| The Jewish Journal Archive | ||||||||||||
| February 11 - February 24, 2005 | ||||||||||||
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Local
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Local StoriesFederation Celebrates Successful Campaign Amy
Sessler Powell The Jewish Federation of the North Shore announced a 7 percent increase in the 2004 Community Campaign over last year, marking the second consecutive year of increased campaigns. The 2004 Community Campaign raised $2,440,882 from 3,382 donors to help Jewish agencies locally and to help Jews here, in Israel and around the world. “I thank the entire community for their generosity to the 2004 Community Campaign,” said Dorothy Tatelman, campaign co-chair along with Stan Black and Peter Lappin. “They are the ones who increased this campaign and understand the connection to a strong Jewish community locally and throughout the world.” Said Federation Executive Director Merritt Mulman, “It’s a wonderful accomplishment to see the community support increase over last year. That's what happens when we all pull together. Helping to provide the resources for the community is the primary work of the Federation.” Shari McGuirk, campaign director, described this year’s campaign as a “return to basics,” and as a successful first year of a three-year campaign strategy. “We worked at strengthening the infrastructure of our divisions for raising funds and on creating leadership. We moved from telethons to more face-to-face solicitation,” said McGuirk. Highlights
of this year’s Community Campaign include: Another highlight was the 11 percent increase in the amount raised by Federation’s Women’s Division, which exceeded its goal of 10 percent by raising $652,710. “This could not have been accomplished without the commitment and hard work of all the women who solicited and chaired events,” said Sheryl Levy, Women’s Division president. “I am proud to be part of this incredible and compassionate group of women.” At an event held Jan. 29 to thank donors, Peter Lappin detailed the needs in the community. Nationally, there are more than 350,000 Jews living below the poverty line, she said. Locally, 26 families rely on monthly deliveries of food from Jewish Family Service’s Food Pantry. In the past two months, there were 60 new requests for the Jewish Community emergency fund. “The amount of money we raised is far less significant than the good that the dollars bring to our local and global community,” said Mulman. “The Federation, together with wonderful staff and wonderful volunteers has been able to build on our rich history of tzedakah and create a trend of increased giving and increased participation. This is what communities do.“ Added Tatelman, “Their energies and their finances will serve community and social justice throughout the world.” Building
Jewish Identity at Summer Camp Susan
Jacobs Jerry Silverman believes Jewish camp is the most powerful way to build Jewish identity and commitment in young people. As executive director of the Foundation for Jewish Camping, his goal is to greatly increase the number of Jewish children attending Jewish camps. “It is no accident that more than 65% of our Jewish leaders today, including rabbis, cantors, Federation executives, Jewish day school principals and JCC leaders, attended Jewish sleep-away camp as youths,” says Silverman, who says Jewish camping creates an imprint that lasts a lifetime. He points out that many well-known Jewish celebrities also went to Jewish summer camp, including singer Neil Diamond and commentator Larry King (who both attended Surprise Lake Camp in Cold Spring, NY), as well as comedian Jerry Stiller and actor Eddie Cantor. “Research studies by Ramah, Young Judea and Sales/Saxe clearly illuminate the impact Jewish camp has on Jewish continuity and identity. It is one of the most powerful and important experiences we can give our children,” states Silverman, who lives in Newton. “Although overnight camp can be expensive, I personally think it is the best insurance policy you can buy if you want your children to be engaged members of the Jewish community,” adds Silverman, who has sent all five of his own children to overnight Jewish summer camps. Statistics indicate that children who attend overnight Jewish summer camp are 20-35% more likely to marry Jewish, be observant, become actively involved with charitable organizations, join a JCC, and visit/support Israel. According to a recent Sales/Saxe study, 30% of Jewish campers reported that they were “much more” observant at camp than at home, while 34% reported that they were “somewhat more” observant during camp. In a Ramah study, 17% of teen campers queried reported that they only date Jews, compared to 6% who never attended Jewish camps. In the same study, 63% of those who attended Jewish overnight camp indicated that marrying someone Jewish was “very important,” compared to 41% who never attended a Jewish camp. The not-for-profit Foundation for Jewish Camping promotes more than 120 non-profit Jewish overnight camps in the United States and Canada. It funds fellowships, promotes scholarships, helps camps recruit staff, and serves as a resource for parents. Although at this point the foundation focuses exclusively on overnight Jewish camps, Silverman says it is “on our agenda” to address and analyze the value of Jewish day camps. “But there’s something about the 24/7 experience of overnight resident camps that creates truly compelling communities,” remarks Silverman. Advocates of Jewish camping note that valuable connections are made at camp. After sharing a summer of experiences together, teens create lifelong friendships. Since many Jewish camps incorporate shlichim (Israeli counselors), children gain a first-hand understanding of life in Israel, and develop a strong bond to Israel. And, as Silverman points out, more than 8,000 Jewish college students staff the overnight camps. “Camp becomes a great J-Date place. I can’t tell you how many people met their future life partner at camp,” he says. Perhaps the only drawback about Jewish sleep-away camp is the cost, even at the not-for-profit facilities. Most Jewish overnight camps typically charge between $1,200 (for a 9-day stay) to nearly $6,000 for eight weeks. This can put the squeeze on budget-conscious parents. Nevertheless, many of those who bite the bullet and give their children a Jewish camping experience consider their return-on-investment priceless. For more information on Jewish camping, visit www.jewishcamping.org. The site lists dozens of Jewish overnight camps including 15 in New England. For a listing of Jewish day and overnight camps, please refer to this story… 10 UMass Students from the North Shore Travel to Israel Gary
Band Going to Israel is said to be the single most important experience in building Jewish identity. And from all reports, the birthright trip to Israel has done just that for the some 80,000 18-26-year-olds from around the world who have visited the Jewish state on this free 10-day trip. Sponsored by the State of Israel in partnership with a host of philanthropists and organizations, the birthright (purposefully lowercased to distinguish it from a pro-life group) program offers many different tracks to experience Israel in a variety of ways. Categorized by denomination, (non-denominational, Reform, Conservative or Orthodox), as well as by geography and content, participants can choose the standard tour and see all the essential sites, the Tzedek or service track, or perhaps a trip with more hiking and camping as opposed to busing and staying in hotels. The groups are largely comprised of people from the same area in the US, Canada or abroad, but there is some overlap and some trips that have Israelis along for the ride. But no matter what option participants choose, organizers promise the trip of a lifetime. Ed Jaffe of Marblehead is a sophomore sports management major at UMass. “Everyone said it was going to do something to me,” he said. “I really didn’t know what, but it did. It definitely brought me closer to Judaism, not in a religious sense, but more cultural.” While struck by the Bedouin tent, Jaffe couldn’t name a favorite site. “The whole being in Israel was amazing. We had a group of really good people, half from the five-college area, some from San Francisco and some Israelis.” Jaffe said he had of course seen pictures, but nothing prepared him for the site of the Kotel (Western Wall) and everything else. His group went to as many safe places as they could, the Golan Heights, the Dead Sea and Masada. “The combination of everything made for a really cool trip,” he said. “I want to go back as soon as I can, and hopefully do a semester there.” Noam Ron of Swampscott is a sophomore psychology major at UMass. He lived the first seven years of his life in Tel Aviv and visits Israel every year, but never traveled as much as he did on the birthright trip. Traveling with and getting to know everyone on the trip was the best part for him. “It really brought us together as a group,” he said. “It was nice for me to be able to show my close friends where I’m from.” While some in the group knew what to expect, Ron said he liked seeing how people’s perceptions of Israel were dispelled. “Some thought of Israel and thought there were camels everywhere. It was fun to take people to see a city like Tel Aviv.” Victoria Royenberg of Marblehead is a senior political science and social and political economy major at UMass who was on the birthright Tzedek track that worked in an Ethiopian community in Haifa. This was her third time in Israel, after going twice in high school. There were 84 students in her group from all over the US. Twenty-one of them spackled and painted an apartment complex and played with Ethiopian children. “I feel like I’ve toured enough, and social justice is really important to me,” she said. “It was an amazing experience to do tzedakah and tikkun olam in Israel.” In
addition to the service project, Royenberg also spent the Shabbat on New
Year’s Eve at the En Gev kibbutz in Jerusalem, and stayed on for
an extra week with her best friend in Haifa and Tel Aviv with members
of her family. “Before I went, I had no real connection to Israel or Judaism. But each time I go back it gets stronger.” With
Liberty and Tzedakah for All Gary
Band In February 2004, Shep Gerwitz drove 39 straight hours with his son, Aaron and friend Brian. The purpose? To donate the 180 bags of clothing, 25 bags of non-perishable food and $2000 he had collected over the year to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and the Dakota Youth Project in South Dakota. Originally from South Boston, Gerwitz, 57, has lived in Lynn for 21 years. First inspired by his late brother Lew, a lawyer who left his Boston law practice to defend the rights of Pine Ridge Native Americans, Gerwitz has been involved in Native American struggle since 1973. His first visit to Pine Ridge was in 1975, shortly after the infamous FBI raid on June 26 and the arrest of Leonard Peltier for allegedly killing two FBI agents. “I admired my brother’s sense of justice and decency,” Gerwitz said. “This was a man who could have made a tremendous living, but he chose to defend those who had no one to defend them.” Many years later, Gerwitz said he talked to his rabbi and asked if tzedekah just meant Jews helping Jews or is it for everyone. “He said it was for everyone. I have a strong connection with the Lakota people, and I think we have the ability to salve the wounds of many impoverished people if we just open up and change the way we think. We are in fact instructed to be that way. ” Very well read, and reportedly not much into TV or radio, Gerwitz says when he’s not immersed in a book he’s on the phone soliciting contributions for Pine Ridge, one of the poorest places in North America. Over the years he has also spoken on behalf of native struggle at colleges and universities, powows and gatherings, in the US, England and Holland. With no source of income on the reservation, and surrounded by towns with very little infrastructure, the Pine Ridge population is plagued by high rates of unemployment, alcoholism and domestic abuse. Approximately 50 percent of the nearly 20,000 Native Americans living on the reservation are under the age of 18. Many of them, due to lack of parental support, are involved with gangs and eventually end up in the criminal justice system, condemning them to a lifetime of abuse, discrimination and recidivism. The Dakota Youth Project, established in 1999 and run by a man named James Robideau — with whom Gerwitz has been friendly for many years — encourages healthy lifestyles among children, youth and their families through workshops and seminars. DYP also organizes help for children/youth in providing for their everyday needs such as clothes, school supplies and toys. Robideau asked Gerwitz for help in raising awareness of and money for the Dakota Youth Project. “When a friend asks for your help, you give it,” Gerwitz says. “The things I brought last year put a look on the kids’ faces that wouldn’t be there otherwise. That’s my motivation.” Another goal of the DYP is to build a home that offers youth at risk security, access to education, skills training and counseling based on traditional teachings. A site to build on has recently been found, but raising the money for construction is difficult. In addition to efforts by a handful of Robideau’s other friends in the States and abroad, Gerwitz says he may be the Project’s biggest advertiser. “I’ve got a lot of good ideas and been in contact with hundreds of people, organizations, businesses and a number of foundations,” he says. “But it’s a work in progress, and hopefully more people will help us out and improve the lives of the Lakota people. ” For more information on the Dakota Youth Project, call Gerwitz at 781-592-9661. Ledgewood Owners Still Waiting for Firm Date to Move Back Home Gary
Band It’s been 14 months since a fire started in a “wall space void” causing significant damage to building No. 6 at Ledgewood Condominiums in Peabody. The December 19, 2003 blaze forced the 24 mostly retired condo owners from their beds late that night, and shortly thereafter from their homes, for an indeterminate amount of time. The owners’ individual insurance paid for alternate living arrangements for between seven to 12 months. But those payments have run out. And while tax abatements were granted, in addition to the $60 a night room rate and the cost of renting storage space for all their belongings ($190 per month), the owners have all along been required to pay the $278 maintenance fee, around $4000 so far, for a condo they have not lived in for more than a year. Fifteen of the 24 owners initially moved into the Homewood Suites on Route 1 in Danvers. More than half of them have either put their unit up for sale and bought another, moved temporarily into an apartment, or moved in with relatives until they can return to their home. But for those for whom these are not viable options, Homewood has been home, and no one can say for sure for how much longer. “The worst part is the maintenance fee,” said one owner. “Even if they charged us half, that would be something. This is our retirement money going right down the drain.” The maintenance fee has also gone up since the fire. Ledgewood owners were told all but definitively at the end of June 2004 that they would all be back in their homes by December or January at the latest. But those estimates have been revised. “It’s bad enough all this happened,” said the same resident. “At least if we saw the light at the end of the tunnel, but we don’t.” With all the structural work reportedly completed and compliance with fire codes met, estimates now put the move-in date sometime in the spring, most likely in May. “I wish we could find out why,” said another owner. “What’s the secret? We’re home-owners, but we’re being treated like we aren’t.” This owner had $8000 in alternate living insurance, which ran out two months ago and has since been paying out-of-pocket. When that owner asked the management company about suspension of maintenance fees, she was told she could hold off and pay at the end. “We still have to pay. What good’s that going to do me?” The owner said that she talked to Representaive Joyce Spiliotis, who said it was not up to the state, but the management company. Neither the condominium management company, Crowninshield, nor Carr Construction, the builders in charge of the project, responded to email and telephone requests for comment. International Summit Raises Hopes in Mideast Dina
Kraft TEL AVIV — Israelis are calling the Sharm el-Sheik summit, held next to the sparkling waves of the Red Sea, the “Summit of Hope” — hope that the speeches and handshakes really will signify the end of four and a half years of bloodletting and despair. “Tikvah,” the Hebrew word for hope, was splashed in large bold letters on the front pages of Israel’s newspapers Feb. 8, along with smiling photographs of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Reading quietly from prepared statements in their native languages, Sharon and Abbas tried to turn a new page at the summit, after the bloody years of the intifada. “Today in my meeting with Chairman Abbas, we agreed the Palestinians would stop all acts of violence against Israelis everywhere, and in parallel, Israel would cease its military activity against the Palestinians everywhere,” Sharon said. But Sharon also issued a warning, noting that terrorist groups have not acceded to the truce and have pledged only a temporary suspension of attacks. “This is a very fragile opportunity, that the extremists will want to exploit. They want to close the window of opportunity for us and allow our two peoples to drown in their blood,” he said. Like Sharon, Abbas expressed misgivings — for example, Israel is unlikely to agree to Palestinian demands to release all Palestinian prisoners or dismantle its West Bank security fence — but hazarded a little optimism. “For the first time in a long time, there exists in our region hope for a better future for our children and grandchildren,” Abbas said. When it came to discussing longer-term prospects, however, the rhetoric diverged. Abbas spoke of the U.S.-led “road map” peace plan, which envisions an independent Palestinian state. The host of the summit, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, pitched in with an appeal to “international legitimacy,” diplomatic parlance for U.N. resolutions that the Arab world insists require complete Israeli withdrawal from territory conquered in the 1967 Six-Day War — a view at odds with the Israeli and American position, and as the historical record makes clear, even with the resolutions’ stated intent. There was no covenant signed at the summit, only talk of Sharon inviting Abbas to his Negev ranch and a possible follow-up summit in Ramallah, the West Bank seat of Palestinian government. In a goodwill gesture, Egypt and Jordan announced they would return ambassadors they had withdrawn from Israel after violence erupted in 2000. Dashing Israeli hopes, however, they declined to say when the ambassadors would be returned, and one Jordanian official said the decision could be rescinded “in 10 seconds” should the peace process stall again. Even
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who boosted hopes of a breakthrough
with a whirlwind round of meetings with Sharon and Abbas earlier this
week, struck a note of caution. ”It’s the intifada’s graduation party,” Aluf Benn wrote in the newspaper Ha’aretz. But despite the fanfare and promises of a new dawn in Sharm el-Sheik, hopes have been strained by the years of fighting, distrust and profound sense of disappointment following the collapse of the Oslo peace accords. The question that violence-weary Israelis and Palestinians are asking is what the words will bring. Both sides know the road ahead will be a difficult one. The newly elected Abbas faces the daunting task of reining in terrorists over the long term. Sharon must press ahead with his planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank, despite the rift it threatens in Israeli society. Still, even a verbal agreement to cease hostilities marks the most concrete step forward since the death of Yasser Arafat, Abbas’ predecessor, in November. JTA Correspondent Dan Baron in Jerusalem contributed to this story.
Features All
Things Jewish In Baseball Rabbi
Steven J. Rubenstein In November of 2004, Gabe Kapler announced his plans for relocation a little farther afield. Taking advantage of his free agency, he signed a one-year contract with the Tokyo-based Yomiuri Giants. Those of us who consider the United States to be the goldine medina (land of gold) of baseball were left wondering why a professional baseball player on a winning club would decide to leave his homeland to live and play baseball in exile. I can’t say that Boston is the Jerusalem of baseball, as Baltimore’s Camden Yards has already earned that distinction by selling kosher deli sandwiches next door to a chapel that holds services during the fifth inning for those who need a dose of prayer to go along with their ball game. However, Fenway Park comes pretty darn close to being the Temple of baseball, given its stature and its history. As Danny Alexander, a Cambridge-based Japan market-entry consultant who speaks fluent Japanese reiterates in his article in the December 31, 2004 edition of The Jewish Advocate, “Very few of us in the Boston-area Jewish community who care about the Sox… are thrilled by the announcement that Kapler would be shipping out to some chopstick-dependent Hotzeplotz.” For those unfamiliar with this Japanese (or is it Yiddish) term, the dictionary defines the term as “a mythical or remote town.” But it is perhaps best understood as “way the hell and gone.” Kapler claims his reason for playing baseball abroad is to improve himself as an every-day outfielder, as opposed to remaining in his position in Boston as a reliable man off the bench. According to his mother, a Hebrew school pre-kindergarten teacher in Los Angeles, the more likely reason for his leaving Boston is to be closer to his family in California. Besides, when Gabe said, “Show me the money,” the Japanese made him an offer that very few people could refuse, even if it is in yen. Although security for himself and his family in future years may be a motivating factor in going overseas to play baseball, there is much for us to learn from his work ethic and his cultural identification as a Jew. It has been reported in numerous articles that Kapler has a Magen David tattoo on one ankle and the phrase “Never Again” in the same vicinity on the other. According to Jewish law, it is believed that Jews are forbidden from desecrating their bodies by permanently altering their skin with body art. In Japan, however, tattoos are signs of honor. They are used to identify membership in certain organized crime families. As Alexander points out, the tattoos on Kapler’s ankles are symbolic not only of his identification with the Jewish people, but are also a declaration of his rootedness in something greater than himself, a history as well as an extended family. When Gabe arrives in Tokyo, he’ll be happy to know that he won’t be as alone and as isolated from his extended family as one would expect living in Hotzeplotz. With a simple click of the mouse it was very easy for me to discover that Jewish civilization exists in the land of the rising sun. Indeed, in the middle of Tokyo, there is a JCC, complete with a synagogue, pool and a mikvah. And though he may not find all the amenities offered by Brookline’s Harvard Street, it is possible to make reservations for Shabbat dinner with a few days’ notice. What might surprise Gabe is that he is following in the footsteps of another famous Jewish ball player who visited this ancient country, albeit about 50 years ago. His predecessor was well educated, and could very well have been able to say “Am Yisrael chai” in Japanese, for he spoke 12 languages fluently. Moe Berg toured the country of Japan on several occasions during the course of his 19-year career in the majors. During his visits in the baseball off-seasons, he was accompanied by other professional ball players who played against Japanese all-star teams in various cities throughout the country. On other occasions, Moe was brought over to Japan to help coach various players by increasing their professional skills. In his article about Kapler, Alexander offers his landsman several words of advice, including reading the baseball books of Robert Whiting. One of them is entitled You Gotta Have Wa. What is “wa”, you may ask? The best way to describe it is a term that describes a condition of “calmness or reflection, tranquility and peace.” The Japanese prize “wa” as a virtue. If Kapler is going to succeed in Japan, one of the lessons he will need to master along with fielding and batting is how to live his life with a higher purpose along with his Japanese teammates so that “wa” is a part of that experience. There may not be many people who will recall the night when Moe Berg reached out to a troubled nation to offer them a sense of societal harmony in a world that had been split apart. However, for those who do remember, Gabe has some very big shoes to fill as our new ambassador of the Jewish faith. Camp
Round-Up Susan
Jacobs It’s
only February and there’s still snow on the ground, but it’s
time to start thinking about summer camp. Many camps fill up fast, so
don’t delay if you want to secure a space for your child this summer.
JCCNS
Prime Time Summer JCCNS
Kinder Kamp JCCNS
Camp Simchah JCCNS
Specialty Camps Discovery
Camp NSJCC
Camp Camp
Gan Israel Brooks
School Camps Camp
Menorah OVERNIGHT CAMPS Camp
Avoda Camp
Bauercrest Camp
Ramah Camp
Micah Due to lack of space, this guide cannot cover every Jewish camp. However there are many other overnight Jewish camps worthy of mention. For example, the Cohen Foundation supports several fine camps including Camp Pembroke for girls in Pembroke, MA, and the co-ed Camp Tevya in Brookline, NH, and Camp Tel Noar in Hampstead, NH. For more information call 1-800-375-8444 or visit cohencamps.org. IRA and IRA Rollover Do’s and Don’ts Mark
S. Singer Editor’s Note: This is the first-part of a two-part article on IRAs. The second part will appear next issue. As a soccer coach for my daughter’s team, my role was to empower the girls to understand the basic tools of the sport and how to maximize the particular strengths they brought to the team. As a coach to clients, my goal is to help people make smart financial decisions so they can enjoy the journey of retirement. The
following is designed to identify some of the costly mistakes individuals
make. Many of the solutions take time to tailor for each investor’s
needs. Though there is no guarantee of future performance, if set up properly, and if you take only the required minimum distributions, you can create a stream of income worth almost $1 million over a 46-year period, assuming a projected annual return of only 6 percent. Beware, however, that mistakes in setting up the rollover could destroy the benefits of this program. Non
Spousal Rollovers Not
listing or updating the beneficiaries on your IRA Improper
IRA Rollover Tax Reporting Upon review of one new client’s 2003 tax return, this error was spotted and she amended her return to get back $8,000 of taxes mistakenly paid. Mark Singer CFP© is a radio talk show host and President of Safe Harbor Retirement Planning, on the Lynnway in Lynn. He can be reached by e mail at mark55retire@aol.com. Securities offered through Commonwealth Financial Network, member NASD/SIPC. People in the News
Arts & EntertainmentBJFF Presents New Films from Israel and Uruguay The Boston Jewish Film Festival will screen three films, not yet theatrically released, each with an appearance by its filmmaker, in February and March. Walk on Water, with director Eytan Fox, Thursday, February 24, 7 p.m. at the West Newton Cinema. Fox is a leading filmmaker in Israel, and has been among the first to treat gay themes in film. His Yossi and Jagger won the 2003 Boston Jewish Film Festival Audience Award for Best Feature Film. Walk on Water follows fierce Israeli Mossad agent and second-generation Holocaust survivor Eyal on assignment to track down aging Nazi war criminal, Alfred Himmelman. Posing as a tour guide, Eyal befriends Himmelman’s liberal German grandchildren in Tel Aviv, Pia, and her openly gay brother, Axel. What begins as a deceptive mission crossing from Jerusalem to Berlin dissolves into a deeply personal and political journey through conflicting ideologies and histories, changing Eyal’s view of the world forever. Tickets: $12 in advance and for BJFF members, seniors, and students; $15 at the door. Call the Boston Jewish Film Festival at 617-244-9899 to purchase tickets in advance. Walk on Water opens its Boston theatrical release on March 18 at the West Newton Cinema and Landmark’s Kendall Square. Whisky, (Uruguay/Argentinia/Germany/Spain, 2004, 94 min., Spanish with English subtitles), Sunday, March 6, 1:30 p.m., with directors Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Thursday, March 10, 8 p.m., Sunday, March 13, 3:45 p.m., Thursday, March 24, 6 p.m. A multiple prize-winner at Cannes, this droll tale from Uruguay concerns Jacobo, the graying Jewish owner of a Montevideo sock factory, and his manager Marta, who have barely communicated with each other in their daily routine over the years. After a 20-year absence, Jacobo’s younger brother Herman announces that he is returning to Montevideo to attend the unveiling of their mother’s headstone. Anticipating this visit, Jacobo asks Marta to help out at home posing as his spouse. Whiskey will be preceded by the short film As Follows, by Uruguayan director Federico Veiroj, the irreverent story of a boy’s bar mitzvah and the religious rituals and family traditions it entails. Tickets: $9 general admission; $8 seniors, students, members of the MFA and Boston Jewish Film Festival. To purchase tickets in advance with a credit card, call 617-369-3306 or visit www.mfa.org/film. No phone orders for same-day screenings. Turn Left at the End of the World with director Avi Nesher (Israel/France, 2004, 110 minutes, English/Hebrew/French with English subtitles), Tuesday, March 15, 7 p.m., Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline. Charming, sexy, and comical, Turn Left at the End of the World is set in 1969, when two Jewish immigrant families — one Indian, the other Moroccan — become unlikely neighbors in the middle of the Israeli desert. Each asserting its own identity, the families become involved in a culture war that touches on everything from laundry soap to cricket. Meanwhile, each family’s teenage daughter negotiates the landscape of the sexual revolution — as do older family members, who try to be discreet about their actions. In the process, Sara (Liraz Charhi) and Nicole (Garti Netta) break through their families’ resentments to forge a bond of friendship Tickets: $15 general admission; $12 seniors, students, members of the Coolidge Corner Theatre Foundation and Boston Jewish Film Festival. To purchase tickets in advance with a credit card, visit www.coolidge.org. Presented with generous support from the Consulate General of Israel to New England.
Book Tells of Wandering Romanian Jews Bill
Gladstone Jill Culiner’s book follows the footsteps of the largely forgotten “Fusgeyers” — the word is Yiddish for “wayfarers” or “foot-wanderers.” As Culiner recounts in Finding Home: In the Footsteps of the Jewish Fusgeyers, she became obsessed with the subject after seeing a mention of the Fusgeyers in Irving Howe’s World of Our Fathers. Like much Jewish immigration in history, anti-Semitism prompted the Fusgeyers. When persecution in Romania worsened about 1899, tens of thousands of Jews sold their meager possessions, formed large groups for protection and marched hundreds of miles. Most groups consisted of between 40 and 300 migrants. Representatives of Jewish aid organizations met the weary pedestrians at towns along the Austro-Hungarian border and provided them with food and shelter, as well as train and ship tickets to their ultimate destinations. As many as 70,000 Jews took part in the pedestrian exodus that began in 1900. As Culiner notes, the American Jewish Yearbook of 1903 reported that some 200 to 300 Jews were streaming out of Romania each week, mostly on foot. In 1914, the outbreak of war reduced the flow to a trickle. Culiner found only a few historical works, such as Joseph Kissman’s The Immigration of Romanian Jews up to 1914, that dealt with the subject. By far the richest documentary source was Jacob Finkelstein’s Memoir of a Fusgeyer from Romania to America, a Yiddish manuscript held by the New York-based YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. A New Yorker who had trekked out of Romania with a pioneering group called the Barlad Fusgeyers, Finkelstein had submitted the work to YIVO in 1942 in response to a contest meant to attract immigrant stories. His first-person narrative took the prize. The Barlad Fusgeyers left the town of Barlad in April 1900 and journeyed some 200 miles in a large semicircle around the base of the Carpathian Mountains. They supported themselves by staging theatrical performances and selling brochures in Jewish towns on their route. It was the director of a Jewish social club, whose members sometimes staged amateur theatrics, who first came up with “a plan about how we can get to America without money,” Finkelstein recorded. “We all grasped the idea. We were a young, strong team with no fear of hardship. The plan had been so simple to work out that we wondered why we hadn’t thought of it before.” Consisting of 75 single men and three women, the Barlad Fusgeyers generated much publicity and public support, and received gifts of food and clothing from both Jews and Romanian peasants along their route. In many places they were welcomed as heroes. Their success encouraged hundreds of other groups to follow. The Fusgeyers’ reception in Central Europe, however, was generally less enthusiastic. For one thing, they were not permitted to continue on foot once they reached the border of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. “In Romania, everyone was proud of them, but by the time they reached Budapest, everyone looked down on them as poor refugees,” Culiner said. “The assimilated Jews of Vienna and Budapest and Germany were especially embarrassed by the Jews from the East. They were afraid they would once again awaken anti-Semitism in the non-Jewish communities.” In addition to Finding Home, the Fusgeyer saga may also be gaining new currency from another recent book and perhaps soon from a proposed documentary film as well. “People just don’t know the story, except for some Romanians of Jewish descent,” she said. “Even the children of Fusgeyers don’t know about it.’’ A New Start or ‘Same Old Same Old?’ It’s easy to be skeptical about Israeli-Palestinian prospects for peace, despite the obvious good feeling emanating from the Sharm El Sheik summit February 8 between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel and newly-elected President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority (PA). We have seen too many new starts between the two sides degenerate into renewed cycles of violence and bloodshed to put much faith in the words of leaders who pledge themselves — in Abbas’ words — to “cease all forms of violence against Israelis and Palestinians wherever they are.” Abbas realizes full well the logic for ending the suicide bombings, attacks against Israeli citizens and the infrastructure and Palestinian culture that support them. Besides impoverishing the Palestinian people, the Second Intifada, which began in September 2000, has taken the lives of more than 3,000 Palestinians, including almost 700 under age 18, and almost 1,000 Israelis, including more than 100 under age 18. Unlike
the duplicitous Yasser Arafat, who fomented terrorism his entire career,
we think Abbas is serious about putting an end to it. And we think Sharon
wants to secure his place in history as the modern day King David who
brought peace and security to his beloved homeland. But there is no lack
of obstacles facing both men. On Sharon’s side, obstacles include a “right of return” claimed by Palestinian refugees, émigrés and their heirs; the demand for East Jerusalem to become the capital of a Palestinian state; international demands to tear down the security barrier his government is erecting to reduce attacks; and militant opposition among the settler population and their supporters to his plan to withdraw from Gaza and portions of the West Bank this summer. Let’s hope that the leaders’ current optimism proves justified. “This is the start of a new era of peace and hope,” Abbas said at Sharm El Sheik. From his mouth to God’s ear. Help
the Food Pantry The
Food Pantry currently needs volunteers – to contribute canned food,
hygiene products, paper towels, and the toiletries we collect from hotel
bathrooms and airlines. They also need volunteers to make deliveries.
It takes a couple of hours one Sunday a month, and is, says Barbash, “a
wonderful family project.” Contact her at 978-535-2819 or email
abarb12084@aol.com if you can help. The Gaza Odyssey
Israel’s biggest internal conflict today involves the government’s decision to withdraw all Israeli citizens and military from Gaza. After 35 years of Jewish settlement and military rule, this poverty stricken hell-hole of discontent is scheduled to be returned soon to the Gazans and the Palestinian Authority. Here is the story, as I see it. In 1967, 19 years after Israel won its War of Independence, the Arab countries attacked and were again defeated. Israel occupied the territory east of the existing border and took Gaza from Egypt. We got a million Arab residents in the bargain. During the next 35 years, who among the Arabs benefited? Shop owners in the Old City of Jerusalem, Bethlehem and some other towns of the tourist routes. Palestinian workers who held jobs in construction, restaurants, industry and farming, mostly minimum wage, often day labor, with little chance of advancement but still better than their previous unemployment. The few educated bi-lingual people who worked in international hotel chains and hi-tech. Israeli hospitals were available to the Arabs for medical treatments. But the Israel government practiced a kind of benign neglect. No money of any consequence was put into improving education to give Arab youth a larger stake and more opportunity. The contrast between the Jewish settlements and the Arab villages, and particularly the refugee camps, remained enormous. No apartheid, no master race, not even a smart master plan. Under the squeaky wheel theory of government, the Gazan kids, those later to become militants and suicide bombers, were not heard at all. Peace and quiet reigned for many years. When things were peaceful, who could think of withdrawal? When things got tough, when people were killed by militant organizations, when more soldiers were required for protection, who could think of giving back the land under such provocation? It was a no-win, no-change situation. In bad times and good, the major political parties, the Labor and Likud governments, kept encouraging settlers and enlarging settlements. Now we know for sure that Israel was foolish to think that a nation of 5 million Jews could forever occupy territory populated by over a million Arabs. A Jewish state, or any non-Arab state, could not succeed. No occupier in the 20th century was ever able to pull that off anywhere in the world. We were fighting the rising tide of Arab nationalism, then Muslim religious extremism and vicious propaganda from Arab states that began before 1948. If that weren’t enough, there were the volunteers sent to form terrorist groups, along with money to pay for weapons and to support families of jailed militants or dead suicide bombers. Arafat and his well-fed and well-financed operatives roamed the region in their odyssey from Palestine to Tunisia to Lebanon. The Arabs succeeded in convincing a substantial part of the world that the Palestinian people were underdogs with a just cause. Israel’s image changed from the underdog fighting for her life to the overlord occupying the land of a legitimate people. Regardless, we need to understand settlers’ anger and disappointment. Successive Israel governments promoted the settlement of the occupied areas. Now they are being told to leave. Offering financial help to resettle is one question. The other question, ignored by the government, is treating the emotional impact of being uprooted from the work of a generation, and not only on the adults but on the children. Yet, withdrawal, and no other end, sooner or later, must come to close out our sojourn in Gaza. We tried for 35 years, we couldn’t make it work — no one could — and now we must leave.
The Ox in the Living Room
What would you call a person who doesn’t know what day it is? Disoriented? A little out there? Not with the program? Certainly such a person cannot be trusted to do much in life, especially the momentous task of producing my Jewish grandchildren. And since Jews count time by the parasha of the week (the weekly Torah reading), and because I take seriously the mission of bringing Judaism intact to the next generation — carrying the ball, so to speak — I used to find it particularly disturbing when my kids sat down to shabbes dinner with not a clue about the parasha. “What shabbes is this?” I would ask as they decimated the first challah. All eyes would suddenly fix on the china (or in my case, the Chinet) as the room became quiet. Nobody volunteered a word — until I had the bright idea to ask for a special birthday present. “All I want,” I said, as it inched closer to my special day this year, “is the parasha. Don’t give me any stuff. I’ve got tons of stuff. Just count time like a Jew, and I will be happy all year.” “What shabbes is this?” I asked on the Friday night preceding the Super Bowl, when ball carrying seemed a significant contribution to world culture. “Mishpatim,” said Zoe, the tawny glow bouncing from the candles to her eyes. “And what is Mishpatim about?” I ask. “It’s really boring,” says Zoe. “It’s all about the laws of what you do in case stuff gets damaged. For
example?” say I. “Yeah, or like if somebody falls in a hole in your yard, it matters whether they were trespassing or whether they were invited.” “Interesting,” “Not really,”says Zoe. “I mean how likely is that to happen? I’ve never even seen an ox. And how many people do you know who have huge pits in their yards?” Our shabbes table slides into revelry, laughing and chortling as the kids imagine oxen and pits perforating our neighborhood. Zoe likes this response, but I am somewhat disturbed that Jewish knowledge is becoming the butt of this joke. As they giggle at the foolishness of her week’s learning, I remember the scorn of non-religious Jews who complain that the Talmud is irrelevant, saying. “If an egg is laid on shabbes — what the hell do I care?” I look around at the chortling children and realize they have stripped me of the ball. So much for carrying it to the next generation. Easy
as it may look on TV, it is no small task to pass this delicate tradition
to the next generation. It would have been a lot easier if the rabbonim
had used more updated references and more user-friendly examples. The Modern-Day Chosen: The New England Patriots
I’m a little bit embarrassed to admit it, but I thought about stealing the Tom Brady point of purchase display from Stop and Shop and giving him a little peck on the cheek. Hey, he’s really cute and just like everyone else from Beantown, I just can’t get enough of the New England Patriots. Especially since they just won another Super Bowl. Looks like Brady will be greeting me for weeks to come at the supermarket, in the headlines, on the news and at the parade. If they had lost, he might have been in the dumpster and people would have gotten worried if they saw me rummaging through trash, but no one can blame me for confiscating the cardboard Brady from the super New England Patriots. In my humble opinion, athletes, especially from winning teams, are thought of as elite, revered, chosen to be role models and heroes for our children. Case in point, several years ago I was invited to my daughter’s awards from her elementary school. What parent can dismiss a call to such an event? The President’s Council called these children to get off their butts and get in shape, it’s the least a parent can do is show up on a sunny morning to show our respect to George W. and the long line of lean leaders before him. In fact, I think the phrase “Tight Butts Rule” should be chanted along with The Pledge of Allegiance to show our collective support of what is meaningful in America. Now
on this sunny morning, there were no big time awards for Emily or many
of her classmates who listened to the physical education teacher’s
lecture on what makes a role model. She kept on fading in and out because
the school didn’t make special audio arrangements to trumpet her
message, and this was a good thing. It then occurred to me that this is where it all begins. The she’s better than me, I’m better than you, high atop the milk crate. My daughter was pumped for these guys and easily accepted their place high above her. “Mom, they’re role models!” she stamped defending the champs. Now don’t get me wrong. These are great kids who possess many attributes besides physical prowess. But why didn’t the best speller get to stand on a milk crate? Or the kid who plays the piano, wrote a great poem or multiplies by double digits? How about the little girl who bravely finished second grade after her mother died of cancer? I personally appreciate the value of fitness, team sports and a good sweat. Hey If there were more natural endorphins circulating perhaps we’d have less crime and drugs. But I draw the line when I see kids being perched on pedestals in elementary school. Let them wait until they’re adults before they start climbing ladders and worshiping athletes. I’d like to think it still feels good to hold your best friend’s hand and chase a butterfly in the playground. While I applaud our beloved Patriots and revere their talent and tenacity, I’d like to believe there are much better candidates for the chosen people. Like our children and their values.
Most Hebrew Schools Suffer from an Inferiority Complex
The big news in Jewish education these days is, of course, the dramatic expansion in day school enrollment. We are indebted to Marvin Schick and the Avi Chai Foundation for providing us with the count as of the 2003-2004 school year: There were 759 schools and 205,035 students. For those of us in the non-Orthodox community, the growth in the Solomon Schechter schools of the Conservative movement and the burgeoning of Reform schools has been nearly breathtaking. I well recall the first creaky years of the Solomon Schechter School here in the Boston area, a product (as most such projects are) of the near-monomaniacal devotion of a small handful of people. Now that school is bursting at the seams, and there are three more Schechter schools in the area. But before we allow ourselves to be carried away, let us bear in mind that the total numbers involved on the non-Orthodox side of the ledger are in fact pitifully small. Of 205,000 students altogether, 18,000 attend Schechter schools and 4,400 attend Reform schools. Add in another 17,000 who go to community schools, and you still have less than 20 percent of the total. Day school education in the United States remains overwhelmingly an Orthodox phenomenon. So what happens to children in Sunday schools and in afternoon Hebrew schools remains a critically important, if often neglected, concern of the community. The matter was much on my mind recently, since I’d been invited to talk to the parents of an afternoon school on the matter of what an educated Jewish child ought to know. At first blush, the question seems easy: Hebrew, customs and ceremonies, a bit of Jewish history and so forth. But when you begin to think about it, you immediately come to recall that Hebrew school for most American Jews is remembered as the place where they failed to learn Hebrew. We desperately want our kids to understand something of the thundering history of the Jewish People, but mostly the best we can do, given their age and the quality of too many of our teachers, is to tell them that it was thundering. At eight years old, they may believe what we say, but it doesn’t much matter to them. At its best and strongest, Jewish history, as Jewish life today, is all about knowing how to answer the one key question that structures the entire saga of our People: Where are you? That was God’s first question, and it remains the operative challenge we are given. The answer to that question is no mystery; it, too, is presented, again and again, in our texts. The answer is, “Here I am.” A responsible and inspiring Jewish education, it seems to me, should be organized around teaching what being “here” means, where “here” is. Being “here” is not about geographic location; it is about a way of living. It is about being present, about paying attention, about internalizing the central concepts and values that inform our tradition. When I was a child, in a public school, we read Silas Marner. I’ve not looked at the book since, and therefore haven’t the foggiest idea why it was thought important for us to read it. At the same time, in Hebrew school, we were slogging through Biblical text. What I took away from the contrast was that Hebrew school, as cryptic as it often seemed, was about things that were really important, while public school was not. That was a while ago, and public schools, for all the bad rap they get, have plainly set themselves and their students higher standards than once prevailed. In the meanwhile, Hebrew schools have developed an institutional inferiority complex, born of the recognition that they are very much an add-on, very nearly an afterthought. In the best day schools, it is never that way.
Putin Silent on Jewish Auschwitz Victims
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech at the site of the Auschwitz death camp January 27 was widely noted in the Western press for its strong, and welcome, condemnation of the rising tide of anti-Semitism in today’s Russia. Much less noted, however, was the astonishing fact that, in a speech commemorating the liberation of the camp where the Nazis exterminated some 1.5 million Jews, Putin made utterly no mention of the victims’ Jewishness. Speaking at the international event marking the sixtieth anniversary of the Red Army’s liberation of Auschwitz, Putin spoke movingly of the 600,000 Soviet soldiers who died while liberating Poland from the Nazis, and of the more than 20 million Russians who were killed in World War II. But absent from his speech was any mention of the Jews who died there. Putin’s failure to acknowledge that the vast majority of the Auschwitz victims were Jews was consistent with the pernicious old Soviet policy of denying the Jewish identity of Holocaust victims. This policy found expression even while the Holocaust still raged. In the summer of 1944, David Ben Gurion’s deputy, Eliahu Epstein, met with a senior official of the Soviet Embassy in Cairo and raised the issue “of bombing the centers of Jewish extermination in Poland.” Epstein reported back to Ben Gurion that the Soviet official responded that “such an idea was out of the question politically, since the government of Russia would not adopt measures which were based on national grounds.” After the war, the Soviet authorities made a concerted effort to obscure the Holocaust victims’ Jewishness. Government publications, from official histories of the period to school textbooks, described Nazi atrocities against peoples of various nationalities — but did not acknowledge they were Jews. Perhaps the most infamous example of this policy was the inscription on the memorial that the Soviet government built to the Jews who were slaughtered by the Nazis at Babi Yar, in German-occupied Ukraine: “Here in 1941-1943, the German fascist invaders executed more than 100,000 citizens of Kiev and prisoners of war.” This effort to downplay the victims’ Jewish identity tragically was not confined to the Soviets. During the war, the Roosevelt administration was reluctant to call attention to the fact that the Jews were being singled out for persecution, lest that increase pressure on the U.S. to grant them refuge. In this same spirit, the chiefs of the U.S. Office of War Information instructed their staff that coverage of the Nazi mass murders would be “confused and misleading if it appears to be simply affecting the Jewish people.” A
meeting of the American, British, and Soviet foreign ministers in Moscow
in October 1943 issued a statement threatening postwar punishment for
Nazi war crimes against conquered populations. It mentioned “French,
Dutch, Belgian or Norwegian hostages ...Cretan peasants ... the people
of Poland” — but not Jews. Since becoming president of Russia, Putin has made considerable effort to put distance between himself and the old Soviet regime, including with regard to Jewish matters. But his apparent retention of the old Soviet policy of denying the Jewishness of Holocaust’s victims, particularly in a speech at Auschwitz, is a troubling throwback to a discredited Soviet practice. Medoff is director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, Philadelphia, which focuses on issues related to America’s response to the Holocaust. Korn, is associate director of the Institute. The Tsunami Catastrophe in Context The tsunami, with its wild waves of death and destruction, has revived one of the oldest questions: Where is God in the catastrophe? Of man-made catastrophes, the 20th century had a full spectrum of horrors and was perhaps the bloodiest in history. There was the Holocaust, three other genocides, two world wars, many regional wars, violent revolutions, communism, fascism, the Gulag, the Cultural Revolution, the atomic bomb, fire bombing, missiles, the use of chemical and biological weapons, the mass murders in the separation between India and Pakistan, the wholesale slaughter of political dissidents in Indonesia, the widening resort to terrorism, the human toll exceeded a million men, women and children. The statistic is factual but does not begin to depict the cost in terms of individual lives. Many books have been written in an effort to record the disaster in human terms. As to natural catastrophes, historically and annually, there is similar list. They include volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, droughts and famines, tsunamis, hurricanes, typhoons, the crashing to earth of asteroids and comets, and a series of medical plagues, including the Black death, influenza, malaria, smallpox and AIDS. Science tells us that 250 million years ago mass extinction took 90 percent of all marine life and nearly three-quarters of land-based plants and animals. A more recent mass extinction killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, possibly by a large asteroid or comet, or perhaps by the process of natural selection. And, currently, we are threatened by global warming. So,
as Job, we seek an explanation. Listed below are some of the historic
“answers”: Hyman
Goldin
Will We Help Needy Non-Jews? I was heartened by Mark Arnold’s article, “Remembering Dr. King” (Jan. 14-27). In 1964 I drove from Antioch College in Ohio to Mississippi to join the voter registration drive. Over 1,000 activists had been arrested and were held in the Jackson County Fairground. Our three heroes were still “missing in action.” Many of the student volunteers were Jewish. They had fashioned their notions of social justice from their parents and our Jewish leaders. My parents, Nathan and Sophie Gass, attended the March on Washington in 1963. They returned to Lynn, joined the NAACP and sponsored blacks entering business, young artists, and the anti-poverty program. The first meeting of Latinos was at our house, where my father told the group: “Get yourself organized and get your fair share.” An immigrant himself, he didn’t abandon the new arrivals. Sadly, the Jewish community has turned inward and blithely ignores the problems of people of color. Many Jewish individuals do their part, in social work, schools, business, political action. But I noticed at the MLK breakfast in Lynn, where 400 attended, there was nary a presence of rabbis or Jewish institutions. The exhibit on the Jews of Lynn attracted 1,000 people. We know where we came from. Are we willing to assist those who replaced us? Recently, I formed the non-profit group Lynn Investing in Neighborhood Coalition (LINC). Through the good will of the Perkins/Gross families, we were able to purchase their building in downtown Lynn. We are renovating it into condos for first-time buyers, most of whom are Latino. There needs to be more contact between the Jewish and Latino, Cambodian, African communities. Jewish philanthopists need to come to the aid of the faltering Community Minority Cultural Center. Jewish people have skills in health care, education, housing, law and finance that can benefit low-income populations, who face reductions in government programs, high rents and low income jobs. Rabbis and leaders: Stop sleeping and get involved, as you did in the 1960s. David
Gass ‘Advocate’ Going Sensational, Not Sensationalist We write to set the record straight on your conspirac | ||||||||||||