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Jewish Journal

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March 22, 2007

New books chronicle new exodus — Ethiopians’ journey and its aftermath

Leave a Comment / Worldwide /

“Black Jews, Jews, and Other Heroes,” by Howard M. Lenhoff (Gefen; $24.95).

“The Ethiopian Jews of Israel,” by Len Lyons (Jewish Lights; $34.99).

Roughly 20 years ago, Sudan, whose western Darfur region has been engulfed in genocide for four years, watched another other tragedy unfold — the deaths of thousands of Ethiopian Jews trying to escape to Israel via Operation Moses.

Nearly one-fifth of the fleeing Falashas perished on their journey due to murder, famine, drought and various illnesses. But tens of thousands reached the Holy Land; and the ancient Jewish community (known to themselves as Beta Yisrael), which had an almost invisible presence in Israel until the late 1970s, now numbers more than 100,000 people.

Two new books explore the Ethiopian Jews, one from the perspective of an advocate who helped forge a consensus behind the mass aliyah in the 1970s and 1980s, and the other from an admittedly apolitical jazz aficionado who has dedicated two and a half years of his life to interviewing an array of Ethiopian Jews some 20 years after the exodus.

Former activist Howard Lenhoff, author of “Black Jews, Jews, and Other Heroes,” might not consider himself one of his book’s eponymous heroes. He never traveled to Ethiopia, never risked his life, never engaged in the kind of swashbuckling derring-do of some of his colleagues.

Yet he played a critical role as president of the American Association of Ethiopian Jews (AAEJ) in negotiating with and, in some cases, applying pressure to the Israeli government and the Jewish Agency to change policy on Ethiopian Jews.

Typical of the response of the Jewish establishment in the 1970s was this remark by one American Jewish woman: “These blacks are not Jews.” Nor were the Israelis immune to demeaning characterizations of the Beta Yisrael.

Lenhoff quotes a letter from professor Aryeh Tartakower, another leading activist at the time, that spells out the one-time Israeli attitude toward the Ethiopian Jews: “They were to be considered as ‘Aliens’ like other people of this category, to be admitted as tourists only for a short period of time….

Things went so far, that certain overzealous Israeli officials threatened to deport those Falashas who would be tempted to come over illegally.”

As much as this letter may remind us of the present debate over illegal immigration in the United States, the Israelis ultimately did rescue tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews. Not only that, they provided them with food, shelter and education at absorption centers throughout the country.

How much of that was due to the advocacy of groups like Lenhoff’s is hard to know, but Lenhoff and other AAEJ officials met on many occasions with then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin, obtained more than 50,000 signatures on behalf of the Ethiopians, mobilized protests, distributed literature, got the Jewish press to report on the plight of the Falashas and even commanded a few rescues themselves.

Lenhoff first became conscious of race as a young boy growing up in North Adams, Mass. Most of the blacks in his hometown worked as “janitors and garbage people. It sort of bothered me,” he said from his home in Oxford, Miss. “Naturally, I became friends with them.”

He later served on the faculty at Howard University and participated in the civil rights marches in the 1960s, but his interest in the Falashas did not blossom until he visited Israel just after the Yom Kippur War in late 1973 and early 1974. It was then that he read a Jerusalem Post article by famed newsman Louis Rapoport about the Ethiopian Jews who were being denied the right to the Law of Return. Shortly thereafter, Lenhoff, through Rapoport, got in contact with some members of the Beta Yisrael and even provided one, Rahamim, with $1,000, which enabled him to bring his older brother to Israel.

Over the phone, Lenhoff, a former UC Irvine biology professor, said he was concerned about the rescue missions, thinking at the time, “We’re amateurs. What if somebody gets killed. I’ll be responsible.”

He has also been responsible for his daughter, who suffers from the rare genetic disorder known as Williams-Beuren syndrome. Last fall, he came out with “The Strangest Song,” a book about his daughter, who displays rare musical gifts despite her condition.

The same compassion he shows for his daughter comes through in “Black Jews.” He speaks glowingly of some of the Ethiopian men he has met, like Hezi, the first one he encountered, a drill sergeant in the Israeli army, whom he describes as “a towering figure, over 6 feet tall, with a trademark long, black handlebar mustache.”

The book could do without its many subheads, like “Meeting Rahamim — The Professor Hooked.” Likewise, it could do without definitions of such obvious terms as the Mossad and kibbutzim. Any reader will know that the former is the Israeli equivalent of the CIA and the latter the plural form of kibbutz.

Despite these stylistic flaws, the book offers a primer on grass-roots activism and documents a modern-day Exodus, a story that makes for compelling reading on Passover.

Len Lyons, who has previously written books about jazz and computers, first came into contact with the Beta Yisrael through the Boston-Haifa sister city exchange program, when he and his wife hosted two Ethiopians at their home.

Although he said over the phone from Boston that he did not grow up in a politically active home, he could always “relate to the idea of not fitting in completely with my own world.”

In his new book, “The Ethiopian Jews of Israel,” he interviewed the top stratum of Ethiopian Israeli society. Almost no one is unemployed. Not one interviewee seems to live in a broken home, even though there is a high prevalence of divorce among Ethiopian Jews. No one suffers from any of the other pathologies of the community — spousal abuse, depression and alcoholism.

Lyons admits at the outset that he has not presented a random sample or a true cross-section of Beta Yisrael. He tried to interview some inmates in a prison, but they, like other “people on the margins … failing to engage constructively in society, don’t really want to talk about themselves” because of the stigma and shame of being imprisoned, homeless or even unemployed.

New books chronicle new exodus — Ethiopians’ journey and its aftermath Read More »

Celebrating Jewnity the Jewlicious way

Leave a Comment / Photos, Wandering Jew /

“It’s become cool to be Jewish,” says comedian Eric Schwartz, a.k.a. Smooth E., before he quotes one of his own songs, “Jewish is trendy, Jewish is fun, it took 2,000
years, but it finally caught on!”

Schwartz is on stage dressed in a flat cap, brown tweed jacket, jeans and a big bow tie during ” target = “_blank”>Rabbi Yonah “Rabbi Yo” Bookstein, 37, and his wife, Rachel, 34, director of the Long Beach Hillel.

Celebrating Jewnity the Jewlicious way Read More »

Holy oatmeal — it’s better than fiber!

Leave a Comment / Community, Photos /

“Quick, come here,” Gary Marcus yelled to his wife. “Bring a camera.”

Marsha Marcus came running into the kitchen of their Northridge home. She saw her husband staring into the pot of oatmeal he was cooking on the stove. As she peered inside, she saw why her husband had summoned her.

There it was, in the pot of simmering oatmeal, rising out of the foam, a perfectly formed Star of David.

“It’s because of the rabbi’s blessing,” she immediately said, snapping three photos with her cell phone camera while the image retained its symbolic shape for several minutes.

The rabbi’s blessing had arrived via e-mail three days earlier, stating “May God grant you his abundant blessings that you merit to find gainful employment to your heart’s content — very soon.”

It came from Chabad of the Valley’s Rabbi Joshua Gordon, whom Marsha Marcus had contacted regarding her husband’s job status and who routinely extends e-mail blessings to people needing assistance.

To Marsha Marcus, the Star of David was confirmation. She believed her husband, a global purchasing and sourcing manager who had worked for the same company for 24 years, would soon be gainfully re-employed.

A friend of hers from the sisterhood at Temple Ramat Zion, where the Marcus family, including daughter, Alison, 22, and son, David, 20, are members, agreed.

“This means something,” the friend said.

To Marsha Marcus, a Star of David has always held special meaning. Literally representing the shield of King David and a universal symbol of Judaism, it signifies protection to her.

In fact, soon after she and Gary were married, 34 years ago, she commissioned a jeweler to make a gold Star of David for her husband. He stopped wearing it after a while and it sat in a drawer for decades. But several weeks ago, feeling the need for its protective powers, Marsha Marcus started wearing it herself.

“I’m very spiritual,” Marsha Marcus explained.

Gary Marcus, however, takes a more rational approach.

“I figure things happen because they happen, not because of someone or something,” he said.

Still, the tendency to find meaningful patterns where none are intended is a common phenomenon known as pareidolia (from the Greek para meaning faulty and eidolon meaning image).

“We call it pattern-seeking behavior,” said Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic Magazine and monthly columnist for Scientific American. “That’s what people do so well.”

Generally people see faces, according to Shermer, because we use faces to attach and imprint. Often these are faces of Jesus or other religious figures. And, in fact, a 10-year-old grilled cheese sandwich said to bear the image of the Virgin Mary sold on eBay in 2004 for $28,000.

“Religious symbols match faces in emotional intensity,” Shermer said, although he was not aware of any tradition or examples of pareidolia in Judaism.

Still, Marsha Marcus believes her husband will find a new job through this experience.

“It is already a miracle,” she said. “Truly.”

Holy oatmeal — it’s better than fiber! Read More »

A sweet gefilte fish like his Polish grandma used to make

Leave a Comment / Celebrations/Simchas, Photos /

I’ve bought meat from the same kosher butcher shop on Pico Boulevard in West Los Angeles for many years. But it wasn’t until recently that I asked G&K Kosher Meat owner Herschel Berengut, 58, about the Passover dishes he prepares at his to-go deli next door, Charlie’s. His eyes lit up as he explained how he learned to cook as a young boy in Poland and that preparing food was his real passion.

Lublin-born Berengut said his grandmother Faiga was known to be a wonderful cook. When he was young, Berengut remembers watching her prepare Polish specialties and food for the Passover seder.

As he grew up, he would help in the kitchen when his grandmother catered weddings and banquets. She also cooked for the local church, and during the war she was able to get official papers stating that his family was not Jewish; although it was helpful, not all of them survived.

Although it wasn’t easy being Jewish in Poland, those difficulties never discouraged Berengut’s family from practicing; they observed Passover and all the Jewish holidays.

After graduating from culinary school, Berengut opened a 150-seat restaurant called Frigata, located next to a lake. He catered large parties and was successful, even though he had to pay the Polish government a portion of his profits.

But his dream was to come to America with his family. He corresponded with an uncle who had left Poland for Russia and later immigrated to the United States.
When his uncle invited him to come to Los Angeles, Berengut seized the opportunity to make a better life for his family. Initially leaving his wife and daughter behind, Berengut arrived in America speaking only Polish, Yiddish and Russian.

His first job was as a chef at a Hollywood-area Russian restaurant, where he worked from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. Next, Berengut worked a 12-hour shift at a butcher shop, typically sleeping three to four hours a night. Determined to bring his wife and daughter from Poland, Berengut saved money for six years before he was able to reunite his family.

When asked about his memories of the family Passover seder in Poland, Berengut said that the matzah only came in small squares. Since it was not available in Lublin, his family would receive it from cousins who lived in West Wroclaw, a town close to the German border where the matzah was made.

The charoset was a mixture of chopped apples, toasted walnuts, sweet wine and honey; lemon juice was added to keep the mixture from turning brown.

After reading the haggadah and retelling the traditional Passover story, dinner was served buffet style. It began with platters of sweet gefilte fish made with carp, as this bony fish was all that was available. Berengut remembers watching his grandmother wrap each fish skin around the sweet ground mixture, then poaching them in a fish stock.

Since coming to Los Angeles, Berengut has prepared several types of gefilte fish — one year he used only salmon, mixing it with egg, matzah meal and sugar. But now in his take-out deli you will find the traditional Polish gefilte fish made with carp and whitefish. He also grinds fresh horseradish daily to serve with the fish.

The main course for the family seder was lamb or veal, depending on what kosher meat was available. His father had a friend who sold them the whole animal, which they would have butchered by the local rabbi. They sold off the portions they could not use, making enough money to pay for the whole animal.

The meat was roasted with raisins, prunes, apricots, carrots and onions in a heavy pot that was covered and baked for several hours, until it was well done, almost caramelized, like tzimmis. It was served with potato kugel made with chicken fat. Berengut also prepares matzah dipped in broth and fried with eggs, a dish that his grandmother served only during Passover.

The Passover dinner finished with his favorite dessert, dried fruit compote, which is sweetened with honey and sugar and served with a platter of almond cookies.

At the end of the meal, when the children found the afikomen, they were rewarded with pieces of candy. It was a difficult time for his family, and Berengut was sad when the seder was over and everyone left by saying — instead of goodbye — “see you next year in Jerusalem.”

I was able to coax the somewhat reluctant Berengut to share his recipes, assuring him that many people would love to serve his Polish Passover dishes during the holiday.

Herschel Berengut's Polish Gefilte Fish
Stock:
2 onions, diced
3 carrots, thinly sliced
3 stalks celery
2 to 3 pounds fish bones (carp and white fish)
2 to 3 tablespoons sugar
Salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Fish:
5 pounds fillets of carp and white fish
1 onion, quartered
5 eggs
1 cup matzah meal
3 tablespoons sugar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

In a large pot, place the onion, carrot, celery, and fish bones. Add water to cover, bring to a boil over high heat and add sugar, salt and pepper. Lower heat and simmer for 90 minutes, uncovered, allowing the liquid to reduce. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve or cheesecloth. Cover and refrigerate or freeze.

In a food grinder, grind the fish and onion. Transfer to a large mixing bowl or wooden chopping bowl and mix in the eggs, matzah meal and sugar, until firm. Mix well and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Wet your hands with cold water and shape fish mixture into oval balls.
In a large shallow pot or roaster, bring the stock to a boil, reduce to simmer and place fish balls into the stock. Cover and simmer for one hour, or until cooked through. Cool, transfer to a glass bowl, cover with plastic wrap and foil and refrigerate. Serve with horseradish.

Makes about 24 gefilte fish balls.

A sweet gefilte fish like his Polish grandma used to make Read More »

New Pesach ‘traditions’ might be purr-fect for your family

Leave a Comment / Celebrations/Simchas /

“Pesach for the Rest of Us: Making the Passover Seder Your Own” (Schocken Books, $22.95).

When author Marge Piercy was a little girl, her grandmother set a special place at the Passover seder for Blackie, her grandmother’s cat.

He was a very dignified cat, Piercy recalled in an interview. “Blackie sat quietly in his chair while we went through the entire maggid,” the re-telling of the Passover story.

Piercy’s grandmother insisted that Blackie ate with a knife and fork — but only if nobody was looking. So every Pesach, the young girl would wait to see if this night would be different from all other nights and the finicky feline would join the family and cut up his piece of pot roast.

Whether it was the warm memory of that cat or of watching her grandmother create the annual seder in her modest Cleveland apartment — setting out her Passover-only dishes, ironing her spotless tablecloth saved for special occasions, polishing the fine silver candlesticks she had brought from Lithuania and, especially, preparing the traditional meal, Pesach remains the prolific poet and novelist’s favorite holiday.

Piercy has just published “Pesach for the Rest of Us: Making the Passover Seder Your Own,” which is filled with insightful writings and illustrative poetry from the personal haggadah she’s created for her own seders, as well as her recipes. On April 2, the first night of Passover, Piercy will honor her grandmother, Hannah Levi Bunnin, by cooking her Gedempte Flaisch Mit Abricotten (Pot Roast With Apricots) for guests at the seder she has presided over for the last 25 years.

“If I weren’t honoring the memory of my bubelah, I would probably serve lamb, because of its association with Pesach,” she wrote in the book. Although she loves recreating her grandmother’s Ashkenazi menu, lately she’s added Sephardic Chicken Soup (from Jews originally from Spain) and Mizrachi Charoset, (made by Jews of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran), because of her fascination with the different food traditions.

For this year’s seder, she has created a special egg salad to eat during the part of the service that calls for dipping a sprig of parsley and a hard-boiled egg into saltwater to symbolize spring and the cycle of life, but also to make visceral the tears of the Jewish slaves in Pharaoh’s Egypt.

Instead of the traditional basket of eggs passed around the table, Piercy serves eggs mixed with parsley, salt, cucumber, fennel, olive oil and lemon juice during the first part of the reading of the haggadah. Piercy says it’s a time for lively discussion, but as the service is also long, people get hungry, especially the children, who just want to eat. So Piercy serves the salad right after the Hillel sandwich. Eating the eggs, parsley and salt in a salad fulfills the requirement; it’s also an admirable start for the meal, she says.

A fish dish is traditionally served after the egg is eaten, and many matriarchs spend the better part of a day making fresh gefilte, a family favorite. But for the rest of us who have neither the time nor the inclination, Piercy offers an easy, appealing recipe for chopped herring.

Every year, Piercy says, she tries to make Passover more relevant to her life and to what is happening in the world. She has created her own, personal haggadah.

“It’s 65 percent poetry — it’s been a ‘work in progress’ for more than two decades,” she said.

Piercy dedicated “Pesach for the Rest of Us” to her grandmother, who in some sense presided over the seders of the writer’s youth, though her grandmother’s role was most of all about making sure everything was ready for the seder, because since she was Orthodox, her son presided over the service. Piercy says, however, that over the years, in writing her haggadah, she kept in mind, the importance of making tradition accessible to young people — of touching each child and creating a feeling of belonging so they will turn toward, and not away, from their religion.

In the book, Piercy writes about how women over the past century have demanded that Judaism speak to them, that it serve and acknowledge their experiences, their needs and their humanity. She adds an orange on the seder plate and Miriam’s cup to complement Elijah’s.

“Pesach for the Rest of Us” offers visceral ways of experiencing our ancestor’s journey, such as taking off our shoes and plunging our feet into cold water, reminiscent of the Sea of Reeds or walking outside and gazing at the moon to remind us the Jewish calendar is based on lunar cycles.

But best of all, she shares with us recipes that make sense today and no doubt would have appealed to the gentlemanly Blackie. Enough so, certainly, to make him pick up his knife and fork to cut up his herring.

Mizrachi Charoset
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 cup apples, peeled, cored and quartered
1 cinnamon stick
3 cardamom pods
1/2 cup almonds and pistachios
1/2 cup pitted dates
1/2 cup white figs
1/4 cup dried cherries
1/4 cup pomegranate seeds
Black pepper to taste
1/4 cup cherry or orange brandy, sweet wine or grape juice
Honey or brown sugar to taste (optional)

Sprinkle lemon juice over the apples. Set aside. In a food processor or with a mortar and pestle, grind together cinnamon stick and cardamom pods. When they have consistency of a powder, add nuts and then the apples and dried fruit. Keep a light hand on the pulse button. Consistency should have a bite to it.

Remove ingredients to a large bowl. Fold in pomegranate seeds, brandy, wine or grape juice and, if desired, sugar or honey.

Taste charoset to see if it is just the right blend of sweet and tart. Add honey or sugar for sweetness, lemon juice to make it more tart. Mix to combine. Serve in glass bowl.

Makes 3 1/2 cups.

New Pesach ‘traditions’ might be purr-fect for your family Read More »

Bring the taste of France to your Passover table

Leave a Comment / Celebrations/Simchas /

One might expect the chef-owner of a haute cuisine, award-winning French-American restaurant, where l’addition can easily top $300 per couple, to be an egotist. One would be wrong.

Chef Josiah Citrin of Mélisse in Santa Monica, which earned the prestigious four-star rating from Mobil Travel Guide just 18 months after opening and was named Zagat’s No. 1 Restaurant in Los Angeles for French-American food, is a down-to-earth former competitive surfer, a mensch who participates in cooking and charitable events, and a serious chef who still loves his mom’s soy and honey-glazed chicken.

Check out Zagat: “Finest French food in L.A.,” “a classic deserving of its reputation,” “delicate flavors in every bite,” they warble.

But I did not come to discuss the osetra caviar or seasonal truffle menu. With Passover approaching I was looking for ideas. I aim high.

Citrin, who never took a formal cooking class, developed a love of cooking and fine food early in life. His father’s family is from France, and he grew up hearing his grandfather tell stories about the great French chefs.

But grandpa Ivan Citrinovich had other more frightening tales to tell. “He fled Poland during World War I when he was 13 and was injured in a bombing,” Citrin explained. “He escaped to Germany, made millions in steel there and then lost it. Most of his family were killed. He was very paranoid that it could all happen again. But for me, it’s hard to be scared when you grow up in California.”

Citrin’s mom was a caterer who ran a cooking school, and he took to cooking at home from the age of 12 as naturally as he took to surfing the Malibu waves.

In a bold move, he left for Paris after high school, reconnecting with his ancestral roots, to work at Vivarois and La Poste, developing a solid classical French background before returning to Wolfgang Puck’s Chinois on Main and Granita, and Joachim Splichal’s Patina and Pinot Bistro.

“I worked for a kosher caterer in France too,” he recalled. “We did parties, weddings and bar mitzvahs. The rabbi was always drunk and would show up late. We couldn’t turn the stoves on without him!”

“But my worst experience was one time we had to make cow tripe. I cut a hundred kilos of tripe. You simmer it and it makes this beautiful Moroccan tagine. I left it out to cool, and the crew was supposed to come in and put it in the fridge. When I came in the next day it was still outside, bubbling.”

Citrin fondly recalls his childhood seders (“It’s the first time you get drunk, right?”) and will gather with his family this year at home. “I’ve done it with them coming here, and sometimes families reserve a private room for a seder. We use a reform hagaddah. It’s got a rap song in it!”

Brisket is on the menu, but with a twist. The oven-braised beef is compressed flat, then cut into squares and reglazed. “This is the same way we do braised short ribs here all the time,” Citrin said. “You can slice it the usual way if you want, but what’s the point of giving you a recipe if it’s going to be the way you always make it?”

The dish is an homage to his wife’s grandmother. “She made the same brisket for all the holidays: Passover, Chanukah, Rosh Hashanah,” Citrin recalled. “I had never seen it before. When I was growing up we had lamb or lemon chicken, different stuff on Passover. When Goldie passed away I started making it. The meat is so tender, but all the flavors ooze out into the liquid. When you glaze it down the flavors are reabsorbed.”

The stuffed gefilte fish is his mother’s recipe. “Sometimes I make it in a terrine, using the same fish mixture, and then cut slices. We serve it with the same sauce and a julienne vegetable salad.”

Citrin, dubbed “a farmers market junkie” by Los Angeles Magazine, emphasizes fresh ingredients. In fact “mélisse” is French for lemon balm, a Mediterranean herb.

“Because of the freeze, we’re behind right now,” he observed, “so we’re using root vegetables.” The recipe below was another from his mom. “They taste better just a little beyond crunchy — no California crunch,” he advised.

What’s in the future for Citrin and wife/co-owner Diane (“the first Jewish person I ever dated”)? There’s a cookbook in the works, and “I’d like to do Jewish second weddings. We’re closed on Sundays anyway. This is the perfect room for 40 to 50 people,” he said, pointing to the sun-filled atrium, “with the aisle here and the chuppah at the end. And the glass always breaks on cement, not like on the grass.”

Charoset
1 cup pitted chopped dates
1/2 cup dried apricots
1/3 cup sweet Manischewitz wine
1 small red chili pepper, seeded and minced
3 tablespoons chopped almonds
2 tablespoons matzah meal
1 tablespoon chopped Meyer lemon, zest and rind included, or 1 tablespoon lemon zest
2 teaspoons chopped orange zest
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
Pinch of ground fennel

In a large bowl, combine dates, apricots and wine. Add chili pepper, almonds, matzah meal, lemon, orange zest, ginger and fennel. Mix well. Set aside at room temperature until ready to serve.
Makes about two cups.

Gefilte Fish Wrapped in Napa Cabbage With Tomato-Tarragon-Horseradish Emulsion
For the fish:
1/2 cup matzah meal
5 cups low-sodium vegetable or chicken stock
2 heads Napa cabbage
1 pound whitefish fillet, cut into cubes
1/2 pound pike fillet, cut into cubes
1/2 pound carp, cut into cubes
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup Italian parsley, minced
2 tablespoons tarragon, minced
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
3 large eggs, separated
1 tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon cayenne
Zest of 3 limes, finely chopped
2 carrots, peeled and cut into julienne strips
2 leeks, cut into julienne strips

For the sauce:
Yolks of 2 large eggs (use only farm-fresh eggs kept under refrigeration or a pasteurized egg product)
Juice of 1 lemon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup vegetable oil
2 tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
3 tablespoons grated fresh horseradish
1 tablespoon chopped tarragon

Place matzah meal in a bowl. Mix with 1 cup of the stock and set aside.
Submerge cabbage in a large pot of boiling water. As the leaves soften, remove and place in ice water. Separate leaves, keeping them whole. You will need 12 unbroken leaves. Dry well. Trim the central rib so the leaf is of uniform thickness all around and will lie flat.

Bring the taste of France to your Passover table Read More »

How to love a Jew you hate

Leave a Comment / David Suissa /

What do you do when you can’t stand another Jew? When their political views make you sick, or when you feel completely alienated from their lifestyle — whetherbecause they are too religious, or too secular, or simply too unfamiliar?

For that matter, what do you do if another Jew shoots at you?

Before Valerie Salkin got shot, she was a Jew like the rest of us. Some of us react to offense by saying “I hate you,” others by ignoring you. It’s animosity or indifference — pick your poison.

“I hate you” comes from a deep place. The animosity one feels, for example, for a Jew who might inadvertently help our enemies comes from a sense of betrayal: I expect more from a member of the family.

Indifference is usually the result of smugness or an absence of curiosity: I don’t know who you are, and the little I do know doesn’t interest me.

Between the “I hate you” Jews and the “I ignore you” Jews are the “I tolerate you” Jews. This kind of Jew believes in good manners: Sometimes you drive me nuts, but I promise to respect our differences while I hold my nose.

I’m painting a grim picture, but don’t despair, because there’s usually someone like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to come and unite us. When a sworn enemy says he wants to erase Israel from the map, somehow, the fact that another Jew drives on Shabbat doesn’t drive me that crazy. Of course, unity that comes from fear is not as strong as unity that comes from love.

Valerie Salkin believes in unity that comes from love.

Follow her during the day, and you’ll see her fighting to put rapists and murderers behind bars. Follow her at night, and you’ll see her running around helping put on a major Jewish unity event for our community.

After years of being involved with various Jewish causes, Valerie Salkin, criminal prosecutor in some unsavory parts of Los Angeles, has decided this year to devote herself to the Jewish unity movement.

As she schmoozes with me at Coffee Bean with a staccato dialogue right out of a “Law and Order” episode, she can’t seem to decide what to talk about. She’s working on this big murder case, and from the sound of her cell phone conversations, it’s obviously distracting her.

But her face lights up when she tells me about her many plans and challenges as program co-chair for a Jewish unity organization called Limmud LA.

At first, Limmud sounds like another stroke of idealism that can’t go very far. But apparently, these people mean business. Limmud started 25 years ago in the U.K., as a movement to bring Jews of all backgrounds and denominations together to learn more about each other and their Judaism. After having success in New York, this year they decided to launch in Los Angeles, and they have recruited unity junkies like Valerie.

Like Valerie herself, Limmud is devoid of schmaltz. They’ve taken a lofty and theoretical ideal — Jewish — unity and they’ve handled it with a practical, no-nonsense approach.

The movement revolves around a specific event. In Los Angeles it will be a three-day event next President’s Day weekend, which Limmud calls a “multiday celebration of the kaleidoscope of Jewish life.”

They also put a focus on programming, not preaching. Because they embrace “all expressions of Jewish life, culture and religious practice,” Valerie’s mission is to attract speakers and entertainers of all backgrounds and denominations — not an easy task, but so far she says she’s getting a decent response.

Finally, and most surprisingly, they don’t have an Orthodox agenda. Valerie, who considers herself in between Conservative and Orthodox, says that this is not one of those “we love every Jew” events where the definition of love is to get you to become more religious. Limmud is aiming for genuine pluralism.

All this is very nice, but I have a problem. As Valerie is rattling off bullet points about Limmud, I can’t stop thinking about another bullet — the one that shot Valerie.

You see, 28 years ago, six months before John Lennon was shot by one of his fans outside his Manhattan apartment, Valerie was a happy teenager, roller skating on Warner Avenue in Westwood on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

That’s when she got shot.

The bullet almost destroyed her leg, which still has a big scar from the operation that saved it. They found the culprit several months later; he was a Jewish boy in his late teens, who was just “practicing” shooting his rifle from a window in his house. She never saw or met him and doesn’t even know if he was “deranged” or whether he spent any jail time. When we spoke, it was clear that she didn’t want to dwell on the event, but she admits it has never left her.

I asked about her emotions after the shooting, and she replied in two words: shock and fear. No animosity? She paused for a moment and said, “no, none.” When I asked what she would say to her assailant if she met him today, she paused again and said simply: “I would ask him why.”

A Jewish woman is shot by a Jew 28 years ago, and her response is not to hate, ignore or tolerate. What is on her mind is simply the desire to know more — starting with, why?

Maybe being a criminal prosecutor has helped Valerie get her need for justice out of her system, so that when it comes to her fellow Jews, she has learned not to take verbal bullets or other offenses too personally.

You can call Valerie an “I want to know more” Jew.

In fact, when I cut through the fog of why Jews don’t get along, I see that this crime fighter might have stumbled on a nice little idea for Jewish love and unity: Next time a Jew does something that drives you nuts, instead of hating, ignoring or tolerating, just think that you might want to know more.

If Valerie Salkin can do it after a real bullet, we could surely try to do it after verbal ones.

For more information, visit LimmudLA.org.

David Suissa, an advertising executive, is founder of OLAM magazine and Meals4Israel.com. He can be reached at dsuissa@olam.org.::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
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