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Finneran Passes Over Jewish Community, Lobby

BRETT M. RHYNE

Jewish Journal Staff

BOSTON — Even as House Speaker Thomas Finneran was addressing hundreds of Jewish Community Advocacy Day participants, his office was circulating a memorandum to the legislature announcing a budget schedule that effectively shuts out Jewish citizens and lobbyists from advocating for amendments to next year’s state budget.

The schedule calls for the House version of the budget to be released to legislators and the public on Wednesday, April 23 at 10 a.m. Amendments must be filed by Friday, April 25 at 5 p.m., three working days after the budget’s release.

April 23 and 24 are the seventh and eighth days of Passover. This is also school vacation week, as well as the week between Catholic and Orthodox Easters.

“This is extremely detrimental to the budgetary process,” said Rep. Douglas Peterson (D-Marblehead). “It puts a damper on healthy debate.

“I don’t know if it’s designed to quell debate,” he continued, “but it will have that effect. It will delimit the number of amendments, as well as delimiting creative ways of moving things forward. Lobbyists will not find champions for their issues, and legislators will not be able to confer on issues.”

Peterson said this year’s budget schedule is important because, “We’re expecting a fairly large local aid cut. We hear Ways and Means will propose a 15-20 percent cut to municipalities.

“The whole budget is a surprise,” he said.

Finneran spokesperson Sarah Huskey would not comment on the record in response to Jewish Journal questions.

“I don’t see anti-Semitism in this, just insensitivity,” said a Jewish State House lobbyist who asked not to be identified. “People by and large know nothing about the last two days of Passover.”

Finneran’s budget scheduling “may be intentional,” said the lobbyist, but may have nothing to do with Passover: “Typically, school vacation week is a very quiet time around the State House. The intention is there, though, to try to minimize the number of amendments legislators will offer, which will cut down on the amount of debate.

“The House leadership has an agenda,” the lobbyist added. “It’s no secret the House is to a great extent managed in an authoritarian or autocratic manner. The leadership, in its ability to stifle debate, will be able to maintain its position better. It’s not in the interests of open government.”

According to the memo, from Finneran’s director of legislative affairs, Jack Shea, “The budget will be released online, and it will therefore be accessible worldwide on April 23.”

Rep. Peterson was not assuaged. “Part of access is sharing the budget with lobbyists and our colleagues,” he said. “This timing locks out Jewish members of the Legislature, and it locks out non-Jewish members, too. It’s school vacation.”

Shea did not return Jewish Journal telephone calls.

Peterson said he has “not heard of any” efforts among legislators to petition Finneran to change the budget timing.

“There’s a sense of resignation around here,” Peterson said. “There are enough people cooperating with the legislative leadership. We don’t have the votes to change it.”

“There will be essentially 24 hours for people who are observant to participate,” said Rep. Ruth Balser (D-Newton). “I thought about making this an issue with the Speaker, but he’s been responsive before, in terms of not holding session on either the Jewish or the Christian Sabbath and ending sessions early on Fridays.”

The Finneran-led Legislature approved other restrictive changes in the budgetary process “just last week,” according to Balser. These include a prohibition on linking revenue sources to specific budget item appropriations and the so-called “Holland Amendment,” which requires amendment sponsors to link an increase in appropriation to one budget item with an equivalent cut in another. Balser said these procedural changes were “for this year only.”

“Finneran does not want to see many amendments to the budget,” said Pam Wilcot, executive director of Common Cause Massachusetts, a nonpartisan citizen’s lobbying organization promoting open, honest and accountable government. “The goal is to minimize participation by the public or rank-and-file members of the Legislature.”

“It’s typical,” said Sheila Decter, director of the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action, a membership-based organization promoting social justice, civil rights and civil liberties. “[Finneran] is making sure that if you care about budget issues, you have to be there. Monetary issues are generated by a very small group of people. It’s very hard for others to have a significant impact.”

“The timing is extremely unfortunate,” said Rep. Jay Kaufman (D-Lexington), who added that Finneran’s budget schedule was “absolutely not” intended to silence the Jewish lobby. “I think this is sloppy, but not hostile,” he said.

Nancy Kaufman, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston (JCRC), the lobbying unit of Combined Jewish Philanthropies, expressed confidence in the budgetary process despite its awkward scheduling.

“We will anticipate in advance and make sure our legislators know our concerns,” Kaufman said. “Because it’s Passover, we have to trust our legislators to weigh in on our behalves. If nothing else, we will have Friday of that week if there actually is something to weigh in on.”

According to its website, the JCRC is “the representative voice of the organized Jewish community” and “reflects the ideals of American democracy.”

“It’s unfortunate for the public there’s such a small window,” Kaufman said.

Former JCRC Legislative Affairs Director Charles Glick was more sanguine. “There’s no one this is going to impact,” he said. “There are no Orthodox members of the Legislature. Even if there was a legislator who couldn’t work, he’d certainly have an aide who could.

“I don’t see it as really shutting out the community,” Glick added. “I don’t see the Jewish community disenfranchised in this process — that’s why the JCRC ensures it has adequate representation outside its own organization.” Glick currently works as an independent lobbyist for the JCRC.

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PEABODY — Although Galina Nizhnikov Veremkroit laughs often, she has not had an easy life.

Denied a visa to leave the Soviet Union three decades ago, Galina became an activist, fighting for her own and her family’s freedom for over four years. She and members of her family were shunned by colleagues and neighbors, stalked and beaten by KGB agents, and nearly imprisoned.

Through it all, Galina maintained her strength and dignity. She eventually made it to the United States, where she committed herself to helping other Soviet Jews win their freedom. On March 18, Jewish Women’s Archive and Hadassah honored this Peabody resident and grandmother of three as part of Women Who Dared, an event that paid tribute to four local Jewish women who ‘dared to take a stand on behalf of the rights of others.’

Galina recently shared her story with The Jewish Journal.

The youngest child and only daughter in a close-knit family of six, Galina was born in Moscow in 1940. She credits both her parents for her courage and her strong sense of Jewish pride, despite blatant Russian anti-Semitism.

“My parents taught me to be proud to be Jewish and to stand up for it,” she says. “It was my father’s character and I absorbed this. I too wanted to stand up for the right things.”

Galina earned a degree in mechanical engineering before marrying and starting a family. Her two sons, Sasha and Michael, became the driving forces in her fight for freedom.

“We didn’t see any future for our children in Russia,” she says. “Jews were not allowed in many universities. Children were bred to be communists at an early age. We wanted our children to live in freedom.”

In 1975, Galina and her husband applied for, but were denied, visas. They became active in Russia’s refusenik community and Galina quickly discovered a strength and cunning she never knew she had.

“In the beginning, we met other resfuseniks and learned the process,” she says. “We would write letters to officials with requests to let us emigrate. We hosted seminars in our home where lawyers provided ‘training’ to people in refusal, teaching them how to behave if arrested, and how to answer questions.”

Then, through her in-laws, Galina met her mentor — the famous refusenik Ida Nudel. “Ida was a role model for me during our struggle,” Galina says. “She showed tremendous strength and humanity, despite much suffering. She taught us things — like to carry wool socks with us just in case, because it was cold in prison.”

Beginning what would become known as ‘the new Jewish women’s movement,’ Ida, Galina and a small group of women held a series of daring, all-female demonstrations at locations including the Kremlin Wall and opposite KGB headquarters. Galina wore a special T-shirt emblazoned with a blue Jewish star, which became her activist trademark.

Following the demonstrations, KGB agents began trailing and harassing Galina and her family, even taking her passport on one occasion. She remained defiant.

“I would smile at the KGB agents,” she says. “I never showed fear, because people who showed fear were easier to break. It was like a game. I made sure to play by the rules, and I was always strategizing my next move. I had one goal in mind — to leave — and I was intent on winning.”

Galina finally won in the summer of 1978. With the help of relatives in the U.S and the support of Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy, Galina’s family and 18 others were granted permission to leave the Soviet Union. They moved to the Boston area.

After learning English, Galina dedicated the next 10 years of her life to the cause of families left behind. Aligning herself with local Jewish organizations such as Action for Soviet Jewry and Jewish Family Service of the North Shore (JFS), she raised awareness of the plight of the Russian refusenik community and helped bring a number of Soviet families to freedom. Together with Bernice Kazis from JFS, she created her own organization, HELP (Hebrew Emigrants Liberation Procedures), to work with JFS in assisting resettlement.

Through her story and the story of others, Galina emphasizes the important role American Jews played in helping Soviet Jews.

“When I was a Soviet refusenik, I was aware of the support of Jews in America,” she says. “I corresponded with them, and knowing they were behind us made it easier to do brave things. American Jews have a voice and they can influence the American government — that’s something I’ve learned to appreciate.”
In 1995, Galina wrote a memoir, The Courage of Despair, detailing her experiences in the Jewish women’s movement in Russia. She dedicated it to Ida Nudel.

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Leadership STARs Born

MARK ARNOLD
Jewish Journal Staff

MARBLEHEAD — For a year, they underwent “Specialized Training, Action, Results” (STAR), and on April 8 became future leaders of the North Shore Jewish community. The 28 graduates received their certificates at a ceremony at Temple Sinai, Marblehead, after intensive training, supported by a $10,000 grant from the Jewish Federation of the North Shore.

STAR, now completing its second year, is intended to groom committed volunteers for future leadership positions in synagogues, community agencies, and other Jewish institutions. This year’s class ranged in age from 27 to 52; their ranks included physicians, business people, lawyers and stay-at-home moms.

“We expect great things from these graduates,” said Liz Donnenfeld, STAR facilitator. Nominations for next year’s class will begin in June. “We are looking for committed volunteers who want to go to the next level and are willing to make a year-long commitment to training, meeting once a month for two hours,” she said.

The new graduates are: James Cohen, Elizabeth Cushinsky, Steven Cushinsky, Judith Drachman, Liza Goldman, Rachel Goldstein, Lowell Gray, Lauren Guley, Mitchell Jacobson, Alan Kaplan, Robyn Kaplan, Steven Katzen, Ellen Kayser, Debbie Kintish, Mark Mulgay, Debbie Neumann, Wendy Roizen, Karen Rosen, Jeffrey Rubin, Shelley Sackett, Cory Schauer, Andrea Shapiro, Gayle Solomon, Susan Steigman, Deborah Sudenfield, Andrea York, Lory Zaifman, and Stephanie Zimmt-Mack.

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North Shore Advocates Stage Battle of Beacon Hill

BRETT M. RHYNE
Jewish Journal Staff

BOSTON — Half a dozen North Shore residents trekked to the State House last week to lobby against Governor Mitt Romney’s proposed cuts in social services.

“We’re here to advocate support for protecting vital areas of human services that are threatened by the Governor’s budget and the economic condition in the Commonwealth,” said delegation leader and former Beacon Hill staffer Mark Mulgay.

The lobbying was part of Jewish Community Advocacy Day, an annual event organized by the Massachusetts Association of Jewish Federations and the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston (JCRC).

Drawn from across the Commonwealth, the 250 advocates were predominantly Jewish organizational workers and senior citizens. A number of teen- and college-age students also attended.

Before breaking into regional delegations to meet with their representatives, advocates gathered in the Great Hall, where they heard speeches by JCRC Executive Director Nancy Kaufman, President Geoff Lewis and Public Policy Chair Jane Matlaw; Rabbi Robert Goldstein of Temple Emanuel, Andover; State Senate President Robert Travaglini; and a tardy House Speaker Thomas Finneran. [Please see related story on p. 1.]

Event organizers coached advocates to speak on four issues: ensuring adequate resources for the social service ‘safety net,’ helping seniors live at home with dignity, helping low-income families become self-sufficient and promoting independence for disabled individuals and supporting the families who care for them.

The North Shore delegation met for 20 minutes with Senator Thomas McGee (D-Lynn). After hearing their concerns about how budget cuts will affect already disadvantaged groups, McGee said, “Let’s give these people an opportunity to get a leg up.”

McGee also said, “I’d be in favor of increasing the income tax back to 5.6 percent to support cities and towns.”

North Shore community lobbyists were also scheduled to meet with Rep. Douglas Peterson (D-Marblehead), but he was unavailable. Instead, they met with his aide, Barbara Schneider, who echoed McGee’s sentiment when she said, “I have to believe the Governor doesn’t understand the impact of his cuts.”

Schneider added, “This fee-for-service system is going to hurt poor people more than anybody.”

“We, as a Jewish community, are not going to let these needs go unmet,” said delegation member Robert Finkel of Swampscott, an attorney who serves as chair of the professional advisory committee of the Jewish Community Foundation.

“Having worked in the Legislature,” said delegation leader Mulgay, of Swampscott, “I know it is vitally important for legislators and legislative staffers to hear the voice of the people. Many legislators are scared to vote for revenue enhancement, raising taxes. But it’s unrealistic to expect to maintain the Commonwealth given the current income tax. Legislators need to hear that voters are willing to support increases in taxes.”

In addition to Finkel and Mulgay,the North Shore contingent included Marblehead’s Alyson Morse Katzman, an organizer around domestic violence and a board member of both Hadassah and Jewish Family Service; Swampscott’s Judy Krell, associate director of planning for Combined Jewish Philanthropies in Boston; Swampscott’s Linda Scott, Jewish Family Services director; and Marblehead’s Stephanie Simon, Jewish Community Foundation president.

Jewish Journal intern Josh Heerter contributed to this report.

Teen Students of Advocacy

Advocacy Day was a learning experience for more than just legislators and community lobbyists; also in attendance were 45 students from the literacy and advocacy organization Teens for Tzedek, Maimonides and the New Jewish High School.

“I think it’s vital to get our teens, who are already passionate about issues that affect the most vulnerable, to be involved in the advocacy process,” said Rivka Gluzband, JCRC’s youth social justice coordinator.

“We’re talking and advocating to senators about Jewish issues,” said Sharon’s Sonia Grossman. Both she and Julie Tabroft, also of Sharon, planned on lobbying Sen. Brian Joyce (D-Milton).

Sharon’s Jordana Truboff, also a Teens for Tzedek member, spent the day shadowing JCRC head Nancy Kaufman. “Nancy would talk about how we need to educate constituents about the budget crisis,” she said. “They want to tell the people about what would happen when we raise taxes, or what would happen when we don’t.”

“At this time, it’s particularly important our voices are heard,” said Hingham’s Ethan Stone, 19, an intern at Teens for Tzedek. “It’s time for teens to take back the State House.”

— Brett M. Rhyne and Josh Heerter

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A. LARISSA TIERNEY
Jewish Journal Correspondant

Since the intifada began in 2001, numbers of visitors have declined. Now, the war with Iraq has further deterred people from visiting Israel, even those who could go for free.

birthright israel (BRI) began over three years ago as an organization whose goal was to reconnect Jews to their ancestral homeland by sending people who had never been to Israel on a free, 10-day, educational trip.

Josh Segaloff, 23, of Swampscott, had the option of going on a BRI trip in 1999. Instead, he went through his university and spent a semester in Israel; but since he had never been before, BRI gave him as much money towards his schooling as it would have cost to send him on a 10-day trip.

“It was a great trip,” said Segaloff, “they gave me $1,000 to allow me to experience Israel.”

Eliot Yaffa, a student at Clark who hails from Lowell, went on a BRI trip to Israel in January 2000. In 10 days he saw much of Israel for the first time. “It is definitely a worthwhile experience for anyone who hasn’t been to Israel,” said Yaffa.

At the time, both the American and Israeli economies were booming, and the situation in Israel was relatively stable.

Fast forward to today: both economies are suffering and the intifada that began in September of 2001 has strangled tourism.

Initially, BRI hoped to send 100,000 people to Israel in five years. With the downturn of the economies, the political situation, and now the war in Iraq, the goal of 100,000 people is a dream.

“No question that the war in Iraq and certainly the war in Israel has affected the program overall to some degree,” said Marlene Post, North American chair of birthright israel. At the end of five years, BRI now estimates it will have sent 60,000 people to Israel.

Since Michael Steinhardt and Charles Bronfman founded it in 1999, BRI has sent 40,000 people between the ages of 18 and 26 to Israel for free. The organization hopes to connect Jews from around the world with Israel as a tool for learning and in solidarity with her people.

The funding for the organization is a three-way partnership between the government of Israel, the federation system in the U.S., and a group of Jewish philanthropists.

Initially founded as a five-year trial program, each philanthropist pledged $5 million over five years.

The Israeli government took a supportive role in this organization. “For the first time, the government of Israel took upon itself the responsibility and direct involvement in Jewish education around the world,” said Dr. Shimshon Shoshani, CEO of BRI.

According to Shoshani, the Israeli Government budgeted $12.5 million for BRI. However, economy slowdowns forced the Government to reduce this amount to $8.5 million. The Government had initially allocated $20 million for BRI for 2004 but has since reduced that figure to $6.5 million.

“This is a significant sum of money and we are studying and analyzing the implications of this government decision,” said Shoshani.

According to Post, the federation system continues to meet its pledged amount and the philanthropists have never missed a payment.

“We expect that the Federations and the U.J.C. will make the payment of the share that they have committed to the project,” said Shoshani.

Approximately 85 percent of funds are applied directly to the educational trips while 15 percent is spent on administration costs.

However, in 1999, the founders did not imagine the cost of security. “The amount of money spent on security is extremely high,” said Post.“From landing in Israel to takeoff, the participants are fully protected.” This unexpected cost of security has been balanced by the fewer number of participants than originally anticipated.

Despite the lower numbers overall, this past winter 8,000 people took advantage of the program. “With the war in Iraq looming over everyone’s heads and with circumstances less than perfect, we had 8,000 people go to Israel,” said Post.

The anticipated war with Iraq may have been a motivating factor. “We did better this winter than last,” said Post, “Maybe they wanted to go before the war with Iraq began.”

Though she expects the numbers for the May trips to decrease, Post believes they’ll rise again in June because of the anticipated end of the war by the end of May.

Despite budget cuts, BRI is looking to expand their program beyond the initial five-year run. In January, Shoshani appointed Simon Klarfeld as interim leader of the North American office. His goal is to enable the program to continue beyond the five-year time period.

According to Shoshani, “The greatest success of birthright israel has been the perpetration of our vision - strengthening of Jewish identity, strengthening Jewish communities and a connection to the State of Israel in the consciousness of tens of thousands of Jews in Israel and throughout the world.”

Jewish Journal intern Josh Heerter contributed to this report.

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Interview with a Refusenik

BRETT M. RHYNE
Jewish Journal Staff

BOSTON — After 9/11, the U.S. government turned to Israel for guidance on dealing with the threat of terrorism; now, peace activists are turning to Israeli soldiers who refuse to serve in the West Bank and Gaza Strip — so-called ‘refuseniks’ — for guidance on how to resist the urge to violence.

Major Ishai Menuchin of the Israeli Defense Forces first refused to serve in occupied territory two decades ago, an offense for which he was tried twice and spent over a month in prison. At that time, he also helped found the organization Yesh Gvul (There is a Limit), which works to support other refusing soldiers and educate Israeli citizens about the occupation. On March 30, Menuchin received The Rothko Chapel Oscar Romero Award for Commitment to Truth and Freedom in Houston, Texas; since then, he has been speaking throughout the United States.

While in Massachusetts, Menuchin, 45, addressed audiences at Harvard University, UMass-Boston and Temple Beth Zion in Brookline. He met exclusively with The Jewish Journal in the offices of the Greater Boston chapter of the American Jewish Committee.

Jewish Journal: How big is the refusenik movement?

Ishai Menuchin: There are 12 refuseniks in military prison right now. In 2000, there were four; in 2001, 33; in 2002, 191. So far in 2003, there have been 36 soldiers put in jail for refusing to serve. 250 soldiers have been put in prison, but at least 10 times that — 2,500 — have refused.

Then there is what we call ‘gray refusal,’ when a reservist finds a way to be excused from serving. So he gets a letter from his boss saying a project can’t go on without him, or he gets a doctor’s note, or he takes a vacation of three days abroad, which makes him ineligible to serve. We estimate 25,000 gray refusers.

JJ: How long does a refusenik typically spend in jail?

IM: A reservist might get 28 to 35 days for refusing. A regular soldier might get that or twice that. If someone refuses to even enter the army — if they resist the draft — they could get ten or 15 years in prison.

The army doesn’t want to make this an issue. But during the government’s action in the territories last April, 74 reservists refused and they all went to jail. There was tremendous publicity around this and a lot of public pressure to let them go.

JJ: How did you become a refusenik?

IM: I first refused to go back to Lebanon when I was called for my second tour there. I spent 35 days in prison. After my second trial, I was not returned to prison, due to orders from higher up. I was removed from my unit, though.

As a reservist, I continue to serve every year, for 45 days. It is true I must obey orders, but I am not going to the territories. This hasn’t affected my being promoted, though: when I first refused I was a lieutenant, now I am a major.

JJ: What effect do you think your high profile, refusing presence has on the army?

IM: I think they see my presence as an alternative — that’s it’s okay to refuse and still serve. The IDF works hard to keep it a national army. In a country with wide differences in political opinion, it’s important to show the IDF is a melting pot army. The minute the left does not serve, they know it will be very hard for the army. The army is very bothered by this.

JJ: What effect do you think the refusenik movement has had on Israeli society?

IM: The numbers of refuseniks are growing all the time: pacifists, youngsters in the army, Zionists, Jewish language groups…

The Israeli army is much more open than the Israeli government. The government has a problem. Israel is a democratic society. So what can they do to refuseniks? They can arrest and investigate us, but they can’t stop people from demonstrating — it’s against the law. The government uses other techniques, like censorship. The press is very patriotic these days.

JJ: In such a climate, how do you get the word out?

IM: We take our message directly to the people. We offer meetings monthly in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. We put out email newspapers, thousands of leaflets and posters designed by artists.

JJ: Tell us about Yesh Gvul.

IM: We’re not many — a core of maybe 50 people. We function by small donations, and a grant from the American Friends’ Service Committee, the Quakers.

Yesh Gvul does three things. First, we’re a support group for soldiers who refuse. We run two hotlines where we talk with refuseniks, sometimes meet with them. We have a foundation that gives money to the families of soldiers in prison — we gave out $40,000 in 2002, and so far have given out $8,500 this year.

We also use refusal as a political weapon, a tactic. Our flag is social change and struggle against the occupation. We hold vigils and demonstrations, like the monthly protests we hold at military prisons. We appear at demonstrations held by other organizations.

The other thing we do is education. We’ve published books, on the limits of obedience and on democracy and obedience. We have open meetings and talk about topics like freedom of speech, selective refusal and the international court for war crimes.

JJ: As a pacifist, what do you foresee happening in Israel and the Palestinian territories?

IM: Peace-nurturing people are optimistic people. So, while the next year will be awful — Palestinians and Israelis are still more concerned with how to hurt each other, to make each other suffer — the way the PLO forced Arafat to take Abu Mazen, who spoke publicly against suicide bombings, as his prime minister is a very good sign. It’s always a political mistake to use force as a political weapon.

I don’t see on the Israeli side people who will really try to find peace. One product of any agreement is the dismantling of the settlements. There is no political leader now in Israel who can do it.

JJ: What about the most recent Labor Party candidate for prime minister, Amram Mitzna?

IM: Mitzna is a very nice person, but he doesn’t have politic. The Labor Party, in the best case, is a bad joke. In the worst case, it’s more interested in holding office then in making progress for the Israeli people.

JJ: How do you think the war in Iraq will affect Israel?

IM: I know how war starts; I don’t know how it ends. After Iraq, will the U.S. still be considered a neutral broker in the Arab world? For the first time, people in the Middle East hate the U.S. more than they hate Israel. I hope your president will force us to sit with the Palestinians, because we won’t do it ourselves.

But we don’t need a war for that to happen.

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Jacoby Wraps Speaker's Series at Temple Sinai

GARY BAND
Jewish Journal Staff

MARBLEHEAD — Nearly every seat in the house was filled when Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby spoke on “The Christian Right, The Christian Left and the Jews” on April 6 at Temple Sinai in Marblehead.

Prepared to speak on any number of subjects from the war in Iraq to peace in the Middle East, the sixth and final speaker of the Temple’s Jubilee Education Series chose to address a subject “a little closer to home: Jewish-Christian relations.”

Referring initially to the Episcopal Bishops’ protest of the Israeli incursion of Bethlehem outside the Consulate in the fall of 2001, Jacoby argued that the Jewish community, historically left-leaning but with “many exceptions,” has in fact some of its best friends on the Christian Right. He believes Jews in general do themselves a disservice by turning their backs on leaders like Pat Robertson simply because many Jews disagree with their social and political thinking.

While anti-Israel rallies are not uncommon, Jacoby said, the Episcopal Bishops, members of what he says constitute the Christian Left, do not often demonstrate in the street. But while injustices are committed against Koptic Christians in Egypt, and it’s illegal for Christians to pray freely in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, he noted, “None of this brought the Bishops to the street. Only against Israel, where Jews, Christians and Muslims all have the right to worship as they choose, did the bishops see it necessary to protest.”

“Christian Left,” which includes Protestants, Methodists and Unitarian Universalists, Jacoby said, is not a very common term. In fact, when doing an Internet search, he said he came across a full 51,000 articles that mention the Christian Right, but only 1,600 that mention the Christian Left.

Many Jews, he said, feel the religious right represents an assault on religious tolerance in America and have a strong sense of “hostility and fear” toward its membership. “That gets it exactly backward,” Jacoby contends.“With its concern for the well-being of Israel, and the money they have raised for the Jewish State, the Christian Right have been our best friends.” Conversely, “the Christian Left have been downright hostile,” he added.

Referring to a piece in the Hartford Courant marking Israel’s 50th birthday, Jacoby said the paper invited readers to contribute their thoughts on what Israel’s presence means to them. Members of the religious community almost unanimously condemned Israel, writing such things as “Israel’s very existence has violated the lives of Christian and Muslims;” and from a prominent Protestant leader: “Jews need to let go of the idea that a Jewish state located in a physical place is crucial to Jewish identity.”

“Understand what their message is,” Jacoby said. “Those who denounce the Jewish State want a return to the time when Jews had no power.” He went on to say that the leadership of the Christian Left has “exquisite concern for Palestinian suffering” and is “outraged at the way Israel behaves.” Jacoby believes “that puts the leadership of these churches in a different place from where most Americans are.”

Jacoby allows that if he made this argument three years ago people would have thought him crazy. “But from what I’ve seen and heard in the last few months, there is no denying the support the Christian Right shows Israel.”

While many Jews just can’t seem to warm up to the Evangelicals, Jacoby advises, “If you want to hear Israel praised, turn on Robertson’s 700 Club. If you want to hear it bashed, turn on NPR... Let’s keep working to make friends with our enemies, but not make the mistake of treating our friends as if they were enemies.”

The first questions from the capacity crowd at Temple Sinai challenged Jacoby on the “price paid” for making friends with the Right in terms of eroding separation of church and state; and, more importantly, the ulterior motives Evangelicals like Pat Robertson have in wanting as many Jews as possible in Israel in order to hasten the second coming and thus destroy all Jews who don’t convert.

“I hear that and it doesn’t bother me,” Jacoby, an Orthodox Jew, said. “For one thing, the numbers of those who believe that are very small. And second, so what if that’s their motive? If it means they want a safe Israel and as many Jews there as possible, so be it. It means they’re in it for the long haul.”

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Interfaith Seder Stresses Freedom and Redemption

MARK ARNOLD
Jewish Journal Staff

With the War in Iraq looming in the background, the emphasis was on freedom and redemption at the Anti-Defamation League’s 11th annual Interfaith Seder, co-sponsored for the first time by Gordon College in Wenham.

The small liberal arts college, whose mission is to graduate men and women of “intellectual maturity and Christian character,” played host April 7 to almost 500 people at seder tables erected in its gymnasium. All the tables were arranged to mix students from the college with participants from area synagogues and other Jewish organizations. “It was so wonderful having all the young people around us,” commented Sophie Katz, a member of Temple Shalom in Salem, whose table included four students and six senior citizens, active in the Jewish Community Center in Marblehead. “They made us really feel at home.”

The tone for the seder was set by Dr. R. Judson Carlberg, president of the college, in his welcome remarks, and by ADL Executive Director Rob Leikind. Noting the similarities of Jewish and Christian values and culture, Carlberg paid tribute to the Jewish roots of the Christian faith. Leikind noted that Jews came “out of enslavement into physicial and spiritual freedom” in the Passover story of liberation from Egyptian bondage. “Christians and Jews gather together tonight to take part in healing, in trying to redeem the world,” he said.

The seder was officiated by Rabbi Robert S. Goldstein of Temple Emanuel of Andover, who presided over the festivities with rare good humor. He called the Passover seder “the most democratic of traditions,” noting that everyone participates and “anyone can spill the wine.” On a more serious note, Rabbi Goldstein said that Jews and Christians “can come together in our differences and draw strength from each other. Jews emphasize freedom from slavery, Christians, redemption. These are different beliefs but they illustrate common values,” he concluded.

In addition to the traditional seder meal, the program featured music by the Gordon College Choir and Chamber Singers, the singing of traditional Passover songs, led by singer-guitarist Terri Sherman, and a presentation to the college from ADL lay leader Helaine Hazlett, who co-chaired the event with Amy Pliner. Anne Selby, chair of the ADL North Shore Advisory Committee, concluded the event by saying: “We live in a time of hatred and injustice, slavery and oppression.”

She urged the participants to combat hate wherever they see it. Together, she said, “We can change the world. We can make a difference.”

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Teacher Get Inspired at First Class

AMY SESSLER POWELL
Special to The Journal

MARBLEHEAD — When 36 Hebrew school and Jewish preschool teachers completed class number one in Inspirational Jewish Teaching last week, they were pumped.

“I was so excited and uplifted after I left there,” said Donna Krivis, who teaches at Temple Emanu-El in Marblehead. “I thought it was applicable to life and reality and if we are able to capture that and pass it on to our students and to use it in our parenting, we certainly will have attained our goals.”

Rachel Jacobson agreed. “The atmosphere in the room was energetic. It was spiritual. Everyone wanted to contribute to make Hebrew school better and the next day, people were talking to each other. The teachers had fun in class.”

Inspirational Jewish Teaching 101 is a course designed for Hebrew school teachers and offered through the Jewish Federation of the North Shore. During the 10 sessions, master teachers from across the country will be brought in to motivate Jewish educators and explore ways to inspire Jewish children to learn the richness of their heritage.

This is the first time such a course has been offered in the community and the response was overwhelming. Thirty-six teachers enrolled, representing 15 Jewish schools on the North Shore and well over 1,000 students. Teachers who live or work in the communities represented by the Federation will receive a stipend based on the number of classes they attend. Inspirational Jewish Teaching is fully subsidized by a grant from the Robert I. Lappin Foundations of Jewish Continuity Department of the Jewish Federation of the North Shore.

“We want to create an environment to enrich and enhance Jewish pride in our kids; and if we can do that and we can inspire them to learn, then I think we have a greater chance of them staying Jewish,” said Debbie Coltin, director of Jewish continuity program development.

The teachers acknowledged that they often face an uphill battle. Their students have already been to school that day, there are numerous conflicts with sports and other extra-curricular activities, and they do not always get the parental support they need. The first class focused on student aspirations with guest speakers Dr. Russell Quaglia and Dr. Sara Quay from the Global Institute for Student Aspirations at Endicott College in Beverly. Quaglia, who spent 17 years studying student aspirations and interviewing 100,000 students, discussed eight conditions that affect aspirations. In summary, the conditions are:

• Belonging, being accepted for who you are

• Heroes, the people who inspire your dreams

• Sense of accomplishment, how you feel being your best

• Fun and excitement, simply making you smile

• Curiosity and creativity, allowing your mind to go anywhere, any time

• Spirit of adventure, taking chances as you reach for the stars

• Leadership and responsibility, doing what is right for others and yourself

• Confidence to take action, believing in yourself and doing something about it.

Parents and teachers are heroes to students, according to Quaglia’s research. “The only choice you have is whether you are a good hero or a bad hero — not whether to be a hero,” said Quaglia. “You’re changing kids’ lives every second you talk to them and every second you don’t.”

The teachers broke into small groups to brainstorm each of the eight conditions and then reported their results. They also discussed the Jewish values that correspond to the conditions identified by Quaglia, including k’lal Yisrael, being a mensch and tikkun olam. Adding levity to the evening, Quaglia passed out prizes to the teachers who took notes and reported for their groups.

Jacobson admitted that she entered the class with a jaded view, thinking that after 25 years of teaching, she would not learn anything new. She was wrong.

“I learned and I learned a lot,” said Jacobson, who teaches at Chabad Hebrew School and Temple Beth El in Swampscott. “It is never too late to learn.”

Besides actual knowledge, teachers who attended also learned that they are a valued group in the community.

“I saw so many wonderful teachers and we all needed that support and recognition as teachers,” said Jacobson. “I really almost gave up on being recognized as a Hebrew teacher, but that night I felt like everyone wanted to have better Hebrew school and make the kids happier in Hebrew school.”

The teachers in the room also felt inspired to donate back to the community by pledging a total of more than $4,000 to the Community Campaign, including 14 gifts from new donors. The next class meets in May and features Rabbi Ron Symons speaking on “Rosh Hashana, Then and Now.”

Additional speakers will include Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins, Dr. Saul Wachs, Rabbi Nehemia Polen, Rabbi Debra Cantor, Debbie Coltin, Lynn Rubinstein and Debbie Nathan. Topics include creative teaching techniques, Jewish guided imagery, Jewish art as inspiration, dancing for inspiration, using midrash in teaching, creating a spiritual classroom and Bibliodrama.

Overall, the teachers in the room commented that they had learned things they could use the very next day in class. “There is a will in this community and I really believe that after this course, our schools will improve 100 percent,” said Jacobson.

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National News

Hawks and Doves Squabble Over 'Road Map'

MATTHEW E. BERGER

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Congress got a glimpse of the internal Jewish battle over the “road map” for Israeli-Palestinian peace last week, as organizations swamped lawmakers with literature and lobbyists pushing particular interpretations of the plan.

At issue is whether lawmakers should support a road map that places initial obligations solely on the Palestinians, or the current version that envisions simultaneous concessions by both sides.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee sent nearly 3,000 people to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, each asking congressmen to sign letters to President Bush asking him to reject calls for a road map that demands Israeli concessions up front.

At the same time, each of two dovish Jewish groups — the Israel Policy Forum and Americans for Peace Now — was faxing legislators’ offices and holding background briefings, calling the current road map the best available policy and urging lawmakers not to place conditions on progress toward peace.

“We’re saying this isn’t a document we would have written, it certainly has its problems, but it’s the only game in town,” said Lewis Roth, APN’s assistant executive director. “The president shouldn’t have his hands tied in pursuing it.”

AIPAC and others argue that the current incarnation of the road map, drafted by the diplomatic “Quartet” of the United States, European Union, Russia and United Nations, places too much emphasis on a rigid timeline and doesn’t demand Palestinian reforms and an end to violence as preconditions to Israeli concessions.

While AIPAC spent much of its recent policy conference praising the Bush administration, concerns linger that the White House will utilize the road map to mend fences with the European Union and the Arab world, which have not been supportive of the war against Iraq and see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the key problem in the Middle East.

AIPAC is asking legislators to write the president, asking him to stick to his policy speech of June 24, 2002. Fulfillment of the four principles Bush laid out in the speech — an end to terror and violence against Israel, a new Palestinian leadership not tainted by terrorism, transparency in Palestinian government and an overhaul of the Palestinian security apparatus — will show when it’s time to move toward peace, the letters say.

As of Monday, 28 senators and 124 representatives had added their signatures.

The dovish groups suggest the letters are merely a way to sandbag progress towards peace.

“Nothing in the letter is bad,” said M.J. Rosenberg, IPF’s policy director. “What’s bad in that letter is what’s left out.”

Rosenberg argues that AIPAC is ignoring steps Israel could take for peace. He wonders how many lawmakers will sign the letter because they support the principles it outlines, while wishing it listed what Israel should do as well.

In statements, press releases and a list of questions and answers sent to congressional offices last week, IPF and APN said the White House has shown a sincere desire to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace, and that the effort should be embraced.

Both dovish groups say their aim is to show lawmakers that supporting AIPAC is not the only way to prove your pro-Israel credentials.

“AIPAC bills itself as the voice of the pro-Israel community on Capitol Hill, when in fact they are one voice,” Rosenberg said. “They may not even be the majority voice.”

While the Bush administration no doubt is hearing the dichotomy of views, it does not seem to be embracing the more dovish groups. Five senior administration officials, including Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, spoke at the AIPAC conference.

In contrast, IPF has not consistently been on the administration’s invitation list for consultations with the Jewish community.

“I think it will be interesting when they unveil the road map and the people they have been courting” — meaning AIPAC — “bash them, and the people they haven’t let in the door embrace them,” said one Jewish leader not affiliated with any of the groups.

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Features

JTA News Briefs

Israeli: Abbas to Fight Terror

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The newly appointed Palestinian Authority prime minister intends to fight terror and resume diplomacy, an Israeli intelligence official said. Mahmoud Abbas also plans to fight corruption within the Palestinian Authority, Brig. Gen. Aharon Ze’evi said Tuesday at a Knesset committee meeting. But Ze’evi also said that Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat may undermine Abbas. In addition, Ze’evi noted that Abbas, like Arafat, wants a Palestinian state in the entire West Bank, Gaza Strip and eastern Jerusalem, and he insists that Palestinian refugees and their descendants should have the “right of return” to their former homes in Israel.

Barghouti: Arafat OK’d Attacks

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Yasser Arafat gave clear instructions when he wanted a halt to terrorist attacks and let it be known when he did not, according to a Palestinian leader on trial in Israel.

According to a document allowed for publication on Monday, Marwan Barghouti said during Shin Bet questioning that the Palestinian Authority president made specific requests to him and other Palestinians when he wanted a cease-fire, Israel Radio reported.

When Arafat was quiet regarding terrorist attacks, it was interpreted as a green light, Barghouti said, according to the report.

Barghouti, the head of Arafat’s Fatah movement in the West Bank, is on trial in a Tel Aviv court for involvement in the murders of dozens of Israelis in terrorist attacks.

He refuses to recognize Israel’s right to try him.

Women’s Group Barred from Site

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Reversing an earlier decision, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that a women’s group cannot pray in an organized service at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. In a 5-4 decision Sunday, the justices gave the government a year to prepare an alternate nearby site, known as Robinson’s Arch.

If arrangements are not made within a year, the Women of the Wall will be allowed to pray at the Western Wall, the court ruled.

Members of the group, who read from the Torah and wear prayer shawls during the monthly service, expressed deep disappointment with the decision.

DeLay Blasts Human Rights Report

WASHINGTON (JTA) — House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) blasted the State Department’s report on Israel’s actions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Accepting an award April 2 at the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews’ Stand for Israel Day in Washington, DeLay said the report, released last week, “compares the human rights record of a free, tolerant and pluralistic nation with that of a terrorist network. There is no comparison, and to assert one is ridiculous.”

More than 600 Christian leaders attended the event in Washington, which also honored Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.).

Speakers included Attorney General John Ashcroft, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Daniel Ayalon.

German Fined for Holocaust Denial

NEW YORK (JTA) — A lawyer was fined for denying in a German court that Jews died in Auschwitz. On Monday, Jurgen Rieger was fined the equivalent of more than $3,000 for trying to submit evidence denying the Holocaust in a 1996 defense of a neo-Nazi. Lawyers for Rieger said they would appeal the ruling.

Hungarian Exhibit Protested

NEW YORK (JTA) — Hungarian Jews are protesting an exhibition about the country’s fascist wartime leader.

The exhibit about fascist leader Ferenc Szalasi and his predecessor, Miklos Horthy, glorifies Szalasi, according to leaders of the Jewish community.

A museum official in Koszeg, where the exhibit opened, said the display is objective.

But it fails to mention atrocities that were committed by Szalasi’s regime, a Hungarian newspaper said Monday.

Yiddish Radio Program Wins Prize

NEW YORK (JTA) — A series of programs on Yiddish radio won a Peabody Award for excellence in electronic media. The Yiddish Radio Project aired on U.S. public radio in the spring of 2002.

In addition, a film on the failure of the Oslo peace accords also won a Peabody. “Shattered Dreams of Peace: The Road from Oslo” was shown on U.S. public television.

U.S. Jew Killed in Iraq

VERMONT (JTA) — Cpl. Mark Evnin of South Burlington, Vt., became the first known American Jewish military casualty of the war on Iraq. Evnin, 21, a sniper scout with the Third Battalion, Fourth Regiment of the First Marine Division, was killed by Iraqi machine gun fire during an April 3 ambush in Kut, south of Baghdad. Evnin had played high school lacrosse and football and spent much time at his school’s computer imaging laboratory. His mother, Mindy Evnin, described her son as a proud Jew who believed he was helping Israel, and hoped one day to go there and join the Israeli army.

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People

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Arts & Entertainment

Lainie Kazan in 'My Big Fat Greek Life'

NAOMI PFEFFERMAN

LOS ANGELES — When Lainie Kazan first read the screenplay of Nia Vardalos’ My Big Fat Greek Wedding, now a frothy CBS sitcom, she could relate.

Vardalos said she based the characters on her large, “loud, always-eating Greek family that loves me to the point of suffocation.”

And the Sephardic-Russian-Jewish Kazan, who plays her Greek mama, hails from a similarly boisterous ethnic clan. “It was everyone talking at the same time, ‘eat and you’ll feel better’ and [female] relatives who nourished, literally and figuratively,” the 60-year-old actress said.

Kazan brings those qualities to her character of Maria Portokalos, who urges her daughter to marry Greek in “Wedding” and adjusts to her WASPy son-in-law in CBS’ “My Big Fat Greek Life.” A quintessential Maria moment occurs in the sitcom when she admonishes the newlyweds for a perceived slight, then nonchalantly adds, “Bake the casserole at 350.”

Kazan, who says she’s portrayed “everyone’s mother except Whoopi Goldberg’s,” plays one of the most recognizable characters in a franchise that began when “Wedding” grossed more than $240 million and became the most successful independent film ever. Critics have noted that its ethnically-specific characters, along with those on other pop culture hits such as HBO’s “The Sopranos,” may spearhead more diverse images on screen.

Singer-actress Kazan grew up eating shishlik and knedlach instead of moussaka, but her performance rings true. “Lainie even looks Greek,” Vardalos said at a press conference. Vardalos’ father, who like Papa Portokalos claims Greek origins for everything, has a theory about Kazan: “Because Lainie is Sephardic-Jewish...he went, ‘Well, Lainie, Alexander the Great went through Spain, so technically, you are Greek,” Vardalos said.

Kazan’s Big Fat Jewish Life began in Brooklyn, where she grew up with a bookie dad and a mother who was as theatrical as the fictional Maria Portokalos. “She was like a Jewish Blanche DuBois, very neurotic, fragile and artistic, yet she had no talent whatsoever,” the actress said. “So when I was a child she took me to all kinds of music and dance lessons and she lived through me in a way.”

Kazan’s career took off when she stepped in for an ill Barbra Streisand during the 1964 Broadway production of “Funny Girl”; rave reviews and numerous cabaret engagements followed.

During a rare weekend home, her doorbell began ringing and a swarm of relatives descended like a scene out of “Greek Life.” “They started asking a million questions, so I said, why don’t you come with me on ‘The Mike Douglas Show’ and ask all the questions you want?”

Soon thereafter, three generations of relatives boarded a bus, affixed with a sign, “Kazan’s Clan,” and drove to the ‘Douglas’ taping. On the air, her mom cheerfully demonstrated cooking chicken soup and her uncle, the Stage Deli waiter, served it to the studio audience.

But behind the scenes, Kazan’s mother wasn’t so happy about her career. “The nightclub world is cruel, and she saw me suffer a lot of pain,” the actress said. “She always nudged me to marry a nice Jewish boy and to lead a normal life.”

While Kazan’s early showbiz persona was that of a sexy chanteuse (she even posed for Playboy), she eventually found herself relegated to playing moms, often Jewish, in films such as “Beaches” and “My Favorite Year.” “I wasn’t crazy about it, but it was better than not working,” said Kazan, who has a daughter and a granddaughter.

She assumed Maria Portokalos was just another mother when producer Tom Hanks invited her to participate in a “Wedding” table reading several years ago. “Afterward, he said he’d contact me if they ever did the movie, and I thought, ‘Yeah, sure’” she said. “But a year and a half later, I got the call.”

Like everyone else, the actress was stunned when “Wedding” became the box office phenomenon of 2002; while it propelled Vardalos from struggling comedian to magazine cover girl, Kazan experienced her own kind of Cinderella story. Having been ignored by Las Vegas nightclubs for a decade, Kazan — whose first love remains music — suddenly found herself booked again on the Strip. “I was so thrilled,” she said.

“Life” airs Sunday at 8 p.m on CBS.

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'Marathon' Meets the Boston Marathon

Marathon, Edoardo Erba’s Italian play about two men training for a marathon race made its U.S. premiere at Stoneham Theatre in January. It will make its U.S. premiere with a new adaptation by playwright Israel Horovitz, April 10-20 in Boston, two weeks before the Boston Marathon.

The two cast members who appeared in the original Stoneham Theatre production (which used an English translation by Colin Teevan) will also co-star in the Boston premiere. Eric Laurits of Wakefield and Adam Paltrowitz of New York, are likely two of the most physically fit young men in the country. For each 65-minute performance, they run approximately seven miles in place on stage. With six or seven shows each week, these actors have become state-of-the-art running machines. As Horovitz quipped to a Newsday reporter last week, “By the end of this run, they should be extremely fit — or dead.”

Horovitz is a six-time New York Marathon runner himself, and his wife, Gillian, one of New York’s leading marathoners. “It’s about running, of course,” he told Newsday, but it’s also about history and heroism, friendship and kinship.”

The play has been on a fast track since it’s Stoneham premiere. The People’s Theatre in New York took the project into a workshop production when Horovitz announced in March that his adaptation was ready to be staged. Running through April 6 at the Producer’s Club on 44th Street, the workshop will move into a full production when it opens at Tremont Theatre in downtown Boston immediately after it closes in New York.

Tickets are $25 (students half price/seniors $22) and may be purchased by calling Stoneham Theatre Box office at 781-279-2200. Tremont Theatre is located at 276 Tremont Street in Boston. Showtimes April 10-20 are Thurs-Sat, 8 pm; Sunday 2 pm.

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Singles

The Wedding Doctor #2

She Said, He Said, at Bloomie’s Registry

BRETT M. RHYNE
Jewish Journal Staff

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Yenta Dearest

Dear Yenta,

It’s Passover, and all my children and their spouses and their children are coming home for the seder, like they do every year. I’m expecting about 25 people. My problem is, everybody likes something different. Some people like liver, others like fish; some people like the fish plain, others like it with yuch; some people like the red horseradish, others like the white; some people like plain matzo, others like egg; some people like floaters, others like sinkers; some people like those fancy new wines from Israel, others like Manischewitz; some people like chicken, others like brisket; some people like the macaroons with the chocolate, others like the ones without. So many choices, it’s overwhelming. What’s even worse, some people like a long seder, others like a quick one. What can I do to make everybody happy?

— Perplexed at Pesach

Mamelah,

Not to worry, dear, the Yenta has a simple answer to all your questions. Give them anything they want. It’s not so often you have all your children together in one place at one time. Enjoy being with them and doing for them. Remember, some children never visit their mothers. You should do everything in your power to make them happy, so they’ll come back again and again, not just for holidays but just anytime.
And the next time someone complains about the length of the seder, the celebration of how our people became our people by escaping from slavery and finding the Promised Land, remember what we say around the Center: “Er maynt nit di hagode, nor di kneydlekh: He doesn’t mean the haggadah, but the matzo balls.”

— The Yenta

Need advice on any subject? The Yenta has an answer for everything, whether you want to hear it or not. Write to her. Your mother would want you to: Editor@jewishjournal.org, attn: Yenta

Editorial

Passover, Saddam, and the Jewish People

The eight-day festival of Passover begins the evening of April 16. One of our most ancient holidays, it celebrates the exodus of the Jewish people from Egyptian bondage about 1300 B.C., after 210 years of slavery there.

The people of Iraq were not enslaved by Saddam Hussein nearly as long, only 30 years, and their liberation, now assured, is a lot less dramatic. Instead of 10 plagues and the parting of the Red Sea, we have the U.S. and British military, brandishing the most sophisticated weaponry the world has ever known.
But both stories are alike in that the bondage was removed, and freedom delivered, by external forces.
The world will long debate whether President Bush was justified in declaring pre-emptive war against a sovereign state that does not constitute an immiment threat to the United States, and flouting major U.S. allies in doing so. We have voiced our own reservations about the Iraqi intervention in past editorials.

But success makes heroes of ordinary people, and we have to concede it took tremendous courage, even chutzpah, to have done what George Bush did. Al Gore was too much an internationalist, like Bill Clinton, to have embarked on such a course. True, the White House never convincingly established a link between Hussein and international terrorism, nor did it prove that Iraq maintained weapons of mass destruction in violation of U.N. mandates.

The long-sought smoking gun may yet surface. In the meantime, what we have forestalled is the possibility that as Saddam became more isolated and more desperate, he would sell his weapons to terrorists bent on our destruction.

So, the course of history has once again been dramatically altered by a bold stroke, as it was altered by divine intervention in the Egypt of the Old Testament. In the Passover Haggadah, we retell the story of our ancestors’ transformation from slavery to freedom, and we read that each generation should “look upon ourselves as if we came forth out of Egypt.” Thus do we pass on our traditions from generation to generation.

Years from now, people will be reading about how our troops liberated the Iraqi people. We have won the war. We can only hope that maintaining the peace will be so easy.

MARK ARNOLD
Jewish Journal Editor/Publisher

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Local Columnists

New Passover Questions for America

DOV BURT LEVY
Jewish Journal North of Boston

What a miracle it would be to ask and answer new Passover questions at next year’s seder.

First Question: Why was this year different from all other years? Why and how, this year, have we cut in half the number of motor vehicle deaths? (And the decline continues every month.)

Answer: We rose up after 40 years of slaughtering almost 50,000 people each year. Finally, a road death was seen as equal to a death on the battlefield.

In Massachusetts alone, over 3,000 people have been killed in the past two years, equal to the slaughter at the World Trade Center on 9/11.

We mobilized our political, social and economic power. There is plenty of support because virtually every family in the nation has suffered from a road death or disabling injury over the past two generations.

What to do was not as difficult as a willingness to do it.

MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving — www.madd. org) had more than enough information on their website to begin. Drunk driving caused 50 percent of the traffic deaths in the nation (Massachusetts had the second highest rate in 2000, after Rhode Island).

It boiled down to keeping drunk and drugged drivers off the road, ending speeding (often related to alcohol/ drugs), and fixing dangerous roads and intersections.

We spent tons of money for more traffic cops, technological surveillance, quicker trials and license revocations.

The masses of people had risen up and declared, “We will no longer be murdered on the roads.” And we are not.

Question Two: Why was this year different from all other years? Why, this year, has homelessness been cut in half and continues to decline?

First, we declared that no decent society could permit such a deprivation, such an attack on the human spirit, to continue.

Maybe it helped when we realized how close all of us were to homelessness. Corporations with bad management and crooked executives, the stock market crash, combined with the general economic depression had caused many people to lose their jobs, income, retirement funds, and medical insurance.

Decent, hard-working people working full time jobs could not afford a decent home or apartment. A full-time minimum wage job did not cover the cost of a one-bedroom unit in almost any state; double the minimum wage did not afford a modest two-bedroom unit.

We accepted that some people were homeless because of alcohol/drug addiction, mental illness, and, sometimes, just sloth.

But the basic issues were jobs that did not offer enough to pay the rent, little affordable housing, and 50 million people without medical care/medical insurance draining their strength and already thin wallets.

So, we started building. We learned again what we really already knew: If we could build warm, dry and safe housing for 250,000 soldiers adjacent to Iraq in just three months, we could be fast and inventive at home.

Passover celebrates the lifting of Jews from slavery to freedom. My prayer is that we all in America can be lifted from the carnage of road murder and the despair of homelessness.

Will you present the next two questions? What are your hopes and dreams for the people of our nation?

Dov Burt Levy is a columnist who splits his time between Salem, Mass. and Jerusalem. He can be reached at dblevy@columnist.com.

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My Achin’ Back: The Spiritual Possibilities

ELLEN GOLUB
Jewish Journal North of Boston

When I slipped on the ice this past winter, I hurt my back. The moment it happened, I knew I had endured a damaging injury. Had I broken my back? It felt like it. I was breathless and faint, suddenly clammy and weak. I ran for my bed, while my legs still would carry me, and I lay there for weeks until the horrendous, breathtaking pain settled down to a severe ache whenever I moved.

“It was like labor pain,” I told my friend, Sue. Sue knew what I meant because she, too, was down for the count. But whereas I had an injury, Sue was suffering from a degenerative disk. She had known this pain for a long time and was now a week or two before surgery unable to stand, sit, or lie down without chronic, intense pain.

“Sue,” I opined, while we both chased down a fistful of ibuprofen with some bottled water. “I think I hurt my back because God wanted me to really understand your pain.”

She looked at me and snickered. “You fell because you weren’t looking where you were going, and you were running on ice. Remember?” she reminded me. “El, are you getting spiritual on me?”

“Yeah, I think I am,” I replied. “I’m sorry, I really didn’t stop to feel your pain.”

There are many lenses through which to examine our shared experience: medical, seasonal, geriatric, geographical. Injury and illness come more frequently in the winter, as we age, especially in the Northeast, where we run through our lives with great haste and multitasking. These are the rational explanations, fully functional and at hand. Sue and I have our separate pains, our unique diagnoses, and we commiserate jointly.

But it is the spiritual idea that our pain is connected that gives us our special bond. The spiritual rationale is far more beautiful. Like art, it offers an enhancement that magnifies life’s beauty. Fresh from my own pain, I can feel more deeply what my friend is feeling. My suffering has a purpose. It is a door of perception through which I can pass toward understanding on a higher level. I am acutely sensitive to Sue’s pain, feeling the threads of friendship pulled tightly during the long night of her surgery.

Did I slip on the ice because I rushed? Or was that miserable fall a gentle rustle on the petals of friendship, in some way a gift from HaShem?

My daughter Fran calls from Brandeis. She is going on about the war in Iraq and those crazy Muslim suicide bombers. “What’s wrong with those people?” she asks. “Isn’t it enough they kill Jews? Now they want to kill Americans who are there trying to help them!”

“Now maybe America knows what Israel has been living through,” I tell her.

“I was thinking that, too,” says Fran. “I feel guilty to say it, but I thought it on 9/11. I kept thinking, ‘Now America knows what its like to be Israel.’”

“Don’t feel guilty,” I tell her. “You’re not wishing Muslim terrorists on America. You didn’t cause 9/11 to happen. All you did was observe that certain intense experiences yield common understanding.”

“Eema,” Fran calls me, the Hebrew name for mother. “Eemaleh, there’s a mob burning an American and an Israeli flag on CNN. It’s so disgusting — and it’s scary.”

“I know, sweetie, it’s painful,” I said, thinking again of my sore back and searching frantically for some insight to explain the “Arab street,” the intensity of its hatred and the inhuman expressions of its mood. What good comes of evil? I wondered.

Suddenly I felt like the war in Iraq was like the long night of Sue’s surgery. How should I explain to my daughter that the threads of American and Israeli friendship were being pulled very taut and it hurt, but Baruch HaShem, there would be a beautiful blossom growing from it.

Ellen Golub teaches journalism at Salem State College. She may be reached at elkele@attbi.com

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Slice of Life
Let Me Tell You About My Affair - Part 2

PHYLLIS DINERMAN
Jewish Journal North of Boston

This is the day of the twilight bar mitzvah, my affair.

It’s eight in the morning and the first thing on the agenda is a run to the hairdressers for a final “do” and a manicure. Everyone at the salon wishes me well with my affair.

I am a wreck. Will the food be hot? Will the photographer be in the way? Will the band leader really show up? Will the flowers be too tall for the table and interfere with dinner conversation? Will the weather be nice? It shouldn’t rain, please.

And, my son, the bar mitzvah boy, where is he?

He’s in the bathroom sick to his stomach. He entered that sanctuary at 5:30 a.m., and it’s now 11. He left once to eat breakfast, which was a waste of food, and again to go to the “stylist” for a haircut. Twenty times he asked me why he has to go through with the bar mitzvah. Twenty times I gave him the same answer, “Your father already paid the caterer, the band leader and the florist. We have our clothes. Your grandmother invited all of the North Shore and you know your Haftorah. You will be fine.”

The sun is shining. I keep looking out at the weather as if I were on civil defense duty at the local bomb shelter. I am afraid to answer the telephone in case someone is calling to tell me they can’t come… after I ordered their meal.

It is now 2 p.m. My son’s mental condition is deteriorating. His face