December 14, 2016

Jewish diversity on exhibit at Temple Beth Am global fair

Leave a Comment / Los Angeles, News / Jewish Journal

At a time when many Americans feel separated from others by race, religion or ethnic background, Temple Beth Am staged a one-day exhibit that reminded some people how connected they actually are. Drawing on the temple’s own diverse membership, the “Global Jewish Fair” held earlier this month was an exploration of diverse Jewish tastes, smells and sounds from around the world and across the years.

Lia Mandelbaum, Beth Am’s director of programming and engagement and a co-organizer of the event, said she saw the fair as challenging what she called “Ashkenormativity,” the mainstream belief that most Jews are white European descendants who like to “eat kugel.” The exhibit focused on the look and feel of Jewish ritual objects and family keepsakes from countries such as Iran, Poland and Ghana, as well as the United States — all to support the goal of “shedding light on the diversity that exists” within the Jewish community, Mandelbaum said.

“People were hesitant at first to give their ritual objects,” said Lisa Clumeck, co-organizer of the event and director of the synagogue’s religious school. “They weren’t certain what they would be used for, how it was going to be displayed and who was going to see and watch it,” she said. But “once Lia talked to them about it, they were more willing to allow us to use it.”

Among the 20 exhibits demonstrating diversity in the Jewish community were an ornately decorated silver flower vase, hand-made in Iran by a Jewish artist, and a multicolored, sewn challah cover, made by Jews from the House of Israel community in western Ghana.

The vase, shared by Dafna and Scott Taryle, has been in the Taryle family for four generations. It depicts a bearded character from the Book of Esther, King Ahasuerus and several smaller figures. Scott Taryle said they represent the story of what happened after the king’s death, that the king’s doctors “are at the funeral,” and because their hands are shown open, they “could not have saved him.”

The Ghanaian challah cover with the Hebrew word “Shabbat” sewn into its center was shared by Tyson Roberts, who said it was a reminder of his visits to Sefwi Wiawso, a mountainous region of about 140,000 people, where several hundred of them practice Judaism.

Roberts said the challah cover recalls his experiences of sharing a Friday night dinner with a House of Israel family, attending Shabbat services Saturday morning, and later celebrating Havdalah “with fragrant flowers and Coca-Cola.”

Also on display was a Torah scroll more than 500 years old, one of the oldest in Los Angeles, according to the accompanying text. Originally from Spain, it found its way to the Breed Street Shul in Boyle Heights, where Rabbi Harry Silverstein, one of Beth Am’s rabbi emeriti, had grown up, and where his father, Oshege Zilberstein, had been a rabbi. Given to the temple by Silverstein, the scroll was displayed in a case made of silver and wood known as a tik.

Other objects, decidedly of Ashkenazic origin, symbolized generational connections often found in Jewish homes.

On loan from Miriam Cantor was an image of the family menorah painted by her mother, alongside photos of Cantor family members with the menorah — a grouping that told the story of the menorah and family passing together through time.

Hanging in Cantor’s home, the painting also serves as a reminder of her mother’s artistic skills. “She wasn’t like the other moms,” she said.

A frayed hardbound book written in Hebrew, Polish and English, with the Hebrew title “Haggadah Shel Pesach,” also told a story of family continuity. According to its owner, Esther Silon, the book was given to her husband Adam’s great grandfather in Poland in 1932. With colorful illustrations of rabbis sitting in the biblical city of Bnei Brak and of the characters in “Had Gadya,” it was used at Passover seders by Adam’s grandfather for many years and passed on to later generations, still in use by Silon’s family.

“It’s a family treasure,” she said, turning the pages, which through seder stains reflected generations of use and served as a reminder of life in the Polish Jewish community before the Holocaust.

An oval, gold-framed family portrait from a century ago told another tale of determination. On loan from the temple receptionist, Sharon Webb, the black-and-white photo had an arrow-shaped Post-it Note, pointing to a little boy in the photo’s center and marked, “Sharon’s daddy.”

“It’s my father’s family,” said Webb, who keeps the photo on her dining room buffet. In 1906, her grandfather, Israel Rosen, had come to New York from Vishnivets, now a town in western Ukraine. After working and saving, he bought passage tickets so his wife and children could join him. Upon arrival, one of the children had ringworm, “and they were all sent back,” said Webb. After saving eight years for a second trip, they finally made it, landing in Philadelphia, where her father, David Rosen, was born in 1915.

“My dad died at 35 years of age,” said Webb. “Having the portrait makes me feel that they are with me.”

Jewish diversity on exhibit at Temple Beth Am global fair Read More »

How I learned to make latkes

Leave a Comment / Food, Holidays / Ryan Torok

Chanukah has meant different things to me at different stages of my life. When I was little, it was about nightly presents and making candy dreidels in school, using marshmallows, red vines, Hershey’s Kisses and icing.

As I got older, it was about lighting the chanukiyah with my family and reading the prayers from my father’s prayer book. In college, it was about convening my friends in our dorm to light the Chanukah menorah together, and since then it’s been so meaningful to come home from work, light the chanukiyah in my kitchen and place it in the window of my apartment in view of the street.

This year, though, Chanukah took a different turn. I decided to learn how to cook latkes, the potato pancakes we eat to commemorate how oil, enough for only one day, lasted eight nights following the Maccabee victory.

The best way to learn, I figured, was to visit with Rob Eshman, Journal publisher, editor-in-chief and Foodaism blogger.

Rob is a foodie. He once brought a sugar cane to an editorial meeting and began chopping away at it with a knife so we could all taste fresh sugar. He’s kept goats and chickens in his backyard and grows many of the vegetables, fruits and herbs he cooks with in his garden. He’s genuinely offended when the office orders Domino’s.

Given that I’d never made latkes before, it helped that Rob was prepared. He had all the ingredients ready: the potatoes, an onion, salt, pepper, eggs and oil. There aren’t a lot of ingredients to latkes, Rob explained. The secret to success, he said, is in the technique.

He immediately put me to work peeling potatoes. I cook my own meals most nights, but it turns out there’s plenty left to learn. Like, how to use a potato peeler. Rob’s peels flew off the potato like sparks. Mine took their time. Rob looked over.

“Oh, we’re starting from there,” he said.

After some instruction, I sliced away at the potato skin, then, per his instructions, placed the potato in a bowl of water. Rob explained we keep the potato in water so as to prevent it from turning brown, or oxidizing. That was technique No. 1.

Then came technique No. 2. To make sure the grated potatoes didn’t turn brown, we alternated grating them with an onion. The onion was strong. I cried; Rob did too.

The third technique, Rob said, was crucial. We took handfuls of the potato/onion mixture and squeezed it out into a bowl to remove as much liquid as possible. The more liquid, Rob explained, the soggier the latke — and no one likes a soggy latke.

A white, wet goo settled at the bottom of the drained liquid. This was potato starch, and the basis for technique No. 4. Once the starch settled at the bottom of the bowl, we drained off the liquid, scooped up the starch and mixed it in with the potatoes. That would help bind the latkes and erase the need to add flour or matzo meal, which can make for heavier pancakes.

I cracked a couple of eggs and mixed those in as well, then sprinkled salt and pepper over the batter. Afterward, I poured a generous amount of cooking oil into a pan, spooned the latke batter into the pan and let it fry into latkes.

Latkes frying in oil.

The latkes turned out perfectly. Crisp, light and potato-y. Rob even made a special few using a Middle Eastern strained yogurt called labneh, smoked salmon, and dill fetched from Rob’s garden.

The real test, however, was cooking latkes on my own. A few days later, I went to Ralphs and purchased two potatoes and an onion. I also got a grater and a potato peeler, since I had neither.

At home, I did exactly what I’d learned, following the techniques step by step. Eventually I wound up with about 12 latkes. I ate them with sour cream. They weren’t as good as the ones I’d cooked with Rob, but they were edible. Most importantly, I’d cooked them myself.

Later, my friend Esther came over with applesauce and tried one of my homemade latkes. I explained that the latkes seemed a little dry and didn’t hold together well. Esther asked me if I used eggs. Nope — forgot. Esther made me feel better, pointing out I’d just made vegan, gluten-free latkes.

I plan to cook latkes at my family Chanukah party this year, to put my new skill to use and wow my mom, dad, sister, brother-in-law and nephew with my culinary abilities. I just hope I remember all the ingredients.

How I learned to make latkes Read More »

Jacob and Esau: It’s complicated

Leave a Comment / Judaism, Torah / Jewish Journal

Sometimes Torah simply refuses to give us the straight dope. Were man and woman created simultaneously from God’s command (Genesis 1:26-27)? Or did God sculpt Adam out of clay (Genesis 2:7) and then generate Eve from his rib (Genesis 2:21-22)? Does God require us to “remember” the Sabbath (Exodus 20:8) or to “observe” it (Deuteronomy 5:12)?

Most of Torah’s apparent inconsistencies have inspired ingenious and spiritually enriching solutions: Every Friday evening, for example, we sing “Lecha Dodi,” which specifically marvels at God’s mystical power to express both “observe” and “remember” in a single utterance.

Sometimes, however, when facing multiple possibilities in Torah, our post-biblical tradition chooses one option over the other — and not always the more uplifting one. This is the case with Jacob’s twin brother, Esau.

As with the creation of Adam and Eve, the Torah depicts Esau confusingly and with marked ambivalence. On the favorable side: Isaac prefers Esau over Jacob (Genesis 25:28); the Torah seems to acknowledge that Jacob swindled him (Genesis 27:36); and God grants him possession of the region called Seir as a rightful inheritance (Deuteronomy 2:22, Joshua 24:4).

On the unfavorable side: Rebecca prefers Jacob over Esau (Genesis 25:28); Esau’s disposition seems slightly brutish (Genesis 25:27); Esau becomes a foreigner by virtue of marrying Canaanite women (Genesis 36:2); and the Edomites, the people named after Esau, refuse passage to the Israelites in the desert (Numbers 20:21).

By the Book of Judges, the biblical depiction of Esau settles on permanent antagonism, and in the main, the rabbinic and medieval traditions dig in against him. Esau and Jacob (and their descendants) become and remain enemies.

As Parashat Vayishlach begins, however, Esau still represents a complicated mix of conflict and brotherly love. Our weekly portion opens as Jacob returns to the Land of Israel from his uncle’s household in Mesopotamia. When he arrives in Esau’s territory, “Jacob was greatly frightened” (Genesis 32:8). According to the medieval commentary of Samuel ben Meir (Rashbam, 1085-1158), Jacob feared his brother because he expected Esau to harbor resentment against him. Presumably, Jacob acknowledged Esau’s gripe. So, Jacob propitiates Esau with gifts, and he also prepares for battle, if necessary.

The following morning, the dramatic tension rises with Esau’s approach. Jacob emerges from his own camp and “bowed low to the ground seven times until he was near his brother” (Genesis 33:3). But the tension breaks in grand style, as Esau and Jacob fall into each other’s arms, in one of Torah’s most beautiful passages, replete with brotherly love, forgiveness and reconciliation. “Esau ran to greet him. He embraced him and, falling on his neck, he kissed him; and they wept” (Genesis 33:4).

Sadly, however, our tradition seems unable to get out of its own way and simply take this reunion at face value. In his comment on this climactic moment, Rashi (1040-1105) quotes two midrashim, each negative in its way. In the first case, the rabbis and Rashi doubt the sincerity of Esau’s kiss altogether. In the second, they accept the authenticity of Esau’s embrace, but only because, in the glow of the moment, his anger succumbed to temporary warmth.

Other interpreters are even less charitable. David Kimhi (1160-1235) resignedly determines that “ … originally Esau had intended to bite Jacob’s neck, feigning an embrace, but God made his teeth as soft as wax and Jacob’s neck as hard as ivory.”

And the story does not improve. Over the subsequent centuries, Jewish authors adapted the Bible’s tradition of pegging biblical characters to contemporary nations. In this way, Torah establishes that our people, Israel, came from Jacob, and later traditions claim that Ishmael became the forebear of the Arabs. Meanwhile, over the course of our long history, Esau was associated with a few different peoples (Idumeans, Romans, etc.), all of whom shared one common trait: enmity with the Jewish people.

So it was that Esau, who fell into his twin brother’s embrace — our embrace — came to represent the ultimate enemy, a bit like another infamous oppressor of the Jews, Amalek. But unlike Amalek, Esau breaks our heart, not only because he is our twin brother but also because Vayishlach seems to promise reconciliation with a kiss.

Reading it year in, year out, perhaps we can make Vayishlach’s optimism our beacon, even if history sometimes threatens to get in the way.

Joshua Holo is dean of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Jack H. Skirball Campus in Los Angeles.

Jacob and Esau: It’s complicated Read More »

Where are Jewish leaders on Trump?

Leave a Comment / Opinion / Zan Romanoff

I am 29 years old; like most Jews of my generation, I was raised in a Holocaust-heavy curriculum that started with “Number the Stars” in third grade and culminated in a full year of religious school dedicated to the topic in eighth. I find our communal obsession with that part of our history both understandable and exhaustingly, upsettingly macabre — I get why we do it, but that doesn’t mean I don’t wish we would stop.

I’ve always been able to accept it, though, as long as Jews could also look past our own suffering and oppression to see that we are surrounded every day by suffering and oppression — that we understand “never again” not as a warning against future danger, but a rallying cry to present work.

And so it has been particularly devastating, in a time when every day brings devastating news, to watch the legacy of the Holocaust used as a justification to support an incoming administration so deeply, obviously, proudly racist that it seems likely to encourage Holocaust-style atrocity. To witness conservative, pro-Israel American Jewry react to President-elect Donald Trump’s appointment of former Breitbart News chief Steve Bannon as a senior adviser with the complicity of silence is to understand viscerally that having endured your own suffering does not make you compassionate. It just makes you scared.

I have been profoundly disappointed to watch groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) fail to denounce Trump’s selection of Bannon, a man who has boasted of creating a media platform for extremists who label themselves “alt-right,” thus enabling them to avoid their proper identity as neo-Nazis. Like the Jewish obsession with the Holocaust, I understand the impulse to make nice with Trump’s administration: It is an attempt to align themselves with an abuser in order to avoid being abused. It is the product of the racism that is the inheritance of every American but which, for Jews specifically, is compounded by a lifetime of being told to see the future of our people as endangered by the continued existence of the Muslim world. And it is a move undergirded by the deep-seated fear that has drilled into post-Holocaust Jewish heads from Day One: that we are and always have been a persecuted people. That we must be concerned, first and foremost, with how we will save ourselves.

Other Jewish groups have spoken out against Bannon, notably the Anti-Defamation League and countless Jewish professionals and writers, but as far as I am concerned, “some” aren’t enough. For years, I have allowed myself to imagine that the Jews I love and agree with are the face and voice of our religion; this election has been a rude reminder that, in fact, they are not. And among the faces the Jews are showing the world right now are our ugliest.

I have never related to the idea of the Jews as a Chosen People, perhaps because I was born into an interfaith family — my mother converted eventually, but not until I was 12. Instead, what I have always loved about the religion is that it has allowed me to choose it: that it asks us to choose it in action and deed, minute and mundane, every single day, just as much as in faith and prayer on the holy ones.

I was born white, given power and privilege rooted in violent history, and which can be exercised only at someone else’s expense. Many other Jews are born the same. I was born white but I try to choose to be Jewish: to believe that it is my work to help put a broken world back together, and that if being vulnerable teaches me anything, it is that it is my particular work to stand in solidarity with those even more vulnerable than I am. And at a moment when I need my faith and my tradition most of all, it is gutting to know that so many in our community are abandoning its core value of the justice: justice we have been commanded to pursue.

If I believe we were chosen for anything, it is not adulation or exemption but instead the holy action of work — that since such a good teaching has been given to us, it is our sacred duty to live by its principles, instead of being governed by our animal fears.

We are in a precarious position now, the Jewish people, in which many of us can turn toward our whiteness and the history of selfishness and exploitation that the label entails; we can try to get close to people in power who we know to be vicious, and live on the prayer that they don’t turn their viciousness onto us when they are done with other victims. We can call ourselves chosen, and use it as an excuse to choose ourselves. Or we can choose to turn toward our Jewish history, and remember that we, too, have been “othered” and oppressed, and that what this means is that it is our work as a people to do everything in our power to make sure it doesn’t happen to us — but also to anyone else — ever, ever again.

Zan Romanoff is a writer who lives in Los Angeles. Her first novel, “A Song to Take the World Apart,” was published by Knopf in September.

Where are Jewish leaders on Trump? Read More »

Crossing a ‘red line’ on the West Bank

Trump’s triumph: Netanyahu is in a good mood

Leave a Comment / Danielle Berrin, Opinion / Danielle Berrin

Love him or loathe him, when Benjamin Netanyahu walks into the room, everyone pays attention.

Bibi could be in a good mood, or a bad mood, or a little bit of both, but he is always an energy vortex: the center and the star, chest out, chin up, basking in the limelight.

Last week, I was in the room when he entered with the force of a wind tunnel. I was among a group of Jewish journalists from the United States, Europe and Latin America who were invited to Jerusalem at the invitation of his government and watched as Bibi used his charismatic power to polarizing effect.

In a stunning switch from his usual apocalyptic diatribes — including, most notably, to the U.S. Congress — Bibi was in a triumphant, optimistic mood. During a 30-minute, carefully planned press conference, with questions and questioners selected in advance, the Israeli prime minister decided to flout the rules and go off script.

We could ask him anything we wanted, he said.

But when Jane Eisner, editor of the Forward, introduced the group and attempted to ask her first question, the impatient prime minister interrupted.

“Is this a speech or a question?” he asked.

He dismissed her inquiry about anti-Semitism in the U.S. — whether from the alt-right or the far left — as a “fringe phenomenon” and pushed the conversation where he wanted it to go.

“After you ask me all these things, I’ll tell you a few things,” he said in his deep, velvety voice. “You might ask me whether something is changing in the world about Israel. What about Israel’s isolation? You gotta ask me that! If you don’t, I’m gonna ask it: Israel’s growing isolation in the world. We have to talk about it.”

He caught our group off guard when he challenged about 50 journalists to guess how many world leaders he is scheduled to meet with in 2017. “Isolation” implies not many, but Bibi didn’t really want us to guess — he wanted to brag.

“Two hundred and fifty!” he exclaimed.

This new Bibi wasn’t pounding the table about Israel as pariah state, or holding up graphs about nuclear proliferation red lines. He was proclaiming the Jewish state as the world’s most popular. He was eager to enumerate a list of recent accomplishments, including lucrative trade deals with Asia and renewed ties to Latin American leaders who want to “change their relationship to Israel.” Then, he borrowed a play straight from Fidel Castro’s playbook and drew our attention to a PowerPoint slide about Israel’s record-shattering dairy cows.

Occupation be damned! Israel now truly can call itself the Land of Milk and Honey.

But things didn’t come across as so sweet to Bibi’s audience, an informed and impassioned group who follow the prime minister’s every move and weren’t buying his bravado.

“I’ve seen the prime minister many times interact with journalists, diplomats and other officials and I’ve rarely seen him act in such a mean-spirited manner,” an Israeli journalist, who asked not to be named because he covers the prime minister, told me. “He appeared annoyed, arrogant, irritated … and he seemed not interested in what people had to say and what they care about. He just wanted to get his talking points across.”

“He turned our press conference into his press conference,” an Austrian journalist agreed. “He’s the master of the show, not us.”

“I was entertained,” a Dutch television reporter confessed at dinner.

The Americans were thoroughly disgusted. The Jewish Week’s Gary Rosenblatt recalled another occasion, many years ago, when Bibi was dismissive of the Jewish press. Rosenblatt said he was in the room for back-to-back press conferences in New York, one for mainstream media and the other for Jewish journalists, and watched Bibi go on a charm offensive for the likes of Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters, only to appear listless and gloomy for the Jewish outlets.

How strange that a prime minister who fancies himself “the leader of the Jewish people” would behave so erratically and offensively when he has home-court advantage. Rather than a show of respect and appreciation — he had invited us there, after all — we got a show of swagger and superiority.

“I think for right-wing populists in Europe, Bibi is a sort of role model,” the Austrian journalist said, referring to well-documented ties between Netanyahu’s Likud Party and one of Austria’s far-right political leaders. “Because of his rhetoric, because of his behavior to the press, and [because] he’s survived any scandal that’s ever taken place here.”

If I hadn’t been to the Gaza border earlier that day, on a visit coordinated by Netanyahu’s own government, I might be more excited about the astonishing dairy cows. But Israel still faces real threats and harsh choices. So while there are many reasons to celebrate her wonders, there also are reasons for her leader to show a little modesty.

But instead of destroying golden calves, Bibi has become one. The day of our press conference, Tel Aviv sculptor Itay Zalait erected a 14-foot golden effigy of “King Bibi” in Rabin Square — a statement-making art installation that captured worldwide attention and drew comparisons between Bibi and dictators like Saddam Hussein. The prime minister’s supporters roundly condemned the stunt and the statue was toppled quickly.

But the artist’s point was made: If Bibi is more than merely a modern statesman and sees himself as the leader of the Jewish people, he is heir to the leadership tradition of Moses — who was “more humble than any other person on earth.”

Signing trade deals doesn’t obviate the lessons of Torah.

Danielle Berrin is a senior writer and columnist at the Jewish Journal.

Trump’s triumph: Netanyahu is in a good mood Read More »

Happy Holidays, Donald

Leave a Comment / Opinion / Jewish Journal

Were Politically-Correct Americans too sensitive to the indignities of the 2016 election season? As its place in civic culture erodes at lightning speed, we should take stock of political correctness and its impact on our lives.

In and of itself, political correctness is not enshrined in our Constitution. James Madison did not pass down to us the right to teach evolution and climate science in public schools, so it's a little too late for him to prevent Donald J. Trumpers from unspooling the ties to empirical truth and human kindness which we held to be self-evident. In light of new transition appointments, it turns out that long-mocked PC values are a critical tool of the civil rights movement.

Donald Trump's America is a new place where our barest bone civil liberties are safeguarded by our founding documents, but not much else. The chasm between legally permissible and morally defensible has opened wide. The Americans with Disabilities Act ensures that ramps will get a disabled person from point A to B…but cannot guarantee that that person won't be humiliated in public for being wheelchair-bound. Anti-discrimination laws ensure a Mexican-American can serve as a judge…but a Trump supporter may file a motion to be tried elsewhere on ethnic bases. Sexual harassment statutes have already been demoted to “enforcement-optional” as Trumpmen grab women's asses with impunity on sidewalks across the land.

The days when Black Oscars mattered seem frivolous when there is consensus outrage in Trump's America that a movement like Black Lives Matter would dare suggest a problem exists with law enforcement. Black American should be able to have a cake and eat it: have positive role models on TV AND be protected from brutality. But both aims seem far fetched now.

Once upon a 2015 we wondered whether to wish our gentile friends “happy holidays” or “Merry Christmas”, lest they get flustered about how to well-wish us in return. Now middle-America can breathe easy – just put on the Nativity pageant in our public schools and call it a day.

Donald Trump skirted the line of illegality when he suggested “second amendment people” do “something” to his opponent and that Russia hack her, but, boy, did he cross the line of immorality on innumerable occasions. And that's where we find ourselves today: the laws may shift (and very soon, if liberal Supreme Court justices don't survive), but morals already have. That largest minority, that great fraternity, white men, has decided it lacks the patience to honor others or the humility to realize that it is no longer their country alone.

Paying homage to each other's identities is tiresome at times, but rewarding. Far beyond the trilling of the “r” in someone’s name or hearing a gentile try hard to pronounce the Het sound in Hanukkah, political correctness tethers us to mutual respect. It may have its excess, and elements of it like quotas and affirmative action always deserves re-evaluation and debate, but it will rightfully remain a prized moral heritance that we should each affirm in our daily lives.

Bejamin Lehrer is a project designer at Lehrer Architects LA.

Happy Holidays, Donald Read More »

Meant2Be: Smitten with Judaism

Leave a Comment / Culture, Meant2Be / Jewish Journal

“Honey, I think I might be Jewish.”

Letting these words hang in the air, I opened my eyes and looked at my husband, Adam. His dark eyebrows were up as far as they could go, and he was giving me a bemused sort of smile that I’d seen from him often. It was a chilly, late November night in 2013, and I already had all of our Christmas decorations up, strings of multicolored lights twinkling peacefully on our fake tree.

Adam and I had met in 2008, the old fashioned way. You know: Girl decides she wants to learn kung fu and tries a class at her local martial arts studio. Girl is tragically uncoordinated and decides to give up … until boy walks in to teach the next class and gives her a sly, flirtatious smile. Girl is hooked. A few months later, love becomes reality (and, eventually, so does a black belt).

On the night I made my sort-of statement of faith, we’d been happily married for four years. We had recently decided to start trying to have kids, and there had been many discussions about wanting to raise those kids with a strong religious foundation. But what religion? We felt as though we didn’t quite fit in with the traditions in which we’d been raised — Catholic for me, vaguely Christian for him.

At the time, I’d been working as a pianist for more than two years at Temple Ahavat Shalom, a Reform synagogue in Northridge. This amazing community is full of people who made me think to myself, “I don’t know what it is about these people, but I want to be like them. I want to be a part of it.” I soon figured out that “it” was being Jewish.

I also spent two years working for the acclaimed Israeli film, television and concert composer Sharon Farber, who introduced me to the world of Jewish music, culture, values and faith. Eventually, I heard this still, small voice deep within me whispering that I, too, had stood at the foot of Sinai, that my soul was Jewish, even if I hadn’t realized it.

I had fallen head over heels for Judaism.

God bless the incredible man I married. Adam took my revelation in stride, and said he would think about the possibility of us both converting and raising our future children in the Jewish faith. He took a year to read the Tanakh, and bought every book about Judaism he could get his hands on. (This is a man who doesn’t even buy a sweater until he has researched it thoroughly and read all the reviews on Amazon.)

A year later — three months after our son was born — he returned with his answer: He had found deep meaning, spiritual fulfillment and powerful resonance in the teachings and values of Judaism. He was ready to commit to converting. And when my husband is ready for something, he’s ready (he proposed to me after we’d been dating for only three months, after all).

As we went on the journey of converting together, it was like we were discovering each other all over again. It’s a uniquely challenging and joyful experience to convert to Judaism as an adult, and most of the people in our Miller Introduction to Judaism class at American Jewish University already had a Jewish partner to help guide them.

Together we made mistakes, pronounced things incorrectly, discovered there is dairy hidden in all kinds of foods you wouldn’t expect, stumbled over Hebrew, and navigated how we would tell our parents and families about our decision. We chose Hebrew names, and I took a dunk in the mikveh with our nearly 2-year-old son when I was almost nine months pregnant with our daughter.

We shopped online for Judaica that most Jews are given as bar or bat mitzvah presents, or get handed down to them. Adam ordered a beautiful wool tallit from Israel and our rabbi took him to get a set of tefillin, celebrated afterward by sampling traditional Israeli food for the first time. For my birthday this past summer, Adam gifted me with my own handmade silk tallit.

The process of “becoming” Jewish strengthened our bond as a couple in ways I hadn’t anticipated, deepening our understanding of each other’s inner lives and external goals. Little by little, we’ve incorporated more Judaism into our daily routine. We still haven’t figured out how to keep kosher in the comically tiny kitchen of a house built in 1947, but we’re getting there.

Thanks to a super supportive family, who all gathered around us for our daughter’s simchat bat (celebration of the daughter) ceremony after she was born in August, and our family of friends from our temple and the Miller program, we are so proud and happy to be Jews by Choice.

Will life give us more surprises as my dear husband and I continue on our journey together? Probably none as big as the bomb I dropped on him three years ago. And yet … I do enjoy keeping him on his toes.

Christy Carew Marshall is a composer for film, television, advertising and the concert world. She’s a devoted wife, happy mom of two gorgeous children and proud Jew by Choice.

Do you have a story about dating, marriage, singlehood or any important relationship in your life? Email us at meant2be@jewishjournal.com.

Meant2Be: Smitten with Judaism Read More »

Obituaries: Week of December 16

Leave a Comment / Obituaries / Jewish Journal

Patricia “Patsy” Alexander died Dec. 1 at 88. Survived by daughter Brandy (Marc Kern); sons Keith (Lisa), Steve (Vanessa); 8 grandchildren; 2 great-grandchildren. Mount Sinai

Belina Bendavid died Dec. 2 at 66. Survived by husband Gady; daughters Sivan, Hila (Daniel) Farasat; son Aviv; 1 grandchild. Mount Sinai

Sofia Bidny died Nov. 25 at age 79. Survived by son Alexander; sister Irene Sedler. Mount Sinai

Nancy Biederman died Dec. 1 at 67. Survived by husband Ray; son Matthew (Cassie); mother Irma Kalish; brother Bruce Kalish. Mount Sinai

Frank L. Bierman died Nov. 23 at 87. Survived by wife Gilda; daughter Joan (Kurt) Gustin; son Bruce (Gilberto Melendez); 1 grandchild. Mount Sinai

Rene Bouter died Nov. 30 at 93. Survived by his wife Fay; daughters Corinne (Jim) Trowbridge, Denise, Lorrie; 5 grandchildren; 4 great-grandchildren. Mount Sinai

Tressa Brown died Nov. 20 at 98. Survived by daughters Patricia (Philip) Rose, Weslie (Stewart Schill), Karen (Marvin) Silver; 5 grandchildren; 4 great-grandchildren. Mount Sinai

Alan Gerald Chapin died Dec. 3 at 80. Survived by wife Juana Causillas-Chapin; daughters Heather (Ken) Crowley, Sabrina; son Steven (Kristin); 13 grandchildren; 3 stepchildren. Mount Sinai

Edith Chulak died Nov. 24 at 90. Survived by daughters Donna Schlosser, Janice (Michael) Bernstein; 4 grandchildren; 2 great-grandchildren. Mount Sinai

Sylvia Vera Daniels died Nov. 30 at 98. Survived by son Howard (Marcia); 2 grandchildren. Mount Sinai

Rose Engle died Dec. 4 at 95. Survived by husband Jack; daughter Marilyn (Jay) Lipsky; son Alan (Bonnie); 4 grandchildren; 6 great-grandchildren; brothers Mort White, Bernie (Maureen) White. Mount Sinai

Bob Focht died Nov. 23 at 64. Survived by wife Shelly Faden; brothers William, John. Mount Sinai

Philip Goldstein died Nov. 26 at 97. Survived by daughters Janice (Aaron) Darsa, Karen (Harry) Fialkov; 4 grandchildren; 2 great-grandchildren. Hillside

Reatha Katz died Nov. 22 at 87. Survived by husband Donald; daughter Debra; son Jeffrey; 4 grandchildren; sister Joyce Levy. Mount Sinai

Melvin “Mel” Kohl died Nov. 22 at 67. Survived by sister Rea; brother Sanford. Mount Sinai

Erwin Lampert died Dec. 4 at 93. Survived by 2 grandchildren; sister Beverly (Arnold) Prepsky; brother Ronald (Lane) Lampert. Mount Sinai

Sylvia Leff died Nov. 28 at 91. Survived by daughter Holly (Barry) Leff Pressman; sons Bruce Jacobson, Kenneth (Robin) Jacobson; 5 grandchildren; 2 great-grandchildren. Mount Sinai

Yakov Lis died Nov. 30 at 55. Survived by wife Irina; son Gal (Jessica); 3 grandchildren; sister Lyubasha Karaiman. Mount Sinai

Artur Mager died Nov. 22 at 97. Survived by daughter Ilana. Mount Sinai

Rosalind Marks died Dec. 1 at 85. Survived by daughter Susan (Bradley) Dobson; son Steven; 2 grandchildren. Mount Sinai

Belle Palmer died Nov. 29 at 98. Survived by son Edward Rollin; 7 grandchildren; 9 great-grandchildren. Mount Sinai

Michaela Rotenstein died Nov. 23 at 60. Survived by husband Sergiu; daughters Lisa, Vivian. Mount Sinai

Sheldon Salzman died Nov. 20 at 90. Survived by sons Steven, Scott (Michelle), David (Toni); 8 grandchildren; 3 great-grandchildren; sister Marlene Cole. Mount Sinai

Alice Schear died Dec. 2 at 91. Survived by daughters Sandy (Mark Delgado), Illana (David) Katz; son Elliot (Judith). Mount Sinai

Jill Shadorf died Dec. 1 at 72. Survived by sons Bill (Seana), Bruce; daughter Lisa (Jonathan) Barash; 4 grandchildren. Mount Sinai

Sam Shaffer died Nov. 27 at 94. Survived by wife Beatrice; daughter Eileen Zegar; son Mark (Susan); 2 grandchildren; 2 great-grandchildren; brother Ralph (Diane). Mount Sinai

Albert “Bert” Spiegel died Nov. 29 at 86. Survived by daughters Janet, Shelley (Ira Brown), Susan, Laura (Ruth Barratt); 3 grandchildren; sister Evelyn Novek. Mount Sinai

Lucille Swatt died Nov. 22 at 97. Survived by daughter Patricia (Paul Meshek); sons Steve (Susie), Robert (Cristina); 7 grandchildren. Hillside

Warren Willingham died Nov. 28 at 86. Survived by wife Anna; daughters Judy Shimm, Sherry Segundo; son Daniel; 10 grandchildren. Mount Sinai

Phyllis C. Fischer died Nov. 21 at 86. Survived by daughters Sherry, Janis (Ola) Nordqvist; sons Larry, Michael (Sandra); 5 grandchildren; sisters Sharon Cohen, Wilma Fernandez. Mount Sinai

Sheldon Zimmerman died Dec. 2 at 75. Survived by wife Carol; sons Scott, Greg; 2 grandchildren; sister Lynne Dressen; brother Gary. Mount Sinai

Obituaries: Week of December 16 Read More »

Valley Torah basketball coach linked to CSUN sanctions

Leave a Comment / Los Angeles, News / Jewish Journal

An investigation into academic fraud and the Cal State Northridge (CSUN) men’s basketball team could involve the current head boys basketball coach at Valley Torah High School in Valley Village.

A Dec. 7 report published by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) revealed that a former director of basketball operations’ computer was used to complete 125 hours of online coursework for 10 players. The NCAA did not name the staffer, but a Dec. 7 story in the Los Angeles Times indicated that an investigation by the paper found that it was Lior Schwartzberg, who coaches at Valley Torah and is a former CSUN director of basketball operations. He was placed on administrative leave on Oct. 28, 2014, CSUN told the NCAA.

The NCAA’s report said the unnamed staffer at the center of the controversy had “no explanation” for evidence that showed logins on several players’ accounts and submissions of assignments and quizzes from a computer with an IP address from his parents’ house more than 70 miles from campus. The metadata review of the staffer’s computer actions involving players’ academic accounts detailed in the report is from a period beginning in the fall of 2013 and ending in the fall of 2014.

According to the NCAA’s report, the staffer appeared at a hearing in front of an NCAA investigative panel and said “that the previous director of athletics and previous head men’s basketball coach told him to monitor student-athletes’ academics because the institution was concerned about its academic progress rate.” He went on to say that he only monitored the students’ progress and denied any wrongdoing.

When reached by text message, Schwartzberg told the Journal that his legal counsel has instructed him to not make any statements. He did not indicate who was representing him legally.

Schwartzberg told the Times in a text message: “I deeply disagree with the decision and many of its facts.”

Schwartzberg is a 2008 graduate of UCLA, where he majored in philosophy and minored in Hebrew and Jewish studies and served as a scout team player for UCLA’s women’s basketball program. His coaching history includes a five-year stint as a varsity assistant — three years at Brentwood School and two years at Capistrano Valley High School in Mission Viejo. He also was a video coordinator on the UC Irvine coaching staff before CSUN hired him as director of basketball operations before the 2009-2010 season.

In the fall of 2014, several student-athlete mentors and staffers raised issues with the classwork of some players, according to the 26-page NCAA report. The mentors and staffers determined players had no knowledge of coursework that had been submitted by players. The grades for online classes were “significantly higher” than grades for in-person classes. The NCAA claimed the staffer did the work for them.

CSUN then began an internal inquiry, hired attorney Carl Botterud to oversee an independent investigation and apprised the NCAA of possible violations. That resulted in CSUN implementing a self-imposed one-year postseason ban that was upheld by the NCAA.

“I am proud of the way the university, Matador Athletics and the Men’s Basketball program faced these violations aggressively, without hesitation and showed our values in action,” CSUN Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Brandon Martin said in a Dec. 7 statement.

The NCAA mentioned that CSUN had taken curative action, such as replacing its compliance director, forming a body of 10 faculty members to supervise academics for the athletic department, and allowing student-athletes only one online class per term.

Still, there were penalties levied by collegiate athletics’ governing body against the CSUN men’s basketball program. These include three years of probation, a one-year postseason ban and vacating wins from games involving the players. The NCAA, as outlined in its report, also issued a five-year show-cause order against the unnamed staffer in the report, which would make it difficult to get another job with any NCAA school.

This isn’t the first time CSUN athletics have faced allegations of academic misconduct. The NCAA penalized CSUN in 2004 when the men’s basketball program self-reported that an assistant coach oversaw two other assistant coaches changing the transcripts of a player to keep him academically eligible to play.

During the 2011-2012 season, CSUN scored poorly on the annual Academic Progress Rate report, which counts the number of student-athletes who stay in school and are academically eligible over a four-year period. The subpar score resulted in a ban from postseason play that season.

Schwartzberg joined Valley Torah in 2015. When reached by the Journal, officials at the school declined to comment on the coach.

Brad Turell, whose son Ryan is a standout player for Schwartzberg at Valley Torah, continued to support the coach. He issued the following statement on behalf of his family: “Ever since we met [Schwartzberg], his conduct and performance have been exemplary. He is a great coach, tireless worker, extremely well-organized, conscientious, and a pleasure to be around.”

Valley Torah basketball coach linked to CSUN sanctions Read More »

GET HOME DELIVERY! CLICK HERE »

Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

Jewish Journal

Jewish diversity on exhibit at Temple Beth Am global fair

How I learned to make latkes

Jacob and Esau: It’s complicated

Where are Jewish leaders on Trump?

Crossing a ‘red line’ on the West Bank

Trump’s triumph: Netanyahu is in a good mood

Happy Holidays, Donald

Meant2Be: Smitten with Judaism

Obituaries: Week of December 16

Valley Torah basketball coach linked to CSUN sanctions

Jewish Journal