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Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

May 23, 2012

Rabbi Akiva’s gift to a ghost

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“You shall teach your children diligently” (Deuteronomy 6:7).

Rabbi Akiba traveled from town to town in Israel, teaching the Torah, judging cases, settling disputes, offering wisdom and listening to the stories of his people. It happened once, as he made his way to a certain town, he stopped for a moment’s rest beside an ancient cemetery. It was twilight, the moment between day and night, between light and darkness. It was twilight when the weary rabbi sat on the cemetery wall, between the living and the dead, between this world and the next. Suddenly a huge figure emerged from the darkness and rushed past, nearly knocking the rabbi over. In the gathering darkness, the rabbi made out the figure of a large man, and on his back was a huge bundle of sticks. He was out of breath and panting hard as he hurried past the rabbi. The rabbi reached out and grabbed his thick coat.

“Wait, my brother,” the rabbi cried. “Come and rest! You sound so tired, come and catch your breath.”

“Please sir, don’t hinder me. I have no time to waste!” the man huffed as he rushed by.

“Every man deserves a moment to rest. Come and sit with me, my brother,” the rabbi offered.

“No sir. Please! You don’t understand. My masters demand every moment. I have not a second to waste. Please forgive me, but I must be off,” the man panted, shaking off the rabbi’s grasp.

“Your masters?” Rabbi Akiba answered. “Who would work a man so hard? If you are a laborer, I will pay for your time. And if you are a slave, I will redeem you. So come and tell me your story.”

Terror filled the man’s eyes. “Please good sir, please let me be, I must be off!”

Now Akiba began to realize that this was no ordinary wood gatherer and no ordinary hurry. “Tell me, brother, are you of the living or of the dead?”

“I am of the dead,” the man declared. “It is my task, day and night, to gather wood and prepare charcoal. I have no permission to rest for even a moment!”

Akiba considered the man’s plight — endless toil, work without rest. “What did you do to deserve such a punishment?”

“I was the worst of sinners. I committed every conceivable offense. Every sin you can imagine, I performed. For all the misery I brought to the world, my punishment is just.”

“And did your masters mention anything that might lighten your terrible load?” the rabbi inquired.

Once again, the man looked worried. “Please let me go. If my masters find that I’ve stopped, even for a moment, they will increase my suffering. Please let me go to my work. For I was told that there is no helping me. Nothing can ease this terrible burden. Except one thing. I was told that if I ever had a son who would stand before a holy community and offer praise to God … that, and only that, might lighten my terrible burden. … But, sir, I don’t know if I have a son. My wife was only pregnant when I was taken. And if I have a son, who would want to teach him? And if someone taught him, would he rise to praise God, a boy cursed with a father like me?”

“What is the name of your city? What is the name of your wife?” the rabbi asked.

The man told him.

Some months later, Rabbi Akiba found himself in the town. He inquired about the man and his wife.

“That greedy, worthless crook! Do you know what he did to us? Let him rot wherever he is!” the townspeople screamed at the rabbi.

“And his evil witch of a wife! She was worse than him! Let her name be forgotten!”

Then Rabbi Akiba asked about their child.

“Yes, she gave birth,” the townspeople told him. “It was a son. He lives in the woods, raised by the beasts of the forest. No one would take him in.”

Rabbi Akiba went looking for the boy, and soon he found him. He had grown up in the forest. He was dressed in skins and smelled of the woods. He knew no words and acted more like an animal than a person.

Rabbi Akiba fasted for 40 days, like the 40 days without food or water that Moses spent on the top of Mount Sinai receiving the Torah. Or the 40 days one fasts if he drops a scroll of the Torah. Or the 40 days of repentance between the first of Elul and Yom Kippur. He fasted until God Himself took notice. A voice from heaven called out, “Akiba, you fast for this boy?”

“Yes,” Akiba cried. “For this abandoned child of Israel, I fast.”

Then Rabbi Akiba took the boy in, bathed him, dressed him and began to teach him the ways of human beings. And when he mastered the ways of civilized human beings, Rabbi Akiba began to teach him what a Jews needs to know: the alphabet, then the grace after meals, the Shema and the Amidah.

It was months after Rabbi Akiba had arrived in the town inquiring after the man, his wife and child that Rabbi Akiba appeared in the synagogue. It was a Shabbat morning and the synagogue was crowded with worshippers. When the Torah was taken from the ark, Rabbi Akiba stood and moved toward the bimah, the place of reading. Everyone in the synagogue rose to welcome the greatest rabbi and teacher of the generation. They anticipated a mighty sermon, words of teaching and wisdom. But the rabbi did not come that morning to offer teaching. He came to rescue a soul.

The rabbi nodded toward the door of the synagogue, and into the synagogue fearfully and nervously, there came a boy. At first, no one recognized him. And then suddenly, someone shouted, “That’s the devil’s son! The child of our enemy!”

Ugly curses and words of contempt filled the synagogue. “After all they did to us, all the destruction and suffering his parents brought us, you would bring such a child among us?” they screamed.

Rabbi Akiba was undeterred. He waved his hand, and the synagogue was silent. Then he gestured to the boy. The boy slowly made his way to the bimah, as if each step was a test, a trial. Then, to the astonishment of the congregation, the boy took hold of the handles of the Torah scroll, and recited in Hebrew “Barchu et Adonai ha’m’vorach” “Praise the Lord, Source of all blessing.” There was silence for a moment, and another, and yet another, as the congregation decided whether to answer the boy’s prayer. And then, one by one, they joined together and chanted the response: “Baruch Adonai ha’m’vorach l’olam va’ed.” “Praise God, Source of all blessing throughout time.”

The boy completed his blessing and read flawlessly from the Torah. Then, great Rabbi Akiba wrapped his arms about the boy and blessed him. And the community came forth and showered him with candies and sweets. The rabbi whispered, “My son, welcome home.”

That night, as he slept, Rabbi Akiba saw in his dreams the man he met in the cemetery. The bundle of sticks on his back was much smaller and the look on his face much brighter. “Thank you, great rabbi. You have rescued my soul from the darkness. You have given me back hope.”

Blessed is the People whose champions are teachers.

Blessed are the Teachers who renew life with the power of Torah.

Chag sameach.

Rabbi Akiva’s gift to a ghost Read More »

‘Spavuot’ offers day of teaching and escapism

Leave a Comment / California, Mobile, Mobile Sections, News /

Craig Taubman vividly remembers when Bill Kaplan first showed him around the grounds of the Shalom Institute, neatly tucked into the vast Santa Monica Mountains of Malibu.

For Taubman, it was, quite simply, serenity.

The open spaces, the chirping birds, the sweeping views. It instantly took him away from the life of go, go, go, to a momentary retreat, a “transformative experience,” as he calls it.

It was a feeling he and Kaplan hoped to share with others on May 20 for the first “Spavuot” event — part of their Big Jewish Tent series — and it most certainly worked.

“I have not checked my BlackBerry even once the entire time here,” said Mark Weinstein, a real-estate developer from Los Angeles who attended the event with his wife. “I would say that is the biggest period of time — aside from an occasional vacation — that I haven’t checked it in a while. That’s a big thing for me — I took the day off from technology.”

With the incessant buzz of the wireless world silenced — actual chirps replacing electronic ones — camp participants instead were able to focus on various workshops that addressed mind, body and soul. For the mind, there were poetry and storytelling classes. For the body, running courses and gardening instructions. And for the soul, seminars with local rabbis and health professionals.

Kaplan and Taubman conceived the Big Jewish Tent series in 2010 as a follow-up to their Jewish County Fair, in September 2010. Spavuot was just one of four events planned for the series — and like the others, it was timed in conjunction with a Jewish holiday, with Shavuot beginning Saturday evening, May 26.

“We’re all caught up in our daily world, running around like crazy, technology everywhere, TV, movies — and we end up feeling drained, and a lot of people don’t know why,” said Kaplan, who is executive director of the Shalom Institute. “We need experiences out in the environment like this to nourish [the] soul. To go and do.”

Backed by more than 80 sponsors, Spavuot featured more than 20 volunteer instructors, with the day broken up into three sessions over its six hours. In addition to the array of seminars and workshops, there was also horseback riding and zip-lining for those wanting to experience nature, and massages and a mikveh tent for those in need of rejuvenation.

For some, the simple experience of returning to the camp-like atmosphere of the Shalom Institute made the day memorable.

“Camp was a very special thing for me,” Weinstein said. “I was raised in a Jewish home, but there wasn’t a lot of history and observance; Camp Hess Kramer was one of the places that defined my Judaism and led me to the Jewish life I have now. Coming to camp is always a great reminder for me of that.”

Kaplan and Taubman hoped to combine the relaxed atmosphere and holistic healing with Jewish learning, with local rabbis conducting seminars and hosting workshops on topics ranging from the reading of the Torah to discussions on issues men face in today’s society.

“One of the key components of Judaism is that life is for the living — that the reward is in this world, we’re not focused on the world to come, so getting the most out of this experience, and acknowledging the blessings around you — that’s Jewish spirituality,” said Rabbi Dan Moskovitz of Temple Judea in Tarzana. “I don’t know why people are dialing into that now, but my sense is that it’s because we’re all running crazy, running ragged.”

“There are so many Jews out there now involved in yoga, Pilates, health and wellness,” Kaplan said. “What if we could create that for us? … Combine things that [people are] doing in the secular world and balance it with spirituality?

“Things are getting faster and faster and faster,” Kaplan added. “And this slows you down.”

‘Spavuot’ offers day of teaching and escapism Read More »

Calif.’s oldest female vet, 102, reaches out with compassion

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This Memorial Day, World War II Veteran Bea Abrams Cohen will be attending ceremonies at Los Angeles National Cemetery, paying tribute to all the men and women who have died fighting while serving in the U.S. Armed Forces. But for this 102-year-old resident of Los Angeles, who is certainly California’s oldest female veteran — and possibly the oldest nationwide — it’s the living veterans, especially those who are suffering or in need, who have garnered most of her attention these past seven decades. “I want them to be treated with dignity and compassion,” Cohen said recently.

She backs up her words with actions. Last winter, walking into the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center, Cohen saw veterans going sockless. She promptly requested that all guests at her 102nd birthday party, celebrated by more than 150 people at the Radisson Hotel Los Angeles Airport on Feb. 21, bring new white socks to donate to the veterans. She collected more than 700 pairs.

Cohen knows firsthand the toll war can take on a family. She was born Shayna Bayla Hershcovi on Feb. 3, 1910, in Bucharest, Romania, the third child of Joseph and Matilda Hershcovi. She never knew her father; he died a soldier in the Romanian army when she was 3.

Her widowed mother, a seamstress, moved the family to the village of Buhusi. There, she agreed to an arranged marriage with Hyman Abrams, who had moved from Buhusi to Fort Worth, Texas, in 1890, and who had become a widower when his wife died after the birth of their ninth child. “He knew no American woman would agree to take care of nine children,” Cohen said. Abrams sent money, and the family prepared to leave.

But soon after, Bea and her family heard unusual noises and ran outside to see airplanes — a strange and wondrous sight — flying very low across the sky. Cohen waved at one of the pilots. “He had a mustache,” she said. She believes the planes were headed to bomb a nearby factory. It was 1914 and the beginning of World War I. The family’s departure to America was delayed.

Finally, they arrived in Fort Worth, in 1920, with Cohen, her sister and mother dressed in red wool coats with lamb collars and buttons specially tailored by her mother. Cohen adjusted to her new, large family and enrolled in both public and Hebrew school. She was confirmed and also graduated high school.

Bea’s military service photo.

In 1929, following one of Abrams’ older daughters, Cohen, her mother,  Hyman Abrams and one brother relocated to Los Angeles, living off West Adams Street, near a kosher chicken shop and a few blocks from Beth Jacob Congregation. The rest of the children eventually joined them. Cohen attended school to learn shorthand and bookkeeping. After a short stint at the May Co., she worked at Adele’s Sportswear. Hyman Abrams, whom Cohen called Papa, died in 1939.

On Dec. 7, 1941, Cohen was on a movie date at the Pantages Theatre, located downtown, when, after 10 minutes, the screen went dark, the lights went up and a voice announced, “We’re at war. Go home.” Cohen was stunned.

Soon after, she returned to school to learn riveting, and she subsequently was hired by Douglas Aircraft Co. in Santa Monica, working the 4 p.m.-to-midnight shift. “We never knew what kinds of planes we were working on. It was top secret,” she said.

But Cohen wanted to do more to pay back America. She joined the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) toward the end of 1942, at age 32, turning down a 5-cents-an-hour raise offered by Douglas Aircraft. After completing basic training in Des Moines, Iowa, Cohen was stationed in Utah and Colorado. 

She then enlisted in the new Women’s Army Corps (WAC), which, unlike WAAC, was part of the regular Army. She was stationed overseas at Elveden Hall, 90 miles from London, and there, as Pfc. Abrams, she worked with top-secret mimeographed documents. Soon after she arrived, she again heard planes flying overhead. She went outside to see the sky full of American bombers heading to Normandy, France, for D-Day.

Cohen returned home on Sept. 28, 1945. In early November, she met Ray Cohen, who had been a Marine gunnery sergeant and was imprisoned on Corregidor Island in the Philippines for more than three years. They married on Jan. 28, 1946, and had two daughters, Janice and Susan.

Cohen joined a group for former prisoners of war with her husband. Also, in 1955, she joined the Jewish War Veterans and became chairwoman for child welfare, where she worked with the United Cerebral Palsy-Spastic Children’s Foundation for 35 years, including initiating annual visits to Disneyland for the children.

Cohen became legally blind in 1990, and her husband died in 2003, but neither tribulation slowed her pace or her passion.

Today, Cohen continues to attend monthly POW meetings for family members and volunteers most Wednesdays at the Veterans Home of West Los Angeles during bingo games. She also has an active Jewish life, becoming a bat mitzvah at age 100 at Culver City’s Temple Akiba and attending Shabbat services there several times a month. She also prepares a seder every year, doing most of the cooking herself.

In addition to collecting new white socks, Cohen, after seeing amputee veterans sitting uncovered in their wheelchairs, began collecting lap robes — knit, crocheted or quilted 50-by-50-inch blankets. “I need some, if anybody wants to make a donation,” she said during an interview. In fact, whenever she goes to a doctor’s appointment or a meeting at the VA, she always brings a lap robe or two and some new socks. And she always finds grateful recipients.

Cohen will also be participating in a new gardening group to be held at the Veterans Home of West Los Angeles, bringing gladiolus and hydrangea cuttings from her yard.

And as if that’s not enough, this veteran who took upholstery classes off and on from 1961 to 2011 and who proudly displays her self-upholstered chairs and sofa in her Westchester home, is looking for a location and funding for an upholstery class for returning or unemployed veterans who want to learn a trade.

“Never forget our veterans,” Cohen told a reporter. “They are our heroes.”

To donate socks or lap robes or for more information, contact:

Sock donations:
West Los Angeles VA Hospital
Clothing Room – Bldg. 500, Room 0441
11301 Wilshire Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA 90073
310.478.3711, ext. 43535

Lap robe donations:
Jeanne Bonfilio
Public Information Officer
California Department of Veterans Affairs
11500 Nimitz Ave.
Los Angeles, CA  90049
424.832.8219

Calif.’s oldest female vet, 102, reaches out with compassion Read More »

Letters to the Editor: Israel, Iran, Nuclear program

Leave a Comment / Letters to the Editor /

Where Father and Son Differ

In praising the venture capital investment ideas of Chemi Peres, the son of Israeli president Shimon Peres, Rob Eshman writes, “An hour into [a discussion of these ideas], I realized no one had mentioned ‘peace process’ or ‘settlements’ or any of the other sinkholes of Middle East hope” (“The Arabpreneurs,” May 18). Shimon Peres, who dreamt about Israeli investment in the Arab world, clearly stated in his writings that such investment should be a major benefit of negotiated peace agreements. If Chemi Peres did not mention that fact in the discussion Eshman attended, then he is not being faithful to the approach of his father.

Barry H. Steiner
Professor of Political Science
California State University, Long Beach

Who’s Faking It?

Dennis Prager of course has every right to hold and voice his own opinions, but I must protest when he uses the 12 steps, which stress, above all, honesty and integrity as prerequisites for emotional healing, to support his tenuous position to “fake it till you make it.” I would appreciate any citation referencing such a statement within the recovery literature, which as Mr. Prager acknowledges, is “perhaps among the wisest programs in our society.”

Miriam Elkins
Los Angeles

Dennis Prager responds:

“Tenuous position?”

I learned this phrase from countless callers to my radio show who have profoundly benefited from the 12-step program and from its “fake it till you make it.”

“Fake it till you make it” Wikipedia entry: “The phrase is often associated with Alcoholics Anonymous …”

“AA to Z: An Addictionary of the 12-Step Culture” by Christopher Cavanaugh: “Fake It Till You Make It: A suggestion often made to newcomers who feel they can’t get the program and will go back to old behavior.”

“The Twelve-Step Facilitation Handbook: A Systematic Approach to Recovery From Substance Dependence”: “Fake it till you make it” is one the Twelve-Step program’s slogans.

Finally, inflicting one’s bad moods on others is not an expression of “honesty and integrity.” It is an expression of narcissism.

I agree with Dennis Prager: “Happiness Is a Moral Obligation” (May 18). King David says in Tehillim 118:24: “This is the day that Hashem has made; I will rejoice and be glad in it!” Happiness is a sign of unselfishness. It is a commitment that whatever happens in any given day, I will be on the upbeat side to those around me. My own interpretation of Prager’s thought process is that chronically inflicting bad moods on a spouse or on anybody is a form of emotional and mental abuse, not only spousal abuse. Happiness is the outer expression of inner emuna (faith).

Orali Hall
Lancaster
Harold Plonchak
Northridge

Where Israeli Democracy Falls Short

It is ironic that a rabbi has to be an advocate for Jewish equality in a so-called Jewish democracy (“Time to Expand Dialogue and Partnership With Israel,” May 18). What happened to Ben-Gurion’s Declaration of Independence promise that his nation would have equality for all residents? A true democratic government should be the great equalizer for residents and citizens of every race, color and creed.

Israel’s “democracy” has a long way to go.

Martin J. Weisman
Westlake Village

Ask More Questions on Road to Nuclear Deterrence

At the end of the article “Can Israel Live With a Nuclear Iran?” (May 11), Paul R. Pillar, professor of security studies at Georgetown University and former CIA counter-terrorism expert, says, “It would make at least as much sense to ask how Iran can live with a nuclear Israel.” Also in the article, Pillar says: “Israel can live with a nuclear Iran the same way the United States and others have lived for decades with nuclear-armed adversaries more potent and more fearsome than Iran, such as Mao’s China and Stalin’s Soviet Union. It’s called deterrence.”

Perhaps the article could have gone a little further by asking: Can Egypt live with a nuclear Israel? Can Pakistan live with a nuclear India? Can Pakistan live with a nuclear Iran? Can Iran live with a nuclear Pakistan?

The list can go on with many enemies and even friends wondering what a nation with nuclear weapons can do. Deterrence is the answer.

Masse Bloomfield
via e-mail

CORRECTION

A Community News item on a visit by children’s book author/illustrator Eugene Yelchin to Brawerman Elementary School (“Brawerman Students Learn From Newbery Award Winner,” May 18) should have said that the school is affiliated with Wilshire Boulevard Temple.

Letters to the Editor: Israel, Iran, Nuclear program Read More »

Shavuot – Torah for everyone

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My daughter, Dina, accepted a summer job here in Los Angeles last year. Before being hired, she explained that she was an observant Jew who would have to take off two days in early June to celebrate the holiday of Shavuot. The manager, respecting Dina’s religious commitment, said it would be no problem.

A few days before the holiday, Dina sent an e-mail to the receptionist explaining that she would be absent for two days in honor of Shavuot. After receiving the e-mail, the receptionist asked, “So what’s this holiday, Shavuot, all about anyway? I Googled it, but it was complicated, so I decided to ask you.”

As Dina began explaining what Shavuot commemorates, another worker in the office overheard their conversation and asked what they were discussing.

“I’m Jewish and I never heard of such a holiday,” the worker said.

“That isn’t surprising,” the receptionist added. “According to Wikipedia, Shavuot is one of the lesser-known holidays among secular Jews outside of Israel.”

In response to their curiosity, Dina patiently explained that Shavuot commemorates the revelation and the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. Shocked that she had never heard of the holiday, her Jewish colleague said, “Now that’s a big deal! Funny thing I never knew about it before.”

Indeed Shavuot is the “big deal,” for there is nothing in Jewish life that defines us more than the Torah. This fact led the rabbis of the Talmud in the second century C.E. to make the following observation about Torah study. The Talmud, in Tractate Berakhot 63b, records that Rabbi Yossi bar Hanina explained a verse in Jeremiah 50:36 as the source for how we are to study Torah. The verse states, “A sword is upon the boasters and they shall become fools.” Noting the sound of the Hebrew word for “boasters” — bad — Rabbi Hanina suggests that this word is an allusion to the Hebrew word that means “alone.” Rabbi Hanina concludes that those who only study Torah for themselves but don’t share it with others are enemies of Torah. Torah must be learned in a community and not just by individuals.

This talmudic passage, however, bothered the late talmudist Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Rabbi Soloveitchik could not understand how Rabbi Hanina would deduce such a lesson from this verse when Jeremiah wasn’t talking about Torah, but rather was prophesying about the downfall of Babylon. How could Rabbi Hanina suggest that this verse teaches us how we must study Torah?

Rabbi Soloveitchik answered that the Babylonian non-Jewish scholars were brilliant men who mastered great amounts of knowledge. However, most people are not even aware of these scholars’ total brilliance, mastery of natural law and knowledge because the Babylonians did not share their wisdom. They kept their knowledge to themselves. It was this experience in Babylon that motivated Rabbi Hanina to quote Jeremiah. He wanted Jews to avoid a similar path at all cost.

Torah is not a limited treasure for an elite group and off limits to the masses. Rather, Torah must be shared with all Jews. As Isadore Twersky, the late professor of Hebrew literature and philosophy at Harvard University, once wrote, “Our goal should be to make it possible for every Jewish person, child or adult, to be exposed to the mystery and romance of Jewish history, to the enthralling insights and special sensitivities of Jewish thought, to the sanctity and symbolism of Jewish existence, and to the power and profundity of Jewish faith. … Education, in its broadest sense, will enable young people to confront the secret of Jewish tenacity and existence, the quality of Torah teaching which fascinates and attracts irresistibly. They will then be able, even eager, to find their place in a creative and constructive Jewish community.”

Indeed, we have our work cut out for us as long as there is a Jew who can say, “I’m Jewish and I never heard of Shavuot.”

Rabbi Elazar Muskin is senior rabbi of Young Israel of Century City.

Shavuot – Torah for everyone Read More »

Alexander T.

Leave a Comment / Culture, Mobile, My Single Peeps, News, Singles /

Alex wrote to me asking why I didn’t have any gay single peeps on my site. I told him I do — “you should take another look” — and then offered to interview him sight unseen. Because I’m awesome like that. He took me up on it. Because he’s trusting like that.

Alex was born in Washington, D.C. “For some inane reason, my father wanted me to have the Jewish education he never had, so I was sent to a Modern Orthodox school. It was extremely traumatic.” He left after four years, but it left a bitter taste. After college, he became a freelance theater director in New York. He moved to Paris on a whim but moved back to D.C. after five months.

He took a job at The World Bank but hated the work — “I’m a right-brained guy.” He moved back to New York, got a certificate in translation at NYU and spent eight years writing scripts. He decided it was time to move to L.A., so he applied to graduate school here. But when it came to the interviews, “I flubbed them. I met the heads, and they were really great, but they asked these pointed questions, and I hesitated before answering. Maybe it’s for the best, because I’d probably be broke right now.” It was during this time that he went on a retreat for gay and bisexual Jewish men, which helped him forgive the Modern Orthodox experience from his childhood. And when it was over, he decided to move to L.A., even if he wasn’t going to graduate school. 

He’s been making a living as a French translator and writes scripts in his free time. He’s very into biking — he even biked to our interview. “I try to avoid my car as much as possible. I just feel a lot freer. One of the biggest secrets in L.A. is that it’s one of the most bikeable cities in the U.S.”

As we talk, I get the feeling that Alexander is struggling internally. It’s hard to understand everything he’s saying. His thoughts are a bit scattered. I finally ask him to clarify, and that’s when he tells me he recently lost his father. And it’s clear to me that he’s evaluating his life. “I guess everything I’m trying to drive at — sorry if it’s not real clear — is I’m trying to be more forgiving to myself and to people in my past.”

We get around to what he’s looking for in a relationship. “I’ve always wanted to be in a long-term relationship with a man and to be married. I’m not sure about kids. [At 48] I’m kind of old for that. I kind of have very simple values. I like guys who know how to have fun and appreciate life and have gratitude. It’s been kind of a disappointment in L.A. that the Jewish gay community is different than in New York. It’s harder to find guys who are spiritually oriented.” But men who are spiritually oriented are what he prefers. “Even if it’s just coming occasionally to synagogue with me.”

I ask him if he wants to go back to New York. He doesn’t. “I really feel like there’s something about this city — it’s just sort of seeping into my pores and transforming me.  That’s been the most extraordinary gift. I don’t know if I’ve had dumb luck — or it’s reflective of L.A. — but I’m really touched and blessed that people in my life have shown up. The woman I sat with on the plane on the way to L.A. has become a close friend. I started making friends and I hadn’t even landed here.”

If you’re interested in anyone you see on My Single Peeps, send an e-mail and a picture, including the person’s name in the subject line, to mysinglepeeps@jewishjournal.com, and we’ll forward it to your favorite peep.

Seth Menachem is an actor and writer living in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter. You can see more of his work on his Web site, sethmenachem.com, and meet even more single peeps at mysinglepeeps.com.

Alexander T. Read More »

Survivor: Jack Seror

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Jack Seror didn’t know what to do. He was 25 and knew he had to leave Salonika; it wasn’t safe for Jews. And now a contact from the Greek resistance had come to fetch him. Jack stood with his parents in their living room, crying. They hugged, kissed and hugged some more. “We have to leave,” the contact said. Half of Jack wanted to stay with his parents; the other half wanted to escape. Finally, his father, with tears in his eyes, said, “Go. And remember, if you survive, to say Kaddish for us.”

Jack was born Oct. 15, 1917, in Salonika, Greece, the fifth of six children of David, a milk wholesaler, and Mazeltov Seror. The family was religious. On Friday nights, after Shabbat dinner and singing, Jack recalls that his father always told a new story about a character he remembers as Johah.

Jack attended an Alliance Israelite Universelle school through seventh grade. After that he worked in his uncle’s dry goods store and then for an insurance company. But in March 1940, he was drafted into the Greek army. Eight months later, Italy invaded Greece. Then, as the Greeks drove the Italians back into Albania, Jack’s unit was sent to the Bulgarian border, where the Germans were advancing.

After the Germans took control of Salonika, on April 9, 1941, Jack’s unit was sent to southern Greece to continue fighting. The Greek army, however, was soon disbanded, and Jack returned home, mostly walking and occasionally riding a bus, from Thebes to Salonika. The trip took five weeks.

In Salonika, Jack just tried to survive. His older brother Albert had been killed fighting the Italians. His father, no longer a milk wholesaler, was working as a deliveryman. Jack sold carob syrup.

The situation worsened. On Feb. 6, 1943, Jews were ordered to wear yellow stars. On the streets, Jack witnessed Nazi round-ups. He also saw photos of cattle cars carrying Jews in a Belgian magazine that was soon confiscated from the newsstands by the Nazis. He told his parents the Nazis were planning to kill the Jews. His father answered, “Passover will be here in a couple of months, and God will not let us perish.” Jack didn’t believe it.

In March, the Nazis enclosed the area adjacent to Salonika’s railroad station with barbed wire, calling it the Baron Hirsch camp or ghetto, and transferring Jews there. A few days later, cattle cars arrived, and on March 15, the first transport left for Auschwitz. Two days later, another transport departed. At that point, Jack knew he had to leave.

Jack and his contact from the resistance picked up Jack’s sister Katy from a neighboring village, and they made their way to Grevena, a small city in the mountains of northwestern Greece. Jack’s resistance group, about 35 men, was headquartered there.

Katy and the other women stayed near Grevena. Katy’s job was to sew shirts out of the parachutes used by British soldiers who were dropped into the mountainous area to assist the resistance fighters.

Jack’s group trekked from village to village, from one hill to another. “We were scared. We were always thinking about what we left back home,” Jack said. But they never talked about their personal lives. Instead, everyone had a fake name, including Capt. Bourna, the leader, rumored to be a Greek army officer. Jack was Alekos Saridis.

Every morning, Jack’s group did aerobic exercises, followed by chores — including fetching water, cooking the ever-present lentils, helping villagers — and then combat training. Plus, they were always watching for enemy soldiers. “We went there to survive, but we also knew we had to fight the Germans.” Jack said.

Jack’s group didn’t directly encounter any Germans, though one man, sent to deliver shoes, never returned. And Jack’s younger brother Haim, in a different resistance group, was killed fighting Germans.

Finally, in October 1944, the Germans retreated from Greece. Jack’s resistance group disbanded soon after, and he and Katy slowly made their way back to Salonika, arriving in early 1945.

Jack and Katy were the only survivors in their immediate family. Overall, 96 percent of Salonika’s almost 60,000 Jews perished.

Jack secured an accounting job at a social club for British troops. “It was very good to be able to be human again,” he said. There he met Katie Zinda, who worked in the gift shop. After a six-month friendship, they fell in love and decided to marry. Katie, who wasn’t Jewish, converted, taking the formal name Sarah.

Jack and Katie were married on Sept. 9, 1949, with 10 people in attendance. “People were so sure the marriage wasn’t going to last that we didn’t get any presents,” Jack said.

On July 9, 1950, their son David was born. Just over a year later, destitute and wanting to start over, they immigrated to the United States, settling in Boston in October 1951, where they were helped by Jewish Family & Children’s Service. Jack found temporary bookbinding work at Houghton Mifflin and also worked at a warehouse. Their son Marc was born Aug. 16, 1952.

But the winters were brutal, and the family moved to Los Angeles in February 1952. Jack took a warehouse job for a year and then worked for a calendar company. In 1959, he and Katie purchased a small grocery store, Quinn’s Market, near Glendale. In 1966, they sold it and purchased another grocery store in Venice. “We worked hard, six and sometimes seven days a week,” Jack said. They sold the store in 1979.

Jack and Katie also worked hard for Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel. “Jewish Family Service was very good to us. We wanted to pay back for what the Jewish people did for us,” Jack said.

Katie died in May 2010. Today Jack, 94 and legally blind, walks, listens to tapes from the Braille Institute and visits with his grandchildren every week. He also travels by bus every Saturday from his Culver City home to the Westside Pavilion, where he visits with other Greek survivors. Of the original group of 30, four remain.

“I am thankful for what we accomplished,” Jack said.

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Nuclear talks: U.S., Iran and the fine art of semantics

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Once again, nuclear negotiations are taking place, and once again there’s a gap between the gloomy tone of the Israeli observers and the optimistic, albeit guarded, noises on the American side. It’s doubtful that anything concrete will come of the May 23 talks with the Iranian leadership — that’s the message from Jerusalem. The more blunt would add: The Americans, naive and without clear guidelines, are yet again falling into a trap. In Washington, the administration is broadcasting great caution, almost anxiety, over the raised expectations.

There’s no chance that the issue will be resolved this week; the talks in Baghdad are just the start, and essentially a test — of the Iranians, of course. But in any case, tendrils of hope are starting to creep in: The sanctions are undoubtedly working, and the Iranians are awaiting with dread the oil embargo that comes into effect at the start of July; oil prices are dropping, and, for the time being, the Europeans aren’t blinking. Neither, for that matter, are the Chinese or the Russians. And now the International Atomic Energy Agency is speaking of progress in parallel to the talks with Tehran — a further sign that someone is looking for a way to climb down from the tree.

And what of the warning voices of the Iranian leadership? What of the tough talk, the arrogant public posturing? Even in this, Washington sees a positive, a laying of ground for capitulation — such vociferous barking could signal a lack of willingness to actually bite.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who visited Washington last week to thank his American counterpart, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, for funding to preserve Israel’s military edge in the region, did not forget to bring up what Israel wants. Again, judging by public statements, the gaps are there: The Americans are hopeful, the Israelis skeptical; the Americans are ready for compromise, the Israelis believe compromise is dangerous.

The issue is that when Washingtonians talk about success, they mean an agreement from Iran to halt uranium enrichment to 20 percent or higher. In Israel, the equation for success is zero percent enrichment. In Washington, when they talk about success, it means inspectors at Iran’s nuclear facility in Qom; in Israel, it means dismantling the nuclear facility in Qom. These are, without a doubt, significant differences. Israel believes that if there is no insistence on red lines, it is likely the Western position will be eroded, and the Iranians can be expected to exploit a loophole that would allow them to carry on making a mockery of the rest of the world until their aims have been met.

Washington sees Israel’s public position as unrealistic. If it’s a position for the purposes of negotiations, one intended to make clear there will be no agreement to a dangerous compromise (as officials in Washington believe it is), then this position can be circumvented somehow. But if this is a fundamental position, and Israel really will not agree to a compromise that includes low-level enrichment plus inspections, then expect problems — not between the United States and Iran, but rather between the United States and Israel.

No one believes that Iran can be persuaded to compromise without any of its conditions being met. Any Western compromise will include concessions that let Iran claim victory, at least in part. For example, if the decision is made to allow low-level uranium enrichment, then Iran can flaunt this as finally having won international recognition of its right to enrich uranium. Given that from the outset the Iranians have rejected claims that they are seeking to develop nuclear weapons, they can present this agreement as an achievement: We did not give up anything — those in the West are the ones who understood they had no choice but to allow us to enrich.

A vigorous Israeli opposition will contribute to Iran’s ability to present any compromise as a victory. The unhappier Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is with an agreement, the easier it will be for Tehran to find it acceptable. And so this is another dilemma the United States now faces: Is it worth upsetting the Israelis in order to score points during negotiations? Maybe it’s better to coordinate in advance, so that Israel pretends to be unhappy and the same advantage is gained but without the danger of a genuinely angry Jerusalem deciding to take military action.

A pretense of this nature requires a high level of mutual trust — trust that might well exist between Barak and Panetta, but hard to muster between Netanyahu and President Barack Obama. A pretense of this nature would also demand absolutely no leaks, which is always difficult to achieve.

It could also be politically risky for both sides: A convincing display of dissatisfaction by Israel could damage Obama’s chances in an election season, and a believably irate Israel that does not act afterward could raise questions domestically about Netanyahu’s own credibility.

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Self-Love for Y-Love

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Self-actualization can be such a drag.

Just ask the African-American “ex-Chasidic” rapper Yitz Jordan, known to fans as Y-Love, whose religious journey clashed with his human journey when routine bouts of racism and homophobia dented his dignity.

One time, while praying at the Kotel in Jerusalem, he said, a group of black-hatted Jews taunted him by repeatedly calling him “shvartze.” As a black religious Jew, he became used to being served last in the kosher pizza line. Coupled with a decade of suppressing his sexuality to commit to the religious life, he wondered, “Why am I fighting tooth and nail to be a second-class citizen?” After the Kotel incident in 2007, he said, “I took off my bekishe [silk Chasidic coat] in the middle of the street in Jerusalem.”

Jordan isn’t the first Modern Orthodox Jew to struggle with a clash of cultures. Last December, Chasidic reggae star Matisyahu shaved his beard and wrote on his blog that it was an act of “reclaiming” himself.

“I felt that in order to become a good person, I needed rules — lots of them — or else I would somehow fall apart,” Matisyahu wrote.

For Jordan, 34, who decided to become Jewish at 6 years old, after seeing a “Happy Passover” announcement on TV, some of those same rules would prove pointless and oppressive.

The first time I met Jordan, I extended my hand for a shake, but he quickly covered his own hand with his cap so we wouldn’t have to touch. The surface of strict and serious devotion to Jewish law, however, belied a deeper conflict roiling inside. For the public persona Y-Love, halachah offered a means to hide.

“I’ve known I was gay my whole life,” Jordan said during a phone interview last week from Los Angeles, where he is spending the summer. His public coming-out, announced in capital letters on a widely disseminated press release, was vociferous in tone, the potent pronouncement of long-unheard roars.

“I mean, I’ve been wanting to come out for years,” he told me.

The closet was too claustrophobic. Jordan grew tired of “not being able to do the most basic things that heterosexual people take for granted — not being able to date, not being able to say a guy is cute online or leave a comment on somebody’s [Facebook] photo, making sure my friends keep secrets — that’s been the M.O. in my life for a long time. Now this weight is lifted off my shoulders.”

This wasn’t his first time. In middle school, he came out to some close friends, but “trying to get a 13-year-old to swear to secrecy is the same thing as getting a PR agent,” he said. He tried again at 15, coming out to the entire school, but added that “homophobia always sent me back into the closet.”

His first sexual experience, also at 15, ended badly. “I started crying afterward,” he recalled. “I went home and put on Jewish music. I was real depressed. It was like, immediately after sex was over, there was no afterglow; it was like, ‘I’ll never do it again. I’ll never do it again. I’ll never do it again.’ ”

For almost a decade, Jordan said he suffered from intense anxiety and depression. “I was on the antidepressant Lexapro. I wasn’t feeling much of anything. I was just artificially happy all the time.”

As a student at Ohr Somayach yeshiva in Jerusalem, he remembers discovering the text that would change his life, a responsum by the Belarusian rabbi Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz, better known as the Chazon Ish. “Literally, it’s called ‘he who is inserted by his fellow man into his throat,’ about oral sex between two men. It doesn’t say it is permitted, but it doesn’t use the word ‘abomination’ ” — used to describe other acts of homosexual encounter — “and I was so happy, I called my friends in Baltimore. This was the first time I had ever seen a loophole that allowed me to have a sex life within a halachic framework.” 

Reconciling the desire for tradition with the opportunities of modern life is an animating force in Jordan’s quest. In his latest music video, “Focus on the Flair,” he alternates between Chasidic costume and drag. In art, as in life, is the ever-present tension between wanting to belong and needing to stand out. Tradition recalls the rewards of community; modernity reinforces the promise of individuality.

“This ultimately boils down to your God-view,” Jordan said. “I believe God is all-knowing and all-understanding. Like, if you’re gonna sit and talk to your therapist, and you think your therapist understands what you’re doing through, then God has to understand.”

Though critics were quick to accuse Jordan of using his coming-out to boost his Y-Love profile, he denied that the announcement was targeted to the release of his new single.

“What, just to get more ‘likes’ on Facebook and viewers on YouTube?” he quipped, adding, “Do I want to become more visible and scream to the world ‘I’m gay’? Yeah. If it boosts my image, that’s wonderful — but I’m out here to change the world, not just sell records.”

As for those in the religious community who have reproved him for repenting his repression, Jordan is not all that bothered. Yes, he’s less observant now and has officially left the Chasidic community. But, he said, “Judaism was in me before I knew what Judaism was. Orthodox Judaism is still my religion. I’m still a Jew, and I still believe in God.”

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