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Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

September 29, 2016

The other crisis on campus

Leave a Comment / Opinion /

Our Jewish community is rightly concerned about Israel on campus. Serious challenges face pro-Israel students around the country today, and much ink has been spilled about the topic. 

But the purpose of this piece is not to recap the stories you’re already reading. Rather, I want to give voice to a quieter, but possibly more consequential, crisis on campus today: the pronounced decline of Jewish identity and literacy in North America.

On campus today, we estimate that about 80 percent of our incoming Jewish freshmen now hail from families with sparse Jewish affiliation. Many, but not all, of these students were raised with a blend of different religious and cultural practices, often by intermarried parents. Others were given almost no cultural or religious orientation to their Jewish heritage beyond a Star of David necklace or some weak cultural messages about “two Jews, three opinions” or the importance of bagels.

And even if they had a strong connection in their childhood, say through an early childhood program or Hebrew school, that connection often waned after their b’nai mitzvah ceremonies.

As the leader of the largest Jewish community at UCLA, I am constantly aware that the silent majority of Jewish students aren’t being heard. They don’t blog about Israel or post on Facebook about being Jewish. And you don’t hear from them at shul or in Jewish organizations because, well, they don’t go. 

Numerically, however, they represent the future of Jewish life in North America. And our success in both Israel on campus and the future of Jewish life hinges on their involvement.

Changing this reality requires an all-hands-on-deck approach to fix the “pipeline” of Jewish identity building. The template for success actually already exists. It’s been studied to be effective. It just takes commitment to execute.

Jewish identity building starts with parents who are willing to inculcate Jewish life into their children’s lives — before their kids have any reason to protest! 

Parents can read Jewish children’s books from the PJ Library and eat Shabbat dinners together as a family. Prioritizing travel to Israel over Hawaii, or even playing recordings of Jewish songs (there are some good ones, I promise) while in the car provide children with “default” Jewish experiences.

Inspiring young children nourishes their passion and affinity — and leads to them joining the many excellent Jewish peer communities, summer camps and inspiring after-school programs already in existence. Paired with sustained Jewish home life, these programs build literacy and a sense of belonging.

Next, bar and bat mitvah training that focusses on making Judaism compelling, relevant and valuable should lead seamlessly into post-ceremony learning and engagement for 13- to 18-year-olds. Several successful programs already exist, the best of which utilize Jewish values to inform adolescents’ most pressing concerns about relationships, sex, drugs and even national politics and science.

Parents who invest time and money by engaging in their own Jewish learning and giving a fixed percentage of their income to tzedakah (hopefully with their kids’ input) also model commitment to the Jewish people.

The final step, of course, is college. Here, however, parents’ suggestions are merely that — suggestions. When your child moves away from home and has as many as 1,200 student organizations on campus vying for attention, it’s no longer up to parents to choose. They should certainly bridge their children by insisting that they tour the Jewish organizations during campus visits and make sure that the Jewish professionals on campus know their children have arrived, but beyond that, parental influence is significantly diminished.

That’s why, even though I’m a Hillel rabbi, I’m not writing about Jewish campus life. Yes, we are doing phenomenal work to keep these students from falling through the proverbial cracks. Last year, in fact, we engaged more than 70 percent of the Jews on campus, irrespective of their background.

But we are also deeply aware that the students who lead our Israel and Jewish communities on campus are often those with robust pre-college Jewish involvement. While we often do attract students with no Jewish background and help them to transform their Jewish identities, we much prefer to be part of strengthening an existing Jewish commitment than starting from scratch.

Rosh Hashanah provides us with an amazing opportunity for introspection and commitment to meaningful change. I have been impressed by the American Jewish community’s response over the past five years to anti-Zionist forces trying to pollute Israel’s image on campus. In that time, the community has funded nearly 100 distinct organizations that claim to do pro-Israel work. 

At the same time, I have become increasingly alarmed at the growing number of “insufficiently inspired” incoming students at universities across the country. These Jewish freshmen are often proud to be Jewish, but they can’t articulate precisely why. Their big question — “Why be Jewish?” — has not been sufficiently addressed. 

Whether our motivation is Jewish grandkids or ensuring that we have passionate Israel leadership on campus, I believe the key to securing both is for all Jews to commit to building a Jewish-identity pipeline with the same enthusiasm and resources we have demonstrated for supporting Israel. Our community, when activated, is capable of amazing, and enduring, results.

RABBI AARON LERNER is executive director of Hillel at UCLA.

The other crisis on campus Read More »

Wanted: United student voice on campuses

Leave a Comment / Opinion /

What a new school year this is turning out to be.

Milan Chatterjee, the former Graduate Student Association president at UCLA, will be finishing his last year of law school at New York University, driven from his West Coast campus by what he calls a “hostile and unsafe campus environment.”

In a letter to UCLA Chancellor Gene Block, Chatterjee, a Hindu Indian American, wrote, “Since November 2015 I have been relentlessly attacked, bullied and harassed by [anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions]-affiliated organizations and students.”

A Jewish student activist at Brown University, Benjamin Gladstone, complains that on his campus, Jewish students and their organizations have been prevented from working in coalitions because of their association with Israel — real or imagined. In one notorious case last year, LGBTQ activist Janet Mock canceled her appearance at Brown after an online petition opposed the lecture because it was sponsored, in part, by Hillel, the Jewish campus group — even though the event had nothing to do with Israel.

And north of the border, Molly Harris, a rising junior at McGill University in Montreal, reports that “many of my liberal peers, with whom I share so much common ground, have actively excluded Jewish students from their social-justice organizations” because of their association with Israel. She complains about frequent harassment of Jewish students and offers this chilling warning to incoming freshmen everywhere: “If you’re Jewish, you should probably also prepare yourself for the various forms of anti-Israel sentiment, and maybe even anti-Semitism.”

Never mind the debate about “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings” — on many campuses one’s position on Israel has become a litmus test for acceptability. If you are on the “wrong” side of the issue — or thought to be — the campus can be a hostile place.

The Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC) reports that in 2015-16, 185 campuses experienced 1,437 anti-Israel events, a 12 percent drop from the previous year. While Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaigns declined by 25 percent, from 44 to 33, there was an increase in “other forms of activism, such as attention-getting, visceral displays of anti-Israel sentiment. Campuses also saw a surge in disruptions of Israel-related events, during which anti-Israel activists attempted to silence lecturers and guest speakers.”

These tactics undermine the civility that is essential to the free exchange of ideas. In the service of creating a better, more peaceful world — starting with Israelis and Palestinians — anti-Israel groups are fostering campuses that alienate rather than unite. And, ironically, it is out of step with the Middle East today.

Israel is increasingly accepted across the Middle East, from Saudi Arabia to Morocco. Arab contacts with Israel, far from being a recent development, actually have a very long, if bumpy, history. Today, economic ties are growing while security and intelligence cooperation among Israeli and Palestinian, Egyptian, Jordanian and other Arab officials has become almost routine. In the face of nihilism and radical Islamism, Arab leaders are making common cause with Israel. Rather than seeking messianic prescriptions for peace, these Middle East realists are finding ways to cooperate to provide their people with stability and security in a region where misery, chaos and brutality are commonplace.

Anti-Israel advocates on campus are taking a different approach. Rather than finding ways to work with pro-Israel students to improve the region — from the humanitarian disaster of Syria to the ravages of ISIS to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — their tactics are alienating one important partner that cares deeply about the Middle East while turning off the majority of students who are indifferent to the plight of the region. At a time when American leadership is critically needed, a united student voice could send a powerful message to Washington, especially during a presidential transition year. Alas.

Instead, the generation now in college is witness to a microcosm of Middle East dysfunction in its own quads. These young Americans will become only more disenchanted by the Middle East. America will grow more distant from the region. No Middle Easterner will sleep better at night.

Students who truly want to help the Middle East should embrace the approach of a growing number of Arab and Israeli leaders: Muster the courage to overcome ideological divides and find practical, realistic avenues of cooperation. If they can’t make peace on campus, they won’t succeed in the Middle East.

David Pollock is the Kaufman Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the editor of its Fikra Forum blog. Jeff Rubin is the institute’s director of communications.

Wanted: United student voice on campuses Read More »

Simanim: Signs of a new year

Leave a Comment / Holidays, Judaism /

No question that Rosh Hashanah is known as one of the most important holidays in the Jewish calendar, but it is not known for its comedy. If you look carefully among all the serious themes of starting over, forgiveness and repentance, however, you may find one New Year tradition that clears a space for groans and guffaws: the tradition of “simanim,” a series of pun-shaped wishes for a successful new year.

According to the website of the Star-K (an Orthodox kashrut site), different sources in the Talmud in two different tractates indicate that various foods bring luck for the new year. And, as with most matters, the rabbis disagree about the simanim: One says they’re only required at the first meal of the holiday, another says you should eat them at all four Rosh Hashanah meals; one says you can get the “benefit” of these foods only by eating them, while another says that you can fulfill the custom by merely gazing at them.

Depending on where you gather for Rosh Hashanah dinner, your meal might include anywhere from one to a dozen or more simanim, starting off simple and then spiraling into obscurity or ridiculousness. Each one of the foods is preceded by a piece of text: These do not quite require a blessing that would begin with a “baruch ata” (blessed are You), but instead, the blessing should start with “yehi ratzon” (May it be Your will that…) and then end with language particular to the food’s name or character.

Everyone knows the siman of serving an apple with honey. The eating of the apple and honey is preceded by a borei p’ri ha’etz, a blessing normally said over fruits of the tree, and then is finished off with a “yehi ratzon” — that we should have a good and sweet new year.

That one’s pretty simple. But with every year that passes, the puns proliferate. The carrot, or “gezer” in Hebrew, is a siman that any negative judgment (g’zar din) against us should be overturned. Beets in Hebrew are “selek,” related to the word for “depart,” which is what we wish our enemies would do.

A pomegranate indicates a wish for a year as full of good deeds as the fruit has seeds. A fish head is present, because “we should be as a head and not as a tail.” Another type of fish — often of the gefilte variety — represents the hope that we “multiply like fishes.” (Although this isn’t authorized by the rabbis, vegans may use Swedish fish.)

Simanim puns aren’t just for Hebrew anymore: Chef Jamie Geller notes on her website, The Joy of Kosher, that Jews in the Ukraine ate chicken livers on Rosh Hashanah because the Yiddish word for livers, leberlach, is homophonous with leb ehrlich, “live honestly.”

Enter the English puns:  A piece of celery, with raisins in the celery’s concave furrow, so that we all may experience a “raise in” your salary. Single? Eat pears, so that you find your pair, or sweet dates, so that your dates should be sweet. (And here we insert a disclaimer that these results may not be the actual results of eating simanim.)

The inclusion of simanim — and the wordplay around these edible wishes for a good new year — now occupy an important place: comic relief and an opportunity for fun amid the serious tone of the holidays that isn’t discouraged by the rabbis or other well-behaved adults as being not in the spirit of the Days of Awe.

So let’s let it ride. Let us have even more challah, in the hope that all our ideas will be fully baked. Let us have yams, because when Moses asked who was in the burning bush, God said, “I yam that I yam.” (Although it’s possible that was Popeye.) Let’s have fruit smoothies or prunes, so that our year runs both fruitful and smooth. Let’s eat walnuts (egozim), so that we may consume our egos instead of them consuming us.

Or maybe we should shred some cheese or carrots, so we can make America Grate Again. Or maybe elect them both, baking shredded cheese and carrots into an au gratin of sorts, because they’re Better Together.

Now please join me in the final siman: Everyone take a fig from the center plate and throw it across the room in a random direction. Then pick up one of the thrown figs and give it to someone else, promising that, no matter what happens this year, signs will still indicate that we do give a flying fig about one another.

Simanim: Signs of a new year Read More »

Dance studio has the right moves for Orthodox girls

Leave a Comment / Culture /

For Orthodox girls and women, dance lessons aren’t as easy as learning a plié here and a relevé there. Classes might be mixed-gender, the outfits aren’t always modest, performances can take place on Shabbat and the music may be suggestive. 

Growing up in an observant family in Atlanta, those were always constraints for Sheila Asher Meyer. 

“My mother signed me up for dance when I was 5,” she said. “But we were Orthodox and I didn’t have the same opportunities.” 

Meyer, 38, who now lives in the La Brea neighborhood of Los Angeles, wanted other frum girls and women to be able to experience the power of dance. So, 13 years ago, she opened A Time for Dance, an 1,800-square-foot studio on Beverly Boulevard, where she provides ballet, pointe, tap, Middle Eastern dance, Zumba, and jazz classes for girls and women. The students also put on performances as a culmination of everything they’ve learned. 

“It’s an opportunity that they wouldn’t have otherwise because they wouldn’t fully be able to participate in a dance program,” said Meyer, who has three daughters and who started by teaching a class for her daughter and her friends. “We provide an exposure to the arts and it opens up a whole new world for them.”

A Time for Dance, which serves between 150 and 200 girls and women annually, also offers classes in gymnastics, singing and yoga.

Kids’ classes (ages 2-16) are held in three sessions throughout the year: September through December, January through March, and April through June. There’s also a fine arts summer camp that runs for seven weeks. Though most classes are hosted in the La Brea location, Meyer travels to North Hollywood and Pico-Robertson for additional group lessons. 

There also is an annual musical for girls that takes place in June. This year, it was “Aladdin,” and past shows have included “Neverland” and “Alice in Wonderland.” 

To ensure that it’s “kosher,” Meyer will take out anything questionable from the script — like the romantic relationship between Aladdin and Jasmine — and make sure all the costumes are appropriately modest, or tzeniut. The musical is held on three different dates for the various age groups, and men are allowed to attend the performance by the youngest group only; the shows for girls ages 7-12 and 13-16 are only for women.

The strictly female rule goes for the women’s productions, as well. In 2011, there was a performance of “The Crown of Creation,” an interpretive dance about the women of the Tanakh. The most recent one, held in 2012, was a full-length original ballet called “The Spirit of Shabbos.” Julia Berger played the Shabbos Queen and danced alongside her daughter Aliza Sebban, who was 9 at the time. 

“There is a very strong feeling of women sharing creativity and expressing themselves,” Berger said of A Time for Dance.

Now 13, Berger’s daughter is taking hip-hop lessons at the school. The classes are taught by backup dancers for Jason Derulo and Rihanna, but the moves of those artists aren’t taught if they’re not modest. 

“I love the fact that young girls, especially the ones learning hip-hop, get to revel in the creative aspect and not in the exhibitionist aspect,” Berger said. 

“Hip-hop culture isn’t necessarily in sync with strong Jewish values,” she continued. “The girls get to learn dance moves and enjoy the rhythm of the music without any words or messaging that’s inappropriate. It’s a really wholesome environment and it encourages all the great things about dance.”

Karen Fishof, whose 9-year-old daughter has taken drama, tap and ballet classes and was Iago in the production of “Aladdin,” said the performance on a nearby school stage was a confidence booster and a great way to learn public speaking.

“She absolutely blossomed and loved it,” Fishof said. “The girls feel very professional because they get miked up by professional companies and have tech rehearsals, and they’re on a real stage.” 

Meyer said she teaches individuals who range from Modern Orthodox to Chassidic and live in various neighborhoods across Los Angeles. 

“It’s really nice to see all the community come together,” she said. “There are students from the city, the Valley, and all different types of schools.”

Meyer said her studio offers an important outlet for frum girls, who often don’t have much time to themselves in general.

“They’re in school all day, then they go home and help out, and then they have Shabbos. Life is busy with other pressures,” she said. “At my studio, they have an opportunity to develop another side of them. They may not love school, but they thrive in the dance studio.”

Dance studio has the right moves for Orthodox girls Read More »

Pianist puts lesser-known music front and center stage

Leave a Comment / Culture /

If ever a music series represented one person’s vision, it’s Le Salon de Musiques, founded by French-American pianist Francois Chouchan in 2010. 

The chamber music series — which meets the first Sunday of every month at 4 p.m. in the light-filled, living room-like fifth floor of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion — conjures a remembrance of things past, featuring underperformed or forgotten works by lesser-known 19th- and early 20th-century composers.

Le Salon’s seventh season-opening concert Oct. 2, for example, offers the U.S. premiere of Guillaume Lekeu’s “Molto Adagio for String Quartet.” The Belgian composer, who died at age 24 in 1894 after contracting typhoid fever from a contaminated sorbet, was a student of César Franck. Chouchan, confident of the work’s value, has programmed it between Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 9 in C major (Op. 59, No. 3) and one of the glories of chamber music, Schubert’s String Quintet in C Major (D. 956), a unique score in its day for employing a second cello, rather than an additional viola, with the traditional string quartet. 

There is no stage at Le Salon. The informal concerts begin with an entertaining and insightful introduction by musicologist Kristi Brown-Montesano, who introduces veterans of the Southern California music scene, such as John Walz, principal cello of Los Angeles Opera, and Robert deMaine, principal cello of the L.A. Philharmonic (they will perform in the Schubert Quintet). 

Le Salon also features rising stars, such as violinist William Hagen, baritone David Castillo and sopranos So Young Park and Summer Hassan. 

After the concert, listeners take part in what Chouchan calls “la conversation.” French Champagne is served while the audience asks the musicians questions. The conversation continues at nearby tables over more Champagne, a gourmet high tea buffet and dessert.

“Many people have made friends and new connections at Le Salon,” Chouchan said recently at a West Hollywood eatery, aptly named La Conversation cafe. “This is how chamber music should always be performed, because beyond the music, we have this intimacy and ability to share emotions. This is what Schubert was doing.”

In early 19th-century Vienna, Schubert’s music received first hearings at what became known as Schubertiads, informal gatherings where the composer himself sometimes performed and accompanied singers. 

Though Chouchan doesn’t offer new music, he proves that something old can become new. By unearthing forgotten or unknown works, he challenges listeners to question the Western canon. 

Other composers who will be given a hearing by Le Salon’s first-rate performers this season include German-Dutch composer Julius Röntgen (1855-1932) on the March 5 program and English composer Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979) on May 7. The latter program also offers two rarely performed scores by Amy Beach (1867-1944): her Piano Quintet in F sharp minor (Op. 67) and a selection of her songs, popular in their day, sung by soprano Elissa Johnston.

“These composers live again through their art,” Chouchan said. “As performers, we are agents of transmission, allowing people to discover or rediscover these beauties. I try each time to program pieces with a strong connection. In mood and spirit, Lekeu’s ‘Adagio’ is connected to Schubert. I try to mix genres, programming scores for a baritone or soprano between instrumental works, because the voice is also an instrument.”

According to Brown-Montesano, Chouchan sees Schubert’s vocal music as essentially chamber music. “So much of Schubert’s instrumental music is influenced by his vocal writing,” Brown-Montesano said. “Francois loves accompanying these veteran musicians and young professionals. He loves sung poetry. Sometimes it’s like he’s channeling the composer, enjoying that closeness with Schubert, the accompanist.”

Chouchan said he likes the idea of making classical music more welcoming to beginning concertgoers. “Fewer young people are attending classical music concerts because they’re scared of the formal concert settings,” he said. “Classical music is not reserved for an elitist class.”

Brown-Montesano, who is chair of music history and literature at the Colburn Conservatory, agreed. “There’s not a huge difference between subscribers and people coming to the salon for the first time,” she said. “Everyone feels invested — the scholar, performing artists and listeners speak to each other in a natural way.”

The salon setting also offers listeners a rare chance to get inside the music. “A small space allows you to feel the instruments’ vibrations,” Chouchan said. “We breathe together and see how the performers breathe together. If you’re too far way, you miss half the beauty of the music. The breathing and the silences are part of the scores.”

For Chouchan, Le Salon has taken on a deeper meaning since the murder of his beloved friend, the Tunisian-born French psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Elsa Cayat, a columnist for the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. She was killed Jan. 7, 2015, reportedly the only woman singled out by the terrorists, because, as one threat put it, she was a “dirty Jew.” 

Chouchan, 55, who is also Jewish, is dedicating this season of Le Salon to Cayat (1960-2015), who helped him survive a life-threatening illness four years ago. In November, Cayat’s parents, sister and daughter are scheduled to attend a special all-Schubert concert Chouchan is giving in Paris in her memory. 

“Elsa loved Schubert,” Chouchan said. “I’m alive today because of Elsa. She’s with me every day. I cannot explain it. Step by step, we forget how important human connection is. Of course, Le Salon is about the music, but it’s also a question of humanity. When I see a beautiful person like Elsa killed, we need to do everything possible to preserve those values.”

For more information, visit  Pianist puts lesser-known music front and center stage Read More »

Watch Joan Nathan Braid Challah and What I’m Making for Rosh Hashanah

Leave a Comment / Blogs /

Rosh Hashanah is only days away- oy veh- and there is so much to think about. I mean, so much FOOD to think about.

Last week I took a cooking class- as a student- with the one and only NY Times columnist and author extraordinaire of Jewish cookbooks Joan Nathan.

I am inspired! Things I learned and will incorporate into my classes: a not-only-not-gross-but-totally-delicious-fluffy-not-fishy salmon gefilte fish, a chicken with preserved lemons, sumac and zatar and a “>here.

AND WHAT AM I MAKING FOR ROSH HASHANAH?

This year, my mom is letting me take charge the buffet table for our annual lunch of 40 people. (Six years as a professional chef has finally landed me this honor. Whew! Not easy to prove yourself to a Jewish mother.)

So we are going to keep the carbs at bay this year. Thank Moses! I fear a buffet table filled with bagels and challah and kugel and breaded chicken in the salad…oy, it's too much to digest for my delicate, inbred ashkenazi digestive tract!

The carb count will be: “>Coconut Milk Kugel served as dessert in small portions….Because, yes people, noodle kugel is not a vegetable. It's sweet and creamy and bread-y…and in every culture ever to exist on planet earth- except American Ashkenazi Jews- that constitutes dessert!

Our main buffet will have lots of salads from my “>Click here to find many of my favorite recipes for the holidays.

To a sweet and prosperous new year for all.

Watch Joan Nathan Braid Challah and What I’m Making for Rosh Hashanah Read More »

Sukkot for two: Building a sukkah for a small patio or balcony

Leave a Comment / Culture, Holidays, Home /

Although Sukkot is a couple of weeks away, once Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are over, it will be time to get the sukkah up. If you live in an apartment with a balcony, or even a home with only a small outdoor patio or yard, your space can be quite limited. And just the idea of building a sukkah can seem intimidating.

The good news is, building a sukkah sized for just one or two people is a breeze. (For proof, watch the time-lapse video at jewishjournal.com of me building a sukkah.) It can go up in minutes, doesn’t require major tools and after the holiday will store compactly, so you can use it again next year.