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Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

June 24, 2004

UC Irvine Graduation Clash Fizzles

Leave a Comment / Community, Orange County /

A feared confrontation between Jewish and Muslim students during graduation ceremonies at UC Irvine was largely avoided Saturday, following a week of heated charges and countercharges.

Several members of the Muslim Student Union wore stoles, or broad strips of green cloth, over their graduation gowns inscribed with the word Shahada in Arabic letters, whose meaning and symbolism were at the center of the dispute.

Muslim student leaders claimed that about 30 graduates wore the stoles, although Jewish students thought that the number was considerably smaller.

As a counterforce, adult members of the American Jewish Congress (AJCongress) and StandWithUs arrived on campus in solidarity with Jewish students. After the ceremonies, Jews and Muslims formed small, peaceful discussion knots, which contrasted with the intense emotions of the preceding days.

When the Muslim students first announced their intention to wear the stoles, three national Jewish organizations and pro-Israel students protested that the stoles, similar to those worn by members of Hamas, were intended as a show of support for terrorism and suicide bombers.

Spokesmen for the Muslim students and for the Council of American-Islamic Relations countered that the inscriptions translated as a profession of faith in Allah and included the words, "God, increase my knowledge."

However, the on-campus Jewish groups and their off-campus allies, like StandWithUs, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and AJCongress, said that such statements of faith are typically also used by radical Islamic leaders to inspire their followers to become "martyrs" or suicide bombers.

On-campus Jewish groups were upset that the administration did not get outside verification of the meaning and symbolic nature of the stole, said Jeffrey Rips, executive director of the Hillel Foundation of Orange County.

"I’m not saying the message is right or wrong, but any Muslim who does not have an agenda would not wear the stoles," said Tashbih Sayyed, a practicing Muslim who is the president of the Council for Democracy and Tolerance and the editor-in-chief of two Muslim newspapers: Pakistan Today and Muslim World Today.

The local dispute was given national currency when Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly reported that the Muslim students planned to "signify their support for the terrorist group, Hamas."

"The university has received 400 e-mails and faxes from all over the world on this issue — and many threatened violence at the commencement," said Randy Lewis, UC Irvine’s executive associate dean of students.

Local and national officials of the ADL, Zionist Organization of America and AJCongress protested the planned Muslim display to UCI Chancellor Ralph Cicerone and asked him to intervene or at least criticize the students’ action.

University officials responded that the Muslim students’ right of expression was protected by the Constitution and that similar commencement displays last year at UC Berkeley and UCLA had taken place without causing problems.

Seven commencements for undergraduates from different schools and departments were held throughout Saturday on the Irvine campus without any reported incidents, although security was unusually tight.

Merav Ceren, 20, president of Anteaters for Israel — using the name of the UCI mascot — said her group, which had protested the Muslim display to the campus administration, had decided not to disturb the commencement ceremonies.

Yet, after careful deliberation, the Jewish groups decided against signing a statement the administration proposed last Thursday in a meeting with the Jewish groups "in support of a dignified and safe commencement ceremony."

"We feel that Jewish safety has been compromised on campus," said Ceren, referring to an incident where a rock was thrown at a Jewish student and other incidents of lesser harassment, such as obscene gestures directed at noticeable Jewish students when they walked across campus.

"And the [second half of statement] asked us to say that we were proud of the campus," Ceren said. "That means we are proud of the administration — but we [are not]."

Joseph Hekmat, a member of the pro-Israel group, was one of the graduates at the School of Social Sciences commencement. Although a number of Muslim students were in the same graduating class, Hekmat said he did not see anyone wearing the controversial stole.

However, the dispute pointed to the strong underlying tensions on campus. Last year, a display by Hillel students commemorating the Holocaust was vandalized. Last month, an Anti-Zionist Week on campus featured an extremist Islamic cleric and a rabbi from the ultra-Orthodox, anti-Israel Naturei Karta, Ceren said.

Arab students, in turn, protested when a cardboard "wall" they created, symbolizing Israel’s security fence, was set on fire. No perpetrators have been identified in any of the incidents.

"The Jewish students here definitely live in an atmosphere of tension," Ceren said.

But in the wake of "stolegate," there are currently moves on campus to diffuse the tensions. Byron Breland, director of student judicial affairs, is putting together a "conflict escalation prevention team," in which students can enroll to serve as middlemen to put out fires when fights arise.

Also, campus administration officials are trying to organize a dialogue between the Muslim and Arab student groups and the Jewish student groups, something the Jewish students said they have wanted for a long time.

Staff writer Gaby Wenig contributed to this report.

UC Irvine Graduation Clash Fizzles Read More »

Your Letters

Leave a Comment / Letters to the Editor, Opinion /

In ‘Control’

While [Hassan] Ibrahim and [Jahane] Noujaim may be nice fellows to chat with, they are only willing to see the trees but ignore the whole forest (“In ‘Control,'” June 18). By showing the suffering of Arabs caused as a result of United States or Israeli war on terrorism, along with the suffering by the victims of terrorism, “Control Room” and the entire Al Jazeera operation are trying to draw a moral equivalence between terrorism and war on terrorism. Rob Eshman fell into that trap too quickly.

To win this war, we must have the conviction that we occupy the high moral ground, and that we are forced to fight vicious enemies that would literally destroy us unless we put an end to their ability to cause harm. While we try to minimize unnecessary casualties of noncombatants, this is not always possible in a war — these casualties should be “credited” to the enemy, even if we fired the bullet that caused them.

The only “important discussion” that “Control Room” should cause in our world, is reaffirmation that there is no moral equivalency, and that we should be smart enough to recognize superficial propaganda. Ibrahim and Noujaim know the truth, they are just smart enough to use psychology attempting to raise a vicious Islamic agenda to a level on par with our freedoms, lifestyles and future.

Nahum Gat, Manhattan Beach

It was with great disbelief that I read your editorial “In ‘Control,'” wherein you cited that although you do not speak Arabic, you find it “difficult to write off Al Jazeera as a broadcaster of propaganda.”

Does not basic journalism require that one undertake to learn exactly what is said by the subject of your discussion — Al Jazeera? (The Middle East Media Research Institute offers good English translations of many Arabic news sources!)

Since you have zero information about the subject, how can you reach any conclusion — yet alone that Al Jazeera does indeed provide good, objective reporting?

Had you written your article in 1942, would you note that you do not speak German, but find it “difficult to write off Der Stürmer or Information Minister Josef Goebbels’ writings as propaganda”?

Had you written your article in 1968, would you note that you do not speak Russian, but find it “difficult to write off Soviet newspapers Izvestia or Pravda as media sources of propaganda”?

Journalistic integrity requires definitive research and facts, unless you wish The Journal to be equally as “objective” as the Nazi or communist propaganda sources cited.

Fred Korr, Los Angeles

Rabbi Mayersohn

I am painfully outraged and disappointed that The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles chose to publish such a hurtful article about my former rabbi, Rabbi Michael Mayersohn (“Are Sex Abuse Guidelines Working?” June 18).

It was filled with unfounded insinuations and assumptions. In fact, it was based on a hearing that had not yet even taken place. We are talking about a rabbi’s life, a rabbi’s career, a rabbi’s reputation, a rabbi’s legacy. My husband and I have been members of Temple Beth David for 23 years and proud to say that Mayersohn was our rabbi and teacher for 13 of those years. Rabbi Mayersohn is a compassionate, caring and sensitive individual — he should not be penalized for another congregant’s misinterpretations of his actions. Jeopardize his sacred title that he worked so hard to obtain, jeopardize the holiness of Temple Beth David and its members — no way. There is no way that Mayersohn would have sacrificed the things that he cherishes so much. On the contrary, I applaud Mayersohn for standing up for his rights — for appealing the reprimand that was injudiciously extended to him by the Central Conference of American Rabbis — and I pray that my faith in Mayersohn’s integrity will prevail.

Lastly, if you are looking for an interesting and appealing subject matter to write about, perhaps you wish to write about the innovative Jewish Academy of Growth and Learning that Mayersohn is establishing in Orange County — now there’s something sensational and definitely worth getting your readers excited about.

Melanie Alkov, Westminster

Ronald Reagan

Thank you for your cover story on the legacy of Ronald Reagan and his administration (“How He Changed Us,” June 11).

Generations of Israelis will be able to thank him for strengthening ties with the United States as Israel was surrounded and infiltrated by an increasingly violent Islamic militant movement, and generations of Eastern European and formerly Soviet Jews can be grateful for Reagan’s challenge to the evil empire — and for bringing it down.

Here in the United States, Reagan proved himself to be a different kind of Republican. Not harsh, not scolding, not the aloof conservative that hadn’t polled well with Jews, but rather, he was a genuine, honest, forthright man, one who shared critical goals with the Jewish community in United States. That above all can be pointed to as why so many Jews supported him, and mourned as millions of Americans did, when he passed from this world.

Alex Burrola, Montebello

Correction

In Obituaries (May 18), a listing should have read: Mary Scovis died March 26, at the age of 92. She is survived by her daughter-in-law, Jenny Scovis; two grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

Nonie Darwich

So impressed was I with Nonie Darwich’s article of “When Arab Means Never Saying Sorry” that I sent it far and wide to friends and relatives (June 4). However, on reading the snide letter by Deborah Bochner Kennel in today’s Journal, I really had to at least try to write a complimentary letter to the editor. Kennel’s hatchet job is not well-researched, or perhaps not researched at all. Her “politically correct” jeremiad is ignorant, vicious — and sly. (She manages to insert the name of the equally vicious “Institute for Historical Review” — a Holocaust-denial group — in such a fashion that the casual reader will think that Darwich is affiliated with that sewer.)

Darwich’s article captured perfectly the fanatic, self-delusional, hysterical, duplicitous character of Radical Jihadist Islam: “Americans should stop judging other cultures with the American value system and especially stop expecting Arab Muslim culture to respond rationally according to Western standards. Arab power is derived from oil, terror and manipulative public relations campaigns.”

That is the reality. And the sooner we learn to understand those who kill “Zionists and Crusaders” (read: Jews and Christians) in the name of their twisted interpretation of Islam, the better able we will be to at least try to protect ourselves against their murderous intentions.

Sara Meric, Santa Monica

Your Letters Read More »

Kids Page

Leave a Comment / Kids & Teens /

Somewhere New

Are you traveling to new places this summer?
Maybe you’re exploring the desert like the Israelites are in this week’s Torah portion — Chukat. They’re getting closer and closer to Israel, but they have to pass through the lands of many different tribes.
Maybe you will be visiting Israel, too.
If you do, please write to us about your experiences there.

Kids Page Read More »

Israel Backs Tough U.N. Line on Iran

Leave a Comment / Israel, Worldwide /

These days, it’s unusual to get the United States and Britain to agree with France and Germany on any Middle East-related U.N. resolution.

When Israel also is on board, it’s downright extraordinary.

Israeli officials are elated at the tough language in a resolution passed last week by the board of the U.N. nuclear watchdog rebuking Iran for not cooperating with nuclear inspectors. Last week’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) resolution "deploring" Iranian stonewalling of IAEA inspectors has far-reaching implications for containment of a radical Islamic regime that successive Israeli administrations have called the greatest threat to the Jewish state.

The resolution, drafted by Britain, France and Germany, expresses special concern about Iran’s refusal to end its uranium-enrichment activities, a condition for European assistance to Iran in developing a peaceful nuclear program.

Adding to U.S. and European frustration was confirmation this year that Iran tried to buy black market magnets necessary for the centrifugal process that enriches uranium.

The single area of disagreement between the United States and the European nations was over a deadline for Iranian compliance. The Europeans kept mention of a deadline out of the resolution, but Mohammed ElBaradei, the IAEA’s director-general, suggested that Iran does not have an endless amount of time to come clean.

"I have been asking, as the board also has been asking, Iran to become proactive, to become transparent and to be fully cooperative, and I hope I’ll see that mode of cooperation in the next few months," ElBaradei said Monday after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. "I think the international community is urgently seeking assurance from the agency that Iran’s program is exclusively for a peaceful purpose."

The IAEA board is set to meet again in September, and U.S. officials have suggested that it could decide on further action if Iran doesn’t give way.

The resolution was a success for the Bush administration, which has been urging greater scrutiny of Iran. A number of congressional initiatives also are under way.

Getting on board the same wealthy Western European states that Iran hopes will sustain its faltering economy means that the Islamic republic is spending time fighting diplomatic battles that divert its attention from backing terrorist operations against Israel.

Not that Ariel Sharon’s government wants to make a lot of noise about the IAEA resolution — a high Israeli profile in any rebuke of Iran could galvanize Arab support for a regime that most Arab leaders revile — but much of Israel’s defensive activity is taken with Iran in mind.

Israel is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to expand its Arrow missile defense program to cover the entire country by the end of the decade, primarily because of Iranian missiles that are capable of delivering nonconventional materials to the Jewish state.

Israel long has taken such long-term threats into account in dealing with Iran. In recent years, however, Iran’s influence has seeped into even the day-to-day threats Israel faces.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad have looked to Iran for greater support now that their traditional sources of funding in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere have dried up because of tough scrutiny of terrorist financing and an increased willingness, after Sept. 11, to avoid groups the U.S. government deems as terrorists.

Israeli intelligence believes Hezbollah, a Lebanese terrorist militia that gets strong Iranian support, now is behind up to 80 percent of terrorist activities against Israel, and is particularly active in recruiting Israeli Arab citizens — a development Israeli officials consider especially troubling.

Of course, not all the impetus for the tough language has to do with the threat Iran poses to Israel.

Bush administration officials increasingly are frustrated with the support Iran has given to Shi’ite Muslim insurgents in U.S.-occupied Iraq, and working for a nuclear-free Middle East long has been part of European strategy.

Still, it’s significant that Iran’s nuclear potential is seen as posing a greater threat than Israel’s, and that this realization is penetrating even international forums, which traditionally are bastions of moral equivalence.

Hans Blix, the former top U.N. arms inspector, suggested that Israel’s reported nuclear arsenal could prove to be an important element in the effort to get the Iranians to back down.

"Looking at the rationales and incentives at work, it must be assumed that Tehran is aware not only that Israel has nuclear weapons and that a sovereign Iraq would inherit the know-how to make them, but also that Iranian enrichment, even if it were to remain consistent with the Non-Proliferation Treaty, would further exacerbate the situation," Blix said Monday at a Carnegie Endowment conference he attended with ElBaradei, his old friend.

For the moment, Iran is hardly acting conciliatory.

Learning of the draft resolution last week, Iranian President Mohammed Khatami warned that "if Europe has no commitment toward Iran, then Iran will not have a commitment toward Europe."

Iran appeared to back up the threat Monday when it seized three British naval vessels and eight crewmen who were in the area to help train Iraqi police.

Given the toughness of the IAEA resolution, such grandstanding is unlikely to have much impact. The United States is maintaining its pressure, as President Bush heads to NATO meetings in Europe this weekend, where he is likely to make containment of Iran a priority, backed by a letter signed by 66 senators and 208 House members.

The message from the West is clear, Powell said Monday.

"With respect to Iran," he said, "they have been put on notice once again rather firmly and strongly in this new resolution that the international community is expecting them to answer its questions and to respond fully."

Israel Backs Tough U.N. Line on Iran Read More »

Lubavitcher Rebbe’s Legacy Expanding

Leave a Comment / United States, Worldwide /

Ten years after the death of the last Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, his influence on the Jewish world continues to grow.

Tens of thousands of mourners visited Schneerson’s grave in Queens, on Tuesday for his 10th yarhzeit. Israel’s two chief rabbis had called for a worldwide day of communal prayer, saying, “The flourishing success of other groups, not only among Chasidic circles [but among] the Jewish community at large, is in large measure due to the rebbe.”

It is a big claim, but one that Jewish figures of nearly all movements echo.

“The rebbe has left an indelible impression on Judaism in the 20th century,” said Rabbi Norman Lamm, chancellor of Yeshiva University and one of the leading figures of the Modern Orthodox movement. Though he criticized Chabad for building a “personality cult” around its rebbe, whom many Lubavitchers believe to be the Messiah, Lamm said Schneerson “was an indomitable leader, a preeminent scholar and a truly creative visionary of organization. He consolidated the Chabad movement so that it was able to outlast his own life.”

Lawrence Schiffman, chair of New York University’s Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, will hold an academic conference next year on Schneerson’s legacy, the first such conference outside the Lubavitch world.

“He showed the Jewish community that it was possible to revive and rebuild — after assimilation, persecution or both — and that this could be done on a tremendous scale,” Schiffman said.

Schneerson’s background was unusual for a Chasidic rabbi. Born in 1902 in Russia into a Lubavitch family of prestigious lineage, he learned in yeshivas as a youth but went on to study math and science at the University of Berlin and the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1941, Schneerson fled Nazi-occupied Europe for New York. In 1951, a year after the death of his father-in-law, the sixth Lubavitcher rebbe, Schneerson was proclaimed the seventh rebbe by Chabad elders.

Schneerson died childless and without appointing an heir after two years of illness, during which he was unable to speak. The lack of an heir, and some ambiguous statements Schneerson made in the years before his illness, fueled speculation among many of his followers that the messianic age might be approaching and that Schneerson was the Messiah.

While many Lubavitchers still believe the deceased rebbe to be the Messiah, the power of the movement’s messianists decline with each passing year, although the issue remains a point of contention both inside and outside Chabad. The movement today is led by a 22-member board of rabbis that allocates funding from its headquarters in Crown Heights, adjudicates disputes and serves other administrative functions.

Chabad outreach activities are growing, with more than 4,000 shluchim (emissaries) spreading Schneerson’s message in more than 70 different countries, more than double the number a decade ago. There’s hardly a Jewish community anywhere in the world that doesn’t have a Chabad center, and hardly a Jew that does not know of “the rebbe” and his shluchim.

By sending his yeshiva students into the streets of middle America with beards and hats at a time when even observant Jews tried to hide their ethnic identity, Schneerson exerted the single greatest influence on the revival of Jewish pride in the United States, perhaps even more than the creation of the State of Israel, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz said.

Many Jews say they’re inspired by Schneerson’s teachings, especially his sichos (weekly talks), which still are being compiled and published at Lubavitch headquarters.

Schneerson most often is credited for his outreach work — not just the practical accomplishments, such as the creation of schools, holiday services and adult education classes, but the underlying philosophy that focused on each individual Jew with caring, warmth and love.

“The rebbe was the first person on American soil to put priority on what today is called ‘kiruv [drawing Jews closer to their religion],” said Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, executive director of the Orthodox Union. “Today everyone is doing it, but there’s no question that Chabad was doing it decades before anyone else.”

Over the past 10 years Chabad Lubavitch on the West Coast’s growth has included:

  • 112 shluchim couples moving to the West Coast.

  • 84 new Chabad regional centers and outreach programs; 22 such centers have opened their doors in the last year alone.

  • 12 new Chabad Houses established at universities throughout California.

  • 42 new building projects launched and completed.

  • More than $125 million raised toward capital projects.

  • 10 new mikvahs.

  • More than 200 Jewish Web sites offering Jewish content, outreach and social services.

— Staff Report

Lubavitcher Rebbe’s Legacy Expanding Read More »

Journey to Judaism

Leave a Comment / Entertainment, Hollywood Jew /

"I want to be the first Jewish country singer," Mare Winningham says. "Actually, Kinky Friedman was the first. But I want to be the next."

It’s the kind of easy banter the actress-singer proffers between nightclub sets of her country-tinged folk music. But the setting on this Thursday afternoon is the chapel at the University of Judaism (UJ), where Winningham sits at an upright piano after completing her three-hour Hebrew class. In her pure, open voice, she launches into her "Convert Jig," a country-ish ditty she wrote to honor her "Introduction to Judaism"teacher before her conversion last year.

"He has organized the notes for life and given me the tools to turn my tiny insignificance into something big," she croons, as her eyes crinkle into a smile. "I will be a Jew like all of you … and never eat a pig."

If the levity is unexpected, the actress thinks she is, too.

"Look, my last name is Winningham, and that in itself is funny," she says. "I joke sometimes that I’ll open ‘Winningham’s Kosher Bakery’ and throw everyone for a loop."

Indeed, the 45-year-old actress is better known for the decidedly American (read: non-Jewish) roles she’s portrayed in 70 films and TV movies than, say, for the challah she bakes on Friday afternoons.

She won a 1980 Emmy for playing a farmer’s daughter in "Amber Waves"; received a 1996 Oscar nomination for her role as a country music star in "Georgia"; and starred as Kevin Costner’s common-law wife in "Wyatt Earp." Winningham will also appear as a Catholic single mom in the upcoming CBS series, "Clubhouse," and a stalwart prairie resident in the Hallmark TV movie, "The Magic of Ordinary Days." (She’s perhaps best known as the virginal Wendy from the Brat Pack flick, "St. Elmo’s Fire.")

As she leaves the piano to munch some kosher almonds, she says she’s happy to be back at the UJ after the four-week "Magic" shoot near Calgary, Canada.

"We were in the middle of nowhere, so I knew I was going to miss Shavuot," she says, ruefully.

Shavuot, which celebrates converts, is Winningham’s favorite holiday, because it’s the first she observed after converting in March 2003. For that Shavuot, she stayed up all night studying at Temple Beth Am; in Calgary, she improvised by studying Jewish books such as "The Midrash Says," a five-volume set she’s vowed to complete this year. Also in her suitcase was her trusty Shabbat travel kit, which includes candlesticks, a prayer book, a Havdalah candle and spice box.

"I’ve been known to light Shabbat candles in a Honeywagon trailer," she says of her experience on various sets.

Her observance has been "a real conversation starter," especially among fellow Jews. Larry Miller, her co-star from CBS’ short-lived "Brotherhood of Poland, N.H.," recalls his surprise upon learning that Winningham rushed home to bake challah one Friday afternoon.

"It was like having Grace Kelly say, ‘By the way, what time is Mincha?’" he says, referring to afternoon prayers.

Winningham wouldn’t forget the time.

"She takes her Jewish studies very seriously," Beth Am’s Rabbi Perry Netter told The Journal. "It’s part of her incredible desire to be part of the Jewish world, not for any other motive than she feels so deeply and passionately Jewish."

The actress traces her spiritual journey to her Catholic childhood in Granada Hills. Her great-uncle, "Father Dave" Maloney, was bishop of Wichita, Kan.; her devout mother, Marilyn, sent Mare and her four siblings to catechism at the cathedral across the street.

"My mom influenced me greatly with her beautiful devotion to her faith," Winningham says. But that came later. By age 14, Mare says, she had developed problems with religion in general and "the idea of someone dying for your sins."

A 12th-grade comparative religion course fueled her budding agnosticism; after graduating from Chatsworth High — where an agent discovered her in a production of "The Sound of Music" — Winningham began "a resolutely secular existence."

In 1982, she married her now ex-husband in a non-denominational ceremony; she raised their five children (today ages 15-22) in a household where holidays were celebrated in an irreligious, if flamboyant fashion.

"I cooked for days," she says about Christmases past.

It wasn’t until her children were nearly grown that Winningham found herself reading works by Jung, Joseph Campbell and others in an attempt to sort out nagging religious and psychological questions. In summer 2001, she visited a "creation of the world" exhibit at a science museum and made an announcement to herself: "I don’t think I believe in God."

"But that night, I had the most remarkable dream, which told me, ‘If you’re going to reject something, at least find out what it is you are rejecting,’" she says. When a friend told her about the UJ’s Introduction to Judaism class, Winningham thought, "OK, I’ll begin by studying the Jews, since they started the one-God thing."

While she intended to approach the class from a historical, intellectual perspective, the epiphanies began the day she stepped into Rabbi Neal Weinberg’s UJ class in November 2001.

"There I was, struggling with God, and one of the first things he said was, ‘Israel means struggle with God,’" she says.

"When Mare started, she seemed to be checking Judaism out," Weinberg recalls. "But before long, she enthusiastically embraced the values of Judaism and Jewish family life."

The actress says she began celebrating Shabbat and fell in love with an observance that included "ritualizing, literally, the breaking of bread…. Shabbat fed me literally and figuratively, and I found myself finding my way to God through this very earthly endeavor of feeding my family."

Although her children are not Jewish, they helped her rate brisket recipes, participated in Torah discussions and invited their Jewish friends to her Shabbat table.

Winningham’s attraction to Judaism deepened as she read the Bible: "Everything one needs to know about behavior here on earth is manifest in these stories," she says. "Anything one could find confusing or morally challenging is answerable. When the most important thing about a religion is how you behave here, and not about what happens after you die — these are the things I believe my soul was longing for and rejecting in other religions."

By December 2001, she was regularly attending Netter’s Bait Tefillah minyan at Temple Beth Am.

"Mare drank everything in," Netter recalls. "There was a certain intensity in the way that she concentrated, both on the siddur and on the Torah discussion that would take place."

After Winningham observed her first Yom Kippur that year, she knew she had to convert.

"There was something about petitioning God, as a community, for forgiveness," she says. "I knew then that Judaism was something I couldn’t live without."

On March 3, 2003, an entourage of friends and relatives accompanied Winningham to the official ceremony at the UJ.

"Sitting in on her beit din [rabbinical court] was one of the most moving experiences I have ever had of conversion," Netter said. "It was apparent to me and to the other rabbis that this was a woman who was born a Jewish soul, in terms of the depth of her feelings and the rawness of her emotion."

Cori Drasin, a former Beth Am vice president, says she was especially touched by the ritual immersion part of the ceremony.

"I stood behind the curtain as Mare chanted the blessing in the mikvah, and the walls just resonated with her beautiful voice," Drasin says.

A friend placed a Star of David around Winningham’s neck (she’s still wearing it) and "I cried a lot," she says. She was moved not only to become Jewish, but because her family has been so supportive.

"When I told my mother I was going to become Jewish, she said, ‘You know Mary, they were the first,’" Winningham recalls.

The actress’ children have also been accepting, which, Winningham says, "is lucky, considering that it must be weird for your mom to embrace a new religion when you’re a young adult."

The performer also feels lucky to have been embraced by the Beth Am community, where she recently chanted from the Torah for the first time.

"Everyone in the minyan rejoiced," Netter says. "It was as if one of our children had become bat mitzvah."

Winningham isn’t content to stop there. A self-prescribed "cheerleader for the Torah," she intends to read the entire Bible in its original language, which is why she’s taking that Thursday Hebrew class at the UJ.

"I don’t care if it takes decades, I’ll finish it eventually, I really will," she says. "I may be 80 when I finish, but that would be a beautiful thing."

Winningham sounds more like a scholar than the world’s second Jewish country singer when she adds, "Judaism for me is like a mystery novel. I just can’t stop reading; that’s what it’s like for me."

Winningham will perform in concert July 24, 10:30 p.m. and Aug 21, 10:30 p.m. at Genghis Cohen restaurant, 740 N Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles. For information, call (323) 653-0640.

"A Convert Jig"

(Mare Winningham wrote this to honor her "Introduction to Judaism" teacher, Rabbi Neal Weinberg, and she performed it during a tribute to him at the University of Judaism.)

Guard your tongue, love your neighbor

Help someone to help themselves

It’s required — it’s not a favor

That is what my teacher tells us

Don’t be late — you’ll miss the prayer aerobics

Ancient melodies you need to know

How to sing the holy songs — to add your voice where it belongs

And how and when to lift up on your toes

That is what my teacher tells us

That is what I’ve come to learn

He has organized the notes for life

And given me the tools to turn

My tiny insignificance into something big

I will be a Jew like all of you

and dance a convert jig

Take the time to learn the Hebrew

Memorize your holidays

Keep kashrut — and study on the Torah

You’ll reap rewards forever and always

Cut your flowers, set your table

Light your candles and say your prayer

Then you’ll know how you are able

To feel you’re Jewish, anywhere

That is what my teacher tells us

That is what I’ve come to learn

He has organized the notes for life

And given me the tools to turn

My tiny insignificance into something big

I will be a Jew like all of you — your tree has grown a twig

I will be a Jew like all of you — and never eat a pig

I will be a Jew like all of you — and dance a convert jig!

Journey to Judaism Read More »

Splintered Persian Groups Merge

Leave a Comment / Blogs, California, Community, L.A. Woman /

Long troubled by infighting, the Los Angeles Iranian Jewish community is working toward less conflict as three prominent Iranian Jewish organizations recently merged with the hope of speaking with one voice.

The Iranian-American Jewish Association (SIAMAK), Eretz Cultural Center and the Neria Yomtoubian Foundation came together under the banner of the Eretz-SIAMAK Cultural Center on Feb. 21 in Tarzana.

The merger of the three groups signifies a desire within the Iranian Jewish community for greater participation in the larger Jewish community and a desire to attract Jewish youth to its cause. After more than two decades in the Southland, Persian Jews are organizing to present a united front for their community.

“This is actually a historical event. I do not remember anything like this happening before, and I truly believe that this is a bridge to the future of our community,” said Manizheh Yomtoubian, founder of the Neria Yomtoubian Foundation.

SIAMAK co-founder Dariush Fakheri said he first approached Yomtoubian and Ruben Dokhanian, co-founder and president of Eretz Cultural Center, after he realized the true growth potential of the three separate organizations. The three leaders said that while they have encountered a variety of challenges from logistics to reorganizing their volunteer base in the merge, their primary desire has been to generate more interest in the Tarzana center.

“We have numerous volunteers who give their time, money and effort for the betterment of the community,” said Fakheri. “But we need new members who want to come along with us as we go through this transformation.”

Fakheri said it’s taken a long time for Iranian Jewish organizations to unite because the community has been trying to adapt since its arrival in Southern California nearly 25 years ago.

“You have to look at our situation from so many angles. We are the survivors of a revolution,” Fakheri said. “Our main goal was to survive, so we did whatever we had to do to reach that goal. Now our situation is way different than even a decade ago so we can do more by putting our resources together.”

Lisa Daftari, an editorial intern for SIAMAK’s monthly magazine, The Iranian Jewish Chronicle (“Chashm Andaaz”), said Yomtoubian is the ideal 21st century Jewish activist since she has preserved the memory of her late husband, Neria, by engaging in various activities that encourage young Jews to embrace their Jewish identities.

“Through the creation of Eretz-SIAMAK Center, Manizheh is now determined and able to fulfill both her dreams and Neria’s,” Daftari said. “Her commitment and optimism regarding this project is genuine and unmistakable”.

Yomtoubian has also been very active over the years in an effort to feed nearly 100 Iranian Jewish families living in poverty in Los Angeles by gathering food for them on a weekly basis, Daftari said.

Fakheri said that in the last decade, Yomtoubian has collaborated with SIAMAK — the oldest Iranian Jewish group in Los Angeles — to subsidize food, medical and educational expenses for these needy Iranian Jewish families.

Most notably in 2000, SIAMAK and the Council of Iranian-American Jews were at the forefront of bringing to the world’s attention the plight of 13 Iranian Jews who were arrested by Iran’s fundamentalist Islamic regime on false charges of treason and were in danger of being executed, Fakheri said.

SIAMAK has also had an international presence, donating $20,000 last year to the Jewish community in Argentina, sending medical aid to earthquake victims in India and Iran, as well as providing humanitarian support to Muslim refugees in war-torn Bosnia during the recent Balkan wars.

Several Iranian Jews living in Los Angeles said they were surprised at the bold move by the three Iranian Jewish groups merging, especially since in-fighting is commonplace among many Iranian Jewish groups.

Fakheri and Yomtoubian said that despite differences of opinion among the diverse local Iranian Jewish groups, the new Eretz-SIAMAK organization will continue to reach out to all Jews in order to be more proactive in community and Israel causes. The group will host a variety of Jewish-oriented programs, including adult and youth Hebrew classes, marriage workshops, yoga classes, singles Shabbatons and cooking classes.

Fakheri said he was particularly looking forwarding to collaborating with as many other local American Jewish groups as possible.

“I would like to see a greater intermingling of Iranian-born Jews and other Jewish communities in the U.S.,” Fakheri said. “We can collaborate more with one another and contribute a lot to each other because of our common Jewish bonds.”

For more information about Eretz-SIAMAK Cultural Center, call (310) 843-9846.

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Olins Reaches Out to Teens, Pet Owners

Leave a Comment / Family, L.A. Woman /

When Maggie died, the Goodman family turned to Rabbi Sally Olins for comfort. As she had at other times of tragedy in the past, Olins helped them in their healing, composing prayers and blessings and crafting a stone memorial marker.

Olins, rabbi of the Conservative Temple B’nai Hayim in Sherman Oaks, encouraged them to share memories of Maggie — how she jumped up on the bed every morning or how she loved to stick her head out the car window.

Maggie, a wheaten terrier, had been part of their family for 14 years, and Olins understood that moving on would take guidance and strength.

“It was very helpful to have a rabbi help us grieve and to understand what we were going through, because she has that feeling toward pets,” said Vicky Goodman, who with her husband Chip raised Maggie with their two daughters.

A few months ago, Olins founded Pets at Rest, a business through which she has already helped a small handful of people memorialize their beloved creatures through prayers, eulogies and memorial books.

“People need to stop to say ‘Thank you, God, for the pleasure this creature has brought into our life,'” Olins said.

But Olins understands that pet memorials are not part of her rabbinic duties. She keeps Pets at Rest separate from B’nai Hayim, where Olins has been for 15 years (though her 15-year-old Lhasa Apso, Kelev, sits under her desk on weekdays).

Olins, a petite grandmother of two with stylish flare, exudes an air of hip approachability.

As the 10th woman ordained as a Conservative rabbi who this year became the first woman ever appointed a regional president of the Rabbinic Assembly, Olins doesn’t ignore the challenges of being a woman on the bimah.

She wears a clerical robe every Shabbat, she said, which has neutralized the “What is she wearing?” distraction.

Olins was waiting in the wings throughout the 1970s and ’80s as the Conservative movement struggled with the question of whether to ordain women.

With teaching credentials and a master’s in kinesiology from UCLA, and an interest in modern dance, Olins taught in Los Angeles public schools and opened the fine arts department at Westlake School for Girls in the 1960s. In 1972, Olins founded The Firm Company in Westwood, a nationally recognized business that taught dance exercise to about 600 women a week for 13 years.

But throughout that time, Olins was also pursuing her dream to become a rabbi, one she held ever since she would walk to shul with her Grandpa John in Cincinnati when she was 9, before she moved to Beverly Hills.

She got her master’s in Jewish philosophy at the University of Judaism, and stayed on to take courses in the rabbinic school even before ordination for women was approved in 1986.

Soon after that decision, at 38, Olins began commuting to New York to work toward ordination at the Jewish Theological Seminary. With her husband’s law practice in Los Angeles and her daughter about to graduate high school, Olins spent four days a week in New York and three days in Los Angeles studying with local rabbis and interning at B’nai Hayim. She kept that schedule for three years and was ordained in 1989.

Olins’ fierce determination to become a rabbi still comes through in the energy she puts into her work at B’nai Hayim, a 220-family congregation set into the woodsy streets just south of Ventura Boulevard.

The services she conducts with Cantor Mark Gomberg are interactive and her sermons current and relevant, members say, with Olins conducting Phil Donahue-like discussions on ethical questions during Friday night services.

“When my husband and I moved to the Valley we did all this temple shopping, and when Rabbi Sally started her banter with the cantor, we could not believe how fun it was and how lively,” said Beth Laski, who joined last year.

Olins teaches each bar and bat mitzvah student herself. She has four confirmation classes, since two of her classes refused to graduate when their required two years were completed.

On Thursday nights, she has 20 teens to her house to eat pizza and watch “Friends” on DVD.

“We take segments of ‘Friends’ and count how many ways they break the Ten Commandments,” Olins said. “You better believe they watch ‘Friends’ in a new light.”

Olins hopes that program like these help her members understand that Judaism can be central to their lives, as it is for her.

“Some day I’ll be dead and gone and they will remember that it was fun with me, that I wore jeans and that we ate pizza and studied together,” Olins said. “And when it comes to making a decision of who to marry, their sense of Jewish identity will be so strong, and maybe I’ll have played a part in that.”

For Pets at Rest, call (818) 388-8867. For B’nai Hayim, call (818) 788-4664.

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Tull Lends a Hand to the Homeless

Leave a Comment / California, Community, L.A. Woman /

What is a homeless shelter? The definition really upsets Tanya Tull.

“A shelter is a place to stay for the night,” she says, raising her voice. “But a shelter is not the answer. Shelters are not going to solve the problem.”

Tull is referring to Los Angeles’ high cost of housing and the resulting homelessness. She first started worrying about those on the streets in 1980, and now, 24 years later, Tull is fighting against a real estate boom that prices the low-wage earners out of the housing market and federal aid cuts that exacerbate the problem. Tull outlined the issue with hard numbers in a March Los Angeles Times article: 8,000 children sleep on Los Angeles streets every night, 5,000 families will lose their Section 8 housing in 2005 and 15,000 families will lose their houses over the next five years.

But she isn’t content with worrying. As the president and CEO of Beyond Shelter Inc., an organization that helps people find permanent housing as quickly as possible and then supports them with services for a period of time, Tull is one of several Jewish Angelenos — like David Grunwald, chief executive of L.A. Family Housing Corp, and Ruth Schwartz, executive director of Shelter Partnership of Los Angeles — who is devoting her career to getting people off the streets and into homes.

“When I started doing this work, my aunts and grandmothers asked me why am I not doing it in the Jewish community,” said Tull, 61. “I answered that this feels right. I am working in third-world America. And if we don’t do this, who will?”

Tull’s programs have been so successful — in 2001 she helped 5,000 families with rental support services and put 220 homeless families into permanent housing — that she is now working with the National Low Income Housing Coalition and the National Alliance to End Homelessness, both based in Washington, D.C., to implement them in other cities across America.

After seeing Beyond Shelter’s five-floor office space in downtown Los Angeles and hearing Tull talk about her myriad programs, it’s hard to imagine that she didn’t even know what a nonprofit was when she started. She plunged headfirst into the world of organized charities and it was her idealism and bullheaded belief in making a difference that drove her success.

After she spent time on a kibbutz in her early 20s, she returned to Los Angeles as a single mother; Tull then worked as a social worker in South Los Angeles and Skid Row and then quit out of frustration because “there was so much poverty and hopelessness and I couldn’t do anything about it.” In the ’70s she briefly retired from changing the world — something she said she wanted to do when she was younger — got teaching credentials and settled down to raise her three children.

But when she read a Los Angeles Times article in 1980 about children living in Skid Row hotels, she was so incensed that she created a nonprofit on her living room table called Para Los Ninos (For the Children). Tull started raising money for a daycare center in a converted warehouse and eventually set up a host of programs for babies and children up to the age of 5.

“Then I began thinking more about the families,” she said. “It really bothered me that these children needed to go home to these hotels every night. I went to the Community Redevelopment Agency of L.A. and asked them where the affordable housing was, and they said there was none and they weren’t building any because the government had pretty well slashed affordable housing.”

Tull got to work. She co-founded the L.A. Family Housing Corporation in 1983 and developed a low-income housing project in South Los Angeles. She wanted the project to function similar to a kibbutz. She envisioned someone providing childcare while the residents tilled a communal vegetable garden. But the experiment failed, and it taught Tull a lesson in her fight to end homelessness.

“Housing is a basic human right,” she said. “It can’t be a reward for good behavior.”

Tull also realized that emergency shelters were only going to “recycle” the homeless, and in 1988 she started Beyond Shelter to get people into permanent homes.

Now Beyond Shelter has an annual budget of more than $4 million and works to build affordable rental units and revitalize neighborhoods, create relationships with the landlord community so it can advocate on behalf of people who have bad credit ratings and numerous evictions on their record, help people find jobs and offer support services to poor families.

And Tull wouldn’t want to be doing anything else.

“There were many other things I could do [as a career] and I often wonder about them,” she said. “But I don’t think I could ever have given up this experience of being able to impact so many lives.”

For more information on Beyond Shelter, visit www.beyondshelter.org  or call (213) 252-0772.

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UCLA Alumna Heads Film School

Leave a Comment / L.A. Woman /

Barbara Boyle has come full circle.

When she first entered UCLA in 1957, she was one of four female law students in a class of 140. She considered herself a beatnik, dreaming of saving the world. Now she’s back at UCLA as head of the Department of Film, Television, and Digital Media.

During the intervening four decades, Boyle worked as a corporate counsel for American International Pictures and put her business savvy to work at New World Pictures. As a film company executive, she oversaw production of “The Terminator” and “Platoon.” As an independent producer, she made “Phenomenon,” one of the top-grossing movies of 1996. In April 2003, she stepped down from the presidency of Valhalla Motion Pictures (“The Hulk”) to accept the post at her alma mater.

Boyle’s travels through the film world pale in comparison to her parents’ journey from Europe to the United States. Her father, William Dorman, left a Russian shtetl at age 13 to accompany his 22-year-old brother to America. Without an American nickel between them, the two brothers walked from Ellis Island to the Brooklyn Bridge, where they planned to meet a cousin.

That walk through the teeming streets of New York, circa 1905, quickly showed them the dark side of American life. Their payot, black coats and dangling tzitzit immediately established them as greenhorns, and thus fair prey for the Bowery bums who scattered the contents of William’s cardboard suitcase before running away.

But the story has a happy ending: The suitcase was recovered (and remains one of Boyle’s prized possessions). The cousin told the two brothers that he had found them a grocery store job. Two years later, they bought the store from its owner and sent for the rest of the family.

America was the place where a penniless immigrant like Willy Dorman could grow up and become a successful businessman. But to Boyle’s mother, Edith Kleiman, America was a poor substitute for the world she’d left behind. She was the daughter of a Russian Jew whose high intellect endeared him to a local count. His patron smoothed his way into the legal profession, and he and his family enjoyed an affluent lifestyle. Then came the Bolshevik Revolution. The father was killed, and 17-year-old Edith took charge of getting the family to Paris.

Ultimately, they landed in New York. While making a speech about conditions in her homeland, she caught the eye of the much-older Willy Dorman. “Isn’t that romantic?” Boyle said. “I tell these stories, and it’s hard to imagine they’re not just stories. It’s like reading Sholom Aleichem.”

Boyle attributes everything she is to her parents. “If I’m anything, it’s all because of them.” Her childhood home was a place where Zionism flourished, and where political views were hotly debated around the dinner table. Her father, who had a passion for moral and ethical study, devoted his free hours to the Talmud, and the children were sent to an Orthodox cheder after school. Both proved to be gifted students. Brother Albert became a prominent engineer and architect, who later endowed the honors college at his alma mater, New Jersey Institute of Technology.

The expectations for Barbara were equally high. Her mother made sure she was educated, “So that I could stand side by side with my husband, and not on his shoulders.” When Barbara decided to become an attorney, she was fulfilling Edith’s own dream of studying law like her father before her.

While in law school, Barbara met Kevin Boyle, the son of immigrants from Ireland. It was she, and not her family, who insisted he convert to Judaism before they wed. Their marriage, which lasted 37 years until his death, produced two sons, both of whom, said the longtime member of Kehillat Israel, are strong in their Judaism.

Boyle has brought to UCLA the nonprofit experience she gained as president of both Women in Film and the Independent Feature Project West. She delights in the opportunity to interact with students. In William Dorman’s value system, teaching is the noblest profession of all. As Boyle settles into this new professional challenge, she keeps in mind her father’s words: “There’s only one way you can become a better person. Only one. And that is by giving to others.” She also relies upon her mother’s lesson: “Anything you can dream you can do.”

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