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Lynn’s Rich Jewish History On Display

Susan Jacobs
Jewish Journal Staff

LYNN — Visitors to the Lynn Heritage State Park Visitors Center, the soon-to-be permanent home of the Lynn Museum, can get a unique glimpse into the lives of Lynn’s early Jewish settlers thanks to a comprehensive exhibit that will be on display until Wed., Dec. 22.

Different Journeys, Common Bonds: Lynn’s Jewish Community 1850-1950 is expertly curated by Jennifer Gaudio of the Lynn Museum and Historical Society. The exhibit features historic artifacts, photographs, manuscripts and even a six-minute video about Lynn’s Jewish community. It is the second in a series of rotating exhibits that celebrate the city’s diversity. (The first exhibit focussed on Lynn’s Polish history; the city’s Cambodian community will be featured next.)

“Lynn had a rich, vital Jewish community — it was a natural for an exhibit,” says Gaudio, who has been the curator there for five years. “I was very fortunate that the Jewish Historical Society of the North Shore opened their doors to me. They have a fabulous collection and some wonderful manuscripts that made my research a snap in comparison to others.”

To put the show together, she combed through the Society’s archives, which included more than 50,000 candid as well as formal photographs, manuscripts, letters, artifacts and audio tapes. One of her favorite pieces in the exhibit is the original copper façade that hung over the YMHA building in City Hall Square. Many of Lynn’s Jewish children spent hours socializing at the YMHA, which later became the JCC on Market Street.

Marvin Kupelnick, 66, who grew up in Lynn, fondly remembers the YMHA/JCC. “The JCC was the center of life for boys like me. It was our life. We played ping pong, basketball and baseball there. In fact, the biggest influences in my life were the athletic directors and coaches who worked there. Everything centered around the Center. Today, I always give to the JCC (which moved to Marblehead about 30 years ago) because it literally saved my life,” he says.

Kupelnick, like many of the early Jewish families of Lynn, was the son of Yiddish-speaking Russian immigrants. His father worked at Stone’s Bakery for 45 years, leaving early in the morning and coming home late at night. The family was poor, but happy.

“The depression was a terrible time, but we didn’t know we were poor. We lived ‘on the book,’ repaying 50 cents per week to the people we owed money to. We didn’t have four TVs, three cars in the driveway, or cell phones. Nobody had much of anything, but we appreciated what we had,” he says.

Herb Greenbaum, 79, also grew up poor in Lynn. He recalls his mother sending him to Tobin’s Egg Store to buy “cracks” because they were half-price.

“My father died when I was three. To support my family, I would get up at 4 a.m. before school to deliver newspapers. I was a redhead, and many of the customers thought I was Irish. They would give me extra money as a Christmas present. I would simply smile and say, ‘Thank you very much,’” remembers the now retired insurance agent.

Although the majority of Lynn’s Jews lived near Summer, Blossom or Shepard Streets, Greenbaum grew up in a six-family house on Neptune Street. Today, he notes, there’s nothing there. Urban renewal in the 1960s changed the face of Lynn’s streets and erased the many businesses that once lined them.

“At one point, Lynn was almost as big as Boston,” he reminisces. “But after the war, thanks to the GI Bill, a lot of the younger residents had the opportunity to move. They bought houses in Peabody, Swampscott and Marblehead, which used to be all farmland. The older people died off or moved to senior citizen housing centers. The Jews left the inner city to the Greeks, Italians, Latinos and Blacks.”

Like many other Jews from Lynn, Greenbaum migrated out of the inner city. “I bought my first home on Greenwood Ave. in Swampscott in 1954. I was the first person in my family to own a house,” he says. “People got tired of tenants and sharing one phone with four families,” agreed Kupelnick, who first met Greenbaum 50 years ago at the Center and today also lives in Swampscott.

Jerome (Jerry) Ogan, 77, grew up near the beach in East Lynn, which was considered “the good side” of town. A now-retired attorney, for many years Ogan practiced law with his father, Nathan, from an office on Central Ave. in Lynn’s downtown district. He attributes the demise of the city to the growth of suburban shopping malls.

“When I was growing up, everything was in Lynn. We had big department stores, plenty of movie theaters, several bowling alleys, and lots of different family-owned shops and restaurants. Every place was busy. But when the North Shore Shopping Center opened, customers began going to the mall. Small businesses closed, and their owners either retired or followed the population and opened elsewhere.”

As a teen, Ogan worked Saturdays at Leshner’s grocery store on Summer Street. “I worked 14 hours per day, for 40 cents an hour, packaging lox, cottage cheese and schmaltz herring, as well as groceries,” he recalls.

However, as Lynn’s Jewish population streamed out of the city from 1950 to 1960, Leshner’s followed suit. The family partnered with the Goldsteins (who owned a similar grocery store across the street) and opened a grocery store together in Marblehead (now the site of Grossman’s Deli).

Prior to that, however, Lynn was bustling with many small, neighborhood stores, many of them Jewish-owned and operated. There was Zimman’s, Mrs. Lichtman’s Dry Goods Store, Himmel’s, Samuel’s Plumbing, Singer’s Poultry Slaughterhouse, Wheeler Bottling Company, and the Rabinowitz market. Kids enjoyed frappes, raspberry lime rickeys and vanilla cokes at the soda fountains at Harvey’s or Sheldon’s. Residents had their hair cut at Schultz’s Barber Shop, banked at the Brotherhood Credit Union, bought stationery at Belkin’s, lumber at Feldman’s, and shoes at Stoll’s. They were buried by Hymanson’s Funeral Parlor.

Lynn’s Jews had plenty of places to worship, including the Russian Orthodox Congregation Anshai Sfard (now defunct), the Conservative Temple Beth El (which later moved to Swampscott), and the Lithuanian Orthodox Congregation Ahabat Sholom led by the prominent Rabbi Samuel Zaitchik, which remains open on Ocean Street. There were also many smaller congregations that have subsequently shut down.

Years ago, Jewish children in Lynn attended the cheder, also called Lynn Hebrew School, on Blossom Street, or Temple Beth El Hebrew School. Others learned Yiddish and Jewish culture at shulie, which was run by the socialist organization the Workingmen’s Circle.

At Lynn Hebrew School, Mr. Wasserman prepared the young men for bar mitzvah. Although Marvin Kupelnick successfully completed his bar mitzvah, Herb Greenbaum admits that he got thrown out. He ultimately got bar mitzvahed at Temple Emanu-El in Marblehead at age 59.

“I wanted to do it while my mother was still alive. It was very nice, and at least my suit fit,” he quipped.

The free exhibit, Different Journeys, Common Bonds: Lynn’s Jewish Community 1850-1950, can be viewed at Lynn Heritage State Park Visitors’ Center, 590 Washington St., Lynn, on Weds., Sats. and Suns., from noon-4 p.m., and by special appointment. For details, phone 781-592-2465.

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Alternative Judaism?

Gary Band
Jewish Journal Staff

MARBLEHEAD — While synagogues, federations and Jewish Community Centers are valuable institutions that help celebrate and perpetuate Jewish life in communities around the world, these pillars of affiliation do not appeal to everyone.

With nationwide giving and affiliation rates hovering around 30 percent, it is clear that many Jews choose to operate entirely outside the organized Jewish community.

Ron and Joan Fox of Marblehead are two people who are doing just that. With their newly created web-based Center for Jewish Alternatives (CJA), the Foxes are providing a free service that they hope will empower people to hold their own rituals and practices, discuss and advocate on issues of personal concern, and lead Jewish lives outside a formal setting.

“I feel comfortable with the alternative path,” Joan says. “Being part of the organized Jewish community is not really relevant to my life at this point.”

And that is true for countless others for a host of reasons. Due to circumstances such as divorce, death of a spouse, unaffordable dues, and dissatisfaction with aspects of temple and organized community life, the Foxes say a void exists in people’s lives that many are not sure how to fill.

“We want to ask, ‘where did you come from, what did you leave behind?’” Ron says.

The stated mission of CJA, viewable at www.ronfox-joanfox.com, is “to provide support and guidance for individuals and groups alienated from or dissatisfied with their local Jewish institutions as they strive to create meaningful Jewish alternatives.”

“What’s important to me is all the people that are lost to the Jewish community,” Ron says. “The results have been devastating. My sympathies are with the people who left institutions but seek ways to incorporate Judaism into their lives. It’s a hard job to reconnect, but for many people the desire to do so is right below the surface.”

Although they are now organizing “from the outside,” the Foxes have for 30 years been involved in local temples and organizations, as well as local politics. With their background, the couple believes they can be of service.

“If you want to talk about your interest in Havurah, children’s education, bar/bat mitzvah, interfaith marriage, Israel/ Palestine study and action, social action projects or tzedakah, contact us.”

Born and raised in Lynn, Ron and Joan met in middle school and married in 1961 at Temple Emanu-El in Marblehead. They have two children, Leslie, 39, and Steve, 36.

A graduate of Tufts and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Joan has worked as a community organizer, teacher, consultant and organizational director.

Ron, a graduate of Harvard and Harvard Law School, served in the Army JAG corps in New Mexico and then worked as an attorney for 20 years. Since 1990, he has helped more than 1000 lawyers pursue paths “consistent with their personal values and professional goals” through the Center for Professional Development in the Law, which he founded.

Upon their return from New Mexico in 1964, Ron and Joan joined Temple Beth El, then in Lynn, where they were members of the social action committee. But meeting resistance to gathering signatures to oppose the Vietnam War, they scaled back their efforts; and, eight years later, resigned their membership.

Following a 1971 meeting with Rabbi Arthur Green about Havurah — small family groups pursuing Judaic values outside a temple — they were referred to Rabbi Everett Gendler, formerly of Andover, and for 20 years the Jewish Chaplain at Andover Academy. With his help, Ron and Joan formed the Alternative Religious Community of Marblehead comprised of seven couples that met, studied, held services, seders and b’nai mitzvot, including those of their children, for 15 years.

Additionally, Ron once served on the board of the Jewish Community Center of the North Shore (’72-’75) and Joan was vice president and chair of the long-range planning committee (’82-’86). Ron later served on the community relations advisory board of the Federation (’93-’97) where he surveyed and found that many members of the community felt isolated and alienated. He formed a group to reach out to those who were divorced or widowed and later served on a the committee to draft the Federation mission statement. But the experience left him dissatisfied.

Since 1990, the Foxes have been members of the Tikkun Community — created by Rabbi Michael Lerner around the magazine he founded — which meets to hold services, study issues, meet with representatives, and advocate on behalf of social justice issues in the United States and Israel. They were also members of Temple Shalom in Salem from 2001-02.

“Many temples are simply not providing things people are looking for,” Joan contends. Whether it’s social issues such as the environment or housing, or women’s issues, she says forums for discussion and action either do not exist or cannot be sustained.
“[CJA] is about the value of creating your own institutions, getting together with other people around what’s important to you,” Ron says. “This in itself has inherent value.”

According to Joan, you have to ask yourself, ‘What is a Jewish experience? What is a Jewish life? Is it enough to go to temple three times a year and give to a Federation? How do you face a disintegrating Jewish community? Whose role is it?

Over the next year, Ron and Joan say they would consider their efforts to date a success if they could work with five local groups.
“It’s not easy to develop a project like this. People may have the desire and ability to get together, but they need resources, guidance and encouragement, and that’s where we could come in.”

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Amy Sessler Powell
Special to The Journal

People across the North Shore will soon wear the blue “Live Generously” bracelets supporting the Jewish Community Emergency Fund in the same tradition of the yellow “Live Strong” bracelet made popular by Lance Armstrong.

The blue Live Generously, bracelet, a project of the Jewish Federation of the North Shore, will be available with a suggested minimum donation of $5 to the Jewish Community Emergency Fund. The Emergency Fund helps families with a one-time emergency grant to meet basic needs such as assistance with rent, utility payments or medical bills.

Two years ago the Jewish Federation of the North Shore in partnership with Jewish Family Service started the Jewish Community Emergency Fund under the umbrella of the Jewish Community Foundation of the North Shore.

The fund was created in response to the economic downturn and the growing needs in the community. In the past, 35 families have contacted Jewish Family Service for grants that helped prevent utility shut-offs, loss of housing or helped to pay medical bills.
After the huge push two years ago, the fund had a balance of $50,000, but is now down to $5,000. The goal is to raise $45,000 to meet the current need in the community.

The goal of the “Wear the Blue” campaign is to raise awareness for this important community crisis and to reinforce one of the solutions, the Emergency Fund, being provided by the Federation in response to a community need, said Shari McGuirk, Federation campaign director.

To help spread awareness for the Jewish Community Emergency Fund, the Federation enlisted the help of the Patkin family of Swampscott, who had recently approached Federation with an idea for a tzedakah project for their 15-year-old daughter Brooke.
“We were happy to match the Patkins and Brooke, a young philanthropist, with a project that is so important to our community,” said McGuirk.

The project was a natural for Patkin, a sophomore at Swampscott High School and a graduate of Cohen Hillel Academy in Marblehead. Brooke had raised money for the Jewish Community Emergency Fund two years ago when she was at Hillel and was looking for a way to make a contribution to the community.

“I felt that the idea would be really great for our community and I would love to help,” said Brooke. “A lot of people don’t know about the Jewish Community Emergency Fund. If they see the bracelets, they might feel compelled find out what the bracelet is for and to give to the Emergency Fund.” Brooke has the support of her family.

Her parents, Randall and Marjorie Patkin are supporting her effort by helping to underwrite the cost of 3,800 bracelets. “Her enthusiasm won us over and we are happy to help with some of the costs,” said Marjorie Patkin. “Brooke is full steam ahead on this.”
Brooke has plans to enlist her brother Alexander, a seventh-grader at Hillel, and other children, teens and adults in the community to help her raise awareness and funds for the Emergency Fund by having the bracelets available where Jews gather. She is also making appointments to speak before various Jewish agency boards and writing letters to major donors. The Live Generously bracelet will also be available through the Federation web site, www.jewishnorthshore.org.

Dorothy Tatelman, co-chairman of the 2004 Community Campaign cabinet, praised the initiative of Federation and the Patkin family. “The mission of the Federation is to help keep our children Jewish, but this project speaks to how we do that. From generation to generation, we do deeds of loving kindness and teach our children these Jewish values. This is what it means to be a Jew. We can make the world a better place, but only with the leadership and commitment of people like Brooke Patkin and her family.”

For more information on the Jewish Community Emergency Fund, to make a donation or to order a bracelet, contact Arlyne Greenspan at 978-564-0708 or email agreenspan@jfns.org.

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Gary Band
Jewish Journal Staff

After four years of bringing singles together from across Greater Boston and throughout the North Shore, programming for the Federation’s North Shore Jewish Singles Connection will come to an end following its December 11 Chanukah Party.

One of the main reasons for the end of programming is the imminent departure of Felice Rosen (nee Cohen), who led the program since its inception. She and Neil Rosen were married in August and will soon leave the community for Lake Worth, Florida.

With close to 1500 names in the Singles Connection database, the Federation will continue to provide links to other singles groups and their events on a singles page on its website, jewishnorthshore.org.

“I think we helped a lot of Jewish singles,” said Rosen. “We had good events and many people got together. They were creating a community, which was nice, but not everyone gets married. It was just time for me to move on.”

The events, which included a book club, dinners, Shabbat services, workshops, bowling, pizza, pool, BBQ, Passover seders, and the memorable Sex in the Sukkah, attracted between 10 and 100 people.

Stacey Greenstein, who ran the Young Urban Professional Singles group, also brought many people together. “Stacey did a fabulous job,” said Rosen. “She created a whole network of young professional singles. It was really a group of friends, and I hope that continues.”

Rosen said that even though there won’t be a paid staffer running the program, she also hopes that volunteers will come forward.
“It’s important that singles know that there is a Jewish community that cares, but they have to take some initiative. If so, maybe they can get a grant. We’re willing to offer a facility for gathering. We created the foundation, we have the tools, now we just need people to step up to the plate. I’ll miss the community, and I hope I made a difference.”

“We put into place a mechanism that provides vehicles for singles to get together,” said Bob Lappin, who funded the Singles Connection. In addition to Rosen’s departure, Lappin said, “The need, the efficiency and the effectiveness of having just local events has been superseded by the desirability and effectiveness of having singles participate in Boston-area events. I don’t think that the change will affect the good results that we’ve been experiencing. What Felice did with developing the database, the website and holding events worked very well. We will still maintain a connection with local singles.”

The contact person for all singles-related questions or comments will now be Julie Newberg, director of program implementation for Jewish Continuity, at 978-564-0716.

“We are happy to work with anyone who has ideas, and with other agencies that are already doing adult programming,” she said. “We’re committed to maintaining a link on our website to connect singles to events in Greater Boston.”

Additionally, North of Boston Jewish Singles, led for the last 10 years by Carol Gendel of Andover, is another resource.
For those 40s and up, the group’s website, is nobjs.org, and Gendel’s email is carol@nobjs.org

With around 150 people in her database, the group received a grant from the Merrimack Valley Federation and holds a monthly bagel shmooze from September to June, a speakers series, they eat out once a month, hold game nights, and try to think of other things that are of interest to their members.

“We’ll miss Felice, and certainly welcome her members. We’re looking to expand and do things in other places as the opportunity arises.”

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Gary Band
Jewish Journal Staff

BYFIELD — Governor Dummer Academy played host to a conference called “Promoting Civil Rights and Preventing Harassment in Schools” for over 300 educators and administrators on November 18.

Sponsored by the Essex County District Attorney’s Office, the Office of the Attorney General, the Anti-Defamation League and the law firm of Rudolph Friedman, LLP, the gathering examined the types and stages of harassment, the legal measures in place to report and stop it from occurring, and the difference between a hate crime and a hate incident.

An MTV video, “Hate in the Hallways,” was shown at the beginning. Featuring an incident that took place at Holbrook High School in 1998 involving a gay male student named Jason Hare, the video inspired discussion on how similar situations escalate.

It began with non-verbal indicators, said Richard Cole, senior counsel for civil rights and civil liberties at the Office of the Attorney General: threatening looks, avoidance, sneers. Then to name calling and writing insulting messages on his locker. “There was a long history that preceded the physical assault,” he said.

“What is it about a culture of a school that allows and encourages a perpetrator to beat someone up?” he asked the room. “Where, in the early stages, is the parent response? Where is the teacher response? Maybe it seems okay to some. Maybe parents and teachers don’t know how to respond.”

In the end, when the student who beat Hare up was disciplined, he only received a three-day suspension.

“That was not sufficient,” Cole said.

Stressing the need to “intervene at the lower levels” Cole listed some barriers that may inhibit victims of or witnesses to harassment from reporting the incident. They include fear of retaliation; a perception that school authorities don’t care or won’t act; and a fear of revealing sexual orientation or religious affiliation.

Very few schools have mechanisms in place that deal specifically with harassment issues around race, religion and sexual orientation. Other than principals, teachers, and guidance counselors, who could possibly help a student if he or she came to them, these staff members often do not have the time or training to deal effectively with these incidents.

Only two school representatives at the conference raised their hand to say they had staff specifically hired to respond to complaints of harassment in their schools.

Andy Tarsy, eastern states counsel for the ADL, spoke passionately on the difference between hate crimes and incidents, economic crimes and personal crimes.

“A hate crime is not about someone getting in a fight and making a racial slur,” he said.

A hate crime, as defined by the ADL’s convenient laminated card for educators and law enforcement officials, is a criminal act against a person or property in which the perpetrator chooses the victim because of the victim’s real or perceived race, religion or national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability or gender.

The card also includes factors to be considered by responding officers and strategies for effective investigations.

By way of demonstrating the difference between an economic and hate motivated personal crime, Tarsy walked up to attorney Jim Rudolph and said “Give me your wallet.”

Then he rhetorically asked, “What if instead of just wanting your money and credit cards, I wanted to leave your neighborhood? I don’t like you and I don’t want to see your face around here ever again,” he convincingly taunted Rudolph. “If I do, you’re gonna be sorry.”

“What if this was the street where you lived?” he asked the room. “What if it was where your kids went to school and where you did your grocery shopping?”

This dynamic cannot be trivialized, Tarsy said. “That’s why there is a penalty enhancement for crimes motivated by hate or intolerance. The legislature decided there was more at stake when race, religion or sexual orientation is involved.”

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Susan Jacobs
Jewish Journal Staff

REVERE — Seniors at Congregation 420, the Conservative shul located in Revere’s Jack Satter House, are still trying to raise funds to purchase a lightweight torah.

The full-sized one they currently use weighs a hefty 45 pounds, and only two members of the congregation can physically lift it. Through a broker they have located a used, 25-lb. scroll that would be ideal; however it will cost them $15,000 to buy it.
Asher Zamansky, the 85-year-old spiritual leader who conducts services at the self-supporting shul, made an appeal on Yom Kippur. The congregants, all seniors on fixed incomes, pledged $5,000.

An article about Congregation 420’s plight appeared in the Jewish Journal in October. Readers readily responded with $5,000 in donations; however the seniors are still $5,000 shy of their goal.

Supporters of this noble cause can make tax-deductible Chanukah gifts to the Congregation’s Torah Fund.

Norma Siegel, 79, is the gracious president of Congregation 420. “Although we have received numerous contributions from the children of parents who have lived here, people we don’t even know have sent checks,” she says.

She notes that donations have been large as well as small. “One very generous supporter gave us $500, while one family sent us the contents of their tzedakah box. We are very appreciative of whatever we receive,” she adds.

“The generosity of the public is overwhelming, and I am happy to report that people of all denominations have responded to our plea,” says Zamansky. “I’m flabbergasted that we have gotten this far in only two months. I thought it would take forever to reach our goal; however we are two-thirds of our way there,” he adds.

Tax-deductible donations to help the seniors get their torah may be sent to the attention of Norma Siegel, Congregation 420 Torah Fund, Jack Satter House, 420 Revere Beach Blvd., Revere, MA 02151. She can be reached by phone at 781-284-2933.

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Dispute Over Kosher Meat Plant Raises Alarms

Peter Ephross
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

NEW YORK — It’s not every day that people affiliated with a strident animal-rights group talk turkey with those who oversee kosher slaughter.

But that’s exactly what happened this week, when an unpaid adviser to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals discussed allegations of improper slaughtering practices at an Iowa kosher plant with the head of the Orthodox Union’s kashrut division.

The late-afternoon talks Nov. 30 involving Aaron Gross, a doctoral student at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and Rabbi Menachem Genack were the latest development in a story that has placed the slaughter practices at Agriprocessors Inc. in Pottsville, Iowa, under question.

They also came one day after the animal-rights group, known as PETA, filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The complaint alleges that the plant is violating Jewish law by not instantly killing the animals, and therefore is violating U.S. laws of slaughter, which allow for Jewish ritual slaughter.

The telephone discussion between PETA and the Orthodox Union ended in an impasse, participants said.

The controversy — which has alarmed some Orthodox institutions — is being seen as the most widely publicized dispute over kosher slaughter in the United States in a decade.

At issue is an undercover video taken by PETA-affiliated individuals over a seven-week period between July and September of this year that shows animals being slaughtered at the Agriprocessors plant, which processes meat for the Rubashkin/Aaron’s Best label.
One of the plant’s supervisors is the Orthodox Union, a major supervisor of kosher food in the United States.

In the gory video, one slaughterer cuts a cow’s throat, resulting in extensive bleeding, while another takes the trachea out. Other clips show cows running around and looking alive after the killing is presumably completed.

“This not how shechitah is supposed to be done,” Tal Ronnen, a spokesman for the Norfolk, Va.-based PETA, said, using the Hebrew term for ritual slaughter. “If it’s done correctly, the animal is supposed to be dead in 30 seconds to one minute.”

Orthodox officials, while admitting the video isn’t pretty, don’t agree, saying that reflexive movements by animals after they are slaughtered are not uncommon. “We thought it was in consonance with the halachah,” the O.U.’s Genack said after viewing the video.

PETA first raised the issue with Agriprocessors last June after being tipped off to allegations of improper procedures inside the plant.
In an exchange of letters, PETA raised objections and asked that an expert on slaughter be allowed in to witness the process.
Agriprocessors responded through its attorney, Nathan Lewin, who said he asked for more specifics.

On Nov. 29, PETA filed a complaint with the USDA, complaining that government regulations were not being followed at Agriprocessors. It sought suspension of the plant’s license and possible criminal proceedings.

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Leslie Susser
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

JERUSALEM — Syria’s President Bashar Assad is proving to be as stubborn a character as his father.

But where Assad senior showed his obduracy by refusing to make concessions for peace, the younger Assad shows his by continually pushing for peace talks — or at least saying he wants them.

Indeed, despite repeated failures to elicit a positive response from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Bashar Assad continues to call for dialogue with Israel, using every available emissary to deliver the message. According to several Western diplomats and politicians who have met the Syrian leader lately, Assad remains ready to start talks immediately, without preconditions.

But Sharon is unimpressed, insisting that Assad is not interested in peace, only in dialogue. According to Sharon, what Assad really wants is a show of talks to alleviate U.S. pressure on him to democratize and stop supporting terrorism.

But not everyone in the Israeli establishment agrees. In the Israel Defense Forces and Foreign Ministry, calls are mounting for Assad to be put to the test.

Assad’s latest peace message was delivered by U.N. Special Envoy Terje Larsen, who met Assad in Damascus on Nov. 25.

“President Assad has reiterated to me today that he has an outstretched hand to his Israeli counterparts and that he is willing to go to the table without conditions,” Larsen declared after their tete-a-tete.

A Syrian spokesman later clarified that while it was true that Assad had no preconditions, he felt it would be a pity to waste what had been agreed on in almost a decade of negotiations his father conducted with previous Israeli governments.

Previous Israeli prime minsters reportedly agreed to return the entire Golan Heights to Syria, but the talks broke down over Syria’s insistence on keeping Israeli land it took by force after Israel’s 1948 War of Independence.

“About 80 percent of the issues have already been resolved,” the spokesman claimed.

Assad had sent the same message with Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, in September; Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) in early November; several European diplomats over the past few months; and the Syrian ambassador to Washington, Imad Mustafa, a few weeks ago.

In an early November briefing to a small audience, including the Israeli consul in New York, Mustafa claimed that Israel and Syria had been on the verge of agreement three times, and that each time Israel pulled back because of a lack of political power or political will.

The implication was clear: If Israel could muster the political will today, a peace deal was there for the taking.

Officially, Israel says that if Assad wants peace, he first must stop supporting terrorism. The Syrian leader should close down Palestinian terrorist offices in Damascus and stop supporting the radical Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom declared in Jerusalem in late November.

Assad claims the terrorist offices in Damascus deal only in public relations and that, in any case, he is willing to discuss their continued presence on Syrian soil, as well as the Hezbollah question, during peace talks.

Everything would be on the table, he says, and — just as Syria doesn’t have preconditions — neither should Israel, Assad says.
Israeli officials say the demand to close terrorist offices is not a precondition but a call for a signal that Assad is serious about peace.
The Israeli army believes Assad is serious. According to military intelligence, if Israel would be ready to go back to its pre-1967 borders, Assad would be ready to make peace. For months now, military intelligence has been recommending to Israeli politicians that Assad’s intentions should at least be tested.

But Sharon remains skeptical. His aides say there has been no substantial change in the signals from Damascus and, therefore, no change in the prime minister’s position.

Sharon holds that Assad has been feeling the heat since the 2003 American invasion of Iraq. Syria is defined as a rogue state, and with American forces next door, Syria fears it could become a target. Assad wants to appease Washington, and one of the best ways to do that would be to open talks with Israel under U.S. auspices.

Sharon aides say that with Israel about to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank, Assad knows the prime minister can’t contemplate simultaneous concessions on another front, so there’s little chance Assad will be engaged and tested. Therefore, they say, he merely is making “cost-free” declarations to score points in the international community, especially with the United States.

But other Israeli officials have reservations about Sharon’s attitude. A senior Foreign Ministry official reportedly argued in a recent closed debate that “negotiations with Syria can’t hurt anyone. Assad’s intentions ought to be thoroughly examined. Rejecting him out of hand is bewildering.”

Israel, the official continued, is locked into a preconception that Assad is not serious about peace and that rejecting his overtures won’t have any warlike consequences.

“But we could be making a big mistake,” he warned.

Leaders of the opposition Labor Party also have been critical. They say Israel has nothing to lose by talking to Assad: If he is serious, a genuine peace dialogue will evolve, and if not, he’ll be smoked out.

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Rabbi Steven J. Rubenstein
Special to The Journal

Even though I can barely remember the days when I stood in right field in a red and yellow uniform as a member of the Friendly’s team of Little Leaguers, I do recall how fervently I prayed whenever a ball came my way. The glove that my parents bought for me was three times the size of my hand. I could barely squeeze the glove in my hand the few times the ball found its way into my mitt before popping out onto the grass below. From a very early age I knew that I would never excel as a premier fielder.

The few times that I played catch with my dad in the backyard did not do much to improve my outlook on things. And when my friends and I gathered to play dodge on the side of the house, putting on imaginary tags as we slid into homemade bases out of garbage can covers, there were cheers from the runners who knew they would slide in safely on any throw that came Steven’s way because he could never control the ball in his glove. 

That glove made many a trip to Fenway Park in the hope that a foul ball would come my way, and all I would need to do is stick up my hand in the air and my souvenir would miraculously find its way into the heel of the glove where it would stick. Only once did I come close to coming home with a catch. 

Sitting along the third base side towards the outfield, a ball actually made it within reach of my glove.  My friend Jeff ducked under the seats in fear of his life as the surge of the crowd behind us pushed towards us in anticipation. I stuck out my hand and waited as the ball dropped from the sky. Like Moses who waited to receive the Ten Commandments from God on high, I watched it fall into my glove, as it hit the pinky finger and deflected into the hands of the guy sitting next to us. 

Eventually, my hand finally fit the glove. For several summers I was the southpaw in the bullpen for the Camp Yavneh softball team. We played Jewish camps in the area. I remember quite vividly the Summer of ‘84 when I got the call from the coach to start warming up in a crucial home game against a team that had given us much grief in previous summers. 

They were known for their power behind the plate and for their speed on the bases. At the top of the last inning we held the opposing team scoreless, and I was being called in to close out the game. With my glove at my side, I took my warm-up pitches before the home crowd. My hand sweated inside my glove. I felt confident. Everyone on the sidelines was in a frenzy over what we had accomplished on that day. 
Fifteen minutes after I had taken the mound, my glove and I left the field. Even though we had won by 23 runs, my glove had failed me once again, missing a line drive that sent the one runner home that spoiled our perfect record for the day. 

I retired my glove two years ago. It had certainly seen better days. The leather was worn in certain places, making it untrustworthy in the field if there ever was to be another line drive up the middle. What prompted me to think about my old baseball glove was another glove I had come across while looking at some vintage cards of a player named Cal Abrams. Someone was selling a glove that had his signature clearly visible in the palm area. Cal Abrams was a teammate with Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers in the spring of 1949. 

During his career, Cal Abrams played in a total of 445 games with five different teams, committing only 21 errors throughout his entire career. Like myself, he was a lefty. He was mostly used for his defensive prowess in right field, although he is most famous for his performance running the bases on the second-to-last game of the 1950 season. 

The Dodgers were hosting the Philadelphia Phillies at Ebbetts Field, one game behind in the standings. In the bottom of the ninth with the score tied 1-1, Cal made it to second base after being walked. Duke Snider hit a line-drive to shallow center field. Centerfielder Richie Ashburn caught the ball on one hop as the third base coach waved Cal Abrams home. 

A perfect throw to home plate cut Abrams down. He never stood a chance of scoring. Even though the third base coach should have never sent him home, Cal was blamed for the Dodgers losing the game and the division title. Over time, Cal was forgiven and was honored by Brooklyn’s Jewish fans with a special night in 1951. 

His glove had space for three fingers and a thumb. Unlike baseball bats, gloves were not regulated in size or shape by the developing leagues. They evolved rather slowly over time. In fact, in the late 1890s, only sissies wore protection on their hands because baseball was considered a macho game. Early gloves were slightly padded, but the fingers were not laced together with rawhide until World War II. 
In the 1950s, glove manufacturers began including a webbing. Noah Liberman captures more of the details in his book, Glove Affairs: The Romance, History, and Tradition of the Baseball Glove. What amazes me is the love affair that a man has with his glove. For many a guy, the first deep and intimate relationship that he develops in life is with his first baseball mitt. For many of us, it is a relationship that endures several decades — in some cases lasting longer than one’s marriage. 

The new glove that I purchased to play softball with my fellow Rotarians will never replace the one that I had as a child. 

What I discovered is that newer is not always better in baseball. In fact, an artist from New York City can create an oil painting of a person’s glove, capturing the true character of every wrinkle of the leather, every worn line, the scars and the scratches that are true badges of honor. Each one is a portrait in all its splendor. What is most amazing is how a baseball mitt can bring out the romantic side in the toughest of men.   

How we treat our gloves each winter, massaging them with oil and conditioning them in preparation for another season, acknowledges our love affair with our gloves. How we cherish them and preserve them in relation to the other times we take them out in public. The way we toss our gloves to the ground in protest or discard them off to one side when it is our turn to bat defies explanation. Yet, when someone else attempts to touch our glove, we defend it with voracity. Very rarely will a guy let another person use his glove. 

Since this is a column that deals with the spiritual realm of baseball, I feel compelled to share some words of wisdom from the sages regarding our relationship with our gloves. Our gloves are an extension of our hand. The Hebrew word for glove, ‘k-fafah’, reflects its connection to the Hebrew word for palm, ‘kaf’. We read in the Book of Psalms the following words from King David: “Who will ascend to the mountain of God… the clan of palms (kapim) and the pure of heart…” 

Any good player knows that his glove must be open to receive the ball if he is to catch the balls that come his way. So it is with us in our personal lives. We must keep our own palms open to receive the blessings that may come our way before passing them on to others. Those who open their hands to others become blessed by their deeds. Those who close their hands too early, close their hearts to others in their life.

I am most appreciative of the relationships in my life that have been taught to me by my first baseball mitt. May the memories continue to warm my heart and remind me of the importance of keeping my hands, and my heart, open to receive the blessings of life. 

Steven Rubenstein is the Rabbi of Temple B’nai Abraham in Beverly. He enjoys combining his hobby of collecting baseball memorabilia with the aura of being Jewish in a professional sport.

An End to Incitement?
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Mahmoud Abbas called for an end to anti-Israel incitement in Palestinian media. The Palestinian Authority presidential hopeful issued the request Nov. 29 to the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation after a request from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Israel has long charged that the Palestinian Authority uses its media and schools to indoctrinate West Bank and Gaza Strip youths to hate the Jewish state.

Peace Summit Seen?
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority presidential candidate Mahmoud Abbas said they would like to resume talks. In exclusive interviews in the latest issue of Newsweek, both men called Yasser Arafat’s death an opportunity for peace. Abbas, the dominant Fatah faction’s nominee to succeed Arafat, praised Sharon for his political strength and voiced hope that the Israeli plan to quit the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank next year would be coordinated with the Palestinians. Palestinian elections are scheduled for Jan. 9.

Barghouti endorses Abbas
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Marwan Barghouti said he will not run for Palestinian president and instead endorsed Mahmoud Abbas. Barghouti, serving five life sentences in an Israeli jail for his role in terrorist attacks, said through in a statement last Friday night that he was ceding the field to Abbas in the Jan. 9 elections. Barghouti, 45, is a favorite among younger Palestinians.

Safer Skies for Israel
JERUSALEM (JTA) — El Al reportedly will equip one of its planes with an anti-missile system next month. The Israeli-made Flight Guard, which issues flares to divert incoming missiles, will be fitted on one of the national carrier’s Boeing passenger jets, Ha’aretz reported. El Al did not comment, but security sources confirmed the company planned to slowly introduce the $1 million security measure to its fleet. Anti-missile systems became a major project in world aviation after Al-Qaeda terrorists tried to shoot down an Israeli passenger plane over Kenya in November 2002.

French Broadcasting Group Wants Hezbollah TV Banned
PARIS (JTA) — France’s public broadcasting authority asked a court to allow it to ban transmission of Hezbollah’s satellite TV station. In a statement Monday, the CSA authority said it wanted Hezbollah’s Al-Manar channel forced off the airways after it viewed anti-Semitic comments on a recent program produced by the channel. The comments, originally broadcast on a Nov. 23 news program, accused Jews of wilfully spreading diseases such as AIDS among Arabs and Muslims, the statement said, and represented a threat to public order as well as a breach of the agreement signed between the authority and Al-Manar on Nov 19.
Jewish groups had initially called for the channel to be denied a license by the authority after it broadcast an anti-Semitic series during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan last year. Shimon Samuels, international liaison director for the Paris-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, said he is pleased with Monday’s decision to press for a ban. “This has sent out an important message to all hate groups that there’s no place on the airwaves for this sort of material,” Samuels told JTA.

The Miracle of Beer?
NEW YORK (JTA) — A company that produces He’brew: The Chosen Beer is marketing a special brew for Chanukah. Miraculous Jewbelation is celebrating eight years of brewing by the Shmaltz Brewing Company. The ruby-red beer is 8 percent alcohol. More information is available at www.shmaltz.com.

Kosher Slaughter Under Attack
NEW YORK (JTA) — A vegetarian group accused a leading kosher meat processor of using inhumane slaughtering methods. People for the Equal Treatment of Animals released a video that it says shows slaughterers at AgriProcessors Inc., which markets meat under the Rubashkin/Aaron’s Best label, violating slaughter laws and halachah, the New York Sun reported. Nathan Lewin, an attorney representing the company, was quoted by the Sun as saying that “all PETA wants to do is inflame the public against kosher slaughter.” Participants at the Agudath Israel of America’s annual convention voted unanimously Sunday to condemn PETA’s attack.

O.U.: Sympathy for Settlers
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Orthodox Union expressed empathy with settlers facing eviction, but said security issues are best left to Israel’s citizens and government. “The current Israeli debate over disengagement from Gaza and parts of Shomron has evoked strongly held feelings within the Orthodox Union family,” the Orthodox Union said in a resolution adopted at last week’s annual meeting in Israel, using the biblical name for the northern West Bank.
“The intensity of these emotions is compounded by the profound identification that so many in our community feel with the plight of Jews who face removal from their homes in areas that resonate in Jewish history, and where their presence was encouraged and supported by the State of Israel.” But the resolution acknowledged “that questions of Israeli foreign policy and domestic security are best left to the citizens of Israel and the State of Israel’s democratically elected institutions.”

Rice Meets Top Jews
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Condoleezza Rice told 14 U.S. Jewish officials that Palestinians and Israelis have expressed interest in “seizing the opportunity” for peace after Yasser Arafat’s death. President Bush’s national security adviser and secretary of state nominee met Monday evening with leaders from an array of Jewish organizations, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Reform movement, the Orthodox Union, the Israel Policy Forum, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Anti-Defamation League. Participants described the hourlong question-and-answer session as “very warm” and “in depth.”

U.N. Condemns Suicide Bombing
NEW YORK (JTA) — A United Nations committee condemned suicide bombings in Israel. The resolution from the committee on decolonization, concerning Israeli practices affecting Palestinian human rights, included an oral amendment expressing “grave concern at the use of suicide bombing attacks against Israeli civilians, resulting in extensive loss of life and injury.” Israeli officials said the language was included at European nations’ behest.

Europeans Talk With Israel, Arabs
PARIS (JTA) — European Union heads are holding talks with leaders from Israel and Arab states at a meeting in The Hague. Set against the background of the biennial conference of the Euromed partnership, which brings together E.U. representatives and the foreign ministers of Middle Eastern and North African states, the meeting also is expected to discuss recent developments in the Middle East conflict following the death of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat.

Wartime ‘Siblings’ Reunite
NEW YORK (JTA) — A Holocaust survivor was reunited with a Polish woman who saved him during World War II. Andre Nowacki, now 68, was reunited in New York on Nov. 24 with Hanna Morawiecka, 74, one of three Polish sisters whose family hid him and his mother in Warsaw during the war. Morawiecka, the only sister still alive, was flown to New York to meet Nowacki by the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, which honors non-Jews who risked their lives to hide Jews during the Holocaust and financially aids some of them. The two shared a Thanksgiving meal. Nowacki told journalists, “she tells me I haven’t changed since I was 9 years old.’’

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Arts & Entertainment

Two Films by Local Jewish Filmmakers To Be Screened

Susan Jacobs
Jewish Journal Staff

Although the 16th annual Boston Jewish Film Festival is now officially over, the organization continues to bring relevant Jewish films to the area. Two films of interest to Jewish viewers will be screened in December at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. Ringl and Pit, a 56-minute documentary by local filmmaker Juan Mandelbaum, will be shown on Dec. 8. Anya In and Out of Focus, a film created by Polish-born director Marian Marzynski who now lives in the area, will screen four times during the week of Dec. 12-19.

Ringl and Pit
At the MFA Wed., Dec. 8, 6 p.m.

Local filmmaker Juan Mandelbaum, who owns a film production company in Watertown, created this documentary in 1995. It explores the lives of the late Jewish photographers Ellen Auerbach and Grete Stern.

Auerbach and Stern met in 1929 in Berlin. At the time, the field of photography was dominated by men. The talented women challenged the status quo by establishing their own advertising photography studio — which they named Ringl and Pit. Their avant garde photographs won many international prizes.
The women were forced to flee Germany when the Nazis came to power. Ellen eventually moved to New York while Grete ultimately wound up in Buenos Aires. Their pioneering advertising work, which featured a host of products shot from interesting angles, is being rediscovered. Major international exhibitions are highlighting their work.

This local screening, which is co-presented by the Boston Jewish Film Festival, the Goethe-Institut, and the MFA, is in memory of Ellen Auerbach, who died last summer in New York at the age of 98. (Grete died several years ago).

A discussion with filmmaker Juan Mandelbaum, Clifford S. Ackley (MFA Chair, Department of Prints, Drawings and Photographs), and Ruth and Carl Shapiro (Curators of Prints and Drawings) immediately follows the screening.

Anya In and Out of Focus
At the MFA Sun., Dec. 12 at 11 a.m., Wed., Dec. 15 at 5:30 p.m., Sat., Dec. 18 at 10:30 a.m., and Sun., Dec. 19 at 3:40 p.m.

Polish-born writer/director/ producer Marian Marzynski’s 2004 film, Anya In and Out of Focus, documents his relationship with his daughter over a period of 30 years. He captures the trials and tribulations he and his wife faced as Christian/Jewish immigrant parents raising their daughter in America.

As a child, the Jewish Marzynski escaped the Warsaw Ghetto and hid on the Christian side of the city. He ultimately became a successful talk-show host in Poland.

He and his Catholic wife, an architect, moved to Providence with their three-year-old son in 1972 so Marzynski could teach film at the Rhode Island School of Design. Their daughter Anya was born in America in 1973.

“I had been filming Anya since she was one. In addition to hundreds of photographs, visual and written materials and sound recordings, I had collected over 100 hours of 16mm film and video,” he says.

“However Anya In and Out of Focus is more than a record of one child’s growth. It tells about childhood and adolescence, about a first-generation American trying to live up to her immigrant parents’ expectations, about a family dealing with issues of religion, race, education and ethnicity, and about the complexity and humor of a father-daughter relationship,” he adds.

Marian Marzynski will be present to answer questions following all four screenings.

Tickets for either film are $9/general admission; $8/seniors, students, members of the MFA and/or Boston Jewish Film Festival. To order tickets, call 617-369-3306 or visit www.mfa.org/film.

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Editorial
Chanukah: Festival of Lights — and Hopes

The eight-day holiday of Chanukah, for many Jews the happiest celebration of the year, is upon us: We light the first candle of the traditional Menorah this year at sundown on Tuesday, December 7. And we add one more candle each night for seven nights thereafter.

We sing songs, we exchange gifts, and we celebrate a miracle of nature and the spirit of freedom.

The story is familiar to every Jewish schoolchild: Under the yoke of the Greek overlord Antiochus, it became a serious offense in ancient Israel to observe Jewish laws. In the village of Modin, near Jerusalem, an old man named Mattathias and his five sons refused to worship at a shrine to Greek gods. They slew a Jew who had just bowed to the idols, and they slew a nearby group of Syrian soldiers who collected taxes and enforced idol worship for the Greeks.

Their act of defiance sparked a revolt that spread throughout all of Judea. The rebel leader, Mattathias’ son Judah, was called HaMakkabi, the Hammerer, and his followers became known as the Maccabees. With 6000 untrained men, equipment taken from the enemy and a few crude weapons, the rebels fought a guerrilla war that succeeded in liberating Jerusalem, and with it, the Great Temple, center of Jewish life.
On the 25th day of Kislev, 165 BCE, the Temple was rededicated, three years after its destruction, and the seven-branched golden Menorah on the altar was lit once again. Our ancestors found only enough oil to keep it burning for one day, yet miraculously, it burned for eight days.

In our own communities, numerous public Chanukah celebrations will take place: Menorah lightings at the Boxford Community Center Dec. 7 at 4:30 p.m., sponsored by the Jewish Federation of the North Shore; the next day at the North Shore Shopping Center, at 4 p.m.; and at Peabody City Hall, Dec. 12 at 2 p.m. (two hours before that city’s Christmas tree lighting), sponsored by Chabad of Peabody.

Andover’s Temple Emanuel will be the site of a major Chanukah concert, ”First Light 5765,” featuring famed singer/songwriter Debbie Friedman, December 12, at 6:30 p.m. sponsored by the Merrimack Valley Jewish Federation; in Swampscott, Chabad of the North Shore will sponsor a concert the same day from 6 to 9 p.m., and there are a host of other events scheduled (See Community Calendar).

The Chanukah story is timeless, its meaning no less uplifting in our time. Each of us can take personal pride in the courage of our ancestors and find reason to hope in the story of the miracle oil.

May your Chanukah be a celebration of joy and remembrance.

— Mark R. Arnold

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Local Columnists

Postscript on the Presidential Election

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..

After more than two years and two billion dollars, the United States had an election full of sound and fury signifying little and promoting hatred and fears among our citizens.

Ironic, if you place that conclusion next to the ongoing national sermonizing regarding the disputed election in the Ukraine and the forthcoming elections in Iraq and among the Palestinians.

Without a moment’s hesitation or even a wry Clint Eastwood look (while killing bad guys, Eastwood winks, sharing with the audience that it is only “make believe”) the president and secretary of state boldly advise on the importance of free, honest and accurate elections to bring democratic leaders to power and unite the peoples of entire nations.

These are marvelous goals and we should assist other nations in achieving them. But, how about a dash of humility? How about admitting that our presidential election campaign needs to be greatly improved?

Yes, the recent election was peaceful, efficiently counted (mostly), and drew higher turnout than usual, but these are not grounds for excessive self-congratulation. The same description might apply to elections in Libya, Egypt, Cuba and lots of other less-than-democratic countries.

American election campaigns should be aimed at civilized, informative, intelligent debate on the most important social, economic and political issues of the time.

Instead, the “bump in the suit” (was the president carrying a transmitter?) and the Botox (did John Kerry fix his face to appear younger?) became larger issues, larger even than the terrorist beheadings and numbers of war dead.

People who knew the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were less likely to know Nicholas Berg, Jack Hensley and Daniel Pearl, three of the many beheaded victims.

Did the voters learn much during the campaign?

President Bush beat into our brains that Senator Kerry was more of a flip-flopper than a war hero and that he, the president, said what he meant and meant what he said.

Senator Kerry mashed into our minds the idea that President Bush contracted out the capture of bin Laden to Afghan warlords and lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Over and over again, in the same speech, during the same hour, in answer to different questions, they fired the same sound bites, the same “staying on message.” Weren’t the candidates themselves embarrassed by such verbal foolishness?

After November 2, I walked around town asking people, “How do you feel about the election outcome?”

Among the Bush supporters, even after the victory, were many “poor winners.” A Home Depot clerk looked at me and without a smile she exclaimed, “He should drown in tomato soup.” (Get it: Teresa Kerry and her Heinz soup fortune).

On the other side, much despair. People told me that they were depressed about the election and concerned about the future for their children and grandchildren.

Richard Davis, a Brattleboro, VT newspaper columnist wrote (and he is not alone) that a group of friends were looking at moving to Costa Rica.

My response to both the sore winners and the distressed losers: Lighten up. Winners need be more gracious and inclusive. Losers need to remember that almost 50 percent of their fellow citizens voted with them, which is not bad, so stay and contest future elections.

Still, dear reader, if you agree that our elections are continually moving in the direction of increasing obscene and unnecessary money spent, more vitriol spread, more dumbing down of the debate, then you need to add this problem to your list of important national issues to be worked on.

I saw a bumper sticker last week proclaiming: “The Enemy is the ACLU” — pretty divisive and nasty, never mind that it’s untrue.

I think the true enemy is unbridled, unprincipled ambition with access to too much money, and a great willingness to go for the dramatic lie in a nation that doesn’t know whether it supports or condemns the present national electoral process, or how to change it.

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The Fear Factor

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

Yes. It got back to me. And while I — the once Queen of loshen hora — have said worse, your little joke caused me pain.
I was the first on my block to wear a tallit, the first one in our conservative temple to insist on women being called to the Torah and being counted in a minyan. I was — I am — a Jewish feminist.

How, then, could I leave those hard-won privileges behind and join an Orthodox congregation? “I guess she’s not wearing her tallit over there,” you sneered.

My parents wonder the same thing. “Since when did you get so Jewish?” my mother asks me, as if Orthodoxy magically increases how much Judaism I consume. My father mourns my lost marbles; he sees me pedaling backwards on the cycle of progress.

My sister-in-law doesn’t conceal her anger, either. “I know you’re all Orthodox now,” she opines, “but what’s with the way they treat women — and the wigs? They’re fanatics about kashrut and Shabbat. And the rest of us — we just don’t measure up, I guess.”

Fractious. Angry. Alienated. Disparate. Judgmental. Why are more liberal flanks of the Jewish people so angry with Orthodoxy?

“They live in the past,” my dad complains. “They just want to live like in the old days. I prefer to live in the present, with all the conveniences of America in this century. Hey, what are they afraid of? Progress?”

I can’t speak for my rabbi or my congregation, but let me answer for myself. Yes, I am terrified of progress if it means that Jewish children don’t learn Torah or understand the centrality of the Hebrew language to our identity as a people.

I am afraid that my children are growing up in a PC world that sees exclusiveness as threatening. A Philip Roth character asked the question almost 50 years ago: ‘If the Declaration of Independence holds that all people are created equal, how can the Jews claim to be chosen?’

It is now politically incorrect to think of oneself as a chosen people. Though Isaiah told us to be a light among the nations, we must be careful not to shine too brightly, lest we offend.

I am not yet a fully observant Orthodox Jew. There are mitzvot I question, rabbinic decisions I can’t square. But I am in awe of the commitment that Torah-observant Jews make in their lives and grateful that they have chosen to hold the fort while the rest of us are out exploring modernity.

If I am tempted too much by the beach party that is America or if I wander too far down the trail of acculturation, I know that the Orthodox are a saving remnant keeping the home fires burning until I return. If I wander further from an ancient faith, tantalized by the art and culture of a modern world, what if I become lost along the trail? If I explore new rituals or embrace alien traditions, will there be someone left who remembers the way it was, and can revive our historic identity?

In a world of delirium and flux, where science and pop culture are unpredictable tornadoes lighting down at random intervals and uprooting ancient cultures, I am grateful for the stability and calm of Orthodoxy. Shabbat is observed, Torah is read. Continuity is maintained without most of us having to lift a finger to help.

Someone is home at Klal Yisrael. The flame is lit. And the fire is tended with love. For this we should bear not resentment, but gratitude

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Shedding Light on Chanukah

What Jewish child can resist the miracle of Chanukah? The dancing flames atop the menorah, the heavy perfume of potato latkes, the spellbinding spinning dreidels and the magical story of Judah and the Maccabees all add up to child’s dream of a holiday.

As a young girl, I looked forward to Chanukah for all these reasons, along with the promise of an Easy Bake oven, a giant stuffed teddy bear or just the sheer pleasure of unwrapping gifts for eight consecutive nights. I somewhat envied my non-Jewish friends for their Christmas trees, gingerbread houses and spot on Santa’s lap, but was easily distracted by a few chocolate coins and the electric menorah in our front window that reminded me of how many presents I had yet to behold.

I shamefully admit that I am one of the happy (and mildly aggressive) sheep flocking to the mall to purchase gifts in hopes of lighting up the eyes of those I love on Chanukah. The annual ritual begins like clockwork. I wake up from the tryptophan- and carbohydrate-induced slumber of Thanksgiving, and like a greyhound at the racetrack when he hears the shotgun, I’m off to the mall.

This year, I had an interesting thought. What if I told my children that instead of getting eight gifts, we’re celebrating by giving each other intangible expressions? Day one’s gift is a compliment. A kiss is the present for day two. We’d work our way up to the eighth day when we’d share a big group hug. While other children boast about their iPods and Tiffany bracelets, Rachel and Emily could chime in about how warm and fuzzy they feel because we’re doling out love and kindness in our home.

I know it’s time to wake up and smell the latkes. This is the 21st century and a miracle and a smooch is not what kids are looking for. If I tell the truth, I wasn’t in the market for sentimentality and spirituality when I was a kid. It just didn’t sparkle like a trinket.

As an adult, I am more aware of the miracle of a wonderful family, friends and good fortune. And while we all get caught up in the glow of our children’s eyes as they unwrap gifts, we need to shed light on the story of Chanukah and the value of believing in real miracle.

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Opinion

On Elections — for Palestinians, Iraqis, Ukranians

You can’t have a democracy without having elections, but elections alone do not a democracy make.

It is important to remember the distinction as we think about the possibility of the voting that is scheduled to come next month in the Palestinian territories and Iraq. America will make a serious mistake, of great consequence to itself and to Israel, if it treats either one as sufficient evidence of progress toward a healthy government for either the Iraqis or the Palestinians.

The temptation in both cases will be for the Western world to declare the voting a victory, as it has in Afghanistan, and to turn its attention to other issues while the real problem, the lack of an adequate social infrastructure, festers and eventually erupts in a return to corruption, dictatorship and intolerance.

As ABC-TV’s “This Week” commentator Fareed Zakaria points out in his compelling book The Future of Freedom, Americans tend to conflate a lot of ideas when they say “democracy.” What they mean is a combination of social structures, including capitalism with a thriving entrepreneurial class, a rule of law, a respect for free speech and a free press, religious tolerance and a commitment to the individual above the state.

The process of voting in free and fair elections is to select a government of, by and for the people. The necessary conditions for a Western-style society do not generally exist in the Arab world. While some of these countries make a pretense of democracy — Egypt has elections for local and national officials, for example — none have the other necessary attributes.

Elections, after all, can hardly express a popular will when the only information available to most citizens comes from a rigidly controlled media. Laws in these countries protect the government and “society,” but not the individual who is the key to democracy.

As we saw last week in Ukraine, regimes with no current history of freedom will try to steal elections so they can retain power — perhaps a foreboding of where Russia may be headed as President Vladimir Putin tries to roll back the advances of the previous decade. And election results may not be what we would hope for; the likeliest result in Iraq will be a Shia Muslim governance with little patience for a lot of secular and humanist ideas.

It would be nice if the coming election of Mahmoud Abbas to replace Yasser Arafat as head of the Palestinian Authority leads to a genuine shift in West Bank and Gaza opinion about the future of Israel. But, trying to prop himself up with the “street,” Abbas is already proclaiming his commitment to “right of return” and other formulations that avoid telling Palestinians about their need to move into the 21st century.
In a recent opinion piece in the Jerusalem Post, Natan Sharansky, the human rights activist and Israeli minister for diaspora affairs, correctly noted that “free elections are never the beginning of the democratic process but one of its crowning achievements.”

Liberal democratic governments are possible in Iraq and in the Palestinian territories, just as they are anywhere else in the world. But to think that they will come into being before the other institutions of democracy are firmly grounded in either place is dangerously wishful thinking.

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Will Democrats Concede Agenda to Bush?

What passes for liberal wisdom these days is mostly babble. There’s lots of brave talk about organizing for ’08, but there’s almost nothing by way of program and policy. Scratch just a bit, and you’ll find that the brave talk masks a sense of alarm regarding what Bush II may mean for the nation.

At dinner one night, a friend, near tears, laments “the triumph of the fascists.” The Supreme Court, Social Security, civil liberties, the progressive income tax, the environment, all lost. And the fear that the second coming of Bush will lead to the First Frist or some equally radical conservative is palpable. Listen to the grumbling, and you’d think we were in for a hundred years of attitude, an end to America as we have known it.

Before the election, I too had fallen into Chicken Littlehood, fearing that the American idea, no less, was in jeopardy. While that remains a possibility, they are off to such a furious start that their excess may presage their early demise. Simply stated, the likelihood is that the Republicans will over-reach. The early indications are that they have not merely been buoyed by their victories, but inflated by them. And inflated politicians are first and foremost a danger to themselves. (Remember Newt Gingrich?)

Just now, most Americans are taking a break from politics. The recent campaign was exhausting, and whether one cheered or lamented the result, the sigh of relief at its conclusion was universal. (The one distinct advantage of the Israeli political system is that campaigns there are limited to 90 days.)

So, while the public’s attention is turned again to the weather, to football, to the holiday season, the Republicans can change their party’s rules and insulate Tom DeLay against the penalties his party had prescribed for leaders under indictment, the president can vacillate on implementation of the 9/11 Commission Report, the CIA can founder, and no one seems to care much at all. But soon enough — many might say “too soon” — recess will end, and we will, reluctantly, be back at it.

Two things may interfere with my admittedly rosy prognosis. First, it is time to acknowledge that this president and his people are masters at their craft. Here we have a president who by any reasonable analysis should have lost the election, and lost it badly. The war, the economy, the secrecy and the tilt towards the rich should all have meant defeat by landslide.

However one assesses John Kerry’s ineptitude as a candidate, hence his contribution to Mr. Bush’s victory, the Bush people ran a brilliant campaign. Their very early critique of Kerry as a “flip-flopper” defined Kerry before he’d had a chance to define himself, and the subsequent savaging of his one undoubted advantage, his war record, was as lethal as it was ugly.

It matters little whether Bush is the producer of his own presidency or whether he is merely the mouthpiece for the Svengali twins, Cheney and Rove. What matters is that these men know what they want and know how to get it. Worse yet, they know how to make denim purses out of sows’ ears. (No, silk is beyond them.)

We will, for example, doubtless “stay the course” in Iraq, as the president has repeatedly promised — but as to how “the course” is defined, that’s another matter. Just as the rationale for the war has changed again and again, so,