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Jewish Journal

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February 27, 2003

The Whole Kingdom

Leave a Comment / Education /

When Ahuva Goldstein attended Yeshiva Rav Isacsohn Torath
Emeth in 1960, she had five students in her sixth-grade class. The ultra
Orthodox elementary school was in its seventh year, but it did not have its own
building; it was housed in a synagogue on the corner of Third Street and Edinburgh
Avenue. The class was so small that it was combined with the seventh grade,
bringing the total number of girls up to 13.

“I don’t even think there were 50 students in the whole
school,” said Goldstein, 55, who now lives in Hancock Park and works as a
volunteer for Bikur Cholim and Hachnassas Kallah of Los Angeles. “But there was
not much of a choice [in Los Angeles] as far as the kind of in-depth religious
school my parents wanted. The education was very one-on-one, and we knew every
student. The teachers were very motherly, but it was really more like a little
house, with 30 to 40 kids running around, than a proper school.”

These days, two of Goldstein’s grandchildren attend Toras
Emes (as it is more commonly known) and she says the school has become “a whole
kingdom.” Celebrating its 50th anniversary on March 9, that kingdom includes
1,100 students in preschool to eighth grade, 240 staff members, five different
buildings in the Beverly La Brea area and an annual budget of $6 million.

Over the past 50 years, the school’s growth has been
synchronous with the expansion of the ultra-Orthodox community in Los Angeles
as a whole. In the 1950s, there was only a handful of synagogues that served
the ultra-Orthodox community, and even fewer schools. Today, the ultra-Orthodox
community has dozens of synagogues, several kollels and other community
infrastructure.

For many in the ultra-Orthodox community, Toras Emes is the
only educational choice worth considering: It serves as the middle ground
between the Chasidic Cheder Menachem (where secular studies are minimal) and
Ohr Eliyahu (a newer ultra-Orthodox school whose student bidy is more diverse).
What sets Toras Emes apart from other yeshivas in the city are, among other
things, its insistence on a high level of religious observance in the families
it serves. The school will not accept anyone whose parents aren’t Sabbath
observant and will not accept a child whose mother wears pants. Most Toras Emes
parents come from the far-right end of the religious spectrum and, according to
Toras Emes administration, 30 percent of its students are the children of
parents who are religious functionaries in the community, meaning that even
those who work in other places still consider Toras Emes to be the final word
in children’s education.

“Almost the entire [Jewish studies] teaching staff of any
Orthodox school in Los Angeles send their children here,” said Rabbi Yakov
Krause, the school’s principal since 1977. “So in a sense, we view our yeshiva
as a catalyst for Yiddishkayt in the entire community.”

The school takes Yiddishkayt very seriously, in intensity of
the learning and the number of restrictions it places on its students and their
parents to safeguard that learning. Torah is taught the first half of the day
to show its importance: School starts at 7:30 a.m. and Jewish studies continue
until 2:30 p.m. The chinuch (education), at Toras Emes is both old-style and
modern. In one second-grade Chumash (Bible) class, for example, many of the
students stand at their desks, their fingers pointing to the words in the
Chumash, swaying back and forth with their feet planted on the ground in
imitation of Rabbi Shmuel Jacobs, who is doing the same thing. In unison, they
repeat the verses of the text in a lilting cadence, first in Hebrew and then in
English. The effect is reminiscent of old European cheders, but before it
becomes too old-fashioned, Jacobs, a recipient of a Milken educators’ award,
turns off the overhead lights and switches on a moving electric light display,
which he has programmed to give the students information about the clothes worn
by the priests in the Temple.

In other classes, teachers discuss the finer points of
Hebrew grammar, connect the impending war in Iraq to the story of Purim and
find cute acronyms to get the girls to remembers the order of the animals that
lined the steps of the altar in the Temple. In the older boys’ grades, students
sit in a large beit midrash and learn Talmud chavrusa-style, with each boy
learning with a partner.

“We try to make the learning exciting for them,” Krause
said. “This is a time when we have so many distractions — the outside world has
so much glitz and glamour to it — that if the learning is just cut and dried —
and it doesn’t become alive to them — it’s a losing battle.”

The school tries to keep the outside world at bay with its
rules and regulations. Girls are required to adhere to the laws of modesty in
and out of school, and failure to do so is grounds for dismissal. Movie
theaters, regardless of the rating of the film or the accompaniment of an
adult, are off-limits. All television viewing is discouraged, as is patronizing
public libraries, and the school handbook states that the Internet “should be
treated like a loaded firearm.”

“If this is too much a price to pay for the chinuch we
provide,” the handbook continues, “then our school is not for you.”

Over the past half a century, Toras Emes has indeed
established itself as a vital institution for Los Angeles’ ultra-Orthodox
community, and yet, its phenomenal growth has not come without costs. The sheer
size of the school, some say, creates one large culture where individual needs
are not met. And with the generous amount of financial assistance it provides
(only 350 of 1,100 students are full-fee paying), some say the school doesn’t
have the resources to accommodate all the students.

Yet, the school says that while it is inevitable that some
students will get lost in the shuffle despite the school’s best efforts, it has
never sacrificed educational quality for financial reasons.

“I don’t think the education has been affected [by the
financial situation]. Nothing has been stopped because of money,” said Rabbi
Berish Goldenberg, also a principal and a fundraiser for the school.

Goldenberg cites the small classes, and the inclusion of
special needs staff as evidence of the school’s efforts to deal with its
imposing size.

As the school gets larger, different questions arise about
its direction. Should the school move more to the right? Should the school
become a television-free school (meaning that parents will need to get rid of
their sets before enrolling their children in the school)?

As a way of dealing with some of these issues, the school
has a “cheder track” for the younger grades, where Jewish studies are taught in
Yiddish. While some parents don’t particularly care for the Yiddish, they still
want their children in the cheder track, because it’s for children from more
seriously religious homes  — homes that do not have televisions, and where
there is no ambiguity in their commitment to Torah.

Even with these issues, many parents feel that what their
children get out of Toras Emes is priceless.

“Toras Emes is not so much about the education,” said
Jonathan Weiss, who attended the school, and whose two children are students
there. “The students are imbued with traditional Jewish sensitivity and
feelings, and it becomes their essence. I think that is why parents send their
children there.”

“I have yet to meet a mother who doesn’t have something to
complain about when it comes to the education of their children,” said Batya
Brander, mother of three Toras Emes students. “But the love of Judaism that my
kids have from Toras Emes is indescribable, and that far outweighs everything
else.”  

The Whole Kingdom Read More »

In Search of Moderate Muslims

Leave a Comment / Community /

Khaled Abou El Fadl, a professor of Islamic law at UCLA,
estimates that two years ago he received between 30 and 40 requests from around
the country to participate in interfaith dialogues between Jews and Muslims.

Last year he received just one.

“They just vanished,” he said during an interview. “Such
invitations are a barometer of the level of dialogue, though my experience may
not be representative because of my own idiosyncrasies.”

The “idiosyncrasies” to which he was referring, if a bit
obliquely, center on the strong reactions to his urging fellow Muslims to speak
out against the radical elements of Islam that he maintains have gained
controlling influence through the “puritanical” form of the religion promoted
by Saudi Arabia.

El Fadl, 39, who was raised in Kuwait and Egypt, has been
writing critically of fundamentalist Islam for years in scholarly articles and
books, most recently “The Place of Tolerance in Islam” (Beacon Press, 2002).
But he gained international attention — and a flurry of death threats — after
publishing an Op-Ed article in the Los Angeles Times three days after the Sept.
11 attacks in which he asserted that the suicide missions were not a deviation
from mainstream Islam, but rather the result of an “ethically oblivious form”
of the religion that “has predominated since the 1970s.”

Such opinions have garnered admiration for El Fadl in some
quarters of the Jewish community, where he is praised for intellectual honesty
and bravery. Others, though, are far more skeptical.

Daniel Pipes, for example, an expert on Islam and editor of
the Middle East Forum, said El Fadl “has succeeded in fooling influential
individuals that he is a moderate American Muslim intellectual” when he is,
according to Pipes, “just another Muslim extremist.”

Closer to home, Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam (religious
leader) of a local mosque only 12 blocks from the site of the World Trade
Center, has been involved in interfaith dialogue for years here and an advocate
of integrating Islam with modern society.

Rabbi Michael Paley, executive director of synagogue and
community affairs of UJA-Federation of New York, believes Abdul Rauf is a
positive force for moderation and a partner for dialogue. But officials of the
American Jewish Committee (AJCommittee) are skeptical, asserting that several
post-Sept.11 comments the imam made were problematic.

Understanding Them and Us

What started out as a simple question in my mind — are there
any moderate Muslim leaders in this country with whom we can dialogue? — has
turned into a more complex exploration. That’s because it speaks not only to
the ideology, politics and inner workings of the Muslim community, but to our
own understanding and expectations of that community — and of ourselves.

My limited research has found that there are only a few
leading Muslim clerics or intellectuals who have spoken out forcefully and
unequivocally against terrorism, like suicide bombings — a baseline commitment
for the Jewish community — and who are willing to engage in serious dialogue
with Jews.

Most acceptable to the Jewish community is Sheik Muhammad
Hisham Kabbani of the Islamic Supreme Council of America, based in Detroit and
Washington, D.C., an exemplar of tolerance who has spoken out forcefully
against all forms of terrorism and in favor of a negotiated settlement in the
Middle East. But he is marginalized by many Arab Muslims and has credibility
problems in that community, not unlike the way Noam Chomsky, the Jewish MIT
professor and advocate for the Palestinian cause, is perceived by mainstream
Jews.

Large Muslim groups like the Council on American Islamic
Relations and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) are viewed as seeking to
undermine American support for Israel, accusing the Jewish State of human
rights abuses and atrocities.

Somewhere in between are people like El Fadl, criticized by
some in the Jewish community for not speaking out more forcefully, but praised
by others, particularly those who know him.

Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller, director of Hillel at UCLA, met
El Fadl when he started coming regularly to the rabbi’s Torah study group held
for faculty, and they have appeared numerous times together in public
discussing Jewish-Muslim issues. The rabbi said El Fadl is “heroic” because he
is willing to criticize Islam from within.

“My belief is that our community needs to hear from
Muslims,” Seidler-Feller said. “I’m not a Pollyanna, but there are not too many
of these people [Muslims willing to appear with Jews and speak out] and they
should be treated as gems. We have to be very careful, think strategically and
realize the precariousness of their positions among their people.

“What’s important is not so much what they are saying to us
but what they are saying in their own community. We don’t need them to be
Zionists.”

Seidler-Feller disagrees with critics like Pipes, and says
that by insisting Muslim leaders “meet all our criteria before we can speak to
them, the net result is that we can’t talk to anyone.”

The rabbi said he is worried about the direction he sees
Muslims students taking on college campuses and stresses the importance of
dialogue, because “we need simply to establish human contact. We need to start
somewhere.”

El Fadl said much the same as to why he believes in
dialogue. “Without it, we end up inventing each other,” he said, “and each
other’s image. Engaging in the human interaction slows down the tendency to see
each other in convenient packages. If we stop the dialogue, we just pat
ourselves on the back and go on happily.”

Dialogue, he said, makes each party accountable to the
other.

El Fadl was criticized strongly in his community, he said,
“for speaking sympathetically of a rabbi” in another Los Angeles Times opinion
piece. El Fadl wrote that a rabbi friend had offered him and his family
sanctuary after the death threats came.

Prior to the latest round of Mideast violence, he said he
was optimistic that Muslims and Jews might “reach some equilibrium in the
West.” But, after Sept. 11, “the hope has vanished. We are bad examples for
reconciliation,” he said.

His primary focus, though, has been to criticize the kind of
Islamic fundamentalism that has gained acceptance in the Muslim world.

“It is sad to note that [Osama] bin Laden has in fact won in
shaping and shifting the discourse,” El Fadl said.

Alliance or Deception?

Soon after Sept. 11, El Fadl wrote that “[American] Muslim
leadership has failed, and it has blamed everyone but itself for this failure.”
He called on major Muslim organizations and intellectuals to draft and sign a
statement “unequivocally condemning terrorism” in “the harshest language
possible.”

Such outspoken views have caused El Fadl to be persona non
grata among many Muslims, and others, here and abroad. His car was trashed, his
house staked and the FBI and UCLA have taken precautions to protect him. Does
he feel in danger?

“I have to do what I have to do,” he said, noting that “this
is a defining moment in the history of Islam. Either it will be a player in the
legacy of humanity or it will be a strange marginality, an oddity.”

What will make the difference, El Fadl said, is “if there
are more of those willing to martyr themselves for beauty and morality than
there are those willing to blow themselves up in horrible, ugly, unbelievably
disgusting ways, like at bar mitzvahs. Unless there are [more people to make
sacrifices for truth], I fear for the fate of Islam.”

Some in the Jewish community are not swayed by such
seemingly heartfelt declarations. One critic, Pipes, bases his belief on the
fact that for many years El Fadl published articles in The Minaret, a journal
published by the MPAC, a leading organization that opposed the Oslo peace
process.

Pipes said El Fadl also contributed to the Holy Land
Foundation, which the United States closed down last year because it raised
money for Hamas, an anti-Israel terrorist group in the Mideast.

Similarly, Yehudit Barsky, director of the division of
Middle East and international terrorism for the AJCommittee, said she is
troubled that El Fadl wrote for a publication funded by a Muslim organization
hostile to Israel. She said it is difficult to assess relations with Muslims
who may say one thing to a Jewish audience and something else to a Muslim
audience.

“You can’t be all things to all people,” Barsky said.

Further, she noted that the AJCommittee was “burned badly” a
few years ago by MPAC. The group participated in public dialogue conferences
with the committee, “but after Oslo it was opposed to the negotiations and
referred to Israel as ‘the Zionist entity,'” Barsky recalled.

El Fadl said he published in The Minaret for many years
because he “wanted to reach a Muslim audience and it was the only Muslim
publication willing to publish my writings [including criticism of Islamic
fundamentalism],” he said. “But as my writing became more influential, they
banished me.”

The board of the magazine banned El Fadl in July. They claim
the issue was quality, but El Fadl said that is “absurd,” and noted that the
decision came just after his high-profile writings against Muslim leaders and
policy, particularly in response to the Sept. 11 attacks.

“Was it ideal that I published in The Minaret?” El Fadl
asked. “No. But do I regret it? No. I had no other means of reaching that
audience.”

He said that while he does not recall contributing funds to
the Holy Land Foundation, he has no apologies about giving to organizations
that aid Palestinians or other refugees — “just as Jews do for Israel, which I
respect.” He said he would never support groups that “use funds to kill
innocent civilians,” adding that critics of dialogue in the Jewish community
“assume Muslims are committed to the destruction of Israel,” thus giving the
critics the rationale to take hard-line positions.

One defender of El Fadl in the Jewish community is Leon
Wieseltier, literary editor of The New Republic, who said it is unfair for some
in the Jewish community to indulge in the equivalent of “tzitzit checking,” or
“interpreting every expression of solidarity with Islam as an expression of
Islamic extremism, so as to elide the difference between moderate and militant
Muslims.

“We insist that Jews never break rank with Israel,”
Wieseltier observed, “but we are quick to applaud members of certain other
minorities when they break rank with their own groups.”

He called El Fadl “a brave man” and said it was “chutzpah
for Jews to criticize him.”

“The point is to talk to him, not ‘out’ him,” Wieseltier
insisted.

So the debate continues, speaking to the heart of the goals
of dialogue. Must it lead to trust and a common direction, or is it sufficient
to better understand the other?

Each side here is wary of being used, of losing credibility
in one’s own community by taking steps toward one’s adversary. But in a world
where there are 2 billion Muslims, it may be wise for the Jewish community to
cultivate those few influential Muslims who advocate tolerance and to engage
them in a conversation that could help lead us back from the ruinous path of
eternal demonization.  


Gary Rosenblatt is editor and publisher of The New York Jewish Week, where this article originally appeared.

In Search of Moderate Muslims Read More »

Lecture Stirs Anger

Leave a Comment / Community /

A public lecture by a visiting scholar on the UCLA campususually doesn’t make much of a ripple, but nearly all of the 1,800 seats inRoyce Hall were taken and the atmosphere was electric when professor Edward W.Said stepped up to the lectern.

The sponsoring Burkle Center for International Studies hadbeen forced to move the Feb. 20 event from a smaller venue, and inside RoyceHall, groups of students worked their cell phones in Hebrew and Arabic. At theentrance, Bruins for Israel, StandWithUs, the Spartacus Youth Club and the BlueTriangle Network passed out competing pamphlets.

Said has impeccable academic credentials as a graduate of Princetonand Harvard universities, professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University and the author of 20 scholarly books translated into 35 languages.

Although his reputation as an ardent advocate of Palestinianand Arab causes had preceded the Jerusalem-born scholar, some members of theuniversity community and the public had come hoping for a sober and rationalpresentation on the complexities of the Middle East.

Most were quickly disabused of that hope, none more so thana number of the most dedicated Jewish advocates of reconciliation andco-existence with the Palestinians. After a heated shouting match with Said, soardent a peacenik as Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller of UCLA Hillel subsequentlylabeled the Columbia professor as “a fraud.”

Said, who served as a member of the Palestinian NationalCouncil from 1977-1991, set the tone by declaring that Israel’s treatment ofPalestinians is currently the world’s most visible case of human rights abuses.

“The denial of human rights by Israel cannot be accepted onany grounds,” whether based on divine guidance or past Jewish suffering, hedeclared.

While agreeing that Palestinian suicide bombings were”terrible,” Said quickly put the onus on the Israeli bulldozing of homes,helicopter missile attacks and strip searches of civilians.

Warming to his subject and accompanied by enthusiasticapplause by a good part of the audience, Said said that any human rightsviolations charged to Saddam Hussein were also applicable to Israel.

Describing some of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’spronouncements as “thuggish balderdash,” Said said that Israel, which hadenjoyed a reputation as a progressive society in its early years, “now had theimage of an aggressor.”

Said, acknowledging his own partisanship as a Palestinian,said he saw little chance of a modus vivendi between the Palestinian “David”and the Israeli “Goliath,” at least until Israeli leaders expressed theircontrition for the alleged crimes against the Palestinian people.

“Neither side is blessed with a [Nelson] Mandela or a[former South African president F.W.] de Klerk,” Said said.

Toward the end of his 75-minute talk, Said softened hisrhetoric by citing his friendship with Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim,which has led to the creation of an Arab-Israeli youth orchestra.

The mellower mood vanished with the first question, whichwas posed by Seidler-Feller.

Charging that Said had painted a black- and-white picture ofthe world, Seidler-Feller pointed to a number of misstatements by the speaker,and, amidst raucous catcalls from the audience, challenged Said to sign a jointstatement advocating Israel’s return to the pre-1967 boundaries, a jointcapital in Jerusalem and settlement of the Palestinian refugee problem.

Said would have none of it. He denounced Seidler-Feller’s”tirade of falsehoods,” and as a victim of the propaganda, which, Said claimed,is the only thing sustaining Israel, besides the support of the United States.

Seidler-Feller was still in an angry mood the following day.”Said appears as a sophisticated, urbane, reasonable academic, but he is reallya belligerent naysayer,” Seidler-Feller observed. “That is why he is a fraud.”

“He is so encumbered by memory, that he is stuck,” theHillel rabbi added. “He is totally dependent on his sense of victimhood. WeJews have used this approach at times, too, but in order to reach any kind ofagreement, we must both go beyond that.”

Seidler-Feller also expressed his disappointment that, inhis talk, Said had “created an atmosphere which empowered the audience to behostile.”

Dr. David N. Myers, a UCLA history professor and formerdirector of the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies, who has frequently spoken outagainst the Israeli occupation policies, also expressed his disappointment.

Myers described Said as “a tragic figure, a man ofremarkable intelligence, charisma and oratorical skill, who chose to ignore thecomplex dynamics of the conflict and instead recited the stale platitudes ofPalestinian rejectionism.”

Dr. Sam Aroni, another UCLA professor and a longtimeadvocate of a two-state solution, said he left Royce Hall deeply depressed atthe apparent impossibility of dialogue between the Israeli and Palestiniansides.

“Unfortunately, Said used emotional, rather than rationalarguments,” Aroni said.

One exception to the negative reaction among Jewish doveswas that of philanthropist and political activist Stanley Sheinbaum, one of themost veteran and prominent members of the peace movement.

“Said’s points were generally valid, but Israelis andAmerican Jews don’t have the patience or tolerance to deal with them,” he said.

While there may be some disagreements about certain facts,Sheinbaum said, the main point is that “the Palestinians consider themselves underoccupation, and the question is whether Israelis understand that.”

At the request of the Burkle Center, Sheinbaum hosted areception for Said at his home after the talk. Approximately 60-70 guestscontinued to debate the issues, generating ” a little heat,” Sheinbaum said. Hehas since received four to five pieces of hate mail, Sheinbaum added.

Professor Geoffrey Garrett, director of the Burkle Center,announced that the next forum speaker will be Martin Indyk, former U.S.ambassador to Israel, and that he was finalizing plans for the appearance ofKing Abdullah II of Jordan.

The associate director of the Burkle Center, politicalscientist Steven Spiegel, who was unable to attend the Said lecture, said thatSaid’s appearance was in keeping with the UCLA mission of presenting a varietyof views.

“However, by the end of the forum series, the other sidewill be more than amply represented,” Spiegel said.  

Lecture Stirs Anger Read More »

Education Briefs

Leave a Comment / Education, United States /

Reform Day School Leaders Unite

Some 40 people from around the country gathered to discusseducation issues at the annual Progressive Association of Reform Jewish DaySchools (PARDeS) Conference at Wilshire Boulevard Temple from Feb. 22-25. Thisyear’s theme was values and ethics.

Since Reform day schools do not have a centralizedcurriculum like Conservative and Orthodox institutions, professional and layleaders discussed establishing a set course load, and also discussed issuessuch as enrollment, curriculum, fundraising and accreditation.

The Keynote speaker at the conference was Rabbi DavidEllenson, president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion(HUC-JIR). Other speakers included Rabbi Steven Leder of Wilshire BoulevardTemple; Nadine Breuer, vice president of PARDeS and Brawerman ElementarySchool’s Head of School; and Michael Zeldin, a professor at HUC-JIR.

“Jewish day schools are a tool toward Jewish continuity,”said Robin Broidy, a member of the Brawerman School’s Task Force Committee.”The Reform movement can’t be without an arm that encourages these schools.”

Shalhevet High School Wins Model U.N.

Shalhevet High School took first place in the 13th AnnualYeshiva University National Model United Nations conference, which was heldFeb. 9 -11. Fourteen Shalhevet students joined more than 500 high schoolstudents from 36 schools around North America at Kutcher’s Country Club inMonticello, N.Y. Competitors debated topics like disarmament and world healthduring a simulated meeting of the United Nations.

Shalhevet students were divided into two teams, representingChina and Libya. Each competitor spoke on behalf of his or her assignedcommittee, which included groups like the World Food Program, Disarmament andInternational Security and the Middle East Summit.

The Shalhevet’s team representing China won the competition,with seniors Hannah Levavi, Ilana Kellerman and Sarah Mayman each receivingawards for Best Delegate. Senior Edo Royker and junior Laura Birnbaum, bothmembers of the Libya team, received Honorable Mention.

“Shalhevet had never won before and we’ve gone to theconference for years. People were convinced of jinxes and conspiracies,” jokedfaculty adviser Melanie Berkey, who also teaches English and film classes. “Itwas a very pleasant surprise.”

Yeshiva University High School in Los Angeles came in secondplace.

ADL Educates Students About Hate

What advice would you give to a child when his peers try toconvince him that “Jews and other minorities” are trying to take over at schooland that he should “stick with his own kind?”

 High school students around California will ponder thisvery question when they view a new interactive CD-ROM recently published by theAnti-Defamation League (ADL). “Hate Comes Home” is intended to help high schoolstudents combat anti-Semitism, racism, classism and homophobia.

The software, which is offered free of charge to all public highschools in the state, includes an interactive movie featuring four fictionalhigh school students confronted with various issues of prejudice, peerpressure and hate. Learning tactics for avoiding hate-motivated incidents, studentscan make choices and change what happens in the lives of these characters.A teacher discussion guide is also included.

The CD-ROM is part of the Stop the Hate project, athree-year initiative funded by the California State Legislature. Stop the Hateintends to institutionalize ADL’s A World of Difference Institute anti-biastraining programs in selected school settings.

“You get to see how anti-Semitism really works at a highschool level, especially in hate groups,” said Tessa Hicks, project director ofthe A World of Difference Institute. “If you go to any high school, you’ll hearslurs. They might be used in jest, but they are taking a toll.”

For more information on “Hate Comes Home,” call Tessa Hicksat (310) 446-8000, ext. 232.

Religious School Teachers Share Ideas

How do you school children according to their own needs?More than 600 religious school leaders at 53 schools around Greater Los Angelesconsidered this theme at the Religious School Educators conference on Sunday,Jan. 19 at Sinai Temple.

Educational experts and religious school principalspresented workshops such as “Creative Programs to Promote Respect in theClassroom,” “Hooking Young Adults on Jewish History with New HistoricalFiction” and “Hebrew for the New Millennium.

Keynote speaker Rabbi Ed Feinstein of Valley Beth Shalom inEncino delivered a humorous — but rousing — speech on the difficulties manyreligious school teachers face in keeping students motivated, and theimportance of answering students’ questions.  

Teachers were specifically encouraged to meet their teachingcounterparts from synagogues in other parts of the city in special “MentorSharing Workshops.” During this program, teachers exchanged lesson plans,projects and curriculum ideas.

“The sharing was unique to the conference this year,” saidArlene Agress, Bureau of Jewish Education’s director of continuing professionaleducation. “In addition to gaining knowledge to apply to the classroom, there’sa value [when teachers] come together as a community.”

Later in the afternoon, the Lainer Distinguished EducatorAwards were presented to Janice Tytell, the principal of University Synagoguein Los Angeles; Robin Solomon of Shomrei Torah Synagogue in West Hills; andRachel Asseras from Temple Judea in Tarzana. Smotrich Family FoundationEducator Awards were presented to Morgan Land at Congregation Ner Tamid ofSouth Bay, Susan Silverman, assistant director at Temple Adat Elohim’sReligious School in Thousand Oaks.

Briefs compiled by Sharon Schatz Rosenthal, EducationWriter.

Education Briefs Read More »

Alternatives to Drugs

Leave a Comment / Education /

“The world exists only because of the innocent breath of
schoolchildren,” attributed to Jewish sages, first century Talmud.

Recent reports of children as early as 2 years old receiving
psychotropic drugs has me worried. How safe are Ritalin and Prozac — the
stimulants and anti-depressants for kids?

Somehow the unresolved question of their effects on a
developing brain has not been answered, and yet, doctors are prescribing them
to young schoolchildren. Daily school problems are now being addressed with drugs
and more drugs.

Too many teachers are frustrated by being told to label
children as Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder, or even to suggest Ritalin for problem students. They know that they
have a “problem student” but they do not have the tools, as of yet, to deal
with or recognize what kind of student they are working with.

Educators are being forced to make decisions regarding
placement of their students.

Every once in a while teachers are faced with a student who
won’t fit into the class. It might be he or she lacks emotional or intellectual
growth, or both. At times, the child is simply immature. Since teachers are not
qualified to do the testing, since they are not trained in these fields, what
can they do?

Teachers must ask themselves the following questions:

Why is the student having a hard time in class?

What role does maturity play with this student?

Is it plain boredom or is it a social, emotional or
intelligence problem?

Most teachers are aware of these three kinds of students who
may be doing poorly in class.

We perceive immaturity when children don’t respond in a
correct way. They do not have the tools to express themselves. They simply lack
the social skills. They may, at times, be too smart and need smarter children
to relate to, or they are average but need more time for child’s play. In both
scenarios, the child doesn’t fit in well with the class environment. The child
always acts out and frustrates the entire class.

The slow learner can’t keep up with the class. The student
might have many positive character traits but simply is lost in a class
setting. No matter how many times the teacher addresses the student, the work
is not done. The student cannot understand the instructions and simply cannot
integrate the ongoing instructions and lessons being taught in the class.

The late bloomer, too, suffers from a lack of understanding
of the schoolwork. This child might have good social skills; listens, but still
cannot perform the needed class work. He or she never seems to get things
right. You wonder what’s wrong and what can you do for him or her.

Both the slow learner and the late bloomer will not get the
work done, but have friends in class, while the immature student will get the
work done, but not possess the normal social skills for friends.

Being smart and being sociable are two different markers for
dealing with students.

Here are some suggestions that may help teachers deal with
the three kinds of students

Being smart and mature are two unrelated markers, writes
Dr. Louise Bates Ames and Dr. Joan Ames Chase, in “Don’t Push Your Preschooler”
(HarperCollins, 1981). It is possible that an exceptionally bright child may
have more problems than a slower and not-so-bright child, they say.

“It is important for parents to appreciate that maturity and
intelligence tend to be two separate measures or qualities,” the authors note.
“A child may be obviously very bright, that is, very intelligent, and at the
same time be immature or young for his age.”

If a child is immature, it does not mean that he or she is
not intelligent. The term “superior immature” is often used for that child who
is bright but young for his age. The superior immature child is one who
especially needs protection from the parent or educator who would push him too
early into formal schooling just because he is bright.”

What we need is to be super sensitive to the superior
immature students. The teacher needs to go the extra mile in providing guidelines
for this child. If not, we could have disastrous results. The bright child gets
into all kinds of trouble and shows inappropriate behavior.  This is because
the student is immature and that is the cause of the problem. This answers the
old question of ‘if they are so smart then shouldn’t they know better?’ The
answer is that they are not emotionally ready for a regular classroom
environment.

In dealing with the slow learner we must be cognizant that
the slow learner remains a slow learner all his/her life. They never catch up,
repeating the same class for one or two years will destroy the student. As
being bigger, older and placed with younger and smaller children destroys the
self-esteem of this student. So what do we do?

What the teacher may need to do is address the student’s
needs now while remaining in the appropriate class. The school must provide a
one-to-one instructor where the slow learner will learn, however, at his own
pace. We must keep the child with his peer group-class at any cost. A teacher’s
aide or volunteer will be needed. The teacher will need to set different goals
and tasks for this slow learner.

Is the slow learner getting the survival skills like reading
and basic arithmetic? No amount of in-class or homework will take care of the
above-mentioned concern. The teacher and supervisor will need to make the
appropriate accommodation now while the child is in the proper age group and
keeping his self-esteem. Survival skills must be the goal for the student.

“The New Dare to Discipline” by Dr. James Dobson (Tyndale
House, 1996) states: “The slow learner is unlike the later bloomer in one major
respect: Time will not resolve his deficiency. He will not do better next year.
In fact, he tends to get further behind as he grows older.”

The late bloomer is the easiest student to work with. There
is an expression “what time does the mind doesn’t.” The late bloomer will bloom
a bit later and catch up with his peers. He just needs some extra time. A late
bloomer will unquestionably catch up and do well with his age and peer group.

However, it is the responsibility of the school and teachers
to protect the student from being mislabeled as a “slow learner” that never
catches up.

When teachers are aware of the different kinds of students,
we become better teachers. By knowing the needs of the different students, we
can help them stay in school and become a true asset to society and a joy to
their parents. Teachers have the power to empower the student with self-esteem
thus giving them the much-needed ingredient for success. Yes, each child has
different gifts and it’s our job to teach to the child’s capabilities.

By realizing that a classroom has all kinds of students,
realistic expectations are met. The teacher feels a real sense of accomplishment
and when that happens, it becomes a win-win situation. Drugging them into
compliance will only create a defiance of unprecedented proportions. America
has witnessed so-called phenomena of violent students. Drugging our children
has done little to alleviate violence in the schools.

In a book called “Reclaiming Our Children” (Perseus, 2001)
by Dr. Peter R. Breggin, author of “Your Drug May Be Your Problem” (Perseus,
1999) and “Talking Back to Ritalin” (Common Courage, 1998), we are told that
the violent youngsters involved in school shootings are usually under
psychiatric care and prescribed medicine. Breggin writes that, “The most
despairing and violent of our children reflect the underlying disorder of the
society: the alienation and abandonment of our children. We must utterly reject
the idea that the problem lies in our children’s brains or bodies, or that we
need to focus on diagnosing individual children. Instead, we need to identify
the breakdown of relationship with our children in our homes, schools and
community, and then to come together as adults dedicated to making ourselves
and our institutions more able to serve the needs of our children.”

It may be true that many children need medication, as do
adults. But, I believe it is far more important to educate our educators to be
sensitive to the students than to mass medicate.  We should have a whole-child
approach in understanding the student before we prescribe drugs and label them.

I run a day care center and private elementary school. I
have learned that children march to different drums. One of the ways we deal
with problematic children is with a mentoring system. We solicit seniors and
grandparents who are talented, but have graduated from the work field. These
volunteers come into the school once or twice a week to spend a few hours
mentoring children. They do this in a supervised area under the guidance of our
school principal and teachers. Our methods of having the child overcome his/her
so-called problem is by receiving extra attention and one-to-one instruction.

You can’t imagine the joy we have observing the success rate
between the student and their mentor. The retired mentor has a purpose and the
children receive a great boost, enabling them to continue within the school
system. This may be an alternative to medicating youngsters.

Let’s keep the innocence of children alive by providing them
with the rich opportunities of sensitive teachers and safe schools.   

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Culture Shot

Leave a Comment / Education /

The Filipino owners of an Asian restaurant at work. Aglimpse of Thai worshippers praying inside a Buddhist temple. A man perusing anArmenian bookstore.

These are just a handful of the photographs captured by 15local Los Angeles Unified School District high schoolers participating in theOperation Unity cultural exchange program. And while it may seem as ifOperation Unity’s founder and executive director, Cookie Lommel, footedoutrageous travel expenses to send the teens on a hunt for these exotic images,the photos were, in fact, all snapped here in Los Angeles.

What unites the 15 prints in “A Youth Exploration ofDiversity — California Kibbutz” is that they draw their philosophicalinspiration from a place foreign to the inner-city streets where many of theseteens live: the kibbutz. The goal of the art project was to take a group ofpeople from a variety of backgrounds and build cross-cultural appreciation byhaving the students work with one other while exploring other ethnicities.

Lommel led the teens, of African American, Latino, Armenianand Asian descent into sections such as Boyle Heights, Little Tokyo andKoreatown to expose them to a breadth of cultures.

The resulting work spans the city and its ethnic pockets.Ellen Sedrakyan, an Armenian girl, took a portrait of a Latina docent in frontof a plaque describing Los Pobladores in historic downtown; Trivelle Bidelle,an African American boy, captured the Jewish Historical Society’s Tu B’Shevatevent at Breed Street Shul by depicting people nearby a sign with greetings inSpanish and in Hebrew.

“This exhibit tells a great Los Angeles story,” Lommel said.”It paints a visual and verbal picture of how youth can help bridge racial gapsand work together, promoting harmony through diversity.”

Lommel, an African American author, fell in love withkibbutz life after visiting Israel in the early 1990s. In 1994, upon her returnto Los Angeles, she founded Operation Unity, a project that simulates thekibbutz experience for inner city children on the Malibu-based Camp JCA Shalomgrounds. The nonprofit Operation Unity has since attracted various sponsors,including the Jewish Community Foundation, City of Los Angeles Human RelationsCommission and the Roth Foundation.

For most of the students hailing from neighborhoods such asSouth Central, Compton, and East Los Angeles, Operation Unity was their firstexposure with nature and with Jewish and Israeli culture.

For Simmons, “The highlight of my experience was about theJewish community” when she visited the Museum of Tolerance.

“I was crying because it was so sad,” said Quinisha Simmons,18. “I never met anyone who went through that. It was always hearsay. But herewas someone in person, and he showed us his tattoo and he was crying and he toldus how his family was killed. You never forget something like that because itwas so tragic.”

Through the photo project, Simmons learned about her ownculture snapping actress Christine Nelson as Biddie Mason, founder of the FirstAME Church and the first African American woman to own real estate in downtownLos Angeles.

Sedrakyan, 17, said that she had no idea that her photoswould wind up as part of a traveling exhibit.

“I was the only Armenian in the whole [photo] trip,” saidSedrakyan, “but she didn’t want me to do my own culture, so she gave me theMexican community.”

Sedrakyan  embraced the subject matter.

“The reason I wanted to [photograph the] Mexican community,”Sedrakyan said, “is because, in my neighborhood, there are a lot of Latinos notgetting the recognition they deserve.”

She cited Pio Pico, the first governor of California, as anexample.

Lommel would like to see the multicultural-embracing kibbutzmodel incorporated into American life.

“What people overlook is that they see the kibbutz idea asIsraeli, but it’s very global,” said Lommel, who remembers a local teen tellingher that he had never met a Korean person until he was on a kibbutz in Israel.

“Even though it’s very diverse here,” she said, “[people]still don’t interact.”

Sedrakyan’s experience with Operation Unity has helpedfurther her interest in cultural relations.

“I was always involved in my community the Hollywood area,”Sedrakyan said. “Now I’m getting involved as an intern at the Armenian NationalCommittee, where I’m trying to get the mulitcultural point through.”

She said she derived a universal truth from her OperationUnity experience.

“Everyone’s the same, basically, but they don’t see it.”

“A Youth Exploration of Diversity — California Kibbutz” will be displayed at Aon Center, 707 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, thru March 7. It will continue to Manufacturers Life Building, 515 Figueroa St., Los Angeles, from March 10-22; and Wells Fargo Center, 330 S. Hope St., Los Angeles, from March 24-April 10. Call (310) 577-0363 or visit www.operationunity.org.

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Opening a Window

Leave a Comment / Education /

Thousands of Israeli students are learning what it means to
be good Jews. To help Israeli teenagers better understand Jewish values and the
foundations upon which their religion is built, six secular Tel Aviv-area high
schools have injected their curriculum with a dash of Torah, Talmud and other
classical rabbinic texts. The goal: to help pupils find meaning in ancient
texts that could help shape their actions in the present.

The three-year-old program, partly underwritten by an annual
$50,000 grant by The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, has become so
popular that schools throughout Israel have expressed interest in it, said
David Zisenwine, a professor of Jewish studies at Tel Aviv University and the
father of the program.

And why should Jews at public schools in the Holy Land need
to study such things as the meaning and history of Bar Mitzvah? Zisenwine said
that without such training children risk losing their identity, the glue that
holds the Jewish State together.

“In Israel, as in America, we’ve seen students moving
farther away from their roots,” Zisenwine said. “We’ve created a Jewish
nationalism, but we’ve left behind, in many cases, Jewish values.”

To Zisenwine, Israeli students reading classical Jewish
texts is akin to young Americans perusing the Federalist Papers. In both
instances, they gain a window into their societies, and, by extension, into
themselves, he said.

Aryeh Barnea, principal at Herzlia Hebrew Gymnasium in Tel
Aviv, said students receiving the training at his school feel more connected to
their roots.

“In Israeli society, we’re seeing a lot of ignorance and a
weakening of the emotional linkage to Judaism and to Jews in the Diaspora,” he
said. “It is our educational obligation to reinforce Jewish identity in our
youth. We don’t trust the media, friends and the Internet to do it for us.”

Students in the program receive at least one hour of formal
Jewish education per week from seventh grade on. The school’s regular teaching
staff, not rabbis, oversee the classes, which have so far educated an estimated
12,000 students.

About three-quarters of Israeli schools are nonreligious,
giving most students little or no exposure to rabbinical literature. Classic
Jewish texts, such as the Bible, are studied in historical and literary, rather
than religious context, Zisenwine said.

Herzlia seventh-grader Ben Peleg said the bar mitzvah course
has taught him the importance of human rights. “We’ve learned that everyone is
equal, that it doesn’t matter whether he’s a king or slave, rich or poor,” the
12-year-old said.

Peleg’s teacher, Avivit Ronat, said her goal is to connect
the Jewish religion and human values. In the bar mitzvah class, for instance,
she teaches her students how the human rights codified by the Israeli
Declaration of Independence mesh with values embodied by being a bar mitzvah.

Isca Mayo, an 11th-grader who also attends Herzlia, said a
course she took two years ago about values and Jewish holidays encouraged her
to behave less selfishly. She used to play the piano at all hours without any
regard to her neighbors, but she now practices only in the late afternoon.

“With all this Western culture around me, I didn’t
understand the importance of Judaism and Jewish values in my life,” the
16-year-old said. “Now, I see how they apply.”  

Opening a Window Read More »

‘JAM’-packed Campus Outreach

Leave a Comment / Education /

It’s not unusual to see 60 students cramming into an
nonairconditioned duplex on fraternity row on a Saturday night at UCLA — unless
those students happen to be surrounding a havdalah candle singing Hebrew songs.

But so it is on this warm winter Saturday night, as a crowd
of Jewish students gather for sushi and havdalah at the home of Rabbi Benzion
Klatzko. Affectionately referred to by students as “Rabbi K,” with his energy
and youthfulness, Klatzko, 34, could easily pass for a student if it weren’t
for the “Rabbi With Attitude” sign on his front door. Klatzko serves as one of
the on-campus rabbi for JAM, the Jewish Awareness Movement at UCLA, an outreach
organization that aims to help unaffiliated Jews “return to their roots,” as
Klatzko said.

With a population that is approximately 8 percent Jewish,
UCLA houses many different Jewish groups on campus. Some, like the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee and Bruins for Israel, are political, and
others, such as Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, tend to be more
social or religious. 

 Recent years, however, have seen the coming of new
organizations  — those that are taking a more aggressive approach in instilling
Judaism into students.  

“Our role is for people who don’t know enough about Judaism
to be looking, or have had a negative experience growing up,” said Klatzko, who
can often be found casually conversing with students on Bruin Walk.

On this crowded Saturday evening, Klatzko is comfortably
milling around his home on the second floor of the building that he and his
family share with JAM’s other on-campus rabbi, Rabbi Eli Bloom. Mingling with
students, he stops to talk to Sara Monroe, a sophomore who was turned on to the
organization when she was approached by Klatzko while sitting at a table on
campus and has been involved in the organization ever since. How did the rabbi
guess that the blond, blue-eyed Monroe was Jewish?

“He asks everyone,” she replied.

Many students find Klatko’s and JAM’s active, hands-on
approach to Judaism appealing.

“The rabbis are really accessible to talk to about anything
that is going on in your life,” said sophomore Aaron Weinberg.

JAM was established in 1993 as a joint venture between UCLA
Hillel and Westwood Kehilla, the neighborhood Orthodox synagogue, to serve the
needs of Orthodox students on campus. It was funded by a three-year grant from
The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles; when the grant ended in 1996,
current JAM Directors Rabbi Moshe and Bracha Zaret took over the organization
and transformed it into an outreach organization hoping to make students more
religious. JAM is currently one of four of its kind that exist on campuses
throughout the United States.

“We’re focusing on Jews with no background at all. It’s our
expertise and it’s where we saw the greatest need,” Zaret told The Journal.

With a database of 2,000 students, JAM’s events tend to be,
well, jammed. The organization events include a weekly portion learning group
and a service that matches a student with an Orthodox family for Shabbat
dinner.

Its JAM’s most popular programs are its winter and summer
trips to New York and its summer trips to Israel, where participants interact
and experience life within various Orthodox communities. “It breaks
misconceptions that these people are cold and hard and ultra-religious,” Zaret
said. Approximately 600 students have participated in the highly subsidized
trips over the past seven years.

Freshman Haggie Mazler went on the New York trip with some
50 students in December. The students visited the diamond exchange in Midtown
Manhattan — where many Chasidim work — and went to Monsey, N.Y., a religious
suburb in Rockland County.

 “The New York trip was about learning how Orthodox people live
and how they study and how they survive in the real world,” Mazler told The
Journal. “Even if you disagree with what you see, you still learn so much and
you have such an appreciation for Judaism,”  Haggie said.

Some students and educators disagree with what they see as
JAM’s monolithic approach.

Junior Tami Reiss praises JAM’s educational work, but is
critical of the organization’s insularity. “Because Rabbi K doesn’t think the
Conservative and Reform movements work as well at keeping people within the
faith, he doesn’t expose students to them,” she said.

Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller, director of Hillel at UCLA said,
“I often feel that there’s a tension between the different approaches of two
teachers. One teacher is saying, ‘come to me, I have all the questions’ and the
other saying ‘come to me, I have all the answers.’ I tend to see Hillel as a
place that says to students, ‘come let’s explore these questions together, but
I can’t promise you that at the end we will find the answer. All I know is that
we will confront the problem with integrity.’ The other approach would
guarantee that there must be an answer, and that we will certainly find it.”

Hillel, which has a global network of more than 500 regional
centers, campus foundations and student organizations, caters to the
approximately 2,500 Jewish students at UCLA.

“At Hillel, we want to give students an opportunity to
experience the rich rhythms of Jewish life, so that they will be able to make
an intelligent decision as to how they want to grow Jewishly and to what extent
they want to be involved,” Seidler-Feller said. He believes that students will
go in a variety of different directions and “we have to legitimate and nurture
the different paths that they choose to take.”

Despite their different philosophies, Hillel and JAM do
occasionally run programs together and their student participants often
overlap. One such example includes a recent joint Hillel-JAM Shabbat dinner.

“JAM is for the student who won’t feel fulfilled unless they
are doing something uniquely Jewish,” Zaret said.

Zaret and other JAM leaders view their approach as
open-minded, noting that students are also exposed to Jews who are leaders in
the secular community in the fields of finance, entertainment and politics.

“Where there are people that are reconnecting to their
Judaism, even though it’s through Conservative, or perhaps Reform, we — in
principle — are delighted to expose students to such people, and in practice we
have done it.” (They recently had entertainment agent David Lonner as a
speaker.)

“We’re looking for people with a passion that have their
foot in both worlds — both the Jewish world and the secular world, whether it
is politics, finance, or entertainment,” Zaret said. “Generally speaking, we
notice that the people that are most passionate about their reconnecting to
Judaism happen to be within the Orthodox community.”

According to Rabbi David Refson, dean of Neve Yerushalayim
College in Jerusalem, compared to other campus outreach organizations around
the country, JAM at UCLA has one of the highest percentage of students becoming
shomer Shabbat.

Ultimately, Zaret hopes that the students will retain some
aspect of what they are exposed to through JAM. “When you’re dealing with
hundreds and hundreds of students over time, the reality is that the majority
doesn’t become Orthodox,” Zaret said. “But, the overwhelming majority develops
a much stronger connection to their Jewish roots, and perhaps it will mean not
intermarrying and perhaps it will mean keeping the Sabbath.” 

To register for JAM’s first spring New
York trip, March 22-30, contact Rabbi Benzion Klatzko at sagewannabe@aol.com
 or at (310)
209-4934. p>

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The Camp Quest

Leave a Comment / Education /

While the summer is still a good four months away, the race
to register for Jewish overnight camp has already kicked into high gear.

“A lot of families don’t realize that you’ve got to act
fast,” said Stacey Barrett of Sherman Oaks, whose daughter has attended
Brandeis-Bardin Institute’s Camp Alonim in Simi Valley for seven summers. “One
year I mailed in the application in February and my daughter was placed on a
waiting list.”

A 1995-1997 study by the Foundation for Jewish Camping found
Jewish camps significantly increase Jewish identity, affiliation and practice,
while decreasing the likelihood of intermarriage. Unfortunately, getting into a
local Jewish camp is not as easy as finding a reason to go. With only a handful
of Jewish residential camps in the Greater Los Angeles area, parents must act
quickly or find another summer activity for their children.

Each summer, administrators at Camp Hess Kramer and Gindling
Hilltop Camp in Malibu, both run by Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles,
must turn away 25 to 40 prospective campers. Enrollment begins in December and
experienced parents know to send their deposits right away.

“You’re pretty much out of luck if you wait to turn in your
application in February,” said Cheryl Garland, the office administrator for the
Reform residential camps. Like other camps around the city, even getting a top
spot on the waiting list is not easy. Wilshire Boulevard Temple congregants get
first priority, returning campers get second preference and new campers are the
low men on the totem pole for securing a place once wait-listed.

Admittance to Camp Ramah, which has seven overnight camps
around the United States and Canada, including one in Ojai, has gotten so
competitive that administrators now accept applications as early as September.

“I was lucky,” said Janet Urman, whose son and daughter will
attend Ramah for their second and fourth summers, respectively. “I have nieces
and nephews who went to Ramah, so I was told I had to get [the application] in
the day [I received it in the mail] or soon as possible.”

The Los Angeles resident said that some Ramah parents drive
their applications to the camp offices the day they receive them to ensure that
their children will get in.

While cabins for certain age groups fill up faster than
others, Camp Ramah’s Assistant Director Zachary Lasker said that some children
miss out on the experience because parents take for granted that Ramah is full.

“The big myth is that Ramah in California fills up right
away and certain parents think, ‘Why bother trying?'” said the camp
administrator.

Currently, Ramah’s seventh- to 10th-grade cabins are filling
up fast, but there are still a number of slots open for fourth-, fifth- and
sixth-graders. Ramah officials are also in talks about referring families to
other Ramah camps around the country that might have more availability.

Ramah, which runs seven overnight camps and five day camps,
is the only Conservative Jewish residential camp on the West Coast. In fact,
Camp Ramah in Wisconsin is the next closest. The National Ramah Camp
Commission, Inc. is considering building another camp in San Diego or Northern
California to accommodate more West Coast families looking for a Conservative
summer environment. Ramah will be opening a day camp in Berkeley this summer.

Bill Kaplan, executive director of the Shalom Institute:
Camp & Conference Center, which runs Camp JCA Shalom in Malibu, anticipates
that his camp will begin a waiting list in March when he expects enrollment to
reach capacity. As the camp is affiliated with The Jewish Federation of Greater
Los Angeles and the Jewish Community Centers, Camp JCA Shalom finds most of its
camps through those groups. Camp scholarships are available through The
Federation and 30 percent to 40 percent of campers receive financial aid. Even
though the camp is able to attract enough campers, Kaplan noted that many
families are unaware of the scholarship program.

“There are families that aren’t applying to camp because
they think they can’t afford it,” he said.

Camp Alonim, a non denominational camp celebrating its 50th
anniversary in June, is also filling up. Jill Sava, the camp’s assistant
director, said that while many slots are taken, there is availability within
some of the sessions.

“It depends so much on age group, session and gender,” Sava
said.

Apparently, the older age groups and girls’ cabins fill up
faster and most campers seem to prefer the middle sessions as opposed to the
first and last of the one-, two- and three-week sessions.

Only one local Jewish residential camp claims to have a
number of openings for this coming summer: Camp Gilgoa in West Hills, which is
a Labor Zionist Youth Movement (Habonim Dror) camp that operates like a
kibbutz. “We have lots of space and would love to have more kids,” said camp
recruiter Natalie Stanger.

Stanger said that Camp Gilgoa is less popular because it
doesn’t directly draw from a synagogue.

“There’s not this huge organized force behind [Camp Gilgoa]
like some of the other camps,” she said.

The urgency to sign up for camp has become both a learning
experience and a fact of life for many L.A.-area Jewish parents.

“I’m not the type to let things sit around,” said Wendy
Bachelis, a Calabasas resident whose daughter has attended Hess Kramer for five
summers. “I knew from [sending my daughter] to day camp that the good
[sessions] fill up first.”

Barrett said she only made the mistake of holding off on
registration one time:

“Once you get an e-mail saying your kid is on the waiting
list, you learn your lesson and fill out the application immediately.”

For more information on Camp Hess Kramer and Gindling
Hilltop Camp, call (213) 388-2401. For Camp Ramah, call (310) 476-8571. For
Camp JCA Shalom, call (818) 889-5500, ext. 1. For Camp Alonim, call the
Brandeis-Bardin Institute at (805) 582-4450. For Camp Gilgoa, call (818)
464-3224.  

The Camp Quest Read More »

A Wish Is Granted

Leave a Comment / California, Community, Seniors /

The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles and Jewish
Family Service (JFS) have received the first federally funded grant in California
for so-called naturally occurring retirement communities (NORCs), places where
a majority of the population is over 55.

JFS, which collaborated with the Federation in a year-long
lobbying effort to land the money, will use the $500,000 to provide support
services to clusters of seniors living in the Fairfax area and West Hollywood.

“This is a significant victory for the community, especially
in these tough economic times,” said Paul Castro, JFS executive director.

As their physical and mental capabilities diminish, many
seniors living at home must grapple with myriad problems, ranging from balancing
their checkbooks to flipping their mattresses to finding a ride to the
supermarket.

Often to frail to adequately take care of themselves, they
nonetheless continue living in their homes after the children leave for fear of
losing their independence and ending up in nursing homes. Even healthy seniors
generally prefer staying among friends in their old neighborhoods as long as
possible.

NORCs have cropped up around the country, with an estimated
5,000 now dotting the U.S. As the population grays — an estimated 75 million
Americans will be over 55 in 2010 — the number of NORCs is expected to jump,
said Andrew Kochera, senior policy advisor at AARP in Washington.

To better provide services for the people residing in them,
the federal government has awarded 18 grants worth nearly $10 million to 15
Jewish Federations in the past seven months. And in late February, The Jewish
Federation of Greater Los Angeles and JFS were awarded their grant.

“This is really the wave of the future for senior care,”
said Jessica Toledano, the Federation’s director of government relations.
“There’s a huge need for this.”

JFS, which the Federation partially funds, will spend the
grant money to improve the lives of local seniors. JFS plans to identify what
seniors might most benefit from NORC support services and then begin providing
them within six months, said Castro, agency executive director. Programs under
consideration include home-delivered meals, transportation to and from doctor
offices and grocery stores and taxi vouchers.

All seniors living in JFS-designated NORCs in the Fairfax
area and West Hollywood, regardless of income levels, would qualify for support
services.

JFS has a proven record of providing vital services to needy
seniors, said Perri Sloane Goodman, director of state programs for the agency.
The Multipurpose Senior Services Program has, since 1980, provided frail,
indigent elderly men and women with an array of services ranging from taxi
vouchers to home-meal preparation to keep them out of nursing homes.

A growing number of politicians favor funding NORC support
services partly because of economics, said Diana Aviv, vice president for
public policy at the United Jewish Communities (UJC), the umbrella group for
the nation’s federations. She estimates that nursing home care costs $55,000
annually per person, while senior housing with special services is $20,000. By
contrast, NORC support services cost about $5,000, Aviv said.

One of the reasons why the UJC has become involved in
seeking funding for NORCs is because of demographic trends in the Jewish
community. Whereas 11 percent of the general population is 65 or older, 19
percent of Jews are, Aviv said.

UJC will continue going after NORC funding “as long as our
communities are interested in it,” she added.

Funding for NORCs dates back nearly two decades, although
federal support is still relatively recent and small.

The first support services for NORCs began in New York City
in 1986. Less than a decade later, in 1994, the New York State Legislature
supported 14 NORC programs. Five years later, the City Council in New York City
allocated millions of dollars to expand the program.

In the Big Apple, services for the elderly inhabiting NORCs
ranged from social worker home visits to cat sitting and plant watering for
wealthy seniors near Lincoln Center, said Fredda Vladeck, director of the
United Hospital Fund’s Aging in Place Initiative.

Last August, the federal government got into the act by
allocating $3.7 million to five Jewish federations, including Baltimore,
Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Seven months later, the government awarded 13
grants totaling almost $6 million, including the stipend to Los Angeles.

Each federation receiving federal funds individually lobbied
legislators for money. Among others, Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif), Sen.
Barbara Boxer (D-Calif), Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Van Nuys) and Rep. Howard Berman
(D-Los Angeles) championed local NORC funding, the Federation’s Toledano said.
The Boston, New York and Richmond, Va. Federations all failed in their bids to
land NORC money. 

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