Local Stories
Features
Arts & Entertainment
Editorial
Local Columnists
Opinion
Letters/Commentary
Obits

Local Stories

Journal Exclusive
One-on-One With President Bush

Trude B. Feldman
Special to The Journal

Editor’s Note: The Journal is pleased to offer this revealing interview with the President on the eve of the Republican National Convention in New York.

In an exclusive interview in the Oval Office, President George W. Bush brushed off sharp criticism of his handling of Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and said he is determined to carry out his vision for the region. With the transfer of Iraq’s sovereignty completed and the satisfaction that Saddam Hussein is heading for trial, the President said – with certitude – that events are moving in the direction he had originally chartered.

He was both philosophical and confident as he answered questions about the powder keg that is today’s Middle East. “My vision,” he said, “is for a free and democratic Iraq, and a free and peaceful and democratic Palestinian state serving as catalysts for change in a region that has harbored resentment. The Middle East has also served as a place to recruit terrorists who have a desire to kill Americans, to drive us out of parts of the world so they can then impose their will.”

But he acknowledged that there have been many difficulties in carrying out the policy in Iraq. At the outset of the war, his administration had stated that the road to Jerusalem led through Baghdad. Since then, progress towards a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian issue and the restoration of peace and order in Iraq have proven tough challenges for President Bush. He said, however, that he has no regrets over America’s role in Iraq, or his own leadership of it, and that he is not troubled by the severe criticism he is receiving.

During the 55-minute interview, President Bush – who turned 58 years old on July 6, two days after America celebrated its 228th birthday – was expansive. He showed himself in command as he discussed the subjects at hand: Iraq; the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and his vision for a two-state solution; anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism; his road map peace plan; Saudi Arabia and oil; Egypt and Syria; and his views on leadership.

How concerned is the President, particularly in an election year, that he is so strongly opposed in his Iraq and other Mideast policies?

“I think the job of a leader is to have a vision, a vision that is hopeful and optimistic and based upon certain principles, like the rule of law and fair and equal treatment for all,” he said, “and I will not abandon those and other principles no matter how strong the pressure. America needs to lead. And sometimes people don’t appreciate leadership. But they will appreciate a more peaceful world as a result of America’s willingness to take on al Qaeda, America’s willingness to promote free societies in Iraq and in the Palestinian territories.

“I am a person who looks long-term, and I recognize the path we need to take. There will be moments when people are unhappy and disgruntled with some decision making. Nonetheless, what matters most is to reach the destination. And my job as president is to see clearly where I want to go and be steadfast in my resolve to realize that vision.”

With the continuing violence in Iraq and the lack of a resolution of issues separating Israel and the Palestinians, the President nevertheless recognizes that his policies have proven harder to implement than had been anticipated.

“Other nations are affected by the unrest,” he said. “But what is causing violence in Iraq is the fact that Iraq is heading toward freedom. This is a mighty struggle, and I see clearly what America must do. As a leader, I’m willing to take a strong position and to call upon others to join us. Sometimes, people don’t like that, nor do they like to do the hard work. But America must do the hard work – like we have done in the past.

“I have reminded people that after World War II we could have allowed Germany to stay in rubble. We could have said, ‘Oh, this work is too hard.’ Instead, we stayed the course and Europe is now free, whole, and at peace – which is in America’s security interest.

“After World War II in Japan, we could have said, ‘Oh, the Japanese cannot be a free democratic society.’ Fortunately, we had visionaries who were in office, and people did not listen to the polls or the focus groups. They stood strong in their beliefs in certain value systems. Thankfully, they did, because now Japan is a democratic country and its prime minister is close to me and I am close to him, and we are working together to make sure that the Far East is as peaceful as it can be.”

The president made clear that he wants to be the American president who will bring the Israelis and the Palestinians together to resolve their differences. But he does not be- lieve in imposing a settlement on them. Asked whether he believes that every American president has an obligation to defend the State of Israel, he replied: “Yes, I do, because Israel is a long-time friend and Israel is a democracy. And I think America has a responsibility to defend our friend.”

What does he say to those who accuse him of bias toward Israel?

“I say to those critics that I am the first American president to have stood up in front of the world — at the United Nations — and called for the creation of a Palestinian state that would live in peace, side by side with Israel.”

Does he still foresee a two-state solution by the year 2005?

“I see the emergence of a Palestinian state,” he responded. “Obviously, when I spoke about 2005, I was hoping that the target date would be met. But we hit a setback with all the violence and with the replacement of Abu Mazen (former Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority). So it is possible we won’t make the deadline. But in order for a Palestinian state to be created, there must be Palestinian leaders who are reform-minded and dedicated to their people and will step up and lead.”

The President believes that with the emergence of an independent Palestinian state, the West Bank and Gaza will be governed by Palestinians, and that the final border is up for negotiations between the two parties. He does not agree with his critics that the friction between Israel and her neighbors is connected to, or intertwined with, his policy in Iraq.

“The problem with the Palestinians is territory,” he said. “They don’t have a state to call their own and they don’t have leadership. I think that those Palestinians who want a change ought to ask for help to build the security apparatus. I also think that the major roadblock to moving forward is for lead-ership to emerge and say, ‘Help us develop a state, and we will fight terror and will respond to the desires of the Palestinian people.’ And, I’m not so sure that lack of leadership at this point in history has anything to do with the situation in Iraq.”

Concerning reports that the Quartet (The U.S., the United Nations, The European Union, and Russia) may be willing to help police the Gaza Strip if Israel withdraws from the territory, the President said: “I believe there is a better way to achieve that objective and that is to work to stand up a Palestinian security force which has its people’s interest in mind, and for Israel and Egypt to continue a dialogue, to figure out the best way to make sure that every-body’s interest is represented, particularly when it comes to security.”
The President was asked whether recent developments have eclipsed the relevance of the road map peace plan he announced on April 30, 2003.

“No,” he asserted. “The road map is an important part of the process. It is a way forward and a way to engage the international community. It is an important part of making sure that a fledgling Palestine receives the support it needs to grow. That would be economic and political support, and most important, at this stage in history, support to build security forces necessary to fight off the terrorists who want to stop progress.

“I think that when a peaceful and independent Palestinian state emerges, it will help to do two things: It will help to quiet the streets. But more importantly, it will show that democracy and freedom are possible in the broader Middle East.”

He added:

“I also believe that Iraq and a Palestinian state will serve as catalysts for change. And, by the way, the Iraqi state will emerge. The challenge there is to fight off al Qaeda-associated foreign fighters like Abu Musab al Zarqawi and disgruntled elements, and not allow them to stop progress. As Iraq heads toward a democracy, they are going to try to prevent that from happening because they cannot stand the thought of a free society in Iraq.”

Does the President believe that the global rise in anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism stem from the March 2003 invasion of Iraq?
“As the leader of the Free World, I will, and the United States will, continue to speak out against the anti-Semitic trends we clearly see in various parts of the world,” he responded. “You know, in April I sent an excellent delegation, led by Secretary (of State) Colin Powell, to Berlin for the Conference on Anti-Semitism (sponsored by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe). So we are calling attention to the problem.”

During our interview, the President also spoke about the 30th annual Group of Eight summit which he hosted in June at Sea Island, Georgia. There, leaders of the world’s major industrial democracies endorsed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and called for progress on Middle East peace. In an effort to advance Mr. Bush’s initiative of promoting democracy in the region, this year’s summit included leaders from Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Yemen, and Turkey.
“These leaders were also inter- ested in discussing a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” the President recalled. “They were concerned as to how best we can work together to achieve that goal. And they were appreciative of the fact that we laid out a plan for a two-state solution. It is important for us to work together to help the Palestinians put institutions in place that will provide a stable form of government, one where the institutions are bigger than the people who occupy the offices.

“The support of those leaders for reform in the region will go hand in hand with our support for a just, comprehensive and lasting settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict. When there is a reform-minded modern leadership structure in place, there will be ample help for the Palestinians in the form of education and health grants and grants to help start an economy. That is all in Israel’s interest. It is in Israel’s interest that there be a peaceful state on her border and where the Palestinians have some hope. They don’t have any hope now. The reason, in my judgment, is that they have not had proper leadership to help them.”

How can President Bush help them realize that hope?

“Their hope is to have a state of their own where they can fly their own flag,” he stated. “But they must come up with the necessary leadership. I cannot do that for them.”

Pointing to the Rose Garden from the Oval Office, the President referred to his June 24, 2002 speech, in which he said the United States would support a Palestinian state once the Palestinian people have new leaders, new institutions and new security arrangements with their neighbors.

“Out there,” (in the Rose Garden), he said, “I gave a well-thought-out speech with an important strategy, and I am going to see it through.”

The President concluded: “Let me tell you something about me: I answer my critics by saying that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein. We have been in Iraq for some 17 months, and a free Iraq is now emerging and society will be better off. But, you know, the true history of my administration will be written 50 years from now, and you and I will not be around to see it.”

Journalist Trude B. Feldman is a veteran White House and State Department correspondent. She has interviewed every U.S. president since Lyndon B. Johnson and every Israeli prime minister. Alone among representatives of the Jewish press, she recently obtained a private interview with President George W. Bush.

Back to top

Sirens of the Rams

Amy Sessler Powell
Special to The Journal

SWAMPSCOTT — The Jewish Federation of the North Shore blew 393 shofars to set a Guinness World Record for the most shofars blown in unison at the fourth annual Great Shofar Blowout on August 17 at King’s Beach.

Drawing a crowd of between 800 and 1000 people according to local police estimates, this year’s Blowout represented a celebration of Jewish pride and community.

“It was an event that without question will help keep our children Jewish, that will stay very much in their memory,” said Robert I. Lappin, trustee of the Robert I. Lappin Charitable Foundation, which sponsored the Great Shofar Blowout with a grant to the Jewish Continuity Committee of the Federation.

Many of those attending the event were attracted by the opportunity to do something Jewish with the entire Jewish community. “It feels so wonderful to be among all these Jews,” said Ronald Pressler of Amesbury. “This is a wonderful unifier.”

Ira Lerman of Beverly said he was looking for a way to reconnect to the Jewish community and the shofar training seemed like a good venue. “I was brought up in a very Orthodox environment in Malden and I thought the people who blew the shofar must be so special. This was the chance of a lifetime to catch up with my past.”

To prepare for the Great Shofar Blowout, the Jewish Federation offered several one-hour training sessions throughout the summer, where participants were given a free shofar from Israel and taught how to use it. The one-hour training programs, called Tiku Shofar, attracted more than 450 people. The training had also been operating in the Hebrew schools for sixth graders, distributing over 370 shofars over the past four years.

The date, August 17, was selected for its historical and religious significance. It coincides with the first day of the Hebrew month of Elul, the day when Jews traditionally begin to blow the shofar daily leading up to the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, on the first day of Tishrei.

“I think it was a wonderful testament to our community, that so many people came out at a time when there wasn’t a crisis to support our Jewish community and set a world record,” said Debbie Coltin, director of the Continuity Committee and the lead organizer of the event.

To satisfy the requirements for the Guinness World Record, the shofar blowers registered on the Swampscott Town Hall lawn and then proceeded under police escort to the beach.

To complete the requirement and secure the world record, the Federation will send Guinness the log sheets of the registrants, video, photo and print media coverage and letters from “authenticators” who acted as official witnesses to the process. But for many, the world record was secondary to the spiritual feelings ignited by the event.

“When we were walking, I felt like we were leaving Egypt,” said Amy Resnic of Swampscott. “My children were helping my dad and I had a feeling of community and belonging that was so powerful.”

Like many people, Resnic attended the event with her three children and extended family, including her parents and a cousin who visited from Sharon. Some in the community had visitors from other parts of the state.

“There are people here from all over, from Israel and New Jersey and from all generations. It is really awesome,” said Marla Mindel, of Marblehead.

Robert Miller and his son Jonathan, 15, drove from Englewood, N.J. when they heard about the event. “We had to be part of this once in a lifetime event.”

Sam Poulton of Chelmsford had just returned safely from a year in Iraq, where he and his son, both part of the Army Reserves, had been deployed. “Today is the first day of blowing the shofar for the season and last year I was not able to do it. Today, I blow the shofar in honor of all the soldiers overseas. May we have the same mazel as Yehoshua and blow down the walls of terrorism and hatred. Maybe if we are loud enough, it will happen.”

Back to top

Local Youth Compete in Spectacular Maccabi Games

Jared Pliner
Special to The Journal

Experiencing the monumental and historical occurrence of the 2004 JOC Maccabi Games in Boston was nothing short of spectacular. 1700 athletes, 1200 volunteers, 42 delegations; the numbers are astounding.

As a first time participant and a six-time spectator at the Games, marching into the Fleet Center teeming with 13,000 Jews from around the globe was one of the most proud and inspiring moments of my life. This year, the Games, coinciding with the 28th Olympiad in Athens, made the experience even more amazing.

Kicking off Sunday night, August 15, parents, grandparents, friends and relatives crowded into the Fleet Center to witness the parade of delegations marching into the arena under the words, “Today’s Jewish athletes, Tomorrow’s Jewish leaders.” While the onlookers were entertained with live musical performances, the athletes, who were held back stage in a great forum of team pin and merchandise trading, awaited in great anticipation their entrance into the center.

As I, grouped along with the Marblehead delegation, filed my way to the front of the line, the tension mounted and the energy seemed to grow as Metro West completed their revolution around the arena floor.

Striding before 13,000 viewers, the Marblehead delegation of 47 athletes was announced by the host of the Phantom Gourmet, Dave Andelman, who described Marblehead as the “yacht club capital of the country.”

The opening ceremonies were as awe-inspiring to the spectators as to the athletes, “I was really impressed,” said parent Joe Konifeld. “The flag ceremony and torch lighting were really special moments.”

Agreed Daniel Glassberg, 13, a first-time participant who went on to win a Bronze medal in table tennis: “The opening ceremonies were really fun. The dancers and music were great and everything was so well planned.”

“Everything was so much fun,” said 16-year-old swimmer Mark Perelis. “The swim meets weren’t just swim meets, they were social events, and that’s something I’ve never experienced before.”

The night did not go without solemnity, however. A lengthy presentation was assembled in remembrance of the 11 Israeli Olympic athletes who were killed in an orchestrated terrorist attack at the 20th Olympic Games in Munich. Anouke Spitzer, daughter of fencing coach Andre Spitzer who perished in the 1972 attacks, spoke to the teenage athletes about her ordeal and the pain of growing up without a father.

Next to the Munich 11 presentation, to me the most powerful moment of the evening was the raising of the American, Canadian, and Israeli flags and the procession of four international delegations in attendance including Australia, Great Britain, Poland and Venezuela.

This powerful moment symbolized the union of nations and most importantly, Jews from all corners of the earth. Speaking different languages, living in different cultures, eating different foods, at that moment no longer mattered; we had all merged at a common venue for one reason: we were all Jewish.

As Games week progressed and the competition heated up, Marblehead, competing in five sports including basketball, swimming, tennis, table tennis, and baseball, racked up medals in swimming with the boys and girls 400 medley relay. The girls’ 16-and-under-basketball team went 5-0 in the preliminary rounds but succumbed to the ever common effects of sleep deprivation and anxiety when they lost to San Diego and Bridgewater in the semi-finals.

Unfortunately, the 14-and-under boys’ basketball team did not advance to the finals, finishing with a 1–3 record at the conclusion of the preliminary rounds. “For a young, inexperienced team I am very pleased with their performance,” said head coach David Pliner. “It really gives the team something to work on for next year.”

In addition, to sending the largest delegation ever from the North Shore, the community opened its homes to over 150 athletes from around the world including competitors from Israel, Montreal and Australia. “It was a great community effort,” said Carrie Berger, head of the Marblehead delegation. “The North Shore families were so welcoming, I am really proud to be part of the community and the Games.”

Jared Pliner, 15, one of three North Shore “Star Reporters” at the Games, is entering his sophomore year at Marblehead High School in September.

Back to top

Games We Should Play

Gary Band
Jewish Journal Staff

BOSTON — For reporters in the Jewish press, attendance at certain events compels a genuine sense of pride and camaraderie in being there and sharing the moment with others.
Be it a birthright israel event in Israel with 7,000 18-26-year olds from around the world, a Jewish community reception for 2,500 at the World Trade Center a day before the Democratic National Convention in Boston, or the fourth annual Great Shofar Blowout in Swampscott where close to a 1,000 people showed up, these are times that strengthen our souls.

The Opening Ceremonies of the 2004 Maccabi Games at the FleetCenter in Boston Aug. 15 was another such time.
Amidst balloons, electronic banners and unparalleled ruach (spirit), some 13,000 family and friends came out to support the 1,700 teenage athletes representing 42 communities from the US, Canada, Israel, Poland, Australia, Venezuala and Great Britain.

Sponsored by Eastern Bank, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and many other organizations and individuals, over the next four days, the teens — 44 from the North Shore — would go on to compete in 14 sports in 16 venues from Brookline to Canton, Waltham to Salem, organized and executed almost entirely by over 2000 volunteers. That is indeed cause for celebration.

The Maccabi Games, named of course for Judah Maccabee of the Chanukah story fame, began in 1895 when the first all-Jewish sports club was formed in Constantinople. The first Maccabiah Games were held in Israel in 1932, where a special two-week competition is held every four years. The first North American Maccabi Games were held in 1982 with 300 athletes, and has since grown into an Olympics-style competition held at four locations throughout the US every summer with some 6,000 athletes all together.

Among the most moving aspects of the Opening Ceremonies was the moment of silence held for the 11 Israeli athletes killed at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. The testimony from Anouk Spitzer, daughter of slain Israeli Fencing Coach Andre Spitzer, and the brief biographies of each of the late athletes narrated by 11 Maccabi athletes, paid proper respect to the unsolved murder of the Munich 11.

In addition to the oath of commitment to fair play and respect taken by coaches, athletes and parents — rachmanas, Hebrew for compassion, is a key philosophy of the Games — compelling one and all to have respect for themselves, their religion and their community.

Like the Great Shofar Blowout, the Maccabi athletes and supporters answered the call to action in the absence of a crisis. These micro and macro examples of community involvement dispel accusations of community apathy.

We all have the inner circles of our individual lives, based around families, friends and interests. But the second circle, especially in Jewish life, should be built around community organizations and events that bring would-be strangers together.

And as Frank Deford, senior contributing editor at Sports Illustrated, said Wednesday morning on National Public Radio, sports are essential for youth to develop a sense of belonging, responsibility and respect. Indeed, the Maccabi Games played host to today’s Jewish athletes and tomorrow’s Jewish leaders.

Back to top

60 Years Later, Abel Receives $4K Compensation for Slave Labor

Gary Band
Jewish Journal Staff

SALEM — Boris Abel, a 55-year resident of Salem and member of Temple Shalom, recently received a check for $4,584.38 for the four years he worked as a slave laborer in German airfields and underground factories from 1941-45.

This meager compensation, equivalent to $460 in 1945 dollars, was awarded as part of “Remembrance, Responsibility and the Future” — a joint initiative by the German government and 6,300 German companies compelled by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany — that will distribute $5 billion to Holocaust survivors. So far, $956 million has been distributed to 565,000 former slave laborers.
“I never thought I’d be paid,” Abel said from his and his wife Julia’s Clifton Avenue home.

But while no amount would be enough to compensate for the work he and others did and the lives that were destroyed, despite the hardships he and his family endured at the hands of the Nazi regime, Abel, 86, is a remarkably affable man.

Born in Lithuania — a country once home to hundreds of synagogues and from which 200,000 Jews were taken and killed after the Germans invaded in 1941— Abel worked as a boy in the rope factory owned by his family.
Along with thousands of others, the Abels were confined to a ghetto in 1941 where Boris worked in a brush factory. In 1943 he escaped death by being deemed fit to work for a German company building airplanes. He would be sent to three more work camps, the last being Dachau, from which he was liberated in 1945.

Boris’ father, who along with most of the Abel family died in the Holocaust, had two sisters and a brother in the United States. A Jewish American soldier from Brooklyn helped Abel locate his father’s brother who was living on Lafayette Street. And four years after the war in Europe ended, through the help of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Abel came to America and settled in Salem.

“In every disaster, people survive. And in the worst situations, you have to help yourself,” Abel offers to explain his survival in Europe and adjusting to life in America. He initially worked for $23 a week at a toy shop in 1950. He opened a shop of his own in the old Salem News building on Washington Street and later on Bridge Street, selling and repairing electric razors, a business he ran for 28 years.
Boris and Julia, married now for 54 years, are most proud of their two grown children and two young grandchildren, and their 52-year membership at Temple Shalom. “A temple is not just to pray,” he says. “It has to be like a family, everyone like brothers and sisters.”

Back to top

Jewish Women’s Archive
Rewriting History Keeping the Contributions of Women in Mind

Susan Jacobs
Jewish Journal Staff

Ten years ago, respected academic Gail Reimer co-published a book entitled, Reading Ruth: Contemporary Women Reclaim a Sacred Story. In it, she and Judith Kates brought together the voices of 30 female writers, poets, rabbis, psychologists, scholars, wives and mothers to reconstruct the Biblical tale of Ruth. Publishing the book was a radical step, since most midrashim (interpretations of the Bible) were written hundreds of years ago by men. But while working on the book, Reimer came to another important realization.

“I realized that several hundred years from now, those who try to reconstruct what life was like for contemporary Jewish women in the 20th century will face the same problems that we faced trying to understand what life was like for Ruth and Naomi, when no one was concerned with preserving their stories. There will be remnants of stories rather than full narratives. I recognized that there was a need to gather, preserve and disseminate the true stories of Jewish women so that in the future, historians are not forced to construct stories out of fragments.”

Using her literary background and experience working with non-profits, Reimer founded an organization dedicated to preserving the history of Jewish women. Her original plan was to work with Brandeis University, which emphasizes Judaic studies, and Wellesley College, which focuses on women’s studies. However the bureaucracy of working with two existing large institutions proved prohibitive, so Reimer founded the Jewish Women’s Archive (JWA) as an independent organization in 1995.

Over the years, the non-profit JWA has been courted by several other prestigious institutions including Smith College and the Center for Jewish History in New York, however the JWA Board has steadfastly maintained its independence. The organization currently has over 1,000 members nationwide. Seventy percent of its funding comes from individual donors; the remainder comes from foundations.

“Our main mission is to uncover, chronicle, and transmit the rich legacy of Jewish women,” says David Weinstein, coordinator of communications at JWA. “The concept of ‘transmitting’ is a key part of what we do. With our cutting-edge website, we make ourselves available to people all over the country.”

The comprehensive website is the centerpiece of JWA’s work. “Our idea was to use new technologies to disseminate information. We started in 1995, which was an opportune time because the Internet was just starting to take off. We worked with MIT to develop our website and gathered an enormous amount of material to post on it. The content quickly outstripped the functionality of the site, and we had to re-design it,” says Executive Director Reimer.

Visitors can literally spend hours at www.jwa.org browsing the online exhibits, viewing historical photographs and perusing complete texts of speeches given by influential Jewish females. Since the archive is virtual, people can view it from anywhere.

Reimer acknowledges that being virtual has also helped the organization secure material. Most museums are located on the East Coast (in New York, in particular), and Reimer admits that this “creates resentment among women living in LA, St. Louis and Omaha who don’t want to send their material to New York.

“Women often prefer to deposit records in their hometown or at the institutions they studied at. Since we are not a physical repository, they can keep the originals— all we need is a copy to be downloaded to the Internet,” she explains.

A key component of the JWA mission is education, and it makes low-cost resources available to communities and schools to help teach about how women have shaped American Jewish life. Resources (which can be accessed from the website) include the following:

• Curriculum appropriate for students of all ages in religious and non-secular educational programs.
• Access to a bureau of distinguished scholars willing to speak on American Jewish women’s role in history, cross-referenced by geographical region and area(s) of expertise.
• Guides to help Jewish girls and women create their own book clubs, including book recommendations and discussion questions, and guides to help women initiate film discussion groups about contemporary Jewish movies.
• Free weekly emails offering information about Jewish women in American history.
• Advice on how to initiate a local Oral History Project to preserve the stories of contemporary American Jewish Women. (The JWA has sponsored two multimedia Oral History Projects, in Baltimore and Seattle, honoring contemporary activists in those cities.)

Although their stories have not always been told, Jewish women have always been an integral part of the history of their communities.

This year, we are celebrating the 350th anniversary of Jews in America. The JWA is working hard to assure that women are fully included in the celebration.

Jewish Women’s Archive, 138 Harvard St., Brookline, MA 02446 617-232-2258 www.jwa.org.

Back to top

Features

Collecting Baseball Cards Is Not Just For Kids

Rabbi Steven J. Rubenstein
Special to The Journal

Editor’s Note: In our last issue, Rabbi Rubenstein discussed the thrill of collecting vintage baseball cards. This is Part Two of his report.

In 1914 and 1915, the Topps Company distributed baseball cards in boxes of Cracker Jacks. During the 1920s, the American Caramel Company included cards with its products to boost sales of candy and ice cream. At fair grounds and apothecary stores, baseball cards were dispensed from penny machines. But it wasn’t until the 1930s that the bubblegum baseball card connection was born.

By the 1930s, tobacco companies no longer needed baseball cards to sell their product. In jumped the confectionary community. Candy companies discovered that baseball cards were an excellent way to increase their sales as the popularity of baseball surged in the suburbs. The period before World War II was considered a Golden Age because baseball was undergoing another stage in its evolution. The advent of the television set brought the baseball diamond into people’s homes, introducing the sport to a new generation of enthusiasts.

In 1933, the bubblegum card was born when several companies included cards with a stick of gum.

It is shrouded in mystery who was first to invent “bubble gum,” although it is documented that Frank Fleer of Philadelphia was first to patent the product. Even so, there is no mistaking that the Goudey Gum Company of Boston was first to produce the coveted collector cards that came with the gum. For nine years they dominated the industry.

In the tobacco era, baseball cards were small. In 1936, they changed in size to their present format of 2 1/2 inches by 3 1/2 inches. The major companies that produced cards during the bubblegum period were Bowman, Topps, Goudey and Play Ball. For the real collector, the stain caused by the stick of gum is nothing more than an inconvenience.

In my personal collection I have a few cards from the 1933 Goudey set. The cards are color art reproductions of either portraits or action photos with the “BIG LEAGUE Chewing Gum” logo at the bottom and the player’s bio on the back. The company issued cards of several Jewish players. Particularly interesting is the 1933 set, which included Andy Cohen #52, (George Babe Ruth was card #53), Morris “Moe” Berg #158, and my personal favorite, #153 Charles “Buddy” Myer.

Charles Solomon “Buddy” Myer was born in Ellisville, Mississippi, on March 16, 1904. While attending Mississippi A&M he played baseball, football and basketball. Although he signed with the Cleveland Indians in 1925, he refused to play with their farm team in Texas, and ended up making his own deal to play in New Orleans.

He caught the interest of scouts from the Washington Senators, where he played the final four games of the regular season at shortstop. During the playoff series, Buddy was switched to third base when the regular player became injured. Although Buddy got a hit in his first at-bat during the series, the Senators lost in the seventh game to the Pittsburgh Pirates, then owned by Jewish businessman Barney Dreyfuss.

The next season, Buddy returned to shortstop. Although he played fairly well, he was traded to the Boston Red Sox in 1927. Buddy’s batting average rose from .288 in 1927 to .313 in 1928, and he led the league with 30 stolen bases.

Having regretted the trade they made with the Red Sox, the Senators gave up five players to get Buddy back. This time, however, he found his defensive nitch at second base where he became an American League All-Star on two occasions. In 1931, Buddy scored 114 runs. This was the first of four seasons where he would score more than 100 runs.

Although there were many more highlights to Buddy’s career in professional baseball, including winning the American League batting title in 1935 with a league-leading .349 batting average, nothing compares to what happened on the field on April 25, 1933.

Ben Chapman of the New York Yankees had a reputation of being one of the worst Jew-baiting anti-Semites in the league at a time when it was common practice to have a player heckle the opposing team with racial and ethnic slurs. Buddy Myer was less than pleased when Chapman slid into second base with his spikes first in an attempt to break up a double play.

This created one of the ugliest fights ever seen on a major league diamond. Myer took umbrage and kicked Chapman in the thigh, to which Chapman responded with a flurry of punches. The two tussled as players from both teams spilled onto the field. Both Myer and Chapman were ejected, suspended for five days, and fined $100 each. In addition, five fans were arrested and three players were injured.

When Buddy Myer finished his career after 17 seasons, he set several records as a Jewish ballplayer. Many believe he deserved to be a member of the Hall of Fame. In the hearts of many American Jews, he is a diamond hero, not only for the stats, but also for not being afraid to stand up to bigotry at a time when it was an acceptable practice in baseball, along with the greater society.

For this reason alone, I will cherish my 1933 Goudey card of Buddy Myer, a man of integrity.

Steven Rubenstein is the rabbi of Temple B’nai Abraham in Beverly, MA. He enjoys combining his hobby of collecting baseball cards with the aura and the wonder of being Jewish in a professional sport.

Back to top

People in the News

Back to top

Young Jewish Entrepreneurs

New Mom Makes Babies Her Business

Susan Jacobs
Jewish Journal Staff

Editor’s Note: This is a part of an ongoing series of profiles about young Jewish entrepreneurs on the North Shore.

Julie Gordon
Baby Splendor
(formerly Pampered Baby)
115 Greenwood Ave.
Swampscott, MA
781-477-1916
www.babysplendor.com

How old are you?
I’m 34.

Please describe your business.
We offer stylish, innovative products designed to simplify parents’ lives while making their babies more comfortable. Our catalog, which comes out twice per year, includes such things as shopping cart covers, diaper bags, bath toys and booties. We specifically seek out unusual or hand-crafted items that are not widely available, and we have exclusive rights on certain products. We sell the items nationwide via private, in-home parties. The concept is ideal for moms who are often short on time and appreciate a fun night out.

How long has it been in existence?
We launched our first home party more than a year ago in Swampscott. More than 50 women showed up, so we knew we had struck a chord. What started out as a small venture has developed into a national business. To date, we have 12 sales consultants (one-third of whom are Jewish) who have conducted dozens of parties in Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Colorado.

What motivated you to choose this particular career?
After the birth of my daughter Anna in 2002, I realized how difficult it is to find high-quality baby products. Superstores are great for the basics like strollers, car seats and Diaper Genies, but it is overwhelming and confusing to sort through all the other products on the market. My business partner, Kelly Majewski (another North Shore mom), and I created this business to make it easier for people to learn about, and purchase, useful baby products.

What was your training/ education?
I attended Ithaca College, graduating with a B.A. in Sociology in 1992. For many years I worked in public relations. When my father became ill with cancer, I quit my job so I could spend more time with him. I formed my own PR consulting business, which I had for five years. My experience helped me learn what it takes to grow and run a successful business in a way that doesn’t sacrifice family.

What hesitations or concerns did you have when starting your business?
I did public relations for so long and had built a solid network. It was difficult to give that all up and start a new career that required making sacrifices – both personal and financial. However I felt that I could go much further with this business, which is why I pursued it. It also allows me to work while keeping my priorities intact.

What were some of the hurdles you faced when you first started out?
My background was in a different area, and direct sales is a unique industry. My partner and I had to consider a host of issues including product sourcing, product pricing, commission plans, expenses, and recruiting strategies.

What are some of the challenges that you face now in your business?
We have turned down venture capital money because we want to retain control of our business. Because we are bootstrapping, we have developed creative and resourceful ways to save money. For example, I write the text for the catalog and website myself, and our own children model in it.

Has being Jewish had any influence on your business?
Yes. My parents always taught me to use my talents to make a difference in this world. By offering products and a career opportunity that improves the lives of parents and their children, I hope to accomplish this on a wide scale basis.

What are your plans for the future?
We’re rolling out our Fall/ Winter catalog in September, and the line will include some really innovative products. For example, we have teamed up with doctors and scientists from Mass. General Hospital, Harvard and MIT to introduce a new line of products scientifically proven to help boost a baby’s immune system. We want to keep growing our number of independent sales consultants, and are projecting to have 100 by the end of this year. Many of these sales consultants are mothers themselves who are able to fashion careers that allow them to put their families first. This is something you don’t typically find in the traditional workplace.

Anything else?
We are holding an open house at Brujitos Play Cafe on Sept. 10, from 10 a.m. - 1 p.m. We invite all those who might be interested in shopping our line or becoming sales consultants to attend. Brujitos is located at 89 Margin St. in Salem.

Back to top

Arts & Entertainment

Funny and Poignant Family Portrait Set for Limited Run

Gloucester Stage announces a limited run of Donald Margulies’ The Loman Family Picnic from September 1-19.

Margulies, a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, was born in 1954 and grew up in a Coney Island housing project in Brooklyn. He now lives in New Haven, Connecticut, where he teaches playwriting at the Yale School of Drama.

With The Loman Family Picnic, Margulies offers a comic yet stinging assessment of life in 1960s Coney Island. Picnic deals with the unraveling of a family living in a middle-class housing development.

In the midst of bar mitzvah preparations for their older son Stewie, the family struggles to hold their life together while dealing with money problems. As Stewie eagerly anticipates his bar mitzvah and all the cash he will receive in gifts, his younger brother Mitchell is consumed with writing Willy!, a musical version of Death of A Salesman for his class at school.

Directed by Daniel Gidron, The Loman Family Picnic features Stephen Sena, Adrianne Krstansky, Devon Jencks, Steven Foley and Bo Burnham.

Gidron makes his Gloucester Stage directing debut with The Loman Family Picnic. He was born in Israel, earned Fulbright and Wien Scholarships, and received his MFA from Brandeis University. Gidron has taught at Tel Aviv University, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Brandeis and currently teaches at UMass Boston.

Performances are Wednesday through Sunday at 8 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday at 5 p.m. at Gloucester Stage, 267 East Main Street, Gloucester. Tickets are $30 for adults and $20 for senior citizens and students. For reservations, call the Gloucester Stage Box Office at 978-281-4433 or visit www.gloucesterstage.org.

Back to top

Editorial

Presidential Campaign Turns Nasty

The dirtiest presidential campaign in memory is now in full swing, and at the moment it’s the Republicans who are covering themselves with slime. Texas Republicans with shadowy ties to the White House are seeking to discredit Democrat John Kerry’s heroism in Vietnam by insisting, with only the flimsiest of evidence, that his medals were undeserved.

Kerry may have invited intense scrutiny of his war record by making his service in Vietnam the centerpiece of his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Boston last month. He did so to try to convince voters — historically loathe to unseat a president in wartime — that he would be the stronger commander-in-chief. Now Kerry campaign surrogates are seeking to blunt the charges by asking:“Who has the better war record, Kerry or President George W. Bush?”

We think the charges are both malevolent and irrelevant. What’s important isn’t what happened then — more than 30 years ago — but who can better lead the nation now. The issues the presidential contenders, and the press, should focus on are those that affect our nation’s future: affordable health care, environmental pollution, jobs and the economy, education, terrorism, civil liberties, and our role in the world.

For Jews, there is the additional issue of Israel’s survival and well being, and regardless of your place on the political spectrum, George Bush continues to stand straight and tall in Israel’s corner (see interview page one). Kerry has an AIPAC-certified perfect voting record on Israel, to be sure, but among the Democratic leadership there are strong factions pulling the other way, and ex-President Jimmy Carter, whom Kerry has countenanced as a peacemaker in the Middle East, is no friend of Israel.

In this era of 24-hour-a-day journalism, all that is needed to breathe new life into a scurrilous charge is an irresponsible talk-show host willing to air it or an Internet newsletter or blog willing to circulate it.

Republican dirty tricks in the South Carolina primary doomed the presidential hopes of Arizona Republican John McCain in 2000 and cut short the political career of Georgia Democratic Sen. Max Cleland two years later. Both, like Kerry, were legitimate war heroes, but their campaigns were fatally wounded by incendiary, unfounded charges questioning their heroism.

With a statement or a phone call, George Bush can immediately put a stop to the slime his supporters are spreading on his behalf. In our view, any candidate who can’t win on the issues does not deserve to win at all.

A ‘Magical Moment’ for Our Community

The sea at King’s Beach on the Lynn-Swampscott line did not part, but in other ways it was a magical moment: The Great Shofar Blowout August 17 — ushering in both the month of Elul and the Jewish Federation of the North Shore’s annual fund-raising campaign — produced 393 certified shofar-blowers for the Guinness Book of Records. It also marked a coming together of our community around an uplifting, almost inspirational, event. Those 800 to 1000 persons who took part, and everyone who had a hand in planning this celebration, have a right to feel proud..

— Mark R. Arnold

Back to top

Local Columnists

Grandparents’ Day: My Most Important Holiday

DOV BURT LEVY Jewish Journal North of Boston Dov Burt Levy is a Salem, MA based columnist. He can be reached at dblevy@columnist. com..

Just watching [our grandchildren] brings a sense of awe and wonder and the feeling of utter joy at having been a part of their creation.”
— Sandy Berger, AARP On-Line.

Grandparents’ Day comes on the first Sunday after Labor Day, signed into law by President Carter in 1977.

I remember only one of my four grandparents: Nellie Lewis, Lithuanian immigrant. She spoke mainly Yiddish and was the classic Jewish bubie. She managed to raise five children, be a last hold-out in Boston’s West End urban renewal, and then buy a three-family house off Shirley Avenue, Revere. At age 65 she became both a landlord and 25-year mortgage holder.

Without her, I would have no ear for Yiddish, no taste for potato latkes or Jewish gastronomy — plus a lot less chutzpah.

Today, most of my friends and I are loving, involved grandparents.

Among my friends: One couple make their way by two trains or car from Marblehead to Belmont several times a week to care for two young grandchildren. Another, a Lynnfield couple, reigning like true patriarchs and matriarchs of old, live within walking distance of six children and seven grandchildren.

Other couples I know fly from Jerusalem to Boston two to four times a year for weeks at a time to baby-sit their grandchildren. For 15 years I taught English to my grandchildren, Michael and Jenny, in Jerusalem, and for the past two years I have been teaching a bit of Hebrew to granddaughter Emily in Danvers, among other pleasures of our interaction.

Why are we so involved? Sandy Berger’s sentiment above says it all: awe, wonder and a feeling of utter joy. In each of the hundreds of times I stood outside a Jerusalem-area elementary school to pick up Jenny and Michael, and the fewer times I have fetched Emily at her Danvers school, my heart — and I mean this literally — filled with joyous anticipation.

I can do nothing less than smile broadly when I think of, and see, these most beautiful and happy children, and know in my heart of hearts, they are my posterity.

For me, spending time with the grandchildren now and being remembered when I am dead is my hope. PBS’ Bill Moyers once put it: “I will be remembered only as long as my grandchildren are alive.” Think of that!

I am mindful of how fortunate and lucky we and our other grandparent friends are. But there are some grandparents who are more involved, not by choice but by necessity.

More than six per cent of American kids — 4.5 million children — live in grandparent-headed homes. For a grandparent to head the household — to be responsible for all finances, health and safety — is considerably different than visiting or even living next door. The work and responsibility of these 24/7 grandparents must be incredibly difficult and daunting.

Consider also, the millions of grandparents who, because of health, financial issues or just plain human foolishness, cannot see their grandchildren on a regular basis, or whose grandchildren don’t visit them. And remember the 1.6 million people, mainly elderly, in nursing homes around the United States, many without living relatives or friends.

On Sunday, September 12, two days before Rosh Hashanah, celebrate Grandparents’ Day in your own family by asking grandparents to talk about their lives, perhaps filming or taping the occasion. Make a family tree. Do an Internet search for Grandparents’ Day and find hundreds of great ideas for year-round family intergenerational fun and learning.

And most important, just as mothers and fathers and children should be honored and treated well every day of the year and not just on their designated Sundays or holidays, so should grandparents give and get those hugs and kisses, visits and conversations, all through the year. Remember too, grandchildren need grandparents as much as grandparents need grandchildren.

My grandparents were William and Gussie Levy and Charles and Nellie Lewis, and they would have approved this column.

Back to top

The Great Search for Uncle Shlayme

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

“I see Uncle Shlayme,” whispers my son at High Holy day services.

“Me, too!” squeals his younger brother. Standing on tippeetoes, all my kids crane their necks and lean forward, trying to see their father’s elderly cousin who, of course, wasn’t there.

“Uncle Shlayme lives three hundred miles away,” I whisper, tugging them down. “He wouldn’t be here.”

The kids turn to my husband who is smiling his wry smile. “Could be,” he said. “Uncle Shlayme does get around, you know.” And my children proceed to search. To scan, buzz and scrutinize.

“They’ll learn about Jewish faces and it’ll keep them busy,” Steve explains to me. “Then again,” he muses, “Maybe they’ll find Uncle Shlayme.”

“Fat chance,” I say aloud. “Uncle Shlayme doesn’t do suburban temples.” But I, too, can’t resist searching for Uncle Shlayme under the sea of kippot and talleisim that have transformed our synagogue’s social hall into an undulating mountain range of Yiddishkeit.

Predating the Great Waldo Search, the quest for Uncle Shlayme has been with us since the late 1960s, when Uncle Shlayme, a not particularly pious fellow content with pinochle and poker, decided he needed to be with God.

Family mythology places Uncle Shlayme in a Brooklyn synagogue during the eighth inning of the World Series, when he began to have secret knowledge of the game. He is said to have been staring at a mahzor, fiddling with his Israel Bond donation card, when suddenly Uncle Shlayme knew who was on first, how many outs there were, and who was up at bat. Bases loaded, three balls, two strikes — and Uncle Shlayme knew the next pitch was going to be a fast ball.

It didn’t take Uncle Shlayme long to figure out that the fellow next to him wasn’t hard of hearing but that he was wired for sound. ‘This frumme Yid,” he tells the story, “this frumme Yid was listening to the ball game! And he’s telling me the score!” Uncle Shlayme was incensed.
As he looked around, Shlayme wasn’t able to find a whole lot of piety or devotion in his congregation. “With the fashion show and the talking- who can be with God?”

Apparently everyone was surprised that Shlayme, not a shulgoer by any stretch, was busy searching for God. But, the way Steve’s cousin explains it, “A Jew doesn’t look for God. I’m already with God. When I step into that shul on Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur, God and I find each other. Let the goyim search for God,” Uncle Shlayme becomes passionate.

“And let the Jews jabber and shake hands and admire each other’s fur coats. Let ‘em listen to the radio or bring in a color TV if they want. But me? I’m gonna have my yontif with God.”

Once moved, Uncle Shlayme became convinced that all the chit-chat in his neighborhood shul was a barrier to his religious life, so he began traveling to other synagogues. Every Rosh Hashanah, he packs his bags, his prayer shawl and his mahzor, and escapes to a new congregation. “God is everywhere,” Uncle Shlayme told me when we first met, “so I go visit him here and there.”

Family lore has Uncle Shlayme traveling all over the world each year in search of God, and returning to Brooklyn for a nice quiet Sukkot. But if you ask him, Steve’s cousin will tell you that he was born a Jew and thus has no need to find God. “A Jew is already with God,” says Uncle Shlayme. “I’m only looking for a peaceful place to meet him on the holiest days of the Jewish calendar.”

Every Elul, when we scan the vast hall filled with Jewish faces, we remember Shlayme’s quest for a shul to meet with God. And, thinking of God and Shlayme together, we sometimes look out for them both.

‘There’s Shlayme,” whispers Frannie. And we all turn around to look.

. This article is reprinted from the Sept. 13, 1991 issue of The Journal

Back to top

Why Do I Have to Go To Hebrew School?

When my now teenage daughter Rachel was in elementary school she used to stomp her Mary Jane shoes, open her eyes really wide and demand an instant answer to her burning question, “Why do I have to go to Hebrew School?” I would look her straight in the eye, crack a little smile and say, “So you can meet a Jewish doctor.” She’d pop a Goldfish cracker in her mouth, think for a minute and smugly reply, “I’ll be a Jewish doctor.”

She ended the debate with a small verbal victory, but ultimately marched off to Hebrew School, where she and her friends would learn about Jewish history and holidays, master the Hebrew alphabet, bake challah — and plot revenge against their Jewish mothers.
These were essential lessons in the life of a Jewish child. She’d have her good days and bad days and ultimately became a Bat Mitzvah and graduated North Shore Hebrew School. I can’t lie and say she fell madly in love with her Judaism and is planning on becoming a rabbi; but when she reflects on her childhood, she may appreciate the value of learning the aleph bet at Hebrew School, being chased by bees at Camp Simchah and pitching in on Mitzvah Day. Let’s face it, growing up Jewish makes you part of a great neighborhood. It also provides endless material for writers.

When I asked Emily why she thinks she goes to Hebrew School, she quickly answered, “To be with my friends.” She has always adored her Hebrew School classmates and lapped up the learning in the process. Last year when she switched to Hebrew School on Mondays and Wednesdays, it was tough to make the transition from a weekend of carefree fun to a Monday with a full day of school followed by Hebrew School until dinnertime. She did point out that many of her friends were having playdates and doing fun afterschool activities. I informed her that the kvetching was part of the process of growing up Jewish.

If I think back to my own childhood and going to Hebrew School in Chelsea — I vaguely remember small desks and Hebrew letters being scrawled on the chalkboard. I recall how happy I was if there was a holiday when my whole family would be together. Naturally I adored the Chanukah season, when the promise of presents and latkes lingered in the air. I must have learned something significant in those long afternoons because I chose to raise my children with a Jewish identity.

I think Emily had it right when she said the reason she liked Hebrew School is because she liked being with her friends. In this crazy mixed-up world, it makes you feel safe to belong somewhere. And isn’t that really why you go to Hebrew School, to discover where you belong?

Back to top

Opinion

Will Arafat Become a Prophet Without Honor in His Own Country?

JONATHAN FRIENDLY Jonathan Friendly is the national editor of Jewish Renaissance Media

There is nobody immune from mistakes, starting from me on down. Even prophets committed mistakes.
— Palestinian President Yasser Arafat

So, at last we have it out in the open. The man who has styled himself the leader of the Palestinians for 40 years now ranks himself not just as the founder of a nation-to-be, but also as a figure worthy of the Bible and Koran.

No wonder he cannot relinquish authority to his own hand-picked prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, or to Palestinian Legislative Council leaders who have been trying to tell him that the corruption and inefficiency must cease. That would be like Muhammad allowing his caliphs to make the important decisions without his divine authority — or Jesus telling Peter to deliver the Sermon on the Mount.

From his inspired viewpoint, Arafat does not have to heed the mere mortals in his own legislature who are telling him that he must end the graft that drains away most of the international aid intended for ordinary citizens leading miserable lives under the intifada that he started nearly four years ago. He doesn’t have to pay attention to the polling data showing that three out of four Palestinians now recognize the corruption as very widespread — because prophets do not need public consent to chart the right course.

Why would a prophet familiar with Muhammad’s autocratic ways and his use of military and intelligence forces to keep his enemies in line 1,500 years ago surrender any real control over the soldiers of Fatah just because ordinary people tell him that he must surrender that power for the sake of a better life for his people in the West Bank and Gaza?

In an intriguing essay in the Jerusalem Post, Arnold Ages, emeritus professor of French Language and Literature at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, proposes that the Arab world has long been mesmerized by the lure of hopeless causes and the leaders who summon them to predictable failure.

Citing Gamel Abdul Nasser of Egypt and Saddam Hussein of Iraq along with Arafat, Ages notes how each led his people to futile campaigns that took thousands of the lives of their followers and produced no tangible gain. In each case, he says, the leader survived because “the allure of defeat has its own mystique about it.”

Perhaps, for a prophet, the loss of more than 1,000 Palestinian lives in the last four years alone — beyond the nearly 1,000 lives lost in Israel — is not defeat but a glorious step along the way to Paradise. Arafat has always had the ability to delude himself into thinking that he was something better than a tyrant, a crook and a terrorist. The rest of the world is catching on to what a sham he is. Perhaps soon, his own people will put him out to pasture and make him, at last, a prophet without honor in his own country.

Back to top

GOP Campaign Strategy: Undermine Kerry’s War Record

Can farce be brilliant? If so, the Bush campaign’s current production merits rave reviews.

Act One: A United States senator who during his 20 years in office has inspired just about no one, manages to win the Democratic party’s nomination for the presidency. His lackluster record is a burden relieved by only two chunks of biography: First, he was a genuine war hero during Vietnam; second, his protest against the Vietnam War after his discharge was powerful and eloquent. But only the first of these can be brought front and center during the campaign; the second might backfire.

And so Mr. Kerry’s proposed reform of the health system, his proposals for management of the deficit and for national service, for the entire domestic agenda are almost tacked on afterthoughts to his campaign’s emphasis on his heroism as a young man. In the case at hand, the appeal to heroism has as its unstated (well, rarely stated) corollary the iffy-ness of the military service record of the Commander in Chief.
Act Two: Sensing the threat, the Bush people are troubled. They cannot let the heroism thing take root, even though it is out there with eye witnesses, documentation and so forth. Improbably, they decide on a direct assault. Other veterans of Vietnam-era swift boats assert that Kerry fabricated the entire story, that he authored the documents that attested to it, that the corroborating witnesses are all partisan shills.

At first, the assault seems too outrageous to have any effect. It is largely ignored or dismissed by mainstream media. It is, after all, only the charge of a 527 group (a tax-exempt organization that engages in political activities, often through unlimited soft money contributions), a group that according to the law cannot coordinate its activities with the Bush campaign. There are goons and kooks all over the place, and the candidate is surely not guilty by virtue of his non-association with them.

But the right-wing talk shows and Web bloggers will not let go of it, and the 527 people are themselves relentless. And even though there are inconsistencies to their stories, and despite their “web of connections to the Bush family, high-profile Texas political figures and President Bush’s chief political aide, Karl Rove” (The New York Times, August 20), they are not hooted off the stage.

Act Three: The Kerry people cry “Foul!” and demand that the president denounce the calumny. The president’s people respond that the president has called for an end to all 527 ads, including the enormously successful ad campaign of MoveOn.org, a 527 that at critical points in the course of the campaign has spent money that Kerry did not yet have and said things that Kerry himself could not or would not say.

Act Four: The swift boat hassle was originally designed to be the dog that did not bark — that is, the device that would render the entire question of military service, both Bush’s and Kerry’s, a non-subject during the course of the upcoming and quite likely crucial debates.
Instead and improbably, the argument over Kerry’s war record is developing real legs. The recent support Kerry garnered among veterans has begun to erode; substantive differences between the candidates are eclipsed. Most people have neither ready access to nor patience for the detailed investigative reporting that has already shown Kerry’s accusers to be “interested parties,” hardly disinterested witnesses to what actually happened 35 years ago.

Nor will people follow the rotten trail to the latest ad, in which Kerry’s testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971 is ripped entirely out of context. In the ad, Kerry says, “they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads,” “randomly shot at civilians,” and “razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan.” Even if these had been Kerry’s own words (which they were not — he was reporting what others had said at a Vietnam veterans conference in Detroit), have we entirely forgotten that such atrocities were in fact documented?

All these decades later, the Vietnam vets who back then experienced so chilly a welcome home, so frigid a national shoulder, are getting their belated revenge. The intended effect? The Vietnam War was nobly fought — and, better an absentee member of the Texas National Guard than a turncoat with ill-gotten medals.

Epilogue: See the new movie, Uncovered: The War On Iraq. It connects the ugly dots that led us into the current debacle of a war in ways that are fresh and deeply disturbing. Those who think that the entire problem of our war on Iraq can be laid at the feet of the intelligence community, that the upper echelons of the political establishment were simply misled, will be chastened by what they learn.

We did not stumble into this war; we chose it, and some of us even chased it. Congress is culpable, and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rice and Tenet and Powell (yes, even Powell) and Wolkowitz are culpable, and above all, George W. Bush is culpable. And consider: Will young men and women who know and say these things today find, 35 years from now when they seek high office, that there is a political price to be paid for speaking the truth?

Back to top

Letters/Commentary

Leaders Thank Community for Turnout

On behalf of the Jewish Continuity Committee of the Jewish Federation of the North Shore, we want to express our deepest gratitude to the North Shore Jewish community for its support of the 4th Annual Great Shofar Blowout. This memorable event, which was a magnificent display of Jewish pride, was historic. Positive Jewish experiences, which are memorable and fun, are helping to keep our children Jewish and we are confident that all who participated will remember this event for years to come.

Not only did we set a Guinness World Record with close to 400 people sounding shofars, our community answered the “call to action” with its enthusiasm for, and support of, this great event. The community, professionals, volunteers, media, and out-of-area visitors all worked together to make this gathering spiritual, meaningful and fun. I am sure we have inspired other Jewish communities across the country to replicate what we have accomplished.

The Jewish community can continue answering the call to action by supporting Federation’s Annual Campaign, which raises funds to promote our primary mission of helping to keep our children Jewish. With your help by contributing to our Campaign, we are supporting Israel and the local, national, and global Jewish communities as well. By being part of the Jewish family that is responsible one for the other, our community will continue to grow prouder and stronger.

With very best wishes for a sweet and peaceful New Year,

Robert I. Lappin, Chairman Jewish Continuity Committee
Debbie Ponn, President Jewish Federation of the North Shore
Merritt Mulman, Executive Director Jewish Federation of the North Shore

Two Things That Haven’t Changed

In Jewish life there are two things that haven’t changed in 3000 years. And a lot that has: The food you eat, the clothes you wear, certainly the houses you live in have all changed drastically in just the last 300 years.

One thing that hasn’t changed in three millennia is the shofar you will hear during the High Holidays. It is the same animal horn that was sounded in the temples 3000 years ago. The notes played now in our synagogues — tekiah, shevarim, teruah — are the same notes that were played by the priests, in the Temples, and heard by our ancestors in ancient Israel. For 3000 years the shofar has endured as a symbol of Jewish continuity. Please think about this link to your past when you hear the shofar these High Holidays.

The other thing that hasn’t changed in 3,000 years? Our Torah.

Herbert Belkin
Swampscott

Article Neglects JCC Programs

We feel compelled to respond to your recent article about the North Suburban Jewish Community Center (July 30). While your article certainly laid out the facts of our “near-death” experience, it failed to highlight some of the most important aspects of “the other JCC,” as you called us. The North Suburban Jewish Community Center is vital to this community in many ways. It is not simply another Jewish pre-school in West Peabody, rather it is the only full-time Jewish child-care option for dual working families between Brookline and Marblehead. Without this facility, many Jewish families from as far south as Malden and Everett and as far north as Newburyport and Beverly would have to utilize full-time child care in centers that do not recognize or promote Jewish values, holidays and connections.

Further, you neglected to mention the many programs that are held at the North Suburban Jewish Community Center throughout the year. Programs such as family holiday workshops, regular family Shabbat Dinners, sports and leisure programs for children and youth, our outstanding and vibrant Senior Friendship group, and many other programs that draw people together within a Jewish context to meet and develop ties. Additionally, we sponsor and support many Federation programs such as Rekindle Shabbat and Sukkat Shalom, as well as hosting this year’s Israeli Scouts Friendship Caravan.

Finally, it needs to be noted that despite our financial difficulties, this center is still able to perform and deliver a wide range of services through the dedication, energy and passion of our outstanding and committed staff and large network of volunteers. The majority of Center programs — from organizing, scheduling and printing of the program guide, to marketing and advertising, to fundraising, to maintenance and facility upkeep — is performed by these staff and volunteers, (volunteers who, incidentally are brought together as a result of the school).

We encourage the greater Jewish Community of the North Shore to recognize the importance and necessity of a Jewish Community Center in the greater Peabody area and invite everyone to come by and see what a small group of spirited people can do.

Cindy Jacobs
and Susan Callum
Peabody

Don’t Tell Me How to Think

In response to Mr. Mulgay’s article, “For Jews to Vote for Bush is ‘Unthinkable’” (August 13), I really don’t need someone telling me how to think. Not only has President Bush been a staunch supporter of Israel, you would be hard-pressed to find anything John Kerry has accomplished in his political career other than self-advancing his career.

David Goldstein
Swampscott

Back to top

Obituaries

ISHLER, George — late of Delray Beach, FL, formerly of Revere. Died Aug. 17. Husband of 57 years to Janette (Miller) Dishler. Father of Jeri and Barry Moffie of Peabody, Ilene McCarter of Delray Beach, FL, and the late Ronni Lee Dishler. Brother of Henry Dishler of Brookline, Herman Dishler of No. Andover, and Blanche Welensky of Brookline. Friend of Libby and Sonny Kaminsky, Sylvia and the late Hank Shaponick, and Ethyle and the late Max Waxman. Grandfather of Mara and Leah Moffie, and Micah and Melanie McCarter. (S)

FELDMAN, William — late of Lawrence. Died Aug. 4. Brother of Marion Verner and Ruth Berger. Uncle of six nieces and nephews, and many grandnieces and grandnephews. (G)

FREEDMAN, Mildred Helen — late of Salem. Died Aug. 16. Wife of Myron Freedman. Mother of Carole and Philip Himmelfarb of Milwaukee, WI, Suzan Chatis of Newton, and stepmother of Robert Freedman, George Freedman, MD, and Emily Rappaport. Sister of Ruth Sogoloff. Grandmother of Michael, Elana, Peter, Debbie, Beth, Jake, Renee, Jody, Tamara, Rachel and Michael. Great-grandmother of nine. (S)

GLEASER, Dorothy — late of Peabody, formerly of Malden. Died Aug. 12. Friend of Gloria Strasnick and others. (G)

KLEYMAN, Khanna (Grossman) — late of Andover. Died Aug. 6. Wife of the late Zakhr Kleyman. Mother of Nelye Yatskar and Vladmir Kleyman. Grandmother of three. Great-grandmother of three. (G)

MOGILL, Belle (Harris) — late of Lynn and formerly of Malden