March 18, 2009

L.A. Receives Emergency Grant, Sinai Head Appointed, Composer Wins Soup Contest

Leave a Comment / California, Community / Jewish Journal

L.A. Receives Emergency Grant to Pay for Jewish Education

Five communities, including Los Angeles, will split an $11 million emergency grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation for day school and Jewish camp tuition assistance over the next two years. The San Francisco-based foundation will begin paying money out immediately to Jewish federations in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston and its neighboring North Shore, and the greater Washington, D.C., area.

“This is a critical economic time,” Jim Joseph Foundation President Alvin Levitt said, “and a critical response to an emergency situation. To the greatest extent possible, these grants are meant to make the difference between kids being able to afford to go to Jewish school and camp — and not going.”

The L.A. Federation will administer the grant of up to $2.5 million over the next two years to help families pay for Jewish day school and high school, residential summer camp and early childhood programs. The Federation is still working out the mechanism by which it will distribute the funds to the 10,000 kids in Jewish day and high schools in the Los Angeles area and thousands more in overnight camps and preschools.

L.A. Federation President John Fishel called the grant “an extraordinary gift,” but one that comes with challenges.

“The scope here is so vast, it’s going to take some extremely thoughtful people to really develop the criteria,” Fishel said. “This is a significant sum of money to get from a single body, but how you administer it in an equitable fashion, get it out as quickly as possible, get it out to the neediest people, and have it be really meaningful — that will be a big challenge for us.”

The Jim Joseph Foundation hopes the money will stabilize schools as well, since many institutions have seen ominous drops in registration for next year, and even some students dropping out this year. Fishel said a recent study revealed that the Los Angeles area’s 35 day schools and other community organizations have given out $28 million in tuition assistance this year.

This is the second tuition assistance grant the Jim Joseph Foundation has made in Los Angeles in recent months. Last December, the foundation announced a $12.7 million grant to the L.A. Federation and the Bureau of Jewish Education to help five high schools increase enrollment by paying for tuition subsidies for middle-income students over the next six years. Part of the $12.7 million pays for development directors, additional teachers for new students, and marketing, evaluation and administrative costs. The schools and the larger Jewish community are obligated to raise an additional $21.25 million within the next six years for a community endowment fund to pay for Jewish education into the future.

Like the $12.7 million grant, the new money is meant to provide scholarships on top of what schools are already offering; recipient schools may not replace their scholarship money with the Jim Joseph funds.

The Jim Joseph Foundation has given out $142 million since it was founded three years ago. In Los Angeles, it has funded Jewish camp initiatives and a study of alumni of Birthright Israel, a program that strengthens Jewish identity by sending young people on a free trip to Israel.

Levitt hopes the emergency grant will inspire other foundations — which themselves are hurting — to respond in this time of crisis.

“Private foundations have an obligation to step up — at least proportionally to their assets. But it doesn’t have to be in Jewish education, as we’ve done,” Levitt said. “It could be to help the elderly — or the poor. This is a critical time and people are in real need. If not now, when?”

Julie Gruenbaum Fax, Senior Writer

Sinai Head of School Appointed to National Post

Sinai Akiba Academy’s head of school, Rabbi Laurence Scheindlin, has been appointed president of the Solomon Schechter Day School Association, an organization that develops tools and resources for professional and lay leaders in its 76 member schools. This is the first time a head of school, and someone from the West Coast, is leading the association, a part of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ).

“We think we have a unique role to play among the day school associations in that we have a lot of expertise in areas of curriculum and instruction,” said Scheindlin, who has spent more than 30 years at Sinai Akiba, the day school connected to Sinai Temple in Westwood.

Three years ago, the association adopted a strategic plan that for the first time put heads of school and educational professionals on the board, to serve along with Conservative day school lay leaders. The plan also yielded an emphasis on selling parents on the need for a day school experience, curriculum development and publications to help teachers and lay leaders. The association produced a curriculum on Bible that is used not only in Conservative schools, but also in other Jewish schools, and is currently finishing up a similar curriculum on rabbinics.

Scheindlin said he sees increased attention to students’ spiritual experience.

“Without diminishing the academic rigor of our Judaic studies programs, we are finding way to enhance spirituality on campus, so kids are not just learning about Judaism, but they are coming away with a feeling of Jewish life and inner life, and the ways in which we sense God’s presence around us.”

Scheindlin’s appointment is a one-year position, at the end of which a new governance structure will be implemented. Scheindlin is leaving open the possibility that his tenure will be extended.

“We are extremely pleased to have Rabbi Scheindlin serve as our board president,” said Elaine R. S. Cohen, associate director of USCJ’s department of education. “His extensive experience and insights are already a tremendous asset to our organization and integral to achieving our strategic priorities of promoting educational excellence, increasing advocacy and promoting synergies with partner institutions.”

Julie Gruenbaum Fax, Senior Writer

L.A. Architect Wins Top Israel Prize

A Los Angeles architect has won two top prizes in Architecture of Israel Quarterly’s third annual Project of the Year Competition. Raquel Vert, principal at Raquel Vert Architects, won the building category and the Yuli Ofer Prize for Advancement of Architecture for her work on The Deichmann Center for Social Interaction and the Spitzer-Salant School of Social Work at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

Vert shares the awards with Irit Axelrod and Yasha Grobman from Grobman-Axelrod Architects.

More than 300 works were submitted for prize consideration. Vert beat out four other finalists in the building category, and earned a first-place win for the Yuli Ofer Prize, which is awarded to the top three projects among the competition’s six categories (building, landscape, interior design, unbuilt projects, research and student).

Vert, a Tel Aviv native, lives in Encino and worked for several Southern California architects — including Frank Gehry — before setting up her own practice in Santa Monica. In 2004, Vert established a branch office in Israel and was commissioned to design the Spitzer-Salant Building and the Deichmann Building. The buildings are part of a complex at the entrance to Ben-Gurion University, which links the town of Beer-Sheva with the campus.

“The buildings’ form have a bold, playful and sculptural spirit, with a tilted concrete wall sitting in water holding a floating cubic structure and a curved metal wall penetrating the building through sheets of glass, all enforcing a sense of indoor-outdoors,” Vert said.

“Truly, as important as the prestige of these awards, is the knowledge that our design has succeeded in its goal of opening BGU to the city, linking the university’s academic life with the history of Beer-Sheva and establishing a cultural core for the entire community.”

Adam Wills, Senior Editor

Local Composer Wins Soup Contest

A Los Angeles amateur chef has won the 2009 “Better Than Your Bubby’s Chicken Soup Challenge” sponsored by the National Jewish Outreach Program.

Michael Cohen, 31, a Hollywood composer who scored “The Hebrew Hammer,” beat out four contestants in the final round of the nationwide search for the best chicken soup recipe. Cohen’s recipe, “Elat Chicken Soup,” named for the Pico Boulevard market where he buys his ingredients, features a mix of chickpeas, eggplant and Middle Eastern spices.

Noted food experts, including kosher cookbook author Jamie Geller and syndicated columnist Lenore Skenazy, judged the finals, which were held on March 12 at Abigail’s on Broadway, a New York City kosher restaurant.

Cohen received a round-trip ticket to Israel for his prize-winning recipe. He has won $40,000 in previous national cooking contests over the past four years.

To see the winning recipe, visit http://betterthanyourbubbys.blogspot.com.

Lisa Armony, Contributing Writer

L.A. Receives Emergency Grant, Sinai Head Appointed, Composer Wins Soup Contest Read More »

Venezuela Jews Rebuild After Synagogue Attack

Leave a Comment / Worldwide / Jewish Journal

CARACAS (JTA)—The quiet on a residential street in this eastern Venezuelan city is shattered by construction crews as workers perched on a scaffolding place panels of marble on the external wall of a two-story synagogue.

The construction occurs under the watchful eye of local police, who monitor the street around the clock. From their post on the corner, the police van has kept surveillance over the site since late January, when an older synagogue in the rundown Mariperez district of Caracas was attacked and desecrated.

Committed to their future here, the city’s Jews are building a new synagogue to replace the 50-year-old Sephardic synagogue that was attacked.

They must do so under police protection.

On Jan. 30, more than a dozen assailants invaded Tiferet Israel, overpowering two security guards and disabling the surveillance system. They desecrated holy objects, stole a computer database with the congregation’s personal information and put this city’s Jews on edge.

“It’s something that is really shocking and that has never been seen before in Venezuela. Never ever,” said Federica Palomero, who curates a small museum at Tiferet Israel. “In Venezuela there’s a tradition of coexistence, tolerance, respect and mutual admiration.”

Synagogue members say that anti-Semitic graffiti began to appear on the temple’s exterior walls in January, after President Hugo Chavez expelled the Israeli ambassador from the country to protest the Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip.

As Chavez ratcheted up his rhetoric against Israel, calling it a genocidal state, the official media followed suit, calling for a boycott on local Jewish businesses unless they publicly denounced Israel.

Venezuelan Jews, who first arrived here in the 1700s, say an unprecedented wave of anti-Semitism has followed.

“People are being taught to hate,” said Venezuelan Chief Rabbi Pynchas Brener. “Venezuela has never seen anything like this before.”

“We’ve never had any kind of political or social problems in Venezuela,” he went on. “Venezuelans are extremely tolerant; they accept differences.”

Other attacks and outbursts of hostility followed the Tiferet Israel attack. In February, unknown assailants lobbed a small explosive into a Caracas Jewish community center.

A local production of “Fiddler on the Roof” was even caught in the maelstrom after the orchestra chairman pulled out of the musical, possibly because of the play’s Jewish content.

The play’s producer, Michel Hausmann, said Manuel Torres, who had performed in “Fiddler” in the past, felt that to do so this year would be politically offensive and threaten his financial support from the state.

Torres refused to comment about the case when reached by JTA via telephone. But in an interview several days earlier with a local daily, the chairman denied being pressured and said the orchestra was concentrating on other events.

For its part, the government has been erratic in its response to the attacks on the Jewish community.

At first, Chavez and other members of his government denounced the attack on Tiferet, promising the assailants would be quickly apprehended. But Chavez also blamed government opponents for the raid and told the Jewish community not “to allow themselves to be manipulated.”

Then the Interior Ministry arrested 11 people, saying robbery was their real motive and that it simply was disguised as a bias crime.

While local Jewish leaders have publicly expressed their gratitude toward the government for prioritizing the investigation, many in the community quietly express doubt that the real perpetrators of the attack will be brought to light.

As Tiferet’s Palomero guides a visitor through a small exhibit of pictures showing the destruction caused by the attack, she says the attack does not reflect the attitudes of Venezuelans toward Jews “but rather those of a small group” that is “small, but active, dangerous and supported.”

Like many Jews here, Palomero declined to say who she believes is behind the attacks. But Jewish leaders from overseas have made clear who they believe is to blame.

“Now that I’ve been here and seen this with my own eyes, I have no doubt that direct responsibility for the attack on the Tiferet Israel synagogue goes directly to the door of Hugo Chavez,” said Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld of Congregation Ohev Sholom in Washington after a recent visit to Caracas.

“The attack couldn’t have happened without the permission of Chavez,” he said, noting the technical sophistication used to break into the synagogue and crack safes inside.

Herzfeld, who was part of a four-person delegation from North America, said he is pressing U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House or Representatives Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, to assemble a congressional commission on religious freedoms in Venezuela.

Israel also is using its diplomatic muscle to keep the spotlight on Venezuela’s treatment of the Jewish community. Its Foreign Ministry has asked 15 countries with ties to Venezuela to bring up the issue with Chavez, according to the Israeli daily Ha’aretz.

“There has been a significant outbreak of anti-Semitism there, and we wanted to send messages to Venezuela’s president through several different channels in order to clarify the gravity with which we view the situation,” a senior government source told the paper.

Locally, the Jewish community has not been directly outspoken against Chavez. Its members say they need to continue with their lives as before.

“Life goes on and one has to keep working,” Palomero said. “The Jews are Venezuelans just like the Muslims, the Protestants and the Catholics. We’re Venezuelans and we’re Jewish.”

Venezuela Jews Rebuild After Synagogue Attack Read More »

Tel Aviv Grill Comes to Encino

Job Opening

Leave a Comment / Opinion, Rob Eshman / Rob Eshman

If you really want to see tumbleweeds blow through an auditorium, ask an audience of L.A. Jews who their leader is.

I spoke at two synagogues over the weekend, and I posed this question at each: “Who is the leader of L.A. Jewry?”

Silence. For a while, all I could hear was the hissing of the 100-cup percolator.

Want to evoke another certain reaction? I’ve been asking people active in the Jewish community here whether they would apply for the job of president of The Jewish Federation. The president sits at the head of the largest local Jewish organization in town, with a $50 million annual budget and thousands of volunteers.

The job became available when The Federation announced that John Fishel would leave by the end of the year. I’ve asked people, “Do you want John’s job?” and the response is always the same: a groan, a wince. You’d think I was telling people they had a kidney stone, not a job opportunity.

The reaction perplexes me.

Why do so many great people heave and sigh just thinking about that job? What does it say about the organized Jewish community in Los Angeles? Are we that bad? Why does it strike people as such a chore to lead us?

I understand: Even Moses resisted God’s call, and he was Moses. He knew that leadership is hard — and leading Jews even harder.

“They are a stiff-necked people,” God told Moses. (You would think Moses, having just been dissed for a golden calf, would have responded, “Oh, now you tell me.”)

But the challenges the next Federation president faces go far beyond the cliché of two Jews, three opinions.

No, the challenge the next L.A. Jewish leader faces is taking the reins during a time of sweeping change. The old ways are gone, and the new ways are yet to be created. The Federation model, which blossomed in postwar America, demands re-invention.

This community has fractured into many far-flung pieces. A younger generation of Jews has drifted away, and an even younger generation can find all the community it wants online.

Established institutions, from synagogues to day schools, are finding their business models unsustainable. The very idea of loyalty to a centralized Jewish body seems as antiquated as, say, newspapers. Where once it was dominant, today, a mere fraction of local Jewish wealth and energy goes into The Federation, and that from a relative handful of donors.

And all those challenges loomed large before the economy stuck a gun in our backs and made off with our wallets.

I don’t know who exactly the ideal candidate is, but I do have a sense of what four challenges the next president must be able to address:

GATHER US TOGETHER

L.A. Jewry has become, to paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, 600,000 people divided by a common religion. The next leader has to be someone who can tear down the walls between all our fractured — only sometimes overlapping — communities: Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Persian, Israeli, Russian, old, young, rich, poor, middle class, secular, Orthodox, gay, straight, unaffiliated and highly motivated.

It’s especially important to bring the region’s powerful synagogues and their rabbis to a common conversation that focuses on the good of the whole community, not just the success of their shuls.

GO (20 PERCENT MORE) HOLLYWOOD

When you crack Hollywood, you will leverage the reach and influence of every dollar you raise and every message you send. President Obama understood that when he sent actress Annette Bening and Motion Picture Academy President Sid Ganis (a Sephardic Jew, by the way) to Iran last week for some cultural diplomacy. Maybe Obama knows something you don’t. Try to find someone who gets Hollywood and doesn’t have to scratch at the door to be let in.

INSPIRE US

I’m sure there will be many candidates with experience and expertise, but these don’t amount to leadership. Find someone who can inspire us, who sees the unique role that this community can play at this moment and can articulate it in a way that excites our young and reinvigorates our elderly.

IT’S NOT ABOUT THE MONEY

A Federation person will bring up “the campaign” faster than a Harvard alum will tell you where he went to college — and that’s fast. There’s nothing more off-putting than being seen as a tool to fill a fund or meet a mark.

Find a leader who understands that Jews in Los Angeles have a mission: to serve, to build, to learn, to give. Give us a task once a month, not a telethon phone call once a year. When you involve them, they will give.

Look, I can see why any person to whom things like “success” and “reputation” matter would stay far away from The Federation’s search committee, even if the job does come with a healthy six-figure income and all the Israeli prime ministers you can meet.

But as difficult as it is, this job is also hugely important.

Why? Because the 600,000 of us living in this metropolis are bound by geography, history and creed into a community. Affiliated or not, we share a common destiny. We have shared that fate for 4,000 years, and chances are we will continue to. We are, despite the best attempts of modernity, the economy and our own failings, a community. And communities do best with visionary and competent leadership.

So go find us some.

Job Opening Read More »

LETTERS: Torah Battle, Mormon Official, Ethics

Leave a Comment / Letters to the Editor / Jewish Journal

Ethics Certificate

I heartily agree with David Suissa and his reservations about the new certificate indicating that Jewish businesses uphold labor laws (“Laboring for Ethics,” March 6). If the Rubashkin scandal [Agriprocessors kosher slaughterhouse] is what prompted the certification idea, it is hardly the most noxious scandal in the Jewish community.

Why are we not issuing certificates to money managers to avoid other Madoff-style swindles? Why do we not certify that rabbis in our community aren’t molesting children and avert scandals like the one that hit the National Conference of Synagogue Youth? Why single out the Jewish shopkeeper?

California has an exorbitant minimum wage, and aggressive labor regulation. If the rabbis involved in the certification movement believe that shops along Pico Boulevard are in violation of these regulations, they should report the store owner to the authorities, not engage in feckless, feel-good activism.

Janet Fuchs
Beverly Hills

Battle Over Torahs

Your article, “Public Court Battle Erupts Over Possession of Torahs” (March 13) is a horrible display of the decision making skills of your management and editing team.

I am a student of Rabbi Samuel Ohana. He is doing my wedding; his wife is catering it. I learn with him, and he has welcomed me into his home.

He has dedicated his life to serving the community and is a man of great moral and ethical standing. The slant on your reporting was not just slight, it was disgustingly obvious.

You offered a venue for lashon ha-ra (bad gossip) to be spoken about this man, and that makes you just as guilty as the person who is speaking it.

I do not care if the L.A. Times feels that this story is worth publishing, but how can we be a light unto nations when we will stoop down and publish the same filth and slander?

I do not know the details of the case, and as far as I can tell, it is just a dispute of ownership. What you and the lady involved have done is of greater notice and deserving of as much criticism. I hope that the community can see the misrepresentation that you have made.

Michael Sachs
Pasadena

Surviving Bernie

Yes Mr. Eshman, Bernard Madoff is a criminal and an evil man who hopefully will spend the rest of his life in prison (“Surviving Bernie,” March 13). Where, however, is the outcry against the people of the American-Israel Cultural Foundation in Israel responsible for investing its entire endowment, $14 million, with Madoff Securities that is now all gone?

Leon M. Salter
Los Angeles

Different Religion

I was not at all disappointed to see professor David Myers attacked for his notorious right-wing views (“20th Century Zionist Asks: ‘Has Jacob Become Esau?’” March 6). For the record, however, we should note that Esau, as referred to by Myers and by Rawidowicz, was Christianity, not Islam. After all, Rawidowicz was writing in the first post-Holocaust years.

Michael Berenbaum
via e-mail

Money for the Arts

In this economic recession, I feel that Cheryl and Haim Saban should be embarrassed to donate $5 million so that their name will be on a theater marquee. (“Sabans Donate $5 Million to Theater,” March 13).

This money could be better spent: scholarships for children to receive Jewish educations, Jewish aged under the poverty line and housing for Jewish disabled. The list goes on.

Laurie Saida
via e-mail

Editor’s note: As our story made clear, the theater houses the Temple of the Arts synagogue, which Cheryl Saban credited with playing an important role in their lives.

ZOA Mormon Official

How wonderful to be able to read news about the L.A. Jewish community while I sit at my computer in Israel! (“Zionist Organization’s New Mormon Director: Q&A With Mark Paredes,” March 6).

The appointment of Mark Paredes to the directorship of the Zionist Organization of America office in Los Angeles is great news. I met him when he worked at the Israeli Consulate and saw this bright and inspiring man in action.

Chana Givon
Jerusalem

Building Bridges

On behalf of the American Muslim community, I applaud the efforts of Rabbi [Reuven] Firestone and The Jewish Journal in building bridges of understanding between the American Muslim and Jewish communities. (“An Appreciation of Islam: Q&A With Rabbi Reuven Firestone,” March 13)

Both Judaism and Islam have much in common — moral values emphasizing family ties and tending to the less fortunate, speaking up for justice and human rights and being good citizens of society.

While we may hold different legitimate political views, even within our own communities, let us continue to strengthen bonds between American Muslims and Jews, shun voices of extremism and together be a force of positive change in the broader society.

Munira Syeda
Communications Coordinator
Council on American-Islamic Relations,
Greater Los Angeles Area

Thank You Rabbi [Reuven] Firestone for your book presenting Islam to Jews and non-Muslims in a fair and more accurate manner.

Thanks to The Jewish Journal for being involved in this.

As a Muslim I always thought that there are much more things in common than differences between Jews and Muslims. I hope this will be realized by more people.

Majed Ibrahim
via e-mail

Bigots

Marty Kaplan’s “Stem Cell Slippery Slope Fallacy” (March 13) tells us that the world is full of bigots. Live and let live has been abandoned in favor of our way or the highway, leading to hatred and violence: the religious fundamentalism of ultra-Orthodox Jews disdaining all other denominations, Islamists stoning to death a 13-year-old rape victim charged with adultery and lots of Christians wishing to disenfranchise our gay population.

Then we have the haters of anyone not like them, including white supremacists, anti-Semites and animal rights advocates who feel that the lives of laboratory-bred rats are more important than the lives of human beings.

Now we know of evil greedy people who worship money and think nothing of stealing from the needy. What a world.

Martin J. Weisman
Westlake Village

LETTERS: Torah Battle, Mormon Official, Ethics Read More »

Music Man

Leave a Comment / David Suissa, Opinion / David Suissa

If you want to upset a Jewish musician who makes Jewish music, just call him a Jewish musician who makes Jewish music. Like it or not, the term “Jewish music” is not flattering to Jewish musicians. It’s got connotations of old-time schmaltz, of Zionist choirs singing “Heveinu Shalom Aleichem,” of fringe music written for a very specific — and very small — audience.

Musicians have fragile egos — the last thing they want to hear is that their music is of no interest to 99 percent of the listening public.

Well, I’m happy to say that I hung out the other day with a Jewish musician who’ll tell you flat out that he makes Jewish music. That he writes specifically for a Jewish audience. That he doesn’t dream of being in the Billboard Top 40 or performing at the Grammys. And that he’s happiest when his work inspires that miniscule slice of the buying public called the Jews.

His name is Sam Glaser.

For the past couple of decades, Glaser has been Mr. Jewish Music. Each year, he performs in Reform, Conservative and Orthodox communities in about 50 different cities. When he’s not performing or leading Shabbatons, he’s in his recording studio, where he recently completed his 20th album. His music is known for its spiritual ballads and solid rock beats, but there’s nothing wild and crazy about Glaser — the man or the musician.

Nothing, that is, except for his attachment to his neighborhood. If Springsteen had New Jersey and Dylan had Greenwich Village, Glaser has Pico-Robertson.

Over a long lunch at Shilo’s, the subject of his neighborhood kept interrupting talk of new songs, new projects, upcoming tours, etc. Right after telling me about his latest Purim adventure — performing for a Reform congregation at one of the oldest shuls in America in Charleston, S.C. — Glaser told me about his Shabbat ritual of taking a different route from shul every week.

These long neighborhood walks are made longer by his occasional neighborly stops: a single elderly man for whom he’ll sing “Shalom Aleichem,” Persian friends who’ll offer him rice in a multitude of colors, and incredible cooks, like his friend Debby Segura, who’ll insist he take home some of her homemade challah.

He said the neighborhood changed his life. He was a bohemian musician in the late 1980s and early 1990s, hanging out and surfing in Playa del Rey. Occasionally, he’d pop into Pico-Robertson, most often at the wild and near-legendary singles’ Shabbat table of Stuie Wax, another longtime neighborhood maestro.

It was during these visits, he said, that he tasted the warmth of the neighborhood and saw the possibility of making it his future home. It was also around then that he met his future wife, Shira, whom he married in 1993, just before they moved to Pico-Robertson.

It wasn’t just a physical move, it was also a spiritual one. He began learning Torah regularly — having 40-plus shuls within walking distance, he said, made it easy. While his home base has always been Aish HaTorah, where he had his first experience of serious Jewish learning, he’s one of the “shul hoppers” of the neighborhood. He especially loves the Happy Minyan, where many of his “musical brothers” hang out.

He said he’s so attached to the neighborhood that when he performs on the road, he introduces his shows by announcing, “I come from Pico-Robertson,” and then sharing neighborhood stories and bragging about things like “30-plus kosher restaurants within a mile radius, including three Chinese!” He even invites out-of-town audiences to his house for Shabbat meals and guided neighborhood tours, and over the years, more than a few people have taken him up on it.

On the surface, Glaser the artist seems neatly and perfectly defined: a Jewish musician from a Jewish neighborhood making Jewish music. Well, it turns out there’s a little more.

For one thing, I discovered something quirky about him: As soon as he gets up in the morning, he picks up a recorder and semiconsciously mumbles to himself music that he heard in his dreams the night before.

I couldn’t resist asking him if I could hear what music had come into his dreams the previous night. So, after lunch we went to his recording studio, which is behind his house, and he played me that day’s “morning mumble.” In his groggy voice, I actually heard him belt out this wild salsa beat, complete with horns, percussions and the best orchestral arrangements his mouth could simulate. It could have been the theme to “Mambo Kings.”

I came across other things that contradicted his image as the classic “Jewish musician.” He played me a song “that came to him” a couple of weeks ago after he heard that the father of his best friend had passed away. It was called “Then It’s Time,” and it had all the luscious feel and heartfelt lyrics of a Jason Mraz ballad.

When I asked him about the very first song he ever wrote, he went back several decades and played me a poem he wrote when he was 7, which he and his musician mother turned into a song. The song was about fighting pollution.

Glaser said he’s got hundreds of melodies, lyrical hooks and musical ideas stacked away in digital files, many of which are not particularly “Jewish.” He doesn’t seek them. They just come to him, mostly in his dreams.

He said he might “do something with all this material one day,” but he’s not sure. All he knows is that he’s grateful to have it.

Who knows, maybe all this “extra music” is God’s way of thanking him for proudly wearing the label of a “Jewish musician from a Jewish neighborhood who makes Jewish music to inspire the Jewish people.”

In the middle of the night, when this musician and his neighborhood are fast asleep, God brings him music that he can play one day for the rest of the world.

David Suissa, an advertising executive, is founder of OLAM magazine, Meals4Israel.com and Ads4Israel.com. He can be reached at dsuissa@olam.org.

Music Man Read More »

Our New Marranos

Leave a Comment / Judea Pearl, Opinion / Judea Pearl

Three years ago, in a column in this journal, I argued for the formula, “Anti-Zionism = Racism,” instead of the standard claim that anti-Zionism is a cover for anti-Semitism. My aim was to empower pro-Israel students with a more potent intellectual weapon to fight back the rising anti-Israel campaign on college campuses.

The logic in the new formula was based on three simple axioms: Anti-Zionists deny Jews what they grant to other historically bonded collectives — the right for sovereignty; anti-Zionists and their drive to dismantle Israel commit the most vulnerable part of the Jewish people to a dangerous, potentially genocidal experiment; and, finally, anti-Zionism attacks with impunity the most cherished symbol of Jewish identity — Israel.

While the logic was impeccable, the verdict was harsh. Having positioned themselves as the righteous guardians of the oppressed, anti-Zionists are not used to assuming responsibility for their words and actions. A formula that reminds them that ideologies have consequences, that consequences may endanger lives, and that those lives deserve a moment of reflection, can be a traumatic experience for any self-righteous activist.

Additionally, anti-Zionists are used to accusing others of racism, oppression, brutality, discrimination and other moral misdeeds; a formula that burdens them with guilt, let alone the guilt of racism, is hard to accept.

Jewish anti-Zionists took special offense at the idea that their ideology can be criticized on a moral ground, since they have come to believe that they are the true carriers of prophetic Judaism. Any criticism of their anti-Israel mission is decried as erecting a moral barrier between them and mainstream Judaism.

I would like to refer to these Jews as “our new Marranos” because, like the Jews who were coerced into conversion by the Spanish Inquisition, many anti-Zionist Jews have abandoned and denounced their historical identity to gain social acceptance after facing a vicious wave of anti-Israel propaganda. Keeping this in mind, I have always felt a warm spot for our new Marranos, regardless of how painful their rhetoric and deeds, for I know how hard it must be to resist the harshness of peer pressure and the tempting comfort of intellectual surrender.

However, these lost brethren of ours now demand equal voice in mainstream Jewish life, and, accordingly, they feel offended, muzzled and marginalized by any characterization that points to the consequences of their actions.

“They [Zionists] seek to limit the discourse, to erect walls that delineate what can and can’t be said,” Ben Ehrenreich complained in the Los Angeles Times (March 12, “Zionism is the Problem”) after stating that South African apartheid was charitable compared to Israel’s.

“In insisting that anti-Zionism is pernicious,” Rachel Roberts, an active anti-Zionist student at UCLA, wrote in the Daily Bruin, “Pearl denies Jews who disagree with his view the right to define ourselves according to our own beliefs and circumstances” (March 12, “Professor’s opinion offensive to both Jews and Palestinians”).

I have no qualm with the dishonesty of these complaints. Blinded by wishful victimhood and self-righteousness, these writers probably do believe that the abusive language they have been hurling at Zionists in the past few decades has been a friendly invitation to enlightened discourse. Some idealists have infinite capacity for self-delusion, and idealists are badly needed in our world.

The qualms I do have concern their demand to be treated as mainstream Jews who just happen to have a minor disagreement with the community at large and merely wish to define themselves according to their “beliefs and circumstances.”

This juxtaposition of Jews who wish to define themselves one way or another, and anti-Zionists who insist on telling everyone else how they ought to define themselves, was what caught my attention in their writings.

I first asked myself: Why not? Why not treat anti-Zionist Jews like a new brand of Judaism. After all, our history has known many fierce debates before: Chasidim and Mitnagdim, Karaim and Shabtaim, Prushim and Tsdokim, Conservative and Reform Jews; why not embrace anti-Zionist Jews as another brand of Judaism?

Asked in this way, the answer was immediate: Zionism does not deny any segment of the Jewish people the right to engage in a debate about how they should express their Jewishness, whether they wish to do so in the land of the Maccabees or in the land of George Washington — it is up to the individual to decide. It is, however, pernicious for any group, Jews and non-Jews, to deny another group the right to sovereignty in their historical homeland, especially when this sovereignty is embedded in a secular, democratic, inclusive, multi-ethnic and peace-seeking state like Israel.

Moreover, it is pernicious, if not plain racist, for any group to join forces with organizations committed to the destruction of another people’s homeland, be it through verbal defamation, boycotts, divestment or direct physical violence. Anti-Zionists do engage in these activities, and this is what distinguishes them from other Jews, both Zionist and non-Zionist, who merely try to redefine themselves.

To the best of my recollection, and my history books are truly dusty, I do not believe the old Marranos demanded acceptance as equal players in Jewish education and the Jewish community life of 16th century Europe. They could have easily argued that their newly acquired religion was the true carrier of the spirit of biblical Judaism, hence they should be equal partners in the ongoing debate on Jewish identity. But they did not. Instead, they spent their energy pretending that they were better Christians than their Christian neighbors and concealing any association with Judaism that might raise suspicion of infidelity. In concealing their identity our new Marranos excel, indeed; their anti-Israel diatribes, loaded with comparisons to Nazi Germany and South Africa, are second only to Hamas’. Yet, contrary to the old Marranos, they now demand a seat in the modern-day synagogue — our universities.

To obtain academic credentials, anti-Zionist Jews attempt to position themselves as continuing a long historical debate about the role of Eretz Israel in Jewish life, supposedly an important question that Jews have been debating for centuries and which continues to this very day.

There was indeed such a debate, a short- lived one: For two millennia, our ancestors prayed three times a day: “And He shall walk us in sovereignty back to our country” (Birchat Hamazon) and felt no need for debate. The debate started in the late-19th century and ended with clear winners and clear losers. The Balfour Declaration, the Shoah, the establishment of the State of Israel and the refocusing of Jewish education in the Diaspora around Israel’s culture, needs and accomplishments have turned the old debate into an irrelevant wrinkle in the dustbin of history. Still, there are probably some Jewish professors who are excavating that dustbin with great hopes of discovering a shred of an idea that would be relevant today. Such discoveries would empower our new Marranos with an illusion of academic continuity and embolden their demands for equal voice in Jewish education.

I do not believe we should yield to those demands as long as Israel is dear to our heart.

Judea Pearl is a professor at UCLA and president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, named after his son. He is a co-editor of “I Am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl” (Jewish Lights, 2004).

Our New Marranos Read More »

Bern Victims

Leave a Comment / Cartoons, Greenberg's View / Steve Greenberg

Bern Victims Read More »

Ethics Plan Would Raise Sanctity of Business

Leave a Comment / Business, Opinion / Rabbi N. Daniel Korobkin

An observant Jew was once brought before the judge on counts of tax fraud. Seeing the kippah-wearing Jew before him, the judge innocently asked, “Mr. Schwartz, you are clearly a God-fearing man. How do you explain your immoral behavior?”

Not missing a beat, Mr. Schwartz pointed his finger in the air and defiantly declared, “Your honor, religion is one thing, but business is business!”

Alas, we’ve witnessed several “Mr. Schwartzes” over the last few years, and each new headline evinces new winces of pain from our community. Rabbis have been beside themselves; for years, we’ve preached about the need to carry one’s Torah observance into the business place. Shockingly (as if), not all our parishioners were listening.

What’s more, an environment in certain industries seems to have developed where illegal business activity has not only been condoned but even considered the norm. The Jewish work ethic — what up until recently was the proud hallmark of pristine honesty and integrity — became tarnished.

L.A.’s Jewish community is the second largest in the country. We have much reason to be proud; we have established every imaginable organization or endeavor to dole out kindness and charity to those less privileged. Jews comprise a huge demographic of the righteous of our city.

At the same time, it’s been observed that life is like trying to make a bed using a fitted sheet that’s just a bit too small for the mattress. You pull one end of the sheet over one mattress corner, and the other end of the sheet pops off the opposite corner.

We all tend to focus on what we consider the important things in our lives at the expense of others. For some Jews, a focus on social action comes at the cost of Jewish literacy and ritual. For other Jews, a focus on ritual and Torah study comes at the cost of translating all that knowledge into action in the workplace.

Yet, the Talmud (T.B. Shabbat 31a) emphatically states that the first question a person will be asked when he or she ascends to heaven will not be, “Did you eat kosher food?” but rather, “Were you faithful in business?”

A group of rabbis and lay leaders, seeing this wound on an otherwise exemplary community continue to fester, felt that it was no longer enough to talk the talk. In order to really bolster awareness and education within the community, we needed to do something demonstrative that would raise awareness not only when in shul but also while shopping and doing business.

The Peulat Sachir: Ethical Labor Initiative is nothing new. Several years ago, a group of Modern Orthodox Jews in Israel founded an organization called, Bema’aglei Tzedek (On Paths of Justice), with the mission of addressing the moral and socioeconomic challenges facing Israeli society (you can learn more at their Web site, http://www.mtzedek.org.il/). One of their main projects is Tav Chevrati, which recognizes those businesses in Israel that provide minimum wage and other basic benefits to their employees. After launching an impressive marketing campaign, the Tav now boasts over 350 businesses that have the Tav seal hanging in their windows.

Using the Tav Chevrati model — with small modifications for the American business arena — our group realized that were we to attempt to redress all business ills we would be biting off more than anyone would be willing to chew. Under the direction of a team of attorneys, we instead chose to focus on the one area of business that has the most significant human impact, the area of labor law.

Peulat Sachir offers a covenant agreement to any business owner who complies with the six basic areas of labor law as required by the state of California: (1) minimum wage, (2) payment of overtime wages, (3) provision of meal and rest breaks, (4) leave policy, (5) workers’ compensation insurance and (6) discrimination/harassment policies.

Additionally, Peulat Sachir will host regular seminars on ethical business practices, which will be open to the general public.

Of course, one could argue: What’s the point of an attestation that someone is just obeying the law? In today’s world of Bernard Madoff rip-offs, kosher production scandals, subprime mortgage meltdowns and corporate greed, plenty. The simple public affirmation that I as a business owner comply with dina d’malchuta (the law of the land) is an important step toward the reformation of an unhealthy business culture.

One might also argue: Why focus so narrowly on this one area of business ethics? What about tax law? Immigration law? Clearly, there are many legal areas within the complex world of business that could and should be addressed.

For one thing, we’ve got to start somewhere. But it’s more than that; we believe that raising awareness about one area of ethics will positively spill over to others.

The employer who respects the law by meticulously paying overtime is more likely to report accurately on his tax return; someone who proudly procures workers’ compensation insurance for his minimum-wage employees is more likely to care about the needs of other underprivileged members of society.

The Peulat Sachir mission statement is thus twofold: To engender a new culture for Jewish businesses — one of commitment to the highest ethical and moral standards in all aspects of business — and to raise awareness of what we in the religious community expect from our vendors and, ultimately, from ourselves.

Those who appreciate what Peulat Sachir is trying to do will want to preferentially patronize those establishments that have signed a covenant. Those who don’t, won’t.

Peulat Sachir in no way penalizes or blacklists businesses that can’t or won’t sign on to the concept. Ultimately, it’s up to the public to decide the success of the Peulat Sachir initiative.

Who knows? Maybe Peulat Sachir will become a model for other communities. And just maybe, by elevating the sanctity of our businesses, we and our assets will all be blessed in the process.

If you are a local business owner and would like to receive more information, contact Peulat Sachir at info@peulatsachir.net.

Rabbi N. Daniel Korobkin is rosh kehilla of Yavneh Hebrew Academy, director of community and synagogue services for the Orthodox Union West Coast Region and a community mohel.

Ethics Plan Would Raise Sanctity of Business Read More »

The Real Madoff Scandal: Charitable Hoarding

Leave a Comment / Opinion / Jewish Journal

Of all the shocks of the Bernie Madoff heist, perhaps none was more stunning than the list of victims. Among them were several Jewish foundations and many of our community’s most prominent nonprofits. The losses were staggering, and in some cases crippling.

Yet the real Madoff scandal isn’t the losses; it’s that our community was sitting on vast pools of accumulated wealth, much of it used to little effect. Madoff had his secrets to keep, but so, in fact, did many foundations and endowments. They had money to spend, and they didn’t spend it. Now it’s gone.

Everywhere in the Jewish community we hear of crises —in Jewish literacy and continuity, in a lack of social action and awareness, in a failure of the synagogue and the rabbinate and so on. Yet all this time, there were individual donors and philanthropy executives sitting on large pools of money that could theoretically have been used to help address many of our biggest concerns. As a community, we now live so much for perpetuity that we fail to deal with the present.

I used to think that the rise of Jewish endowments and foundations represented the pinnacle of our life here in America — financial success combined with organizational stability and careful foresight. Now, it appears, we are simply incompetent as a community, having so badly matched what we have with what we need. Either we refuse to deploy our assets to our needs, or our needs, as we define them, are in fact not that pressing. Either way, it is a stunning indictment.

Thanks to tax incentives that encourage their growth, philanthropic foundations have ballooned over the past decade. According to a report from New York’s Foundation Center, foundation assets doubled from $330 billion in 1997 to $669 billion only 10 years later. In their 2007 monograph, “A Study of Jewish Foundations,” Gary Tobin and Aryeh Weinberg note that Jewish foundations have experienced similarly rapid growth. (Full disclosure: Tobin has been a client of mine.)

Most foundations, however, do not spend the bulk of their money, instead storing it away, granting only a small portion to charities each year. “Most foundations with larger assets give away about 5 percent, the minimum required by federal law, which most foundations see as a ceiling, not a floor,” Tobin and Weinberg write.

Similarly, endowments, which also expanded with flush economic times, “rarely withdraw more than 5 percent or 6 percent of their assets per year,” as The Chronicle of Philanthropy reported.

True, endowments have their value. James Tisch, who has previously served as president of the UJA-Federation of New York, defends them strongly. “Endowments allow institutions to survive in bad years,” he told me. “Most organizations don’t have nearly enough after their annual campaigns to make it.”

I don’t disagree. There are many institutions that would close if not for their endowments, which most, thankfully, diversified.

But having an endowment of large enough size to do what Tisch describes is a double-edged sword. It does let you out of the annual campaign rat race. But it also removes your sense of urgency.

If Jewish donors were truly ambitious, they would demand philanthropic extinction. They would give money to organizations only if endowment funds were also put to work. They would launch foundations with a built-in ticking clock: Perform, or else. In short, they would operate as if Madoff were managing their money and that one day it would all be gone, anyway.

That model would involve more risk, more spending, more activity and certainly less for future generations. It would be akin to taking away trust funds from the grandchildren so they actually have to work for a living.

Fine. Jewish donors know that you don’t gain reward without some measure of risk. That’s true in philanthropy, just as it is in business. Yet many Jewish donors still give to the same old causes, the same old institutions, in the same old ways. No wonder so many got burned by Madoff. They followed the crowd on everything.

In Judaism, every 50th year is considered a jubilee year, when we are commanded to return land to its original owner and to let our fields lie fallow. Why not transpose that commandment to our endowments and foundations?

Let us resolve: Every 50 years, our community’s stored wealth must be spent, and its charitable assets depleted. After that, we can begin the work anew — yes, with fewer assets, but with a greater capacity for creativity and success.

Reprinted by permission of The Forward

Noam Neusner is the principal of Neusner Communications, LLC. He served as President George W. Bush’s principal economic and domestic policy speech writer from 2002 to 2004.

The Real Madoff Scandal: Charitable Hoarding Read More »

GET HOME DELIVERY! CLICK HERE »

Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

Jewish Journal

L.A. Receives Emergency Grant, Sinai Head Appointed, Composer Wins Soup Contest

Venezuela Jews Rebuild After Synagogue Attack

Tel Aviv Grill Comes to Encino

Job Opening

LETTERS: Torah Battle, Mormon Official, Ethics

Music Man

Our New Marranos

Bern Victims

Ethics Plan Would Raise Sanctity of Business

The Real Madoff Scandal: Charitable Hoarding

Jewish Journal