On a beautiful Sunday morning last spring, thousands of Israel supporters lined Wilshire Boulevard to wave banners, sing, chant and let the world know that the Jewish State isn’t alone. One of a handful to make the jaunt up the 405 from Orange County, I spoke with a friend who had come with her husband and kids. "We need to do this in Orange County," she insisted.
"Sure," I replied in my most endearing and sarcastic tone. "Me, you and, what, a couple of dozen others? It wouldn’t work down there."
Two weeks later, about a thousand demonstrators clogged Bristol Street in Costa Mesa and proved me wrong.
Even though I’d been involved with O.C. Jewish organizations for a few years, I had grossly underestimated the commitment and activist instincts of our community. Until that day, I’d have sworn that the only thing that would get that many Jews to South Coast Plaza on a Sunday morning was the Nordstrom Half-Yearly Sale.
I should have known better. In fact, examples abound that demonstrate just how much we’ve jelled as a community. No longer a Jewish backwater, Orange County has definitely come into its own.
The $20 million Federation campus campaign is perhaps the grandest illustration of Orange County’s incipient maturity, but it isn’t the only one. In another milestone effort, several agencies united last year to create the Israel Solidarity Task Force, which developed the innovative and popular Honey for the Holidays program, enabling O.C. Jews to send jars of honey to Israeli communities at Rosh Hashana in a demonstration of love and unity.
Indeed, the horrifying events in Israel — and the world’s indifference/antagonism — that have catalyzed Jewish activism throughout the United States, have had the same effect here in Orange County. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is resurgent under the leadership of Johanna Rose, area director for Orange County, Palm Springs and San Diego. AIPAC and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) got together to underwrite an Israel seminar series over the summer: half a dozen other agencies signed on as co-sponsors, and synagogues and day schools contributed meeting space.
It’s a great story. Thousands of Jews, nearly all of them born somewhere else, have pulled together to create a powerful Jewish community right here in the very birthplace of the John Birch Society. Jewish Journal Editor-in-Chief Rob Eshman has even called on L.A. Jews to come together "in a big, bold way, as they’ve done in Orange County." Imagine that — the venerable Jewish community of Los Angeles taking its cue from us.
But there are still a few flies in the ointment. While the overall level of dedication and commitment in Orange County has certainly grown, there are still some deserving have nots amongst our many new haves.
I don’t see South County, or even the older communities of North County, able to participate at the same level as the residents of the Irvine/Newport Beach area. I’ve been told that the new Federation campus will eventually have North and South county satellites — I hope that’s true, and in the not-too-distant future.
We also need to make primary and secondary Jewish education a bigger priority. Like any other high school, Tarbut V’Torah must have more than one elementary school feeding into it.
I readily admit to selfish motives here, but South County’s Morasha Jewish Day School must be better funded and more widely embraced by our community. It deserves support in its own right, both for the geography it serves and the educational philosophy it practices. But it is also important as a reliable source of students for the new high school. When my kids graduate from Morasha, I hope they will have the option of attending a mainstream, egalitarian Jewish day school.
In this respect, it is the older, more established Jewish communities that have set the standard. Robert Goldberg, executive committee chairman of the United Jewish Communities (the parent organization of Jewish federations nationwide), noted recently that 25 percent of Jewish children in Cleveland receive a day school education. While such an astronomical proportion may be out of reach for our more scattered Orange County population, Cleveland’s admirable success challenges us to find ways to provide even more day school options for our children.
Finally, it is no secret that the crisis in Israel has played a huge role in bringing our community together. I hope that when that crisis passes (as we all pray every day that it will), we are still able to set aside our differences and work together to create the institutions and programs that make Orange County such a great place to be Jewish. As the song says, "Ani v’atah nishaneh et ha’olam" ("You and I will change the world").
E. Scott Menter is an Orange County technology consultant and writer. He currently serves as president of the Orange County chapter of the American Jewish Committee.
