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Jewish Journal

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March 2, 2010

How to Choose a Jewish School for Your Child

Leave a Comment / Education /

The growth of Jewish day and high schools in America is testimony to their central role in Jewish continuity. Parents who are choosing Jewish day or high school for their family are making a momentous investment in their child’s Jewish future.

Choosing any school is a major decision, all the more so when your family’s Jewish life will be impacted for generations to come. What follows are some guidelines for making sure the program you choose comes closest to what your child needs — a Jewish education that will perpetuate and even deepen your family’s Jewish life.

Be Realistic

“I want a Modern Conservadox day school with yeshiva rabbis, a Montessori preschool with a Reggio Emilia art program, a process-oriented education that will still have my kid excelling on standardized tests; and a high school where my kid won’t feel stressed out but will get into Harvard, and where none of the kids abuse the Internet, party or drink.” No school can be everything. Religiously, look for elements that are consistent within the school and with your family’s Jewish life. Educationally, a school can’t possibly be both about how deep the education is and high standardized test scores, and no school can get your kid into a top university without stress. Every school comes with trade-offs, and every school has kids that do what you’re afraid of. Start by making a list of everything you want, what the trade-offs might be, and then prioritize. You will never get everything, but at least you know what you won’t compromise on.

Mission and Values

Can the school define itself? If the school is asking you what you want the school to be, or the school is trying to be everything to everyone, it may be a sign that the school or its board is having trouble making hard choices. No family wants to find out after a few years that a school has shifted direction. Also, a school’s mission and religious approach bring trade-offs: Community schools can embrace a wider spectrum of Jewish choices but may leave Orthodox students feeling unsupported. Modern Orthodox schools can also embrace a wider range than just Orthodox, but your child will need to follow Orthodox practice while at school. Think carefully about the trade-off and your priorities.

Orthodox Is Complicated

There is a wide spectrum of philosophies within Orthodoxy, from Charedi (ultra-Orthodox) to Modern, and figuring out what’s what can be complicated. Look for some indicators: What is the Judaic staff’s attitude to the sciences and the humanities? Do charitable and tikkun olam projects focus on the Jewish community or go beyond? What are the differences between the boys’ and girls’ Judaic studies curricula? Ask whether the school expects students to adhere to religious standards on weekends and outside of school, or if the school restricts boy-girl interaction, such as at youth groups or camps.

Look Beyond the Front Door

What does the school want its students to look like when they graduate? Don’t just ask the admissions director or principal; especially with early grades, it is very hard to see what comes later, so visit the older grades and see for yourself. If a black hat or pink tefillin are not right for your family, look at the older grades and see who the role models are and what the prayer services are like. Another good check: Ask to see the yearbooks of the last two graduating classes.

How Does It Feel?

Your child probably reflects you to a large extent so, to quote Sara Shapiro-Plevan from MyJewishLearning.com, choose the school that most resembles the elements you liked about your own Jewish education — and the one that least resembles the program that you disliked.

Read the Tea Leaves With Care

There is a fairly good matrix to evaluate the academic strength of the high school end product: standardized scores like ACTs, SATs and APs, college and gap-year yeshiva acceptances. Elementary schools, on the other hand, often rely on standardized tests designed for students in schools with less intense educational goals and a softer curriculum. When compared against these schools, our little Einsteins start to look the part, so be wary of statistics. In one school I worked in, 95 percent of sixth-graders scored as “post-high school.”

Keep Your Eye on the Prize
It’s not what your child looks like at graduation; it’s about what he or she will look like after college, graduate school and beyond. Look for how much a middle or high school encourages personal depth or presses for conformity, and how it handles rebellion. Look for a school that has the range of co- and extracurricular outlets that reflect Jewish values and will make what your child loves — literature, art, sports, Israel advocacy or tikkun olam — part of his Judaism. The real test of a school is whether your child graduates with the leadership skills, self-advocacy and strong enough religious self-esteem to handle an open college campus and the many other trying circumstances that late adolescence and early adulthood bring.

Listen to Your Child (But Not Too Much)

When it comes to middle or high school, forcing children into a school can lead them to — consciously or otherwise — sabotage their own success. All bets are off, however, if where they want to go will drive a wedge into the family’s religious cohesion. Remember: They only look like mini-adults; developmentally, they can’t understand the subtle calculus that goes into each family’s Jewish choices.

Know Each of Your Children

Each child is different. Your older child’s school may not be right for your younger child. If you have any doubts about how your younger child will fare, start the process over from the beginning.

Be Ready for Crises

Almost all children will experience key moments in their education that will help define — for better or for worse — who they are. Look for a school that has the professional support staff to help you and your child. Such staff includes a school social worker or psychologist, academic support and academic enrichment specialists, and teacher training in child development. Untrained rabbis and teachers are no substitute for a trained professional.

God Bless You

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not praise every parent and grandparent of a Jewish child for making the profound sacrifices in money and lifestyle to provide the next generation with a Jewish education. Beyond all of the considerations outlined here, only you know all of the other choices you must consider, and their costs.

Rabbi Elchanan J. Weinbach is head of school at Shalhevet, a preschool through 12th   grade Modern Orthodox high school in Los Angeles.

How to Choose a Jewish School for Your Child Read More »

How Israel Became Passé

Leave a Comment / Israel /

This article was originally published at PresenTense.org.

I looked sheepishly at the speaker who dragged out to Waltham to speak to our Israel advocacy group. We felt rather awkward when only six people showed up to the training session, the latest in a series of pro-Israel educational events on campus.  Five of the six people were on my club’s board.

In my freshman year of college, I became president of an Israel advocacy club.  I was excited to lead a group of people in a cause that I believed in.  I learned quickly how to plan events, and advertise them so hundreds of people would show up.  But I also learned quickly that our club was not really serving our campus community, or the Jewish people, or Israel.  We were just a bunch of tools for large Jewish organizations that wanted to push their ideas on our campus.

I began college towards the end of the second intifada.  The intifada years yielded half a dozen national organizations working to defend Israel’s image.  And they did this by creating pre-fabricated programs in the form of speakers, videos, and exhibits that could be sent to campuses across the United States.

Each semester, professionals from these national organizations would invite me to meetings to talk about their available programs.  As a student club-leader, all I had to do was advertise the speaker or workshop they created.

It was a simple formula:  Established organization creates program, student on campus books the room and brings other students to the program, and presto, we were fulfilling our mission to defend Israel on campus.  The organizations measured our success by the number of people that showed up to the event.

Though the intifada ended and its news-value faded, the organizations continued to push the same programs.  We started another semester by looking through lists of pre-packaged speakers and events.  It was like ordering food at an à la carte restaurant: we’ll take one Itamar Marcus, one Wallid Shoebat, and one StandWithUs meeting with a side of the “Israel Inspires” exhibit.

We booked the rooms, we advertised.  But fewer and fewer students showed up.  And it seemed, fewer people cared about the message of these pre-fab speakers and programs.  Some students even joined with the students who would work to demonize Israel.

I soon left my post as head of the Israel advocacy club.  I stopped going to most of the Israel events on campus. I found other ways to spend my time, and other ways to connect to Israel.

But I’m left with some valuable lessons from my experience:

Firstly, when you work so hard to polish Israel’s image, the unspoken message is that Israel has something to hide. I don’t think Israel should hide anything. To the contrary, the less we hide, the faster we can fix the problems.

Can’t we think about a better way for Jews to relate to Israel than the superficial exercises funded by the established Israel advocacy organizations? If the only way we can connect to Israel is through press releases and newspaper clippings and propaganda-style speakers, something is lost.  Something huge.  We have become the make-up artists who care for nothing that is more than skin-deep.  Our superficial relationship is all about appearances.

Presented with only a shallow connection to Israel, many students stop caring altogether.  Or alternatively, they join the ranks of those who work to discredit Israel.  In turn, the Israel advocacy establishment casts the disenchanted students as the enemy. They urge the students that remain in the pro-Israel camp to work even harder to polish Israel’s image.  And the downward spiral continues.

We need a new model for Jewish campus leadership.  The pre-fab programs that I brought to campus were empty.  If there are Jewish organizations that want to get people involved with Israel on campus, why can’t they focus their efforts on training student leaders to think creatively about programming, and how best to get their fellow students involved?

Moreover, I think we need a new paradigm for our relationship to Israel.

I suggest the project paradigm: Israel is the project of the Jewish people.  It is our place, with all of its good, and all of its bad.  As much as we need to celebrate its successes, we need to accept and recognize its failures.  We should embrace those who point out Israel’s failures as the diagnosticians of our project, directing us to search for solutions. We need to support the stakeholders of our project by listening to their ideas, and giving them room to be creative rather than declaring edicts from on high. This will give meaning to people’s connection to Israel, rather than allow the relationship to corrode by focusing on the superficial.  We need our organizations to foster discussion and creativity, rather than train people to squash discussion and micromanage the message.  When we see Israel as our project, everyone’s voice is important.  We won’t just improve Israel’s image.  We will improve Israel.

How Israel Became Passé Read More »

Meet the fastest tweet in the Jewish organizational world: William Daroff

Leave a Comment / Science & Technology, Tech /

Rain pouring in Jerusalem, tears streaming down the faces of fans of Team USA, tremors shaking Chile—and always, always lunch at Eli’s.

You have entered the @Daroff tweet zone.

William Daroff, the Washington director of Jewish Federations of North America, has taken the organization that couldn’t get its initials straight and boiled it down to an engaging, entertaining and at times abrasive representation of the Jewish establishment in 140 characters or less.

Daroff’s career, always on an upswing, is now careening skyward.

Recent cuts at Jewish Federations mean that he is not only responsible for its redoubtable Washington lobby shop representing the combined needs of 157 federations, but also will be helping to direct its seminal rabbinical cabinet and its relief arm, and coordinate the alliance of 40 federations that come together to fund nine national groups (including JTA).

But Daroff is best known for boiling down that alphabet soup into tweets followed literally by thousands. He has 2,205 followers on Twitter and 2,314 Facebook friends.

A sample just from Sunday and Monday:

* On a conference call with leaders of the #Jewish Federations of North America Rabbinic Cabinet

* Palestinian Cabinet meets in Hebron, as means of protesting #Israel’s list of heritage sites http://bit.ly/a7FVj6 (@JPost)

* RT @jbelmont: NBC says 25% of the men who’ve watched the Olympics have cried. As an American who’s lived in Canada, I just joined them.

* Latest from Santiago #Chile: No damage to synagogues, damage to #Jewish cemetery walls, & broken windows at a community bldg.

* RT @KevinFlowerCNN: tensions in Jerusalem over al-Aqsa simmering down—pouring rain has helped

The question some Daroff watchers, in the corridors of Jewish power and in other settings, are asking: Does the tweeting enhance or detract from the federations’ message?

“I see social networking and Facebook and Twitter as a new and novel way to communicate with the world generally and with the Jewish community more specifically,” Daroff, 41, told JTA. “When it comes to communications, not everyone we want to communicate with reads the JTA, Jewish newspapers or listens to rabbis and their sermons. It’s incumbent upon us to push forward the relevance of what we do as professionals and as a Jewish community, to meet people where they stand.”

Some welcome the tweeting as necessary in an age of instantaneous information.

“I’d rather he tweeted too much than not enough because he often has vital information in his tweets,” said Rabbi Levi Shemtov, who directs American Friends of Lubavitch. “For instance, yesterday with Chile—I oftentimes learn about events and initiatives for the first time from William’s tweets.”

Others say the tweets reduce the complex back and forth of a conversation to an unrepresentative sound bite.

This tweet came out of Daroff’s attendance at the annual plenum of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs in Dallas last week:  “At #JCPA, @ADL_National’s Abe Foxman calls @dailydish’s Andrew Sullivan ‘an example of someone who is educated & an anti-Semite.’ “

It infuriated Foxman.

“I give a speech of 22 minutes, there’s a series of questions, and this is what makes the news?” Foxman asked, referring to his talk on global anti-Semitism. “This is how he wants to get attention for the JCPA?”

Off the record, some government officials say Daroff’s real-time tweeting makes them nervous.

“I know this is going to be tweeted, so it’s on the record and I can’t say anything useful,” said one official, who asked not to be identified. “The ability to have a candid conversation is minimal.”

Daroff dismisses the concerns, saying he confines his tweets to what is already known. He has tweeted about attending White House meetings, which is a matter of record, but not about the contents of the meeting, which is not.

“I wouldn’t tweet anything I wouldn’t tell a reporter,” he said.

Other Jewish officials, off the record, say Daroff’s tweets have veered into dangerous territory. They note a passionate back and forth with J Street last year over its reluctance at the time to endorse Iran sanctions. Daroff said J Street “stands with the mullahs.”

J Street has since endorsed sanctions, and officials on both sides say they enjoy good relations.

Still, the exchange raised eyebrows.

“You can’t self-promote to that degree and not become a target,” said one official who otherwise thought Daroff was doing a good job.

Some friends say Daroff is addicted to his Blackberry. Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster, tore Daroff’s Blackberry from his hand and threw it into the audience during a panel at the Jewish Federations’ most recent general assembly, in November in Washington.

Friends say if they see him in a restaurant, they will tweet to get his attention. After his Blackberry delivers the message, Daroff has been known to stand up to greet someone who’s been facing him across the room for half an hour.

Making himself heard has never been hard for Daroff. He was a longtime operative for the Republican Party, starting with the late Jack Kemp’s 1988 presidential bid and including a long stint as the deputy director of the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Some people fretted in 2005 when Daroff was named to his current post. The Washington office of what was then known as the United Jewish Communities had just come through a fractious period; Daroff’s predecessor was forced out, partly because of inter-office tensions; and relations with the Jewish Council for Public Affairs office had degenerated into a perpetual turf war.
Did a nonpartisan lobbying body really need a partisan—albeit one who was well liked, but who also was not above the well-aimed partisan gibe, and was known for a spot-on impression of Ira Forman, the executive director of the National Jewish Demorcatic Council?

Daroff quickly reached out to Democrats, including Forman, and did his best to assure them that he would not be a partisan.
“If he’s overrerached at all, it’s in reaching out to the left,” said a Democrat appreciative of Daroff’s effots, singling out health care, where Daroff has sided more with the Democrats.

His readiness to take hits from either side soon made his case. Daroff received angry calls from buddies in the Bush White House about UJC plaints about budget cuts affecting entitlement programs and from Democrats on the Hill for defending tax exemptions. He was responsive when Democrats complained that a UJC e-mail newsletter featured profiles of Republicans in an election year; he stopped the profiles.

“In a situation that could have been very challenging because there were historical institutional issues to be overcome and where he was coming from politically, he made some people nervous,” said Hadar Susskind, currently the policy director for J Street, a liberal pro-Israel group, and then Daroff’s counterpart at the JCPA. “He did an extraordinary job as someone who had a professional partisan job, he did a very good job of putting aside and representing federations and putting those interests first and foremost.”

Daroff, dining last Friday at Eli’s, the kosher Washington eatery he incessantly promotes on his social networks (yes, he tweeted lunch with this reporter), is more modest.

“Look, when I was hired, there was a Republican in the White House and both houses” of Congress “were Republican.” He had a year and a half, he says, to build up relations with relatively powerless Democrats before they retook Congress in November 2006. By that time he was known as the UJC guy, not the GOP guy.

Not that his former Republican credentials have hurt. At the RJC, he formed a friendship with Haley Barbour, then the chairman of the Republican National Committee. When the UJC’s relief arm was seeking partners in areas hit by Hurricane Katrina, Barbour, now governor of Mississippi, was able to help facilitate a successful venture in assisting mental health facilities.

His next big challenge is grappling with a Washington that is slashing earmarks. In the 1990s, earmarks—the expenditures for home-state projects lawmakers inject into spending bills—were ballooning, and one of his predecessors, Diana Aviv, saw an opportunity. Through the earmarks, she helped create the Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities, the system that allows seniors to spend their twilight years near their communities.

The Washington office replicated that feat under subsequent directors with millions of dollars set aside for enhancing security at nonprofits. Since its inception in 2005, the bulk has gone to Jewish organizations.

But budget cuts and a presidential campaign in which candidates competed to make “earmarks” synonymous with corruption have led to a crackdown. The domestic issues that Jews care about—particularly government medical care for the elderly and poor—may mean siding more forcefully with the Democrats.

Lobbying for earmarks was “lobbying lite,” one congressional insider said, and the community needed to “go AIPAC” and get tough on the health care issue.

Daroff said he would not be dragged into partisan battles, and added that he was confident earmarks were here to stay.

“The Jewish Federations have continued to be remarkably successful in garnering Member-Directed-Funding (we don’t call them ‘earmarks’ anymore), even in this current budgetary environment,” he e-mailed in reply. “This is the case because our innovative initiatives are ones that Members of Congress are proud to promote. They flourish with increased transparency and with bright lights cast upon them. We are not promoting weapons systems that the Pentagon doesn’t want, but rather cutting-edge social service programs that help make life better for millions of Americans.”

As for Daroff, it appears he’s here to stay, too: He is rumored to be on the short list for the soon-to-be-available post of CEO at the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington.

His response to the rumors was short, even by tweeting standards.

No comment.

Meet the fastest tweet in the Jewish organizational world: William Daroff Read More »

Tom Campbell, California Republican Senate candidate, is scrutinized on Israel and terrorism record

Leave a Comment / Community, United States /

Republicans have a reputation for being indivisible on foreign policy, but February saw a minor meltdown in the California Republican primary campaign for U.S. Senate. Republican commentators across the country debated for weeks over the pro-Israel, anti-terrorism pedigree of one of their own, former Congressman Tom Campbell. Campbell faces former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and California Assemblyman Chuck DeVore in the June primary.

Conservative bloggers began in early February to question Campbell’s voting record during his time as a U.S. Congressman. Why did he vote against some economic aid packages to Israel in the 1990s? More seriously, why was he acquainted in 2000 with Sami Al-Arian, a man who later pled guilty to supporting the group Palestinian Islamic Jihad? Fiorina and Devore both issued statements condemning Campbell as unreliable and potentially dangerous on Israel issues.

On aid to Israel, Campbell argues that “a reasonable disagreement can arise over economic aid without implicating America’s commitment to the defense of Israel against an attack,” saying that he has always supported military assistance to Israel, and on that he has the support of David Frum, an ardent pro-Israel conservative. Frum wrote in his blog FrumForum on Feb. 22 that “[t]hese claims turn on a relatively small amount of money,” some of which was previously allocated for African countries in more dire need.

Campbell’s link to Al-Arian is more complex. Campbell took civil libertarian stances during the 1990s that have largely vanished from the Republican political scene post-9/11. For example, he staunchly argued that it is unconstitutional to use secret evidence in noncriminal immigration hearings. The practice gave a detainee two choices: to be deported to a country where he might be tortured, or to challenge his deportation. But because he would not be allowed to see the evidence against him, he could not defend himself and could be left in jail indefinitely.

Long before Al-Arian went to jail for supporting terror, he was a professor at the University of South Florida (USF) and a political activist with high-level contacts among American politicians. His brother-in-law, Mazen Al-Najjar, was imprisoned pending deportation based on secret evidence. Campbell took up the cause, visiting Al-Najjar in jail and introducing legislation critical of the government’s practice.

Campbell found himself on the side of Muslim-American civil rights groups. “The community that was most interested in this was the Muslim American community,” Campbell said in an interview last week, because 26 of the 28 people in jail under the secret evidence rule were Muslim. As a result of Campbell’s work, Al-Arian made campaign contributions totaling $1,300 to Campbell’s 2000 U.S. Senate run against Dianne Feinstein.

On May 23, 2000, Campbell testified before Congress in support of the “Secret Evidence Repeal Act,” mentioning Al-Najjar by name. Campbell shot down the government’s argument that barring secret evidence in immigration cases would lead to the release of terrorists, because the government would only need to forgo its use in immigration hearings. In his professorial style, Campbell compared the issue to other
Constitutional abuses: “Why not give [suspected terrorists] truth serum, as long as they are in jail? If, like me, your stomach revolts at that thought, it must be because something in this Constitution prevents it.” That fall, Campbell lost the Senate election and left public office.

About a year later, just a few weeks after 9/11, Al-Arian appeared on “The O’Reilly Factor,” where host Bill O’Reilly accused him and his associates of being under investigation for terrorist activities. Al-Arian denied it, but O’Reilly proclaimed, “If I was the CIA, I’d follow you wherever you went. I’d follow you 24 hours … I’d go to Denny’s with you.” Several months after the show aired, Al-Arian was fired by USF.

Remembering Al-Arian’s contributions to his campaign, Campbell wrote a letter to the university on Al-Arian’s behalf. “A fellow law professor asked me as a matter of academic freedom to express concern about [Al-Arian],” Campbell told The Jewish Journal. Campbell says that although he knew Al-Arian was an activist with controversial views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he had no idea Al-Arian actually was under criminal investigation by the FBI.

In 2003, Al-Arian was arrested for supporting Palestinian Islamic Jihad. After a lengthy trial in which the jury either acquitted or deadlocked on each charge, Al-Arian avoided a potential retrial by pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to support a terrorist organization. Wiretaps made public in the trial revealed Al-Arian discussing suicide bombings and other terrorist activities. “I would not have written that letter, even if it were an issue of academic freedom, because the comments [Al-Arian] made in telephone conversations were appalling,” Campbell said. In the end, Campbell says he learned one lesson: “If I’m asked to write a letter on behalf of a professor, I should find out all I can about him.”

Matthew Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, says the Al-Arian connection raises a legitimate question. “If he’s offering a mea culpa, then I think that’s a signal to the Jewish community that he maybe would have done things differently,” Brooks said. “It’s up to the voters to decide whether to accept his change of heart or not.”

Since 9/11, Campbell’s position on secret evidence has changed, too. “I strongly favor keeping Guantanamo and keeping enemy combatants under a prisoner-of-war status until the war on terror is over, Campbell told The Journal. He says that he now would allow for the use of secret evidence and that enemy combatants and their supporters do not have Miranda rights or the right to confront the evidence against them.

The raising of Campbell’s past, though, also has a sharply political edge. Campbell’s connection to Al-Arian and his voting record on Israel are not news; both have been known for years. The resurgence of interest appears to have been sparked on Feb. 9, when conservative bloggers Jennifer Rubin, writing for the Contentions blog of Commentary Magazine, and Philip Klein, at The American Spectator, used a Fiorina campaign press release on sanctioning Iran as a point of comparison to Campbell’s positions on Israel. Then, on Feb. 17, that comparison was linked to the Al-Arian story, which soon migrated to the mainstream media.

“I don’t have an explanation why 10-year-old events are suddenly brought forward,” Campbell said. Interestingly, the controversy coincides with an accusation by Campbell that a Fiorina consultant called him an anti-Semite in a phone call to former California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson. The Fiorina aide, Marty Wilson, has strongly denied ever making that statement, but Campbell says the alleged incident caused him to wonder whether the Fiorina campaign also was involved in refocusing the blogosphere and media on Al-Arian. Requests for comment by The Journal from several of the blogs that raised the Al-Arian issue last month were not returned.

In the meantime, polls taken before this issue resurfaced put Campbell 11 to 13 points ahead of Fiorina and even farther ahead of DeVore, making him the best suited to take on Boxer in November — if Republicans can unite behind him.

Tom Campbell, California Republican Senate candidate, is scrutinized on Israel and terrorism record Read More »

Cohn Wears Zionist Heart With Pride

Leave a Comment / Film /

“I am what one would call a perfectionist,” said the Swiss film producer Arthur Cohn, who is as renowned for his ardent Zionism as he is for his illustrious career. “I am involved in every aspect of a production, and I always believe in what I do.”

This philosophy has earned Cohn a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and six Oscars, more than any other producer in history. His Oscar winners include Vittorio de Sica’s classic, “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis,” about the decline of an aristocratic Italian Jewish family during the Holocaust; the controversial documentary “One Day in September,” which re-examines the killing of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich; and the Brazilian drama, “Central Station,” about a cynical schoolteacher who rediscovers her capacity to love through her relationship with an orphaned boy.

Cohn’s new film, “The Yellow Handkerchief,” is another character study of outsiders brought together by unusual circumstances. Brett Hanson (William Hurt) is a stoic ex-con just released from prison who joins an odd young drifter (Eddy Redmayne) and troubled teenager (“Twilight’s” Kristen Stewart in her first starring role) for a road trip through Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The wary strangers argue and gradually learn to trust each other, as the alternately lush and devastated terrain reflects their interior emotions.

“I was anxious to make an ‘all-American’ film in the United States that could prove a movie could be rewarding without sex or brutality,” Cohn said of why he was drawn to the project. “For this reason, I had a very hard time getting a distributor, which is why the release was delayed. They said the film was charming and poetic, but the lack of sex or violence rendered it uncommercial.”

The delay may have worked in Cohn’s favor, as, in the meantime, Stewart skyrocketed to superstardom for her portrayal of Bella Swan in the “Twilight” vampire film series. Cohn — who also discovered the now-famous European director Jean-Jacques Annaud — recalled that Stewart was just 17 when he hired her. “She was recommended by a director-actress I respect enormously, and that is Jodie Foster; Kristen played her daughter in ‘The Panic Room,’” Cohn recalled, and “‘The Yellow Handkerchief’ proves the true artistry of Kristen Stewart.”

William Hurt, who has been lauded for his restrained yet heart-rending performance in the film, marveled at Cohn’s stamina.  Yes, Cohn has a “contentious side,” Hurt said in an e-mail. And he can be “brutally (wonderfully, refreshingly) … honest.” Yet he “literally stands on the film set, quietly, attentively, in his light gray suit and yellow tie, a Swiss patrician, if you will, hour after sweltering hour in the endless, thick Louisiana heat … committing himself to a spiritual and physical loyalty to the work at hand.”

Former Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Natan Sharansky is also a fan. When “The Yellow Handkerchief” premiered in Israel at a benefit for Shaare Zedek Medical Center, which is de rigueur for all of Cohn’s films, Sharansky noted that , unlike some Jews who have achieved fame on the universal stage and go in for Israel bashing, Cohn enhances Judaism, according to the Jerusalem Post.

The producer is named after his grandfather, Arthur Cohn, who was the chief rabbi of Basel, Switzerland, responsible for Theodore Herzl holding the first Zionist Congress in that city in 1897.

Cohn’s mentor and teacher, de Sica, scheduled the world premiere of “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis” in Jerusalem and was himself a supporter of the Jewish state. “During the Six-Day War, he asked the whole foreign press corps in Rome to come to his home at 5 a.m., and they all watched as he walked the long [trek] from his home to the Israeli embassy, and as more and more people joined along the way,” Cohn said.

“And in the embassy, he donated blood as a sign of his affection and sincere respect for Israel.”

Cohn said his own views about Zionism have not put him at odds with the left-wing Hollywood establishment, as his films “have nothing to do with my personal feelings.” But he was chagrined at the 2009 Toronto Film Festival when some 50 intellectuals and artists — among them director Ken Loach and actor Viggo Mortensen — protested the spotlight on movies about Tel Aviv, accusing the festival of “complicity with the Israeli propaganda machine.”

“I would not work with an actor who is openly against the state of Israel or who openly criticizes its right to be defending itself with boundaries which are defensible,” he said.  Artists have the right to express their views, but Cohn believes he also has every right not to work with them.

“Frankly, I had a film for which Viggo Mortensen was considered, and I said immediately, ‘I don’t want him’ — even though he would have been very good. I don’t need to work with people who openly, without being asked, take an aggressive attitude toward Israel.”

Cohn also has strong opinions about the plethora of Holocaust-themed movies that have emerged of late — although he is not naming specific films. “There have been too many of these films, and I believe many of them were not compelling enough to reach a wide audience,” he said. “We have to be careful that viewers don’t say, ‘We have seen enough of this.’ ”

“The Yellow Handkerchief” is playing at the ArcLight Hollywood and the Laemmle Royal Theatre in West Los Angeles.

Cohn Wears Zionist Heart With Pride Read More »

Second Soul: Parashat Ki Tisa (Exodus)

Leave a Comment / Torah /

There is a mystical tradition that states that a Jew gains a neshamah y’teyrah, an extra soul, on Shabbat. For those 25 hours, we are doubly spiritually charged,
or at least potentially so.

Although Rashi, the great medieval French rabbi and commentator, is not the author of this idea, his comment on a well-known verse within Parashat Ki Tisa takes us in a similar direction. The familiar “V’Shamru” song/prayer is lifted directly from a section within Ki Tisa — one of many moments of revelation during which God mentions the idea of, and the commandment regarding, observing Shabbat. In describing the first week of creation, God says, “uvayom hashvi’i shavat vayinafash” — on the seventh day God ceased working (shavat, from which we get the word Shabbat) and was refreshed. It is that last word that is most interesting. The Hebrew is vayinafash, a verb from the root nefesh, meaning “soul.” The Jewish Publication Society translates the word as “and was refreshed,” as if something happened to God, in a passive way. By stopping, God simply was refreshed. In his “The Five Books of Moses,” scholar Everett Fox translates the word as “paused for breath,” suggesting a second, active action. God both actively stopped working and actively paused to take in, as it were, a much-needed breath. The old and venerable Hertz Chumash translates it more simply as “He rested,” again suggesting an action taken by God in addition to ceasing work.

What did God do on the seventh day? Better yet, what is God trying to tell us about our experience of Shabbat by using this word vayinafash to reminisce about that initial Shabbat of creation? Here is where Rashi comes in. He first says that vayinafash means “God rested.” But then he explains the meaning of that rest. “God restored God’s own soul and breath by taking a calming break from the burden of the labor.” By using this anthropomorphism, Rashi invites us to imagine a God with a soul, a God with needs, a God who could be, as it were, burdened.

But within this comment, Rashi is not only describing God. Rashi also, and perhaps principally, speaks to the human goal for Shabbat and in doing so puts an active spin on the mystical tradition of the double soul.

Our tradition speaks of many “doubles” on Shabbat. The Israelites received a double portion of manna, represented by our two loaves of challah. That double portion simply came to them. It was a gift from above, with no conditions or strings attached. Rashi’s read on vayinafash suggests that our second soul does not come without its price, or at least its effort. In an ironic twist, we need to “work” to earn our pause from work. Only by actively stepping away from those things that define our non-Shabbat world, our Sunday through Friday weeks, do our souls get the boost we so sorely need.

I am a Conservative rabbi. The central vehicle through which I achieve and experience Shabbat is the concept of restraint and prohibition. Feeling bound by the structure and stricture of halachah, or Jewish law, I enter Shabbat via the rabbinic definitions of prohibited labor, which were set up both as a living commentary on the words of the Torah and also as a way of standardizing practice among Jews. Those rules are a fundamental guideline for my observance of Shabbat. At the same time, I acknowledge the multiple paths within Jewish life and the many people within the Jewish community who do not feel bound by the fundamentals of Jewish law. I firmly believe that Rashi’s message speaks to every Jew, transcending the category of “prohibited labor” that is resonant for some, but not for others. There is an important personal, individual aspect to Shabbat as well. Each of us knows which things in our lives most anchor us to the feeling of work and most burden us. Each of us has activities, habits, behaviors that, though they play important roles in our lives, need not intrude on each day. Each of us is aware of the things we ought to step back from in order to imbue our own religious experiences with Judaism’s message of 24/6 as opposed to 24/7. Each of us, then, has the blessing, and weekly opportunity, to craft a Shabbat of restraint, withholding, ceasing and active resting that has the best chance of restoring our neshamah, our nefesh, so that we can imitate God … vayinafash.

Whatever denominational category does or does not inspire you; wherever you place yourself on the spectrum of Jewish observance; whatever your personal theology says about your belief in a commanding God, spend this Shabbat considering what you most need to not do for that second soul to descend upon you Friday night, ascending heavenward on the wisps of the Havdalah flames Saturday night, leaving you restored and ready for the week to come.

Shabbat shalom.

Rabbi Adam Kligfeld is senior rabbi of Temple Beth Am (tbala.org), a Conservative congregation in West Los Angeles.

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Inspired Teens Share Their Worlds

Leave a Comment / Education /

“We only know the worth of religion when it’s taken away from us, only know the worth of God and music when it’s not there. We’re all here for God, we’re all in health, holiness, happiness.”

It wouldn’t be hard to imagine this statement spoken by a learned old rabbi, ruminating over years of scholarly and spiritual teaching. But it’s a bit more difficult to reconcile the words with their actual source: a freckled, 15-year-old boy named Wyatt, wearing a bright purple T-shirt and Bermuda shorts. Explaining the meaning of his bar mitzvah speech, Wyatt is also divulging the ways in which he has found peace with the fact that he has autism.

Wyatt is part of Vista del Mar’s Inspired Teens, which matches more than 30 teen volunteers, ages 12-19, with autistic peers, much like the Chabad program Friendship Circle. Afternoons are spent developing theater projects and creating music together, socializing or taking classes.

Inspired Teens is anchored in the Vista Inspire Program (VIP), which offers two tracks: Nes Gadol, founded to help special-needs children prepare for their bar or bat mitzvah, and the Miracle Theater Project, established to help autistic teens create and perform musical theater. Prior to incorporating the projects into VIP, which was founded in 2009, Vista del Mar offered Nes Gadol and Miracle Project separately.

Elaine Hall, a children’s acting teacher whose son, Neal Katz, has autism, serves as VIP’s director. In addition to providing a safe atmosphere for learning, Hall said, the goal of the program is to spread the message that children with disabilities are just the same as everyone else.

It seems a lofty and earnest goal in a world of cynical teens, but it was a 16-year-old who, moved by his work as a camp counselor at VIP’s summer camp in 2009, decided to devote his free time to expanding Inspired Teens.

Before last year, Joshua Corwin had never worked with autistic kids. But he discovered quickly that he loved the work, and it was one experience in particular that, he said, “made me see things in true eyes.”

“Me and Neal were playing in the grass one day,” he said, referencing Hall’s son. “Neal was amazed by the grass,” wanting to smell it and even taste it. Rather than ignoring or correcting Neal’s behavior, Joshua joined in.

“I got to explore Neal’s world, then he got to explore mine,” Joshua said. “Both our lives were made happier by connecting in both worlds.”

Feeling “blessed” that he was granted access to Neal’s world, Joshua said he set out to help the program reach more people. He gathered a group of 12 teens who worked with him at the summer camp, and together they decided to continue their volunteer work into the school year, introducing fundraising and community outreach to the program. Through their planning, Inspired Teens took shape.

On Dec. 20, just four months after their initial meeting, the group held its first fundraiser at the American Cinematheque during a showing of the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.” With sponsors that included Pinkberry and Trader Joe’s, the teens raised $4,500.

Now, Hall says, Inspired Teens counts nearly 40 participants, including eight teens with autism. On a recent Thursday, several teens gathered together around a table, working on collages and art projects and standing around outside talking. Brook Botwinick, a 16-year-old with long brown hair pulled into a loose ponytail, flips through a magazine and chats with Wyatt.

“I think I remember going to your bar mitzvah,” she says. Wyatt nods, seemingly unfazed. Nearby, Tayllor Johnson, 16, talks with program coordinators and works on her own art.
Tayllor has been astonished by the program’s outcomes. 

“It changes kids’ lives,” she said. “People who would not speak … are speaking [and] giving hugs.”

That Tayllor chooses to spend her afternoons volunteering with Inspired Teens at all suggests something special about the program. Her schedule has recently been packed with rehearsals for Santa Monica High School’s production of “Rent.” But the extroverted musical theater student becomes thoughtful and reflective when she explains why Inspired Teens matters to her. She doesn’t do it for college credit or for community service.

“The world is brighter and quieter through the eyes of an autistic child,” she says quietly, her face serious as she gazes down. “They are more real than [what] I see in any other human being.”

Through Nes Gadol, both Neal and Wyatt had their bar mitzvahs in Vista del Mar’s airy synagogue. Neal, who does not speak, danced his prayers and typed his speech beforehand; his stepfather read it aloud. His speech, Hall said, covered the way in which God helps him find patience.

While the program tends to attract Jewish teens, since Vista del Mar is historically a Jewish organization, CEO Elias Lefferman said it welcomes young people of all backgrounds. “We serve the whole community,” he said.

Joshua and his peers hope to continue their work, and none have let adversity stand in their way. Glancing up at what he calls his “favorite” Torah — the one with the red cover — Wyatt concurs.

“Autistic or not,” he says, “you can achieve many things.”

For more information, call (310) 836-1223, ext. 322, or visit vistadelmar.org.

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People of the Book Grapple With Growth of New Technology

Leave a Comment / Gina Nahai, Opinion /

I’ve been spending a lot of time at the Beverly Hills library. I go there almost every day, laptop in hand, impelled by the irrational idea that this is the only place in
the world where I can finish my new book. I also have an office with a great view and a house that’s empty and quiet all day where any normal person should be able to sit and work just fine, and yet, I have to get up and drive 15 minutes every morning to sit among dozens of strangers — some more strange than others — to find my focus.

If you ask my husband, he’ll tell you this is an improvement over the ritual I had to follow for my last novel:  With that one, the only place I could write was in my car. That was uncomfortable for me and terribly embarrassing to my children, nothing like this library with its polished wood tables and designer lights, Kelly’s Fudge Factory and rows of hardcover books on sale for $1 each. It makes me wonder where I’ll end up with the next novel — if, indeed, there is a next novel.

I don’t know if all the talk about the impending demise of books and bookstores as we know them is true — if in 10 years, every book ever written will in fact be available online, as Google would like, and if even Barnes & Noble, the 800-pound gorilla of publishing, will indeed have succumbed to the Kindle. I don’t know if this library will still be standing in 10 years, or if it will be squeezed into digital archives instead. I think technology is a good thing: I remember when I and every other writer I knew insisted we would never switch from the typewriter to the PC; nowadays, I’m thinking of adopting my MacBook as my fourth child. And I don’t worry much about the future of storytelling either: People used to do that by drawing on cave walls. The manner of delivery changes, but not the task itself.

Still, I do wonder every day, as I walk through the lobby and up the steps to the “quiet area,” where else in this city one could find a group of regulars as diverse and eclectic as what we have right here. There is the usual contingent of homeless people with books and magazines in their hands, and the throngs of noisy kids who flock in around 3 o’clock. There is the glamour babe American woman in the leopard-print sweater who sits in the same armchair every time, looking like Catherine Deneuve on the set of some intellectual French film, and the young Asian couple who walk everywhere together, hand in hand and smiling like they’ve just been crowned homecoming king and queen. There is the blue-eyed Iranian girl on the second floor who stays immersed in her books for hours at a time, the red-haired librarian who wears gloves all day and moves around as if she is in perpetual hurry to save some priceless manuscript from being destroyed by callous readers, the elderly European woman who yells when she thinks she’s whispering, because she’s hard of hearing and so is her companion — and they get offended if anyone asks them to keep it down — How could you possibly hear us? We’re practically murmuring.

I wonder where all these other people would go if the library closed down, if all the books vanished into Kindle and newspapers were available only online, if the librarian put her gloves away and the kids lost their afternoon hangout. I used to be one of those kids, years ago in Iran, when I spent every recess and lunch hour in our school library. The boys would take over the yard to play soccer, and the girls all sat in the classrooms or in the stairway and talked about what they had watched on television — all the American sitcoms and soaps, “Bonanza”  and “Days of Our Lives” and “The Wild Wild West” — the previous night. I couldn’t go outside, and I couldn’t participate in the girls’ conversations because I wasn’t allowed to watch TV on school nights, so I went into the library, where I was often alone — not even a librarian — and where no one cared what I read. I loved the books, yes, and loved the reading, but this was also the one place in the world where being alone did not mean you were weird.

I don’t know why any of these other patrons come to the library every day, but I have a feeling it isn’t just the free books and online access, and it certainly isn’t the tap water sold in plastic bottles as Kelly’s Water. I think we all come here to take refuge from one thing or another, from loneliness or the weather, from an unhappy family life or too many siblings at home, a long, empty day and nothing to fill the hours with, or 500 pages full of words that may or may not make sense, may or may not have a life outside of my MacBook, may or may not constitute a book.

So much has changed in the world since my middle-school days in Tehran. I believe most of it has been for the better, and that what lies ahead will be an improvement still. Then again, so much of what drives and defines the human psyche, of our needs and anxieties, has remained constant. I hope we can find a way — at least as far as books and newspapers and that unique and extraordinary solace some of us draw from places that house them — to tend to the psyche as we pursue change.

Gina Nahai will moderate a panel on the future of books and writing on Thursday, March 11, 6 p.m., on the USC campus. For more information, call (213) 740-3250 or visit college.usc.edu/mpw.

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O.C. Pols Urge UCI Discipline Hecklers

Leave a Comment / Community /

Two Orange County elected officials have joined calls for administrators at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) to act decisively against students involved in provocative, anti-Israel activity.

In separate letters to UCI Chancellor Michael Drake, Rep. John Campbell (R-Calif.) and state Assemblyman Chuck DeVore (R-Irvine) called for strict discipline against students for repeated heckling of Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, during a Feb. 8 speech at the Student Center. Eight UCI students, including the president of the UCI’s Muslim Student Union (MSU), were arrested and charged with violating the university’s student code of conduct.

In a Feb. 26 letter to UCI Chancellor Michael Drake, Rep. John Campbell (R-Calif.) urged full disciplinary action be taken against those students responsible for the incident, describing their behavior as “egregious” and “intolerable.” He also called for an investigation into the conduct and membership of the MSU.

“This is not the first time the MSU has been involved in violations of free speech, intimidation, and, at the very least, threats of violence on campus. Sadly, this is becoming a pattern, and one which is especially troubling, as the chosen rhetoric of this group incites hate and violence against both this country and Jewish-American students on campus,” Campbell wrote.

Muslim students and their defenders claim they were exercising their right to free speech when they interrupted Oren with shouts like “You are an accomplice to genocide” a total of 10 times before dozens of students boisterously left the ballroom to stage a demonstration outside. Experts, including UCI Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and civil liberties scholar Nat Hentoff, maintain that the students’ actions are not protected under the First Amendment. 

Campbell, whose district includes Irvine and southern Orange County, came under heavy criticism by the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) in January for his alleged silence in the face of continued Israel bashing and alleged illegal activities by the MSU. The New-York based ZOA said it continuously apprised Campbell of the MSU’s provocative conduct, including the possibility that MSU had engaged in fundraising for the terrorist group Hamas during an on-campus event in May 2009, and was disappointed that Campbell had taken no action in response to these reports.

“This has been a topic of concern, and Congressman Campbell has spoken verbally with Chancellor Drake about this issue in the past, but clearly a pattern has developed, and the Muslim Student Union’s actions are getting worse not better,” Brent S. Hall, Campbell’s communications director, said Monday. In his letter, Campbell admonished UCI administrators for giving the MSU a “greater degree of leeway” than it has given to other groups on campus. 

DeVore’s Feb. 23 letter calls on Drake to ban the MSU as “an entity inimical to the University’s imperative to provide an education in an atmosphere of academic liberty, free of coercion and conducive to meaningful debate and free inquiry.”

The assemblyman said he recognized this step to be a “severe and enduring penalty,” but that the MSU’s dedication “to support of terrorism, anti-Semitism and the suppression of free speech” warranted such a response.

Representatives for Campbell and DeVore said neither official has yet to hear back from Drake on this matter.

UCI spokeswoman Cathy Lawhon said that university officials will not comment on community reactions to the Feb. 8 incident while they are engaged in a confidential disciplinary process, though they are not surprised by the strong response, which also includes letters in support of the students from the Muslim and “free speech” communities calling for the charges to be dropped. Lawhon could not comment on the status of the disciplinary process, which she said could last six weeks or longer, citing the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act. A report in the Orange County Register quoted MSU President Mohamed Abdelgany as saying that he believes sanctions could be as serious as suspension or expulsion.

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Talking with two L.A. locals about why Israel’s healthcare startups are successful

Leave a Comment / Uncategorized /

Explaining why Israel enjoys global prominence in the healthcare business even though it’s a tiny country is a daunting task. Dan Senor and Saul Singer’s book, “Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle,” attempts to. It spotlights the tech-savvy, ambition, resourcefulness and chutzpah of Israeli entrepreneurs and acknowledges the successes of some Israeli healthcare startups.

For instance, Senor and Singer mention the Pill Cam, the first pill with a camera inside (so that patients can swallow the pill rather than face invasive surgery).

But the book’s focus is broad.

Fortunately, David Fischel and Brian Neman, two L.A. locals in their early twenties, have experience with Israeli healthcare startup companies.

In 2007, while Fischel studied at Bar Ilan University in Tel Aviv for a master’s degree in business, he worked for SCP Vitalife, a healthcare venture capital fund. One of Vitalife’s prominent investments, Argo Medical Technologies, has been developing a medical device to help paraplegics walk. 

Last summer, Neman worked as an intern with Oramed, an Israeli biotech company in Jerusalem. The company is on the brink of revolutionizing Diabetes treatment.

RT: First of all, what are the differences between biotechology, pharmaceuticals and medical devices?

Fischel: Biotech drugs are typically proteins and antibodies. Pharmaceuticals are chemical substances—they have molecular interactions with our bodies. Medical devices are tools—they are physical objects such as catheters and imaging devices. Israel is a powerhouse in medical devices.

RT: Why do you think that is?

F: Well, whether your company specializes in pharmaceuticals, biotech or medical devices, there is a path you have to take. If you’re doing pharm or biotech, you have to find the chemical entity or the protein you think that’s going to affect the body positively. You have to develop it, test it on animals and patients, do clinical trials, and then you need to get regulatory approval. For a drug it’s much harder than what is required for developing medical devices. It takes a lot more time and money to market a drug. For a device, it usually takes a shorter amount of time.

It’s also partially because it requires less time and less money. In small countries with limited sources you can create value [quicker] with a device than with a drug. If you need hundreds of millions to develop a drug, it’s tough in a small country like Israel.

Lastly, medical devices fit with the Israeli mentality. Israelis like something that’s quick, gets off the ground, [something] you can see tangentially the results of in shorter periods of time and you can see money in [in] a shorter period of time. In the short term, you can see results.

It also fits with the strength of Israeli education, which is much more based in mechanical engineering and electrical engineering than purely biotech. In medical devices, you don’t need that much of a medical background. If you look at a surgery, you might have an idea for how it could be done better. You don’t need the chemical background that you would need for biotech.

RT: Brian, how did you become interested in biotech?

Neman: There is potential to positively impact a lot of lives. That is really important to me. I add a value to that no matter what my salary is. And Israel is the best place to do it. Why do I say that? Relationships. You see Hadassah hospital and Tel Aviv Medical Center with

Oramed [the company that Neman worked for]. The Israeli universities and companies have very strong relationships and on top of that there is an extremely strong relationship between the government and industry in Israel. It’s absolutely unparalleled. The army also pushes these innovations and is often the first to try them. 

Oramed is a blossoming company because of those relationships. It’s sad to see that companies in the U.S. don’t use that synergistic relationship like companies in Israel [do]. Oramed gets a very good sum of money from the Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS) [at the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor in Israel]. Someone in a government position there knows that there is value in scientific technology. The government in Israel is pretty pleased with innovation.

RT: Can you say more about how the Israeli army relates to these startups?

N: Startups have four or five employees. Any start up in general has four or five employees. That team building comes from the army. The army is built of small teams of four or five guys getting together in self-managed teams [“Start-up Nation” says more on this].

RT: Does the U.S. view Israeli startups as competition?

N: Not really. Israel realizes that its talent and real strength lies in the development and technology. You see startup companies left and right in Israel that have the confidence to say an American company is going to buy them out. I don’t know the future plans of Oramed, but for the most part, Teva and only a few others have turned into worldwide companies. Teva is the largest generic pharmaceutical manufacturer in the world.

From what I’ve seen, the plan is to develop the technology, show that it is feasible and dump it off to an American company. A lot of companies in general develop these technologies and have no plans to commercialize them on a large scale. You’re not going to see a lot of Israeli startups doing advertising and distribution in the U.S. They call Israel the “Start-up Nation” because there are a lot of startups. These companies don’t go on to be like Teva, to have a worldwide presence, to have a worldwide regard. They allow an American company to do a merger and acquisitions.

Fischel works for his family’s healthcare hedge fund, the L.A.-based Dafna Capital Management. The fund invests primarily in biotech and medical devices. Fischel focuses on medical devices.

Neman is currently in graduate school at U.S.C., working toward a master’s degree in healthcare administration.

 

 

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