown an inch since last week. The pink of the gardenias is fading slightly, the white azalea bushes that are all around our neighborhood are drooping and turning brown on the edges. As I walk I am able to see the natural evolution, not just the end result. This happens even though the purpose of this walk is to arrive at a destination.

On both walks I am aware of more than my surroundings. I am aware that my breath is quieter as we begin our downhill trek and is much more labored on the uphill trip home.

As I walk I am also aware of my thoughts. Something happens as we walk. Rebecca Solnit writes in her book "Wanderlust: A History of Walking" (Penguin USA, 2001), "Walking, ideally, is a state in which the mind, the body and the world are aligned, as though they were three characters finally in conversation together, three notes suddenly making a chord. Walking allows us to be in our bodies and in the world without being made busy by them. It leaves us free to think without being wholly lost in our thoughts…. Moving on foot seems to make it easier to move in time, the mind wanders from plans to recollections to observations."

Abraham’s extensive trek from his home to the land of Canaan begins as we read this week’s Torah portion when God tells Abraham, "Lech lecha." These two Hebrew words are typically translated as "Go forth." The phrase could more loosely be read as "Walk." God commands, "Walk from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you." Why does God use the Hebrew word that means "walk"? Why not "come" to a place? Why not "go out" or "leave"?

The word "walk" invites a journey. It implies separating from and going toward. It is neither the arrival nor the exiting, but is the continuum across time and space.

God implores Abraham to be on — and in — the journey as a way of knowing reality. Two levels of knowledge can be attained by walking the land. The first is physical: one gets to know the land by walking it. The second level is spiritual: walking allows wisdom to enter our consciousness.

The physical aspect of learning occurs as we slow down. When we are walking we see things we would not otherwise experience. In his book, "Walking the Bible" (William Morrow & Co, 2001), Bruce Feiler writes about the details of the land of our ancestors. He learns in-depth about the landscape, the topography, the climate, the foliage and the history that took place on those spots. Beyond the worldly knowledge he acquires, he discovers his connectedness to his roots, his people, his traditions.

The book of Proverbs says, "Your journey should direct you," and a Chasidic master teaches that it means, "Go to yourself." So, your wanderings should lead you to your true self. How do you get there? By creating the time and milieu to foster the insights that help us recognize who we are and who we can strive to be.

As we walk through the physical, we can also find the divine. We can find God on a walk in the tranquil woods as the wind rustles the leaves and the birds call back and forth in a song of response. We become aware of God’s presence when we stroll along the pounding shore, smelling the ocean, hearing the roar of the waves and feeling the breeze caressing our skin.

Slow down to rise higher. Step by step you can come to know the world, to understand your true self, and to recognize God’s presence in your life. As God told Abraham, "Lech lecha." Go forth, walking along the way, noticing, thinking, seeking, attaining wisdom. Ultimately, you may be able to walk with God.

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Making Show Business Our Business

Leave a Comment / Rob Eshman /

It has almost risen to the level of obsession, this concern about Hollywood Jews and Israel. Why aren’t they speaking out on Israel’s behalf? Why aren’t they flying to Israel to show their support? Why aren’t they sending gobs of money to help out?

In Los Angeles, the questions arise soon after any conversation about the Mideast conflict starts. We might not be able to calm the racket in Gaza or Jerusalem, but can’t we ratchet up the noise in Beverly Hills and Burbank?

Throughout this recent intifada, The Journal has tracked how Jews in the entertainment industry have reacted to the conflict. What we found and reported is what Rachel Abramovitz, writing in the Los Angeles Times last month, also discovered: Various and sometimes innovative efforts on Israel’s behalf by a younger generation of Hollywood Jews are not mirrored in the actions of the entertainment industry’s most powerful Jews. The foot soldiers have mobilized while their generals remain, for the most part, immobile.

Those critical of Hollywood’s reaction maintain that an A-list celebrity stepping onto the tarmac at Ben-Gurion Airport would do more for Israel’s image these days than yet another English-challenged spokesman from the Foreign Ministry on CNN.

These critics may be right, but they have chosen a glass-half-empty approach. The strong, silent studio heads and big-name celebrities make an easy target. They are a source of constant frustration to those activists who have recently tried, in a concerted and behind-the-scenes way, to push them into a more public role.

But focusing on the top billing shouldn’t blind us to the names below the title, including young-ish agents, writers, producers and directors for whom this crisis has been a watershed in their Jewish involvement. It’s true they don’t have studio-boss clout. But they are grappling to find their voice in difficult times — launching some innovative projects, raising money, organizing speakers and outreach for their peers (three such programs that I know of in the past two weeks). And they are no less frustrated than their non-entertainment industry friends at the silence of other Jews in the business. To tar these people with the brush of apathy is uninformed and shortsighted.

But what about the big names at the top of the marquee? I have three theories on why we’re not hearing more from them.

Some are already giving plenty in their own way. Take Steven Spielberg. The founder of The Righteous Persons Foundation and the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation and the creator of a movie called "Schindler’s List" is working on a movie about the birth of the Israel air force, which will probably do for Israel what "Saving Private Ryan" did for World War II veterans.

Some love Israel, but don’t support its current government. On the one hand, it is unfair to chastise American Jewish celebrities for not falling in lockstep behind Israel when many Israeli celebrities feel just as uneasy with Ariel Sharon. On the other hand, how hard is it to craft a message in support of democracy and against terror that any Jewish celebrity would be proud to stand behind?

Those celebrities who do speak out in support of Israel but against some of its government policies, such as Richard Dreyfuss, are pilloried by political opponents who want only their pro-Israel message delivered. For these Hollywood Jews, it’s damned if you don’t, more damned if you do.

Finally, this: some, maybe most Hollywood Jews just aren’t all that Jewish. Muslim, Christian and Jewish zealots all share the belief that Hollywood is home to a latent Zionist strike force ready to be mobilized the moment some top-secret, high-frequency shofar is blown. Sure, there are a lot of Jews who work in Hollywood (although even that is changing faster than the stereotype). But most of them are no more passionate about their Judaism than their Christian counterparts are about their Christianity.

Headlines don’t create a passionate and outspoken Jewish identity; upbringing and education do. It is no coincidence that the Hollywood Jews who are most outspoken on these issues have a history of Jewish involvement predating the current crisis. Some are the sons and daughters of Holocaust survivors, others were raised in culturally or religiously Jewish homes and still others entered Jewish life as part of spiritual search. As Neil Gabler documented in his seminal "An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood" (Anchor, 1989), the men who created the film industry rushed to assimilate into an America that they idealized and that their movies mythologized. But the Goldwyns and Warners had a Jewish identity ingrained by an immigrant past and anti-Semitism. New generations of Jews in Hollywood have lost that particular birthright. In the long run, creating Jewish activists, whether in Hollywood or Agoura, means building Jewish community.

The other lesson, which Americans of all creeds are quickly forgetting, is that celebrities are not heroes. As the late Joseph Campbell pointed out, the difference is clear as day: celebrities live primarily for themselves, heroes act to redeem society. Very few of us can ever be celebrities, and we ought not to wait for them to show any of us how to be heroes.

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Magnolias and Menorahs

Leave a Comment / Entertainment /

“Shalom Y’all: Images of Jewish Life in the American South” photography by Bill Aron, text by Vicki Reikes Fox (Algonquin Books, $24.95).

While the idea of Southern Jews may be as improbable for some as snacking on matzah while drinking a mint julep, in fact, the American South has had a thriving Jewish community since the early 1700s.

In their new book, “Shalom Y’all: Images of Jewish Life in the American South” photographer Bill Aron and writer Vicki Reikes Fox have complied a series of joyful black-and-white photographs and text celebrating this dual community: Southerners as defined by their location and lifestyle, Jews by virtue of their religion and their heritage.

Although the Jewish South has gained increased prominence in the popular imagination over the last few years — with books such as “The Ladies Auxiliary” about Memphis Jews by Tova Mirvis (Ballantine Books, 2000) and “My Father’s People” (Louisiana State University Press, 2002), a memoir of growing up Jewish in the South by Louis Decimus Rubin — “Shalom Y’all” is the first book to document modern Southern Jews with photography.

While the original Jewish settlers in the South during the 1700s were Sephardic, Ashkenazic Jewish peddlers were instrumental in helping to settle the South throughout much of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Traveling from town to town to sell their wares, they eventually established stores and raised families. They participated in civic life, built synagogues and established cemeteries.

“Southern and Jewish are two words not often associated with each other,” said Aron, whose poetic images of Jews in America and abroad are featured prominently in collections from the Museum of Modern Art to the Skirball Cultural Center. Aron said that “Shalom Y’all” attempts to link them in a comprehensive look at the Southern Jewish experience. “The book presents a multidimensional portrait of contemporary Jewish life in the deep South as it has evolved from the early 1700s.”

That evolution has taken Jews from being peddlers to politicians. Aron tried to preserve the unique traditions of the Southern Jews he encountered. He captured sukkot decorated with recently harvested cotton in Mississippi; Joe’s Dreyfus Store Restaurant, opened in the late 1800s by Theodore Dreyfus in Lavonia, La., and a Jewish shrimper in New Orleans.

Over the last 12 years, the writer and photographer traveled throughout the deep South to Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Alabama, photographing and collecting stories about the Southern Jewish life. “We tried to tell the unique story of the Southern Jewish experience through three distinct voices: Photographs, a narrative woven into descriptive captions of the photographs and stories told by Southern Jews about being Jewish in the South,” Aron explained.

Joe Erber, one of Aron’s subjects who lives in Greenwood, Miss., spoke of the dual identity he faced as a Southern Jew, “When I started school at Peter Rabbit kindergarten, I learned ‘Shema Yisrael’ was for home and synagogue, and ‘Our Father who art in heaven’ was for kindergarten.”

Most of their subjects handled their hyphenated identity with an ease and grace that surprised Aron, who for his entire life has lived in cities with large Jewish populations — Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Philadelphia.

“As a Jew who lives surrounded by Jews, you take a sense of normalcy in being Jewish for granted. The real difference between Southern Jews and big-city Jews is that when you’re in the big city you happen to be Jewish; when you are in the South your Judaism brands you.”

Aron and Fox were linked to their subjects by the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience, just outside Jackson, Miss., of which Fox is a founding project director. While at the museum, Fox had the idea of going around to photograph the disappearing small-town Jewish communities and the vibrant large-city communities in the South, which the museum was documenting, and brought Aron to the project. An exhibit of the photographs has been organized by the Skirball Cultural Center and will debut there Dec. 12. It will then travel across the country.

Fox, a native of Hattiesburg, Miss., has kept her lilting accent despite having lived in Los Angeles for 17 years. “This project gave me the opportunity to tell the story of my heritage,” Fox told The Journal. “We were also able to tell the story of Southern Jews through an artistic eye. It is a little recognized story outside of the South — its history and complexities are unique from the mainstream Jewish American experience and all the richer for it.”

To learn more about Bill Aron’s work visit
www.billaron.com. To learn more about the Museum of the Southern Jewish
Experience, which is part of the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern
Jewish Life, visit www.msje.org .

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