The Jewish Journal is no longer accepting mailed or faxed event listing information. Please e-mail event listings at least three
weeks in advance to: calendar@jewishjournal.com.
By Keren Engelberg
Calendar
SHABBAT
Temple Beth Torah: 9:30 a.m. Shabbos at the Shul pancake breakfast. 7620 Foothill Road, Ventura. R.S.V.P., (805) 647-4181.
LECTURES
Aish L.A.: 8 p.m. Rabbi Noach Orlowek on “God: The Real Deal.” Motzei Shabbos and dessert. $10. Boxenbaum Family Aish Outreach Center, 9100 W. Pico Blvd.,
Los Angeles. (310) 278-8672, ext. 303.
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
AhmansonTheatre: 7:30 p.m.
Final performance of “Caroline, or Change.” $35-$90. 601 W. Temple St., Los Angeles. (213) 628-2772.
City of Hope Singers: 1:30 p.m.
“Music of the Magi” at the Richard Nixon Library. 18001 Yorba Linda Blvd., Yorba Linda. (714) 993-3393.
EVENTS
OASIS: 1:30-3 p.m. Weekly Yiddish conversation group for seniors. 8838 Pico Blvd., Los Angeles. (310) 446-8053.
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Los Angeles Master Chorale: 7 p.m. Latin holiday music celebration featuring jazz and vocal artists. $10-$79. Walt Disney Concert Hall,
111 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles.
(800) 787-5262.
LECTURES
Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring:
Workmen’s Circle: 6:30 p.m. “Jewish Vegetarianism” vegetarian potluck and talk with Gene Gordon. Bring a dish or beverage to serve eight to 10 people. Free. R.S.V.P., (310) 552-2007.
OPEN HOUSES
Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring:
Shalhevet Middle School: 10 a.m. Open house for grades 5-8.
910 S. Farifax Ave., Los Angeles. R.S.V.P., (323) 930-9333, ext. 230.
EVENTS
Jewish Family Service and Friendship Circle: 7:30-9 p.m. Support group for parents of children with special needs. Meets on first and third Thursdays of each month.
The New JCC at Milken,
22622 Vanowen St., West Hills.
(818) 464-3333.
Orthodox Union: Dec. 23-Dec. 26. West Coast Torah Convention. For more information, see article on page 19.
Sunshine Seniors Club: 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Weekly meeting at new location. Valley Cities JCC, 13164 Burbank Blvd., Sherman Oaks. (818) 764-4532.
Jewish Family Service and Friendship Circle: 7:30-9 p.m. Support group for parents of children with special needs. Meets on first and third Thursdays of each month. The New JCC at Milken, 22622 Vanowen St., West Hills. (818) 464-3333.
Singles
Jewish Outdoor Adventures: 10:30 a.m. Christmas Day Hike to Eagle Rock with the Sierra Club. Topanga State Park, 20825 Entrada Road, Los Angeles. hikergirl50@yahoo.com.
Jewish Singles, Meet! (30s-40s): “What’s a nice Jewish guy or gal doing on Dec. 25?” party. $10. Sylmar residence. R.S.V.P., (818) 750-0095.
Harbor Jewish Singles (55+): 1 p.m. Lunch and a movie at Metro Point. (714) 633-8878.
Chai Center: 2-5 p.m. “Not a Christmas Party” for all ages at private outdoor location. $10. Hancock Park. R.S.V.P., (310) 391-7995.
Israeli Folk Dancing: 8 p.m.-12:30 a.m. Classes by Israel Yakove meet Mondays and Thursdays. $7. 2244 Westwood Blvd., Los Angeles. (310) 839-2550.
West Valley JCC: 8-11 p.m. Israeli folk dancing with James Zimmer. $5-$6. Salsa, swing and tango lessons for an additional $3 (7-8 p.m.). (310) 284-3638.day
Nexus (20s-40s): 6 p.m. Volleyball and
no-host dinner at a local restaurant. End of Culver Boulevard, near court 15,
Playa del Rey. www.jewishnexus.org.
Conversations at Leon’s: 7 p.m. “First Dates, What They Say About You.” $15-$17.
639 26th St., Santa Monica. (310) 393-4616.
New Age Singles (55+): New Year’s Eve party with bus to Glendale, dinner and the play, “Come Blow Your Horn.” $60-$62. R.S.V.P., (818) 347-8355.
This month, Tevet is the darkest month because the days are shortest. And, in this month, a siege began on Jerusalem, which eventually led to the destruction of the Temple. That is why we had a fast day on the 10th of Tevet (Dec. 22).
But here’s an interesting fact about Tevet and the holiday we just celebrated – Chanukah. If you count the number of candles we lit (not including the shamash) you get 36. If you count the number of days from the beginning of Chanukah (25 Kislev) until the last day of Tevet, you get – 36. Pretty cool, huh?
This is the season of lights.
It’s also the season of presents.
Follow the lines to find who is holding the ribbon to which present:
I was at the Westside JCC’s 50th anniversary the other day. There was a big cake and a lot of Chanukah fun. And guess whom I got to stand next to on stage?
Follow the clues to answer the question:
1) A rainbow drops into a pot of__________
2) How many fringes on a tallit? ___________
3) Part of his name sounds “Krazy!”
5) His first name rhymes with Penny _______
6) An event that started in ancient Greece ___________
Who is he and what did he do? Send your answer to abbygilad@yahoo.com for your prize!
Do rabbis have to be wordy? Actually, no — or at least, not according to Sinai Temple’s Rabbi David Wolpe. For the past eight years, Wolpe has been doing the unthinkable and actually condensing his lofty thoughts into succinct, easy-to-read-and-digest 200-word essays in the New York-based Jewish Week. Recently, Wolpe published “Floating Takes Faith, Ancient Wisdom for the Modern World,” (Behrman House), an anthology of his best columns. The selections in the book attempt to blend secular culture with Judaism, to prove that we have as much to learn from 17th century French aphorists like Francois de La Rochefoucauld as we do from Jewish scholars like Ibn Gabirol.
“No one tradition has a monopoly on wisdom,” Wolpe said. “I also want to help people learn to look for Jewish messages in the culture around them.”
Wolpe said that his desire to write a shorter column came as he was writing longer ones, but they were “infrequently published and infrequently read.” Once he started cutting words, the columns got a bigger response.
“When people see a rabbi’s name and a lot of words, they automatically assume that they are about to read a lot of superfluous stuff, and it’s hard for people to commit in a paper to read an entire column,” he said. “It’s much easier for them to read a brief, punchy point. And I also felt as though the central lessons that I had to teach, even though they could all be expanded upon, could be expressed succinctly.”
Wolpe’s goal with this book and with his columns is to achieve the most coveted accolade of all newspaper columnists — to have his column posted on someone’s refrigerator.
“I want to be put up there right next to that 30-year-old Art Buchwald column that has turned yellow,” he said.
In the meantime, he is continuing to write his columns and keeping them short.
“There is something to be said for brevity,” Wolpe mused. “But not too much, because you have to be brief.”
When British actress Sophie Okonedo portrayed the wife of a hotel manager who saved more than 1,200 people during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, she worked with 10,000 extras — including Rwandan refugees living in Johannesburg. Some agreed to be in “Hotel Rwanda’s” harrowing scene showing Rwandan women naked, caged and cowering, waiting to be raped.
“Some of those women had been through that. You don’t quite think about your film in the same way,” said Okonedo, born in England to a Nigerian father and Jewish mother.
The two-hour, PG-13 film, which opened Wednesday in Los Angeles, tells the true story of Paul Rusesabagina, a Rwandan hotel manager who, in April 1994, sheltered 1,268 ethnic Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus marked for death by Hutu extremists. The extremists were responsible for the machete murders of almost 1 million Rwandans, a slaughter that world leaders ignored.
A British-Italian-South African co-production, “Hotel Rwanda” earned a People’s Choice Award at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, plus three Golden Globe nominations. It was screened earlier this fall at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Financing for the film’s $20 million production budget came partly from Israel’s Bank Leumi, and one-third of the funds came from government financing in South Africa, where most of the film was shot.
As Rwanda’s genocide progressed, the United Nations and the Clinton administration downplayed the genocide, dismissing news reports of mass slaughter and delaying the dispatch of troops to stop it. Unlike the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide was broadcast worldwide, and “Hotel Rwanda” has re-ignited decade-old feelings of shame among European and U.S. film patrons over how their nations refused to intervene.
“We have seen this film before. It could have easily been Poland in 1940 with Jews,” said Rachel Jagoda, the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust director who saw an advance screening of the film. “The faces, the ethnicities, the landscape change, but the story is the same.”
“The biggest difference, of course, is the rate at which the genocide occurred,” Jagoda said. “It took 12 years to murder 6 million Jews in Europe. It took 100 days to murder almost 1 million people in Rwanda.”
Okonedo agreed, saying, “It wouldn’t have taken very much to stop the genocide. These people were slaughtered with machetes.”
Character actor Don Cheadle plays Rusesabagina, a moderate Hutu whose compassion turns the elegant, Belgian-owned Hotel des Milles Collines into a rare Tutsi haven. His performance earned him a Golden Globe best actor nomination, alongside nominations for best dramatic picture and original song.
“Hotel Rwanda” executive producer Hal Sadoff, whose great-grandparents fled Ukrainian anti-Semitism, worked on the film’s financing with fellow executive producer Martin Katz, a Jewish Canadian.
“It’s a topic that has not really been publicized in the U.S.; people are ready today to look at it,” said Sadoff, who also handled financing for “House of Sand and Fog.” “There are a lot of Holocaust scripts around. But this script — it was so well written and so commercial and although it was set within this horrible tragedy — it was really about human relationships.”
Known to independent film audiences for her role in 2002’s “Dirty Pretty Things,” Okonedo’s prominent “Hotel Rwanda” part as Rusesabagina’s wife, Tatiana, is key. Her simple desire to save her family gives filmgoers a way to comprehend the seemingly superhuman compassion of her otherwise ordinary husband.
“The biggest leap for me was to become a Rwandan housewife, because it was completely opposite my upbringing,” Okonedo told The Journal in a telephone interview.
The real Paul Rusesabagina fled Rwanda with his wife, three children and two nieces and resettled in Belgium, where he runs a trucking company and served as the film’s consultant.
Okonedo, who researched her role at the Berlin Holocaust Museum, said meeting the couple was “quite overwhelming at first, and it was quite frightening. He’s almost a kind of an accidental hero. These people were still living and getting on with their lives. It’s always extraordinary when you see survivors.”
Despite the horrific subject matter, the film’s singular focus is on Rusesabagina, an ordinary hotel manager, trying to protect his family and 1,200-plus people. Because of this emphasis, Okonedo finished the film with some hope.
“These people, Paul and Tatiana, they just kept going through all this mayhem, and they didn’t fall apart,” she said. “So many of the films at the moment are about superpeople, superlawyers, superdetectives and spies. I’m just quite interested in the ordinary Joe, and the ordinary often has extraordinary tales to tell.”
I was surprised, astonished and shocked to read William Donohue’s comments as reported in your editor’s column last week (“Garbage Mouth,” Dec. 17). In fact, I was unaware of Donohue’s comments until I read them in The Jewish Journal. I unequivocally reject Donohue’s remarks.
The Catholic and Jewish communities in Los Angeles have long enjoyed a deep and abiding affection for one another. We live in the same neighborhoods and send our children to the same schools. We socialize together and often attend each other’s religious services as invited guests. Our shared moral values have brought us together to work for stronger families, and a more just and tolerant society.
Twelve years ago, in a pastoral letter to members of the entertainment industry – as well as to those who are its customers – I wrote of the awesome moral power of the media, which is second only to the human family in its capacity to “communicate values, form consciences, provide role models and motivate human behavior.”
The best and most successful films produced by Hollywood always say something meaningful about human dignity, freedom and justice. As I also said in my pastoral letter, these values “are the exclusive property of no single religious community, ethnic grouping, educational level, economic class or political party…. Being human values, they are recognized and affirmed by all the people.”
Let us refocus our efforts on producing and patronizing film and television projects that uplift the human spirit common to all of us, Catholic and Jew, religious and secular.
Cardinal Roger Mahony Archbishop of Los Angeles
Kindest Cut
Thanks to Editor-in-Chief Rob Eshman for putting the Iowa slaughterhouse controversy up front (“The Kindest Cut,” Dec. 10). It is important for readers to understand that PETA is not challenging kosher slaughter. PETA’s position is the same as ours: that kosher slaughter is more humane than the processes employed in other slaughterhouses. PETA is claiming, however, that slaughter at the Agriprocessors plant in Iowa is unkosher, and since it follows neither kashrut nor government regulations, it is illegal. Anyone who views the videos posted on the PETA Web site must agree. The suffering depicted is beyond the pale. The “kosher meat man” quoted by Eshman, who says “Nobody gives a sh– about PETA” had better be wrong. We cannot turn a blind eye to the suffering of animals and call ourselves Jewish. Have the Orthodox abandoned the commandments?
Naomi Zahavi Via e-mail
The real story behind the Agriprocessors kosher slaughter PETA video is the tale of two Orthodox Jewish organizations and two distinctive worldviews. Agudath Israel and its lawyer, Nathan Lewin, clearly viewed the PETA project as an assault motivated by anti-Semitism, while the Orthodox Union and its principled leader, Rabbi Zvi Hersh Weinreb, asserted that “The Orthodox Union will not engage in maligning PETA in any way, nor in questioning their motives.” He then announced that he would ask Agriprocessors to “stop letting workers tear the trachea and esophagus out of animals” (following shechita). He is further quoted to have said that he found the procedure especially inhumane.
The OU required these changes even though it was possible to argue that the shechita had been performed in accordance with the letter of the halachic strictures. Weinreb, however, understood that if, as Jews, we were to continue to claim that kosher slaughter adheres to the most humane standards, then rabbinic decisions regarding shechita must reflect the highest ethical and humane ideals. In this swift and unapologetic way, Weinreb transformed what could very well have degenerated into a damaging chilul Hashem (desecration) into a Kiddush Hashem (a sanctification of God’s name and of the halachic process).
Hats off to you Rabbi Weinreb for your courageous decision,
Rabbi Chaim and Doreen Seidler-Feller Westwood
Lonely Jews on Xmas
The headline of the Dec 17 issue and the complaining of this type of Jew makes us see red (“When Xmas Enters the Classroom,” Dec.17). My grandparents were Orthodox Jews in Latvia. Although Saturday was a school day for my mother, her parents did not complain because they wanted her to have an education and that was the way it was. There were no Jewish school groups or mention of Chanukah in schools, as described in your article. On one Christmas Eve, I recall my grandma singing “Silent Night” in German and telling me, joyously, of the Christmas celebrations they shared with their Christian neighbors.
As a child, I remember asking my mother about Christmas and Easter observances in my public school (in a mostly Jewish neighborhood). My mother explained that we live in a “Christian country” where we are a tiny minority and God bless this Christian country. Jews have never had the freedoms and opportunities as we have here. To the people who resonate with those complaints – quit your bitchin’. Welcome the warmth of the season and enjoy your blessings.
Adelaide and Milt Meisner Northridge
I appreciate The Journal’s ongoing attempts to chronicle the melding of Jewish tradition with American culture (“Merry Chrismukkah to You,” Dec. 10). However, I was somewhat dismayed by the coverage given to “Chrismukkah” concept. This new “holiday” (which is somewhat reminiscent of Frank Costanza’s Festivus on “Seinfeld”) is essentially a celebration of assimilation, interfaith marriage and dominating impact of Christian culture on Jewish experience.
The loss of Jewish identity that ideas like this represent is not something to be celebrated or reported with such a whimsical tone.
David Schwartz Los Angeles
Bach Humbug
In David Finnigan’s article (“Singing Klezmer Isn’t Hard to Do,” Dec. 3) he states: “Yet, Sedaka admits that for all the pop hits he has written … writing pop music is not bubble gum and can require as much elaborate creation as a Bach symphony.” As J.S. Bach wrote no symphonies, this would be impossible to do. The symphonic form was developed by composers living after Bach.
Lewis C. Holzman Rancho Palos Verdes
Jews on Xmas
Very sad reading about Grant High School, but funny, too (“When Christmas Enters the Classroom,” Dec. 17). How times change. When we moved from San Gabriel Valley to the San Fernando Valley in the mid-’60s, I had only one requirement: Where ever we lived, it had to be in the Grant High district. Not only was Grant outstanding academically, but it was the first school I had ever heard of that sent home notes around the holidays, asking if your child would be attending school during Rosh Hashanah and/or Yom Kippur. I thought that was wonderful. Having grown up in New Orleans (where there wasn’t even a Jewish neighborhood, we were just scattered around the city), I knew what my kids had gone through in San Gabriel. I’m sorry Grant High and other schools are not like that anymore, but with a strong Jewish influence at home, and at temple, hopefully today’s teens will grow up to be mothers and fathers who will work at the school level to honor all Holidays.
Paulette Vision Pistol Encino
Your cutsie interfaith Chanukah-Christmas cards and gifts stories running the last few weeks would have the Maccabees turn in their graves. Jews did and do not sacrifice their lives to make a mockery of Judaism. Where do you draw the line?
J. G. Los Angeles
My 14-year-old granddaughter attended a Jewish day school from kindergarten through sixth grade. During those cozy and comfortable years, she viewed Christmas carols, lights and the holiday in general as simply quaint, nothing more (“There’s No Santa but Keep It Quiet,” Dec. 17). In seventh grade, we switched her to a non-Jewish private school. We assumed her upbringing at home, plus her day school background, would buffer her against the December dilemma. Not!
Now, in ninth grade, most of her girlfriends are non-Jews. She has lost interest in lighting the menorah with me. She bought a Santa hat (I chewed her out on both of those). She clearly is losing interest in her Jewish identity. Can anyone out there offer any suggestions on how I can get her back in the Jewish groove, to feel proud of her Judaism?
Name Withheld Upon Request Sherman Oaks
Kindest Cut
Reporters and readers alike are debating whether or not the method of slaughter employed in Postville, Iowa, is halachically correct (“The Kindest Cut,” Dec. 10). These worries miss a vital point.
By focusing on the last few seconds of life, otherwise educated and loving Jews ignore the question of animal treatment during the preceding 99 percent of their lives.
Most cattle are raised on coarse feed that creates painful gastric problems (they do not graze on grass for most of their lives). They are kept in fields not shielded from sun. They are denied exercise, lest they burn calories. They are castrated, branded and dehorned without anesthesia or follow-up veterinary care. They are transported long distances in overcrowded trucks, often without food and water. Kosher animals might “enjoy” a less painful death than nonkosher animals, but virtually all animals raised for consumption (kosher or nonkosher) live lives of pain, crowding and abusive treatment. Were it a dog or cat being treated this way, the handlers would be arrested and jailed.
Judaism teaches kindness and compassion toward animals. It is intellectually dishonest to ignore 99 percent of an animal’s life, in favor of the last 1 percent.
M. Gross Via e-mail
Election 2004
I found the article “Idea of Dumb Bush Voters Lacks Reality” (Dec. 3) to be perplexing, to say the least The implication is that Democrats consider people who voted for Bush to be dumb. On the contrary, people voted for Bush for a variety of reasons. The voters included those who believed in one or more of the following: the Republican Party best supported Israel (blatantly false), provided the best defense against terrorism, believed in the Iraq war, held ideological beliefs consistent with the evangelical right-wing Republican Christians or knew their financial future was assured with this candidate. Of course, there were others who had concerns with Sen. Kerry or perceived that the Democrats lacked a clear message regarding a wide range of topics (e.g., peace, jobs, outsourcing, fairness for everyone, health care, etc.). However, implying that Democrats are not reflecting deeply on their vision and mission is simply untrue. A quick review of the op-ed section of the New York Times (Dec. 8) reveals no less than four articles regarding the need for the Democratic Party to energize itself. Many ideas are being considered such as engaging citizens in the rural communities and using new methods to increase Democratic turnout in 2006.
Letters I have received from California Sen. Barbara Boxer and the New Democratic Network, as well as articles from The Nation, also voice the need and commitment for the Democratic Party members and leaders to reflect deeply regarding a new vision that will attract a new base of Democrats for the future. I see nothing dumb about this intelligent and thoughtful response.
Marcia Albert Los Angeles
Carin Davis
Ms. Davis, did you ever think you would ever get a fan mail letter from someone who is probably old enough to be your grandfather? Well, you got one now.
I generally skim over the singles articles but your pretty smile and the interesting title caught my eye so I read the article (“Single Woman of Valor,” Nov. 26). I enjoyed it for several reasons: 1) I married one and she still is; 2) we have a bright, attractive, professionally successful daughter whose sentiments are identical with yours and 3) I really liked your-no-holds barred approach to the rights of a single woman. You know, I have trouble understanding young men today. In my dating days I always enjoyed interesting, stimulating girls like you. Are men just afraid of bright women nowadays?
If so, who needs them?
Anyway, thanks for expressing your views so well. You’re certainly my nominee for a WOV.
Sanford Rothman Via e-mail
Garbage Mouth
The editorial report (“Garbage Mouth,” Dec.17) on the anti-“secular Jewish” comments by Catholic lay leader William Donohue may be regarded as the chickens coming home to roost.
Two years ago in November, there was much resentment in Catholic circles against an anti-church film from Mexico, “The Crimes of Father Amaro,” being distributed in the U.S. The Journal and other newspapers disclosed that the distribution company, Samuel Goldwyn Films, was headed by a Jewish executive, Myer Gottlieb. The Catholic community was well aware of this, and expressed its outrage.
At the time, I wrote The Jewish Journal:
“If Jews hope to receive Catholic support in the struggle against … anti-Semitism, they should at least have enough self-control to prevent Jewish sponsorship of public material that is gratuitously hostile to a major Christian religion. I regard the conduct of this Jewish executive to be in reckless disregard of the current worldwide struggle against anti-Semitism. I am astounded at the silence of our Jewish leadership in this matter.”
The Journal published neither this letter, nor any letter or comment criticizing such silence. Apparently the view in Jewish leadership circles was as usual, that the controversy would blow over. Well, it didn’t blow over; it remained in the memory banks of those offended, and resentment generated then is being expressed now.
The chickens are coming home to roost, something the Jewish leadership should keep in mind in its present state of indignation over the current attack on “Hollywood’s secular Jews.”
About 6,000 people pass through the doors of the University of Judaism (UJ) each year, 13,000 if you include the people who catch its high-profile public lecture series at the Universal Amphitheatre. Significant as that number is, it means tens of thousands of other Los Angeles-area Jews have yet to figure out what that campus just off the 405 in the Sepulveda Pass can do for them.
Peter Lowy wants to change that. The recently named chairman of the board of the institution is that rare bird in nonprofit institutional life: a breath of fresh air.
He is young: at 45, practically a teenager compared to the aging membership of many boards. He isn’t from here. Lowy and his wife, Janine, moved to Los Angeles 14 years ago from Sydney, Australia. Not only does that mean Lowy speaks in that chummy, endearing accent, it means he enters his post with a new and expanded perspective.
He is a poster child for the post-denominational Jew. Two of the Lowy’s four children attend a Conservative Jewish day school, and two attend a pluralistic high school affiliated with a Reform congregation. Lowy himself attends an Orthodox synagogue, as does the UJ’s president, Rabbi Robert Wexler.
“When you consider that the president and chairman are secular but daven in Orthodox shuls while running a Conservative institution, that’s where the world’s moving,” Lowy told me during a talk at his Brentwood office. “That’s where the community’s moving.” Lowy doesn’t just walk the walk, he, like so many Jews today, walks many walks.
Finally, he is wealthy and connected. Lowy’s father, Frank, fled Europe for Palestine, fought as a Golani commando in the War of Independence, then moved to Australia, where he built shopping centers. Lowy is now managing director of the Westfield Group, a global real estate investment trust (think Century City Shopping Mall, Westside Pavilion, Woodland Hills’ Shoppingtown). Someone with the head to run a multifaceted, multibillion dollar international business just might be able to move the University of Judaism and L.A. Jewry forward.
But it won’t be easy.
The UJ has been around since 1947. My office window in Koreatown overlooks the block of Ardmore Avenue where it was originally housed. The university followed the Jewish community west in 1979, settling in to the expansive Familian campus, where it fulfills a unique but hardly problem-free niche in a unique Jewish community.
Running a full-fledged undergraduate school — deans, professors, classes, dorms — for a limited number of students is a daunting task. Meanwhile, Conservative rabbis have leveled public and private criticisms that the UJ has veered too far from its roots in the Conservative community.
Some critics have taken to task the UJ’s department of continuing education for offering courses exploring edgier, controversial topics like homosexuality and astrology. The Orthodox community is still leery of a school whose cafeteria, not to mention its courses, is not kosher enough for them.
Lowy said he wants to build on the work of leaders like Frank Maas and Dena Schecter to stabilize the UJ internally, then enable it to reach out to all parts of the community.
On the first front, Lowy and others on the UJ board saw the importance of bringing business-world models of financial accountability and corporate governance to the nonprofit world. They instituted training programs for Jewish day schools on finance and made sure they took their own advice. Lowy said the school’s budget is in the black for the first time in recent memory.
He believes the costly undergraduate school is an asset, one part of a “three-legged stool” that includes the graduate programs and the department of continuing education, which together give the UJ gravitas and reach.
“You couldn’t get the quality of programs and lectures without the university underpinning it,” Lowy told me. “For instance, how would you get Elliot Dorff to come to a lecture on bioethics if he wasn’t part of the institution serving the community?”
His vision is to open the UJ’s resources to the community.
“The UJ needs to be viewed as a community institution,” he said. “We need to be able to give these benefits to the Orthodox community, the Reform community, the Conservative community and the Reconstructionist community. We need to change the mindset of the community. It’s a very difficult job to do.”
One way to do it is to offer these various facets of the community services they need. Jewish unity motivates in theory, good programming motivates in fact.
One place where Lowy hopes the UJ can contribute to the wider community is in tackling the problems facing day school education.
“If you look around, we have a growing system that is very good,” he said. “But the teachers aren’t paid enough, because the schools can’t afford to pay them. The schools can’t expand, because they’re undercapitalized. And the parents are paying too much to send their kids. Those are major issues, but the schools still grow because there is demand.”
Along with the nuts-and-bolts seminar for administrators, the Lowys funded a UJ program to help day school teachers get their masters’ degrees in Jewish studies. Teachers with advanced degrees earn more, and better quality attracts more parents, which brings in more money.
“Let’s make the Jewish day school system the best so people want to go to it, and not just because they believe in Jewish education,” he said.
If Lowy succeeds, it will prove a few things. One, that boards should make way for youthful leadership and diversity. Two, that breaking denominational barriers pays off. And three, that megadonors can have a megaimpact on their community.
I hope this last point resonates. The Lowys give more than 90 percent of their personal philanthropic dollars to Jewish causes. (Westfield Corp. supports charities of all types). A study of Jewish megadonors last year found that just 6 percent made their megagifts to Jewish causes and institutions, which often struggle for funding. The Lowy’s are a rare exception, and a welcome one.
It happened so quickly I couldn’t believe it. After a seemingly endless period of F & L’s (first and last dates, as I fondly call them), I met him.
When I walked into my favorite vegetarian restaurant I was relieved I’d decided to forgo my usual dazzling sweatpants/no makeup look. Finally — someone adorable both on the inside and out (that’s so rare in Los Angeles). He was witty and athletic; he came from a good family and loved dogs — will wonders never cease? They didn’t, I discovered when he walked me to me car and kissed me good night. I don’t know how I managed to drive home without crashing.
Within a month, he told me he loved me. He also invited me to Passover with his family. At the seder, he leaned over to me, put his hand in mine and said, “Honey, it’s our first Passover together.”
Hypnotized by his casual show of abundant affection, I just squeezed his hand and smiled.
My erstwhile prince topped his Passover pronouncement with a steady stream of references to our future together. By month two, he had asked me for a drawer, and slowly started to move his belongings into my home. The insta-home invasion had begun. First there was clothing, then toiletries, followed by his prized kitchen possession — a cast iron skillet. I was dizzy from the swiftness of it all and startled by the rapidity. But at our age, I told myself, maybe this is what happens. When it’s right it’s right. Right? By month three, we were planning vacations together and had intertwined our lives as if we had been dating for ages. Yes sir, we were already entrenched in the insta-relationship
And why not? We were two divorcees in our 40s who had considerable experience in dating. Why shouldn’t affairs of the heart transpire quickly? It’s an instant gratification society, where we can reach our friends instantaneously, purchase presents instantaneously and get dates online instantaneously. Why shouldn’t love be instant, too?
I’ve noticed the insta-relationship happening to my friends, as well. Sarah fell desperately in love perilously fast. Both she and her guy were weary from the endless Internet dating and felt that magical connection right away. They were intimate in no time and were introduced to each other’s families in a matter of just a few months. One day she called me to brag that they had made the key exchange.
“What is a key exchange?” I asked her.
“We exchanged house keys and burglar alarm codes,” she said triumphantly.
Did that mean that they were committing forever? Sarah certainly thought so. But apparently her paramour didn’t. She now refers to the affair as a drive-by relationship.
Mine was not a drive-by. We were taking a more scenic route.
One summer evening, I took my prince to see the revival of the Broadway musical, “Brigadoon,” about a fantastical love affair. Brigadoon was a bucolic, old-fashioned land of enchantment that existed in the mist above the Scottish Highlands. Every 100 years, for just a day, the town would return to Earth and the people that lived there were never touched by the realities of modern life. Just like us.
We had already been together for seven months. Seven perfect months, untouched by reality of modern life. For me, at least. That was until I promised to buy the new mattress he wanted, thinking it would be a good investment for our future. But this led to his chilling reply: “Honey, I don’t have a crystal ball into our future.”
Reality slammed into my life like a car blindly coming around dead man’s curve. Brigadoon vanished back into the Scottish Highlands. The fairy dust was clearing from our eyes. That was the beginning of the end.
What happened to my insta-love? What happened to the IM/eBay culture of instant gratification? Could it be that relationships need a stronger foundation than rushed expressions of sentiment? Have we become so impatient with finding “the one” that we dive right in without taking a good look at what/whom we’re jumping into? Yes, we had instant gratification, but maybe it caused us to suppress our patience, prudence and that great equalizer of all — the benefit of time.
Of course I only see this in retrospect. So now, for the future, I am going take some inspiration from “Brigadoon” and despite the crazy, hectic world we live in, I resolve to take things more slowly in my life — particularly when it comes to relationships. I’m now going to take time to search for a pair of special glasses that will stop the rose-colored glare and help me stay grounded in the reality of relationships.
Let’s just say that this purchase will definitely not be from the Internet.
Elizabeth Much is a partner with Much and House Public Relations, where she runs the entertainment division. She can be reached via e-mail at emuch@muchandhousepr.com.
When my wife left me last year, I was not prepared for how lonely Christmas could be, nor did I realize how Jewish it would become.
Last Dec. 24, I was alone in the Sherman Oaks townhouse we once shared. I did not buy a Christmas tree; there was no joy in my home that such a tree could magnify. All the Christmas ornaments were hers, so there were no blinking lights, holly or front door wreath; she was very good at creating Christmas cheer.
My large Irish-Catholic clan (sisters, Anne and Mary; brothers, Matthew, Mark and John) means large Christmas gatherings. But schedules last Christmas meant we would not all be together until Dec. 26 at my parent’s home. So last year, I caught the Christmas Eve vigil Mass alone at St. Charles in North Hollywood. It can be a painful place; I was married there three years earlier, but then again, it’s also where three of my nephews, plus my twin brother and I, were baptized, and where my sister, Mary, was married. My fresh, sad marriage memories were muted by joyous thoughts of other Christmases.
After Mass, I drove to my oldest, closest friend’s Fairfax District home for Christmas Eve dinner. It was a small affair, just me, him, his longtime girlfriend and her widowed mother. There was something comforting about his door’s mezuzah that Christmas Eve.
I woke up Christmas Day morning with no tree, toys or eggnog, and I understood how Jewish children could feel left out on Christmas mornings as non-Jewish neighbor kids ride new bikes and try out other presents. Like Jewish kids, I had no gifts that morning.
But I had Sinai Temple. The Conservative Westwood synagogue’s Mitzvah Day attracted 105 young Jewish volunteers to clean a beach, play with abandoned dogs, visit elderly Christians in a nursing home and feed Los Angeles’ poor. They gathered in the underground parking lot of that Pico Boulevard Ralphs near Century City, where Leslie Klieger, Sinai’s ATID young adult group director, greeted me, as did Rabbi Brian Schuldenfrei.
I briefly interviewed him in the back seat of volunteer Lida Tabibian’s parked SUV. The tape recorder was not working, which was embarrassing in front of the rabbi, who asked if everything was OK. I mentioned my divorce and he listened — a much-appreciated act of Jewish empathy for a broken Catholic on this Christian holiday.
Last Christmas morning, rain soaked downtown Los Angeles’ Skid Row, and the poor were wet and hungry. Inside a rescue mission were Klieger, Tabibian and other young Jews doing good for people far worse off than a tape recorder-challenged journalist whose wife had left him. With the mitzvah done, Klieger, Tabibian and I went back into Tabibian’s large SUV so I could interview them for my mitzvah story.
Tabibian mentioned the Mitzvah Day’s large turnout and said, “Isn’t it wonderful what we’re doing here?”
What could I say? My wife had left me. My savior was born yet I didn’t feel saved.
But Tabibian’s rich Persian smile, her dark eyes alight at the joy of doing mitzvah, and that phrase, “Isn’t it wonderful?” briefly stopped my grief. Suddenly, with her question, Christmas Day started to glow a little.
Beauty and wonder at Christmas are not always under a tree or in a song or at Mass. Sometimes, beauty and wonder can be heard when a good-hearted woman asks you, “Isn’t it wonderful?”
For dinner that Christmas Day, I went to Izzy’s Deli in Santa Monica and met a friend, both of us alone, but now, not lonely.
This Christmas Eve, I may check out a Pico-Robertson Shabbat sermon. On Christmas Day, I might look in on Temple Israel of Hollywood’s dinner for the poor at a nearby church, or maybe attend the Skirball Cultural Center’s Theodore Bikel Yiddish concert in the evening.
I grew up in Studio City (yes, south of Ventura Boulevard). Except for two gauntlet years at Encino’s Crespi Carmelite High School, I was a public school Catholic, surrounded by Jewish friends and Jewish student role models. The first girl I ever kissed was Jewish. The best man at my Catholic wedding was Jewish — the same man my wife asked to tell me our marriage was over.
From my first crush to my first kiss to being praised by Steven Spielberg to my divorce to this newspaper, Jews have been there for me. And last Christmas Day, when I looked at the young Jewish volunteers in that underground Ralphs parking lot, in a small way I was home again; among my Studio City own, spending part of Christmas with cool Jews. I was broken, yes, but not alone.
When Elizabeth Cobrin goes to Israel this winter break with Birthright Israel, she and her friends have devised a plan to find each other when participants in all the different Birthright trips get together.
They are going to sing their camp songs really, really loudly, until they hear each other and can sing together.
Remembering the songs won’t be hard, since Cobrin will spend a week before she goes to Israel in Winter Camp at JCA Shalom in Malibu, her summer home for five years.
Cobrin, a freshman at CSUN, says that her experience at camp, from camper to counselor, has been central to her Jewish identity, and that it stays with her year-round.
“Now that I am a counselor and I’m teaching kids about Judaism and can influence them, it is an even more central part of camp for me,” Cobrin said.
For many kids and counselors who attend Jewish summer camps, these winter months bring a Diasporic separation from a source of spiritual and social life. Camp gives a 21st century context to Judaism, cements Jewish identity and perhaps, most importantly, introduces children to lifelong friends, colleagues and even future spouses.
E-mail, instant messaging and weekend cell phone minutes now play the role that stationery and stamps used to in sustaining relationships. Many camps hold weekend reunions or winter camps, and, of course, some campers return together as counselors to continue spending summers on the same hallowed grounds.
The trick seems to be to weave the threads of camp life into the cloth of daily existence. Jill Zuckerman Powell, director of admissions at New Community Jewish High School in West Hills, has no trouble keeping in touch with her friends from Camp Alonim at the Brandeis-Bardin Institute in Simi Valley more than 30 years ago.
“I’m related to them!” she laughs, explaining that her husband, brother-in-law, pediatrician and veterinarian are all camp pals. “I see them all the time, so it’s easy to stay in touch.”
Jewish camps are known to be one of the best tools of a Jewish education, with their emphasis on multidimensional teaching of values, Hebrew language, culture and religious customs. Young Judaea, a Zionistic youth organization with six camps across the United States, reports in a 1998 survey that 59 percent of alumni light Shabbat candles as compared to 20 percent of the whole Jewish community polled in a 1990 National Jewish Population Study.
The Limud Report, a research project conducted by an independent firm concerned with Jewish life at summer camps, found that 85 percent of Jewish camps conduct Friday night services and that campers cite it as the No. 1 source of spiritual and personal satisfaction in the camp experience. Many recall the magical feeling of standing with the entire camp dressed in white for Shabbat, and walking hand in hand to Friday night services.
For Cobrin, Shabbat services are the most powerful factor in building unity among campers.
“My favorite Jewish activity is Havdalah,” she said. “I think that after such a busy week, it is nice to get the whole camp together in one place…. Knowing that [it] could be the first time all week all the age groups are together and participating in the same program.”
A former camper notes that whether or not you enjoy services, you are there with everyone else with the single purpose of honoring Shabbat.
But it might be the informal weaving of Judaism into day-to-day activities that provides camp’s most powerful impact. Powell points to Alonim’s dancing, music and games that all have elements of Jewish culture. In this way, the construction of kids’ Jewish identity is not even conscious. It is not until they have time to think about all they have learned in the week or the summer that they notice the change in themselves.
“All my identity as a Jew is through camp. Hebrew school and Sunday school were negative experiences for me, as I think they are for many kids,” Powell said.
She met her husband at camp, has sent her two daughters to camp and recommends the experience for every child.
“I wanted to give my children that love,” Powell said, emphasizing camp’s pivotal role in fostering attachment to a Jewish heritage.
She has a tradition that started when taking her 8-year-old daughter to camp:
“You turn off the radio when you get there. It’s almost a spiritual experience, driving down the road to camp.”
And it is that experience that lives on throughout the year. Even in the darkness of winter, campers reach to reconnect with spiritual roots that lie dormant, knowing that the warmth of summer, though a few months away, never really recedes.
On a recent gloomy Sunday afternoon in L.A. Family Housing’s recreation room, 13-year-old Julia Harreschou laughs with 5-year-old Lara as they take turns drawing on a Magna Doodle. At another table covered with beads, paint and other art supplies, Juliana Klein, 14, helps 4-year-old Carmen decorate a small wooden cutout house. Across the hall, a group of boys bobs for apples, while outside, until the rain descends, other kids play football.
This is Keeping Kids Company, a community service project in which 15 teenagers participating in the Bureau of Jewish Education (BJE)’s Netivim program brighten Sunday afternoons for children living in this North Hollywood transitional housing center.
“The teens are not only helping the kids, but they are also learning Jewish values,” said Dan Gold, coordinator of Netivim’s Institute of Jewish Service, who engages them for the last half-hour in a discussion on homelessness and Judaism’s position on the dignity of permanent housing.
In its third year, Netivim is one of several new or revamped programs begun by Los Angeles-area synagogues and Jewish organizations to help stem the tide of teenagers severing their Jewish connections after they celebrate their bar or bat mitzvahs.
Educators are hoping the lure of free food, the opportunity to spend time with friends, provocative programming that breaks out of the behind-the-desk model and the strong presence of clergy will entice kids to continue well into their teenage years.
“The Jewish community has traditionally looked at bar and bat mitzvah as an endpoint. Rather we should say that bar and bat mitzvah is a very important lifecycle event along the pathway of our children’s Jewish education,” says Morley Feinstein, senior rabbi at University Synagogue in Brentwood.
But it’s a tough battle. According to the 1997 Los Angeles Jewish Population Survey, of the 29,300 Jewish 13- to 17-year-olds living in Los Angeles, only 3,700 currently attend Jewish day school and another 4,100 attend religious school. And while other teens might be involved in informal education, including youth groups and summer camps, for which no accurate numbers are available, educators estimate at least 20,000 unaffiliated Jewish teenagers live in the Los Angeles area.
Judaism is often a low priority for teens who are already overburdened and overextended with homework, extracurricular activities such as sports, drama and music lessons and a full social life. The focus, for many, is building the college resume rather than building Jewish connections.
Plus, the parents of those teenagers, many of whom are uncomfortable themselves with Judaism, don’t force the issue, according to Lisa Greengard, youth and camp director at Temple Isaiah in Los Angeles and a member of BJE’s Youth Professional Advisory Council. “Parents actively tell me that this is a battle not worth fighting,” she says.
But Jewish educators are not ready to give up a fight that has the potential to determine the teens’ Jewish future.
While 43 percent of those with no Jewish education intermarry, the rate drops to 29 percent for those who attend even a one-day-a-week program, according to the National Jewish Population Study 2000-01. In the same survey, there was a direct correspondence between the number of years a person spent in a Jewish educational setting, and the strength of their Jewish identity — attachment to Israel, having Jewish friends, observing rituals, marrying Jews.
Many of the re-envisioned programs to get teens to stay in the fold have been successful.
At University Synagogue, Feinstein and Religious School Director Janice Tytell have retooled the confirmation and post-confirmation Monday Night Program for eighth- through 12th-graders. After a pizza dinner, the eighth- through 10th-grade students attend back-to-back minicourses, choosing, among others, “Theology and Spirituality,” “Do Jews Believe in Heaven and Hell?” or “Hot Topics: School Violence,” led by the synagogue’s cantor and rabbis.
Eleventh- and 12th-graders meet with clinical psychologist Richard Weintraub, where, while sitting casually on beanbags, they discuss life, death, sex, drugs, school and parents.
“The class becomes its own community, both magical and mystical,” said Weintraub, who also teaches at Temple Judea in Tarzana.
And while he doesn’t “hit them over the head with the Jewish stuff,” he does weave in stories from the Talmud, from Rabbi Joseph Telushkin’s books and from his own Orthodox background.
At Wilshire Boulevard Temple’s Audrey and Sydney Irmas Campus in West Los Angeles, more than 100 eighth- through 12th-graders show up every week for the Wednesday Night Program, developed three years ago by Rabbi Dennis Eisner and full-time youth professional Ellie Klein. After a pizza dinner, the teens participate in a one-hour elective, such as art, dance or improv. Tutoring and study hall are also available.
During the second hour, the students attend three- or four-week seminars on topics such as “Sex in the Text,” “Who Wants to Marry a Teenage Jew?” and “Cult and Culture.”
For 12th-grader Jenna Berger, Wednesday night is the highlight of her week.
“I rely on this night of peace, of Judaism, of fun and of friends,” she said.
For Rabbi Sally Olins of Temple B’nai Hayim in Sherman Oaks, “It’s about making them a second home. And it begins with the rabbi.”
Olins has a 90 percent post-bar mitzvah retention rate for her four-year confirmation program, beginning in seventh grade, with all classes taught by her and Cantor Mark Gomberg,
Once a month, the fourth-year class spends a Tuesday evening with Olins, eating pizza and viewing an episode of “Desperate Housewives,” trying to figure out how many times the characters break one of the Ten Commandments (they watched “Friends” before it went off the air).
“Four years is the maximum,” said Michelle Sharaf, 15, “but I hope we keep going.”Olins credits much of her success to personally knowing all the kids: “I’ve baby-named practically every child who’s having a bar or bat mitzvah.”
She also incorporates Jewish material in a way that is relevant to her students.
“I think it’s a big mistake to think you can teach them Talmud — and I’m sorry to say this because I’m a big lover of Talmud — but the moment I offer them something about themselves, I have a winner.”
Some educators worry that community service projects and less-structured post-confirmation classes are not as effective in transmitting information as traditional models, but Greengard strongly disagrees.
“There’s huge misunderstanding about informal education,” she said. “Those kids are actively learning about Judaism; they just don’t realize it.”
Outside the synagogues, other Jewish organizations are reaching out to teens in the community. BJE’s Netivim offers three pathways for involvement, including the Institute for Jewish Leadership and the Institute for Jewish Culture and Values. But the most popular is the Institute for Jewish Service, which gives teens credit for community service they perform on their own in addition to organizing an array of community service activities, with reflection and Jewish learning incorporated into each one.
“We don’t tell the kids what to believe,” coordinator Gold says, “but we do tell them to follow their Jewish hearts.”
Last year, 240 kids participated in Netivim. This year, Stacey Barrett BJE director of youth education services, expects the number to more than double, with about half those kids unaffiliated with formal education programs. “Our goal is move the teens from a one-shot community service project to a full-year program.”
Another organization, Jewish Student Union (JSU), was founded two years ago by Rabbi Steve Burg to reach out to unaffiliated teens in the public schools. JSU, whose clubs meet weekly for lunch in high school classrooms, is strongly connected to the West Coast National Conference of Synagogue Youth, an Orthodox organization, but is open to all denominations and, in fact, even attracts some non-Jewish students.
On a recent Wednesday at Van Nuys High School, adviser Devorah Lunger greeted the JSU members with boxes of extra-large pizzas. They sang the Hebrew alphabet song, learned new Hebrew letters, planned a holiday party and heard a synopsis of the week’s parsha.
“I came because I was curious,” explained Brandon Baker, 16. “It feels good getting back into my religion.”
Currently JSU has 15 clubs, and Shoshana Hirsch, director of administration, estimates that JSU touches at least 1,000 teens a year.
“The hope is that after being exposed to the vast number of opportunities available to them in the Jewish community, they may get more actively involved,” she said.
That’s the goal for all these programs. It’s also a worthy one. The Search Institute, an independent nonprofit research and training organization in Minneapolis, has found that an hour or more per week spent in a religious institution is one of the developmental assets that help foster “healthy, caring and responsible” adolescents.
And the right combination of food and friends, positive role modeling and compelling, though often subtle, Jewish content might be what it takes to get teens in the door.
As Emily Sufrin, 14, of Wilshire Boulevard Temple, said, “These programs let you know that Judaism is part of who you are in everyday life.”
Post-B’nai
Mitzvah Programs
Netivim
(Bureau of Jewish Education of Greater Los Angeles)
Singles
