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Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

June 9, 2016

Alexandra Barr: The climate is a-changin’… so she did somethin’ about it

Leave a Comment / Graduation, Los Angeles /

ALEXANDRA BARR, 17
HIGH SCHOOL: Calabasas
GOING TO: UC Berkeley

When Alexandra Barr took an Advanced Placement environmental science class during her sophomore year at Calabasas High School, she learned about such dire issues as overpopulation and global warming.  

“Some people read our [textbook] and said, ‘Oh, that’s terrible,’ ” Alexandra, 17, said during an interview at her Calabasas home. “But for me, it was, ‘There are so many issues to tackle in the world. Where do I start?’ ”

Alexandra began by rallying students to create a garden of native plants on a barren patch of soil on campus. She went on to become a student member of the city of Calabasas Environmental Commission, where she prepared a gap analysis for climate action plans, including the proposed requirement of energy-efficient appliances among residents. The report compared the environmental policies of the city of Calabasas with those of San Luis Obispo, and its recommendations are now being considered by the Calabasas City Council.  

Alexandra arranged for the city’s Earth Day and Arbor Day celebrations to take place at her school, and this summer, she will serve as a counselor at Camp Hess Kramer in Malibu, where she will help conduct the camp’s garden activities. Inspired by the Jewish idea of tikkun olam, changing the world for the better, she said she will teach campers “that we must be thankful for the land that God has provided us.”

Alexandra’s love of nature began, in part, as she was struggling with anxiety in the aftermath of her parents’ divorce when she was 5. She found peace in the calm of the outdoors, including visiting her grandparents on their moshav in Israel and working in the vegetable and fruit gardens at Hess Kramer, which she began attending as a camper at age 10.

More recently, Alexandra has been helping to spearhead a campaign to eliminate the use of rat poison at her school and in the community. She is also president of her student body. As a winner of the prestigious Ventura County Star Scholar Award, she’s pitched a program to empower women by teaching them to plant and maintain their own gardens in Honduras. 

Alexandra also has helped raise more than $15,000, through bake sales for the children’s charity Cookies for Kids’ Cancer, among many other endeavors. Along the way, she’s earned an award for her more than 100 hours of community service during her junior year alone. Alexandra’s academic achievements include winning a certificate of merit, recognizing her for excellence in science and mathematics, from the Society of Women Engineers San Buenaventura Section.  

Next year, she will major in society and environment in the College of Natural Resources at UC Berkeley. “It’s how the environment relates to global policy and international law,” she said.

Alexandra aspires to a possible career as a politician or an environmental attorney.  

“I dream … of making groundbreaking discoveries that cure disease, working with world leaders to find solutions to the lack of potable water [and] enacting legislation that protects the entire planet from destruction and ensuring human rights,” she wrote in one of her college application essays.

Alexandra told the Journal she’s looking forward to joining Hillel at Berkeley — perhaps getting it more involved in environmental areas — and being part of Jewish life in general.

“There’s such a strong Jewish community at Berkeley, and I’m really looking forward to working with other Jewish young people who are inspired to make change and do better for the world,” she said.  

Ultimately, Alexandra said she hopes to inspire others to “change their daily habits” on behalf of the natural world.  

“The biggest thing I fear is climate change,” she said.  “But even the smallest things you do can help make a difference — whether it’s bringing a reusable bottle to work or recycling in your home. We can accomplish so much when we work together.”

Alexandra Barr: The climate is a-changin’… so she did somethin’ about it Read More »

Elijah Spiegel: A different kind of answer

Leave a Comment / Education, Graduation, Los Angeles /

ELIJAH SPIEGEL, 17
HIGH SCHOOL: de Toledo High School
GOING TO: Stanford University

Even as a young child, Elijah Spiegel would pose theory-of-mind questions to his family and teachers; he loved to ask about the world around him. Fortunately, he had a relative with similar inquisitive interests who bought him a comic book about philosophy. 

When Elijah was about 10 years old, his mother bought him a copy of Rene Descartes’ “Discourse on Method,” which sat on his shelf for many years — it took him until he turned 15 to begin reading it. 

“I think it’s that kind of environment,” Elijah explained of his childhood home, where they don’t “necessarily force you to sit down and read this book, but to simply have that on the shelf.”

Now 17, Elijah has come a long way from that first comic book. As a senior at de Toledo High School, he’s read numerous philosophers — it took him a few minutes to name his top three. 

“Everyone, of course, has to say Plato, and with Plato comes Socrates,” Elijah said.

“All of Western philosophy is just footnotes to Plato.”

Then, he listed Baruch Spinoza. “Not just because he’s Jewish, though I do have that connection to him, but also due to his rigorous analysis. And for the third, I have to say Bertrand Russell, because he is a tried-and- true analytic philosopher.”

For the past four years, Elijah has been a member of his school’s debate team and in the most recent season, served as its captain.

This year, he qualified for the state championship in both the Lincoln-Douglas category and in the impromptu, but opted to give his latter spot to a classmate. 

“I’ve always been very analytical, and I’ve always enjoyed arguments,” Elijah said. “There’s a certain attraction to sharpening your mental abilities in terms of argumentation and those kinds of thought processes. I think that also there is a sexiness to conflict of the mental kind.”

Elijah said he’d learned a great deal from one of his teachers and mentors, Rabbi Devin Villarreal, who leads de Toledo’s Moot Beit Din team. 

From their first moments in class together, when, at first, Villarreal was just a substitute teacher, the two connected through a shared philosophical vocabulary, and they continued the conversation at lunchtimes and elsewhere. Through these encounters, Villarreal began to understand what separates Elijah from other students.

“It’s his ability to access the underlying questions of an issue,” Villarreal said. “He would want to get underneath that and ask, ‘How is it that we can evaluate an action to begin with?’ It is not the type of question that you hear a high school student ask. When I heard that inquisitiveness, it signaled to me that this was someone who was encountering the material on a different level and was looking for a different kind of answer.”

When he’s not studying rationalist thinker Eliezer Yudkowsky or reading Machiavelli, Elijah finds time to play on the golf team, participate in Moot Beit Din and volunteer at the Alzheimer’s department at the Motion Picture and Television Fund (MPTF). His favorite hobby though, is reading. He carries a list with him, noting the books and essays he has completed. 

Elijah aims for a career in artificial intelligence and plans to join the prestigious Symbolic Systems Program at Stanford University, where he will be attending in the fall. 

Artificial intelligence, he said, “is the new shiny field. But also the reason I want to do symbolic systems — which contains philosophy and linguistics rather than just straight computer science — is that I do like that philosophy side. There are a lot of interesting questions about the mind that can be asked there.”

Elijah Spiegel: A different kind of answer Read More »

Kelly Gould: From professional acting to social action

Leave a Comment / Graduation, Los Angeles /

KELLY GOULD, 17
HIGH SCHOOL: Home-schooled and College of the Canyons
GOING TO: Undecided

If Kelly Gould looks familiar, there’s a reason. The 17-year-old Santa Clarita resident has already had a successful acting career that would be the envy of many older actors, appearing on sitcoms such as “Rita Rocks” and “Jessie.” 

But when Kelly was about 14, she decided to give acting a break. 

“I was getting into high school and starting to get involved in USY [United Synagogue Youth],” she said. “Acting wasn’t what I absolutely loved. It was something I did because I had always done it.” 

She comes from an acting family. Her mother, Valerie Gould, is an acting teacher and both of Kelly’s older siblings acted. Her father, Tom Gould, is an importing consultant.

“I gave it a break and didn’t really miss it very much, so I haven’t gone back,” Kelly said. “Maybe after or during college it might be something I will pursue.”

The truth is, right now, Kelly doesn’t have a lot of extra time in her schedule — she’s busy saving the world. 

“Kelly is super passionate about repairing the world,” said Sarah Hartnig, youth director at Temple Aliyah in Woodland Hills, where Kelly has participated in USY activities for the last year, since switching from the smaller chapter at her family’s synagogue in Santa Clarita, Congregation Beth Shalom. 

“All the programming she does through USY, she is always thinking about the impact this could have on the community and how to maximize the positivity,” Hartnig continued. “She is an amazing kid, very genuine and someone who really loves community service. You feel it.”

Kelly recently headed up the entire social action/tikkun olam portion of a weekend-long event for the Far West USY region. Some 100 teens participated in the gathering at the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, where they assembled care packages for soldiers overseas, and filled and decorated flower pots for local retirement home residents.

And she and her family have been involved with Guide Dogs of America ever since Kelly chose to raise a puppy through the organization for her mitzvah project. 

“Our job is to get it socialized,” she explained. “We teach it basic obedience. My parents took it to work, I would take it to classes — everywhere you can think of. You want as many people to be around it as possible so it gets desensitized.” 

The process was so gratifying that they ended up taking on two more dogs after the first one.

As a youngster, Kelly was home-schooled. But since the age of 15, when she passed the California High School Proficiency Examination, she has taken a full load of classes at College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita. “I love the college setting,” she said. “It’s so much more serious than maybe my high school would be.” 

This summer, Kelly will return to Camp Ramah in California in Ojai as an outdoor specialist (leading hikes and helping with the ropes course, among other activities), after serving as a counselor for 12- and 13-year-old girls last summer. 

“I never had the chance to go to Jewish summer camp as a kid,” she said. “So getting to work there was an amazing experience. I just love the community. I still am in contact with all my campers; I got to adopt like 16 little sisters.”

Shortly after camp ends this year, Kelly will leave for Israel and spend a year there through Nativ, a program that aims to create Conservative Jewish leaders. She will begin by taking Hebrew and religion classes at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; the second half of her stay most likely will be spent volunteering near Haifa at an agricultural youth village for immigrant high school students, she said.

And while Kelly anticipates completing the college application process while in Israel, she’s not sure where she might end up or what she’ll study. “I am kind of playing that by ear,” she said. “I sort of assume I am going to change and what I want is going to change a tremendous amount in the next year.”

One thing that likely won’t change: her commitment to making the world a better place.

Kelly Gould: From professional acting to social action Read More »

Outstanding Graduates 2016: Profiles on social action, perseverance and spirituality

Leave a Comment / Graduation, Los Angeles /

For our annual graduation issue each year, we invite you to nominate high school seniors who have made significant contributions to their communities, not only through scholarship, but also in their acts of tikkun olam — helping to heal the world. Each year, we are inundated with stories of extraordinary students, more than we can represent in these pages. Here is a small sampling from among these outstanding innovators, environmentalists, activists, philosophers and all-around good people.

 

Outstanding Graduates 2016: Profiles on social action, perseverance and spirituality Read More »

This Election is Different

Leave a Comment / Blogs /

So, on Tuesday, I felt it—that little frisson of joy I get every time I join the civic ritual of casting a physical ballot next to my neighbors. I love me some voting.  I love democracy. Protecting that love has become, for me, what this election is about.

After the last presidential election, which was President Obama’s last victory, I wrote here about my warm affection for a Republican schoolmate; about our mutual love of country and the importance of care and respect for friends and colleagues with whom one disagrees.  That principle still holds, but this election carries special challenges. Donald Trump has to be defeated decisively. He, personally, has to be ridiculed, marginalized and humbled, and so do the racists and anti-Semites associated with his campaign.

Do I have any business writing this? I’m a rabbi now, no longer a student, obliged to be welcoming to every Jew regardless of politics and to behave courteously with just about everyone.

We are all obliged to hate evil and love the good, says the prophet Amos (5:15). For anyone who despises racism, this contest cannot be a matter of lesser evils—Trump and, more importantly, the coalition he now represents is a whole different magnitude of evil and must be defeated soundly.  For Jews this should not be a complex issue.

As this news outlet and others have reported, Trump represents a public intervention of white supremacists and Jew-haters in mainstream politics. Jewish journalists who speak out are being barraged with images of Jews in ovens.  David Duke, the infamous Ku Klux Klan leader and other white supremacists proclaim themselves proudly to be in Trump’s corner. Trump himself has, as everyone now knows, promised to build “a big beautiful wall” to keep out immigrants from south of the border (Canadian-based migrants being, presumably, just fine), to deport millions of people, to register American Muslims and to stop all Muslims from entering the United States.

So what now? My personal and FB friends know that I have a strong affinity for the politics and the movement behind Senator Bernie Sanders who changed the national conversation. Sanders has made it impossible to downplay the the gross concentration of wealth in the hands of the superrich along with systemic racism, the continued need for LGBT inclusion and gender justice, and the daily outrage that millions of people who work 40 hours a week or more still struggle in grinding poverty. He is proud to be Jewish—and he talks like a whole generation of relatives I remember. What’s not to like?

About the presumptive Democratic nominee, Hilary Clinton, I have more mixed feelings. On the day this country elects a woman president (so in about five months, God willing) I will be ever so verklempt. I respect the Clinton intelligence and the Clinton spine of steel. I also cannot shake my unease at what appears to be the genuine Clinton respect for Wall Street as an institution or at Hilary Clinton’s capacity to say anything nice about Henry Kissinger, a war criminal (and hilul HaShem) whose continued tenure on this planet shakes my opposition to the death penalty. But Hilary has, to her credit responded to Sanders and to other activists (her admission of fault for praising Nancy Reagan on AIDS policy and her crafting of a superior position on the subject being examples), so she has made herself accountable to the sea-change roiling the Democratic Party. She will represent the best hope for change—if the movement that Sanders represents mobilizes itself to continue its work.

Just as it is foolish to demonize Clinton by comparison with Bernie Sanders, so it is pointless to worry about her “likability” by comparison to Donald Trump. She actually knows the job and is capable to do it. Thanks in some part to Sanders—and just maybe what Sanders gives Clinton is permission to be more of who she really is by renouncing some of the “third way” digression–, she is now committed to addressing economic injustice (to “lowering barriers) and to addressing racial, gender, sexual and ability related inequality as well. There is no doubt that her feminism is genuine. (About foreign policy–well, that’s what activism is for.) She is, in a qualitative, decisive way, the better choice.

National elections are not only, maybe not mostly, about individual personalities. (One could write a much longer piece on Donald Trump’s character if one had the time or the stomach to delve into such unsavory material, but truly, who cares if he believes in the racist crap he is saying or is simply opportunistic enough to say anything?) What matters is the collection of forces that each candidate represents and whose interests will be advanced or held back if they win.

A victory for Donald Trump would be a victory for racism, Islamophobia, vulgar sexism—and Jew-hatred (let’s dispense with the “Anti-Semitism” euphemism for just this once). I will be joining the Jewish social justice organization Bend the Arc in their anti-Trump Vigil Against Violence on June 21. That date is significant, because on June 21, 1964, Jewish activists Andrew Goodman and Mickey Schwerner, along with Black Christian activist James Chaney and white Unitarian activist Viola Liuzzo, were murdered by racists for participating in the civil rights movement’s campaign for African-American voting rights. In their name, we will light candles for peace and justice. And, in November, we will participate in that cherished civic sacrament—we will vote.

This Election is Different Read More »

So few safe places

Leave a Comment / Opinion /

I was just sitting down to write this column  — about the new political landscape in Israel and how this latest shift even further to the right challenges the pro-democracy camp in Israel — when my phone started buzzing. Even before the breaking news update came, texts from friends started flashing on my screen: Did you hear the news? There’s been a shooting at UCLA.

Like almost all of you reading this now, I take the news out of Israel very personally. Each awful new step in the seemingly endless cycle of violence blocks out everything else for a while. We scan the news for the names of people and places: Where did it happen? Are my friends and family safe? What happens now? It’s a disconcertingly familiar feeling, one I know many of us share.

And here in the U.S., the horrible and horribly predictable nightmare of gun violence provokes a similar set of responses. Last week’s shooting at UCLA hit particularly close to home: My kids were born on that campus, and for many years, we lived right down the street.

But far more upsetting was the fact that a group of New Israel Fund (NIF) leaders and supporters was meeting that morning at the UCLA Hillel, including NIF board member David N. Myers and International Council member Rabbi Sharon Brous. They and our other community members spent hours under lockdown, unsure of what was happening outside. I was texting them as the police searched for the shooter, and of course they were calm, cool and collected, and assured me that all was well.

But even as they presented a brave face to the world, our friends talked about the scourge of gun violence that plagues our country. And in the midst of what had to have been an upsetting ordeal, Brous posted this on her Facebook page: “I’m under lockdown @UCLA. Apparently 2 dead, active shooter at large. Would now be a good time to talk about #gunviolence? #UCLA.”

While it is an imperfect analogy, in many ways, gun violence in America — and the inability to discuss the issue productively, let alone take steps to solve the issue — feels like our intractable problem, our version of the debate in Israel about peace, terror, occupation and the settlement enterprise. In both countries, these are issues that bitterly polarize the population and inflame the debate.

In the U.S. and Israel, politicians who fear powerful lobbies avoid making the hard choices that would help both societies strive for a better, more peaceful future. No one doubts that the extreme settler lobby and the NRA represent minorities of the population, but everyone knows that both groups will stoop to anything to punish politicians who don’t toe the ideological line.

Worse, perhaps, is that both those who insist on the absolute right of anyone to own any gun, and those who propound the sacred need to hold onto every square inch of Israeli territory, base their arguments on what are, to almost all of us, “sacred” texts. We Americans value our Constitution, which includes the Second Amendment, with reverence and with the understanding that it is the one document that holds our heterogeneous, polyglot society together; it is our common political foundation.

As Jews, even if we are secular or liberal in our religious observance, the Torah and Jewish law and tradition occupy that sacred and unifying spot. And of course, the Torah tells us over and over that God has given us the land of Israel, that no other people have rights there and that we may use any means necessary, including violence, to grasp and hold onto that land.

But we are also progressives, and that means we believe societies can and should progress beyond the literal meaning of texts written in other times. We reject the idea that the Founding Fathers meant for every American to have the right to own a semi-automatic rifle with a magazine that holds 30 rounds in our dense urban surroundings. We reject the idea that the particularism of the Torah should be the guiding principle behind how we coexist in Israel with Palestinians, whose roots there are also broad and deep. To embrace the literal meaning of these important texts is to rely on reactionary anachronisms that endanger us all.

It seems to me that we must take a page out of my friend Sharon Brous’ playbook and engage in these discussions now, even when we are emotional and frightened and threatened by the dangers we see around us. In the wake of every public shooting, politicians who are afraid of the gun lobby speak in lockstep about “not exploiting this tragedy as an excuse for gun control.” In the wake of terrorist activity in Israel, or increased anti-Semitism, or new diplomatic maneuvers about multinational conferences, we are cautioned that the unity of the Jewish people and our backing for the policies of the Israeli government must be of paramount importance.

No. It is precisely now, when there is so much at stake and so few safe places — literally and politically — in which we can find refuge, that we must take a stand for our values. We Americans, Jews, Israelis, Palestinians — everyone — deserve safety and equality as citizens. Now is when we must speak out for the vision we share and for the progressive understanding that we as people and societies can and must evolve beyond fear and literalism, into a place that is safer and more peaceful for us and our children. 

Daniel Sokatch is the CEO of New Israel Fund.

So few safe places Read More »

Tel Aviv, Shabbat, Shavuot.

Leave a Comment / Blogs, Election 2016, Israel /

For one day you break our hearts.
For one day you make us cry.
For one day your terror seems to win.
For one day you dance in the streets.

But,  you forget this Israel of ours,
was never built for one day.
So count the hours.
When the clock strikes twenty-four,
we'll go back to that market of ours.

Terror shakes the Jewish land
and Shabbat arrives,  we hold hand in hand,
Ledor Vador,  from generation to generation.
We've been counting through sandy deserts
God awaits us at Sinai with presents.

Shavuot comes after your feeble attempts.
Cast your bullets, pass out a cookie or two.
But our land flowing with milk and honey
shall never be split by you in two.

Though you try to bury our children
Never Forget
we are seeds that grow and sprout
here in Israel and yes in heaven. 

United we stand with Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
All Jews always face Western Wall,  Hashem.
We rise from the ashes stronger each time
shining our light onto the world for all time.

Don't confuse one day's grief
With your success,  oh it's so brief.

Today and every day, 
Je Suis Tel Aviv,
I am Tel Aviv.

 

*** Less than 18 hours after the Tel Aviv terror attack at  Sarona Market, business is booming.
patrons gathered at Max Brenner today to enjoy the sunshine and a chocolate treat. A powerful sign of defiance towards forces of terror.
Fear will not win. (Svetlana Solomina)

Tel Aviv, Shabbat, Shavuot. Read More »

From screen to stage: Blog posts come to life

Leave a Comment / Culture /

Entertainment runs in the Newman family’s blood. 

Tracy Newman was the co-creator and executive producer of the TV sitcom “According to Jim,” a writer on Ellen DeGeneres’ ’90s sitcom “Ellen” and a founding member of The Groundlings improv group. Her sister, Laraine Newman, was an original cast member on “Saturday Night Live.” Now, Tracy’s daughter Charlotte Dean is making her first appearance at the Hollywood Fringe Festival.

Dean, 33, wrote “Charlotte’s Shorts,” a show running through June 26 that features fictional humorous tales, some of which are based on her life. There are 25 stories in the show, and they will be read by Laraine, Lynne Marie Stewart of “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” Tim Bagley of “Grace and Frankie,” and Mindy Sterling, who played Frau Farbissina in the “Austin Powers” franchise. 

Though the stories were funny in their original form on Dean’s blog (” target=”_blank”>Hollywood Fringe Festival through June 26. 

From screen to stage: Blog posts come to life Read More »

A fearful farewell to the dragon of childhood

Leave a Comment / Education, Graduation, Opinion /

A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys” is a line from Peter, Paul and Mary’s song “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” Here I am, three days before I turn 18, saddened by these lyrics. 

I can’t help but compare myself to Holden Caulfield, my favorite antihero. “The Catcher in the Rye” is the only book north of 50 pages that I have read more than once. Holden informed so much of who I am today, and as I’m in his position, I can’t help but mentally compare myself to him. 

My troubles come at what should be a more lax part of my high school career. Last night, my parents set a curfew for me — the first time this has occurred in high school. In my second semester of my senior year, three days before I turn 18, two months before I graduate, my parents imposed a curfew on me. 

After a long argument with my dad, I left the house in frustration, not understanding the sudden and, in my opinion, untimely rationale behind this. Although my dad said it was because he felt I was partying too much with my friends, I think he’s trying to cling to what little childhood I still have left. “A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys.” 

Senior year can be a joyous time for many, full of celebration; for others, it can be disappointing and discouraging. It’s second semester of senior year, I should be taking school lightly — which I am — and be locked into a college — which I’m not. 

The college acceptance process didn’t work out for me as well as I had hoped it would. They say it’s random, but I have no one to blame but myself. My options are consequences of my own actions. Those nights I chose to go bowling instead of studying, or to watch another episode on Netflix instead of going to sleep finally caught up with me. 

I guess after my fight with my dad the other night, I really started to realize that. I kept on telling him that he has two more months of parenting, and then he is done forever. (I’m the youngest.) I am working at a special needs camp in New York this summer. Then in early September, I head off to yeshiva in the Old City of Jerusalem. After that, who knows what lies ahead?

 I guess what I’m really getting at is I have no idea what I’m doing with my life. I’ve accomplished a lot in my high school career. To be immodest for a moment, I started a minyan at my school that is the largest student-led minyan in the country. I wrote an article about a major contemporary halachic issue, which received more than 25,000 hits on my school newspaper’s website. Today, a junior told me his class discussed how I was the epitome of the leader they wanted and needed, a compliment I do not take lightly. Yet as I sit at Shabbat meals and talk with family and friends, I do my best to avoid the subject of what I’m doing for college. 

Again I think about that line, “A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys.” I don’t even know if I fully understand it, but it forces one troubling thought into my mind: My childhood is coming to an end, whether I want it to or not. 

It feels ironic to me. Somehow the fantasized fire-breathing dragon I pictured while listening to this song as a child is the part of my youth that continues to live on, while my actual young and innocent self is leaving forever. The Noah who used to spend Shabbat playing wizards and jedis with his cousin Avi has been outgrown. The priceless memories live on, and I get to share them with those around me, but I don’t get to play the game anymore. 

Holden Caulfield knows this, too. He’s the one who first showed this to me. I know why Holden wants to stand at the edge of a cliff as a protector and make sure that not only the “dragon” lives forever, but so, too, little boys. 

And yet, the little boy in me is soon to be no more, plain and simple. The “dragon” of childhood will live on elsewhere, and it will no longer be my place or turn to access it. It feels like 18 years of childhood is being pushed over a cliff. Eighteen years of good times and bad times are soon to be sealed. 

One of the scariest parts is I feel as though everything is happening to me, like fate, like it’s not me controlling my life. Whether I like it or not, and as scary as it is, I have to move on. I don’t have a choice.

I am no longer a little boy. Never again will I get to experience being a child, and the unknown of what is to come terrifies me. 

NOAH ROTHMAN has just graduated from Shalhevet High School in Los Angeles. A version of this article previously appeared in The Boiling Point, Shalhevet’s student newspaper.

A fearful farewell to the dragon of childhood Read More »

Home: Tips for buying furniture online

Leave a Comment / Culture, Home /

Would you buy a major piece of furniture, like a sofa, online? Apparently, a lot of people would.

The research firm IBISWorld reports that online furniture sales have grown at an annual rate of 9.6 percent over the last five years. And according to Furniture Today, the online furniture store Wayfair has even seen year-to-year gains of 50 percent. Clearly, furniture shoppers have caught the online shopping bug.

But unlike buying a book from an e-commerce site, online furniture shopping comes with unique challenges for consumers. The price points are higher. Shipping charges can add hundreds of dollars to the bill. And you can’t touch, feel or interact with a piece of furniture through your computer monitor.

Much of my online furniture shopping is for research. It saves me from driving all over town looking to see what different stores carry. For “brick and click” (or “click and mortar”) stores such as  Pottery Barn and Crate and Barrel, which have both online and physical presences, I can investigate their offerings on their websites before going into the stores to actually see the pieces. 

There have been plenty of times, though, that I bought furniture items online without seeing them in person. Most e-tailers — Houzz, Hayneedle, Wayfair, Amazon, Ballard Designs, etc. — don’t have brick-and-mortar stores. And even when they do, I’m often just too lazy to get in my car, go there and deal with a salesperson. Just this week I bought a lamp at lampsplus.com so I wouldn’t have to go into the store.

With all the online shopping I’ve done, I’ve learned a lot and made quite a few mistakes. So to help you on your own online shopping expeditions, here’s a handy guide to furnishing your home via the web.

Research the website

If you come across a site that you aren’t familiar with, do some homework on it. Start by reading the “About Us” page. A legitimate company will provide information about when it was founded, where it is located, and contact information such as a phone number or address. I get wary of sites that are nonspecific in the About Us page. And if the page has spelling or grammatical errors, a red flag immediately goes up. There’s a good chance it’s an overseas company, which means little to no customer service, longer delivery times and fewer guarantees of quality. Besides reading the About Us page, I also do an online search of the company name, often with the keywords “scam,” “legitimate” and “review,” to see if there are any complaints about the company.

Read the reviews

Everybody’s a critic, and that’s a good thing when buying furniture online. When you find a piece you like, check out what other buyers think of it. You’ll get an honest assessment of how comfortable the furniture is, how durable the materials are, and if the colors are true to how they look on the computer screen. And if assembly is involved, reviewers will often give advice about putting together the piece. 

Make sure it fits the room

It’s difficult to determine the true scale of furniture from a photograph alone. Find out the dimensions of the piece and use masking tape to map it out in the room where you intend to put it. (This is a good thing to do before you buy any piece, even when you aren’t buying online.) Even smaller items need to be checked for size. For example, a coffee table might look perfect next to your sofa. But take out a ruler to measure if it would be too high or too low. Double-checking measurements now will save you a lot of inconvenience in returns later.

Make sure it fits through the door

Don’t assume everything is going to fit through your front door — or narrow hallways and staircases. If items are disassembled and in separate boxes, that’s usually not a problem. But if a large furniture piece comes fully assembled, take note of the dimensions and then measure your front door and the pathway to its eventual room. I once bought a desk for a client from roomandboard.com (this was before there was a local store), and, to my horror, it would not fit through the door. Ultimately, I had to rent a crane to lift the desk to the second floor and through the French doors. Wow, that was expensive.

Compare prices

You can usually find the same furniture piece on several websites, so it’s a good idea to do some comparison shopping for the best combination of item price and shipping cost. An online search of the name of the piece will bring you to all the websites where it is sold. Sometimes I’ll jump straight to Amazon to check if it’s stocked there, and if free two-day shipping is available. And if the piece does not have a specific brand name to type into a search engine, copy a photo of it onto your desktop and conduct a Google image search of it. You may be able to find the exact piece on other websites, or at least items that look similar.

Order swatches

It’s very difficult to see true colors and finishes on your computer screen. Many furniture e-tailers will happily send you fabric or wood finish swatches so you know exactly what you’re getting. That way, you can look at the samples in the context of actual wall colors and other pieces in the room before making a decision.

Check the return policy

Know what the e-tailer’s return policy is before purchasing. (There is usually a link at the bottom of the home page.) Although they might allow returns, you may have to pay for return shipping. On smaller items, the cost may be negligible, but the return shipping on larger pieces can be prohibitive. For websites that have local brick-and-mortar retail stores, you may be able to return the item to the store. And check to see if you’ll need a Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA), whether you’re making a return via a shipping company or directly to the store. 

Consider the type of delivery

Online furniture stores offer various levels of delivery, ranging from curbside drop-off to white-glove in-home service. If you’re purchasing a heavy item, curbside drop-off can be a real inconvenience, as you have to recruit someone to help you lug it inside your home. However, in-home delivery can come with hefty surcharges; still I find it’s worth the money, because they typically provide simple assembly and remove all the packing material for you. Just be prepared for whichever type of delivery service to expect when ordering.

Beware of back orders

When you find a piece marked as “on back order,” it does not necessarily mean that the item is so popular that there is a waiting list to purchase it. That may be the case, but in my experience, it has frequently meant that there are hiccups in manufacturing, and the company is not ready to ship the item. I once ordered some wrought-iron candleholders from ” target=”_blank”> jonathanfongstyle.com.

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