January 6, 2010

Julia Greenwald pounded on the door. It was 2 a.m., and she knew the woman inside wasn’t answering because she couldn’t face what was on the other side.

“Your son is going to die tonight. You need to be there,” Greenwald told the woman.

Greenwald found someone to stay with the woman’s other kids and drove her to the hospital. Ten minutes after they arrived, the woman’s 9-year-old son died in his mother’s arms.

Middle of the night visits are not part of Greenwald’s job description at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, where she is a medical social worker in the cystic fibrosis center.

But they are part of her mission, formed in childhood when her sister, Judy, was diagnosed with Familial Dysautonomia, a genetic neurological disorder that at the time had a life expectancy of four to eight years. This month, Judy is throwing herself a 40th birthday bash — she has a college degree, she’s been to Israel, she has a boyfriend.

“My mom felt very alone when my sister was diagnosed, and I wish someone had been there to give them the support and the hope and the education and the sense of shared experience I try to give my families,” Greenwald said. “You need someone to say ‘I’m in this with you, you’re not alone.’”

Cystic fibrosis is a genetic disease that causes thick mucus to build up in the lungs and pancreas, necessitating breathing treatments several times a day and often feeding tubes.

Life expectancy for cystic fibrosis patients was 20 when Greenwald started working at Long Beach Memorial 21 years ago. Now it’s up to 37, and she has two grandmothers among her patients.

Greenwald, 53, counsels patients and their families from diagnosis, usually in infancy, through adolescence and sometimes into adulthood. She is often the one to take a dying child from a hospital bed to place the child in a parent’s arms.

Greenwald goes beyond just counseling. She sees to everything from complimenting a new hairstyle to dropping off an after-hours prescription, to finding a donor to make Christmas happen.

And she tries to attend every funeral and is often asked to speak.

“By the time the kids die, they may have been in the hospital 40 times,” she said. “I know their secrets; I know their strengths; I know which family members can be there to help and which can’t.”

She stays in touch with the families even after the patient has died, calling on holidays or the child’s birthday, long after others assume the parents have gotten past their child’s death.

She also saves time for her other pursuits.

Greenwald and her husband were active in Adat Chaverim, what she calls “a funky little synagogue” that met in a church in Los Alamitos through the 1990s until it disbanded around five years ago. Greenwald volunteered to run the 27-student Hebrew school for eight years, relying on energetic teachers and parent volunteers to make it substantive and fun.

She also stepped up to help save Habonim Dror’s Camp Gilboa, a scrappy Zionist camp that was in deep financial trouble in 2003. Greenwald chaired the committee that raised the money to keep the camp going.

At camp, the compassion and community building that underlie all her passions are in full focus.

“I think that life is too hard to do on your own,” Greenwald said. “You need to belong somewhere. You need to have groups of people who support you and believe in the same things you believe in. People need each other.”

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” title=”Camp Gilboa”>Camp Gilboa

Each year following the Mensch issue, The Jewish Journal is besieged with letters noting that the word mensch is literally translated as man. If The Journal is going to include women on the list, as it rightfully does, what are the feminist implications?

Before you get your gatkes (underwear) in a bunch, let’s examine the etymology of the word more closely. Yes, mensch is translated as man (and, oddly, as employee) in Alexander Harkavy’s Yiddish-English dictionary, the go-to source for Yiddishists. That said, man isn’t the word’s actual meaning. Rather, this translation is merely reflective of a societal prejudice — the way mankind is used to encompass all human beings, or “every man for himself” also includes women.

“The Yiddish word for man is man,” confirms Hinde Ena Burstin, honorary research associate in the Department of Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish Studies at the University of Sydney, whose research is on gender, power, equality and justice in Yiddish poetry by women. “Mensch literally means person. Mensch is also used to denote a particular type of person: a humane, respectful and decent human being who is concerned for others. In either sense of the word, mensch can describe a female or male.”

Burstin acknowledges that there are some people who argue that mensch literally means man. “These tend to be the same people who do not notice women’s strengths, humanity, achievements and contributions to society. Women are invisible to them. They do not recognize women in the word mensch because they do not recognize women.”

As such, there is no need for a new term. “A word already exists that is applicable to women as well as men,” says Burstin. “There is nothing gender-specific about being a mensch, so a gender-specific word is not needed. If we artificially created a feminized form of mensch, or a new female-specific word, this would serve to exclude women from the internationally recognized term mensch and would further marginalize women.”

The problem, Burstin maintains, is not in the Yiddish word, but in the roots of the word’s faulty translations. “What is needed is not a change in the terminology, but a change in attitudes toward women. Women are still undervalued and underrepresented in many Jewish organizations, particularly at executive levels. Women’s contributions to society also receive far less recognition than the achievements and contributions of men.”

Sometimes, in the midst of Shabbat morning davening with her USYers, Merrill Alpert will fall silent for a few moments and listen to the teenagers’ voices.

“It gives me such pride to hear their ruach [spirit] and see them wanting to take part in prayer,” Alpert said recently.

As director of the Far West region of USY (United Synagogue Youth, the Conservative movement’s junior high and high school youth group), Alpert knows there are lots of diversions vying for kids’ attention. Between soccer practice, music lessons and swim team, busy teens often find little time for “being Jewish.”

That’s why it’s so gratifying for her to see hundreds of youths gathered together for a regional USY kinnus (convention), making friends, singing Jewish songs and taking part in religious practices. And for many of these teens, Alpert is the reason they’re there.

In her five years as director of the Far West region — an area that encompasses Southern California, Las Vegas, Arizona and New Mexico, and includes some 1,600 kids — there have been few hats that Alpert hasn’t worn, working well beyond what might be required of her job. She attends all monthly regional meetings, dances, seasonal conventions and camp retreats. She plans programs and coordinates host synagogues for events. She works with teen officers on the regional board, helps build local USY chapters, oversees social action drives, promotes summer Israel programs and — oh yes — does outreach and fundraising.

And all of this while welcoming kids to come to her for advice, guidance and hugs.

Alpert’s commitment to USY began as a child at Valley Beth Shalom in Encino. She remembers looking up to the big kids who got together to celebrate Judaism and practice tikkun olam (healing the world). “That just seemed like the coolest thing to me,” she recalled. “I couldn’t wait to join.”

After actively participating in USY, Alpert got her degree in Jewish studies from UCLA and decided to go into youth work. She coordinated youth programming at several California synagogues,  eventually returning to her old stomping ground to become youth director at VBS, where she stayed for 18 years.

Alpert, then a mother of four teenage daughters, spent nine months in Israel as a Ziv Tzedakah Fund fellow, and when she returned, got her master’s in Jewish communal service from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. When the regional USY director spot opened up, she took it.

Alpert now helms a region that raises about $25,000 annually for Tikkun Olam, the organization’s national tzedakah fund. And she is amazed anew every time she witnesses the devotion kids bring to USY. She considers it her mission to inspire a love of Judaism in each child that keeps them engaged in their faith throughout their lives.

“I want to provide meaningful and spiritual experiences for kids that will make them want to keep being Jewish in the future,” she said.

But Alpert goes beyond being a Jewish role model in these teens’ lives — she’s also a counselor and confidante who guides teens through drug or alcohol problems, abuse at home or who are seeking information about birth control. She is always ready to refer kids to social workers or rehab services.

Kids recognize her sincerity and invite her into their lives in return. Over the years, Alpert has attended weddings, bris and baby naming ceremonies for former USYers, and has signed dozens of ketubot. 

Amy Mendelsohn, who met Alpert at VBS more than a decade ago and worked with her on the regional USY board, can’t say enough about her former advisor. Alpert has inspired thousands of kids to embrace Judaism, she said, and she has had a profound influence on her own life — Mendelsohn is now following in Alpert’s footsteps as a youth advisor at Shomrei Torah.

“Everybody looks to Merrill as a friend, a mother, an educator, a guidance counselor and a role model,” Mendelsohn said. “She’s loving and inspiring and is always there with wide open arms.”

You can be a mensch, too! Join the cause.
Merrill Alpert: Inspiring Youth Read More »

From the cheerful campus of Milken Community High School, Los Angeles’ Skid Row can seem worlds away. But the realities of homelessness and squalor plaguing L.A. city streets were brought home for student Lindsy Seidel last year on a “life-changing” visit.

“What we saw was astonishing,” said Seidel, 17, now a senior at Milken. “There were such horrid conditions. Poverty was something I always knew was there, but never knew much about. It really opened my eyes.”

The visit bolstered Seidel’s commitment to relieving hunger, an issue she has worked on for years through programs at school and when she was chosen as a 2008 Diller Teen Fellow. The Diller fellowship, an intensive 10-month leadership and community service program, taught Seidel “life lessons” that she has already put to use at Milken and throughout the city.

Through the program, Seidel and other Los Angeles Diller teens learned about hunger and homelessness and decided to work with Midnight Mission, an organization that provides food, shelter and employment services to L.A.’s homeless. The teens collected donations from family and friends and made hundreds of hygiene kits — containing basic items like soap and shampoo — to distribute to the organization’s clients. In total, they were able to hand out kits to more than 430 people.

The campaign fit naturally with the work Seidel had already been doing to raise awareness about hunger at Milken. For the past three years, Seidel has chaired a hunger-focused group as part of YOZMA, a social action leadership initiative at the school. The group promotes the issue of hunger and urges other students to get involved, work that Seidel says gives her profound satisfaction.

“I can go and feed someone — it’s almost an instant gratification…. I can immediately see the change I’m making,” she said.

Two years ago, Seidel also encouraged her fellow Milken students to start raising money for Blessings in a Backpack, an organization that provides a backpack full of ready to eat and easy to make foods every Friday to underprivileged public school students. Last year, Milken gave the organization a donation of more than $1,000.

“Something I try to drive home in the Milken community is you never know if you’ll be that person who needs help, so we have to do something now,” Seidel said. “You would want someone to be there to help you.”

Once a month, Seidel and 10 to 12 of her fellow Milken students take part in “SOVA Sundays” at the SOVA Food Bank.

Her dedication to the issue has earned her some notice. In October, Seidel was a Milken representative to the Interfaith Hunger Summit hosted by the Board of Rabbis of Southern California as part of The Jewish Federation’s “Fed Up With Hunger” initiative. There, Seidel addressed Jewish community leaders and Catholic students from Santa Margarita High School in Orange County about her work to advocate against hunger.

“She had such presence and passion and voice,” said Lori Port, senior associate director of education at The Jewish Federation, who was at the convention and also oversaw Seidel’s involvement with the Diller program. “She’s really thinking strategically and communally about how to address hunger. Community service is a huge passion of hers, and she galvanizes other kids to get involved.”

Seidel stresses that she doesn’t only want to donate food as she presses forward with her work — that, she says, is just a “Band-Aid on the problem.” She also wants to learn to advocate at the political level to enact changes in social policy that would more thoroughly tackle the issue.

Next year Seidel will go to college, where she hopes to continue her work to eradicate hunger. “I hope I’m eventually able to create change that is noticeable,” she said. l

Sounds like she’s well on her way.

You can be a mensch, too! Join the cause.
Lindsy Seidel: A Hunger to Supply Relief Read More »

To look at the logo for Big Sunday — a child’s handprint with a heart-shaped center — is to see Charlie Hess’ artful presentation of the community service weekend’s raison d’etre: to lend a helping hand. Since Hess created that logo nine years ago, pro bono, he has continued to lend his hand in many ways, most notably by creating every graphic image for the annual event. This makes Hess one of the key behind-the-scenes people who’ve helped Big Sunday grow from a one-day event with a handful of projects and participants to a weekend-long event, with 50,000 volunteers pitching in at 500 nonprofits, schools and other agencies across Southern California last May.

A native of Washington, D.C., Hess came to Los Angeles in the late 1980s and was soon involved in the startup of Buzz magazine. As art director, Hess drove innovation in design and photography, helping to create the magazine’s clean, sophisticated look. Buzz was “a cross between New York Magazine and The New Yorker, but for L.A.,” said Hess, whose six-year tenure gave him what he calls “the best education about Los Angeles.”

“I grew to really love L.A. and appreciate its diversity, how complex and interesting it was once you dug beneath the surface.”

With the birth of his first child 14 years ago, Hess says he began wanting to use his “expertise to do something that was worthwhile.” He became design director of UCLA Magazine — always a worthy cause in his mind, but especially so recently, as budget cuts threaten the future of public higher education in California. In addition to UCLA, for whom he continues to work, Hess has designed and art-directed publications for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Cash for College and other nonprofits.

In 2000, Hess, his wife and their then-first-grade daughter signed up for what was at the time Temple Israel of Hollywood’s Mitzvah Day. “We had no idea what it would entail,” Hess recalled about visiting an assisted-living home for the elderly in West Adams.

“The place was dark and gloomy and ominous and kind of scary. And my daughter, who was always considered shy, just plunged right in…. Watching her come out of her shell and how the residents responded to her — their faces just lit up — was the inspiration that got me started,” Hess said.

When he volunteered his design skills to the cause, Hess knew he wanted “the graphics to be as menschy and grass-roots” as Big Sunday itself. He used his daughter’s handprint for the logo, which along with other graphics by Hess can be seen on nearly every tangible object connected to Big Sunday — mugs, T-shirts, banners, Web blasts and more.

“The amount of different ways we’re able to communicate with people has grown exponentially,” Hess said, citing the Internet as the most dramatic example. In addition to creating Big Sunday’s Web graphics, Hess also coordinates all of the site’s photos. Each year he organizes about 40 photographers — professionals and amateurs, all volunteers — who take photos at about 100 of the projects. Hess then spends nearly a month winnowing the 2,000-plus images down to 200, using them to create photo albums and slide shows both for the Web site and for promotional use in the community. He also recently created a Facebook page for Big Sunday; it now has close to 1,100 fans.

Hess and his family — he also has a son — live what he calls “a comfortable life … smack in the middle of L.A.” But he wants his kids to fully experience “this big, complicated, daunting city … to know that the world is a much more challenging place than just what they experience.”

To this end, Hess and family can be found at six different projects each Big Sunday weekend. And wherever they go — whether to Watts, Pacoima or not far from their own backyard — they are among people whose paths might not otherwise cross. These diverse people, working and having fun together, creating meaning and community, are what continue to inspire Hess.

“To me, graphic design is like being a writer. I get to tell all these great stories … but I’m writing a story through the pictures.”

You can be a mensch, too! Join the cause.
Charlie Hess: Illustrating Community Service Read More »

“For me, the hook was working with kids,” Nick Melvoin responded when asked why he decided to volunteer for Camp Harmony.

Melvoin, who graduated from Harvard University in 2008, has been working with the camp since he was in 10th grade at Harvard Westlake. He now serves as programming director at the camp, a project of United in Harmony, which for 20 years has given Los Angeles kids living below the poverty line a sleep-away camping experience they might otherwise never get — including swimming, hiking, scooter hockey, capture-the-flag, yoga, tie-dye, soccer, wacky Olympics and more.

Working with local shelters and social service agencies, the camp serves children ages 5 to 13 who live in homeless shelters, subsidized public housing and in apartments with multiple families. Every summer and winter, Harmony offers sessions at the Hess Kramer campgrounds in Malibu.

Melvoin started as a counselor, and even while in college he returned to Los Angeles for every session. He eventually became a support staff member and unit head before taking on the role of programming director.

Melvoin’s duties now include planning and coordinating monthly leadership and mentoring events for the kids, an experience he says has helped him put the rigors of private school and Ivy League life in perspective.

“I think it’s really easy to get jaded,” Melvoin said of living and studying in such affluent and competitive environments. “I don’t know what high school would’ve been like without Camp Harmony, but I imagine I would have been more narrow-minded.”

Melvoin plans to apply to law school — his ultimate goal is to run for political office, with the hopes of combining law and service with social justice.

Everybody who has worked with Melvoin gushes with praise. “Nick has shown tremendous leadership skills throughout his years with Harmony,” said Ronna Slutske, board president of United in Harmony. “He lights up a room whenever he enters.”

Melvoin’s day job is just as centered on giving back to the community. Through Teach for America, he holds a full-time teaching position at Markham Middle School in Watts. Recently he was appointed principal of the school-within-the-school and continues to teach English as a Second Language to classes with up to 30 kids, as well as a journalism class he started.

Additionally, he is an active member of the Maccabi World Union’s Young Leadership Group, an international organization whose mission is to connect Jews worldwide through sport.

Melvoin admits that he aspires to be a mensch, but at the same time he notes there are a lot of others who qualify.

“When I consider other people I work with at Camp Harmony,” said Melvoin, “I realize there are a lot of us within the faith.”

Although Camp Harmony is not a Jewish camp, much of the staff is Jewish, guided by the same social justice principles as Melvoin.

“I’m not ultra-religious in the sense of Torah study or temple, but the ideas of Judaism, like tikkun olam or tzedakah, really influence what I do,” he said.

You can be a mensch, too! Join the cause.
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