Left-leaning readers will appreciate tonight’s show featuring political commentary. “Laughing Liberally” is in town for just one night, after a successful February debut at New York City’s Town Hall. Attend to hear comedians/commentators Will Durst, Jim David, Marc Maron, Dean Obeidallah, Rick Overton and Katie Halper skewer Bush and roast the White House.
8:30 p.m. $25-$43. Wadsworth Theatre (on the VA grounds), Building 226, 11301 Wilshire Blvd., Brentwood. (213) 365-3500.
“Reel Talk With Stephen Farber,” the preview film screening and conversation series hosted by Movieline’s film critic, returns for another 10-evening series, beginning tonight. Head to the Wadsworth Theatre for a screening of “Who Killed the Electric Car?” the documentary by Chris Paine recently shown at Sundance and Tribeca film fests. Farber will converse with Paine and exec producer Dean Devlin following the movie.
7 p.m. Mondays, June 5-Aug. 14. $20 (individual screenings), $150 (series). Wadsworth Theatre (on the VA grounds), Building 226, 11301 Wilshire Blvd., Brentwood. (213) 365-3500.
Don’t call the late Claire Falkenstein’s pieces “sculpture.” She preferred “structures,” OK? The acclaimed artist’s works included gates designed for Peggy Guggenheim’s estate in Venice, Italy, in 1961,and many of her large-scale pieces can still be viewed in touring our fair city. Easier still, Louis Stern Fine Arts presents one in a series of exhibitions displaying works from Falkenstein’s estate. “Claire Falkenstein: Structure and Flow, Works from 1950-1980” is on view through Aug. 26.
Free. 9002 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood. (310) 276-0147.
Thursday, June 8
They call it California’s Shangri-La; classical music lovers call it home this weekend. It’s Ojai Valley, and today through Sunday, it presents the annual Ojai Music Festival, now in its 60th year. Hear the music of contemporary composer Osvaldo Golijov performed by various vocalists and musicians over the course of the four days, attend lectures and take in the beauty of the lush surroundings.
June 8-11. Single tickets on sale. (805) 646-2094.
Friday, June 9
The Contemporary Crafts Market offers decorative, functional and wearable art at all price points this weekend at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. More than 250 artisans will show their stuff — including glassware, jewelry, ceramics, watercolors, wood furniture and plenty more.
10 a.m.-6 p.m. (June 9-11). Free (children 12 and under), $6 (adults). 1855 Main St., Santa Monica. (310) 285-3655.
“Whether politicizing nature is altogether wise is something we shall learn.”
— W.H. Auden
I first saw Joan Baez sitting on the floor of a farmhouse living room near my high school, and she was playing guitar and singing like an angel. Her black hair, “like a raven’s wing,” hung to her waist. There was something superhumanly beautiful about the song, the girl, that time, the place — that I have never lost.
I’ve never again seen her in person. But in the media over the years, I saw her everywhere: in civil rights demonstrations, protesting the Vietnam War. Wherever there was injustice, she was there. A grown woman now, shorn, but still an angel.
Last week, I saw her on the front of The Times in a tree near the Alameda Corridor, and the spell was finally broken.
Joan, on this one, you’re wasting yourself.
The matter at issue is a community farm in South Central Los Angeles that has sprung up on 14.3 acres that do not belong to the farmers. The land belongs to Ralph Horowitz, who says he wishes to build a warehouse or to sell the land at something close to its market value.
Horowitz, it turns out, is no match for the South Central Farmers’ PR firestorm, which has struck again and again. First, musician Zack de la Rocha, then tree-sitters Julia Butterfly Hill and John Quigley, plus actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Daryl Hannah and now Joan — who was as beautiful as ever in that old walnut tree.
I’m not sure I want to blame Joan for this, but she’s symbolic of a circus that had been, a couple of years ago, a sincere cause. It’s now a media show, an ecohustle: In the one corner, an “evil Beverly Hills landlord.” In the other, various celebrities and now a folk icon standing tall on the loam tended by hundreds of pairs of humble hands.
The climax was set to go down last week, when a civil court judge signed off on an eviction order. There ensued high-pitched press conferences, vigil invitations and e-mail blasts proclaiming doom. But at this writing, authorities have not taken action.
What didn’t seem to get mentioned was that these farmers have no more legal right to be on the 14.3 acres belonging to Horowitz than they would on your land — if they suddenly decided to occupy your front lawn and set up farming there.
I didn’t mean to be that blunt. I was one of the first to report on the garden. It is beautiful, so are the gardeners. But their cause has somehow become a rigid ideal, resistant to compromise and particularly to reality. I mean, what does Hannah really have to do with growing nopales near Avalon Boulevard?
Or what does this garden have to do with the fall of the great Maya and Aztec civilizations that never reached, let’s face it, Ensenada, let alone South Central? I don’t know, but they’re being evoked to justify the gardeners working Horowitz’s land, as is the gardening families’ allegedly desperate need for healthy nutrition — as though scurvy were endemic in South Los Angeles.
Also invoked is the issue of “ecological sustainability and community self-reliance,” as Green Party chief Michael Feinstein put it. But then, most of the farmers aren’t from the local community and the “self-reliance” involves refusing to get off someone else’s property.
Not that this sort of occupation doesn’t have a role in modern society. In Buenos Aires, former employees now run the huge Bauen Hotel, which they took over as a derelict abandoned by the original proprietors in Argentina’s turn-of-the-century economic meltdown. A little earlier, in the 1990s, in Erfurt, Germany, squatters took over the bankrupt Topf & Sohne iron works, which built the Auschwitz crematoria, putting up displays elucidating the ghastly history that had been ignored by both the East and West German governments. The difference here is, and it’s a big one, this land is not abandoned. It belongs to someone whose right to his property is valid — whether we like him or not.
Just like the rest us, developers can be run over by buses, catch double pneumonia or have their property taken at rock-bottom prices by eminent domain. This is what happened to Horowitz 20 years ago.
Horowitz (like the self-proclaimed garden spokesman who calls himself Tezozomoc) didn’t return my e-mails. So I don’t know how crucial this acreage is to his investment portfolio or his kids’ college education. But regardless, he’s been treated unfairly. The city of L.A. played three-card-monte with the property for 14 years after failing to use the land for the stated “public need,” a trash-to-energy incinerator.
Horowitz finally had to bring suit to get it back at the price he was paid for it. Now he finds his land requisitioned by busy agriculturists said to be nicer than he is. Does one have to be a fellow property owner to feel for someone who landed on the wrong side of the visionary hedge? Had Wal-Mart grabbed this land instead of the gardeners, all these ecohustlers might be out there holding vigils for Horowitz.
But it’s the city that is really responsible for this mess. It’s not clear to what extent Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa fluffed a transaction that would have had the city pay half of an $11 million purchase of the land in partnership with a private foundation. What’s clear is that the city’s showed poor leadership all the way here by not seeking the best solution for everyone involved: This deal would and should include a fair price for Horowitz and offer those who actually live near the gardens their own share of this precious green space — as parkland and ball fields and perhaps low-cost housing.
In other words, the gardeners should expect that they’ll have smaller personal gardens if they really want public money to be part of their rescue.
Mayor Villaraigosa has advanced the lame argument that Horowitz, after being a victim of city shenanigans for years, should, in effect, donate his valuable land for nothing more than the price it was worth two decades ago.
The mayor could better spend his verbiage forging a more reasonable arrangement. If he can’t — and the gardeners won’t — compromise, the city might as well save its money and let Horowitz build his warehouse.
Marc B. Haefele is news editor of the Los Angeles Alternative Press and comments on local government for KPCC-FM.
In Democratic districts on Los Angeles’ Westside and in the Valley, next week’s primary will not only determine the Democratic winner but also the person who will almost certainly win in the fall’s general election. And Jewish voters, who are overwhelmingly Democratic, will play a key role in the outcome.
The local Jewish community has a relatively small percentage of genuine right-wingers. But otherwise, there’s a wide spectrum of opinion, from pro-labor liberals, such as Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg (D-Los Angeles), to moderate, pro-business Democrats like Bob Hertzberg and moderate Republicans like Steve Soboroff and Assemblyman Keith Richman of Granada Hills. Both Soboroff and Hertzberg did very well with Jewish voters when they ran for mayor in the 2001 and 2005 mayoral primaries.
Ideological division among Jews also plays out geographically, with Valley Jews generally more moderate than Westside Jews. The Daily News tends to reflect the moderate-to-conservative side, while the L.A. Weekly holds to the liberal corner, with the L.A. Times in the middle of this broad swath.
At the federal level, the ideological diversity among Jews and Jewish politicians is less overtly apparent much of the time. That’s because opposition to the highly partisan Bush administration has created unprecedented unity among Democrats. It is politically unsafe within the party to be too accommodating or friendly to this White House.
This has created problems for Democratic incumbent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. No Democrat has been more worshipful of the Bush Iraq strategy, nor a more useful tool to the White House’s foreign policy propaganda. As a result, Lieberman, who is Jewish, now faces a strong primary challenge from Iraq War critic Ned Lamont.
An echo of Lieberman’s struggle has emerged here, in the 36th Congressional District, which includes Venice, Manhattan Beach and San Pedro. It’s represented by Jane Harman, another Jewish Democrat perceived as a foreign policy hawk. By no means as pro-Bush as Lieberman, Harman nonetheless outraged many Democrats by seeming to back the Bush domestic spying program. Now, she has a liberal Jewish opponent, Marci Winograd, in her heavily Democratic district.
The 36th once was a swing district, and Harman’s moderation was essential to her survival. Redistricting in 2002 has since made the 36th safely Democratic, making her liberal critics less forgiving.
As a result of these primary challenges, both Lieberman and Harman have been at pains to highlight their disagreements with Bush. Harman recently referred to the Bush administration as “lawless.” Adding to Harman’s woes is Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who is considering bumping Harman from her senior post on the Intelligence Committee.
It helps both Harman and Lieberman that their challengers are underfunded and that the party establishment has rallied to each of these incumbents. For that matter, Jews are likely to understand better than other Democrats the cross-pressures on foreign policy, such as support for Israel, that frequently make Jewish Democrats more hawkish than might otherwise be true. Yet Lieberman’s egregious Fox News attacks on Democrats — as insufficiently supportive of Bush — seem likely to alienate even many natural backers, while Harman’s affinity for the viewpoints of the intelligence agencies also has introduced some doubt.
At the state level, Jewish voters will choose in the Democratic primary for governor between Steve Westly and Phil Angelides, neither of whom is Jewish. The more traditionally liberal Angelides, backed by most of the union and liberal blocs in the party, presents himself as the one leading Democrat who was opposed to Arnold Schwarzenegger when the governor was popular. He also defines himself as the person willing to call for higher taxes on the rich. The L.A. Times has endorsed Angelides. The L.A. Weekly’s endorsement has not been announced as of this writing.
Westly, endorsed by the Valley’s Daily News, says he is the moderate alternative on taxes and other issues and that he can best defeat the governor. Both are well regarded in the Jewish community as friends and as supporters of Israel. But, of course, so is Schwarzenegger.
Had this election been held last year, when Schwarzenegger seemed bent on destroying his own governorship with his turn to the right, any decent Democrat could have prevailed. This year, Schwarzenegger has begun to substantially rehabilitate himself with the center and even parts of the left.
An example is how he has mended fences with much of the education establishment. He had originally provoked the ire of educators and their unions when he reneged on an agreement to repay school funds he’d borrowed during an earlier budget cycle. But the harsh political fallout and the state’s improved tax revenues have prompted him to start redeeming his original promise.
This year’s budget includes a down payment on the school funds he had used for other purposes. He also has appointed Democrats to high posts. And he has fought with the Bush administration on some issues. He’s even started to work effectively with the Democratic Legislature, whose leaders will campaign at his side this fall for a bond measure to improve the state’s infrastructure. And he has stopped running his mouth as though his primary mission were to appease right-wing talk radio.
These are the kinds of moves that will appeal to moderate Jewish voters, who have long been willing to vote for moderate, pro-choice Republicans. This is troubling news for the winner of the Democratic primary.
What could still beat Schwarzenegger in the fall is a massive Democratic turnout in the congressional races that is aimed at crushing the Bush national agenda. Then, too, Schwarzenegger’s past attacks on Democrats and their values may have left some lingering animosity. The “governator” dug himself a deep hole last year, and he has not necessarily climbed all the way out.
The moderate-liberal split also plays a role in the campaign to replace Fran Pavley in the coastal 41st Assembly district. Barry Groveman, Julia Bromley, Lelly Hayes-Raitt, and Jonathan Levey are the main contenders. All are touting their progressive environmental credentials.
Groveman, the mayor of Calabasas, is the only one of the four who does not live in liberal Santa Monica. He has the backing of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and centrist Santa Monica Councilman Bobby Shriver.
Groveman and Levey have dominated in fundraising, while Bromley, president of the Santa Monica school board, boasts endorsements from Pavley and popular state Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Los Angeles). Levey has won both the Times and the L.A. Weekly endoresements. Groveman received the Daily News endorsement.
Another race of local interest is the one to replace Paul Koretz in the 42nd Assembly District, which cuts across from Los Feliz through West Hollywood to the Westside and includes part of the Valley. One candidate, former L.A. City Councilman Mike Feuer, lost a close race to Rocky Delgadillo for city attorney in 2001. He’d previously served as executive director of Bet Tzedek. His rival, Abbe Land, is a former member of the West Hollywood City Council and former co-chief executive of the L.A. Free Clinic.
These two progressive and very formidable Jewish candidates cannot be easily separated by the liberal-moderate rubric. Feuer has won the backing of outgoing incumbent Koretz, as well as from both The Times and the L.A. Weekly. Land has endorsements from L.A. Councilwoman Wendy Greuel and from Goldberg and Hertzberg. Both Feuer and Land have a host of labor endorsements. (In the interests of transparency, I should note that Feuer is a friend whose campaign I support.)
Then there are the Jewish incumbents who face no serious challenge. Preeminent among them are county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles).
Yaroslavsky continues to work effectively, if often invisibly, in the mixture of power and obscurity that marks the L.A. County Board of Supervisors.
Waxman has been an outspoken and highly effective critic of the Bush administration and may become a central player in national government should the Democrats win back control of the House. The vision of Waxman with subpoena power must keep White House aides up at night.
One Jewish Republican deserves comment. Assemblyman Richman is running for state treasurer in the primary. Richman, endorsed by the Daily News, has been a force in building bipartisan alliances in Sacramento and was popular enough in the Valley to lead the field in the campaign to become the Valley’s “mayor.” In that same 2002 election, Los Angeles’ voters defeated Valley secession.
Finally, it will be interesting to see how Jews respond to Proposition 82, the initiative to provide free preschool to all California children through a tax on the wealthiest Californians. Generally, Jewish voters are extremely supportive of any education measure, especially school bonds. Many progressive groups support Proposition 82. While the L.A. Chamber of Commerce also supports it, most of business is against it.
The Times has called for a “no” vote, arguing that there are more cost-effective ways to cover those who do not have access to preschool. The Daily News also is opposed. The L.A. Weekly favors Proposition 82.
Supporters contend that Proposition 82 may be the last best opportunity to reach the goal of universal preschool with standards. While Schwarzenegger opposes it, his ally and friend, former L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan, is a big supporter. The measure is very close in the polls, and Jewish voters may play a key role in determining the result.
Once these primaries are over, the internal dynamics of the Jewish community’s politics will become less visible, at least until the next set of primaries. Of course, as November approaches, there will be talk about how many Jews might vote Republican. But given the unifying Democratic hostility to Bush, don’t bet on it.
Raphael J. Sonenshein is a political scientist at Cal State Fullerton.
Quite frankly, in my opinion, John Fishel is responsible for the “JCC crisis” (“Views Differ on Role in Centers Crisis,” May 26). But he is not alone in this case. All those who were then involved in establishing policy and direction for The Jewish Federation should be held accountable. With a salary of over $300,000 per year, we have a right to expect much more from him.
How does a major philanthropic organization give out millions of dollars — in this case to the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Los Angeles — without any oversight!
George Epstein Los Angeles
As one who has been actively involved in relief efforts and legal and political advocacy on behalf of Ethiopian Jewry since 1988, I would like to say a few words about John Fishel (“A Private Man,” May 26).
John has the rare gift of being one of the few high level Jewish officials who understands that the raison d’etre of The Federation system is substance and not process, that at the end of the day, we will be judged by our accomplishments, by the suffering alleviated, by the lives that have been saved.
Motivated by a deep sense of compassion, he articulated a clear and compelling case for Ethiopian Jewish refugees who could not speak for themselves and lacked a powerful advocate who could speak on their behalf. He spoke up with a clear moral voice whose authority could not be ignored.
May his tribe increase.
Joseph J. Feit New York
How fortunate we of the Jewish community of greater Los Angeles are to have such an intelligent and compassionate president of our Jewish Federation Council as John Fishel (“Visit to Ethiopia Changes His Life,” May 26). We support his Jewish worldview. We support his leadership on the issue of Ethiopian Jews through Operation Promise. His determination to advance the rescue of the remaining Jews in Ethiopia who are living in squalor, waiting for years to make aliyah and reuniting with their families in Israel speaks to his menschlicheit. For John, “It’s the right thing to do.”
Peachy Levy Middie and Dick Giesberg Founding Members North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry
John Fishel accompanied me on a trip to refugee camps to Chad. It is in those camps that one sees the truly dispossessed and I was moved by John’s compassion. I learned a lot about this man who clearly has a profound commitment to strengthening Jewish life and also to making life better for all human beings.
Rabbi Lee Bycel Senior Adviser Global Strategy International Medical Corps
In addition to the well-deserved accolades John Fishel received in last week’s Jewish Journal, allow me to add one. He has effectively reached out to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the only major Jewish Organization to be headquartered on the West Coast. For too many years and for inexplicable reasons, 6505 Wilshire Blvd. and 9760 W. Pico Blvd. (now 1399 S. Roxbury) operated as if we were a continent apart, not two miles apart. With few exceptions, we rarely communicated or shared visions. John Fishel has singularly breached that gap. My colleagues and I regularly exchange ideas with him and have availed ourselves of his big picture view and his creative heart. He is an unselfish gift and all of us in the greater Los Angeles community are the richer for his service.
Rabbi Meyer H. May Executive Director Simon Wiesenthal Center
Marc Ballon has done a wonderful job in his series of articles on John Fishel and L.A. Jewish Federation. Something which Ballon said regarding the disconnect (underappreciated feeling) many “small” donors feel with Federation struck a chord with me. During the L.A. Jewish Community Centers’ (JCC) crisis a few years ago, we were at a meeting at Federation trying to obtain additional funding for our JCC. The distinct message we received was that since the majority of people at the JCCs were not a good source of money during Federation fundraising, they were somehow less deserving of monetary support from Federation. What seemed to have been forgotten in the exchange was that the JCCs served as an entry point for many Jews into organized L.A. Jewry. They also serve as a support group and meeting place for the entire Jewish community. One other important point was that the JCCs as a whole were hamstrung in their ability to do their own fundraising if it interfered with money going to Federation (JCCs were not able to raise money during “primacy periods” when Federation was involved in it’s own quest for funds) and donors were jealously guarded if large donations to the centers would impact their donations to Federation.
While Fishel has had numerous accomplishments in his tenure at Federation, both domestically and internationally, and has at times helped us at the JCCs, the overall support from Federation to the local JCCs leaves much room for improvement.
Bill Bender President North Valley Jewish Community Center Granada Hills
JCRC’s History
As one who twice was an executive of the Jewish Community Relations Committee (JCRC) of the Jewish Federation Council — once in the 1960s, and again in the 1970s — I feel that the article was wrong on so many areas, that I must respond (“Federation Support of Civic Group Wanes,” May 26).
The JCRC came into existence in the ’30s, as a result of overt anti-Semitism in Los Angeles, including regular Sunday marches by the local Nazi Bund, whose National headquarters was in Los Angeles. Wilshire Boulevard Temple was defaced and a rock thrown through one of the windows during the High Holidays. At that time, the leaders of The Federation created what was then called the Community Committee to fight anti-Semitism here.
Shortly thereafter, they hired a newspaper reporter who originally had come from Germany at the beginning of the Hitler period. His name was Joe Roos, who in Chicago had been researching the Nazis there. Roos, eventually, became the executive director of what became the JCRC.
As a matter of fact, he created the term “community relations” and that became a national idea. The philosophy of the CRC, with its high power Hollywood figures and Rabbi Edgar Magnin, decided that the way to fight the Nazis was to create relationships with other minorities and church people, and soon the JCRC helped to create a major organization of some 65 major groups in the black, Japanese, Chicano and church communities. That group was called the Los Angeles Community Relations Conference, which brought their leaders once a month to 590 N. Vermont for its meetings. Great interfaith and intergroup connections were developed there, which changed Los Angeles.
The JCRC was led by people such as Mendel Silverberg, a leader of the Republican Party; Dore Schary, Judge Bob Weil; Dr. Max Bay, and Sid Levine, Mel’s father, and so many leaders of The Federation — there was collegiality not only with Federation board but also at the staff level. As a result the role of the Jewish community was held high all over the county. The major contributors to the JCRC were also major contributors of The Federation, all the way into the 1970s when I returned as the director of the Middle East Commission.
It was about that time that Roos was unceremoniously removed from his 37-year position as executive director at age 60. From that time on, the JCRC has gone downhill. It became an ineffective tool of the Federation directors, with little freedom to do what it did best. Mel Levine’s disappointment was expected.
There is no connection between the Jewish Community Relations Committee (JCRC) and the power structures of the L.A. community.
Instead it has become a place for KOREH L.A., an important program, but not community relations. Whereas, in the past the JCRC was the community instrument for so many remarkable ideas and programs, it is hard to find the JCRC taking a stance on things important, and then if they do, they are censored by a Federation board, who worry about the major contributors, none of whom is involved with the rest of the community’s parallels. The JCRC was the center of religious social action committees in the synagogues. I know, because I ran three successive social action conferences, co-sponsored by the Reform, Conservative and Orthodox movements.
It was the JCRC that convened the first Soviet Jewry Rally in the World at Sinai Temple back in 1963. It was the CRC that jointly with the West Valley Jewish Center (before the Milken) that held the first Israel Day at Pierce College when 30,000 people came out.
I could go on, but if anybody can show me where the current JCRC has had any effect either on the Jewish community or the rest of the Los Angeles community, I would be astounded. The JCRC is almost unknown now.
By the way, it was at the JCRC where Dick and Middie Giesberg became active with the Falasha Community in Ethiopia. Where are the Giesbergs of today?
Al Mellman Los Angeles
Code Schmode
Great cover!
I laughed out loud when I saw your clever cover, “Code Schmode” (May 19) with Mona Lisa rolling her eyes! Thanks for a good chuckle, and for the poignant articles on the film that followed.
Beth Fiance Westlake Village
Green Party
The Green Party’s sneaky infusion of Resolution 190 into its policy, calling for the boycott and divestment from Israel, is just another example of anti-Semitism disguised as concern for human rights (Seeing Red Over Green’s Israel Policy,” May 19).
If their intentions were purely motivated, they would stop filling their tanks with gas, most of which comes from intolerant and brutal Muslim theocracies. They would also give up much of their wardrobe, which was probably manufactured in China by children earning slave wages in unsanitary conditions.
Of course, these sacrifices would be too great to endure just to protest human rights violations. It’s much easier to instruct companies and universities to avoid doing business with Israel. After all, they reason, it’s not going to adversely affect them.
In their ignorance, however, these hypocrites are unaware of the contributions that Israeli products have made to every aspect of our lives here and around the world. According to Newsweek, for example, “Israel holds the most medical-device patents per capita in the world.”
I wonder how firm these champions of human rights would stand if they knew one of these devices could save their life or that of a loved one.
P. Daniel Iltis Los Angeles
Cover Choice
Why isn’t the ordination of 14 Reform rabbis not on the cover The Jewish Journal?
This is much more important than the latest movie release. Movies are released everyday in someone’s life, becoming a rabbi is once in a person’s lifetime.
There has been a change in the content that The Journal prints — especially toward the Reform movement. Can anyone at The Journal explain why?
Richard Hoffman Santa Clarita
Dysfunctional Relationships
I noticed the recent column urging young women to get out of dysfunctional relationships (“Walk Out the Door,” May 19). I think it is even more useful to discuss how to keep from getting into such relationships to begin with.
The principles of staying out of dysfunctional relationships are the principles of forming good relationships, and they are pretty simple and straightforward: First of all, every normal young adult has a set of fundamental values and purposes, based on his or her feelings about what is worthwhile to accomplish in life. When a person is on track toward achieving these purposes, he/she will very likely be drawn to others who are sympathetic and supportive.
But if one looks instead to “just having fun,” or achieving wealth and power as ends in themselves, then one will be drawn to those he/she regards as useful to her or him in such pursuits. Since these motives are basically selfish, whatever relationships that initially develop out of them will wither and fail in the long run.
Durable relationships are built on feelings of shared moral purposes. This is the underlying basis of all real love and friendship — between man and man, between woman and woman and between man and woman.
The president of a Los Alamitos high school’s Jewish students’ club came out to the school parking lot last October to find swastikas and “Jew Bitch” scrawled on her car. Across the county, a San Clemente high school student was harassed last year with anti-Jewish slurs to the point that she transferred out of the district.
These two instances in which Jewish students from Orange County were targeted by peers coincide with a broader rise in anti-Semitism, including in schools. Local Jewish groups have sounded an alarm, while the reaction of local school officials has varied.
“There has been a significant rise in the past four years in anti-Semitism generally and on school campuses,” said Dr. Kevin O’Grady, associate director of the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) Orange County/Long Beach Region. O’Grady’s office recorded 43 cases of harassment and vandalism last year, nearly 50 percent more than in 2003; one-third of these involved public schools.
In its 2004 Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents, the ADL documented 1,821 cases of harassment, threats, assault and vandalism against Jews nationwide — up 17 percent from the previous year. This jump was due in part to a spike in reports of anti-Jewish harassment in American middle and high schools.
These incidents have included defacing lockers with swastikas and anti-Jewish graffiti and name-calling, bullying and intimidation in hallways and Internet chat rooms. Incidents tend to be spread evenly throughout the county, although Los Alamitos and San Clemente have the most reported cases, according to ADL research. In the northwest corridor, skinheads, with their white supremacist ideology, are actively recruiting teenagers in schools, said ADL regional director Joyce Greenspan.
School administrators are responding to these incidents with varied intensity. In some cases, their actions have been resolute. One Costa Mesa middle school principal notified police and suspended 18 students after a girl was harassed on the Web site, My Space, O’Grady said. In San Clemente, a high school principal met with Jewish leaders following reports of several incidents, and ran tolerance programming for the student body, said Rabbi Mendel Slavin of the Chabad Jewish Center of San Clemente, who attended the meeting.
At Los Alamitos High School, administrators banned clothing bearing an iron cross and other paraphernalia associated with white supremacy.
Districts have also adopted zero-tolerance policies for ethnic-based intimidation and offer sensitivity and diversity training programs to prevent problems before they arise.
“When you see that firm and clear response, you see a drop in anti-Semitic incidents,” ADL’s Greenspan said.
Other schools deny the presence of anti-Semitism on their campuses, even in the face of some evidence to the contrary.
Parents of a Tustin-area 10th-grader perceived the administration’s response to be deficient after reporting that their daughter was being continuously harassed by a fellow student.
“He’d walk by and sneeze and say ‘a Jew,’ and say ‘shalom’ and laugh,” said the 15-year-old girl, who asked to be identified only as K. “In class, I’d hear him talking and I’d hear the word ‘Jew’ and [my name] and I knew he was talking about me. He actually called me a ‘kike’ one time.”
The boy described himself as a Nazi and would talk about how Jews killed Jesus, according to K., who said she felt scared and intimidated.
She reported the harassment to a counselor and was instructed to document the incidents in a statement to the vice principal. Because she was afraid to confront the boy and his parents in a face-to-face meeting, she was told that he could be disciplined only if caught in the act.
When the abuse continued, K.’s parents met with the vice principal, who allegedly said that he would direct teachers to send the boy to the office if he made offensive comments. Not all teachers followed this instruction, according to K. In the face of the boy’s unrelenting taunting, the distraught parents removed their daughter from the school.
“What I’m most upset with are the teachers and the way they allowed it to happen, and the way that the vice principal, after receiving such a powerful statement from K., just did not respond,” said K.’s mother. “I feel that they allowed it.”
Tustin Unified School District officials denied knowledge of this incident, but stated that they do not tolerate racial or religious harassment.
“The safety and security of our campuses is our first priority,” said Ron Heape, Tustin Unified’s district administrator for child welfare and attendance. “We are not timid at all about going after these kids.”
Peer-to-peer anti-Semitism is not limited to high schools.
“Our most recent phone calls have been third- and fourth-grade related,” said the ADL’s O’Grady. In one case, a fourth grader was called “dirty Jew” by two classmates, who then wrote the word “Jew” on a piece of paper, circled it and drew a line through it.
“This is what we do to Jews,” Grady says they said.
ADL officials suspect that only a small percentage of incidents gets reported.
“The numbers are staggering,” agreed Robyn Faintich, director of the Orange County Board of Jewish Education’s (BJE) youth education program. Faintich recounted that at a recent gathering of 110 public school 10th graders, more than 90 percent said they had been targets of anti-Semitic comments, vandalism or other encounters.
“Schools are not mandated to collect data [on hate incidents] so there is no global perspective,” said Georgiann Boyd, student services coordinator for the Orange County Department of Education.
For that matter, many incidents never leave the school yard. Fear of being further ostracized prevents some students from reporting confrontations to school or community officials.
“We are aware that there is anti-Semitic activity in the schools,” said Orange County Human Relations Executive Director Rusty Kennedy. “Each year we learn of at least a half-dozen incidents in schools that we’re concerned with, and I’m sure there’s more.”
He said that while the number of cases is too small to indicate a trend, he believes that school-based anti-Semitism is comparable to hate acts in the adult community, in which Jews, African Americans and gays and lesbians are most frequently targeted.
“These things that are happening at an early age are concerning, because this is a taught or learned behavior,” said Heather Williams, director of gang victim services at Community Service Programs, Inc. “These children are learning to be anti-Semitic by their parents and people who they’ve been around for a long time.”
As Carolyn Blashek knows only too well, good things come in small packages. The founder and motivating force behind Operation Gratitude, a nonprofit organization that sends care packages to American troops overseas, Blashek serves as an inspiring testimony to one woman’s dedication to provide faith and hope to lonely soldiers.
Blashek is a Jewish mother in Encino who, like most Americans, was horrified by the events of Sept. 11, 2001. However, her reaction was slightly different than that of the average Jewish mother — she tried to enlist in the military. She soon discovered that, at 46, she exceeded the age limit of 35, and “as a civilian there were very few opportunities to show your support to the military.” She began volunteering at a dilapidated military lounge at LAX, until one day in March 2003 (the outset of the war with Iraq), a heart-wrenching talk with a despondent soldier inspired her to create a system to show soldiers that she cared.
“I’m going back to a war zone,” she recalls him saying. “I just buried my mother, my wife left me and my child died as an infant. I have no one in my life. For the first time I don’t think I’ll make it back, but it really wouldn’t matter because no one would even care.”
Blashek was devastated as she realized that many of the soldiers are fighting in foreign countries without support systems.
“What gives someone the strength to survive when bullets are flying?” she wondered. “The belief that someone cares about you.”
She decided to express her compassion by sending food, entertainment, and personal letters in packages.
“The Jewish mother in me had this need to communicate concern and love and appreciation,” she said with a little laugh. “It’s that sense of nurturing… the Jewish mother element.”
Primarily through word of mouth, the project snowballed. What began three years ago as a humble living room project financed and organized by her alone exploded into an organization that coordinates donation drives for packages across the country.
“Now I’ve sent over 111,000 packages in three years,” she said.
After Operation Gratitude’s third annual Patriotic Drive, which is to take place at the end of this month, she hopes to reach 150,000.
Blashek vividly recalls an emotional encounter she had with Kayitz Finley — the son of her local rabbi, Mordecai Finley of Congregation Ohr HaTorah — to whom she sent packages while he served in Afghanistan and Iraq. Both a soldier serving in a distant land and a member of her local community, he became her inspiration. “The first most emotional experience I had through all this was when he came home and he and I got to meet in person for the first time,” she said. “It was at a Saturday morning service. We saw each other, threw our arms around each other and couldn’t stop hugging. Neither of us could get any words out. We both just kept saying ‘thank you’ to each other. It was very powerful.”
Operation Gratitude’s Third Annual Patriotic Drive continues at the California Army National Guard Armory, 17330 Victory Blvd, Van Nuys on June 17-18. Items requested for donation can be found on the website Drive Sends Love, ‘Gratitude’ to Troops Read More »
Like Moses upholding the Tablets of the Law, Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller stood on the steps of UCLA’s Ackerman Union last week, his outstretched arms grasping a large, hand-lettered cardboard sign, which proclaimed:
Peace for Israel Peace for Palestine Share the Hope
Milling near the solitary UCLA Hillel director were Arab and Jewish students with competing exhibits, but to reach them a visitor had to pass through a colorful marketplace of causes up Bruin Walk.
The largest crowd was listening to the deafening rock band, Moving Units, anchoring a gauntlet of tables, leafleteers and displays urging students to participate in the Inaugural Bruin Cardboard Boat Race, engage in Christian Bible studies, fight drug addiction, play volleyball and so on.
At the end was a large photo collage of men and women of different races and nationalities, each asserting “I am a Palestinian” to indicate international solidarity for the cause. The announced Apartheid Obstacle Course, presented by the Guerrilla Theatre, was running an hour late.
The Bruin Walk display was one of the events organized by Muslim, Arab and supporting students as part of the weeklong “Israel and Palestine: Obstacles to Peace” program.
The low-key theme appeared to be an attempt by the sponsoring Students for Justice in Palestine to lend a respectable scholarly touch to the anti-Israel demonstrations.
If this approach indicated a higher level of sophistication by the sponsors than in previous years, so did the Jewish response, organized by Bruins for Israel.
Bruin Walk was dotted with graphic pro-Israel posters aimed at different campus constituencies.
“Where in the Middle East Can Gay Officers Serve Their Country?” asked one poster, answering, “Only in Israel.” Other posters, with the same bottom line, queried, “Where in the Middle East Can Arab Women Vote?” and “Where in the Middle East Are Daughters Valued as Much as Sons?”
Smack in front of the Palestinian display stood 21-year-old Michael Smoyman, a yarmulke on his head and holding a sign inscribed, “Obstacle to Peace: Suicide Bombing.”
As Seidler-Feller’s arms grew tired of holding the peace poster, he was approached by George Malouf, an Arab graduate student from Gaza, who took over the rabbi’s sign and post.
When the “apartheid wall” finally arrived, it lead to a mind-bending face-off between Arab students dressed as Israeli soldiers manning roadblocks, and Jewish students dressed as suicide bombers and carrying such signs as, “If I were a Palestinian suicide bomber, you would be dead now” and “If I were your neighbor, you would want a fence, too.”
Two campus cops on bicycles were on hand to break up a threatening scuffle, but on the whole the week’s mood was largely nonconfrontational.
It was quite a different story a week earlier at UC Irvine, which for the past three years has witnessed militant anti-Israel agitation during Palestine Week.
Instead of UCLA’s benign “Obstacles to Peace” slogan, the theme of the UCI Muslim Student Union was “Holocaust in the Holy Land,” featuring lectures on such topics as “Israel: The Fourth Reich.”
Amir Abdel Malik Ali, a Black Muslim imam and veteran rabble-rouser given to bloodcurdling threats against Israel and “Zionist Jews” spoke at both UC campuses.
While he pulled out all the stops at an UCI outdoor rally, at UCLA he spoke to some 70 people in an indoor auditorium in a considerably calmer and less vituperative voice.
Allyson Rowen Taylor, associate director of the regional American Jewish Congress chapter, monitored the UCI events and, shocked by the hostile atmosphere, said “I now understand what it’s like to be a Jew in pre-war Germany or an American Embassy hostage in Tehran.”
Jeffrey Rips, the Hillel executive director at UCI, said that while there was general agreement that free speech should not be abrogated on campus, the administration had the right and duty of exercising its free speech by publicly condemning anti-Semitic demonstrations and hate harangues.
This point represents a long-standing demand by such groups as the Anti-Defamation League, StandWithUs, the American Jewish Committee, the Jewish Federation of Orange County and some UCI faculty members, who protested this year’s events to Chancellor Michael V. Drake.
The U.S. Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Education is currently investigating charges by the Zionist Organization of America that the UCI administration has failed to take a stand against anti-Semitism and to prevent harassment of Jewish students on campus.
To balance the dour campus picture, Rips said that except during Palestine Week, there was little tension between Muslim and Jewish student the rest of the year.
While some Jewish students, especially freshmen, were intimidated in the past by the militancy of Muslim students, who outnumber Jewish students, “now you see students wearing kippot and ‘I’m Proud to be Jewish’ T-shirts, and we also had a large sukkah on campus,” he said.
Rips blamed the tenser atmosphere at UCI, compared to UCLA, on a more radicalized Muslim student group, which takes its cues from Malik Ali, and the fact that UCI has become the main media focus for national Arab-Jewish campus tensions.
General and Jewish papers ran extensive stories on UCI’s Palestine Week; UCLA’s was covered only by the campus daily.
It’s a Shavuot tradition to read the biblical story of Ruth, whose marriage to a Jew — and her bond with her mother-in-law — led her to embrace wholeheartedly and inspirationally the Jewish faith.
Even today, many, perhaps most, converts enter Judaism through a relationship with a Jewish spouse. Since 1986, the Lewis and Judith Miller Introduction to Judaism program at the University of Judaism has enrolled almost 3,000 potential Jews-by-Choice. The vast majority attends the course with spouses and sweethearts, prior to building a Jewish home together. It makes for a heady atmosphere: love and hope are in the air.
Of course, things don’t always go as planned. Some converts simply drift away from Judaism. Although the Miller program provides emotional support for graduates, a crisis — such as an illness, a serious injury, a divorce or a death — can shift a new Jew in another direction.
Ten years ago, I interviewed a dozen graduates of the Miller program who had followed through with conversion. Although Rabbi Neal Weinberg, who has long directed the program, tries hard to keep track of alumni, many slip out of his database. He was able to supply me with contact information for 10 Jews-by-Choice I had interviewed when I wrote my previous article. Of the seven I managed to reach, all still consider themselves Jewish after their own fashion, but only a handful are currently synagogue members.
Here are updated accounts of five converts who consented to have their stories told 10 years later.
Paul and Amber Kalt
The Survivors
Paul Kalt’s mother lost her whole family at Auschwitz. Kalt grew up in a household where the survival of the Jewish people was a central value. So when he fell in love with a Methodist, Amber Davidheiser, he asked her to consider embracing Judaism.
She promised to look into it. Ultimately, she chose to become Jewish in June 1997, five months before their wedding. Never an unquestioning Christian, she feels that Judaism suits her well: “The values and ideals and beliefs are really what I was brought up with anyhow.”
Today, the Kalts, who together run a construction business, have four children, ages 5 years to 11 months.
The biggest surprise for Amber Kalt, 37, is that she’s become an ardent supporter of Jewish day schools. She had worried at the start that her children’s secular education would suffer. But once her first child attended kindergarten at West Los Angeles’ Pressman Academy, which is connected with Conservative synagogue Beth Am, her fears were allayed. Her three eldest are now enjoying what she calls “a phenomenal experience” at Pressman.
A loyal Beth Am family, the Kalts squeeze in Beit Tefillah services when they can. At their Beverly Hills home, they hold weekly Shabbat dinners, complete with candles and blessings, and share festive holiday observances.
“In our house, we celebrate Judaism,” Amber Kalt said.
Her mother-in-law first viewed Amber’s conversion with some skepticism, but the relationship has resulted in Paul Kalt becoming far more of an affiliated Jew than in the past.
Amber Kalt said she feels about “98 percent acceptance” by the Jewish community. It’s only when people unknowingly make negative comments about intermarriage in her presence that she becomes uneasy.
Her children, though, know exactly who they are. A classmate on the playground, hearing that one of the young Kalts had visited his grandparents for Christmas, once challenged his Jewish credentials. Five-year-old Jacob proudly replied, “I am Jewish. My grandma and grandpa aren’t Jewish, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
Peach Segall
Going With the Flow
People assume that Peach Segall became a Jew-by-Choice because of her husband. But that’s not entirely true. They had already been married for several years when she decided to share his Jewish heritage.
Partly it was a matter of raising their 4-year-old daughter in a cohesive way. Segall even gave young Gina swimming lessons to prepare her for immersion in a mikvah, as part of a conversion ritual they underwent together.
But for herself, Segall said, “I had never really embraced Christianity, so I never felt it was any great leap.”
Following her 1997 conversion, Segall outpaced her husband in observance. She instituted weekly Shabbat dinners, experimented with kashrut and began walking to Brentwood’s University Synagogue, a Reform congregation, on a regular basis. Her dream was to study Hebrew, perhaps in preparation for a b’nai mitzvah ceremony in which her husband and stepson would also approach the Torah for the first time.
Today, Segall’s ardor for all things Jewish has cooled somewhat. She has drifted away from kashrut, and the Shabbat dinners occur less often. No longer a synagogue member, she still feels aligned with University Synagogue but occasionally drives from her Brentwood home to join her husband’s cousins at a Reconstructionist house of worship, the Malibu Jewish Center and Synagogue.
Segall said that “I’ve gone through a lot of phases.” Her current passion is her burgeoning career as a rhythm and blues musician, one who also writes songs and leads her own band. (Her Web site — www.peach.us — notes her selection as Blues Artist of the Year at the Los Angeles Music Awards).
There was a time when she turned down gigs that interfered with Shabbat. Now she accepts those jobs and leaves her traveling set of Shabbat candlesticks at home.
This year, barely moved into a new house, Segall contemplated not hosting the family Passover seder. She relented when her daughter, now 12, burst into tears, saying, “That’s one of my favorite holidays.”
But as for bat mitzvah study, this is something she wants Gina to choose on her own. So far, the subject has simply not come up. Segall seems satisfied with her current brand of Judaism, noting that she’s still more observant than most of her friends.
In the long run, “I feel like what I’ve settled into is being a normal West L.A. Jewish woman.”
Michael Morrisette with his wife, Prissi Cohen; daughter, Tillie; and dog, Marcel.
What He Did for Love
When Michael Morrisette and Prissi Cohen fell in love, they knew they had a problem.
He was from a staunch Catholic family. Most of his seven siblings were graduates of parochial schools, and several had served as altar boys.
She, out of a strong personal commitment to Judaism, had kept kosher from the age of 14. It was clear from the start, said Morrisette, that “if I didn’t convert, she and I wouldn’t have gotten married.”
The young couple completed the University of Judaism’s Introduction to Judaism course in 1994. But Morrisette was not yet ready to change his religious affiliation. For almost two years, he hesitated, wondering, “Is this really right for me?”
Finally he made his choice, officially becoming Jewish just two weeks prior to his wedding in June 1996. To his great relief, his family proved supportive, even attending the beit din (religious court) that formally welcomed him into the Jewish faith.
Today, at 45, Morrisette is a staunch member of a Conservative synagogue, Santa Monica’s Kehillat Ma’arav, where he feels entirely at home: “I love the community. I love the synagogue.”
A restaurateur by profession, he respects but doesn’t observe kashrut, so his wife has adjusted to the fact that he doesn’t follow her lead outside of their Marina del Rey home. Their 5-year-old daughter, Tillie, understands that her parents differ on this issue, at the same time that she mostly takes her mother’s side.
This appreciation of differences also works on the rare occasions when the Morrisettes visit his parents at Christmas time. He likens these visits to “going to someone else’s birthday party.” As he explained, you can enjoy the festivities, but it’s not your special day.
Morrisette regrets that since his conversion, he’s made little time for Jewish study: “There’s more there for me than I’ve allowed into my life.”
He confessed to a fantasy that in 2009, on the 13th anniversary of the year he became a Jew-by-Choice, he will be called to the Torah as a bar mitzvah.
He said there’s nothing about his original faith that he misses, but “I’m glad I really took the time before I signed on the dotted line.”
Cliff Secia
Repairing the World
Cliff Secia, now almost 70, has lived a full life. Born a Catholic of Portuguese descent, he once spent four years in a seminary studying for the priesthood. He found it wonderful intellectual training but described himself as a bad seminarian: “I never got along well with Jesus and the holy family.”
There followed a career in government service, mostly involving, he said, covert operations he can’t talk about. He said he survived some close calls, giving him the sense of having been spared for some higher purpose.
Marriage to a Jewish woman gave him a glimpse of another spiritual outlook, but it was not until 1997, some 15 years after they were married by a judge, that he decided to adopt Judaism. Then nearly 60, he underwent a circumcision.
His elderly mother was outraged and so was his born-again son from a previous marriage. Still, he became officially Jewish, and soon afterward, he and his wife, Vickie, staged a second wedding ceremony, one in keeping with his new faith: “This time we invited God.”
Some hard feelings persisted with his mother, who has since died. Because Cliff’s son, who lives in Louisiana, is suffering from a serious medical problem, the family sidesteps any uncomfortable discussions with him about religion.
As a new Jew, Secia became deeply involved in Ner Ma’arav, a Conservative congregation in Encino. Secia and his wife held Torah study sessions in their home; he served on the board and walked to services three times a week.
But Secia became disillusioned after a nasty temple squabble resulted in the departure of Rabbi Aaron Kriegel in 2001. He now attends the library minyan at Stephen S. Wise Temple in Bel Air when Dennis Prager presides, but he’s still searching for a rebbe to call his own.
Meanwhile, after a brief retirement, Secia has found a new career as a private investigator for a civil rights law firm that represents abuse victims. His clients, mostly black and Hispanic, “think I’m a very good Christian.”
From Secia’s perspective, he’s fulfilling the Jewish mitzvah of repairing the world. His law firm is disappointed that he refuses to work on Shabbat, but he holds fast to his convictions: “There has to be a day when you step aside and don’t do the things of the world.”
At Home With Judaism
In the world according to Jody Gawboy, “You never know why you fall in love with something.”
It all began in the late 1980s, when she was Jody Musengo, an Italian Catholic from Florida, who’d grown up with prayer and regular church attendance. Living in Southern California, she’d begun to date a young college man who was secretive about his course of study. When it turned out he was a rabbinical student, she decided to explore Judaism.
The relationship didn’t last, but her commitment to her new faith did. After formally becoming Jewish, she joined a Conservative synagogue and even played flute in its klezmer band.
But when she married, in a ceremony conducted by a Reform rabbi, her new spouse was not Jewish. Husband Bart, not strongly religious himself but with a fondness for the Native American ritual that’s part of his family background, was happy to let her follow her own path.
Still, Gawboy allowed her synagogue membership to lapse and gradually found herself slipping away from Jewish ritual observance outside the home.
Today, she’s the mother of daughter Hailey, 13, and son Hunter, 10. She reinforces their Judaism on a daily basis, reciting the Shema with them at bedtime, along with the Shehecheyanu prayer (because, as she explained, each day has brought its new experiences that deserve to be celebrated).
She hosts seders and a big Chanukah party for their Venice neighbors; the family also decorates a Christmas tree. On Yom Kippur, she normally stays home, reading from her machzor and talking to the children about the meaning of the holy day.
Gawboy hopes that her son will want a bar mitzvah at 13, but her children have never asked for formal religious education, and she has never offered it.
She said, “I have a great guilt and a great regret that I’m not pursuing it more.”
Do not urge me to leave you, or to turn back and not follow you. For wherever you go, I will go; wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die and be buried.
— The Book of Ruth
When 50-year-old Hector Ventura was a young boy growing up in El Salvador four decades ago, his mother would always talk about Jewish customs. Which was strange, because the Venturas were not Jewish. Like most of their neighbors, they were Catholic — not particularly devout but Catholics just the same.
It was only years later that Ventura thought to ask: “Why do you always talk about Jews?”
“Your father’s grandfather came from Spain,” his mother replied.
Last year, before she died, Ventura asked her where the family name came from. His mother said the name became Ventura when the family fled Spain during the Spanish Inquisition. Originally, she said, it was “Ben Torah.” (In Hebrew that literally translates as the son of Torah, but figuratively refers to someone who is a follower and student of Torah and religious law.)
Finding that out was the beginning of Ventura’s spiritual journey, which culminated in March, when he converted to Judaism, with his wife and three children. The Venturas were part of a group of 10 — a minyan of sorts — mostly Latino, who converted at Los Angeles’ pluralistic Beth Din (see story on page 16) under the tutelage of Rabbi Len Muroff of Temple Beth Zion-Sinai, a Conservative synagogue in Lakewood.
With intermarriage on the rise and the Jewish denominations increasingly reaching out to non-Jewish spouses, conversion has probably never been more popular.
Muroff’s group represents a new breed of converts.
“There’s usually a reason, like love or marriage for converting,” Muroff said.
By contrast, these are spiritual converts, people who feel attracted to the religion because of a connection, a sense of belonging, even a return to their roots.
They are not unlike Judaism’s most famous convert, Ruth, whose book is read in synagogues this weekend on the Shavuot holiday. Also known as Pentecost, the holiday celebrates Jews receiving the Torah, and has evolved to honor the tradition of converts.
“Ruth teaches us that a Jew is not a Jew by virtue of genes, chromosomes or blood type. We embrace those who come to us with heart, mind and soul,” Rabbi Harold Schulweis said. The senior rabbi of Valley Beth Shalom was a pioneer in reaching out to converts, first in a speech to his community 10 years ago and then in a 2003 presentation to the Rabbinical Assembly about converts and accepting intermarried spouses.
Over the years, Schulweis said he has seen an increase in the number of spiritual converts or what he calls “seekers.”
“These are not people who are coming just to stand under the chuppah,” he said, meaning people who convert only for marriage. “You have people who have made a choice consciously and heroically,” he said, because these people must face opposition from their family and often from the Jewish community itself.
No convert has it easy, relinquishing a familiar faith or secular customs, but spiritual converts may feel less that they are giving something up and more like they are gaining. Spiritual converts have much to teach Jews born into the faith, Muroff said.
“What struck me most about my converts and the whole experience of teaching them was the intensity of their interest in being seriously engaged in a spiritual quest and their willingness to make many significant changes in their lives,” Muroff said. “They helped my congregation and me to look at our own spiritual lives in deeper and more innovative ways,” he said.
He learned from them how to see prayer as something deeply personal and spiritual, rather than something rote that had to be done at set times.
Of course, people who convert “for marriage” can be just as spiritual in their embrace of Judaism as anyone else, said Rabbi Neal Weinberg, director of the Lewis and Judith Miller Introduction to Judaism program under the Ziegler School of Rabbinics at the University of Judaism.
“These are [often] people who have thought about Judaism for some time, and then they choose someone. I think we insult ourselves when we say people are only converting for marriage, because that’s not the only reason,” he said. “There are a lot of different stories behind the choosing of Judaism.”
No matter the path toward Judaism, Jews-by-Choice are “blessings” to the community, Schulweis said.
“They are literally the most active people in the congregation in terms of reading from the Torah, in terms of working on committees, in terms of doing the haftorah, in terms of attendance, in terms of Jewish commitment,” he said. “They elevate the congregation.”
Luis Perez, a Latino convert who served as an unofficial adviser to the Venturas, began his journey to Judaism at age 13, when he began to question his own Catholic faith in religious school: “I was shunned and pushed away and told not to ask so many questions,” he said.
His father was more forthcoming, telling him about his Jewish ancestry, that he was raised a Converso — Catholic on the outside and Jewish in the home — in Leon, Mexico.
“I wanted to find out more about my faith and background,” said Perez, now 22, “and my father said, ‘Well, if you’re not happy with Catholicism, try Judaism.'”
Perez did, eventually converting (first through the Conservative movement and then through the Orthodox process). He is going to graduate from the University of Judaism in December and hopes to attend the Rabbinical School of the Institute of Traditional Judaism (Metivta) in Teaneck, N.J. “I always knew I was different [than] my friends and the rest of my family,” he said. “After I discovered Judaism, I felt that was the missing link.”
Many spiritual converts talk about a “special feeling” for Judaism.
Ventura, who at his conversion took on the name “Shmaryahu” — meaning God watched over him — said it ultimately wasn’t just his lineage that prompted him to convert.
“When I came to synagogue the first time, I felt a connection between me and God,” he said.
He told his wife, Rosie — renamed Esther at her conversion — and she started attending synagogue with him and loved it, too. Their children came along, as well, and they all started taking classes with Muroff about six months ago.
His children, Veronica, 23; Hector Jr., 20, and David, 14, told him, “If you go, we’ll go” — echoing the original pledge of Ruth to Naomi.
Susanne Shier, another of Muroff’s group, didn’t know exactly what attracted her to Judaism. Raised Episcopalian in Orange County, the single mother joined a Jewish chat room and had compelling conversations with Jewish women there, so she decided to take some classes about the religion. During one, class members sang “Hatikvah” — Israel’s national anthem.
“I started crying, and then I said to myself, ‘Now wait a minute — I’m not Jewish. Why am I crying?’ And then I thought maybe I am Jewish and I don’t know it.”
She began to explore these feelings and eventually joined Muroff’s class with her 13-year-old son, Justin.
“I read that there are Jewish souls who were there at Sinai,” she said, referring to a kabbalistic teaching: When the Torah was given on Mount Sinai, at that moment, sparks of holiness touched the Jewish people and also flew out into the world, creating other “Jewish souls” — and those are the people who convert. They are less converting than coming home.
“I’ve been thought to be rational; things have to make sense to me,” Shier said. “But some things don’t make sense to my rational mind. There’s something in my heart that tells me something different.”
She and her son decided to convert. “It wasn’t really a difficult decision for us,” she told The Journal on the day of her immersion in the mikvah or ritual bath (see article on page 14). The Venturas had joined her there to show support (they’d immersed the week before.)
Shier’s son did not have to undergo a physical hurdle of conversion for men: circumcision. Justin had been circumcised at birth, so he only had to undergo the ritual symbolically, with a pinprick similar to a blood test. The Ventura men submitted to the full operation.
“When you need that surgery, that’s when you decide if you really want to convert,” said 14-year-old David. He had joined his father from the beginning in learning about Judaism.
“I never liked church,” he said. “I didn’t feel like I belonged there,” he said. When he went to synagogue, “I really liked it. It was a new experience,”
Sometimes it’s a double whammy — being Latino and now being Jewish, especially in school and in the neighborhood.
“People already look down on you,” he said. But for the most part — except for the painful circumcision, which took several weeks to recuperate from — he has enjoyed being Jewish: “I feel higher. I feel proud as one with the Jewish community.”
The pluralistic Sandra Caplan Bet Din provides answers to frequently asked questions:
I’m interested in converting to Judaism. What is the process?
• Study. Attend an introduction to Judaism course and/or learn with your (sponsoring) rabbi.
• Connect with a rabbi who is willing to serve as your sponsoring rabbi.
• Meet with the beit din and discuss your wish to become Jewish.
• Immerse yourself in a kosher mikvah (ritual bath). For males only, fulfill the mitzvah of milah (ritual circumcision).
What is a beit din?
A beit din for conversion is a kind of court made up of three committed Jewish leaders. Here, one of the rabbis will be your sponsoring rabbi. The community beit din will authorize your conversion to Judaism.
What do we talk about with the beit din?
Meeting with the community beit din is an opportunity for you to discuss your decision to become a Jew with three welcoming rabbis. They want to be sure that you are converting freely and that you understand what living as a Jew means.
Can the beit din reject me?
Technically speaking, yes, but it rarely happens. Your sponsoring rabbi will meet with other rabbis briefly before they meet with you and will tell them about your journey toward Judaism. The other rabbis will rely heavily on your rabbi’s recommendation.
After the beit din, what happens next?
The next step is to immerse in a ritual pool of “living water” called a mikvah.
I’m a man. What does milah involve?
Men and boys are able to join the covenant of the Jews with God in a special way through ritual circumcision. Jewish male babies are circumcised eight days after birth, health permitting. In this way, Jewish people follow the ancient holy commandment given to Abraham when he became the first Jew.
I was circumcised when I was a baby. What do I do?
There is a ceremony for you. It’s is called hatafat dam brit. You meet with a trained specialist called a mohel, who is generally a medical doctor. He uses a tiny thin needle to take a minute drop of blood. Some men barely feel anything. Most experience a mild sting, like when a single hair is pulled from your head.
I am not circumcised. What can I do?
You will have to be circumcised to become Jewish, according to the process sanctioned by the Sandra Caplan Beit Din, which is widely accepted by all Jewish denominations except the Orthodox branch. Circumcision is performed by a mohel, which can take place under anesthetic in a medical office or hospital. Specific blessings are said. There may be some discomfort during recuperation. Most men and boys recover fully very quickly. Some Reform conversions do not require actual circumcision.
I have children. Can they be converted?
Yes. Children under the age of 13 may become Jewish according to Jewish tradition by entering the mikvah in the presence of the beit din. Children do not have a formal meeting with the beit din, but their parent(s) will meet with the beit din before the child(ren)’s immersion.
Will my children be Jewish if I converted before they were born?
Yes.
Will American rabbis accept my conversion as valid?
Conservative, Reconstructionist and Reform rabbis will accept you. At this time, few Orthodox rabbis will accept any conversion other than the conversions they or their Orthodox rabbinic colleagues authorize.
Will my conversion be recognized as valid in Israel?
The Israeli government will recognize your conversion, and you will be accepted as a citizen if you wish to make aliyah. The official religious and rabbinic authority in Israel likely will not accept you as a Jew. The rapidly growing number of Conservative and Reform congregations will be delighted to welcome you in their midst.
CROSS-DENOMINATIONAL CONVERSIONS (except for Orthodox)
Sandra Caplan Bet Din
15840 Ventura Blvd. Suite 200
Encino, CA 91436
(818) 990-8832 info@scbetdin.us
ORTHODOX CONVERSIONS:
Rabbinical Council of California
617 S. Olive St. ‘515
Los Angeles, CA 90014
(213) 489-8080
info@rccvaad.org
Beth Din of Los Angeles
c/o Rabbi David Rue
1462 S. Wooster No. 4
Los Angeles, CA 90035
(310) 657-7438
CONSERVATIVE CONVERSIONS: University of Judaism (UJ) Introduction to Judaism Office 15600 Mullholland Drive Bel Air, CA 90077 (310) 440-1273 www.uj.edu
REFORM CONVERSIONS: Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) Introduction to Judaism Pacific Southwest Regional Office 15760 Ventura Blvd., Suite 1125 Encino, CA 91436 (818) 907-8740 or 1-888-834-8242 www.urj.org/outreach/becoming
RECONSTRUCTIONIST CONVERSIONS: Jewish Reconstructionist Federation
7804 Montgomery Avenue Suite 9
Elkins Park, Pa. 19027
(215) 782-8500 Info@jrf.org
