| The Jewish Journal Archive | ||||||||||||
| September 24 - October 7, 2004 | ||||||||||||
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Local StoriesMembership
Has Its Price Gary
Band There’s
no time like the High Holidays to realize just how much it costs to take
an active role in Jewish life. And for those with young and school-aged children — some of whom may have just paid upwards of $4000 for summer camp — the coming of fall also means paying $400 a month for temple pre-school, $600 a year for Hebrew school (if you’re a temple member), or upwards of $14,000 a year for a day school education at Cohen Hillel Academy or a Solomon Schechter school. Add to that membership dues at a Jewish Community Center, the Israel Bonds and Jewish Federation appeals, and it’s clear how much money it takes to keep up with the Schwartzs. Though temples offer abatements and camps and schools provide scholarships, many working couples and single parents complain that they simply can’t manage these expenses. A community member who asked that her name not be mentioned said it’s about making choices. “You can’t do it all,” she said. “You have to decide what’s most important and try to make it work. I could have sent my son to summer camp at Swampscott Park and Recreation for $25 a week instead of the almost 10 times that much at a Jewish camp. But to hear him singing Hatikvah in the back seat and watching him do an Israeli dance gives me a lot of joy.” According to a congregant at Temple B’nai Abraham in Beverly, “It’s great to be asked and become a member of the temple family, but they don’t tell you until afterwards what it costs.” So while every temple, camp and school costs money to maintain and pay staff, the question becomes, is it only the well-off who can afford to be Jewish? “I’m not looking for pity or a handout,” said Rebecca, another community member who asked that her real name not be used, “but a way to keep my kids Jewish.” Rebecca, who grew up in an observant family in Sharon, works full-time, has three children under 10, is remarried to a non-Jew, and wants her kids to have as much exposure to Judaism as possible. But even with their dual income, Rebecca says it is nearly impossible to pay temple dues, send her oldest to camp, and be able to send her younger daughters to a Jewish pre-school. Her daughter received a scholarship to attend summer camp, and Rebecca contacted a number of North Shore temples to inquire about their abatement policies. But she said she “felt like a loser” constantly having to request help, fill out paperwork, and have her financial statements scrutinized to determine her eligibility. “This is not want I want my oldest daughter to remember, that we couldn’t go to temple on the High Holidays or she couldn’t go to camp because we couldn’t afford it.” Asked whether she had considered the lower cost structure of Chabad of the North Shore, Rebecca said she doesn’t feel comfortable there. On the other hand, Leah, a single mom with three kids who attend Chabad Hebrew School, said that her former temple and Hebrew school was too expensive on her current single income. She found Chabad welcoming and non-judgmental. “They call and invite you to dinner, the school is inexpensive, and they make it really fun for the kids. There’s no reason why money should interfere with religion.” Rachel, another community member who requested anonymity, said her experience asking for and receiving an abatement for temple membership dues was a relatively positive experience. And while her temple dues were lowered considerably, Rachel still pays full price to have her two daughters in the temple’s Hebrew school. “They really want to go and it’s important to me that they’re part of the Jewish community. I would miss the temple very much if I and my kids couldn’t be part of it because of money.” According to Rabbi David Klatzker of Temple Ner Tamid in Peabody and president of the North Shore Rabbinic Council, “It’s not easy for many people to meet these costs.” He refers to the Cleveland Jewish community, whose Federation he says is talking about subsidizing temple membership for young families. “It’s something that our community might consider thinking about.” Merritt Mulman, executive director of Jewish Federation of the North Shore, says people struggling to meet the high cost of being Jewish is not an issue unique to this community. But with regard to raising funds to help those in need, Mulman says the North Shore needs to have a stronger culture of philanthropy. “The Federation makes a gift to Cohen Hillel — which has reduced their tuition — to underwrite scholarships. But we don’t have enough to give, and kids are getting turned away. That’s a reality.” Cleveland, a community of 120,000 Jewish people, can afford to help underwrite synagogue membership for young families because they’re sitting on a $500 million campaign chest, says Mulman. Baltimore is another example of a community that gives in large numbers. “There’s a history of philanthropy there,” Mulman says. “But just because certain people make large gifts, that doesn’t absolve others from contributing. Tzedakah is everyone’s responsibility. It makes our community stronger by allowing more people to participate in the richness of Jewish life.” Seven
Ex-Maldeners Recognized at CHA Fund Raiser Cohen Hillel Academy’s annual fund raiser, held September 12 at the newly-renovated Opera House in Boston, honored seven men and women who grew up together in Malden and who have been important influences and benefactors of Cohen Hillel Academy and other North Shore Jewish organizations. The event grossed revenue of more than $300,000, making it the most successful fund raiser in the school’s history. Honored were Arthur and Eunice Epstein, Neil Cooper, Ira Rosenberg, Arlene Goodstein, Stan Black, and Dr. Bert Wolf. They received the Dr. Bennett I. Solomon Community Leadership Award for “outstanding commitment to the community” from Head of School Robert Tornberg and School President Dr. Howard Abrams. Dana Brown, principal of Malden High School, also gave awards on behalf of the City of Malden to the seven, who were described as excellent role models of Jewish leadership. More than 1000 people turned out to recognize the honorees at the event, which also featured the award-winning musical, The Lion King. Among the attendees were Rep., Edward Markey and Meir Shlomo, consul general of Israel. Chairs of the event were Gala: Jill Gilberg, Barbara Gold, Marjorie Patkin, and Ruthie Salter; Honorary: Marcia and Mort Ruderman, Flori Schwartz, and Anne Selby; Advisory: Joan Finn and Rosann Liebman. Cohen Hillel is a nondenominational school in Marblehead that seeks to provide a superior Jewish and secular education to youngsters in grades kindergarten through eight. It has an enrolment 207 drawn from 16 communities representing multiple streams of Judaism. Its school year began earliler this month. Temple Shalom Welcomes New Cantor For the New Year Gary
Band Hebrew College Cantorial student Shana Onigman grew up in Wakefield, but she has come a long way to find herself leading High Holiday services with Rabbi Lee Levin at Temple Shalom in Salem. After applying to 20 temples for this year, in addition to fulfilling her essential role on Shalom’s bima, Onigman will also lend her voice to three other congregations from Syracuse, NY to Brookline in 5765. It was during her junior year at Bennington College in Vermont that the now 26-year old drama major began considering the cantorate. A Temple Emmanuel congregant with her family since childhood, Onigman worked with Rabbi Ilana Rosansky for two years when the rabbi was leading the congregation in Wakefield. “I had my bat mitzvah at Emmanuel, always led Kiddush, and had a fairly good voice as a kid,” Onigman says. She also took voice lessons at Bennington and studied Hebrew at college and with Rabbi Rosansky. “She was a great teacher.” A defining moment for Onigman occurred while preparing for a service and Rosansky asked her, ‘Are you nervous? Well, you’re not allowed to be. You’re not preforming. You’re a conduit through which the prayers of the congregation go upwards.’ “That had a great effect on me,” Onigman says. “I was doing so much theatre and in the spotlight all the time. Although I had this power to move people, I prefer not to be in the spotlight. But to be the conduit through which people can reach a deeper level of spirituality, that is exciting for me.” Under the auspices of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Onigman attended her first year of cantorial school in 2001-02 at a Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem, before returning to the H. L. Miller School of Cantorial Studies at JTS in New York to continue her studies from 2003-04. But because her husband Matthew — whom she met at Bennington and got engaged to while she was in Israel — was working in Boston, Shana transferred to a brand new cantorial school at Hebrew College in Brookline as part of the Cantor-Educator, or Hazzan-Mechaneh program, run by Cantor Scott Sokol of Congregation Kehillath Israel in Brookline. She’ll graduate in 2005. Matthew, a conductor and singer as well, works at Steinway Piano Company in Boston. The couple has been invited to sing with the Zamir Chorale, in residence at Hebrew College. Matthew has also guest conducted for Zamir as part of the Mary Wolfman Epstein Conducting Fellowship, standing in for long-time conductor Joshua Jacobson. JTS and Hebrew College both encourage their students to work for congregations as much as they can while in school. “The more chances I get to lead services at different synagogues the better off I’ll be when I graduate,” Onigman says. At the year’s end, Onigman is not sure if she’ll stay on at Temple Shalom. “I
really love Boston because of Zamir, and have enjoyed my time at Temple
Shalom. I just hope to be get a good congregation and am open to the possibilities.”
Mayor Torigian: Good for the Jews Gary
Band Torigian, the son of Armenian Genocide survivors, served in the U.S. Marines and was a former city councilor. In addition to the work he did to improve the city of Peabody during his more than two decades of service, he was also an advocate for and supporter of the Jewish community. “He was always concerned about the right issues,” said Sonia Weitz of Peabody. “For us and the Holocaust Center he was a godsend. He gave us our first home at the McCarthy school and helped move us to the Peabody Library. “When we had our big conference at Salem State College, and then for our Human Rights Awareness Day, he came and spoke. He also came to a rally held at Temple Ner Tamid, and was very much part of the city’s and ADL’s No Place For Hate campaign. It was always very comforting to have him around.” As Jewish Community Changes, So Does Model of Good Leadership Rachel
Pomerance NEW YORK — Ask American Jews to name an American Jewish hero and they might say Steven Spielberg or Sandy Koufax. Perhaps you’d get Sarah Jessica Parker — her mother’s Jewish — or even Madonna, the Catholic superstar who has helped to make Kabbalah mainstream. But
ask an American Jew to name a Jewish communal leader, and you may well
get a vacuous expression. Others argue that today’s communal leadership is quite effective — just less prominent and more facilitative, in keeping with the times. For one, the American Jewish community has grown increasingly decentralized, with more groups and foundations taking on special causes. “I would not say that we have a leadership crisis, we have a diffusion of leadership,” says Shula Bahat, associate executive director of the American Jewish Committee, where she is responsible for lay leadership development. “The
outcome is that it is hard to identify leaders of the community as a whole.
Each leader functions in their own milieu,” she says. Bahat says American Jewish communal life has shifted toward inclusiveness and team leadership. For example, the AJCommittee has instituted myriad committees to allow members to “own a certain niche in the organization.” In a culture where American Jews are thoroughly assimilated, persuasive leadership is necessary to compel them to donate to Jewish causes over non-Jewish ones, practice Judaism or marry Jewish. At stake, observers say, is the future of a thriving American Jewish community. But in trying to rally a community of independent-minded Jews with multiple and even conflicting identities, today’s American Jewish leaders face a daunting task. In an era of individual empowerment, are American Jewish leaders adapting to the community with the right leadership model? The answer varies from organization to organization. In general, “leadership has to be fueled by a purpose” beyond mere organizational survival, says Richard Joel, the longtime, charismatic president of Hillel who last year became president of Yeshiva University. “Do we as a people have a driving dream that fuels us? I worry that that’s in short supply,” he says. Ignorance about “who we are and what we are about is a major informing factor in this.” “Leadership,” says Joel — often cited in the community as the model of a dynamic leader — “is vision plus an implementation strategy.” By that standard, just being head of a Jewish group does not necessarily make someone a leader. In fact, many leaders are emerging outside the mainstream organizations. Some say Jewish institutions themselves handicap their leaders: Many Jewish groups are highly bureaucratic organizations that hamper leaders’ impulses to innovate or be entrepreneurial. And some institutions cling to outdated mandates, says Larry Moses, president of the Wexner Foundation, a premier training program for Jewish leadership. “Because the pace of change is so rapid and relentless, Jewish organizations need to thoughtfully assess and reassess their relevance to the challenges and opportunities of the times,” Moses says. Shifting Jewish demographics — from intermarriage and single-parenting to the emergence of gays and lesbians, dual-career families and increased mobility — have created new challenges for synagogues, he says. Federations must shift from an “Israel-centric and ‘rescue and relief’ mission to a broader concern with American Jewish education, identity and affiliation,” he says. Increasing competition among Jewish groups calls for strategic change in function and vision, Moses says. Due to poor compensation in entry- and mid-level jobs, and lack of professional development, Jewish groups also wrestle with professional recruitment and retention — which, in turn, dampens the potential to attract top lay leaders. In addition, it’s a tough time to lead in this country. Like their fellow Americans, Jews have become focused more on individual than communal needs. Jewish professionals and activists say Americans still live in the era of Bowling Alone — a reference to Robert Putnam’s 2000 book that documents the loss of community in America and the lower membership in civic and community organizations. In addition, the rise of the baby-boomer generation has bred a certain suspicion of authority and institutions, says Rabbi Irwin Kula, president of CLAL: the national Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. Trends such as customizing one’s Passover Haggadah or putting charitable dollars towards one’s own pet project, rather than a communal funding pool, attest to the changed psychology, Kula says. Still, some say there’s not a crisis of leadership — just a shift in leadership style to empower a group’s membership, again in keeping with the times. “A change in the style of dominant leadership is being understood as a crisis of leadership,” says John Ruskay, executive vice president and CEO of the UJA-Federation of New York. “People look for strong leaders who have clear answers, and yet so much of contemporary life leads to nuance and ambiguity,” he says. “We’re in a much more participatory, consensual process in which people seek to be heard,” he says. “That does not lend itself to strong rabbis from the pulpit giving 40 minute sermons every Saturday.” In fact, Ruskay says, there currently may be more “excellent, first-rate facilitative leadership in the Jewish community than we ever had.” Rabbi Richard Block exemplified the shifting leadership style when he took over the pulpit three years ago at The Temple — Tifereth Israel in Cleveland, where the Zionist giant Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver held court for 46 years. When he first took over, Block says, he joked with the Reform congregation that “this time around, God sent you a rabbi that wouldn’t readily be confused” with God. The way Block sees it, “leadership has to be experienced through the strength and the voice of every participating individual.” Kehilat Hadar, an egalitarian minyan popular with young adults on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, follows a similar ethos: Organizers intentionally lead from behind. “There’s no one figure who’s always conducting things in a public way. That empowers people to lend their own voice to prayer — and that’s my goal,” says Elie Kaunfer, one of Hadar’s co-founders. “This generation likes the empowering model.” Joel,
of Yeshiva University, sent that message in his inaugural speech at the
school last year. Known for redefining paradigms with the turn of a phrase,
Joel said his purpose at the flagship institution of modern Orthodoxy
was “to ennoble and enable” students. AIPAC’s executive director, Howard Kohr, says the group has had a “tremendous amount of success” drawing and sustaining various levels of activists. “It’s
a cause they care deeply about, but it’s also demonstrably shown
that their actions can make a big difference,” Kohr says. Constantly shuttling between lay leaders and professionals to arrive at consensus takes away from time and energy that could go toward innovation, says Yosef Abramowitz, CEO of Jewish Family & Life!, a nonprofit that aims to build Jewish identity as a major provider of online Jewish content. “Innovation is linked to risk-taking, with the understanding that there are going to be some failures, but most Jewish communal organizations are not allowed to fail because of the fear that it will affect fund raising,” he says. Abramowitz says his group uses a “venture philanthropy” model that has “fewer people involved, but they roll up their sleeves and are much deeper into governance as full partners with the professionals, rather than just consulting or rubber-stamping.” Success will come for the community as a whole when the consensus builders partner with the innovators, he says. That was the case with birthright israel, a landmark program that provides free Israel trips for 18- to 26-year-olds who have never been to the Jewish state on a peer tour. The idea emerged from the New York-based philanthropic foundations of Charles Bronfman and Michael Steinhardt, and eventually found a partnership with the Israeli government and the United Jewish Communities, the umbrella organization of the North American federation system. The case underscores a trend in which many Jews are taking leadership paths outside the organizational ranks. The philanthropic world is witness to a growing number of personal foundations, and sweeping communal change increasingly has come from their doors.
In the Path of Hurricane Francis Phyllis Dinerman We are back in our Florida home after a go-around with an alphabet soup of Hurricanes. And we hear there may be more on the way. Maybe G-d thinks it’s Passover instead of Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur, and he’s throwing the plagues at us. If I see lice and vermin, I’ll know I was right. Retired New Englanders and New Yorkers learned all about hurricanes these past few weeks. We know the meaning of millibars, cones of error, cells, rain bands and other arcane meteorological terms. We also know anxiety at its highest level. When Hurricane Francis struck we were located on the southwestern side of the eye. We awoke to hear the wind blasting through our screen enclosure and rattling our windows. The lake behind our house looked like the Atlantic ocean with whitecaps. We had no power so we put on the battery-operated radio and heard we were near the eye of the storm. We were shaking. We got dressed in case we had to leave in a hurry (shorts and T-shirt) and neither of us closed our eyes for more than a few minutes at a time. I never prayed so much in my life. We were ready to run for the “safe” room — our laundry room. Just where I wanted to be: stuck in a room with the washing machine and dryer and my husband. When the storm subsided, 12 hours later, there was a great deal of damage to landscaping, and some tiles came off roofs, but thankfully, we weren’t injured. Let me briefly tell you what we and everyone endured during the aftermath: 1.
We had to boil water in Boynton Beach for a couple of days, for drinking,
brushing teeth and cooking. I could have lived my life without having gone through this horrible hurricane season. However, I did get through it, and know I could again. If anything good came out of this, I came out as a stronger person, and learned that neighbor has to help neighbor — or should help neighbor. I’m not about to sign up as an applicant for TV’s The Survivor, but I could give them a run for their money. Phyllis Dinerman, a former regular Journal columnist, lives in Boynton Beach, FL most of the year and returns to Marblehead periodically. She may be reached at phyllis@ dinerman.com. In the
‘Big Inning’ Rabbi
Steven J. Rubenstein Editor’s Note: In our last issue, Rabbi Rubenstein discussed the anticipation of reviewing his childhood baseball card collection, which his mother discovered in an old shoebox. Here is his report: I
hoped to find something worthwhile in the box of cards my mother found
stashed away in a closet at her home on the Cape. For weeks I had fantasized
about the treasures that were awaiting my discovery. So often our anticipations
are met with disappointments. I had long forgotten about the winter thaw
that sent a waterfall of melting snow cascading through the basement windows,
creating a sea of water where I stored my precious cards. Although not all of the cards had been ruined by water, none were in pristine condition. Ken Holtzman’s card did not hold up as well as Steve Yeager of the Dodgers. Art Shamsky of the Mets has seen better days. The truth be told, all of us have seen better days. I look at the cards I collected dating back to 1969 and 1970, and my first reaction is how young they look — posed for posterity, dressed with determination in their eyes with bat cocked or a glove open to receive the ball. I, too, was once young. I think back to the days when I first started collecting, not knowing which direction my life would take at nine or 10 years old. I once wanted to play right field for the Boston Red Sox. Even though I continue to dream about right field, the reality of those dreams are much different. I relive those dreams each time I watch the film Field of Dreams and consider the many religious themes that can be drawn from it. For example, “Why is the grass always greener in someone else’s yard?” In a discussion with some third-graders, we talked about the similarities between the game of baseball and the Jewish religion. We spoke about the rules and their purposes; how little they have changed, and how much they are open to interpretation. We talked about the things that connect us to our past, and how the things we do today impact upon the future. We conversed about the bad — using steroids, throwing a spit ball, and corking one’s bat — and the good — Shawn Green sitting out for Yom Kippur, Cal Ripken not taking a day off, and various players and their individual charities. We even spent time discussing the importance of what we do on the field and what we do off the field being in congruence with one another, and the messages that it conveys when they do not match. In Field of Dreams, Moonlight Graham is a character who never had the opportunity to come to the batter’s box in the big leagues. In this field in Iowa, this youngster (who later became a doctor) is called upon to help when a girl falls from the bleachers and chokes on a hot dog. Moonlight (Doc) Graham knows that if he crosses the white line that marks the path along first base, and he steps beyond the chalk, he can never return to the diamond and the dreams he had as a youth. For him, the choice is a simple one, and Doc Graham never looks back. In the Jewish baseball set, there are several players who could be considered like Moonlight Graham, coming to the majors and never really having a chance to complete their dreams of playing out their careers there. Instead, they played just a few games before moving on with their lives in other directions. We never know what the future has in store for us. When I first started my baseball card collection, never would I have guessed that I would be a rabbi. Nor would I have guessed that I would be interested in a card of a man who is not Jewish. Yet, our paths have crossed in strange ways, as neighbors no less. He appeared with the Baltimore Orioles for six seasons between 1967-1972. Although he did not achieve the stellar results of his teammate Jim Palmer, I understand the two have remained close friends through the years since both have retired from baseball. Dave Leonhard owns the flower shop next to my synagogue in Beverly. For several seasons I have watched him care for the floral plants that come and go through his store. I have received many an arrangement from his shop, and am enamored with the quality of the work and the thought that goes into each bouquet. Even though his fastball may not have survived for very long in the big leagues, his other endeavors have grown in stature and strength, bringing smiles to a world that is desperately in need of cheer. Steven Rubenstein is the Rabbi of Temple B’nai Abraham in Beverly. He enjoys combining his hobby of collecting baseball cards with the aura of being Jewish in a professional sport. A Unique Sukkah-Building Challenge: Fighting the Wind Brian
Blum A
sukkah, for those who may not be familiar with this Jewish custom, is
a temporary tabernacle that is built outdoors with a minimum of two-and-a-half
walls and a thatched branch roof. It’s designed to recall how the
ancient Israelites “dwelled in booths” during their 40 years
of desert wandering. What’s schach? No, it’s not a Yiddish cuss word. Rather, schach is Hebrew for the fronds that go up on top. There are two main kinds: real branches from a palm tree and a kind “permanent” schach comprised mostly of bamboo that rolls out like an enormous strip of fruit leather. Getting the schach up on top of our pergola-on-the-roof, however, takes a bit of engineering skill. And a couple of small children. Fortunately, 12-year-old Amir and ten-year-old Merav have been more than happy to oblige by climbing up on the roof. For them, it’s a great game, an opportunity to see things from a new perspective. Never mind the fact that it’s three stories up and the drop is straight down into our neighbor’s yard. Once the schach has been rolled out — carefully with active supervision by one over-protective parent, of course – it needs to be tied down. We generally use string. The schach itself has these thin threads that attach the bamboo strips together. The kids insert the string between the threads and around the wooden slats of the pergola beneath. I then tie it all up from the other side, while standing on a chair. It’s never been a problem — until last year. Half-an-hour before the holiday began, Amir came downstairs in a panic. “There’s a big wind….It’s blowing all the…schach…off!” he panted in time to the gusts that had inexplicably kicked up at this, the eleventh hour, before we can, according to Jewish custom, no longer make changes to the sukkah, All right, I thought to myself. No cause for concern. Maybe a couple of the strings have come loose. It’s never happened before, but we can handle it. This was a big wind though. And Amir was right. When I arrived, both rolls of bamboo were billowing in the air, held on by just a couple of the strings we so meticulously tied. With no time to lose, Amir scrambled quickly back onto the roof and, employing some super-hero powers heretofore never witnessed in our house, literally threw himself onto the schach to keep it from flying off completely and hurtling downward towards our neighbor’s sukkah. Amir was holding one end of the schach with valiant bravery, but it was clear the situation was highly volatile. I climbed up for a better view. Apparently, the string was still attached to the pergola slats, but the threads going into the schach had torn clear through. “Maybe we tied it in the wrong spot,” I said. “Why don’t we wrap the string lengthwise around the bamboo strips and not just in the connectors? What do you think?” Amir said nothing. How could he, laying spread eagle three stories up in the midst of a near hurricane? His face sported the forlorn look of a child watching all his hard work blown away in a single act of a highly capricious God. Or at least a God with a wicked sense of humor. Unfortunately, I was unable to really help…the pergola would support the weight of a child but not an adult. While keeping his torso splayed across one side of the schach, Amir began threading the string in the new manner I suggested. Another huge gust slammed into him, causing the schach to rise like a living creature. It turned, then twisted back on itself before crashing down again. I imagined Amir as Mickey Mouse in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice as he faced down a formerly inanimate object with a magically independent mind of its own. Amir got one corner tied down.. He then started a careful crawl across the schach. As he did so, he scraped his knee. He let out a howl. “I can’t do this,” he whimpered. “I have to rest.” “We can’t stop now, Amir,” I responded. “What if another big wind comes and blows even harder?” “But Abba, I can’t.” I slipped into my best father-son pep talk mode. “ Imagine you’re in the middle of a battlefield, Amir. If you were to take a break at the height of the fighting, the enemy tanks would run you over.” Now, I’ve never been in the army, but I can imagine this must be how a sergeant barks orders in a life or death situation. Amir got the message. Leaping from corner to corner while grimacing in pain, he thread the strings like the trooper I know he can be, covering every base until any possibility of rogue schach had been neutralized. As we surveyed the final results, a siren started to wail. Not an air-raid siren (although given the war scenario, that would have been entirely appropriate) but the shrill call that blares from loudspeakers all across Jerusalem announcing that the Sabbath – and in this case also the holiday of Sukkot – had begun. The schach held out the night against the continuing winds. And the night after as well. Amir, still nursing his wounds, can hold his head up with pride. He acted with the utmost bravery, fully deserving a medal of honor from any regular army. The Battle of Sukkah Hill had been won. I wish you, wherever you are this Sukkot, a happy and wind-free holiday © 2004 Brian Blum. Brian Blum writes a syndicated column “This Normal Life,” available at www.ThisNormalLife.com. Email him at brian@ThisNormalLife.com.
Arts & EntertainmentCurbing Susie Essman’s Enthusiasm Susan
Jacobs Veteran stand-up comic Susie Essman is best known for her role as the acid-tongued Susie Greene on HBO’s hit comedy series, Curb Your Enthusiasm. On the show, in its fourth season, Greene plays the angry Beverly Hills wife of Larry David’s agent, Jeff. Essman insists that she is nothing like the foul-mouthed character she plays. “Susie Greene is a completely reactive person — she’s not at all reflective, and she never soul-searches. I am nothing like that. I’m always ruminating and analyzing,” says Essman, a native New Yorker who built a successful career as a stand-up comic before being cast in Curb. Essman will make a rare live appearance in Boston, headlining four shows at the Comedy Connection October 8 and 9. Essman is looking forward to performing here, and promises that the show will be bawdy. “This will not be a PG show, so don’t bring your kids with you,” she warns. Due to her hectic schedule, she doesn’t often have the opportunity to do the comedy club circuit. “I almost never go on the road, but I thought it would be fun to do this,” explains Essman. “I’ve never spent a lot of time in New England, and it’s a beautiful time of year. And being a Yankees fan in Boston should be an interesting experience for me,” she adds. Essman has been busy. In addition to Curb and her stand-up shtick, she recently wrapped up a film with Samuel L. Jackson and Eugene Levy entitled, The Man. In that comedy, she plays an ATF officer. The movie, which was shot in Toronto, will premiere in the spring of 2005. Essman can also be heard as the voice of elderly Helen Higgins on Comedy Central’s Crank Yankers. On this unique show, actors make improvised prank phone calls to unsuspecting victims while animated puppets lend visual support. ”I like doing Crank Yankers because I love not having a script, although I do feel bad about duping people. The studio must get releases from the people afterwards, so a lot of the best ones don’t get on the air,” adds Essman. Essman’s other television credits include appearances on Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, The King of Queens, Politically Incorrect Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and The Friar’s Roast of Jerry Stiller. Essman was born in the Bronx and grew up in Mount Vernon, NY, with her father, Leonard, an internist, mother Zora, and an older brother who now lives in Albuquerque. As a child, she loved making people laugh. “When I was young, I used to stand up on the kitchen table and do song parodies for my brother and his friends, who were five years older than me. They would laugh, and I thought I was funny. I didn’t realize at the time that they were all stoned on pot and would have thought anything was funny,” she says. She got her professional start at the now defunct Comedy U. in New York City’s West Village. Despite her success in television and film, she still prefers the live medium best. “Saying the same lines night after night, as you must do on Broadway, drives me crazy. I need to keep things fresh,” she says. Essman lives in Manhattan with her shitzu, Magnolia. A year ago, she began dating commercial real estate agent Jimmy Harder, whose gay brother is her best friend. “I always joked about how I never wanted to have kids, but now, through Jimmy, I have four stepkids ages 11, 13, 15 and 16. Although they don’t live with me, they are very much in my life,” she says. Essman’s latest obsession is home decorating, and she is putting the finishing touches on her Moroccan-inspired dining room. The Journal recently spoke to her by phone in New York. JJ:
Proportionally, Jewish people seem to be well-represented in comedy. Why? JJ:
What was your Jewish background? JJ:
Who are some of your favorite comics? JJ:
Interestingly, you haven’t mentioned any women. JJ:
You seem to enjoy doing improvisational comedy. How much of your stand-up
routine is scripted? JJ:
Tell us about the making of Curb Your Enthusiasm. JJ:
Do you get to devise situations for the characters, or is that all controlled
by Larry David? JJ:
How did you develop the character of Susie Greene, and why do people resonate
with her? JJ:
How do you get into character for Susie Greene? JJ:
When will you begin shooting the next season of Curb, and what
might we expect to see? JJ:
Do you like LA? JJ:
What are your plans for the future? JJ:
Although you don’t seem to have a lot of it, what do you like to
do in your spare time? JJ:
If you weren’t a comedian, what would you be doing? Susie Essman will appear at The Comedy Connection in Boston’s Faneuil Hall on Fri., Oct. 8, and Sat., Oct. 9. Tickets are $25- $29. To order, call 617-248-9700. Dudu Fisher To Perform at Boston’s Shubert Theatre Dudu Fisher, internationally-acclaimed singer, stage actor, and cantor will perform at Boston’s Shubert Theatre on October 19 at 8 p.m. Boston is the first stop of a seven-city North American tour. At the Shubert, Dudu will sing songs from Jewish-oriented musicals such as Fiddler on the Roof, Yentl and The Jazz Singer. The songs are all featured on his new CD entitled, Coming to America. Described by Lawrence Van Gelder of The New-York Times as “a talent that resists confinement and is an explosion of religious faith”, Israeli Dudu Fisher has entertained audiences around the world. He earned his reputation through his role as Jean Valjean in Les Miserables, which he performed on Broadway, in Israel, and in London. Over his career, Mr. Fisher has recorded more than 20 albums. He sang the role of Moses in the Hebrew version of Stephen Spielberg’s The Prince of Egypt and has sung with the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra. He has recorded an album of show tunes with the London Symphony Orchestra. Tickets for the Shubert Theatre show can be purchased by phone at 800-447-7400 or online at www.Telecharge.com. Seats cost $35-$63. More and More; A Drama of Life in One Jewish Family More and More, is a riveting new drama of life in one Jewish family. Written by Jay Harris of Newburyport, this play concerns itself with life across six decades of the Kaplan family, and the struggles that threaten to pull them apart. The production features Mary Shapiro as Ethel, Joel Grossman as Murray, Nancy Politzer as daughter Muriel, Tom Kennison as son Bernie, and Juliet Nelson as the young Ethel. Beginning in the early 1940s, the play opens with a thoughtful and innocent love letter from young Ethel to her beau Murray, who is away in the service.Their letters appear throughout the play, and their message of love and hope offer an ironic counterpoint to the later action of the play, as life and family are torn apart by personal conflicts. The letters used in the play are the actual letters once written by the author’s mother to his father, and it was their discovery that helped inspire him to create this work. More and More premiered September 23 at the Firehouse Center for the Arts in Newburyport, but will be staged again on October 8, 9 and 10 at the Actors Studio in the Tannery in Newburyport. For tickets and information, phone 978-465-1229.
EditorialThe Rhythm of the Jewish Holidays There is a wonderful rhythm to Jewish holidays. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur stand like towering bookends, connected by 10 days of Repentance — a time for reconnecting with our loved ones, for taking stock of our lives, admitting our failures and transgressions, and making plans to do better. One of the highlights of Rosh Hashanah for families is the tashlich ceremony, when Jews on the North Shore go down to the beach — elsewhere to a river or stream — to pray and throw bread crumbs into the water in a symbolic casting away of their sins. Yom Kippur is the traditional day of affliction. We abstain from eating, drinking, even bathing. It is customary for parents to bless their children before going to the synagogue on Yom Kippur eve, where the cantor chants the plaintive Kol Nidre melody, nullifying all vows and oaths made under duress. Some authorities claim the Kol Nidre formula was introduced to forgive those who, over the course of Jewish history, were forced to accept Christianity or Islam under pain of death. On Yom Kippur, we remember the tragedies that have befallen our people throughout Jewish history. We remember the losses in our own families in the reflective Yizkor service, and we pray that we and our loved ones will be inscribed in God’s Book of Life for another year. When the long piercing blast of the shofar completes the Neilah service ending Yom Kippur, the doors of the sacred ark are closed, and so, according to our tradition, is that Book of Life, in which God decrees who shall live and who shall die in the new year. But not before the congregation calls out in unison: Leshanah habah birushalayim — next year in Jerusalem. Thus does the new year begin on a hopeful note. Within days, we usher in the Festival of Sukkot, beginning this year on the evening of September 29. As sobering as is Yom Kippur, Sukkot is a time for rejoicing. Like America’s Thanksgiving, Sukkot is the Jewish people’s harvest festival. Though it also commemorates the 40 years of desert wandering of our ancestors after they left Egypt, pitching tents or building booths wherever they stopped. Remembering those makeshift dwellings, for seven days throughout all generations Jews build sukkahs — wood or canvas lean-tos covered with branches and plants — with the ceiling open so that the heavens are always visible. In tribute to the harvest in Israel, the sukkah is decorated with flowers and fruits suspended from a ceiling of leaves and branches. The ninth day of Sukkot is the most joyous. That’s when we celebrate Simchat Torah: the Rejoicing of the Law. We commemorate God’s granting of the Ten Commandments to our ancestors; we complete the cycle of reading the Torah and begin it again for another year; we wave flags and dance around the synagogue, sometimes spilling out into the street in our enthusiasm. And so the emotional lows and highs of life itself are played out within a few short weeks at this season of the year. May it be a time of rededication, as well as reflection, for you and your loved ones. — Mark R. Arnold Local ColumnistsBill and the Bypass: A Warning to the Nation
Bill Clinton’s physical recovery from heart bypass surgery is now about 100 percent assured. But what if he were the sitting president today? What psychological and emotional effects follow this kind of bodily invasion? And how do those aftershocks square with a president’s finger on the nuclear button or his role as commander-in-chief? Don’t believe it’s all about physical strength, just healing that six-to-nine inch zipper in the chest. Drs. Neil Gordon and Larry Gibbons say: “Bypass patients are the most alarmed by temporary intellectual dysfunction. Their minds seem to go a little haywire for stretches of time, ceasing to do their bidding. They have trouble with simple arithmetic, they can’t concentrate, and they’re forgetful.” Mood changes may range from depression to flights of fancy, from feelings that death is imminent to believing that superhuman powers have restored life. Patients may swing from self-pity to great hostility. The first of my three separate coronary bypass surgeries came at age 44. I was a senior civil servant in Washington. Like President Clinton, I had behind me years of professional striving, workaholic days, cigarettes, cigars and booze, combined with familial high cholesterol. And like Clinton, after an incident (not a heart attack) and cardiac catheterization, I nervously but gratefully climbed on to the operating table. After surgery came the mood swings: I cried about everything; when a nurse held my hand, when family and friends phoned, when I read a letter. Then came euphoria, the feeling I could do anything, conquer everything. I was manic. Before leaving the hospital, I had outlined a book aimed at anyone having surgery and a newsletter to inform heart patients of new developments. And I was aggressive: Three days after surgery I began to believe that a hospital conspiracy denied me my favorite hospital pajamas. Before the operation, I wore broad blue and white stripes; afterward I received plain white. I climbed out of bed dragging a lot of equipment and roamed the hospital supply closets searching for blue-white pajamas. Returning with four sets of pajamas, I found an anxious family and an angry staff waiting for me. I was obnoxious half the time, proving normalcy even if I did look like an extremely disheveled Israeli flag. Six months later I had, like most patients report, amnesia about things that happened before and after surgery. I was told that the day before entering the hospital I saw a For Sale sign on a house, stopped, entered, made an offer for a house I didn’t need and couldn’t afford. Fortunately, my offer was not accepted. Other patients have bought a Cadillac, motorcycle or diamond on the road to and from the hospital. Many patients find their short-term memory impaired and their IQ scores reduced. This decline is a byproduct of the trauma of having your chest sawed open, pulled apart to expose and shut down your heart while a heart-lung machine breathes for you, and the blocked arteries are bypassed using your own arm or leg veins or mammary arteries. After an hour or more, all is put together and miraculously the heart either starts by being infused with blood or is restarted by an electrical shock. It isn’t pretty and it can’t be done without negative consequences, though the positive results obviously outweigh the negatives. The better news is that in recent years, time on the heart-lung machine during surgery has decreased substantially, with Bill Clinton stopping his heart for 71 minutes compared with almost three hours for me. Time is of the essence in reducing, but not eliminating, those traumas I describe. It’s
not unlikely that a sitting president will one day undergo this surgery.
Rules need to be in place for at least a three-month recuperation period,
even if the president feels he or she has a new lease on life and feels
ready much sooner to return to work and conquer the world.
Yom Kippur Over, We Sin Again
You are starving. You are thirsty. Your head pounds and you think that maybe a brief trip to Starbuck’s might have made the day more manageable. But you hung tough and did what God prescribed. You punished your body in order to repent the sins you’ve committed this past year, whole dozens of which accomplished without intention, on auto-pilot. Perhaps you spent a grieving hour in Yizkor. Maybe you were mesmerized by the hypnotic chant of the davening or the vivid poetry of the occasion. Are we not but clay in the hands of the potter? Do we not passionately desire for the Creator of Heaven and Earth to forget our past indiscretions and look only to the Covenant he made with our ancestors? Now the fork is in your hand. The kugel or the bagel or the fish is succulent on your tongue. Your cleansed soul feels as light as a feather and your equilibrium is now restored. You are fresh and buoyant, even flirtatious with that goyish invention: optimism. Mazel tov! You made it to the other side of the Day of Atonement. Not to deflate your soufflé, but how long do you think your neshama (soul) will stay clean? A paper napkin has a better chance of protecting your clothing from stain than you have of protecting your soul from blemish. What will be your first sin? Against whom will it be committed? And will you even realize you have done it? “Sin couches at the door,” says Sefer Devarim. And how naturally we open it. The likelihood is that our first sin — the very first sullying of our pristine souls this year — will occur before we have finished breaking our fast and when we are on auto-pilot. Ironically, it will be committed by the very organ that we used to purify ourselves in the first place: our mouths. According to the Hafetz Hayim (Rav Yisrael Meir HaCohen), who literally wrote the book on lashon hara (the evil tongue), the greatest sin of the Jewish people is speaking ill of others. It is a sin we commit with language, a very powerful tool, the very one God used to create the world. It was only a mere comment, you say? A joke? A cynical attitude toward life? And I suppose you didn’t mean anything by it, either. Of course not. But, as one rabbinic story tells, speaking lashon hara is like taking a feather pillow and shaking it out on a mountain top. As the feathers blow away, what chance do you have of gathering them all in again? That is the effect of lashon hara: rumor, disrespect, doubt, damage to reputation, suspicion, scorn, derision, disapproval, dislike, hatred — scattered to the four corners of the earth. With my sharp tongue, I have scattered more feathers than most. I share with my people a propensity for lashon hara, as well as an instinct for kedusha (holiness). As the New Year begins, may we be more mindful and deliberate in our speech and better able to use words as a creative force for good. Although you can always do a quick white wash at home, ground-in dirt requires professional cleaning, And that, Baruch HaShem, we do only once a year.
Good Things Do Happen to Really Bad People…Why, Mom?
I’ve
begun to realize that if my girls are to survive in this crazy world,
I need to somehow enlighten them that there is a full spectrum of good
and evil. Perhaps it’s time to jettison the rose-colored glasses,
take some kung fu lessons and go for the jugular. No more letting people
cut me in line, dismiss me because I don’t have the latest Prada
bag or push their kids in front of mine. I’m going to open all my
windows and scream through the streets of Marblehead, “My name is
not chopped liver.” I’m ready to sling matzah balls at anyone
who gets in my way. When our girls note the injustices of the world, Mitch tells them that being good is its own reward. Who can deny the pleasure derived from doing a mitzvah? It’s up there with savoring a caramel latte topped with whipped cream. If you look at the converse of this notion, being “bad” should make you feel miserable. But from where I sit, I witness many not-so-nice people looking like they’re having a grand time. Let’s dissect some real basic injustices. I’m not talking about thin people who eat tons of carbohydrates and don’t exercise. It starts in grade school when someone cheats off your paper and wins the spelling competition. This same rogue then slides in front of you to purchase the last pair of concert tickets. You turn on the television to see him rocking out at the concert and going backstage with the band. Later in life he lies on his job application and is ultimately promoted to CFO of a widely successful company. Now I know you want me to say that his karmic energy leads him to doom and gloom, but guess who just won the lottery and is skipping down Easy Street? If I’m to be honest, I’d like to extinguish the world of evil and live in harmony with nature and triumphant underdogs. It’s a great plot for a Disney movie, but even reality TV teaches that it takes more than a little sweetness to survive nowadays. Perhaps you just need to walk your own path, lit with the sunshine of goodness, having faith you’ll get where you need to go.
Trying To Have It Both Ways In The War On Terror
In a debate recently at the annual meeting of Cleveland’s Jewish Community Relations Council, Jeff Jacoby, the Boston Globe’s well-spoken conservative columnist, remarked that “Since 9/11, there’s been no 9/11.” That, he argued, is evidence that President Bush is doing a good job in defending the nation against terrorism and deserves our support on November 2. I enjoy debate — except when I am one of the debaters. Invariably the clever riposte occurs to me an hour or even a day too late — or, if I think of it then and there, a half-dozen other things my opponent says before it’s my turn again displace it in my memory bank and it is retrieved just about the time the post-debate reception thins out. That’s what happened with Jacoby’s 9/11 comment. I just didn’t respond to it at all, other matters having intervened. In the end, a debate is not a conversation. So I never got to say, “But if the President is taking credit for there not having been a 9/11 since 9/11, what are we supposed to make of the near-daily warnings by members of his administration? Again and again they tell us that the question about a future major terrorist attack in the United States is not “if” but “when.” Credit for keeping us safe and credit for warning us of the imminent danger at the same time? But before you disparage that sly twinning, consider the utter brilliance of it: If the forewarning is followed by an actual attack, how prescient, how wise, how responsible the Administration has been; if the forewarning is followed by nothing, how effective the Administration has been in warding off the would-be attackers. In short, you not only can have it both ways — you’d be crazy not to. Heads I win, tails you lose. Except that this is not a game. The terrorists are real, their malevolence is manifest. It is a constant temptation for those of us who believe that the war on terrorism and the war on Iraq are two quite different wars to make light of the one because we are critical of the other. A temptation, and an error most serious. There are any number of Bush problems, but the preeminent Bush problem is the displacement of the wholly legitimate, even urgent, war on terror by the gratuitous war on Iraq. And that problem has, of course, become much more than a Bush problem; it is now an American problem, even an American crisis. Perhaps, if we’d been sitting around with nothing to do, we might have thought it a noble endeavor to oust Sadam Hussein, to free the Iraqi people of their tyrant. But we did (and do) have something to do — namely, to do battle with a growing world-wide terrorist threat. We even knew quite precisely the first major battlefield of that war. That battlefield was (and is) Afghanistan, the failed state whose miserable Taliban rulers we ousted from power and where these days the Taliban are inching back, that failed state whose nominal president, Hamid Karzai, is more the embattled mayor of Kabul than the actual president of his country. We knew as well that we would have to confront the problem of Saudi Arabia, our nominal and sometime ally that is also a major financier and breeding ground of terrorism. But instead of tending to these and other urgent matters, we chose war in Iraq. Mr. Bush and his people have done a spectacularly successful job in conflating the war on terrorism with the war on Iraq, as they have been successful in chipping away at John Kerry’s biography and qualifications for the presidency. Indeed, the Bush campaign has brilliantly achieved what it set out to achieve, while the Kerry campaign has yet to develop the traction it needs. But the nation is ill-served by the kind of campaigning to which we’ve been subjected, a campaign of style over substance. The Kerry campaign lacks traction, but the Bush campaign lacks truth. Worse yet, it encourages people to view Kerry and the Democrats as not merely wrong, but as sinful. The consequence is a nation seriously divided. Consider that when asked which candidate they trust to do a better job of handling appointments to the Supreme Court, 46 percent of Americans choose Bush, 36 percent choose Kerry. And here the split between red and blue states becomes manifest: In the East, on the Supreme Court question, the break is 35-41 in Kerry’s favor; in the West, it’s 40-48 in Kerry’s favor. But in the Midwest, Bush is ahead 46-26, and in the South he wins 54-32. That some number of Americans, especially in the South and Midwest, imagine that Bush is more trustworthy than Kerry regarding Supreme Court nominations — meaning they’d rather have judges appointed by a right-wing zealot than by a mainstream liberal — proves either that right-wing zealotry is quite acceptable these days or, more likely, that Bush has succeeded in masquerading as mainstream. Bush mainstream? Bush trustworthy? The Bush of Ashcroft and Cheney and more than 1,000 Americans killed in Iraq, of stem cells and the deficit and the tax cuts and all the rest? Madness. And oh so sad.
Implications of These Senseless Deaths Thank you so much for running “Anatomy of a Tragedy” (Sept. 10-23) in such a prominent position. When I read that IDF soldiers laughed when Salem Salah screamed that her husband was dead and that her son needed help, my eyes overflowed. There is a conspiracy of terrorists, Sharon and Israeli hard-liners to destroy Judaism. If they are successful, they will destroy Israel. This is not an intentional conspiracy but, on purpose or by accident, they will be our downfall. We must never forget that we are Jews. With that honor comes responsibility. We believe that “he who saves one life, it is as if he saved the whole world.” Logically, it must also be true that when one destroys one life, it is as though he had killed the whole world. No, I am not a pacifist. Some killing, as in war against those who would annihilate us, is justified. It actually saves lives by ridding the world of those who would kill us. But we do not kill innocent Palestinian or others. We do not accept the justification of “collateral damage.” There are two reasons for this — one moral and a second practical. Morally, the Salahs were innocent. They had safety in the United States. They returned to Israel to help educate Palestinians. Better educated Palestinians are more likely to seek careers rather than intifada. They were unarmed and posed no danger to the IDF forces who killed them. This was murder, a sin, and apparently one committed by unrepentant soldiers. Practically, the Palestinians are now deprived of good-hearted educators. Because of these senseless deaths, fewer Palestinians will be educated and more will seek intifada rather than careers. Some of those who would have been helped by the Salahs would have also become educators and thereby magnified the Salahs’ good works. Please do not forget that for every innocent Palestinian the IDF kills, it leaves behind family and friends whose hearts will be forever hardened against Israel, making peace more unlikely. It is long past time for us to remember who we are, what we believe and that we have the intellegence to recognize the importance of practicality. Andrew
C. Schultz
Story Shows Need to Coexist Thank you for the painful and revealing article, “Anatomy of a Tragedy.” If we are to be participants in a process that leads to coexistence rather than constant, harping, brutal war, then we must learn to see and empathize with the whole picture rather than a single perspective on what is happening in Israel and the occupied territories. An Israeli woman, Noa Baum, has researched and written a stunning theater piece, A Land Twice Promised, in which she explores both Palestinian and Israeli women’s perspectives and stories about their lives. Ms. Baum, a lauded theater artist, performs this piece infrequently in the Jewish community because there are few organizations willing to give voice to Palestinian issues. How on earth can we learn to coexist if we won’t even listen to each other’s stories? The Journal has taken a step in this direction and during these days of tshuvah, I read this piece, weep, and apologize for my part in continuing an enmity that keeps people from sitting in peace with their families and friends and celebrating the beauty of a new year. Judith
Black Better Ending for Nablus Story Mark Arnold’s article, “Anatomy of a Tragedy: From Nablus to the North Shore” (Sept. 10-23), reminds us how awful guerilla warfare is, and how often non-combatants are killed in them. However, if his final words describing the Israeli soldiers who unfortunately killed Prof. Khaled Salah and his son — that they were killed “by those who most of us consider ‘the good guys,” — was intended to jolt us about the terms of innocence and guilt, it failed for me and seemed merely to be a cheap shot at a complex matter. The Israelis are described as shooting at everything: curtains, computers, towels, as if they are wild and vicious, but in the context of guerilla warfare, such seemingly random shooting is not abandonment. Terrorists have been known to hide themselves in curtains, to bury bombs and grenades in baby carriages and cribs. That’s the strategy of guerrilla warfare: to embed itself in seemingly innocent-looking objects and innocent civilians. The Geneva Accords are out of date with respect to this kind of warfare. Golda Meir’s eloquent words would have been a more fitting conclusion to Arnold’s article: “We will forgive the Palestinians for killing us, but we will not forgive them for making us kill them.” If I had my “druthers,” I would wish Prof. Khaled and his son back in this world, and spare his family their grief, and that no Israeli had to go to war and learn to kill. Roberta
Kalechofsky Thanks for Story Thank you for printing the story, “Anatomy of a Tragedy.“ I had read about the tragedy in Ha’aretz, and my initial thought was that this is the sort of story that will never see the light of day in a mainstream U.S. paper. Thank you for proving me wrong. Susan
Nicholson
Suffering on Both Sides Thank you for that moving article about the tragedy that has befallen the Salah family. It was heartbreaking to read, but it was an important reminder that innocent people are suffering terribly on both sides. Peter
Crowley Why Jews Should Not Vote for President Bush In response to Edward Friedman’s “Why Jews Should Vote For President Bush” (Sept. 10-23), while Mr. Friedman may have a good case for voting for President Bush, it would only be if those who voted were citizens of Israel. Of course, if they were, they wouldn’t be able to vote in the US elections anyway. Don’t get me wrong, I am a Jew and proud of it, but that is my religion and not my nationality. In that regard I am an American and proud of that as well. But as an American, my first responsibility is to cast my vote for those who are best able to provide for the safety of my family and my neighbors. In my opinion, our current president has done everything possible to put those I love the most at the greatest risk — far greater than had we not gone to war in Iraq. First,
by pulling so many of our troops out of Afghanistan, we lost our greatest
opportunity to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, the leader of the group
responsible for the worst attack ever perpetrated on American soil. With
this man still on the loose, and with his ability to lead and promote
attacks, Americans and others who believe in democracy, even those who
live in Israel, are at greater risk from future attacks. Saddam
was not a friend of Osama. They didn’t believe in the same things.
He didn’t have weapons of mass destruction. He had no plans for attacking
the US. What he had was oil and he didn’t bow down to the United
States. President Bush’s team, his vice president, secretary of defense,
assistant secretary of defense and his national security advisor, all
led him down the wrong track. And, because he will not admit a mistake,
he allows them to continue in office and continue to lead us in a war
we can never win. Should Americans vote for President Bush? In my mind, we should vote for anyone but him! Herb
Rothstein
Beware Bush’s Short, Easy Path With reference to Dr. Friedman’s column, “Why Jews Should Vote for President Bush” (Sept. 10-23), as thoughtful Americans and Jews, haven’t we learned there are no easy answers to complex problems? Because George Bush decided to unilaterally attack Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein, does that mean that terrorism worldwide has been defeated? Has Osama bin Laden been dealt a terrible defeat? And is Iraq democratic and the Middle East stabilized? If it were that easy, don’t you think that we would have done all this earlier? As Americans and as Jews, we have seen the rise and thankfully the fall of many snake oil salesmen — people who promise to cure our real or imagined personal, societal and spiritual ills quickly and at very little cost. What we have always observed in the aftermath is just the opposite of what is promised. And the real problems are worse than when we began down the short and easy path. | ||||||||||||