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Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

January 31, 2018

One Mom’s Fight Against Disability Bias

Leave a Comment / Special Needs /

The Torah teaches us that Moses’ speech disability did not disqualify him from leading the Israelites out of Egypt.

In the Book of Exodus, when asked to lead the Israelites, Moses initially objects that he is “heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue” — a phrase that has led many rabbinic interpreters to assume he spoke with a stutter or lisp. In response, God affirms Moses’ many capabilities and notes that his brother Aaron can offer any support that Moses needs to fulfill his responsibilities.

As a parent and leader in Jewish community inclusion in Minneapolis, I have taken this story to heart, refusing to acquiesce to the marginalization of my son Jake.

I believe that Jewish communities must stop creating “special” programs that serve people with disabilities in segregated settings and, instead, support personalized efforts to enable people with disabilities to live full and meaningful Jewish lives of their own choosing.

One way is through person-centered thinking, based on what is important to someone, what is important for someone, and the balance between the two.

Person-centered thinking is supported by a set of tools such as communication charts, learning logs and individualized review systems that organizations can use to structure their interactions with individuals with disabilities. These tools can be useful in a variety of settings, and in religious and nonreligious spaces. The Learning Community for Person Centered Practices is a great resource to learn more.

As for my son, Jake is just Jake. He is articulate and funny. When he was younger, he met developmental milestones but had difficulty with transitions and cried when I left him at his day care center. At the age of 4, he told his preschool class that his favorite book was “Gone with the Wind,” even though he had never read the book or even seen the film. My husband, Rick, and I thought he was a bit quirky, but that did not alarm us.

As he stood on the bimah in his miniature cap and gown for preschool graduation, Rick and I proudly anticipated Jake’s first day of kindergarten.

Our hopes were shattered at Jake’s first public-school kindergarten conference. The teacher launched into a litany of Jake’s negative behaviors. Jake didn’t hold his pencil correctly, talked out of turn and bothered his neighbors. He ignored directions. One day he behaved so badly that the teacher had to keep the entire class in from recess. He was the class pariah. She said she left Jake alone in the room while the other kids had recess the next day. She had nothing good to say about Jake. I cried in the car on the ride home. My heart ached for Jake. I was angry.

While we are on the road to supporting people with disabilities to live self-determined Jewish lives like anyone else, we still have work to do.

After staying up all night ruminating, I decided that I wouldn’t allow anyone to wreck our dreams for our son. The next day I demanded that Jake be placed with a teacher who would value him and guide his learning. The new teacher understood that children learn and process differently. She built a trusting relationship with Jake, and she included me as her partner.

About 56.7 million people in the United States — 19 percent of the population, according to the U.S. Census of 2010 — have some kind of disabling condition.

Our synagogue’s religious school also partnered with us. The director understood the importance of Jewish education in Jake’s life and valued him as a member of the community. As Jake continued in religious school through his bar mitzvah, it became clear that in the synagogue he was not “Jake with Asperger’s syndrome,” he was just Jake.

Inspired by the simplicity and ease with which our synagogue honored Jake’s Jewish journey, I initially assumed that all people with disabilities could participate in a Jewish life of their own choosing, just like anyone else. But as I became more deeply involved in disability activism, I realized this is not always the case. Eventually, I joined Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Minneapolis to manage its innovative new Jewish Community Inclusion Program for People With Disabilities.

Working with parents seeking to make meaningful Jewish participation possible for their children with disabilities, the program has persuaded community institutions to become more inclusive and accessible. Early in the program, I met with all the rabbis, executive directors and boards to establish why the community was focusing on the inclusion of people with disabilities.

I worked with each of these organizations to establish its own board of lay representatives. These representatives accepted the responsibility for leading internal inclusion initiatives. We met monthly to support one another, share challenges and successes, and encourage one another. Many of the leaders — who have disabilities themselves or have family members with disabilities — chair inclusion committees.

In 13 years, much has changed. More people with disabilities have found better access and support. Many more children now participate in religious and day school classrooms with individualized supports.

Parents are seeing their dreams of a Jewish education — a bar or bat mitzvah, and camp — come true. Adults participate in fitness activities at the Jewish Community Center and attend adult education classes. People with disabilities serve on boards and participate in synagogue services.

Within Jewish communities, the deeply rooted belief that all Jewish children are destined to become academic successes is a barrier that shuts out some people with disabilities and disconnects them from Jewish life.

While we are on the road to supporting people with disabilities to live self-determined Jewish lives like anyone else, we still have work to do. In many communities, people with disabilities are still treated as fragile guests rather than as contributing members. Inclusion has to be a priority for Jewish institutions.

Shelly Christensen is an authority on Jewish community inclusion. This article was originally published on Tikkun.org.

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The Key to Reaching Autistic Children

Leave a Comment / Special Needs /

Jewish autism therapy is 4 years old; Noam Korenstein, who inspired its accidental invention, is 10 years old; and the author of both, age initially irrelevant, is typical of brilliant fathers everywhere.

Reuvein Korenstein, a native of Framingham, Mass., who now lives in Los Angeles, detected a need in Noam, his first-born son, who is autistic.

Plunging into a series of trials and errors in his graduate program at Yale, he invented a Jewish concept intended to grant relief to thousands of conflicted Jewish parents.

“I created Jewish autism therapy,” Korenstein says, “to respond to the needs of parents who feel they have to choose between autism therapy and Jewish education.”

After operating a clinic for autistic children in Hartford, Conn., he brought Jewish autism therapy, thick with a traditional religious vein, to Los Angeles last summer. Korenstein debuted his program for boys ages 5 to 12, one-on-one therapy, for a week or a month or more at a time, at Beit Aaron near Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. For four hours a day, five days a week, classes seasoned by Torah and talmudic stories bring an unprecedented Jewish flavor to autism therapy.

“Our rabbis teach us that this can be understood by us when we are going through our own tribulations.” —  Reuvein Korenstein

Korenstein, 36, urges parents to try it for a week before judging.

“This program is Jewish and therapy,” he said of the pillars that frame his unique venture.

“We apply effective methods that are field tested,” he said.

While Korenstein designed his program at Yale, the spark that ignited what billowed into a blaze was purely accidental.

Or was it?

“I am a musician, and one day I started playing the piano,” he said.

Noam was in the next room.

“I started just to play music for myself. I just wanted to make myself happy. Sing Tehillim.

“All of a sudden as I began to play these Tehillim, actually even singing them in English without trying to get Noam to change at all or do any sort of therapy … Suddenly, Noam started, like, coming alive. He started talking more. He got really excited. He started playing with toys I never saw him play with.”

Six-year-old Noam came over to the piano, which shocked his father. “This is a big thing for children with autism — to initiate social interaction,” Korenstein said. “My son would play by himself with the water in the kitchen. Happy being isolated.”

The father of two believes he has gained precise insights.

“My hunch,” Korenstein said, was that isolation consoles “an inner sadness that goes like this:

“I am feeling deficient.

“I am feeling a lacking.

“Let me do something I can be good at.”

Again Korenstein thought back to the giant psychological steps Noam took toward him at the melodious piano. “It’s a big deal for a child to initiate,” he said, “to come out of that self-soothing world.”

Before that memorably happy moment, Reuvein and Leah Korenstein had trod the same exasperating, well-worn paths followed by many.

For the six years before the dramatic, life-changing, revelatory morning at the piano, Noam had been a pure loner.

“We had experimented with schools,” Korenstein said. “We went to every single type of therapist, speech therapist, physical therapist. We went to conferences.

“Noam was just not able to maintain … being in school.”

What were Leah and Reuvein Korenstein, intellectually kindred, thinking during these painful hours, weeks and years?

They had met in 2004 at the gravesite of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov in Uman, Ukraine. They each were spending a year after college studying in Jerusalem. Their dual mission of the moment was to bring Passover to the Jews of Ukraine.

He credits his wife’s inherent belief with winging the couple and the family to safe ground.

“She said, ‘We just have to keep going. We have to keep trying. He is in there. Something is blocking him from being able to express it.’ ”

Did Korenstein see the sunshine ahead that illuminated his wife’s vision?

“I started to grow this optimism when I began to pay really close attention to his movements.

“My training, one of the things that HaShem blessed me with was attention to detail,” Korenstein said. “This is what one of my professors at Yale saw in me — really paying close attention to detail.

“I started to pay very close attention to Noam.

“At exactly 11 a.m. every day, I would sit down at the piano and begin to play these songs, as before, just for myself. Really singing. Just me and him. I was just letting it go. Special Tehillim.”

Korenstein said there are lessons in the life of King David for parents of autistic children.

He knows that King David was chased by his own son. “Our rabbis teach us that this can be understood by us when we are going through our own tribulations,” Korenstein said. “Even though it may seem despairing and bleak, there is still hope. Give hope to HaShem.’’

“In the end, [King David] turns around and says, ‘This is good. Don’t give up,’ ” said Korenstein, elevating his happy voice.

“When I read these words, I started to tear up. I thought he was talking about my life, my own struggles to help my son, my own desire that he would get better, that I could take him to synagogue with me.”

Korenstein’s passion was bursting forth again.

“Noam, he really felt that honest, speaking out loud to God. Really. He really felt that. It touched him,” Korenstein said.

“And so I realized that Jewish autism therapy really came out of this, which is this honest speaking of the soul of the person working with the child with autism, whether it is the parent, the teacher, the therapist, the rebbe.

“This person is engaged in the kind of activity [King David] was engaged in. Basically, it is about finding the good in a situation even though it seems bleak.”

Which happens to be Korenstein’s banner at Beit Aaron, bringing hope to those tempted to bury themselves in hopelessness.

Reuvein Korenstein can be contacted at www.reuvein.korenstein@gmail.com.

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A Mystic Tale in ‘The Ruined House’

Leave a Comment / Books /

After “The Ruined House” by Ruby Namdar was first published in Israel in 2013, the book won the prestigious Sapir Prize, Israel’s equivalent of the Booker Prize. Namdar, whose given first name is Reuven, thus became the first recipient of the Sapir Prize who did not live in Israel. At the time, the author told Tablet’s Beth Kissileff that “he was pleased not to have been excluded ‘because of my ZIP code.’ ”

Now the prize-winning first novel has been published by the Harper imprint of HarperCollins in a glorious English translation by the renowned Hillel Halkin. In addition to a cash prize to the author, the Sapir Prize funded both the English version and an Arab translation now in preparation by As’ad Mousah Odeh.

Namdar — like the fictional hero of “The Ruined House,” Andrew Cohen — teaches Jewish literature in New York City. From the very first page of Namdar’s enchanting first novel, however, we discover that it is a magical version of the Big Apple. “[On] Wednesday, September 6, 2000, … the gates of heaven were opened above the great city of New York, and behold: all seven celestial spheres were revealed, right above the West 4th Street subway station,” Namdar writes. “Errant souls flitted there like shadows, one alone bright to the point of transparency: the figure of an ancient priest, his head wrapped in a linen turban and a golden fire pan in his hand.”

Cohen himself is always is mindful of the things of this earth. When the words of the Yom Kippur liturgy pop into his head (“Who by fire, who by water”), he wonders: “Wasn’t that a Leonard Cohen song?” The people who populate his daily life are unremarkable — a girlfriend half his age, a personal trainer, an ex-wife and the children of their failed marriage — and he is convinced that everything is thoroughly under his control. “[His] dress and appearance, his speech and body language, his ideas and their expression — all had a refined, aristocratic finish that splendidly gilded everything he touched,” Namdar explains. “In general, ‘elegant’ was the adjective most commonly applied to anything bearing the imprint of Professor Andrew P. Cohen.”

But the story that Namdar tells in “The Ruined House” — and tells in richly observed and often heart-shaking prose — begins when a certain mystic light falls across his mundane life. When he puts the meat on the fire for one of his “renowned dinner parties,” Cohen goes into a trance. “Oh my god, this meat is divine,” a guest cries out, but the phrase is not just idle praise. “Anyone observing his single-minded intensity at such times might think him an avatar of an ancient hunter or tribal shaman charged with sacrificing to the gods.” And, verily, Cohen finds his way to a series of ancient texts, reproduced on the printed page in a talmudic format, that conjure up the sacrificial rituals of the Kohanim at the Temple of Jerusalem.

Namdar allows his characters — and his readers — to catch a glimpse of the magical and the mystical in the here

and now.

The book is structured like a countdown to apocalypse, each section marked with both a secular and Hebrew date. Visions of horrific otherworldly events are scattered unexpectedly and inexplicably through the contemporary narrative: “Crimson, boiling blood coursed through the streets: the besieged city has fallen.” Now and then, Cohen himself experiences a sudden moment of mystic sight in the middle of Manhattan, as when he rides a bicycle along the West Side Highway — “all seemed pure and primeval, a marvel to behold” — and then is suddenly struck with a revelation: “The day would come when all would return to what it had been and the world would revert to chaos.”

The tension builds as Namdar deftly notes that humans have always been prone to panics and prophecies of disaster. “A year ago, the apocalyptic shadow of the Y2K bug clouded the celebrations of the new millennium,” he reminds us. When the ball of light fell in Times Square on that day, “the universal relief was tinged was a touch of disappointment. Nothing had happened.” But when we read the first entry dated in the year 2001, we cannot fail to recall that a catastrophe was waiting for us on 9/11. And then, as he walks along a street in Lower Manhattan, Cohen experiences another vision, a “deep, bestial roar” and “a strange light shining the street’s northeast corner.” Are we meant to understand that he has been granted a glimpse into the near future? And then the vision takes on a distinctly Hebraic shape — a snow-white bull, a bearded man in white linen who carries a sacrificial knife, all reminiscent of the Temple sacrifice.

Of course, Cohen also is afflicted by far more mundane ills — family conflict and academic politics, the tedium of working out and grading student papers, the aches and pains that inevitably remind us of aging and looming death, even the guilt-inducing temptation of internet porn. He struggles to hold his life together but cannot escape the forces of entropy, and the author seems to suggest that there is a certain comfort in thinking about the calamities that may bring the world to a sudden end. “There will be no more terror; no more memory; no more shame or sin,” he writes. “All will revert to sand and stone, chalk and dust.”

At one point in “The Ruined House,” the author observes in passing that “what happened next was … taken from a Philip Roth novel.” He also name-checks Saul Bellow’s “Mr. Sammler’s Planet,” Chaim Potok’s “The Chosen,” and Woody Allen’s “The Purple Rose of Cairo.” Although Namdar himself was born in Jerusalem and raised in an Iranian-Jewish family, he has mastered the fine points of American Jewish culture so thoroughly that I was surprised to learn that the book was published first in Hebrew and in Israel. Yet his book also reminded me of the stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer, another Jewish writer who allows his characters — and his readers — to catch a glimpse of the magical and the mystical in the here and now. And that’s the highest praise I can bestow upon Namdar’s luminous book.

Jonathan Kirsch, author and publishing attorney, is the book editor of the Jewish Journal.

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For Jewish Scholars Analyzing TV’s ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,’ the Rest Is Commentary

Leave a Comment / Entertainment /

Harvard University offers a “Game of Thrones”-inspired history class. UC Berkeley has a philosophy class on “The Simpsons.” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” inspires classes, academic journals and conferences, and universities are teaching classes on everything from “Star Trek” to “South Park.”

So it’s not surprising that pop culture was featured at the 2017 Association for Jewish Studies (AJS) conference — the largest annual gathering of Jewish Studies scholars in the world — perhaps most notably in “Playing with Canon: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Creative (Re)presentation and (Re)construction of Jewish Identity in ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ and Ancient Jewish Textual Traditions,” featuring abstracts of five papers inspired by the CW network’s quirky musical dramedy fan favorite.

In “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” matrilineally Jewish protagonist Rebecca Bunch (played by Rachel Bloom, who in 2016 won a Golden Globe for the role), a high-achieving New York lawyer with mental health issues, moves across country to West Covina in pursuit of the ex-boyfriend who made her happy as a teenager in summer camp. The series features two to three musical numbers per episode, and nary an episode elapses without some sort of Yiddish or Jewish reference.

The December AJS gathering in Boston brought together academics specializing in both contemporary and ancient Judaism to present on aspects of the show, noting some of its recurring themes as “humor, gender, intertextuality, conformity and difference/deviance.” In this “lightning session,” academics gave presentations of about seven minutes, leaving time for some clips from the show and robust discussion. About 30 people of diverse ages and genders attended, the organizers estimated.

Jennifer A. Caplan, assistant professor of religious studies at Towson University, who presented on “Rebecca Rabbah: Jewish Storytelling and Stereotype,” first became aware of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” as a space to explore Jewish themes during an American Jewish Humor class she teaches. Her students wanted to talk about one of the show’s songs, “The J.A.P. Battle Rap.” She “was amazed,” she said, to find lyrics referring to two rapping characters as competitive “Shebrews from Scarsdale,” which included phrases like “we were egged on like seder plates” and “you’re trippin’ like Birthright.”

“With our acculturation and assimilation into American society, pop culture is a comment on how Jews view themselves.” — Samantha Baskind

After Caplan participated in some online conversations about the show, adding ideas about cultural studies and humor theory, professor Shani Tzoref of the Abraham Geiger College/School of Jewish Theology at the University of Potsdam in Germany, asked Caplan to be on the panel. Caplan then invited Jonathan Branfman, a Ph.D. candidate in Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies at Ohio State University.

“ ‘[Crazy Ex-Girlfriend]’ captures how Jewishness can shape a person’s life, feelings, relationships, sexuality and gender performance even if that person isn’t religious at all or actively pushes away their Jewish identity, like [the] ‘CEGF’ protagonist,” said Branfman. “Sometimes Jewishness isn’t only a conscious identity, but also a sense of difference — sometimes positive, sometimes stressful — that permeates a person’s whole experience of life and their way of interacting with the world.”

“For me, the most Jewish thing about the show is how real Rebecca’s journey is,” said Caplan, calling the protagonist “an excellent exemplar of what it is to navigate the world trying to figure out who you are as a woman, a professional and a Jew when you don’t come from a frum [religious] background. Rebecca’s Jewish identity is very important to her, even if she doesn’t appear to be especially observant, and I think that is an important thing to see. ‘Seinfeld’ cannot remain the image of what an ‘assimilated American Jew’ looks like because that show was nearly hostile to religion. ‘[Crazy Ex-Girlfriend]’ is not, and Rebecca values being Jewish, and I think that is so important for people, especially other millennials, to see represented.”

In Branfman’s presentation “Where’s the Bathroom?! ‘Jewing’ Race, Gender & Sexuality in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” he compared Rebecca’s attempts at achieving normative femininity with her mother’s deviant femininity, placing that discussion in another conversation about Ashkenazi American assimilation into whiteness.

Other sessions included “And in the Eighth Day, God Laughed: ‘Jewing’ Humor and Self-Deprecation in John’s Revelation and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” (Sarah Emanuel of Oberlin College), “Law Like Love: Rebecca’s Legal Prowess and the Jewish Legal Tradition in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” (Chaya Halberstam, King’s University College, University of Western Ontario) and Tzoref’s “Eros and Thanatos: Recontextualization, Gender, and the Songs of Miriam, Hannah, Deborah, and Rebecca (Bunch).”

So, why is Jewish academia embracing pop culture as a lens for study?

Eddy Portnoy, academic adviser and exhibitions curator in YIVO’s education department, said pop culture is a “useful reflection on certain aspects of Jewish society,” noting that today’s TV shows are “infused with Jewish content” and represent “a concerted effort on the part of writers to insert richer Jewish content than had existed previously.”

Mentioning that “Curb Your Enthusiasm” seems less concerned about what the audience thinks and praising “Transparent” for making “a concerted effort to hire writers and consultants to ensure accurate representation,” Portnoy noted that “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” is especially interesting. “Its Jewish content is critical and created by writers knowledgeable about American Jewish life and culture. It’s not entirely clear how audiences handle their commentary, but because it’s filtered through humor, it’s easier to deal with.”

Samantha Baskind, professor of art history at Cleveland State University, who edited a book about the Jewish graphic novel, said this very serious conference included pop culture because of Jews’ prominence in entertainment.

“With our acculturation and assimilation into American society,” Baskind said, “pop culture is a comment on how Jews view themselves.”

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The Seoulful Jews of Korea

Leave a Comment / Worldwide /

Not far from Seoul’s Han River, off the main thoroughfare in the city’s Itaewon neighborhood, is a hilly residential section of roads so narrow that only one car at a time can safely travel on them. A block from the excellent Leeum Samsung Art Museum, which houses the founder of Samsung’s private collection, is an enormous persimmon tree bearing multiple branches of the orange-colored fruit. Right below its lowest-hanging fruit, seemingly as out of place as a fish with a bicycle, is a large, gray menorah above an iron-gated entry. A large faux Tudor-style house is home to Chabad’s Jewish Community Center, where Rabbi Osher Litzman — South Korea’s only rabbi — and his wife, Mussy, tend to the needs of Seoul’s Jewish community.

Korea’s Jewish community is small, numbering somewhere between 500 and 1,000, and most reside in Seoul. In 1950, about 200 American Jewish soldiers came to serve in the Korean War. American author and Rabbi Chaim Potok also served with the U.S. Army in Korea as a chaplain. Potok’s experiences in Korea, a place where anti-Semitism was seemingly non-existent, so transformed him that they impacted two of his later novels.

Since the end of the Korean War, a few Jewish families settled permanently. But for the most part, the Jewish community in Korea is a transient one.

“[Koreans are] completely fascinated by Jews and Jewish success in the world.” — Rabbi Osher Litzman

Originally from Israel, Rabbi Litzman has been in Seoul since April 2008. The small downstairs shul normally gets about 25 people for weekly Shabbat services, with about the same number at Yongsan Garrison, the U.S. military headquarters in Seoul, just a 15-minute walk from Chabad Seoul. On Yom Kippur last September, it was standing room only at Chabad, with 75 people attending and another 75 attendees at Yongsan. And over the years, both locations often get 120 attendees each during Passover and Rosh Hashanah.

Tourists routinely pop in for a kosher meal. While I was there, four such middle-aged guests arrived, all later complimenting Mussy’s home-cooked meal. Rabbi Litzman said, “This is a spiritual slice of Israel here at Chabad; no politics and no business is discussed. It’s about the Jewish family.”

The large menorah under a persimmon tree greets visitors at the entrance to Seoul’s JCC.

Indeed, with seven children between the ages of 2 months and 11 years, Chabad Seoul is a busy place. But Rabbi Litzman and his wife appear to have endless energy. They currently are in the final planning stages with a Seoul-based, Israeli-French chef and a New York couple to open a pop-up kosher restaurant at the 2018 Winter Olympics at Pyeongchang, South Korea, about 90 minutes from Seoul. Litzman and his team expect to feed between 2,000 and 3,000 people a day during the games from Feb. 9-25.

Koreans are “[very] kind by nature and completely fascinated by Jews and Jewish success in the world, and this has been the case for over 50 years. They are philo-Semitics,” Litzman said. Koreans often note with respect how many Jews have won Nobel Prizes and are very cognizant of the fact that Koreans have been lacking in this regard.

The rabbi also noted that he receives emails daily from Koreans, some who speak Hebrew fluently, to learn more about Jews. “Not necessarily about cultural Jewish aspects, but more to learn how to emulate our success. And nearly every Korean household has a Korean book version of talmudic stories,” he said. The vast majority of these books had their genesis from writings by Rabbi Marvin Tokayer, long a well-known and respected fixture in Japan.

Litzman notes Koreans’ interest and fascination with Jews continues to increase. However, he said most Koreans know very little about Jews historically.

“The vast majority don’t know the most basic aspects of the Holocaust,” he said. “Their educational system trains them not to ask questions but to absorb information they are given. Analytical thinking is not promoted, so connections between historical events often can’t be made.” Chabad plans to establish a Jewish educational center in Seoul, which will hopefully “connect those dots.”

Chabad’s sign in Seoul hangs not far from the Swiss Federation.

As I left the JCC and looked up to see the large menorah overhead, I was reminded that while my work often takes me far and wide around the world, and regardless of what political or religious leanings one may have, it is always comforting to know I can find a place, often in the most unlikely locale, that will seem just a little bit like home.

Julie L. Kessler is an attorney, legal columnist and travel writer based in Los Angeles, and the author of the book “Fifty-Fifty, The Clarity of Hindsight.”

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Challah for Hunger Tackles Campus Food Insecurity

Leave a Comment / Los Angeles /

To fight the growing problem of food insecurity on university campuses, nonprofit organization Challah for Hunger has mobilized a cohort of eight student volunteers to learn from experts and develop and implement campus-specific test programs to feed students in need. The eight students leading the project come from seven schools: USC, UC Davis, the State University of New York at Binghamton, the University of Arizona, the University of Virginia, Temple University and the University of Wisconsin (which has two student representatives).

Challah for Hunger also recently released a report on campus hunger, with data gleaned from interviews conducted by student volunteers at 22 colleges and universities between August 2016 and May 2017. During the interviews, approximately 80 percent of administrators said food insecurity was a problem on their campus, but 65 percent said there was no official campuswide policy addressing food insecurity.

Those who participate in the cohort do so in addition to their volunteer commitments to the local chapters of Challah for Hunger, which has mobilized students as campus activists since its founding by Eli Winkelman at Scripps College in 2004. Now, at 80 student-led, college-based chapters in 30 U.S. states, the United Kingdom and Australia, students bake and sell challah. Fifty percent of profits are donated to local anti-hunger organizations, and the other half goes toward Challah for Hunger’s national and philanthropic education partner, MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger. To date, Challah for Hunger has raised and donated over $1 million to these causes.

Approximately 80 percent of administrators said food insecurity was a problem on their campus.

“There are three core values that unite members of the cohort: education, advocacy and philanthropy,” said Talia Berday Sacks, Challah for Hunger’s director of campus programs. With each campus having different needs, the student training is “an opportunity to home in on what it means to be an advocate for yourself and your peers. As a result of participating in the Campus Hunger Project, students feel more prepared to address important social issues like hunger. This is so important, in a time of political uncertainty, that our student activists can find their voices and be a force for positive change.”

The students learn about how campus hunger is tied to other social justice issues, like affordability and diversity, and are empowered to look at their own campuses and make a difference. For example, Rachel Kartin, a senior who represents USC in the cohort, said, “One of the greatest issues is lack of awareness by a lot of the students,” explaining that despite a perception that USC students are affluent, many are food insecure. To address this, the school has a Virtual Food Pantry that provides gift cards to Trader Joe’s and three ‘Grab-and-Go’ food pantries. Kartin aims to raise awareness even further.

“There’s been important work already,” Berday Sacks said. “We don’t want them rebuilding the wheel. We want them to connect with the right networks: financial aid, student affairs, administration.”

Kartin, for example, is working with a university government representative to craft a blurb that professors can use on their syllabi, “to increase awareness of hunger and food insecurity without embarrassing people,” as Kartin said, noting that a statement about disability awareness is already on syllabi to enable students with special needs to have those needs met.

“Before this became standard, it was probably something people were embarrassed about,” Kartin said. “I’m hoping to do something everyone can see. I’m hoping to start with the professors that I know and hopefully it will spread.”

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Valley Torah’s Turell Makes Elite Players List

Leave a Comment / Los Angeles /

The legend of Valley Torah High School Jewish hoops hero Ryan Turell continues to grow.

After hitting the 40-point mark several times in this, his senior season, the 6-foot-6 combo guard dropped 60 points last month in a victory over Lancaster Baptist, setting the Jewish Hoops America single-game record. He’s also easily on pace to eclipse the Jewish Hoops America single-season scoring record.

Turell, 18, the nation’s top-ranked Jewish player on the top-ranked Jewish high school team, and one of Southern California’s most outstanding players, is known for making baskets. Now, he’s making history.

He has become only the third yeshiva prep star to receive a coveted McDonald’s All-American Games nomination in the past 41 years. Out of roughly 100,000 boys and girls high school players nationwide, only 700 make the list. Turell was one of 30 boys in California to make the cut.

“To be nominated is a huge honor, a dream come true and I am blessed and thankful to have received it,” Turell said. “It definitely validates the hard work, time and passion I have put into the game and makes me want to push myself even harder.”

“This is the type of accomplishment that will last a lifetime.” — Lior Schwartzberg

Each year, the McDonald’s committee, made up of media personnel and coaches, selects the nominees, eventually narrowing the field to 24 players — 12 boys and 12 girls — to compete in nationally televised showcase games. Past stars included Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James.

With his nomination, Turell joined the ranks of another Valley Torah product, Aaron Lieberman, who got the nod in 2011, and Tamir Goodman from the Talmudical Academy in Baltimore, a nominee in 2000.

“I hope it brings a sense of pride to the Jewish community in Los Angles and nationally, knowing that a kid who wraps tefillin every day and plays with a yarmulke can be recognized as one of the top high school players in the country,” Turell said.

Beinish Kaplan has been coaching Jewish youth teams in the American Roundball Corp. (ARC), one of the city’s premier leagues, for more than 20 years. He said it’s hard to express how rare it is for a player of Turell’s caliber to emerge from an Orthodox Jewish school like Valley Torah, which has a student body of 135, because of limitations like rigorous academics and Torah study.

“In a word, this is just so very unusual,” said Kaplan, who coached Turell before his Valley Torah career.

Kaplan added that many of his ARC players look up to Turell and attend Valley Torah games when they can.

“I tell all my boys that from this ramshackle gymnasium, you can make something of yourself. Ryan Turell came out of here. If Ryan Turrell came out of here, you can do the same thing. All you have to do is want it.”

Turell, like his yeshiva predecessors Lieberman and Goodman, didn’t make the final cut when rosters were announced on Jan. 16. However, Valley Torah coach Lior Schwartzberg said the nomination itself is the true honor.

“This is the type of accomplishment that will last a lifetime,” he said. “Nobody can take this from him. He is a top-30 player in the state. He is one of the best players in the country. This is off the charts. How many players can say that in their lifetime? Not just Jewish players — any player at any level.”

Turell currently is weighing Division I offers from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the Air Force Academy, Cal State Northridge, Cal State Sacramento and Southern Utah University. Brad Turell, Ryan’s father, who played Division I basketball at UC Santa Barbara, said his son plans to make a decision at the end of his senior season in March.

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Loving B’nai Mitzvahs

Leave a Comment / Alicia Jo Rabins /

In American pop culture, the words “bar mitzvah” don’t exactly prompt religious awe. Instead, a cocktail of humor, pathos, anxiety and cost comes to mind.

And while these are certainly part of the picture — there’s nothing to be done about the brutal realities of being 12 — I see the whole process from a very different angle.

I’ve been tutoring bar and bat mitzvah students continually for 18 years. Most of my adult life I’ve been teaching kids to sing the tropes for Torah chanting, to lead prayers, to write their commentary on the weekly portion. I often officiate the ceremony, too, for unaffiliated families.

I don’t have to think about catering, invitations or the social intricacies of eighth grade. Instead, I have the luxury of thinking about the ceremony as a tribal initiation, a passing-down of traditions and knowledge, a confirmation of the continuation of our people.

From this point of view, I offer this small ode to the beauty of bar and bat mitzvah.

I want to invite these young Jews into the great human journey of mystery.

Sometimes my students come to the Torah Hut, a little free-standing office in my backyard lined with holy books. Often, we meet online. But it hardly matters; either way, week after week, ancient melodies come to life in the air between us.

We step into our archetypal roles as teacher and student, one of us passing on the tradition, and one of us receiving it, and each of us being changed in the process.

Our vocal cords vibrate with the same frequencies of our ancestors, our lips pronounce the same letters. We wrestle with the issues raised by the Torah portion — and invariably, my students’ questions about the text echo those of the rabbis, written a thousand years before.

But teaching Torah is only half of my job. The other half is to help strengthen the student’s spiritual life. What do they believe about the Divine? What does Judaism mean to them? How do these ancient traditions carry over into our contemporary lives? At 12, a young person is finally able to ask these questions.

These conversations have no right answer, of course. Whether a student is a passionate believer in God or a committed atheist makes no difference to me; I am here to be their guide in discovering what it is they believe.

At first, my students often have great difficulty articulating thoughts about spirituality. I explain that it’s not their fault. Life in secular America does not offer us many opportunities to talk about our own personal spirituality, and as advanced as we are with technology and academics, spiritual intelligence is underutilized in our daily lives.

So, we start with baby steps. In one of my favorite assignments, students write interview questions for their families — about “spiritual” matters but not including the word God, since that word often shuts down conversation entirely. They report the answers back to me; then I interview the students with their own questions. The resulting two hours of conversation are a window into the inner lives of the entire family, and a beautiful acknowledgment of their diversity of beliefs — simply as humans, beyond their roles as parent or grandparent or sibling.

I want to invite these young Jews into the great human journey of mystery, wonder and a place beyond intellectual knowing.

In order to stand in that sacred place, we have to remove our shoes, as Moses did at the burning bush. To be at once carefully attuned to our intuition and utterly inexpert — a skill I hope my students will remember long after their Torah portion has been forgotten.

So, when I think about a bar or bat mitzvah, I think not about cracking voices, or slideshows or theme colors. Instead, I think about the end of childhood, the very beginning of adulthood, and families in the slow, exciting, heartbreaking process of that transition.

I think about communities gathering to affirm the beautiful traditions of our tribe, the sacred words we have carried over ages and exiles, which have improbably made it to this very day and are now our responsibility to pass on.

I think about how lucky I am to get to spend an hour with a 12-year-old discussing ancient alphabets, modern social justice and the meaning of life.

And I think about how lucky we Jews are, to be given this path to walk together through one of the great transitions of human life.

Alicia Jo Rabins is a writer, musician and Torah teacher who lives in Portland, Ore.

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Is the European Right Good for the Jews?

Leave a Comment / Larry Greenfield /

The doors to modern left-wing anti-Semitism in Europe were opened long ago by the secular hero of the French Enlightenment, Voltaire, who famously said about the Jews: “You have surpassed all nations in impertinent fables, in bad conduct and in barbarism. You deserve to be punished, for this is your destiny.’’

Voltaire’s longstanding Jew-hatred has echoed for generations, from the murderous German National Socialists (Nazis) to the deeply anti-Israel current British Labor leader, Jeremy Corbyn.  Much of European academia offers a consistent hostility to Jews, Judaism and the State of Israel as a symbol of all they detest: religiosity, capitalism, nationalism and pro-Americanism.

After Israel’s survival and success in the Six-Day War of 1967, many on the Euro-left turned hostile to the Jewish state, psychologically turning David into Goliath.  Moreover, the rise of Arab terror, as with the Munich Olympic massacre in 1972, led Europe to cut a deal with the Palestinians to “buy off” terrorism by siding against Israel.

Today, European governments can no longer ignore Islamic terrorism, but traditional European political parties still pander to large voting blocs of Muslim immigrants. Political ideology plus practical politics has made Israel, not Islamic jihad and its war against the Christian West, enemy No. 1 for many European elites.

Much of European academia offers a consistent hostility to Jews.

Attacks on synagogues and delis, with Jews beaten and fearful to wear kippot in public, has sent thousands of French Jews to Israel on aliyah. Some English Jews have now abandoned leftist politics for conservative choices far friendlier to Israel.

But what about the rising European right? Is this reactionary force good or bad for the Jews?

The most prominent conservative success in Europe is the Brexit movement advocated by the United Kingdom Independence Party, which partially inspired Trumpism in the U.S.  This model appears most sanguine.

Ten or more other European rightist parties have emerged, with varying degrees of electoral success and varying attitudes to Jews.

Geert Wilder’s PVV in Holland is pro-American and pro-Israel and hostile to unassimilating Muslim immigration. He is considered a significant generational leader.

Germany’s AFD party is essentially anti-Islamic immigration and detests the special rights and benefits of Muslims infiltrating the country. “Islam is not for Germany” is its slogan, seeking attention for victims of sexual assault. The party has struggled to attract much support in a nation unwelcoming of the German far-right.

France’s Front National has improved its standing, after Marine Le Pen replaced her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, and has developed a mainstream critique of both the European Union and unbridled Islamic immigration.

The Danish People’s Party is a combination of right-wing on immigration and left-wing on economics.  Austria’s FPO and Italy’s Lega Nord are deeply anti-Muslim immigration, while The Finns are a fast-growing Eurosceptic party which promotes nationalism and anti-globalism in Finland.

Jobbik, Hungary’s extremist party, is unsympathetic to Jews. “The Movement for a Better Hungary” features a younger leadership seeking to improve its image as a “people’s party.” There also are the Swedish Democrats and Greece’s Golden Dawn.

Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East Forum, is unsurprised by this inevitable trend against longstanding consensus parties which failed to invite fair and robust public discussion about the deeply negative consequences of massive Islamic migration into Western countries.

Overcoming controversial roots or leadership, rightist parties may gain electoral strength if they drop nativism to focus on legitimate concerns about EU elitism and economic statism. By opposing radical Islamists, both homegrown and imported, who are engineering a rapid collapse of traditional European civilization, some European rightists may even offer legitimate support for Jewish security in Europe.

Larry Greenfield is a fellow of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship & Political Philosophy.

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Remembering Ilan Ramon, 15 Years On

Leave a Comment / Opinion /

It’s hard to believe that Feb. 1 marks 15 years since the space shuttle Columbia, nearing the end of its mission, disintegrated upon re-entry into our atmosphere, killing all seven of its crew members, including the first Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon. Regarded in Israel as a national hero, Ramon is also fondly remembered by the Los Angeles Jewish community.

Like many of his generation in Israel, Ramon was more of a cultural Jew than religious, but he nevertheless understood the gravity of his role — as indicated by the symbolic items he took with him into space:

• A sketch, called “Moon Landscape,” drawn by 16-year-old Petr Ginz, who died in Auschwitz
• A microfiche of the Torah presented to him by the president of Israel
• A miniature Torah that survived Bergen Belsen, given to him by Professor Yehoyachin Yosef
• A dollar from the Lubavitcher Rebbe
• A barbed wire mezuzah from The 1939 Society, a Los Angeles organization of Holocaust survivors, their family and friends.

“I remember being just doubled over from the tragedy,” Jewish singer and musician Sam Glaser recalled of his reaction upon first hearing the news. “There was this feeling like Israel had arrived among the nations, achieving something that few nations had achieved. The word ‘Startup Nation’ still hadn’t been coined. Our technological prowess was just coming into the forefront. But we all knew that Israel, given the chance, was going to rise to a remarkable place. And so Ilan was a harbinger of what was to come in Israel, and continued a long line of Israeli heroes.”

“Ilan was a harbinger of what was to come in Israel, and continued a long line of Israeli heroes.” — Sam Glaser

“I remember it not just being a national tragedy but an international tragedy,” said Rabbi Michael Gotlieb of Kehillat Ma’arav in Santa Monica. The space shuttle program was the product of a concerted effort from all over the globe. The crew, too, reflected a mixed, multicultural ethnicity, an “embodiment of a new world order,” Gotlieb said.

Having just returned from a congregational trip to Israel, Gotlieb recalled his visit to Makhtesh Ramon in the Negev, a natural crater over which Ilan Ramon would often fly, and the location of the Ilan Ramon Museum and Memorial.

Columbia’s fatal accident was the second such calamity in NASA’s space shuttle program, eliciting a gamut of Jewish responses, including those who said space travel was simply too dangerous to risk human life, and others who claimed that Jews simply did not belong in space. The majority, however, saw space travel as a natural outgrowth of our human curiosity.

With the Trump administration talking about returning to space, and more specifically, returning to the moon, there’s more than a little excitement in California.

“The idea of science exploration is one of the most inspiring stories that human beings have ever generated, that we can learn about the universe and get nature to reveal its secrets,” said Rabbi Brad Artson, dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies. “The shuttle was part of that. We’re occasionally reminded it’s a risky business, and people have to be willing to put their life on the line, which the crew and Ilan Ramon did. It’s important to remember the loss of all seven people who were killed in that incident, and to honor their courage, and to keep their vision alive by continuing to recognize how important scientific research remains.”

Gotlieb, too, is in favor of returning to space travel. “It’s a natural inclination for human beings to push the envelope,” he said.

Artson added that curiosity is not just a natural human drive, but “a gift of God, and that Nature can reveal its secrets through reason and experiment. For Jews, science is religious activity.”

As a science teacher and chazzan, serving at the nexus between science and Judaism, I couldn’t agree more.

Melanie Fine is the author of “A Midrash in Memory of Ilan Ramon.”

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