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Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

July 23, 2009

My So-Called Jewish Life

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Should I tell him I’m not a Jew? I wondered this over and over as I sat in the Cal State Long Beach office of academia’s leading anti-Semite.

People make many assumptions about a reporter named Greenberg who lives in Los Angeles and writes for The Jewish Journal. Maybe, I wondered, Kevin MacDonald, a professor whose books on Jews have been compared to “Mein Kampf” and “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” would speak more freely if he knew I was, in fact, a practicing Christian.

But then I thought about the personal setback I would be subjecting myself to for the sake, possibly, of a few good quotes.

I’d been writing for The Journal for a year, and while I was open about being a churchgoing Christian — my father, a Jew, and my mother, who was raised Catholic, both converted to Protestantism when I was a kid — I was adamant in my belief that the Jewish story was also my family’s story, that purpose and promise and persecution link my ancestors to Moses and Einstein and the Beastie Boys.

So I kept quiet. I let the professor think of me whatever he was inclined to think. As the interview progressed, I realized the disclosure would not have mattered to MacDonald. But it certainly would have mattered to me.

When, in 2007, I joined The Journal — which I am leaving now to enter law school at UCLA — the impetus was as personal as it was professional. Sure, I saw an opportunity to advance my career — and having received some top honors from the Los Angeles Press Club during my time here, including best blog and journalist of the year, I’d say the Prophets couldn’t have promised anything more. But, maybe more importantly, I thought the move would help me sort out my complicated Judeo-Christian identity.

I typically observe Passover in a church, and growing up in a San Diego suburb, the extent of my Jewish upbringing was being the target of money jokes. Despite having three Jewish grandparents, including both grandmothers, and facial hair that draws comparisons to Matisyahu, I was, at best, Jew-ish.

But at The Jewish Journal I began working on my Yiddish tongue; I went to Yom Kippur services for the first time. I traveled to Israel and even got hassled by El Al security screeners; I observed Shabbat in Sderot and experienced the terror of hearing a red alert and having only a few seconds to run for a bomb shelter; I haggled at a market (OK, I was already pretty good at that); and I learned that I had an incredible amount more in common with the Jews I was sojourning among than the gentiles I grew up with.

There was speculation among a few colleagues that my joining this paper was an indication that a Prodigal Son was coming home. But this had not been my father’s house for more than two decades. And not everyone welcomed me back.

“The ‘Jewish’ journal continues to employ this Christian with a Jewish name to tell us about Jews,” a reader of my blog, The God Blog, wrote in one of a handful of similar comments in 2007. “How ‘bout this: let the JJ change its name to the ‘Apostate Journal,’ and BG can change his name to Christian Berg.”

Those sentiments didn’t surprise me. In fact, I had assumed such opposition would be prevalent, and when Journal Editor-in-Chief Rob Eshman contacted me at the Los Angeles Daily News and asked me to lunch, I quickly let him know that he might want to move on to a candidate who better fit the bill.

“It’s OK,” he responded. “Some of my best friends aren’t Jewish.”

Still, I had no illusions about the insider-outsider place I would occupy in the community. Nevertheless, I found that most readers evaluated me by the quality of my work, not by the fact that, much like most L.A. Jews, I didn’t daven daily.

I didn’t struggle with the alphabet soup of Jewish communal life — with discerning JVS (Jewish Vocational Service) from JFS (Jewish Family Service) from JFL (Jewish Free Loan) — but remembering all the holidays … oy. I also found that there is much more to understanding the Jewish community than just being able to differentiate between an eruv and a mikveh.

Never was this more apparent than when I visited the Jewish State.

Not all Jews, I learned, looked like me: poor-sighted, fair-skinned, curly haired. In Los Angeles you could go years without running into a Jew who wasn’t either from Eastern Europe or Iran. But the breadth of diversity in Israel — where Jews arrive from India and Ethiopia and Australia and China and Argentina — pushed aside everything I thought I knew about who is a Jew, and what it means to be a Jew, and what it is to live a Jewish life.

Whether writing about the fragility of life in Israel or economic pressures on Jewish communal life or L.A.’s Jewish hoops hero, Jordan Farmar, I met Jews who had grown up with a strong identity and those just developing one; Jews who were Jews in name only and others who considered themselves Jewish only when others wanted them to be; Jews who felt a God-given obligation to defend the faith and those who felt just as strong a responsibility to reform it.

Like Los Angeles itself, I found that Jewish life is a vast landscape, ranging from sandy beaches to snow-capped mountains, from hardscrabble desert to dense forest. It’s a place where even a Christian named Greenberg could find a home.

I’m not a Messianic or a Jew for Jesus. I’ve never pretended to be a partial practitioner of Judaism. But I’ve also found that I deeply appreciate Jewish life — the commitment to community-building and supporting the less fortunate, to education and culture, to reading and writing, to remembering God.

Pretty early during my employment at The Journal, I realized how to definitively answer the question I had gotten so used to hearing: “Are you Jewish?”

“Well,” I would say, “that really depends on who’s asking.”

The issue of Jewish identity is, after all, a thousands-year-old debate; I don’t expect to be the answer.

I’m happy to be accepted by those who can accept me, but I understand if you can’t. Personally, I don’t think I could feel more Jewish. Except for that whole faith-in-Jesus thing. And he is kind of a deal-breaker.

My So-Called Jewish Life Read More »

Sex, power and problems at C Street

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It’s amazing how bad news for one man can be great news for another. Just ask Jeff Sharlet.

Last summer, Sharlet’s expose on “The Family: the secret fundamentalism at the heart of American power” received limited attention. But thanks to recent scandals involving Sen. John Ensign, R-Nevada, and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, Sharlet’s book has shot to the top of Amazon. (It’s ranking yesterday was, when I checked, 14.)

Sharlet has recently spoken about The Family on NPR and in the Las Vegas Sun and written about it for Salon and other publications. He also spoke with me last summer. Here’s an excerpt of that interview:

JJ: Why, if Reagan said back in ‘87 or ‘88 that The Family was working so well because it was private, did you feel you had to expose it?

JS: Because I was the one who stumbled upon it. I didn’t set out to expose it. If Seymour Hersh had stumbled upon it, it would have been much more effective. But he didn’t, so I ended up with it.

JJ: This idea of God-ruled governments, it seems so very un-American.

JS: I agree, although there is a tremendous tension in American history between a democratic impulse and imperial impulse. We forget that at the Constitutional Convention there was a great debate about whether it would be a godless document. There were those who wanted it to be a Christian document and an imperial document, a new nation that would spread the Gospel far and wide. That lost out, but it is the shadow of American democracy.

JJ: The Mafia, Mao, Lenin, Hitler—all these guys are role models, not for what they did but how they did it. How does The Family marry faith with fascism?

JS: Back in the 1930s, a lot of people, not just fascists, thought democracy had run its course and couldn’t compete with fascism and communism, and that a third way was necessary. Some conservative Christians decided that Christianity was the third way. And what they admired about fascism was that fascism operates on this veneer of total and absolute unity. I don’t think they [The Family] are fascist, but they love the fascist myth of absolute unity, and they think that the unity is best achieved through strong men.

The complete Q&A can be read here. An except from the book, which shows how Sharlet, who is Jewish, was invited to live at C Street, is after the jump:

Sex, power and problems at C Street Read More »

California Quagmire

Leave a Comment / Opinion /

Quagmire — a difficult or precarious situation from which extrication is almost impossible.

Juxtapose the progress on health care in Washington — a supposedly unsolvable national dilemma — with our state’s unceasing budget purgatory and one wonders: Is California doomed to an eternal quagmire, or do we have the courage to confront that bogeyman of late 20th/early 21st century American politics — taxation? 

Granted, California now has a budget, but only after multiple gubernatorial vetoes, critical delays caused by the governor’s blind insistence on avoiding new taxes and a legislative gridlock caused by long-term structural deficiencies, some of the public’s own making.

Budgets are about values and priorities. At heart, they are a financial expression of our values. Balancing a budget on the backs of the poor and at the expense of vital social programs represents an ethical choice about the world we want to create for ourselves. Fittingly and fortunately, Jewish history and tradition provide a strong moral compass on the question of communal financial self-regulation. 

The Torah commands the giving of tithes, requiring that offerings of grain, wine, oil, or livestock be made to the Temple before personal consumption. Those who served the community’s spiritual needs (the Levites), as well as the needy, were to be supported first (Deuteronomy 14:28-29). 

A similar ethos is found in the Babylonian Talmud, which describes the critical social services town residents had to provide: a soup kitchen and separate funds for general charity, clothing, burials and repair of the city’s walls. Medieval Jews — Ashkenazic and Sephardic — internalized the principle of collective responsibility in their communities. With respect to taxation, they divided the burden in progressive fashion, with wealthier members paying a greater share than their poorer neighbors. In doing so, they were guided by the ideals of Maimonides, who insisted that a Torah sage should dwell only in a community that provides basic social services for all.

This model of a kehillah kedoshah (a holy community) was not confined to the Middle Ages. Even in modern times — in an era supposedly beset by hyper-individualism and crass materialism — Jews have continued to create their own versions of holy communities. Early 20th century Jewish immigrants established housing co-operatives and fraternal help societies (landsmanshaftn) to share the burdens of resettlement and economic sustenance in America. Once established, they often devoted themselves not only to the well-being of fellow Jews, but also to the quest for equality and justice in the broader society, a commitment we embrace today. 

To be certain, the problems that plague California cannot be solved only by references to our sacred sources or lived history. And yet, the rich legacy of Jewish communal responsibility compels us to ask: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I?” And, if we want California to aspire to be a “holy community,” fit for Maimonides’ hypothetical Torah sage, what choices are we willing to make? What changes in the law and in our lives are we prepared to make to pass an ethical, sustainable budget?

There are many possible answers to these questions, as a number of important recent forums hosted by the Progressive Jewish Alliance, NCJW, Bet Tzedek and Community Coalition have demonstrated. Long-term solutions such as repealing Proposition 13 and overturning term-limit requirements are the thorniest politically, but there are some immediate steps worth exploring.

Close Commercial Property Tax Code Loopholes. Proposition 13 freezes the amount of property-tax proceeds that California can assess, locking us into sales and income taxes as our sole sources of revenue. Prop 13 has had a particularly disparate impact on individual versus corporate property owners. For example, the Los Angeles Times recently cited Disneyland’s property tax rate as $.05 per square foot, compared to $2.06 per square foot for a $330,000 home bought at foreclosure last year. This is because, except in limited circumstances, a corporation can be sold, merge, or sell off its assets to other companies without triggering tax reassessment of its commercial properties. Simple changes in the tax code to close these loopholes could generate massive new revenue.

Repeal New Corporate Tax Breaks. Without public hearings, the legislature added new corporate tax breaks worth $2.5 billion annually to the September 2008 and February 2009 budget agreements. The breaks allow corporations to pay taxes on sales revenues only (excluding property and payroll expenses), to transfer tax credits among related companies, and to claim refunds for taxes they have already paid if they report net operating losses. The dozen companies that gross more than $1 billion per year reap a third of the annual multi-billion dollar tax benefit. Reverse the trend and, in 4 years alone, we could save $10 billion.

Reform California’s Criminal Justice System. Criminal justice reform is first and foremost a moral imperative. It is also a financial imperative we can no longer afford to ignore. According to the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, California could save $12 billion in the next five years by: (1) closing the state’s dysfunctional Division of Juvenile Justice and shifting programs to the county level; (2) prioritizing proven addiction-treatment programs over incarceration for minor drug offenses; (3) converting current death sentences to life without parole and suspending prosecutorial pursuit of the death penalty; and (4) excluding non-violent offenders from Three Strikes penalties.

Prop 13 and term-limits reform, legal loopholes, corporate tax breaks, and criminal justice reform — all call for our serious consideration. In addressing the current crisis, let us seek solutions that draw on the guiding ethos of Jewish communal life. Together, we can realign our priorities to create a future of shared prosperity, a future that brings to life the words of the great Mussar teacher, Rabbi Israel Salanter: “The material well-being of my neighbor is my spiritual concern.”

Elissa D. Barrett is Executive Director of the Progressive Jewish Alliance. David N. Myers is Professor of Jewish History at UCLA and a PJA state board member.

California Quagmire Read More »

Are We There Yet?

Leave a Comment / Torah /

When I was an undergraduate, Princeton celebrated the 10-year anniversary of co-education. A T-shirt sold on campus announced: “Ten years of women at Princeton!” Below, in smaller print, it read: “Too bad it took over 200 years.”

I was reminded of that message when reviewing the Torah portion. At the beginning of Devarim, the Israelites stand ready to cross into the Promised Land. Moses summarizes key stages of the journey. Then he adds, “It is 11 days from Horeb [Mt. Sinai] to Kadesh-Barnea [the gateway to the land]” (Deuteronomy 1:2). In other words, it took the Israelites 38 years to make what could have been an 11-day trip. 

Moses reiterates in verses 19-22: “We set out from Horeb and traveled the great and terrible wilderness…. When we reached Kadesh-Barnea, I said to you, ‘… See, Adonai your God has placed this land before you. Go up, take possession….’ Then all of you came to me and said, ‘Let us send spies….’” 

The episode of the spies demonstrated the people’s unreadiness to enter the land. Moses’ timeline is therefore conventionally read as an indictment of the Israelites. “Had you only listened and obeyed, instead of rebelling and complaining,” he implies, “you might have entered the land decades sooner!”

Such rebuke certainly has its place. In their rush to achieve “the good life” — which meant, in their estimation, security, luxury and power — the Israelites actually delayed their own progress. Achieving their ultimate goal and destination required the development of character and skills, which would take time. Looking for the short cut, they extended their journey. Many of the ills of contemporary life in Los Angeles can be characterized the same way. Think of drug addiction, overspending, the lack of genuine community and connection. Demanding immediate gratification causes untold heartache and delay. As Yehoshua ben Chanania taught, there is a long way that is actually short — and a short cut that takes longer (Talmud Eruvin 53b).

Another way to understand Moses’ repetition of the timeline is as a description and instruction about how people operate. Based on personal experience and my pastoral work as a rabbi, it often does take 38 years (give or take) to make an 11-day trip. As Google warns when providing driving directions, “You may find that construction projects, traffic, weather or other events cause conditions to differ from the map results.” 

In life, detours are inevitable, because human beings are always under construction. Yes, we can and should do more to limit sabotage, complaint and procrastination. But the big journeys and important destinations are not usually attained by direct, smooth paths. What may initially seem like a hop, skip and jump — from college to “real life,” from singlehood to marriage, from injury to recovery — can become a course in obstacles. Had you gotten there sooner, you would not have arrived wiser. 

The Israelites needed the journey to be equipped for the destination — and so do we. 

In Deuteronomy, addressing generations that did not stand at Sinai, Moses faced the painful truth that life’s greatest lessons can’t be easily communicated. They have to be experienced. That’s why profound truths may sound like mere clichés — until you live them out and can personally testify to them. Imagine if you could go back in time and tell your teenage self about the wisdom you have accumulated. Even with the compassion and rapport your adult self has for that adolescent, the teenager couldn’t fully understand. 

As we age, we mentor the younger generation and write our ethical wills (both fair summaries of what Moses was attempting in Deuteronomy). Like Moses, we inevitably confront the limits of what can be taught. Words are like guideposts. Each generation and each individual must interpret them — and find their own way. Thank God, the power of Torah does not reside in its words alone.

Imagine a counter-text to our story. What if Moses recounted no struggle, no rebellion, no transition of leadership? What if everyone had followed Moses without dissent or doubt? What if there had been no heartwarming contributions from the entire population to build a Tabernacle for their long desert travels and no heartbreaking encounter with the Golden Calf? What legacy and inspiration would a docile Israelite people have conferred after entering the land quickly and effortlessly?

Raising up a people, like raising children, is demanding work. Parents can sympathize with Moses, who must lead and manage the journey while fielding complaints from the ones he loves. Yet, we look back with nostalgia and longing at our own childhoods, at the youth of our children and grandchildren and at the infancy of our people. In retrospect, we take delight both in the innocence and in the sometimes reckless drive to independence. Did we savor every bit of the journey — even the detours that took us off course? 

Don’t let these musings come only at the end. Appreciate every minute.

Rabbi Debra Orenstein is spiritual leader of Makom Ohr Shalom, editor of the Lifecycles book series (Jewish Lights Publishing), and a frequent scholar-in-residence. The Web site RabbiDebra.com features her audio teaching CDs along with other spiritual resources.

Are We There Yet? Read More »

Shuls Step Up Too

Leave a Comment / Cover Story /

Congregants come into Rabbi Laura Geller’s office at Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills on a regular basis nowadays to share their struggles of lost jobs, homes on the brink of foreclosure and families under unprecedented stress. And she is determined not only to help them, but to make them understand that they are not alone.

“I think the real job of the synagogue is to help transform their personal shame into public action, because this is affecting everybody…. We need to be the good community this bad economy demands,” Geller said. “This is an opportunity, and I do believe that this moment is why synagogues were created.”

Rabbis across Los Angeles are combining practical help with psychological and spiritual support to usher people through some of the toughest times anyone has seen.

Some rabbis have limited the help to private counseling, quietly tapping into discretionary funds and connecting congregants to community resources.

But several congregations — most of them large — have chosen to make economic struggles a programming priority and a focal point for communal discourse through sermons, classes and publications.

Not just rabbis, but congregants have come forward to help each other. Temple Aliyah in Woodland Hills, Adat Ari El in Valley Village and Stephen S. Wise Temple in Bel Air have all created programs where members in fields such as law, finance, mental health or even physical fitness offer fellow members their services, either as consultants, sounding boards, or in reduced-rate or pro-bono sessions.

Temple Emanuel is launching a time bank in the fall, where congregants can put in and take out hours of service — everything from medical consultation to gardening advice or babysitting — and Beth Shir Sholom in Santa Monica is working on a similar program.

Synagogues, especially large ones, also have the benefit of built-in networks job hunters can tap into.

Temple Judea in West Hills brings in more than 100 people the first Tuesday of every month for a speed-dating-style networking meeting. It recently paired up with Valley Beth Shalom in Encino to expand the networking base.

The synagogues connected with each other through The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles’ Valley Alliance, which held meetings to promote collaboration among those providing programs and services.

“One of the things we needed to do was let other people know in the community what everyone is doing so we can try to build on what is already happening,” said Carol Koransky, Valley Alliance executive director.

Richard Banks, a member at Temple Judea, turned to Temple Judea’s Rabbi Dan Moskovitz for support — and to volunteer — when his hours working in human resources were cut and his wife lost her job. He now runs — and uses — Temple Judea’s networking program.

He’s been working closely with Jewish Vocational Service (JVS) in his job search, and also helped set up a program where JVS sends counselors to synagogues, a program recently funded by the Valley Alliance.

“Had it not been for a guy like Rabbi Dan and his positive nature and the fact that he worked hard to put this together, and had it not been for the people at JVS, where would I be?” Banks said. “At least now I have this real feeling that people are out there looking out for me.”

Stephen S. Wise and Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood have both equipped offices in the synagogue where people can search for jobs in good company. Several synagogues are also authorized to submit applications on behalf of congregants for Emergency Cash Grants from Federation. 

Hoping that struggling members continue to turn to the synagogues, most congregations have committed to more dues relief.

“I think the biggest issue for people is how it feels when all of a sudden your very delicate and fragile sense of self-worth gets translated into cold hard numbers in terms of money,” said Rabbi Neil Comess-Daniels of Beth Shir Sholom.

“I think the message from the Jewish community has to be that you are not what you do for a living, and you are not how much money you make. You are, most importantly, a human being, and in the case of Jewish human beings, we have chosen for ourselves the role of being fixers and healers. How much more so should we be fixing and healing ourselves, so we can fix and heal each other.”

Shuls Step Up Too Read More »

When The Going Gets Tough, Where Do You Go?

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Annette Klein opens the door to her mid-Wilshire duplex and excuses herself to finish getting ready for a weekend in Newport Beach with her 6-year-old daughter. She starts talking, asking tons of questions and reminiscing about vacations she used to take when she was at the top of the entertainment industry. Her home, her movements, her New York cadence and confidence make clear she is a woman accustomed to success.

Except that Klein (not her real name), who is around 50, is on unemployment compensation and owes $30,000 in credit card debt. A few months ago she received $1,500 as an emergency cash grant from The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles to pay her rent, and her daughter is now on scholarship at Temple Emanuel Day School. (The much-needed weekend in Newport will cost her nothing, thanks to a friend.)

Klein was a vice president for a large entertainment firm for 19 years until 2005 — the same year she got divorced — when her position was eliminated. Living on severance and savings, she took some time off to spend with her then-2-year-old daughter and to regroup. She started job hunting in 2007 and has pursued everything from corporate jobs to work as a nanny, but she is still unemployed. She is now scraping the bottom of her pillaged 401k.

“It’s been very humbling and very scary,” she said. “I don’t have a husband; my family is in New York, and I find that when I call people I worked with for years, or people I helped, they don’t return my calls. Nobody wants to step up in the corporate world. The Jewish world is the only place I’ve gotten help.”

As the global financial crisis nears the one-year mark, its effects are sinking deeper, including into the Jewish community, where rabbis, communal leaders and social service providers are seeing a spike in the number of people — from the chronically impoverished to the formerly middle class — finding themselves with empty refrigerators, unpaid bills and homes approaching foreclosure.

Those same leaders attest to one hopeful sign: The Los Angeles Jewish community has responded to this crisis with well-coordinated sensitivity, even in the face of serious fundraising challenges and government cuts that have forced budget cuts.

The safety net stretches from small synagogues to the top offices in Federation: Congregations have created networking and service-bartering programs (see story on Page 14); the community’s social service organizations have shifted diminishing resources to serve more people; the Jewish Community Foundation and The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles have established initiatives ensuring that organizations can provide, and clients can access, the multiple services needed to handle the ripples of losing one’s job, home and security. Federation and the Foundation have earmarked $1.5 million to go directly into the hands of individuals or service agencies by the end of this year.

“The Jewish institutional response and the Jewish communal response to the economic crisis has been remarkable,” said Richard Siegel, interim director of the School of Jewish Communal Service at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR). Individuals, agencies, synagogues and umbrella organizations “have responded quickly, creatively and with a level of seriousness that this situation requires,” Siegel continued. “I think it has been an extraordinary example of a community responding to a crisis in a concrete and deliberative way.”

At the same time, sagging fundraising and government budget cuts have meant that many agencies have had to slash services even as more people need help. Giving everyone what they really need is nearly impossible, leaders say.

“Communities generally agree that they are doing more, but often far less than what the bottom line needs are,” said Steven Windmueller, dean of the Los Angeles campus of HUC-JIR and a professor of Jewish communal service. Windmueller recently published a paper on the impact of the economic crisis on American Jewry, and he said Los Angeles scores high for its response.

“We often negate federation systems and say they are problematic, out of date and structurally impaired, but in these kinds of critical times they reassert their core value,” Windmueller said. Agencies, he said, need to be prepared to stay in this for the long term, as Jewish poverty becomes more widespread.

For her part, Klein remains optimistic her situation will turn around quickly. She hopes to start her own business — “I’ll have made $1 million by next year at this time, and have a house with a backyard so we can get a dog,” she promises — but meanwhile she is grateful for the help.

“It was strange getting that [Federation] money, but I felt gratitude and I felt deserving of it, because everyone needs help once in a while. I’ve loaned people money when I was making money and people couldn’t pay their rent,” she said.

Kids help pack groceries for the needy every Thursday at the Tomchei Shabbos wearhouse.

Even as Klein’s hardship is becoming more common, her willingness to get help is something many Jews have to learn how to do.

Jewish tradition teaches that keeping yourself healthy and sustained is a top priority — tzedakah, after all, starts in the home — but many Jews have a hard time accepting help, much less searching for it.

“One of the biggest challenges is the shame people feel,” said Jeff Bernhardt, director of Temple Aliyah’s Community of Caring outreach program. “How do you help people who don’t let you know they need help? How do you help people who would rather sell all their furniture before they let the rabbi know they may lose their home? How do you help a Jewish person recognize they are eligible for food stamps?”

What this meltdown is proving is that no one is immune from the possibility of moving from the giving end to the receiving end.

“We’re seeing a growing population of people who call themselves middle class — they’re in the financial industry, in the entertainment or the mortgage industry. We’ve had people who were well prepared — they had savings to live on for a year. But after a year, the money is all gone,” said Joan Mithers, director of SOVA Community Food and Resource Program, a food pantry.

“What volunteers and staff can see clearly at SOVA is that there isn’t a big distinguishing line between those who have enough to eat and those who don’t,” she continued. “How many paychecks away from it are any of us? One paycheck? Five paychecks? How long can anyone go?”

 

Emergency Cash

Last March, Federation launched a $500,000 Emergency Cash Grant program, $250,000 of the funds coming from the Jewish Community Foundation. The simple premise: Give people a meaningful amount of money quickly. By filling out a one-page application, recipients, who must be Jewish, can get up to $750 for individuals, $1,500 for families of up to four, and $1,800 for larger families.

“There was complete alignment among every decision maker that we had to make this as non-bureaucratic as possible,” said Andrew Cushnir, executive vice president of Jewish Federation, who oversees the umbrella organization’s focus on serving the vulnerable. “We are cutting checks faster than we have for anything else.”

As of June 30, the fund had given a total of $260,000 to 195 families.

Grant recipients apply either through a Federation agency or 16 synagogues and other organizations that can verify applicants’ claims.

“We are partnering with people on the ground who are making a difference in the community, so we’ve been able to stretch the safety net,” Cushnir said.

Federation also allocated an additional $100,000 to social service agencies above what had been budgeted for the year.

Cushnir acknowledges that the amount of a single grant might not be enough to be life altering, but it can cover a month’s rent or insurance premiums, or be enough to fix a car needed for job interviews. One family used it to clear up a pharmaceutical bill so their medications wouldn’t be cut off. A father in his 40s who had been evicted used it to pay for a cell phone and post office box so he could continue his employment search while living in his car.

“We had to do a balancing act to try to help as many people as possible and at the same time try to provide real help,” said Cushnir.

The grant process also brings the applicant into the social service network so they can be referred to other front-line agencies .

 

One-Stop Shopping

Because people in need often require more than one kind of service, Federation also has worked on creating one-stop shops. It hosted two resource fairs in the last few months, and its northern arm, the Valley Alliance, has hosted two meetings with agency and synagogue leaders to coordinate and link services.

More than a year ago, Jewish Family Service (JFS) set up a centralized phone line (877-275-4537), where callers can give all their information to one social worker, who then connects them to the appropriate agencies.

“Once you have to make that call for help, which is very difficult, you don’t want to have to run all over the place and get shunted from one office to the other to get to the right place,” said Vivian Sauer, associate director of JFS. “It goes along with the whole mindset of making things as easy as possible for people who now have to ask for help who never had to ask before.”

The number of calls to the central intake line has climbed to about 30 a day, most related to the financial crisis — once-comfortable families who now have no income, no medical insurance, long-pending rent or mortgage payments. Many also have marriages on the brink of dissolution and children reacting to the anxiety.

JFS serves 180,000 meals to seniors — more than its government grants support.

But just as demand has jumped, government funding has been cut, and philanthropic dollars diminished. Clients who used to pay on a sliding-scale system now have nothing to give.

Already, JFS has had to shutter two of its five storefront counseling centers. Programs aimed at supporting the elderly, abused and disabled are on the chopping block due to California cuts.

“What we are trying to do is maintain at least a minimum level of safety net services for the Jewish community so that people will have a place to turn to,” Sauer said.

In the last year, Federation restructured its allocation system so that agencies like JFS, which used to get operational budgets, now have to apply for that money in open competition with other organizations.

If that system chips away at core agencies, as many fear it will, mobilizing resources to respond to a crisis could be more difficult next time.

“When you downsize or take apart the system, what do you lose?” Windmueller asked. “If you have a weakened JFS, whether due to reduced support by Federation, reduced state and federal funding, or by the general effects of the downturn in the economy, you can’t as quickly rev it up and reconstruct the delivery services in times of crisis.” 

But Michelle Wolf, assistant director of Federation’s Serving the Vulnerable Pillar, said the restructured system allows for quick and broad action.

“We are building partners outside the traditional network, so we can do an environmental canvas and see what is happening, where we can connect programs to each other and where we can partner with them,” Wolf said. “Rather than just looking inside ourselves, we look out into the community.”

 

It’s Not About the Food

One traditional agency that is at ground zero in this crisis is SOVA, where demand is up nearly 50 percent this year.

Seventeen employees — six of them part time — and 200 volunteers will fill 90,000 orders at pantries in Van Nuys, Pico-Roberston and the Fairfax area by the end of 2009. Clients are allowed 16 pounds of groceries per household member, about a week’s worth of dry goods, canned food, diapers and baby food, and fresh dairy, meat, produce and bread.

Touch of Kindness, an independent organization that home-delivers weekly grocery packages to about 250 families through its Tomchei Shabbos arm, has increased its clientele by about 25 percent, according to volunteer director Rabbi Yonah Landau. The organization also provides appliances, clothing, diapers and help with rent and expenses.

Tomchei Shabbos and SOVA both say to ask for food indicates larger problems.

“Hunger isn’t just about needing food — it’s about not having access to all kinds of resources you need,” SOVA director Mithers said.

All first-time clients at SOVA meet with a resource specialist who connects them to government programs or other nonprofits. For the last three years, the Community Connections program has provided onsite counselors from Jewish Vocational Service, lawyers from Bet Tzedek legal services and representatives of government aid organizations.

A similar approach underlies the Jewish Community Foundation’s Jewish Family Relief Network, which funds front-line service providers and links them through a shared database making interagency referrals simpler.

The Foundation launched the network in May after applications for Cutting Edge Grants, the Foundation’s mechanism for seeding new programs in the Los Angeles Jewish community, fell by about 50 percent.

At its February board meeting, the Foundation decided to redirect $1 million of the Cutting Edge money toward community relief; $250,000 went to The Federation’s Emergency Cash Grant program and $750,000 created the Jewish Family Relief Network.

The network funds services for new clients at five programs — Jewish Family Service, Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters (JBBBS), Jewish Free Loan, JVS and the Bureau of Jewish Education. Since May, nearly 300 families have been entered into the database.

 

More than Money

Joshua Entis benefited directly from the Jewish Family Relief Network. Entis had already received a $5,000 scholarship from JBBBS to attend Portland State University, plus more help from JVS and Jewish Free Loan. The Jewish Family Relief Network enabled JBBBS to give him another $2,500 — much needed, since his mother, who suffers from debilitating depression, had to stop giving Entis food money when her work hours were recently cut. His father is not in his life.

To Entis, the money he gets from JBBBS, while appreciated, is secondary to other help he has received from the organization.

Since he was 8, Entis has been matched up with volunteer big brother Doug Braun. Braun, whose own children are grown, takes him snowboarding, to baseball games and introduced him to good music. He also taught him discipline.

“Doug put inside my head that I need to try as hard as I can and not give up and have a positive attitude, because if I’m doing that, I can do whatever I put my mind to,” Entis said.

He spends summers working at JBBBS’ Camp Max Straus, where 1,000 low-income children from all backgrounds get a free summer camp experience in the Verdugo Mountains.

JBBBS has 200 matches like Entis and Braun, all Jewish, and another 300 matches between high school and lower school students. The organization boasts four times the national retention rate of other big brother organizations, but budget cuts recently meant layoffs, said director Margy Feldman.

Feldman is trying not to cut into client services, since 90 percent of clients are living at poverty level and now some volunteers, in addition to client families, are asking for grocery cards, discretionary fund money and Emergency Cash Grants. She has been referring more people to JVS and Jewish Free Loan.

 

Built On Trust

Sometimes it is the unexpected that sends people to Jewish Free Loan.

Shari Hamel (not her real name) seriously injured her arm and shoulder in a fall last January. She needed surgery, and was out of work for five months.

As a self-employed aesthetician, she wasn’t eligible for unemployment. She had stopped paying for disability years ago. Her husband’s commissions in his sales job had plummeted by about 30 percent since November. And with things so tight, they had opted not to put her on his health insurance plan.

MediCal ended up covering $75,000 in hospital bills, but she still owes the state nearly $4,000. The Hamels, who had always lived securely if not lavishly, have managed to pay the mortgage on their Long Beach home, but now they’re delinquent on property taxes and have $20,000 in credit card debt. Hamel is deeply embarrassed about her situation, so keeps it quiet from her friends.

On the advice of her niece, who had gotten loans for college, Hamel visited Jewish Free Loan.

“They were so respectful and kind, and just very non-intrusive. I brought this pile of bills and paperwork, and it was done so much more on trust,” said Hamel. She received a $3,000 loan to help cover expenses, and also got help applying for an Emergency Cash Grant of $1,500.

Jewish Free Loan of Los Angeles has about $8.5 million out in 2,800 interest-free loans, and demand this year has been up about 30 percent from loan funds that cover everything from medical expenses to college tuition to business startups.

“We’re seeing situations where if two parents are working and one loses a job, the family runs into a difficult situation. We’ve seen this situation before, but never quite like this,” said Mark Meltzer, executive director of Jewish Free Loan.

 

New Beginnings

Elyssa Berger worked for a title insurance company that was one of the first to close last year.

“It was traumatic,” said Berger, 45, a single mother of two. “I was completely shocked. The money from unemployment didn’t help, and all of a sudden I had this $900 COBRA payment for health insurance.”

JVS had helped Berger 11 years before, after her divorce. This time, a career priorities assessment with JVS helped her realize her goals had changed — her kids were in college, with funds to pay for that, so she didn’t need to earn as much. She decided to go to nursing school. She took some prerequisites and connected with a nurse through JVS’ women’s mentoring program and is now waiting to hear which program has accepted her.

“It was the best thing that could have happened to me,” Berger said.

Demand has spiked for JVS’ programs — everything from its ParnossahWorks.com job-matching service to resume writing workshops to practice interviews. All of the services are provided for low fees that often are waived.

JVS has seen a shift in its usual clientele of the chronically unemployed.

“In the last year we have seen a major up-tick in the number of people seeking our services who have had fairly stable careers, white-collar careers in a variety of industries,” said Jay Soloway, director of career and business services at JVS.

Many clients haven’t looked for jobs for years and are unprepared for the new methods — online job boards, resumes that get scanned for keywords by computers, new skills required for new fields.

JVS has started its own peer support groups for job seekers and regularly refers people for counseling to Jewish Family Service.

JVS has also shifted resources to be able to handle the higher volume of people. While much of the work is still one-on-one, things like resume writing or developing your 90-second pitch are now handled in group workshops.

Bet Tzedek legal services has opted for a similar realignment. The free legal-aid organization sees about 12,000 clients a year with about 60 people on staff and 1,000 volunteers. Attorneys who in the past might have been put on a time-consuming case are now assigned to loan restructuring work, which is less labor-intensive. Attorneys are also working on getting Holocaust survivors as much as they can from reparation funds, so the survivors can stay afloat with basic necessities.

“From a resources perspective, the need has gone through the roof, and we can help more people this way,” said Bet Tzedek Executive Director Mitch Kamin.

Bet Tzedek is also authorized to apply for Federation’s Emergency Cash Grants for its clients.

And the renewed spirit of collaboration has won kudos all around.

“It’s nice to see the Jewish community’s service providers coming together. We have a good history of collaborating, and now we’re spending a lot of time talking with each other about how we can most effectively meet these needs,” Kamin said.

“It’s a good feeling to be part of a community that really cares and has the expertise, too. The challenge now is to sustain the support for the organizations that are providing such important work.”

 

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Bet Tzedek Wins Pro Bono Award

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When some “2,500 young and fashionable professionals” dance this Saturday night during the Bet Tzedek Justice Ball at the Hollywood Palladium, they will have something extra to celebrate.

The American Bar Association has just announced that Bet Tzedek Legal Services has been selected for a 2009 Pro Bono Publico (for the public good) Award, the legal profession’s highest recognition for public service.

This honor recognizes the Los Angeles-based free law agency that serves the poor, elderly and disabled, for establishing the Holocaust Survivors Justice Network, an international initiative to help survivors obtain reparation payments from the German government.

Considered the largest pro bono program of its kind in U.S. history, the Justice Network is the first nationally coordinated effort to assure that aging survivors receive the reparations to which they are entitled.

Creation of the network was triggered 18 months ago by a new, and perhaps final, reparations initiative, the German Ghetto Work Payment Program.

It applies to a little-known class of Jews who worked in the Nazi-run ghettos of Eastern Europe on a “voluntary” or “at will” basis. Such “volunteers” were compensated by meager payments or an extra loaf of bread and may have had little actual choice in that they wanted to survive, but they were differentiated from forced laborers.

Eligible survivors, last year estimated at 50,000 to 60,000 worldwide, can receive a one-time payment of 2,000 euros, approximately $2,800. The payment may appear small, but can make a big difference to survivors, now in their 80s and 90s, of whom more than 25 percent live below the poverty line.

With lengthy experience in aiding survivors, Bet Tzedek was quickly on top of the intricacies of the ghetto work program but realized that there were many other American cities without such expertise.

Out of such considerations grew the Justice Network, begun through a partnership between Bet Tzedek and the law firm of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, with the firm’s senior attorney, Stanley W. Levy, helming the effort on a volunteer basis.

From a standing start 18 months ago, the Justice Network has now established operations in 31 cities in the United States and Canada, and two more in Australia.

Mitchell A. Kamin, Bet Tzedek’s president and CEO, cited additional impressive statistics. The network has enlisted 3,600 attorneys, paralegals and other legal experts from 100 law firms and corporate legal departments, complemented by professionals from more than 30 Jewish social service agencies. In Los Angeles, partners include the Righteous Persons Foundation and the Jewish Community Foundation.

The volunteers have donated an estimated 45,000 hours interviewing about 5,000 survivors and filing some 3,000 claims worth approximately $8 million in potential reparation payments.

In sharp contrast to some previous reparation programs, practically all applications so far have been approved by the German government.

The manpower involved in the project varies from city to city, according to the size of its survivor population.

In New York, with the largest concentration of survivors outside Israel, some 900 legal professionals conduct weekly clinics throughout the five boroughs and have so far screened and assisted 1,675 survivors.

By contrast, in Omaha, Neb., one lawyer, Robert Cohen, has taken responsibility for the city’s 26 resident survivors, even personally chauffeuring them to their appointments.

For many of the participating lawyers, the project has been their first encounter with survivors and the most fulfilling assignments of their careers, said Manatt attorney Levy.

The Pro Bono Publico Awards will be presented to Bet Tzedek, and to four law firms for separate projects, on Aug. 3 at the American Bar Association’s annual meeting in Chicago.

Back to the July 25 Justice Ball, which has been rated by publications expert in these things as “an evening of music, dance and hot summer fun” and “ the coolest thing to do in town.”

The evening’s headliner is DJ AM, aka Adam Goldstein, billed as one of the world’s premier turntable artists and the host of a new reality show on MTV.

This will be the 13th annual Justice Ball, and it is expected to raise $400,000 for Bet Tzedek’s free services.

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COMMUNITY BRIEFS: Law suit Filed Against Wiesenthal Center, Camps Respond to Flu Symptoms

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Homeowners File Suit Against Wiesenthal Center Expansion

Neighboring homeowners to the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance, who have been battling a proposed expansion of the museum for the past two years, have filed a lawsuit in Superior Court seeking to force the Los Angeles City Council to reverse its previous approval of the project.

In a 22-page brief, lawyers for HOME (Homeowners Opposed to Museum Expansion) charged that the expansion would violate state environmental quality standards, ignore previous violations and remove a 100-foot sound barrier between the museum and adjoining homes.

The most emotional objections are to a planned banquet hall for private functions of up to 800 people, which would be allowed to stay open until 11 p.m. or midnight, causing noise and traffic problems.

However, attorney Arthur Pugsley stated in his petition that “We are not opposed to a modest, bona fide museum expansion.”

Susan Burden, the Wiesenthal Center’s chief financial and administrative officer, responded in a statement, which said in part, “Since it opened 15 years ago, the museum has worked diligently with neighbors to respond to any concerns that arise.

“Now that our expansion plan has been unanimously approved by the City Planning Commission and the Los Angeles City Council, we will continue to work with the community on any issues that remain. The museum substantially revised its original plan and made a great many compromises in response to neighborhood comments.

“We are very disappointed that a lawsuit has been filed by a few disgruntled people and that we will have to expend resources to defend our approval, which would be better used to support our programs. However, we intend to vigorously defend our approval in court.”

The Wiesenthal Center and its Yeshiva University of Los Angeles (YULA) Boys High School are named as “Real Parties in Interest” in the suit, but the primary defendant is the city council, which will be represented by the city attorney’s office.

Frank Matelgan, spokesman for newly elected City Attorney Carmen Trutanich, said he could not comment at this time because his office had not yet received the complaint.

Friction between the Wiesenthal Center and its neighbors in North Beverlywood is long-standing, going back to the initial hearings on the YULA plans in 1977, and for the Museum of Tolerance in 1986.

Relations had been relatively stable for eight years, but heated up again when the Wiesenthal Center announced the current expansion plans in the fall of 2007.

The Museum of Tolerance is located within the 5th City Council District, represented for the past eight years by Jack Weiss, who was considered a strong ally of the institution.

Paul Koretz, who succeeded Weiss, has just assumed office, but there is little doubt that he will play an important role in the future as the dispute enters a new phase.

— Tom Tugend, Contributing Editor

Camps Respond to Flu Symptoms

Halfway through the summer, area Jewish sleepover summer camps are still feeling the effects of this summer’s unusually contagious flu season.

During its current three-week session, Camp Alonim in Simi Valley has sent home 160 campers (out of 414) because they displayed influenza-like symptoms. This is a drastically higher number than the 10 children sent home during Alonim’s first session in late June. The wave of sick campers peaked on Sunday, July 12, and since then there has been a steady decrease in children with 99.5-degree temperatures (or above), the marker for those who need to be sent home for at least seven days’ recovery.

Camp Ramah in Ojai has sent 80 of its 900 campers and staff home since opening its doors to campers in June. Its first session ended on July 20. Only 29 of those had confirmed cases of influenza.

The Wilshire Boulevard Temple Camps have been impacted as well, and although camp director Doug Lynn would not confirm how many, he said “a number of kids were sent home in the first session.” He said just one camper has exhibited flu-like symptoms in the camps’ second session, which began on June 15.

While not all campers with influenza were confirmed to have H1N1 (swine flu), Alonim sent an e-mail to parents informing them that the extreme caution in sending kids home stemmed from the fact that the flu they encountered is so contagious.

All camps are following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines and allowing children to return to camp seven days after first exhibiting symptoms, or one day after the fever subsides, whichever is longer. Ramah said it has had a 95 percent return rate. 

Alonim’s executive director, Jordana Flores, said the camp’s first wave of those who left is just returning to camp this week. “We are making a concerted effort to welcome them back with bunk programs and announcements and signs, so we’re really making an effort to make sure that it is a smooth transition.”

Reimbursement of tuition for missed days varies by camp. Hess Kramer and Alonim have a prorated refund policy — Alonim gives a refund for every day the child has missed, even if they choose not to return. Ramah does not issue refunds, because it offers tuition insurance.

Two other Jewish camps, Camp Gilboa and JCA Shalom, both say they have not had any campers with symptoms. According to Gilboa camp director Jacob Proud, “Statistically it is the same as any summer.” Children are suffering from the usual stomachaches, pink eye and fevers that go away after re-hydration.

Precautions are nevertheless being taken to protect campers. JCA Shalom cancelled a community-wide Shabbat service on July 17 to preempt possible exposure from visitors. Ramah also cancelled its visitor’s day and replaced it with a campers’ fun day, complete with a petting zoo.

— Laura Stampler, Contributing Writer

County Supervisor Antonovich Protests 2010 Wagner ‘Ring Festival L.A.’

At a meeting of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, Michael D. Antonovich objected to Los Angeles Opera’s long-planned 2010 “Ring Festival L.A.” because of its celebration of the composer Richard Wagner.

Antonovich, who represents the 5th District, including much of northern Los Angeles County, said in a statement prior to the meeting: “To specifically honor and glorify the man whose music and racist anti-Semitic writings inspired Hitler and became the de facto soundtrack for the Holocaust in a countywide festival is an affront to those who have suffered or have been impacted by the horrors of Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist Worker Party.”

His motion was turned down in a vote of 3 to 1, with Supervisor Mark Ridley Thomas absent from the voting.

Set to take place between April and June 2010, and include all four parts of Wagner’s 19th century “The Ring of the Nibelung” for the first time in Los Angeles, the “Ring Festival L.A.” is scheduled to include a partnership with 75 other cultural and educational institutions throughout Los Angeles, with symposia and special exhibitions discussing the cycles’ importance. It is expected to attract tourists from around the world.

Antonovich’s office told The Journal that it had received many objections from people to the Wagner festival. The Jewish position on the composer is not one-sided, however.

In a cover story for The Journal titled “Why Wagner’s Music Deserves a Second Chance” (Feb. 19, 2009), attorney E. Randol Schoenberg, who is president of the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust and a board member of the LA Opera, argued that the composer’s work deserves an airing and reevaluation by the Jewish community.

LA Opera’s Web site acknowledges that Wagner is “rightly reviled as having been an anti-Semite,” but adds “it is the Company’s belief that opera has value not only as musical and theatrical entertainment, but as a way to gain important historical insight and to explore moral issues.” Seminars will be held throughout the festival, including discussions of Wagner’s anti-Semitism.

— Laura Stampler, Contributing Writer

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NATION/WORLD BRIEFS: Agriprocessors Sold, Olmert Case, Mumbai Gunman Confesses

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Agriprocessors Sold,to Remain Kosher

The Agriprocessors plant in Postville, Iowa, was sold to a Canadian company.

SHF Industries, a company formed in May by Canadian plastics manufacturer Hershey Friedman and his son-in-law Daniel Hirsch, bought the failed kosher meatpacking plant for $8.5 million. The sale was approved Monday by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Iowa.

Friedman, an observant Jew, indicated in interviews that he plans to continue operating the business as a meatpacking plant focusing on kosher products. He told the Mishpacha Jewish Family Weekly that he hopes to have production up and running in time for the High Holidays.

The purchase price was well below the $22 million the plant owes to unsecured creditors, including back wages and benefits to hundreds of employees. It is also much less than the $40 million Soglowek Nahariya Ltd. of Israel was prepared to offer going into a March auction for the bankrupt company. The company rescinded before the auction took place.

According to the Iowa Independent, SHF will advance $1.8 million to the Agriprocessors estate in order to pay debts owed to First Bank Business Capital and MLIC Mortgage. Under the conditions of the sale, the new owners do not have to make good on any other debts owed.

Agriprocessors, formerly the largest kosher meat producer in the United States, has been operating at a fraction of its capacity since a May 2008 raid that trained a national spotlight on the issue of illegal immigration. It also forced the Jewish community to grapple with issues relating to the ethical treatment of workers at Jewish-owned businesses. Several company officials have faced criminal charges for their roles in employing the illegal workers and other alleged violations.

Second Corruption Case Against Olmert Closed

Israel’s attorney general closed a corruption case against Ehud Olmert.

Menachem Mazuz announced Monday that he was closing the case over the purchase of a home on a desirable street in Jerusalem due to a lack of evidence.

The former prime minister was accused of receiving a kickback via a $500,000 discount on the home in exchange for arranging for special building permits for the building company. The home was purchased in 2004 for $1.2 million; it is worth up to $1.8 million.

The Jerusalem District Prosecutor’s Office had recommended closing the case, saying two months ago that there was not enough evidence to convict Olmert, according to reports.

It is the second investigation to be closed against Olmert since he resigned as prime minister in the wake of several investigations against him.

Mazuz has decided to file charges against Olmert in three other cases, pending hearings.

 

Mumbai Gunman Confesses

The only surviving gunman from last November’s Mumbai attacks pleaded guilty in an Indian court.

Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, a 21-year-old Pakistani citizen, was charged Monday with 86 separate offenses in the three-day attack including murder and waging war against India, according to reports.

Some 166 people died in the attack, which targeted two hotels, the train station and the Chabad center of Mumbai. The Chabad rabbi and his wife, Rabbi Gavriel and Rivkah Holtzberg, as well as three other Jewish victims, were killed during the siege. The Holtzbergs’ 2-year-son, Moshe, escaped with his caregiver.

Kasab, who had pleaded not guilty in May, is facing a possible death sentence. He is the only one of the 10 alleged gunmen captured alive during the attacks.

Kasab rose in court during routine interviewing of witnesses and confessed his guilt, Reuters reported.

 

Settlers Allegedly Set Fireto Palestinian Olive Trees

Palestinian security officials said Israeli settlers set fire to at least 1,500 Palestinian-owned olive trees in the West Bank, according to Israeli reports.

Israeli media, including Ha’aretz, Ynet and the Jerusalem Post, quoting Palestinian sources that the fires were purposely set Monday by settlers, speculated that the fires allegedly were set as part of a “price tag” policy in which radical settlers retaliate for outpost removals with attacks on Palestinian property.

The fires in groves near Nablus came after police on Monday morning removed illegal structures in three West Bank outposts in the area. The outposts themselves were not evacuated.

Palestinian officials also said two Palestinian motorists were injured and five cars damaged by rocks near the Yitzhar settlement.

 

Women’s Forum Selects Term for Female Rabbi

The Hebrew title for an ordained female rabbi is “rabba,” a religious women’s forum decided.

Participants in the Kolech Religious Women’s Forum conference in Jerusalem last week voted to select a title, Ynet reported.

The voting comes several months after a woman completed the same course of training and examination as male Orthodox rabbinical students at a liberal Orthodox seminary in New York City and was given the title maharat, a Hebrew acronym that stands for Torah leader, halachic and spiritual.

The Kolech board of directors will now appeal to the Hebrew Language Academy in Israel to make the word rabba an official part of the lexicon.

Other suggestions had included “maharat,” “rav” and “hachama,” or wise.

 

Bibi Signs Off on Plan to Evacuate Outposts

The Israel Defense Forces is formulating a plan to evacuate two dozen illegal outposts in one day, an Israeli newspaper reported.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved the idea for the plan to evacuate the 23 outposts built after March 2001, the daily Ha’aretz reported Tuesday.

A joint exercise to prepare for the planned evacuation took place last week and was carried out by the Border Police, the police and the IDF, according to Ha’aretz.

The IDF told Ha’aretz that it was keeping the preparations for the evacuation as vague as possible except to upper echelon leaders to prevent soldiers who “identify with the settlers” from leaking the plans to them.

 

Israelis Questioned in Human Egg Trafficking Case

Some 30 Israelis suspected of being involved in human egg trafficking were detained for questioning in Romania.

Most were released Monday following questioning by police; some returned to Israel after posting large bonds. Others, considered “persons of interest,” were forbidden to leave the country. The Israeli owners of the clinic have been remanded for 29 days, Ynet reported.

The Israelis were caught during a raid on a Bucharest fertility clinic that was alleged to have been operating without the necessary permits, according to reports. Other reports suggested that the clinic was trafficking in human eggs and stem cells.

Israeli women suspected of selling their eggs were questioned, as were Israeli doctors involved in the clinic.

Under Romanian law, egg donation is permissible as long as the donor does not get paid and the egg extraction takes place in an authorized clinic, Ynet reported.

 

Appropriators Single Out Six Israeli Institutions

U.S. Senate appropriators named six Israeli health and education institutions among 15 recommended for U.S. funding.

The Senate Appropriations Committee on July 9 approved the 2010 foreign operations appropriations bill and referred it to the full Senate.

In a report accompanying the bill, it named 15 institutions that the appropriators suggested were deserving of U.S. Agency for International Development assistance under the USAID Schools and Hospitals Abroad program. Six of those were Israeli; three were Lebanese.

Report language is not mandatory, but agencies usually pay close attention to such recommendations .

The six Israeli institutions are Ashdod Emergency Medical Center; Edith Wolfson Medical Center in Holon; the Feinberg Graduate School of the Weizmann Institute of Science; Hadassah Medical Organization; Hebrew University; and Tel Aviv University.

 

Meridor: Israel, U.S. Agreedon Settlements

Israel and the United States agreed six years ago that Israel could build within the boundaries of existing settlements, an Israeli Cabinet member said.

Intelligence Affairs Minister Dan Meridor told reporters Tuesday that Israel and the U.S. had a clear agreement dating back six years, and that Israel had honored its commitment to the Middle East peace “road map.”

Meridor was a close confidante of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and served his government as a minister without portfolio.

At a briefing organized by The Israel Project, Meridor said that the Obama administration’s failure to recognize the previous understandings was “deeply problematic,” the Jerusalem Post reported.

Meridor said the Israeli government endorsed the road map’s vision for Palestinian statehood — the first time such a specific endorsement has been made — and recognized that agreements under the road map were binding on all parties.

Briefs courtesy Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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Let Tisha B’Av Stir Hunger for Giving

Leave a Comment / Judaism /

At Tisha B’Av this year, think of fasting as a tzedakah stimulus plan. By observing this day of mourning, by not eating, our hunger can stimulate us to look beyond our own tables. Coming in the middle of summer, amid barbecues, picnics and trips to the ballpark, the day dedicated each year to the historic loss of Jerusalem and other Jewish calamities can be one of spiritual recovery.

You just need a little change.

For the last couple of years, I have partially fasted, not noshing from sundown until noon the next day, skipping breakfast as a kind of warm-up for Yom Kippur, convincing myself it’s the thought that counts.

This year, I want to make it till nightfall on July 30; the holiday starts the prior sundown.

How hard can this be? In a society obsessed with lap belts, liquid diets and calorie counts, where reality show contestants routinely are stuck starving in tropical nowheres, it can’t be that difficult to go without food for a day.

I can do that … mostly.

Hold that thought while I gather some loose change on my desk.

Truth is, some of us can barely drag ourselves through a Yom Kippur of no coffee, chips or dips. Contemplating another day sans burgers is almost too much.

Additionally, the Jewish calendar includes a number of other fast days, like the Fast of Esther, when we sacrifice only from dawn till night. Others include the Fast of Gedaliah, the 10th of Tevet and a fast on the 17th of Tammuz to mark the breach of the walls of Jerusalem.

… there’s also some change near the clothes dryer.

Why do we fast? Are we looking for spiritual weight gain?

Fasting seems so counter-intuitive to Judaism, or at least the way we experience it: We celebrate, we eat. We mourn, we eat — people even bring food to us.

Our practice, our identification with Jewish life, is stuffed with scenes of abundance: two loaves of challah on Shabbat, baskets of goodies on Purim, cake at meetings, cake at temple. OK, so maybe it’s just trail mix on the picket line.

And don’t forget the shelves and shelves, the libraries of Jewish cookbooks. Even the Essenes sat down together for a meal.

… and a couple of singles by the front door.

Judaism does offer several heavy reasons to fast: for mourning and loss; seeking purity and for forgiveness; and for awareness. On Tisha B’Av, we fast to mourn the destruction of the first and second Temples.

Though I try to connect, those events are so remote. I want to fast in remembrance; I need a push.

For motivation, I can read the verses in Lamentations that describe the utter destruction and desolation: “for your ruin is vast as the sea.” Or turn to the expulsions, persecutions and martyrdom that also befell the Jewish people near or on this day.

Jews also fast for a cause. For instance, to draw attention to starvation in Darfur, 80 rabbis, cantors and lay leaders from all the movements recently held a two-day fast, only having water, in solidarity.

This act illustrates well the words of the Prophet Isaiah when he describes the ideal purposes of a fast:

“To unlock the fetters of wickedness, and untie the cords of yoke. To let the oppressed go free, to break off every yoke. It is to share your bread with the hungry, and to take the wretched poor into your home; when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to ignore your own kin. Then shall your light burst through like the dawn.”

Fasting sharpens our conscience, reminding us of those in hunger. This year as I fast, while remembering those days so long ago, I will try to remember and renew the days I live in as well.

… nice, a five crumpled up in my jeans pocket.

Putting aside the burgers, herring, chips, soda and whatever for that day, I am going to take the money saved and send it to one of the many 501(c)3s that always seem to want my attention.

That’s what the change is for.

How much is a day without food worth?

Figures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture allow me to calculate that many of us spend on average $10 per day per person for food. Of course, some of us spend a lot more. Especially while writing an article about fasting.

Think about it. For Tisha B’Av, whether you fast or not, remember the day by giving the cost of food that you would normally eat on this day. I promise, the idea won’t deplete the nation’s treasury or increase the trade deficit.

On the Ninth of Av, your stomach might grumble a bit, but banks will not fail. Food banks might actually gain.

Edmon J. Rodman is a Los Angeles-based writer and designer.

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