Jewish Journal Archives

Enrollment Improving at Cohen Hillel, But Challenges Remain
60% Growth in Kindergarten Inspires Optimisms

MARBLEHEAD — Cohen Hillel Academy officials are hopeful. After years of sliding enrollment, they believe the school is on the cusp of a transformation, pointing to this year’s 60 percent rise in kindergarten enrollment and the school’s consistently low attrition rates as signs of an imminent turnaround.

Still, they acknowledge substantial challenges remain, particularly in countering a belief that Cohen Hillel’s secular education is not as good as other area schools.
“I would say that the trend looks like it’s beginning to turn,” said Howard Abrams, president of Cohen Hillel’s board of directors. Abrams said that enrollment figures are part of “a larger sociological process” and have always been subject to various ups and downs.

“Enrollment is never a back burner issue,” he said. “We’re always thinking about grooming and planning for the future.”

Cohen Hillel, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, is among the oldest non-Orthodox Jewish day schools in the country, but in recent years its enrollment has faltered. The school currently has 198 students enrolled in kindergarten through eighth grade. Last year, the total was 207, down from a high of 274 in the 2000-01 school year.

In facing these challenges, Cohen Hillel is hardly alone. Like other day schools around the country, the school is coping with a range of interconnected problems, from shifts in Jewish demographic patterns to financial challenges.

“If I was going to guess, 75 percent of the non-orthodox Jewish day schools in the country are facing serious enrollment issues,” said Robert Tornberg, Cohen Hillel’s head of school. “There are two schools in Toronto that have lost hundreds” of students.

Suzie Cheatham, Cohen Hillel’s admissions director, says the reasons have to do with the economy on the North Shore, where Jewish parents with younger children may find the cost of living prohibitive, as well as larger demographic trends in which Jews are marrying later and having fewer children.

The economic boom of the 1990s also played a role: In the 1980s, Cohen Hillel was down well below 200 students before the numbers began to rise. Now that the boom has busted, the numbers have declined again.
“This lull was very predictable,” she said.

According to Tornberg, a generation gap has opened between the children of baby boomers, many of whom have delayed parenthood into their thirties, and younger couples who are having fewer children — but he emphasized that the tide may be turning.

“I think we’re in a valley that those issues have created,” he said. The “catch-up period” between the generations appears to be coming to a close.

The numbers bear that out. This year saw a 60 percent increase in kindergarten enrollment, from 10 to 16, and Cheatham expects next year will be even better.

“Although our numbers are fewer this year, the number of new students is higher,” she says. “We are very excited about next year.”

If history is any guide, students that begin Cohen Hillel in kindergarten tend to stay there. Attrition rates are consistently under 10 percent, which Cheatham says is “considered good.” Graduating classes at Cohen Hillel average in the mid-twenties. This year, 31 students will graduate from eighth grade.

Even if Tornberg and Cheatham are right and the school has in fact turned a corner, there are other, more entrenched challenges that remain. Many area parents see Jewish education as one option among many and are hesitant to make the necessary financial commitment, particularly if they perceive the secular education to be sub-par.

Toby Freedman of Marblehead is considering sending her son Max to Cohen Hillel for kindergarten and says that the decision is “90 percent academic.”

“I’m Jewish, and I care about Hebrew, but I care more about math and science and all those things,” she says.

Freedman is planning to attend an open house at Cohen Hillel this month in November and says she is trying to keep an open mind, despite hearing negative reports about the quality of secular education at the school.

“Recently, people have been swaying me not to go to Hillel because supposedly the academics are not as good as they are at Shore and Tower, which naturally worries us,” she says. “Some people said they spend too much time on Hebrew. A lot of people seem to think it’s gone downhill.”

When people do speak encouragingly about Cohen Hillel, says Freedman, they tend to emphasize the “fuzzy” environment rather than the academics.

Freedman belongs to a population identified in a recent study of Jewish parents as Best of Both Worlds, or BOBs — parents who would like to send their children to a Jewish day school, but not at the expense of a top-quality secular education.

Only 30 per cent of BOBs send their children to Jewish day schools, compared to 70 percent among Believers — parents who insist on a Jewish education no matter the cost.

“If we only offered a strong Jewish component, without an excellent secular program, we would not be attracting people,” Cheatham says. “It has to be the combination. But because we do offer both, parents are interested in sending their children here.”

Eric Levy is a graduate of Cohen Hillel, a former board member and treasurer, and a parent. He is also a self-identified BOB who first put his son into Marblehead public school.

“We ended up at Hillel primarily due to dissatisfaction with the public schools [and] we became more and more committed over time,” says Levy. “That said, if what I felt was that they were not getting the secular education that they need, and it was being sacrificed against the Jewish education, then I would not hesitate to look elsewhere for them. That’s what a BOB would do.”

The study — a survey of over 500 Jewish parents in the Massachusetts region — was commissioned by the Day School Advocacy Forum, or DAF, an advocacy group based in Newton. DAF’s executive director, Ilene Sussman, says that declining enrollment is a problem facing Jewish day schools across the country and points to the same factors as Cheatham, but she emphasizes that the financial impediment is often overblown.

“It’s very easy for admission directors to say, ‘It’s money,’” she says. “It’s a good excuse. We really thought [money] was going to be the primary reason, and it wasn’t. It was the quality of the academics.”

Tuition at Cohen Hillel for the current academic year is $13,475. That figure is slightly below the cost at Solomon Schechter Day School in Newton, which runs about $15,000 a year. The Schechter School in the Merrimack Valley charges $8,000.

The low rate of enrollment among BOBs, says Sussman, is due to their misconception that day school education is inferior to that of other private or elite public schools. This view persists — to the enduring frustration of school officials — despite what Tornberg and others say are SAT scores and college admission rates that rival or exceed those of other schools.

“If you look objectively at the educational program of the school and the outcomes of the students who graduate, this school is really strong,” Tornberg said. “Year after year we find ourselves equal to or above the independent school norms in nearly every area.”

Tornberg is quick to point out that test scores and enrollment are far from the only indicators of a healthy school, even if they are the most easily measured.

“What we do really well is we teach kids how to learn, he said. “That is our greatest strength. Our kids leave here and they know how to study and they know what to study. And that is not so easily measured.”

He added, “If you come out of the business world, you want to measure on real metrics that are obvious. And enrollment is the most obvious.”

Jeslyn Medoff chose Cohen Hillel for her daughter Rozena after she had a negative experience in public school in Swampscott. She has no regrets about the move and in hindsight says the decision was “beshert.”

“We just needed a place that was going to nurture her emotionally and spiritually as well as intellectually, and that’s what we found,” says Medoff.

While she is pleased with Rozena’s experience at Cohen Hillel, Medoff says she never would have considered the switch were it not for her disappointment with public school.

“Neither my husband nor I attended” day schools, she says. “A private education was not something that was embedded in our family history. Our families have always attended state schools.”

In the lingo of the DAF study, Medoff is a Jewish Public School parent, a group that is committed to sending its children to public schools, believing they facilitate Jewish integration with society at large. Among more liberal Jews, a public school education is sometimes viewed as an unambiguous good, while Jewish education, if it’s a priority at all, can usually be received at an after-school program at a synagogue.

Jill Levine of Swampscott is another Jewish Public School parent who, despite hearing that the academics at Cohen Hillel are “fantastic,” chose public school for her two children because Cohen Hillel was insufficiently diverse.

“For myself personally, coming from a background in education and family counseling, I felt as though it’s too homo-genous for what I want my kids to get out of a school environment,” said Levine. “I really want them to go to school with all different kinds of people.”

According to Sussman, parents like Levine and Medoff are not an obvious target market for day schools, as their commitment to a public school education runs deep. The proper focus of marketing efforts, she says, should be on the BOBs.

“They need to be getting out the word about the quality of the education,” says Sussman. “And it needs to be coming not just from the school, but from the parents.”

“I think it’s important that our current satisfied parents do word of mouth marketing that the various studies show is the most effective kind of marketing.,” he said.

Merritt Mulman, the Feder-ation’s executive director and the parent of a Cohen Hillel graduate, believes that parents in the community may be hurting the enrollment effort .

“It seems to me that the preponderance of the conversation is far too focused on the weaknesses of the school,” said Mulman. “We as a community have a tendency not to herald the strengths of the school, which are plenty, and include the secular education.”

In a letter to parents last month, the board of directors of Cohen Hillel Academy announced that it will not renew the contract of Robert Tornberg, the head of school, when it expires next June.

Tornberg, who has served Cohen Hillel for 11 years, initially as principal and then — following an administrative restructuring — as head of school, is a nationally recognized figure in Jewish education and the author of several books and articles on the subject.

“The overall sense was that in order to lead the school to where we’d like to have it go, we need to have some changes take place,” said Howard Abrams, president of Cohen Hillel’s board of directors. “[Tornberg] has a long list of accomplishments and contributions to the school for which we are very appreciative.”

Abrams stressed there was no “one single issue” that precipitated Tornberg’s departure, and acknowledged that, while the board’s proceedings were conducted with “dignity and respect,” there was considerable disagreement among its members.

Tornberg told the Journal he was disappointed with the board’s decision but still planned to finish out the period of his contract.

“I respect the board’s responsibility and right to make strategic decisions for the future of the school,” said Tornberg. “My hope is that whether people agree or disagree with the board’s decision, they will continue to support the board and the school to move forward and grow and develop. This is absolutely what I intend to do through the end of business on June 30.”

Tornberg told the Journal he believes that enrollment, an area where Hillel has struggled in recent years, was one of the board’s principal concerns.

Abrams was vague on what qualities the board was looking for in a head of school, saying only that it was searching for someone with “new ideas.”

For the second time in two weeks, vandals have struck Jewish institutions on the North Shore, according to officials from both Chabad Lubavitch of the North Shore in Swampscott and Congregation Ahabat Shalom in Lynn.

At Chabad, a van was set on fire in the synagogue’s parking lot sometime between late Friday and Saturday, Oct. 22. According to the Swampscott Police Department, the fire was deliberately set.

“Since this fire occurred at a house of worship we take this investigation extremely seriously,” said Swampscott Police Chief Ronald Madigan. “I recognize this incident causes concern and anxiety in the community and I hope that anyone in the community with information will help us and come forward so we can solve this case as quickly as possible.”

Officials are asking anyone with information to call the Arson Hotline, at 800-682-9229.

At Ahabat Sholom in Lynn, markings were found on the bulletin board in front of the synagogue as well as on some lampposts in the surrounding area.

According to witnesses, the content of the graffiti was not immediately clear, but Avraham Kelman, the congregation’s rabbi, said the word on the bulletin board appeared to read “agreeve.”

Lynn police said three juveniles, from 12 to 16 years of age, were spotted in the area on the evening of Oct. 21.

“We were all devastated,” said Kelman. “I really don’t know if this is a genuine hate crime or just some kid bought himself a bottle of spray paint and was having fun.”

A spokesman for the Lynn Police Department said the incident had been forwarded to detectives from the juvenile department.

“It’s premature to consider it a hate crime at this point,” said Lieutenant Dave Brown, the public information officer. “It will require further investigation.”

The van fire is the second act of vandalism perpetrated against the Swampscott Chabad House. On Oct. 1, two congregants discovered graffiti scrawled across the walls of a social hall on the synagogue’s ground floor.
Swampscott police would not say whether they believed the same perpetrators were responsible for both incidents.

Nevertheless, the attacks led Chabad to implement a series of security precautions aimed at deterring future incidents and reassuring community members.

“Once you have three events in the same area, it’s something that needs to be taken extremely seriously. And we are taking it very seriously,” said Yossi Lipsker, Rabbi of the Swampscott Chabad. “The alarm system is activated. We’ve created a task force in the shul to address the security needs.”

Lipsker has established a fund that he hopes will raise $24,000 by Chanukah to cover the costs of a surveillance system.

An anonymous donor called Lipsker following the arson to say a new van would be delivered to the Chabad the following week.

“There’s been an unbelievable outpouring of support,” said Lipsker. “The overwhelming reaction I get from people is not of anxiety, it’s of indignation.”

In an email widely distributed in the community, federation director Merritt Mulman urged North Shore Jews to respond to the attacks by attending a synagogue.

Mulman later told the Journal that he doubted the attacks could be dismissed as “generic vandalism.”

Mulman believes that the community needs to be more vigilant but, with resources already stretched, he had difficulty envisioning substantial additional measures being implemented.

“Our community needs to understand that we live in a time and in a place where being a Jew is as its always been, which is something other than the standard norm” said Mulman. “We’re so assimilated in this country that we’ve lost sight of that.”

With heightened vigilance, Lipsker said Chabad would continue to operate as always. “We’re certainly not intimidated,” he said. “Everything that we’re doing, all of our programs, is business as usual with the addition of tightening up of security measures. We’re implementing better protocol with regards to who has access to the building. We should be fine.”

Andrea Cheatham’s lifelong interests in Judaism, dance and family history could only lead to one thing — Trace, a modern dance program she is presenting Saturday, Nov. 12, at Hebrew College in Newton. She is enrolled in the college’s master’s program for Jewish Education.

At 29, Cheatham, the daughter of Suzie and Tom Cheatham of Swampscott, has far-ranging experiences to share. She was born in Israel, discovered dance at age four and, at eight moved to the North Shore where she attended Cohen Hillel Academy. She and her family spent two years in Japan when she was a teen, but returned in time for her to graduate from Swampscott High School in 1994. At George Washington University, she studied dance and Jewish studies as well as communications. She has continued to dance and perform throughout her adult life wherever she has lived, in Manhattan, Boston, North Carolina and Panama.

When she began her master’s program last spring, the idea for a performance took hold. The modern dance pieces in Trace are thematically connected to the concept of memory, which she believes plays an integral role in Jewish tradition and culture.

“Memory is not a new obsession for me,” says Cheatham, who has always been interested in nostalgia and familial histories. “It is not always by chance the things we remember. Memory is self-defining moments that become perpetuated. We know this happens personally and culturally. And within Judaism, memory is important.” She points to the Jewish story of Passover and the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt as a prime example. “We have memories of things we did not experience,” she adds.

The Holocaust is explored in the dance “Inheritance.” Cheatham was inspired to create this while teaching English in a Jewish day school in Panama that her great-grandparents helped found. Cheatham realized that “we have all these visceral memories of the Holocaust, even though we weren’t there.” In this dance, seven female dancers evoke powerful images of dead bodies and passers-by attempting to appear invisible to avoid soldiers.

The dance entitled “Her Coat” evolved from Cheatham’s studies in a Jewish American short stories course. The duet, which Cheatham performs with 60--year-old Maren Falk of Marblehead, focuses on the “stories that mothers tell daughters; which create ex--pectations and a slew of influences, and [affect] how a daughter lives her life in reaction.”

Cheatham will perform a solo with music by Jennifer Paul, a cantorial student, as well as an improvisational duet with guest choreographer Rebecca Levy, her cousin. Levy, who is originally from Newton and now lives in Los Angeles, will also perform “Memory,” a piece dedicated to her grandmother, Emma Levy, who was instrumental in remembering the family’s Panamanian history. “Memory” features a mother and her actual daughter, age 11.

Twelve dancers of all ages are involved in the performance. Proceeds from the event will be donated to hurricane disaster relief efforts.

Trace has offered Cheatham a unique opportunity to interweave her enthusiasm for Jewish study, modern dance and the power of individual, family and cultural memory. Cheatham hopes the audience will incorporate its own memories and experiences in the “Talk Back” immediately following the performance when viewers may speak directly to the dancers. This form of audience participation is intended to allow the audience to be a part of the process and make the dance accessible.

Trace: Andrea Cheatham Dance takes place November 12 at 8 p.m. at Berenson Hall, Hebrew College, 160 Herrick Rd., Newton Centre. General admission is $25. For tickets call 617-559-8610 or contact knachman@hebrewcollege.edu.

Tainted Teachings: An Investigative Report
What Your Kids Are Learning About Israel, America and Islam

NEW YORK (JTA) – With the school year back in full swing, do you know what your children are learning?

In thousands of public school districts across the United States, without ever knowing it, taxpayers pay to disseminate pro-Islamic materials that are anti-American, anti-Israel and anti-Jewish.

Often bypassing school boards and nudging aside approved curricula, teaching programs funded by Saudi Arabia make their way into elementary and secondary school classrooms.

These teachings enter school systems with the help of a federal program, Title VI of the Higher Education Act, that is now up for renewal.

Expert analyses of these materials have found them to be full of inaccuracies, bias and proselytizing. They also have found that many of the major history and social studies textbooks used in schools across the country are highly critical of democratic institutions and forgiving of repressive ones.

These materials praise and sometimes promote Islam, but criticize Judaism and Christianity and are filled with false assertions.

Most taxpayers don’t know they’re paying — at the federal, state and local levels — for the public schools to advance these materials.

Much has been written about the anti-Israel, anti-American bias found at many university Middle East studies departments, some of which receive Saudi funding. Critics have also probed the export of Saudi teachings to American mosques and Islamic schools.

A special yearlong investigation by JTA reveals for the first time how Saudi influence is penetrating the American classrooms of young children. The investigation uncovers the complex path by which biased textbooks and supplementary teaching materials creep into U.S. public schools. It reveals who creates these materials and how some of America’s most prestigious universities — with the use of federal funds — become involved in disseminating them.

Saudi influence enters the classrooms in three different ways. The first is through teacher-training seminars that provide teachers with graduate or continuing-education credits.

The second is through the dissemination of supplementary teaching materials designed and distributed with Saudi support. Such materials flood the educational system and are available online.

The third is through school textbooks paid for by taxpayers, some of them vetted by activists with Saudi ties, who advise and influence major textbook companies about the books’ Islamic, Arab, Palestinian, Israeli and Middle Eastern content.

Ironically, what gives credibility to the dissemination of these distorted materials is Title VI of the Higher Education Act, a federal program enacted in 1958 in part to train international experts to meet the nation’s security needs.

Under Title VI, select universities get federal funding and prestigious designation as national resource centers for the study of places and languages the government deems vital for meeting global challenges.

Eighteen of these centers are for the study of the Middle East; each receives an average of about $500,000 per year. The taxpayer-supported grants are worth at least 10 times that amount in their ability to garner university support and attract outside funding, proponents of Title VI say.

As part of its federal mandate, each center assigns an outreach coordinator to extend its expertise to the community and to school-age children in kindergarten through 12th grade. Outreach usually includes workshops, guest speakers, books, pamphlets and whole syllabuses and curricula broken down into teaching modules, with instruction booklets for teachers, and sometimes visual aids such as films.

While some school district officials are completely unaware of the material reaching their teachers and classrooms, others welcome it: Believing they’re importing the wisdom of places like Harvard or Georgetown, they actually are inviting into their schools whole curricula and syllabuses developed with the support of Riyadh.

The “Arab World Studies Notebook” is one such example. Billed by its creators as an important tool to correct misperceptions about Islam and the Arab world, the manual for secondary schools has been blasted by critics for distorting history and propagating bias.

First published in 1990 as the “Arab World Notebook,” the manual was updated to its current form in 1998. The newer publication was created as the joint project of two organizations — both of which receive Saudi funding.

Some of the references are subtle, critics say, making them all the more harmful. For example, the manual:
• Denigrates the Jews’ historical connection to Jerusalem. One passage, describing the Old City, says: “the Jerusalem that most people envisage when they think of the ancient city, is Arab. Surrounding it are ubiquitous high-rises built for Israeli settlers to strengthen Israeli control over the holy city.”
• Suggests that Jews have undue influence on U.S. foreign policy. Referring to Harry Truman’s support of the 1947 United Nations resolution to partition Palestine, separating it into Jewish and Arab states, it says: “Truman’s decision to push the U.N. decision to partition Palestine ended in the creation of Israel. The questions of Jewish lobbying and its impact on Truman's decision with regard to American recognition — and indeed, the whole question of defining American interests and concerns — is well worth exploring.”
• Suggests that the Koran “synthesizes and perfects earlier revelations,” meaning those ascribed to by Christians and Jews.
• Leaves out any facts and figures about the State of Israel in its country-by-country section, but refers instead only to Palestine.

One of the groups involved in the publication is the Berkeley, Calif.-based Arab World and Islamic Resources, or AWAIR (www.awaironline.org), founded in 1990 with funding from organizations that include Saudi Aramco, a Saudi government-owned oil company.

Saudi Aramco World, the publication of Saudi Aramco, features pieces praising Shabbas and her teacher-training materials.

The second organization involved in the manual is the Middle East Policy Council of Washington, which helps print and disseminate the 500-page manual of essays, lesson plans and primary sources.

The council lists the manual as the primary resource material for its teacher-training program. It employs Shabbas to conduct its training and seminars. According to the group’s website (www.mepc.org), more than 16,000 educators have attended its workshops in 175 cities in 43 states. The manual itself claims to have reached 25 million students.

The council, which is headed by Charles Freeman Jr., a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, gets direct funding from Saudi Arabia.

In an interview, the council’s acting director, Jon Roth, declined to specify how much money his group gets from Riyadh, but made clear that he is seeking much more.

In September, Roth visited Saudi Arabia to meet with Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud, a member of the royal family who owns Kingdom Holding Company, one of the world’s wealthiest companies.
“We have been trying to cultivate the relationship with the prince for a long time, because he has lots of money,” Roth said after his trip. “Our hope and expectation is millions” from the Saudi prince, who initiated the meeting after hearing about the teaching program, Roth said. He said his group operates on an annual budget of $750,000.

The council’s board of directors includes executives from companies with huge financial stakes in Saudi Arabia, including Boeing, ExxonMobil Saudi Arabia, the Carlyle Group and the Saudi Binladin Group.
Roth said that funding to the organization “has no strings attached.”

Sandra Stotsky, a former senior associate commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Education, is one of a growing number of critics of the “Arab World Studies Notebook.” It is one of the examples she cites in a study, “The Stealth Curriculum: Manipulating America’s History Teachers,” in which she examines supplemental teaching materials.

The problem with many of the supplemental materials, which are most often distributed through teacher training workshops, “is the ideological mission of the organizations that create them,” she said in her study, published last year by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, a Washington-based think tank on education.

“They embed their political agendas in the instructional materials they create so subtly that apolitical teachers are unlikely to spot them.”

In an interview with JTA, Stotsky called the notebook “a piece of propaganda” rather than scholarly work.
The American Jewish Committee issued a scathing report on the manual earlier this year, called “Propaganda, Proselytizing, and Public Education: A Critique of the Arab World Studies Notebook.”

The report said that the publication, while “attempting to redress a perceived deficit in sympathetic views of the Arabs and Muslim religion in the American classroom, veers in the opposite direction — toward historical distortion as well as uncritical praise, whitewashing and practically proselytizing.”

The result, the AJC report said, “is a text that appears largely designed to advance the anti-Israel and propagandistic views of the Notebook’s sponsors, the Middle East Policy Council (MEPC) and Arab World and Islamic Resources (AWAIR), to an audience of teachers who may not have the resources and knowledge to assess this text critically.”

David Harris, the AJC’s executive director, said upon issuing the report in February: “Educating American children about the Middle East and about different religions is vitally important, but the notebook is precisely the wrong way to go about it.”

Shabbas, in the introduction to the manual, says that AWAIR’s mission is to counter the “rampant negative stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims held by most Americans.”

“Recognizing that no work is of greater importance than the preparation of our young people for their roles as thoughtful and informed citizens of the twenty-first century, and recognizing too that U.S. involvement with the Arab World and with the wider world of Islam is certain to remain close for many years, AWAIR’s goal is to increase awareness and understanding of this world region and this world faith through educational outreach at the pre-collegiate level,” she writes.

In an interview with JTA, Shabbas said the goal of the notebook is “to establish a basis for understanding the Middle East” by examining the largest of the groups that live there — the Arabs.

Responding to criticism specifically about the effect of Jewish lobbying, she said everything in the manual comes from the Arab and Muslim point of view: “The notebook is what it is. If you go out anywhere in the Arab world, you’re likely to hear that view” of the U.N. partition and Jewish influence

NEW YORK — In an un-precedented day for the
State of Israel at the United Nations, the General Assembly agreed this week to designate Jan. 27, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, as the annual International Day of Commemoration to honor victims of the Holocaust.

The adoption of the draft resolution by consensus marked the first time Israel had presented and passed a resolution at the U.N. A spokesperson from the Israeli Mission to the U.N. said that Israel had attempted to present several resolutions during the 1950s, “but they were all rejected.”

Dan Gillerman, Israel’s Ambassador to the U.N., opened the historic meeting on Oct. 31, saying “The United Nations was founded on the ashes of the Holocaust and the commitment to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war and uphold and protect the dignity and worth of the human person. The U.N. bears a special responsibility to ensure that the Holocaust and its lessons are never forgotten and that this tragedy will forever stand as a warning to all people of the dangers of hatred, bigotry, racism, and prejudice.”

Brazil’s Ambassador, Ronaldo Mota Sardenberg, called the Holocaust “a paradigm of genocide — a crime that had not been defined until then and one not affording legal recourse before then.” By remembering the Holocaust, the international community would not only renew its indignation and rejection of the acts committed, he said, it would renew its commitment to fight oppression and prejudice wherever it took place.

With 104 countries co-sponsoring the resolution, most member states offered similar words highlighting the importance of commemoration, but the debate did generate its share of political statements.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton referred to the widely condemned comments made last week by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that Israel should be wiped off the face of the map.

“When a president of a member state can brazenly and hatefully call for a second Holocaust by suggesting that Israel, the Jewish homeland, should be wiped off the map, it is clear that not all have learned the lessons of the Holocaust and that much work needs to be done,” Bolton said.

The Jordanian ambassador, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein, was the only representative from an Arab State to speak on behalf of the resolution. Al-Hussein pledged his support for the day of remembrance, but attached a few caveats.

“The Holocaust was a different genocide; a genocide where wickedness fell into union with human organization… a crime of the most colossal proportions,” he said. “Unfortunately though, and by contrast, ‘never again’ is also sometimes used as a form of moral justification for the implementation, by one state, of some policies, the effect of which is the continued domination and degradation of one people by another people.”

Asked about the comments of the Jordanian Ambassador, Anat Friedman, Israel’s U.N. Mission spokeswoman, said she did not want to comment specifically on the Jordanian ambassador’s criticisms. “The important thing is to that he supported the resolution, and the focus should not be taken away from this historic achievement of an international day for Holocaust remembrance,” Friedman said.

There was no actual vote on the resolution as no country objected to General Assembly President Jan Eliasson’s call to adopt the measure by consensus. There were, however, some reservations expressed by representatives of Egypt and Venezuela, who said that all genocides, not just the Holocaust, should be given a day of commemoration.

“No one should have a monopoly on suffering,” said Maged Abdelfattah Abdelaziz, the Egyptian Ambassador.
In addition to the day of commemoration, the resolution urged members of the U.N. to develop educational programs to instill the memory of tragedy and prevent genocide from ever occurring again.

JERUSALEM (JTA) — As Israeli government minister with responsibility for the world Jewish community, I have the privilege of meeting Jews of all types from all over the world. There are huge cultural, historical and theological variations among us, and these lend color and variety to our people.

But the differences also create problems. The deep rifts that occurred in Israel over the issue of disengagement from the Palestinians and the battles among different groups demonstrated once again the profound divisions among us. The Jewish people stand in danger of splitting into different factions with different narratives.

On a daily basis, we witness the disgrace that is attached to religion when it’s linked with the horrors of priests engaging in child abuse and the fanaticism of “religious” suicide bombers. Tragically, our own faith also has spawned instances of the desecration of God’s name. The rabbis recognized these and declared that it was our failure to show care, compassion, decency and lovingkindness to one another that caused so many of our sorrows.

In our own times, the massacre of Arabs at prayer in the mosque in Hebron and the murder of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin were desecrations of God’s name that drove me to put to aside my work in the rabbinate to enter Israeli politics. I felt that it was crucial for the Israeli government to work on a grand scale to change Judaism’s image from one of intolerance and fanaticism and restore it to one of ethics, tolerance and compassion.

Yet the desecration of God’s name has not ended. Like so many of you, I was shocked and bewildered when I witnessed the terrible scenes of hurricanes hitting America’s Gulf Coast, the devastation they caused and the victims’ suffering.

In the midst of these tragedies, it has been wonderful to see how many Jewish communities have stretched out their arms to help those who have lost everything.

But I was saddened by the words of some leading rabbis who took it upon themselves to offer explanations for what had happened. Without any basis in logic or religion, they argued that Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita were the result of America’s support for the Gaza Strip withdrawal and a lack of Torah study in America.
The rabbis’ comments appeared just before the High Holidays, when we were in a time of deep reflection. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are not the times when we stand in judgment on other people. On the contrary, they’re the times when we must think carefully about how we have treated others and whether we could have done more to help them.

Holiness is not the exclusive possession of those who engage in detailed ritual observance, nor is it the preserve of those who devote their energies to the pursuit of spirituality. True holiness is found in small actions that make a profound difference to the lives of the people around us and the world in which they live.

Wherever I travel in the Jewish world, I’m struck by the way that ordinary Jews are determined to perform kiddush Hashem — sanctification of God’s name — and to avoid a hillul Hashem, the desecration of God’s name.

The concept of kiddush Hashem offers a powerful challenge that has particular resonance in our times. Each one of us has to ensure that the word “Jewish”’ is always associated with the highest levels of ethics and kindness so that our behavior always brings credit to our heritage and to our God.

That’s why I’m so delighted to announce that in partnership with the Koldor organization, leading rabbis, youth movements, student organizations, community centers and synagogues, my office is launching the Jewish Social Action Month in Cheshvan, which begans this year Nov. 3.

It falls one month after Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, so it’s a time to draw on all the resolutions we made over the High Holidays. It’s also a month with no festivals in it, enabling us to dedicate time to social action.
Throughout the month, Jews from across the globe will perform acts of loving kindness to their neighbors, both Jewish and gentile. The concept of social action can be interpreted broadly, and there are endless possibilities for action.

Israeli Friends of the Earth, for example, will launch initiatives to clear up the debris that ruins our countryside. Israel’s police force will engage in projects to show care and concern in the community. One youth movement will organize a sports event for the underprivileged, while another will arrange a national blood donation drive.
It’s beautiful to see how in Israel, South America, North America, Russia and Europe, Jews ranging from chief rabbis to the most secular will be engaged in social action activities.

I very much hope that you will feel moved to join the project: to perform kiddush Hashem and turn our world into a better place. I look forward to hearing about your activities and reading about them on the website of the prime minister of Israel office, melchior@it.pmo.gov.il.

Rabbi Michael Melchior is a deputy minister in the Israeli government with responsibility for Israeli society and the world Jewish community.

“Hineini: Coming Out at a Jewish High School” is the story of Shulamit Izen — a gay teen who in 2000 began a quest to form a gay-straight alliance at New Jewish High School in Waltham. Her brave campaign forced administrators and students to initiate a dialogue about pluralism at the private school, and ultimately mobilized other queer students and four gay faculty members at the school, commonly known as New Jew, to publicly come out.

The 60-minute documentary was directed by local filmmaker Irena Fayngold and produced by Keshet, a Boston-based gay Jewish organization.

The film debuts at the Boston Jewish Film Festival on Nov. 13, and will be followed by a panel discussion with, among others, Shulamit Izen (now a student at Brown University), director Fayngold, and Rabbi Daniel Lehman, headmaster of the school. The event is sold out, however Keshet is organizing future local screenings of the film.

The title “Hineini” refers to what the prophets replied when God called out to them and roughly translates to “Here I am.” It is an appropriate reference to Izen, a shy, articulate and observant young woman who in the beginning of the film struggles to reconcile her sexuality with her faith.

“I want to be Jewish and gay and holy. Where do I fit in with my tradition?” she implores. She finds a niche at Keshet, where she volunteers as an intern and is encouraged to take on the institution that is making her (and presumably others) feel so isolated.

“I can struggle with Torah and God — struggle is essential to being a Jew,” says Izen. “What I don’t want to struggle with is my community. I want a community that’s open, supportive and safe.”

Izen arranged a meeting in the fall of 2000 with school principal Rabbi Daniel Lehman to discuss the prospect of creating a GSA (gay straight alliance) at the school. Personally uncomfortable with the issue and concerned about backlash from Orthodox parents and the board, he offered little support.

However under Massachusetts state law, all schools must permit a GSA to form if there is interest. Disappointed but undefeated, Izen plugged away — phoning students (who were generally unreceptive) and putting up fliers that were ultimately torn down.

The school scheduled an assembly in the spring of 2001 to formally address the issue where several courageous teachers surprised everyone — and risked their careers and reputations — by publicly declaring their homosexuality.

As a result of the assembly and Izen’s work, Lehman changed his tune, New Jew created a GSA called Open House, a same-sex couple attended the prom together, and Izen was ultimately awarded a Women Who Dare award by the Jewish Women’s Archive.

“Hineini” is the first full-length film for director Irena Fayngold, who by day works as an associate producer at the Educational Programming Department at WGBH, a television station in Boston. She was attracted to the story for a variety of reasons.

““It wasn’t just the story of one girl — it was a much bigger story about a Jewish community dealing with pluralism and diversity,” she told the Journal. “As a feminist, a woman and a Jew, I’ve struggled with the tradition. I was inspired how Shula[mit] refused to be pushed out, and instead claimed her own place in the tradition.”

It was a challenge for Fayngold, who began shooting in 2002, to tell the story in a compelling manner after key parts of it had already occurred. She does an admirable job, however, using voice over techniques and having Izen write in a journal to illustrate the early details.

For information about future screenings of “Hineini,” phone Keshet at 617-524-9227.

“I’m giving it all up to become a veterinarian,” says Peter Himmelman, his dry mid-Western twang still evident decades after he left his native Minnesota in pursuit of a music career.

He’s kidding, of course. The acclaimed singer/songwriter has no plans to give up music to care for sick animals, though with Himmelman it’s often hard to tell where the joking ends and the sincerity begins.

An observant Jew and successful songwriter, Himmelman has written Emmy-nominated scores for such television shows as “Judging Amy” and “Bones.” He is also the son-in-law of another famous Jewish songwriter from Minnesota, known to the world as Bob Dylan.

Himmelman spoke with the Journal from his home in Santa Monica, CA on a recent Friday afternoon as he prepared a Shabbat dinner for friends and family, offering his wry perspective on juggling the pressures of a successful career and the minutia of being a father and husband.

“Right now my mind is dead and small. I’m in a small place,” he says. “At one o’clock I got to defrost a chicken. I should get my shoes polished. Who’s coming over? You’re filled up with things that are mundane.”

Himmelman’s daily chores might be ordinary; his music is anything but. He writes songs that are profoundly spiritual and sincere, but his demeanor – both in performance and in conversation – is sarcastic and often riotously funny. His signature stylistic elements are a bowler hat and a pair of jutting, lightning-shaped sideburns and he speaks in a low, laborious drawl more suited to a truck driver from Omaha than to an urbane L.A. songwriter.

Which is not surprising since he spent the first two decades of his life in Minneapolis where he began performing with bands at a young age. His debut album, “This Father’s Day,” was released in 1986 and earned him a recording contract with Island Records. He has since released 10 more solo albums and three children’s CDs, as well as work for television and film.

Currently, Himmelman is working on a documentary film entitled “Mitt’n Da Rinen” (Yiddish for “Suddenly in the Middle of Everything”), which follows his recent summer tour in Israel. “Judging Amy” had just been cancelled and Himmelman was in Israel for a series of shows and to collaborate with a local band (“This band with nipple rings and scrotum rings,” he says.). At first, rehearsals didn’t go so well, but eventually they got it together enough for a U.S. tour.

“It’s somewhat uplifting but in a non-serious, maudlin kind of way,” he explains.

The same could well be said of Himmelman. He is strictly observant – laying teffilin each morning, keeping kosher and eschewing Friday night performances – but he wears it lightly, even self-mockingly. He admits to be being bored in shul and would never force his children – he has four – to endure an uninspiring service.

“Forcing a person to be spiritual is like forcing them to like ratatouille or Seals and Croft,” he says. “Either you do or you don’t.”

Despite his obvious spiritual bent – Himmelman has written passionate songs about his love for his children, being inspired by a woman with a debilitating illness, and the death of his father – he has achieved more critical and commercial success than many other religious artists.

“I don’t look at myself as a Jewish act, even though everything I do is probably Jewish,” says Himmelman. “I’m not representing anything really. I don’t think I have any clear agenda. I’m just writing songs based on what I’m feeling at the moment.”

Himmelman’s Sabbath observance hasn’t hindered his musical success either. He tells of a producer who once wanted to start mixing a record on Saturday, but Himmelman refused to begin until three stars had appeared, signaling the end of Shabbat.

The producer remarked that Himmelman’s refusal wasn’t as burdensome as those of some other artists he has worked with. “It may be a pain in the ass,” Himmelman says of Shabbat, “but it could be a lot worse.”

What has been difficult is balancing his family obligations with the rigors of being a touring musician.

“If anything has been a problem it’s been not sacrificing my family life for the god of rock fame,” he says. “If you check the casualty list of marriage and kids, you’ll find a lot of carnage out there and I didn’t really want to be a part of it.”
To insulate himself, Himmelman limits the amount of time he spends on the road, typically the place where musicians make the bulk of their earnings. He hasn’t performed in the Boston area in several years, an absence he attributes, half-jokingly, to a review that compared him unfavorably to his famous father-in-law.

“The whole article was about what Bob Dylan would have done that Peter didn’t do, in a real derisive way,” he says. “I was so pissed off I just wanted to strangle this guy.”

The obligations associated with scoring a weekly television show also keep Himmelman in Los Angeles during the season. But the rigors of writing on demand, he says, help channel his creativity.

“The reason that somebody writes a song in the first place, they feel something of an existential disconnect from other people,” he says. “It’s a real serious need to connect.”

That need may arise out of a lack of self-worth, he says, a feeling that is relieved when a producer commissions a piece of music and imposes a deadline.

“They’re saying, ‘We want you. We love you. And we love what you do,’” Himmelman explains. “Which is really what you are as an artist. And you feel safe and wanted. Your material needs are now taken care of.”

It’s not the writing method many would expect from a songwriter whose music seems to flow from someplace deep within him, and Himmelman concedes that many are surprised to hear it.

“People are aghast at this so-called spiritual guy talking in such crass physical terms,” he says.

In September, Himmelman released “Mission of My Soul,” a retrospective collection of 19 previously released songs. A greatest hits record is often a telltale sign of a career entering its twilight, a suggestion Himmelman dismisses. He remains immersed in his work, with a film due to be released within the year and a new children’s CD on the way.

Being in the midst of something is a place Himmelman tends to celebrate. The explosive beginning or the climactic end are, he says, the things people tend to regard as the most interesting. The struggle in between what Himmelman refers to as the middles is rarely addressed, and never glorified.

“For me, there’s nothing more interesting than someone in the middle of a process,” he says.

It’s an understandable sentiment for someone in the middle of his career, juggling the obligations of work and family, bound by religious strictures yet still reaching artistically. Himmelman continues to struggle because, he says, “once in a while you discover a new thing.”

“You are panning for goldand most of what you got is silt,” he says. “But because you found gold before, and you know what it’s like, you keep looking for it.”

When throngs of Israelis gathered in Malchei Yisrael Square in Tel Aviv in November 1995 to sing songs of peace and shout support for the government’s peace efforts, Israel was a very different place. An historic peace accord had been signed the year before and for the first time, Israelis allowed themselves to hope that a new era was dawning. That hope soon turned to horror when Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, architect of the Oslo peace accords, was gunned down by a right-wing extremist. The blood-stained lyrics to the peace anthem “Shir LaShalom” Rabin was carrying in his pocket that night became an iconic emblem of the lost hopes of a generation.

It has been 10 years since Rabin’s murder and — though several have tried — it remains too soon to judge his legacy. Five years after the implosion of the peace process, the belief in “land for peace” seems like a dangerous delusion. Most Israelis have reluctantly concluded that no Palestinian peace partner exists and a plurality supported the unilateral decision to reshape the country’s borders by retreating from Gaza. The starry-eyed idealism of the 1990s has given way to a sober realism that rejects the premise of Oslo — that political concessions would undercut Palestinian extremists and usher in a new era of coexistence.

Meanwhile the Israeli right, which was vindicated by the second Intifada, has not emerged unscathed. Ariel Sharon, the architect of the settlement project and once one of Rabin’s most vocal critics, has endorsed the creation of a Palestinian state — a view that once qualified one for membership in the most remote provinces of the far left. A new consensus has converged around Sharon, an unlikely successor to Rabin but one whose tough-minded pragmatism has, for the moment, carried the day.

The other strain of Rabin’s legacy was supposed to have been the taming of Israeli politics. After his killing, it became taboo to display images of Israel’s leaders garbed in Nazi uniforms — so common in the early 1990s — because it was seen as opening the door to political violence.

But time is hard on the memory, and in ten years that taboo has substantially eroded. In the run-up to disengagement, the opposition — while largely peaceful — revived the Nazi metaphor, frequently likening Sharon to Hitler and Gaza to Munich. It was reported earlier this year that a group of extremists had conducted an ancient ritual whose Aramaic name translates as “lashes of fire” which is supposed to cast a deadly curse on its target — the same ceremony that ten years earlier was directed at Rabin. In a recent poll in the newspaper Yediot Achoronot, 70 percent of Israelis said they believed another political assassination was likely.

Israel’s democracy withstood one political assassination. It would be beyond foolish to test it with another. The lesson learned in the shocking aftermath of trauma often fade with time. On the 10th anniversary of Rabin’s murder, that lesson could stand to be remembered..

“I Can’t Do Anything About It”: Will This Be Our Legacy?

I am hoping this is my friend’s temporary sadness of heart. He was always the greatest political warrior, neither forgetting, nor forgiving, nor failing to fight political transgressions, public vanities and outrages.

But there are millions of others in America who have quietly dropped out of the political fray. Many were once engaged citizens who advocated, marched, worked for and financially supported political candidates.

What pushes people to give up is the enormous disconnect between the deadly seriousness of the issues and the duplicitous sleaze of many politicians in both Congress and the White House — as well as the incredible incompetence of many executive appointees.

The possible (many think probable) avian flu pandemic that without an effective vaccine will kill millions here and around the world. The Bush appointee heading the government’s effort has been called another Michael Brown.

The continuing and expensive (lives and money) war in Iraq begun with errors or lies or both and now seemingly impossible to end satisfactorily.

Global warming and other environmental degradation resulting in horrific weather today and continuing rapid melting of the polar ice caps. Think of Worcester in 50 or 100 years being our new Revere Beach.

Nuclear war and nuclear terrorism. Will Britain, France, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, North Korea — and even Israel and the United States — forever hold back from using their nuclear weapons?

More immediately threatening are terrorists like the present crop of radical Muslims who are determined to get their hands on nuclear material. They — who behead other human beings, face to face, one on one, and kill scores or hundreds or thousands of innocent civilians without remorse in a single attack — will not think twice about using nuclear bombs.

But the situation is made even worse when you layer it with the criminality, incompetence and hollow pomposity in Washington. The White House implodes with scandal, lies, and bungling unqualified appointees. I mean the politicians, lobbyists and corporate leeches feeding on the budget pie, not the civil servants.

The House of Represen-tatives is an almost unchangeable oligarchy. Unless a member of the House actually kills somebody, is convicted of racketeering, or just plain dies, he or she is unlikely to lose a congressional seat.

There’s more: if you can’t raise millions, or don’t have millions of your own to invest, or if your family name is not Kennedy, Rockefeller, Bush, Clinton, and now Carter, your chance of winning a congressional seat is about as good as my becoming the next Secretary-General of the United Nations.

We ordinary citizens feel impotent when we come up against all this. Yes, we can build a Habitat for Humanity house, but battling avian flu or nuclear terrorism?

It leads to the heart-hardening mantra, “Don’t bother me, I can’t do anything about it.”

Or as my daughter puts it, “Abba, you talk of global warming; I’m just trying to find a parking space in downtown Jerusalem.”

I understand and I admit my own guilt, my own dropping out from time to time. Many times I stopped all delivered newspapers because I just couldn’t stand the repetitive bad news.

I’m back now and saying, If we drop out, we leave it all to our children and grandchildren to work out, if there is something left to sort out. That shouldn’t be our legacy.

I write this a day after the death of Rosa Parks, who in 1955, a then-unknown seamstress riding a bus in Birmingham, forever changed America for the better.

“Oh my gawd, I planned to wear that to school today!” shouts the Jewish daughter.

“I found it rolled up in a ball near the trash can so I thought perhaps I’d wash it,” says the Jewish mother with a sideways smile.
“Now I have nothing to wear and I’m not going to school,” announces the Jewish daughter behind a slammed door.

“Can you stop yelling at the kids?” pipes in the Jewish husband from behind the shower door.

I walk into the living room to reclaim my equilibrium and step directly into a dog poop.

Thus begins another day, where I am blamed for everything from late laundry to puffy hair to the tsunami and Hurricane Katrina and the clock has not even struck eight. Life is a complicated maze where Jewish mothers appear at all detours to be screamed at before their family jumps on the saddle and rides away. I am not bemoaning my destiny (although it may sound like it). I am just wondering.

I sometimes think that my children sit in school as the teacher scrawls their homework on the chalkboard counting down the minutes that they can come home and chastise me for the injustice of not being able to watch the O.C.

I have been held accountable for everything from the Gap not having the right color capris to the nimbus clouds on vacations. One of my favorites is the fate of the puffy un-Jennifer Anniston hair.

Deep in my heart, I understand that the reason they feel so comfortable dumping their worries and woes into my open arms is two fold. Number one, I am the Jewish mother and my arms are open. Number two, there wasn’t a long line of applicants who want to be responsible for everything under the sun including planning a vacation where there are no airline glitches or clouds in the sky.

It’s like Charles Schulz said, ”Sometimes I lie awake at night and ask why me? Then a voice answers nothing personal, your name just happened to come up.” Guess what? I am glad it did.

I thought we were done. When they closed the ark and blew the shofar for the last time on Yom Kippur and we all went home to break the fast, I thought we were through for a while. We put up our sukkot and decorated them. We sat and ate and benched and shook the lulav; we smelled the lovely scent of the etrog.

Usually, that’s enough. By the time we roll the scrolls back to begin another Torah cycle, we are spiritually ready to enter a different phase of life. Usually. But this year, I’m finding it difficult to see the seasons pass; the heaviness in the skies seems not to have lifted.

If you’re someone who reads the Torah, you have an intimate knowledge of how God punishes humankind through weather. And if you believe in the God of the Torah, you know that the melting polar icecap and that gaping hole in the ozone layer are not accidental. Nor is the unusual severity of the hurricane season something a religious person can dismiss as merely random.

Some might say that despite the intensity of our davening during the recent chaggim, we were not able to avoid the brutality of Katrina, Rita, or Wilma. Floods of Biblical proportions have been unleashed, reminding us of God’s punishing the evil-doers of Noah’s time. “Ketz kol basar ba lefanai — The end of all flesh rises up before me,” God tells Noah.

Across our planet we have recently seen astonishing disasters brought on by weather. Earthquakes, mudslides, and a myriad of other natural debacles have coincided with the season of repentance and forgiveness so that tens of thousands across the globe are now homeless or dead. War, unrest, and uncertainty dog us. Snow comes out of season, two months before winter. Warm summer days trickle through fall. Winter threatens ominously. The end of all flesh? When the roof blows off your house or you run out of fuel, it becomes easier to imagine.

George Bush might not have the intellectual capacity to determine that global warming is a scientific fact. But as we toss our weekly quota of 350 million soiled baby diapers into landfills and as we burn our rapidly evaporating fossil fuels in automobiles the size of living rooms, we must know on some profound level that we are culpable in the destruction of this planet. In my neighborhood, I sit downwind of a power plant that blows toxins into my back yard, while the governor toys with increasing its license to pollute.

Are these recent encounters with the cruelty of nature a moral confrontation, as alluded to in our holy books? It’s Parshat Noah this week. Should we be wondering whether our recently extreme weather conditions are a punishment for the way we are living our lives in the modern world? For the way we act as custodians of our planet? For the multiple infractions of our proud and powerful nation which wages illicit wars, neglects the poor while lifting up the faces of the rich, and is perverse in judgment?

Should we be out shopping for a new planet?

What were the high holidays about if we cannot start out with a fresh slate? Why roll the Torah scrolls back to the first word, if we cannot really roll back our sins or our misdeeds?

Many modern people struggle with a religious tradition that postulates reward and punishment visited upon us through nature; we may be too sophisticated to succumb to a message painted by such a broad brush. And yet we may still be primitive enough to ignore the message of the wind and the rain.

There’s been considerable coverage these last days of Rosa Parks, whose death a full half-century after the brief episode that rendered her an “icon” calls to mind a long-ago time.

But there’s been little evocation of that time, the events and the circumstances that earned Ms. Parks iconic status. Still, to what seems to me the overriding moral of the story …

The year is 1955, the date is December 1st, and the place is the city of Montgomery in the state of Alabama. On that day in that place, a 42 year-old black seamstress named Rosa Parks left the Montgomery Fair department store late in the afternoon for her regular bus ride home.

There were 36 seats on the bus, and all of them were soon filled. Twenty-two Negroes took the rear seats and 14 white people sat in the front. When a fifteenth white passenger got onto the bus, the driver called for the four black people in the row just behind the 14 seated

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“I Can’t Do Anything About It”: Will This Be Our Legacy?