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Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

October 24, 2002

World Briefs

Leave a Comment / United States /

11 Israelis Arrested as Spies for
Hezbollah

A military officer is among 11 Israelis arrested on charges of spying for Hezbollah. The lieutenant colonel in the Israeli army allegedly passed on information about Israeli deployment along the country’s border with Lebanon in return for drugs. Reports of the arrests came a month after the event, after a gag order on the news was lifted on Wednesday. Over the last two years several cases of Israeli citizens spying for Hezbollah have been uncovered, but security officials called this one the most grave and worrying among them.

U.S. Peace Plan Criticized

Israel and the Palestinians expressed reservations Wednesday about a new U.S. peace plan. Both sides said the plan, which has the backing of the United Nations, Russia and the European Union, is too vague on important issues. The criticisms were voiced as the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State William Burns arrived in Israel on Wednesday for talks with the two sides about the plan. He was expected to meet with top Israeli and Palestinian officials, but not with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat.

U.S.-Israeli Programs Get Funds

President Bush signed a defense-spending bill Wednesday that includes extensive funding for joint U.S.-Israeli programs. Congress appropriated $136 million for the Arrow anti-missile defense program, as well as $18.5 million for the Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser, which intercepts rockets. The Litening II Targeting Pod, which enables aircraft to fly and target at night and in bad conditions, received $48 million. The Bradley Reactive Armor Tiles program, which protects tanks by exploding outward when hit, got $25 million.

Israel Extends Benefits to Wealthier
Immigrants

Immigrants to Israel from prosperous countries, including the United States, will now get the same benefits as emigres from poorer nations. The decision is aimed at increasing the number of those making aliyah. Israel Radio reported Monday that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made the decision the night before at a meeting with Yuli Edelstein, the deputy minister of absorption.

Egypt to Air Anti-Semitic Series

Egyptian television plans to broadcast a 30-part series based on the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” an infamous anti-Semitic tract. Egyptian television this week began advertising “Horseman Without a Horse,” saying it will be broadcast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which starts in early November. Israeli media and Jewish groups have criticized the show, starring and produced by well-known Egyptian actor Mohammed Sobhi, since plans for its production were announced last year. The “Protocols” purports to reveal a Judeo-Masonic conspiracy to overthrow the established world order by fomenting wars, revolutions and capitalism to pave the way for world Jewish domination. Sobhi plays a character who sets out to prove that the book is historically accurate. Sobhi defended the series, telling The Associated Press his show is “an artistic work which only reveals the Zionist schemes to seize Palestine.” The Egyptian media frequently have been accused of carrying blatantly anti-Semitic material.

Olive Grove Clashes Erupt

Israeli settlers and Palestinian olive-pickers clashed Monday near the West Bank city of Nablus. Israel Radio reported that an Israeli field and three Palestinian cars were torched. There was no immediate word on any injuries suffered in the clash.

Israeli security officials said the confrontation was sparked when Palestinians, who had heard a rumor in nearby mosques that settlers had killed a Palestinian, burned the settlers’ field, according to Israel Radio reports.

Monday’s clash was the latest in recent disputes between Israeli settlers and Palestinians harvesting olives.

Britain Urged to Recall Envoy

The Simon Wiesenthal Center called on British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to recall Britain’s ambassador to Israel. The call was issued after envoy Sherard Cowper-Coles was quoted by the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot as saying last week that, “Israel has reduced the West Bank and Gaza Strip into a vast concentration camp.” The director of the center’s Paris office, Shimon Samuels, said in a letter to Straw that if the comments are verified, “We urge the prompt recall of Mr. Cowper-Coles for Holocaust revisionism, banalization of the memory of its victims and endorsement of the most extreme voices of Palestinian anti-Semitism.”

Refugee Numbers Limited

The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) is “deeply disappointed” by the number of refugees to be allowed into the United States this year. The Bush administration announced 70,000 refugees would be admitted in the upcoming fiscal year, the same number as last year. Refugee organizations had requested an increase because only 27,000 refugees had entered last year as a result of administrative and security difficulties. The allocation for refugees from the former Soviet Union, set at 14,000, is sufficient to cover the number of Jews expected in the coming year, HIAS Washington representative Gideon Aronoff said. But Aronoff said the overall numbers are disappointing and the administration has yet to prioritize the security reviews of refugees waiting in processing centers.

Shul Denied Special Zoning

Religious groups may be prevented from opening churches and temples in residential neighborhoods, a U.S. court ruled. Kol Ami, a congregation trying to open a synagogue in a Philadelphia suburb, had won a lower court decision, but a three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Oct. 16 that large churches or temples could create traffic and parking problems.

Briefs courtesy Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

World Briefs Read More »

Hebrew School Horror Stories

Leave a Comment / Cover Story, Education, Family, Kids & Teens /

Randy Fried will never forget the day he almost had a police escort to Hebrew school. Like many other Jewish students around the country, the then-preteen class clown ("I was a Hebrew school teacher’s worst nightmare") tried every excuse in the book to avoid going to his weekly bar mitzvah training class.

He faked sick. He faked homework. He probably would’ve faked his own death if it meant skipping the "Shema" for a day. One afternoon, Fried got into such a heated argument with his parents about blowing off class, that a neighbor called the cops.

"Two officers showed up, and one asked my dad, ‘Is there a problem, here?’" the 24-year-old recounted, chuckling at the memory. "So my dad said, ‘My son refuses to go to Hebrew school, and he has to learn his religion because his bar mitzvah is coming up.’"

The officer looked at Fried’s father for a moment and then said something along the lines of, "Well, Hebrew school is very important." He then asked Fried if he needed ride in the back of the squad car to get to class.

Panicked, Fried declined and said it wasn’t necessary. Without another complaint, he let his dad drop him off at the former Temple Beth Torah in Alhambra for class.

Now, the Arcadia resident is a sixth-grade Hebrew school teacher at Sinai Temple on the Westside. Having been on both sides of the desk, Fried is not alone in feeling that Hebrew school has changed a lot since those days.

Edith Singer, a veteran teacher at Sinai Temple on the Westside, said that she’s noticed significant differences in children’s attitudes during her nearly 40 years of teaching. "I know there was a time when kids said, ‘I hate Hebrew school,’" said the Holocaust survivor, who began teaching in 1965. "I don’t hear this anymore. I think it’s out of style to hate Hebrew school."

If Singer is correct, 11-year-old Daniel Yosef, who attends classes at Temple Emanuel in West Los Angeles, is right in style. "I think I learn a lot in Hebrew school," said the chipper sixth-grader after returning from a Sunday morning class.

His best friend, Raif Cogan, 11, admitted that while he’d rather stay home and play Nintendo, the pre-bar mitzvah classes are not that bad. "It’s not the funnest thing in the world," said Cogan, who also attends Temple Emanuel, "but it’s not terrible."

Both Yosef and Cogan believe their worst in-class crime — and that of their peers — is talking during class.

Talk to any Hebrew school graduate and he or she is likely to have a Hebrew school war story.

A writer living in Los Angeles, Gilah Yelin Hirsch recalls her escapades in Hebrew school as an 8-year-old in Montreal, in 1952. "The mornings were spent in Yiddish and Hebrew studies while the afternoons focused on English and French. One morning, I asked my Orthodox [Bible] teacher, in Yiddish, why God was always referred to as he, while the names and pronouns were interchangeably male and female, i.e. ‘umvorchim otach.’ [‘And you (F) shall be blessed.’] He grabbed me by my long, red hair and threw me out of the classroom," she said.

Deborah Jacoby, 30, of Sherman Oaks, remembers the time her older brother was sent to the principal’s office for making out with a girl on the bimah and then trying to convince administrators the act was a "double mitzvah," because it happened on Shabbat.

It seems that even the most well-behaved kid could — especially in the old days — turn into your average Hebrew school delinquent.

Fried and a buddy made their teacher so angry that he threw a book on the floor and stormed out of the classroom.

"Because it’s not ‘real school,’ kids don’t take it as seriously," Fried said. "What kind of trouble can they really get in? What is the [school director] going to say, ‘You can’t have a bar mitzvah?’"

Singer attributed the problem to fatigue. "Kids are tired in the afternoon, especially when they’ve spent the whole day at school. Maybe they have their mind on homework, and it makes them a little restless," he said

Singer said that while she used to have problems keeping her students in line, those issues have disappeared over the years. "Now they respect me because I’m over 70. I have difficult children, but I put foot my down," said the Czechoslovakian native.

"I take them very seriously," she said. "I treat them with a lot of respect, and they give it back to me."

Singer has noticed that in general, younger teachers tend to have more disciplinary problems than their experienced counterparts.

Deborah Kreingle, a Hebrew school teacher at Temple Isaiah in West Los Angeles, said she’s been teaching "longer than Moses was in the desert." "We don’t have any discipline problems," the West Los Angels resident said.

"The program is so fast, that we’re always running out of time," she said. "The kids are never bored, because there’s no time for it."

Most teachers agree that the decline in behavior problems can be credited to parents. Singer thinks that kids today know that when it comes to their Jewish education, they are in it for the long haul, whether they like it or not.

"Parents don’t promise the kids that after their bar mitzvah, they don’t have to go [to Hebrew school] anymore, which is what they used to do," she said. Along the same lines, Fried has noticed that parents seem more involved, which makes the children feel the classes are important.

Class size and hours spent in class have also changed. Singer has about half the number of students she had 20 years ago, and the classes, which used to meet three times a week, have been reduced to two — a common trend.

With reduced hours, teaching students to speak Hebrew has become a lower priority than teaching them to read the prayers in time for their bar and bat mitzvahs.

"I feel bad that we don’t have time to study Hebrew as a language," said Singer, who remembers a time when there was more emphasis on language and vocabulary. "Now we have to spend the time on reading. I think it comes from the rabbis from the Conservative movement who wanted to focus more on reading and knowing the prayers."

There are also more school activities that take away from academic class time. Many schools now include music, art and library programs, as well as field trips.

Fried said that one of the biggest differences he noticed, as compared to his Hebrew school days, are the classroom discussions. While he remembers a lot of lectures, teachers are now encouraged to promote questioning and discussion. As such, he said, programs have become more interactive.

"We talk more about ‘why,’ as opposed to ‘how to,’" Fried explained, "like, why do we believe in God, and why do we say these prayers?"

Above all, Fried said, his best teaching tool is the ability to use his experiences as a reformed prankster to reach his students. He often shows the kids his old Hebrew school report cards, which contain teachers’ comments about his constant gabbing and short attention span.

"My philosophy is that we need to teach them that Judaism is fun, so they don’t do what I did. We need to try to tap into that crazy energy in a creative way," said Fried, who believes that his rebellion was, in part, due to strict teachers and boredom.

While it appears that the heyday of Hebrew school horror has passed, kids continue to find ways to keep themselves entertained during their weekly classes. Yosef, Cogan and their cronies admit that a small amount of Hebrew school mischief still exists.

"We use the same desks that belong to the day school kids during the week," said Cogan, stifling a giggle. "A lot of times, we go through the desks and play around with their stuff."

Hebrew School Horror Stories Read More »

It’s Not That Easy Being Gifted

Leave a Comment / California, Community, Education /

Alexa Gelb has learned to pace herself in Hebrew class. If she completes her work too quickly, the academically gifted fifth-grader will only receive additional assignments.

"I’m pleased with the general studies program at Sinai Akiba Academy, but in the area [of Judaic] studies, instead of giving [the gifted children] more challenging work, they just give them more work," explained Alexa’s mother, Jenny Gelb.

In order to keep Alexa in a day school environment, Gelb has had to make concessions for what she believes is a lacking Hebrew program. However, Joseph Hakimi, Sinai Akiba’s Judaic studies director, said that while there is no formal gifted track, the school monitors accelerated students and provides additional resources for them. But Gelb said the monitoring is not sufficient.

The Beverlywood resident is one of many parents in the community faced with the challenge of finding a Jewish day school to accommodate the needs of her accelerated child.

Just as most day schools are not equipped to cater to the needs of special education children, most do not have resources for academically advanced students. While there is a legal mandate enabling special education students to get services through public schools, there is no such mandate for gifted children in California.

Often, parents must choose between a Jewish education or an accelerated program in non-Jewish schools. Gelb’s priority was to educate Alexa in a Jewish environment.

Gifted specialist Dr. Elizabeth Glass believes that gifted children in Jewish schools are underserved. "There’s so much you can do with gifted children by broadening the material covered in class, and I don’t think it’s being done," said Glass, the Bureau of Jewish Education (BJE) coordinator for Lomed L.A., a corps of volunteer tutor/mentors who are trained to work with children on a one-to-one basis.

While many of the community’s day schools lightly address the needs of gifted students, very few have structured programs, according to Loren Grossman, an educational advocate and consultant on special education and gifted students.

Glass noted that children can be gifted in many areas, including those outside academics. "If we don’t educate the community as to what it means to be gifted, certain areas [of giftedness] can be overlooked," she said.

One school that refuses to overlook a child’s talents is Stephen S. Wise Temple Elementary School in Los Angeles. This year, the school is offering a new program called PACE (Programs for Academic and Creative Enrichment). While most public schools rely on test scores to identify accelerated students, Wise prides itself on its broad definition of the term "gifted."

"Very often, gifted programs are focused on language arts and math," principal Rochelle Ginsberg said. "We wanted to acknowledge all of the talents and affinities a child might have."

Besides embracing those with high academic achievements, the program, which involves special mentors, individual projects and enrichment groups, also includes children who are exceptional in other areas such as music, art, science and various technologies.

Most of the other day schools address the needs of gifted students on a case-by-case basis. For example, Abraham Joshua Heschel Day School started a gifted program that quickly developed into a new schoolwide teaching tool.

Last year, the Northridge school received a grant from the BJE to provide Socratic seminars for its gifted students. Facilitated by a specialist, the seminars involved special discussions in which children answered open-ended questions.

The accelerated students were so enthusiastic about the program, that soon other students wanted to participate, too. As a result, the program was expanded to several grades.

Outside the Socratic program, Heschel provides for academically gifted students with a system of differentiated classes. Both English and math specialists teach the highest-achieving students.

Joyce Black, director of general studies at Valley Beth Shalom Harold M. Schulweis Day School in Encino, is looking for a gifted coordinator to increase the school’s program. Black said the new specialist will solidify the structure of the program, which she expects will include all grades.

"Currently, we enrich and modify our curriculum per the needs of the children," Black said. "We feel like we can have greater support, because we want to individualize and meet the needs of the children on all fronts."

While the Judaic studies program does not meet her expectations, Gelb said she is content with the education Alexa is getting at Sinai Akiba. "She’s been very fortunate in that most of the teachers she’s had have different expectations for different kids," Gelb said. "She knows she has to work hard, because the teacher expects more from her than the other kids."

It’s Not That Easy Being Gifted Read More »

Do Jewish Schools Make Good Neighbors?

Leave a Comment / California, Community, Education /

Every Jewish school should have a neighbor like Scott Meller of Feldmar Watch & Clock Center.

The Pico-Robertson business, which has been around for over 40 years, is located directly across from the Chabad educational institutions on Pico Boulevard (Bais Chana School for Girls, Bais Rebbe Junior High and Bais Chaya Muska Elementary School). "They’re great," said Meller, whose family owns Feldmar. "It’s nice because the whole area is affected by the fact that the schools are there. It brings people to the neighborhood so the property value increases. They’re good as neighbors."

Meller doesn’t bat an eye when discussing the big hole in the ground across the street — otherwise known as the future Bais Sonya Gutte campus — where an additional school building is under construction. When it’s completed, it will house the high school, junior high and elementary students, as well as the children at the Gan Israel/Garden Preschool, whose facility is down the street. Traffic is a concern, Meller conceded, but on the whole he wasn’t bothered.

"We’ve always had a nice relationship with the neighborhood," said Rabbi Danny Yiftach, the school’s administrator. When local residents expressed worries about traffic and parking, they decided to build two subterranean floors in the new building for extra parking, Yiftach said.

Local schools are anything but a deterrent for those interested in the community, said Meredith Michen of Landmark Realtors, which services the Pico-Robertson area. "Most of the people who move to that area think it’s a good thing to have the schools there," said Michen, adding that Pico-Robertson real estate prices are affected by demand, not by the schools in the area.

But not all Jewish schools are as fortunate. For Jewish parents, who often seek out a particular neighborhood just to be closer to a day school to send their children, sometimes there is such a thing as too close. Issues such as construction, noise, traffic, parking and environmental concerns cause residents to wonder: do Jewish schools make good neighbors?

Currently, the Abraham Joshua Heschel Day School West campus sits on a rented hillside property in Agoura Hills. In a plan to expand the school, Heschel West purchased 70 acres off of Chesboro Road in Agoura Hills five years ago. Throughout the permit process, the school board received concern from local residents who live in an area known for its open space and semirural environment.

Jess Thomas, president of the Old Agoura Hills Homeowners Association, is opposed to the project, because he said that the scope of the project has increased over time. "They said they were going to build a smaller school in the back of the canyon and away from the homes and the number of students they were talking about didn’t seem like a problem," he said. Because of the large number of additional students, Thomas feels that the amount of traffic will overwhelm the streets’ capacity in the surrounding area.

"We’ve put a fair amount of time into addressing the neighbors’ concerns," said Brian Greenberg, Heschel West’s school board chairman. Greenberg plans to stagger school hours so as not to overlap with traffic from other local schools. In addition, Heschel West has changed their proposed placement of the new school’s entryway three times to accommodate the neighbors’ preferences.

Over in West Hills, the New Community Jewish High School opened its doors this September inside the Bernard Milken Jewish Community Center. Head of School Dr. Bruce Powell, who was responsible for opening both Yeshiva University Los Angeles High School and Milken Community High School, said that local residents were supportive.

Powell, who owns a consulting company, Jewish School Management, which helps open Jewish schools around the country, is only too familiar with neighborhood complaints. "Neighbors see the word ‘school’ and think the [students] are going to be rowdy like any other high school kids," said Powell, who has broken up only two fights in his 23 years in the field. "First of all, [these students are] at a Jewish school. They care about education. We’ve got ninth-graders here taking 10 classes. They’re serious, college-bound kids." Powell feels the school has a responsibility to educate the neighborhood as such.

Before Yavneh Hebrew Academy moved into their Hancock Park neighborhood four years ago, finding a home in the former Whittier Law School building on Third Street, locals filed lawsuits with worries of noise and traffic — but that was then. "Our neighbors have thanked us," said Headmaster Rabbi Moshe Dear, who attributes the positive relationship to mutual cooperation. Making accommodations like quiet hours and rules for carpooling to ease traffic problems has earned Yavneh respect.

While there are some people who feel that living near a school is a drawback to community living, others find a sense of security in education. Ira Sherak, 32, said that when he decides to purchase a house in Los Angeles someday, he does not want to live within a one-block radius of a public high school. When it comes to Jewish institutions, the Brentwood renter is less wary. "A Jewish school is a private school, so you know it’s not that bad," said the New Jersey native. "[The students] are not generally hanging out and looking for trouble."

Above all, local Jewish educators seem to agree that developing good neighbor relationships means practicing what one preaches. "As a Jewish school we want to teach good values and mitzvot," Dear said. "And part of that means we should be good neighbors."

Heschel West’s administrators expressed similar sentiments. "Our philosophy is commitment to Jewish learning and internalizing Judaic values. Part of our community outreach is to go out in the community and befriend them," said principal Jan Saltsman. Greenberg agreeed. "My sense is that since we’re a religious school, we’re going to be more sensitive to being good neighbors."

Do Jewish Schools Make Good Neighbors? Read More »

The Battle Over Mesivta

Leave a Comment / California, Community, Education /

At a shabby, deserted golf course in an isolated area of Calabasas, a half-started construction site sits idle, and some 31 yeshiva bocherim learn Talmud at the makeshift campus of Mesivta of Greater Los Angeles.

Rabbi Shlomo Gottesman had opened the high school with nine students in 1997, hoping to transform it into a first-class yeshiva complete with dormitories, a beit midrash (study hall) and a basketball court. But, now five years later, his plans are stuck in the mud, because of a legal battle with a nearby homeowners association.

The protracted court case, which is now awaiting an environmental impact report (EIR) from the school, shows how badly a school building project can go when met with fiery opposition by the surrounding community.

The opposition first began in July of 1998, when one-third of the residents of Mountain View Estates — a gated community of million-dollar homes located a half-mile west of the yeshiva — signed a petition protesting the project and brought it before the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Among their objections were noise, traffic congestion, airborne contamination from digging at the site and "negative impact on the visual quality" of the rustic neighborhood. Representatives of Mountain View’s homeowners association even staged a protest for visiting members of the county’s regional planning commission on at least one occasion.

Despite the residents’ objections the board granted Mesivta a conditional-use permit. But the fight wasn’t over. Following the ruling in 1999, Mountain View sued the County for awarding Mesivta the conditional-use permit without an EIR. Last year, the homeowners won in the appellate court, which ordered Mesivta leaders to cease construction until they could come up with a full EIR. Gottesman said he hopes to have the document completed by the end of the year.

Gottesman said he is "disappointed but not heartbroken" by the legal battle. "Our momentum has slowed down but it hasn’t been lost," he said. He hopes that the homeowners association’s new board of directors — rumored to be voted in soon — will be able to conduct better relations between the two groups.

But could the whole process have been avoided if Gottesman had worked with the homeowners’ group prior to embarking on the project?

Initially, Gottesman had been surprised at the objections. He had intended to be a good neighbor, he said, meeting with Calabasas city officials and representatives of the community of Hidden Hills — but not with those at Mountain View. After the battle began in earnest, Gottesman told The Journal in August 1998 that he could have done things differently.

"I admit it was a mistake on my part, not to get in touch with them earlier," Gottesman had said. "Now the hard-earned funds for teaching Torah are instead being used to pay legal fees."

Several current and former members of the Mountain View Estates homeowners association board were contacted for comment, but all declined to speak to The Journal.

Despite the unfinished campus, the school has managed to attract 31 students this year, split among the ninth, 10th and 11th grades. Mesivta even graduated its first class of seniors last June, although there will be no such class this year because of the county’s restriction on enrollment for the 1999-2000 school year.

Currently, the school employs three teachers fulltime and eleven parttime, plus a trio of kitchen and ground staff. Most of the students live on campus in rudimentary dormitories, although a few commute in from the city with their teachers.

A majority of the infrastructure has been completed, Gottesman said, for what will be an 11-building campus, including grading the property, installing retaining walls and constructing the paved areas for several buildings. They have also put in a sewer system and conduits for water and gas lines.

That work, plus the initial purchase of the 8.5-acre property and legal fees, amounted of $2.5 million, Gottesman said — nearly all of the money raised to date. The rabbi said he has additional commitments that should bring in another $400,000, but will need to raise $6 million on top of that to complete the project.

"There’s a lot of money yet to be raised. We have no mortgage and we have taken no loans, but if we have to we will take out a construction loan," Gottesman said. "The advantage of the project is we don’t need one lump sum, because there are 11 small buildings instead of one big one, so we will be able to go in phases."

"I certainly see a challenge ahead but I am optimistic," Gottesman said. "I think as soon as people see action, action begets action. The action of construction begets the action of donation."

The Battle Over Mesivta Read More »

My Yiddische Papa

Leave a Comment / California, Education /

Educator Yakob Basner will tell you that if you want to learn about a people, study their language.

“You cannot learn or know the history of the Jewish people without learning Yiddish,” Basner said. “There are words you can not translate into English.”

“Yiddish is our language; it’s our culture,” he continued. “Before the war, 12 million Jews spoke it. And the last words spoken by the Jews in the Holocaust before they were killed was in Yiddish.”

Basner, a survivor of four concentration camps, has made it his lifelong mission to connect new generations of Jews to their past by teaching Yiddish language and literature. The Long Beach resident, who for 15 years has taught Yiddish at the Workmen’s Circle in Los Angeles, which preserves and promotes Yiddish culture, will receive the organization’s Yidishkayt Award during the Nov. 10 luncheon at the Fairmont-Miramar in Santa Monica that will celebrate the Southern California chapter’s 95th anniversary.

Basner has been vital to the continuance of the Yiddish tradition in the local Yiddish-speaking community, from Los Angeles’ Workmen’s Circle to Beverly Hills High School Adult School, where he has taught Yiddish for the past decade.

Basner, who turns 75 in December, has been speaking the language — an amalgam of German, Hebrew and European dialects — “from the beginning. I soaked it in from my mother’s milk.”

The Yiddish expert has lived most of his life before and after WWII in his birthplace, Riga, Latvia. He lost his father, mother, brother and sister in the Shoah. His brother was executed on a death march just a day before liberation.

At 17, Basner was liberated in 1945 from Theresienstadt in what is now the Czech Republic. He returned to Riga, where he worked in the leather-cutting trade while studying linguistics. By 20, he had reconnected with and married Doba, a girl he had known since he was 7. They have been married for 54 years.

“She was hiding in Riga throughout the war,” Basner said, “and I met her on the street.

After a decade of struggle to leave Latvia, which the Soviet Union occupied during World War II, the Basners and their two daughters finally reached California in 1980. The Basners have three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, with another great-grandchild on the way. Since 1987, Basner has taught Yiddish to thousands of students, including Eric Gordon, director of Workmen’s Circle.

In the fall of 1995, Gordon took Basner’s advanced Yiddish class. Two months later, Gordon became Basner’s boss at the Workmen’s Circle.

Gordon, a Yiddishkayt aficionado since his Yale days in the ’60s, has spearheaded a variety of chapter projects. His contributions include a mural on the headquarters’ Horner Street wall in the Pico-Robertson area, an art gallery, a monthly newsletter and programs co-sponsored with various organizations, including the Progressive Jewish Alliance and Democrats for Israel.

Gordon wants to continue to draw young people. A Jewish poetry slam is scheduled for late November, as is the formation of a Jewish artists group and a gay and lesbian group.

“Younger people are finding here what our older members have found in the past: a Jewish community and home,” Gordon said.

Social action and justice are still top priorities at Workmen’s Circle, which recently drafted anti-war resolutions.

“We stand for a national health-care system, labor rights, women’s rights, gay and lesbian rights, a land for peace solution to the Middle East conflict,” continued Gordon, explaining the platform of the Workmen’s Circle’s 50-plus North American affiliates. “It’s tied to the social action that in the past was conducted by unions, the Bundt and other organizations. It’s part of that whole tradition.”

Tradition is the key word.

“The Circle,” Basner said, “is an organization that has understood since the beginning of the 20th century to preserve the Yiddish culture, to help keep Jews connected.”

Basner has mastered English, Russian, Latvian, Hebrew and German. But it is Yiddish that remains closest to his heart.

“It’s a very rich, fun language,” Basner said. “A lot of idioms, proverbs, expressions. You not only get to teach the language, you have the opportunity to teach all the sayings and expressions.”

Although Yiddish is 1,000 years old, it still thrives with new works of literature released every year. Basner, whose Holocaust odyssey was chronicled in the English-language book, “The Unfinished Road: Jewish Survivors of Latvia Look Back” (Brager, 1991), still obtains much hanoe (joy) from teaching Yiddish.

“I feel that Yiddish will stay alive,” Basner said, “because it’s very stubborn, like the Jewish people. It will survive.”



The Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring’s annual awards banquet, emceed by “Freaks and Geeks” stars Seth Rogen and Jason Segel, will be held Nov. 10 at the Fairmont-Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica. Tom Hayden and members Judy Silver and Frances Friedman will receive awards. Mit Gezang Yiddish Choir will perform. For more information, call (310) 552-2007 or visit www.circle.org.

My Yiddische Papa Read More »

Jewish Studies Flourish on Campus

Leave a Comment / Education, Judaism, United States /

While the headlines speak of confrontations between pro-Palestinian and Jewish students at California’s public universities, the number and variety of Jewish studies programs on the campuses have never been more bountiful.

Students can earn their doctorate degrees in Jewish studies at the University of California (UC) campuses at Berkeley, Los Angeles, San Diego and Santa Barbara. Master’s degrees are offered at Irvine, Santa Cruz and Davis. Stanford University, a private institution, also offers a doctorate in the field.

Within the last few weeks, a number of developments have added strength and further scope to these programs.

At UC Berkeley, the Jewish studies program received a $5 million donation from the Helen Diller family, which will enable the university to annually invite an Israeli professor to the campus for a full year’s stay.

The California State University system (CSU), whose nearly 400,000 students on 23 campuses make it one of the largest public university systems in the world, has announced the creation of a bachelor of arts major in modern Jewish studies, through a consortium of the Chico, San Diego and San Francisco campuses. A fourth campus, at Long Beach, is scheduled to join this group next year, and the campuses at Sacramento, San Jose and Sonoma are expected to participate further down the road.

In addition, the state is establishing a teacher training program at the newly created Center for Excellence in the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, Human Rights and Tolerance at Cal State Chico; Chico’s reputation as a Jewish studies center has drawn such speakers as Elie Wiesel and Shimon Peres. Holocaust education has been mandatory in California public schools for some time, but the quality of instruction in these courses has fluctuated widely.

Overall director of the three-campus program is professor Sam Edelman, who, teamed with his wife, Associate Dean Carol Edelman, has made the rural residential Chico campus, about 170 miles northeast of San Francisco, a vital outpost of Jewish studies over the past two decades.

"We believe students should have the option of learning about one of the oldest religions and cultures in the world," Edelman said in introducing the new degree program. "The history, culture, literature and politics of Judaism have had, and continue to have, significant impact on the world."

In an interview, the 54-year-old Edelman, whose roundish face is framed by a white beard, ascribed some significance to the fact that he was born in Altoona, Pa., one day before the official proclamation of the State of Israel. Though he said his parents were "very secular," Edelman absorbed "a wealth of Jewish heart" from his grandmother, and additional Yiddishkayt from an itinerant rabbi.

After receiving his doctorate at the University of Arizona, Edelman went to the Chico campus 23 years ago, hoping to introduce some Jewish studies but planning to leave after two years. However, he soon felt at home in "this natural place, distant from the tumult of the outside world," and was also impressed by the support of the non-Jewish faculty for his Jewish studies efforts.

While the new CSU Jewish studies major, which was seven years in the making, will start officially with the 2003 fall semester, a handful of students on each of the three campuses have jumped the gun by enrolling in the program during the current semester.

The bachelor’s program will consist of three basic areas: the Holocaust, Israel and Jewish studies. Majors on the Chico, San Diego and San Francisco campuses will supplement classroom courses on their respective home campuses with online instruction from the other two campuses.

In the planning stage is a master’s of education degree program, focusing on Jewish education or Holocaust-genocide education, through a partnership among Cal State Northridge, Chico, Long Beach, San Diego and San Francisco.

At San Diego State, professor Lawrence Baron, director of the Lipinsky Institute for Jewish Studies, said that currently approximately 560 students are enrolled in courses that include Women in the Bible, kabbalah and modern history of the Middle East.

At San Francisco State, site of some of the most intense clashes between Jewish and anti-Israel students, the new major consists of 42-43 required units through courses in modern Hebrew, Jewish culture and society, history and religion. The current Jewish studies program, headed by professor Laurie Zoloth, offers 11 courses with an enrollment of about 175 students each semester.

John Gemello, San Francisco State’s interim vice president for academic affairs, welcomed the new major for giving "students from all backgrounds more opportunities to learn about the rich culture, literature, history and politics of the Jewish people."

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Why Does Everyone Want My Money?

Leave a Comment / Education, Opinion /

"Chanukah Traditions," "Rainbow Happy Birthday," "Shooting Stars" and "Per-fect Presents." These are the four rolls of Sally Foster gift wrap, along with assorted colored tissue, that I am buying to support Heschel Day School. The school will receive 50 percent of my $39.50, and Danny, my sixth-grader, will be awarded a "puzzle pen," which, if it even works, will be immediately lost or broken.

The wrapping paper, while overpriced, is not a huge expense.

But at the same time, Jeremy is hitting me up for $7 to buy See’s chocolate candy bars to help finance his eighth-grade school trip to Washington, D.C. That’s in addition to the cost of the trip.

And for Gabe, 15, I’m buying two program book ads for the "Musical Comedy Murders of 1940," a Milken Community High School production in which he’s appearing. These cost $48, on top of $32 for tickets.

But perhaps most important, two letters announcing the annual giving campaigns at both Heschel and Milken sit on my kitchen counter.

Check out my checkbook register. Every time I turn around, I’m giving money to one school or the other. On top of three hefty tuitions.

But the reality is that tuitions don’t cover a school’s projected budget, which these days reflects increased costs for teacher salaries and benefits, technology, insurance and security. Additionally, Jewish day schools, with their extensive Hebrew language and Judaic studies classes, incur even more expenses. This I accept.

"We will spend an average of $1,200 over tuition on each of our students this year," explained Dr. Rennie Wrubel, Milken’s head of school.

And so we parents face magazine, gift wrap and candy drives; challah, muffin and hot-lunch sales; dinner-dance tickets and ad solicitations; golf tournaments and walkathons; scrip, book fairs and T-shirt sales. Schools exhort us to save our cereal box tops and to redeem our shopping receipts at malls for points (double during October!) that translate into cash.

Candice Koral, who heads a nonprofit strategic development company, said, "Institutions that constantly ask for small amounts of money are literally missing huge dollars flying overhead while bending down to pick up nickels and dimes."

She explained that every time a school asks parents for money, that’s one less time those parents contribute. Thus, Koral favors a strong, focused, well-timed and short-lived annual giving campaign as the most efficient and effective means of raising substantial sums of money.

Two well-known secular private schools in Los Angeles have essentially eliminated all extraneous fundraising except for a large annual-giving campaign and one other major event. Milken is also moving in that direction.

School fundraising goes back to the days of the stay-at-home PTA mom who organized bake sales to support her kids’ school.

Sally Foster was one such mom, except that she sold gift wrap. In 1972, Foster started with only two designs that she and other parents cut and rolled by hand. Today, her business is a division of Entertainment Publications (the same people who bring us those ubiquitous Entertainment coupon books). Now a savvy businesswoman, Foster recruits more than 3 million of our children to sell her 38 gift wrap designs, as well as an assortment of gifts and edibles, raising nearly $50 million annually.

So let’s talk about values. Do we really want to turn our children into supersalespeople who canvass our neighbors, relatives and co-workers? Do we want them riled up at raucous magazine drive kick-off assemblies, pumped up to sell enough subscriptions to win everything from Weepuls (you can buy one online for less than $1) to an ice cream party for their entire class?

Or do we want to teach them, as Judaism teaches us, the importance of community? Here we are talking about the school community, be it secular or religious, and our individual obligation to contribute our fair share.

Fundraising goes back to the Torah, to Exodus 25:2, where God commands Moses to build the Tabernacle and to collect materials from the Israelites. "Tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts; you shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose heart so moves him." Similarly, we are responsible for supporting our educational institutions.

Thus, fundraising for schools should be done with dignity and with respect toward everyone, wealthy or less wealthy. It should underscore and advance the school’s philosophy and values. I have no problem supporting a book drive, a particular program or a department. I will contribute to a capital campaign for new or improved facilities.

Schools are no longer mom and pop operations. They are sophisticated enterprises with multimillion-dollar budgets, equal to those of small colleges. School fundraising must rise to the same level.

So I’ll gladly write those checks for annual giving. But please stop recruiting my children as salespeople and please stop asking me to "go shopping" to finance their education.

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No Experience Required

Leave a Comment / Education /

On this particular Wednesday night at the Jewish Learning Exchange (JLE) in Hancock Park, a dozen adults — young professionals, middle-age homemakers and senior citizens — cluster around two tables, studiously bent over worksheets.

It’s the type of worksheet that elementary school students might do, but tonight it’s adults who are seriously concentrating on drawing lines between Hebrew words and their correct translations. They continue diligently until Rabbi Avrohom Czapnik, head of the JLE, calls on them to recite their answers. Those who give answers read the Hebrew slowly and cautiously, hesitating at the difficult words and waiting for Czapnik’s prompts.

"Careful," he instructs a gray-haired woman laboring over a word’s pronunciation. "It’s a little tricky there because of the dot in the zayin." Eventually, the woman gets its right.

In this "How to Learn Chumash" class, Czapnik’s approach is gently demanding. Everyone is required to participate, but the atmosphere is relaxed enough so that one is not afraid of giving the wrong answer or taking a while to read through the verses. It’s one in a series of beginner’s classes offered by the JLE, a Jewish educational outreach effort. There are also crash courses in Judaism, reading Hebrew, prayer book Hebrew and a "How to Learn Talmud" class.

JLE is among a number of religious adult education programs in Los Angeles that teach courses in Judaism. But unlike classes at places like Aish HaTorah in the Pico-Roberston area or Chabad, whose purpose is kiruv (the effort to make Jews more religious), JLE’s mission is to educate. While the class has inspired many Jews to become more religious, Czapnik said that’s not his primary mission. "I don’t look for notches on my belt," he said.

The courses, he said, are aimed at dispelling ignorance and enlightening people about religious Judaism in a warm, homey atmosphere. JLE eschews impersonal, large lectures or clinical classroom settings in favor of smaller classes whose participants are able to bond with the rabbi.

At JLE, Czapnik said his role is to introduce people to the "truth of Torah." He said if his students become observant, then that is an added benefit, but he really just wants them to know what religious Judaism is all about. "The aim of JLE is to help people grow on whatever level they are at," said Czapnik, who also works as a rebbe in the first grade at Yeshiva Rav Isacson in Los Angeles. "I want people to have an authentic experience."

JLE was started 20 years ago in Los Angeles by the late Rabbi Yitzchok Kirzner, who began the organization as an American offshoot of Ohr Somayach, the Jerusalem-based baal teshuvah yeshiva. It began with one class a week at Beth Jacob, but over time more classes and Shabbat services were added, and when Kirzner moved to the East Coast in 1985, Czapnik took over.

Today’s JLE is a multifaceted organization that offers a user-friendly synagogue, a tape library, home hospitality for Shabbat and festivals, and a series of classes on all levels, from beginners to advanced. The majority of JLE classes are free, the only exceptions being special lectures by guest lecturers from other cities. Currently JLE holds its classes in various community buildings, such as Young Israel of Hancock Park and the old Bais Yaakov school building on La Brea Avenue, but recently JLE put a down payment on a property on La Brea, and is currently raising the funds necessary to build a permanent home there.

"The difference between the JLE and other outreach organizations in town is really the love and caring for the individual. It is very, very personal. You are invited into a family, so to speak," said Cathy Lawrence from the Pico-Robertson area. Lawrence, who used to work in the movie industry and is now director of special projects for the Tomchei Shabbos charity, attends JLE’s "Women to Women" lecture series, which are held every Tuesday.

"My job is to plant seeds, try to water them, and hope that they grow," Czapnik said. "I just want people to be open, to try, to learn, and make an intelligent choice."

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Jump-Start for Schools’ Arts

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Mark Slavkin sounded like a proud parent when he described the play staged in the Wilmington Middle School auditorium, previously dark for more than a decade.

"No one even knew where the light switch was," said Slavkin, head of the education division at the Music Center in downtown Los Angeles, whose consultants helped bring the drama program to life. "Now the principal sees students engaged in something, who never participated in anything before, and parents they’ve never seen are showing up to the school. It’s like a light bulb went off."

The program is just one example of how Slavkin, ex-president of the Los Angeles Board of Education, is helping to jump- start the arts in Los Angeles schools and beyond. Since taking over the Music Center’s education division last year, he’s inherited a post that oversees a number of established programs, including a multicultural artists-in-residence series in five counties and performance assemblies at 450 schools a year. He has a staff of 25 and a $4.6 million annual budget.

The 40-year-old activist arrived at a time when there was good news for arts education nationwide, in part due to studies linking it to increased student self-confidence and problem-solving skills. In Los Angeles, where Proposition 13 and other funding cuts almost eradicated arts in the classroom since the late ’70s, subjects such as music and dance are slowly making a comeback.

The revival is fueled by the Los Angeles Unified School District’s 10-year Arts Education Plan implemented in 1999, which posits that graduating seniors should be proficient in at least one art form, according to the Los Angeles Times. Thirty million dollars has already been invested in a new arts instruction program.

In this new, arts-friendly climate, the Music Center’s services are in high demand. However, Slavkin, who was known as a sometimes-controversial maverick on the school board, isn’t content to continue business as usual.

"We’ve previously seen our role as that of a vendor, as one of the largest producers of arts education in the country," said Slavkin, who is also chair of KOREH L.A., The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles’ literacy program. "Now we need to shift our focus to adopt a leadership role in helping school districts plan and implement their own, ongoing arts programs. "

"We want to serve more as an adviser, consultant and strategic planner than as a producer," he said. "The message is, ‘You’ll provide your own programs, rather than relying on us to do it for you.’"

Slavkin, who learned to play the clarinet in West Los Angeles public schools, was raised by secular Jews active in education circles. His father, Hal, has served since 1968 on faculty of the USC School of Dentistry, where he is now dean. His grandfather earned a master’s degree in his 70s.

"We were taught to hold the Jewish immigrant value of education in high esteem," said Slavkin, who at 27 became the youngest person ever elected to the school board.

On the board, he evoked praise and ire by championing radical decentralization of the district and leading the board into court to challenge Proposition 187, which deprived illegal immigrants of most public services. After serving two terms, Slavkin segued into arts education, working at the Getty Trust and other institutions before joining the Music Center last year.

Asked why he prefers his new job to politics, he said, "I still get to be involved with principals and teachers without all the headaches and tribulations of the school board."

But Slavkin still has strong opinions, which he’s not averse to sharing over a salad at Otto’s Restaurant on the first floor of the Music Center. He said he’s irked by principals who view arts education as "merely drawing a turkey at Thanksgiving or 35 sixth-graders singing ‘Winter Wonderland.’ But are they learning anything about art history or music theory?"

Another gripe is the laserlike focus schools now have on preparing students for standardized tests. "There are no arts questions on the test, which means teachers are torn about spending time training for arts education," Slavkin said.

In response, he’s met with university administrators to discuss adding intensive arts training to their teacher credentialing programs, which he said is a better idea than asking teachers to catch up in midcareer.

Slavkin is also offering discounts for schools to create new arts programs, and is helping to push for a $10 million Music Center education pavilion that will offer interactive exhibits.

In the meantime, he’s unabashedly championing arts education — and not just because of the studies linking it to problem-solving skills. "So many schools treat students like automatons, who must memorize facts and figures, but the arts encourages kids to use their whole brains," Slavkin said, beaming again as he cited the new theater program at Wilmington Middle School.

"For me, arts education represents a broader issue than just teaching music or theater," he emphasized. "It’s helping to create schools in which children are going to want to be."

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