Local Stories

Hate Group Speaks in Wakefield, Distributes Pamphlets in Haverhill

GARY BAND
Jewish Journal Staff

Following their controversial appearance in Wakefield on Sept. 14, members of World Church of the Creator, the Illinois-based hate group led by Matt Hale, made their presence known again by distributing over 100 pamphlets of racist literature in Haverhill on Sept. 24.

Some of the Statements contained in the pamphlet, accompanied by images of Osama bin Laden and the World Trade Center, included “Don’t Fight for the Jewish Community,” and “Stop Being Shields for Israel.”

We really have no use for this type of thing in our community,” says Sgt. John P. Arahovites, a 16-year Haverhill Police officer. “Our community leaders, the Mayor’s office, and religious leaders are all on the same page: we all oppose and vigorously denounce this group and its actions.”

This is the second time Haverhill residents have found racist literature on car windshields. In April 2001, the hate group National Alliance distributed their own pamphlets. The groups tend to distribute their literature late at night or during times when they are less likely to be detected.

Sergeant Arahovites said the vast majority of Haverhill residents would be “more disgusted than supportive” of the hate group and its message. If they should cross the line between exercising their right to free speech and criminal activity, the Haverhill Police Department would “aggressively pursue” legal action against them, he added.

Jan Brody, executive director of the Merrimack Jewish Federation, said the issue of dealing with these incidents is on the agenda for a meeting with Merrimack Valley rabbis next month. He said the Jewish community is aware these groups are out there, and “mobilized to respond.” The Anti-Defamation League was made aware of the incident as well.

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Rabbi Small Returns to Entice New Generation of Mystery Readers

MARK ARNOLD
Jewish Journal Staff

He would be pecking away at his old manual Royal typewriter, a pipe clenched in his teeth, in the backroom of his Beach Bluff Hardware store in Marblehead. A customer would enter. He’d peer around the corner and say: “If you want anything, just ask.” And then he’d return to his typing.

He wasn’t the most customer-friendly shop owner in town, but then, selling wrenches and drills wasn’t what Harry Kemelman was about. It was a means to the end. And the end was writing. It remained his passion to the end of his days.

“For dad, writing was as natural as breathing,” says daughter Diane Volk. Adds widow Anne Kemelman: “He started writing when he was 10 and didn’t stop until three days before he died.”

Between 1964 and 1996, Harry Kemelman wrote 13 books, of which 11 were about the fictional Rabbi David Small of Barnard’s Crossing, MA, who used Talmudic logic to solve some of the cleverest mysteries ever devised. An instant success, the Rabbi series sold 7 million copies worldwide, in dozens of languages. He died in 1996 at the age of 87.

Now, 38 years after they first appeared, the books are being reissued, one every three months, beginning with the first and best known of the series: Friday the Rabbi Slept Late. The publisher, iBooks Inc. of New York, a small company specializing in discovering new authors and re-publishing old ones for a new generation of readers. The Kemelman books fit squarely in the latter category. Says Roger Cooper, executive vice president of iBooks:

“I was always a great fan of the Rabbi Small books. I remember what a sensation they were when they first came out. It was a stroke of genius to use a mystery story to teach people about the Jewish religion. He wrote it to provide Jewish education to Jewish people who didn’t appreciate their tradition. But it turned out that the wit, sensibility and wisdom were things anyone could enjoy, Jewish or not.”

The books are being distributed by Simon & Schuster’s sales force in North America and Great Britain.

Harry and a younger sister grew up in Roxbury. Their parents were East European immigrants, who spoke Yiddish at home. He was a diamond wholesaler. Her parents owned real estate, including the Beach Bluff block of stores in Marblehead. His father tried to dissuade him from pursuing a career in writing: “Von das ken machen ein leben? (From that you can make a living”)?” he would ask. But Harry was determined. Remembers Anne:

“Harry earned a Master’s degree in English literature from Harvard. That was in 1931, the Depression. He couldn’t find a decent job, but he had written several plays. He was invited to present one of them to a dramatic group I belonged to in Boston. I tried out for it. He chose me as the leading lady; he was the leading man. That was in October. We were married the next March, in 1936.

“We postponed our honeymoon weekend so I could type a manuscript a New York Agent said he needed on Monday. (‘Honey, you wouldn’t mind would you?’ she remembers him asking. Her answer: ‘Of course not.’) It was rejected like most of his early writings.”

The first few years were tough. Anne earned $12 a week working in a doctor’s office in Boston. Harry held down four or five jobs at a time, of which his favorite was teaching English at Northeastern University “for $2 a student.”

The couple moved from Brighton to Marblehead in 1947. There they brought up three children: Ruth Rooks of Swampscott, an accomplished painter; Arthur Kemelman of Hod Hasharon, Israel (near Tel Aviv), a writer and woodworker; and Diane Volk of New York City, a classical violinist, pianist, and lawyer, who negotiated the new book deal.

Harry supported his young family by managing the real estate, running the hardware store, and writing detective mysteries for the monthly Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. He also wrote novels, including one called The Building of a Temple. Recalls Anne:

“Harry was concerned that Jews in the suburbs didn’t have the Jewish education he got growing up in a Yiddish-speaking household in Roxbury. They didn’t appreciate their tradition, didn’t understand the wisdom of the Talmud, which fascinated him. And he was appalled by the politics of suburban synagogue life. So he wrote a suburban Jewish novel, based loosely on the building of Temple Israel in Swampscott, where we belonged.”

He sent it to famed New York agent Scott Meredith, who showed it to Arthur Field, a well-known editor who admired Harry’s mysteries, including his most famous at the time: The Nine Mile Walk, a collection of short stories featuring an English professor named Nicholas Welt, who solves crimes by an ingenious process of inductive reasoning. The book had been well received, especially by critics. Wrote book reviewer Anthony Boucher in the New York Times: Nicky Welt “is among the brightest gems in the literature of pure armchair detectives.”

Field went back to Harry with an idea: Why not combine your interest in Jewish law, which appeared in the Building of a Temple, with your interest in mysteries? Harry pondered the suggestion, remarking a few days later that the Temple Israel parking lot might be a good place to hide a body. A few mornings later he got up and said to Anne: “You know honey, I think I can easily do it. The Rabbi is a legal figure; people come to him for advice. I think I can add that to a mystery and make it work.”

Thus was born Rabbi Small. First book out of the typewriter was the one the family calls “the Friday book.” It was an instantaneous success. So when the editor Field asked: “So, what about Saturday?” Harry went to work on a sequel.

“He had a very inquisitive mind,” says Anne Kemelman, “He was always trying to get to the root of things. That’s why he loved the Talmud so much. To him, it got to the root of things, reasoning them out using basic principles of logic that appealed to his intellect. He hoped through his writing to help Jews rediscover the beauty and wisdom of their tradition. In the end it helped a lot of non-Jews discover and appreciate the Jewish religion also.”

The fame he earned never went to his head. “He never cared about material things. But his mind was constantly occupied,” says Anne. “He did a lot of pacing and jotting down notes. I could always tell when he was preoccupied. He often went for a walk to think things out. Then he would sit down and write – often up to 1 or 2 o‘clock in the morning. He usually had his pipe with him when he wrote.”

Today the hardware store is a bank branch. But the home studio where he wrote — on the second floor of the family home on lower Humphrey Street in Marblehead — is intact, full of photographs, his books in numerous languages — and the awards of a lifetime of achievement.

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Resettlement Programs to Continue

Mark Arnold
Jewish Journal Staff

The new immigrant resettlement programs due to expire October 1 will be continued under new management. The Massachusetts Office for Refugees and Immigrants (ORI) ended weeks of speculation by announcing an arrangement under which one agency — Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Boston — will take over refugee case management in Lynn and three other agencies will collaborate to provide refugee job services and English language training.

Those agencies are the Vietnamese American Civic Association of Boston, the Refugee and Immigrant Assistance Center, and the Russian Community Association of Massachusetts (RCAM). All three programs have been run in the past several years by Jewish Family Service of the North Shore, which is letting its contracts lapse for lack of funds.

ORI’s Sept. 25 announcement ended a period of turmoil in the Russian Jewish community, about the programs, which have served many of the 8,000 Russians who have come to the North Shore in the past 20 years

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Good News From the Merrimack Valley

GARY BAND
Jewish Journal Staff

The Merrimack Valley Jewish Federation reported a sizable amount of money raised in its 2002 campaign at the annual meeting on Sept. 18.

In an impressive show of support, the over 50 attendees at the meeting were told the campaign brought in $226,000 from 1,100 gifts. Even more impressive, Federation officers say, were the results of its emergency campaign for Israel and Argentina which generated $183,759 in just three months from 1,060 gifts.

Total funds generated for the nine-month fundraising year equal $409,759 from 2,160 gifts. Of the emergency funds, $111,636 went to United Jewish Communities, $70,427 bought a new ambulance which was donated to Mogan David Olam, $1,316 went to Hadassah, and $380 to the Jewish National Fund.

Merrimack Valley Jewish Federation Executive Director Jan Brody says he is “very pleased with the success of the campaign. Thanks to the generosity of our community, the numbers far exceeded our expectations.”

Jim Shainker, vice president of the campaign, believes that to raise this much in such a short amount of time is “incredible.”

“With 413 new gifts that told us that when we got the message across that it was critical to give at this time, people really responded,” he said.

Robert Bender, president of MVJF, expressed his support for Brody, lauding the work he’s done since being hired as executive director five years ago. “He’s turned us into a strong, viable Jewish Federation. Things were not looking that way before he came.”

As they look to the 2003 campaign, the Federation staff is especially enthusiastic about a Matching Gift Challenge from an anonymous local philanthropist. Each dollar pledged by any new donor, or increased by any established donor, will be matched dollar for dollar up to $100,000. Every matching dollar will go to Israel to aid the victims and families of terrorism.

MVJF, formed 15 years ago from a merger of the Haverhill, Lawrence and Lowell federations, has over 6,400 names in its database. But Brody believes there are at least 2,000 more unidentified Jewish people in the area.

Because the Merrimack Valley is so spread out, in the future Brody says he wants to focus on “the emerging communities” of Westford, Chelmsford and Lowell and try to create a greater sense of “unification” in the community.

Padraic O’Hare, director of the Center for Jewish-Christian Relations at Merrimack College spoke at the meeting saying, “All of us are enriched when the community supports its agencies... Generosity is the fruit of gratefulness.

Alan Solomont, the former treasurer of the Democratic National Committee, and who once owned a number of nursing homes in Lowell, was the keynote speaker for the meeting. He spoke on the importance of Jewish Federations in supporting community programs and tikkun olam.

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Tai Ch and Judaism? For Local Woman, It's a Perfect Fit

DEBORAH WILLWERTH
Special to the Jewish Journal

It seems that Lisa Kirshon of Peabody has started her new year off on the right foot. As a result of her outstanding performance at the recent Wushu Union Federation national competition in Orlando, Florida, she was named the second-highest ranked female in the United States for the internal Martial Art of Tai Chi Chuan and Tai Chi sword forms.

“I discovered this competitive spirit within me that I didn’t realize I had,” states Kirshon. And as satisfying as her medals and ranking are, competitive success is not the reason why Kirshon became involved in the practice of Tai Chi. “I’ve seen what it does for me. I want to inspire people and help them find a healthier way to live.”

Kirshon got involved in Tai Chi because of “debilitating pain” for which she tried every over-the-counter and prescription medicine available with little or no success.

“I became more depressed. I had two babies and couldn’t cope. I turned to alcohol, which made me even more depressed. One day, I looked at my two kids and realized I had to do something for their sakes, if not for mine.” Kirshon tried chiropractic care and acupuncture, which helped “a little bit.” But she realized that something was missing. “This thing called exercise, not only of the body, but also of the spirit and the mind, I never thought about those three being connected.” Indeed, according to an online source, Tai Chi is “an internal cultural art and is the Chinese path to mental, physical, and spiritual fitness.”

Tai Chi originated in China approximately 500 C.E., and it was a practice based on the belief that illness occurs when a person’s internal energy, called “chi,” is “weak, unbalanced, or fails to flow correctly.” The slow, rhythmic movements, which Kirshon refers to as “poetry in motion,” require much focus and concentration, resulting in “good ‘chi’ energy flow.”

“It’s preventive medicine,” says Kirshon, “which is the opposite of the Western philosophy of medicine, which is to treat the symptoms of illness. What happens is that [doctors] treat so many things that they can’t get to the root of the problem.” Kirshon states that within six months of practicing Tai Chi, she was pain-free.

“I also learned that pain is not the enemy. It’s a signal that something is wrong, and the movements help release the blockages within the body so there is a release and free flow of dynamic energy.” Tai chi has been credited with helping reduce the severity of migraine headaches, lowering blood pressure, alleviating or eliminating symptoms of depression, as well as toning body muscles and increasing coordination, flexibility, and mobility of joints.

Kirshon sees a very strong connection between Tai Chi and living Jewishly.

“Tai chi has brought me closer to my spiritual self. The connection between mind, body, and spirit is reinforced, and I feel more spiritual and closer to my religion. When I’m in temple now, it’s a whole different feeling. I am now so much more aware of my connection to something greater than my physical shell.”

She adds, “I teach a philosophy, a way of life that the Chinese refer to as Tao which tells us to live our lives in harmony with the cycles of life and nature, which I feel is consistent with Judaism. Both are ways of life; both infuse our beings. Through Tai Chi and Judaism, I am a much more spiritual and complete person.”

Kirshon’s future plans include a possible try for the 2008 Olympic team (in 1999, the International Olympic Committee, the IOC, recognized Wushu as a sport, which incorporated Tai Chi under the banner of Wushu).

Along with the medical benefits, Kirshon emphasizes that Tai Chi slows down the aging process; therefore, in competition, age is not a factor. “It’s not about muscular strength but about inner strength,” she says.

“Yes, Tai Chi is a martial art, but it’s also a healing art. I teach for health. I want people of all ages — young and old — to feel comfortable doing what they’re doing and to have fun with it. I really feel that this practice is a life skill that helps you cope with things that you can’t change. It’s very challenging because with our rapid pace of life, it’s hard for people to slow down. But the effort is worth it. I’ve seen the results.”

Lisa Kirshon teaches Tai Chi in the North Shore area and conducts workshops and corporate seminars. She is also a licensed massage therapist. She can be reached at 978-777-7130 and by e-mail taohcc@aol.com.

Other sources used and cited in this article are www.taichinetwork.org and www.taichi-online.com. It should also be noted that while both these sources say that doctors are increasingly recommending Tai Chi as a form of exercise to patients, they also recommend that potential students consult their doctors before starting Tai Chi or any other exercise program.

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JFS, Rabbinical Council Creates Bikur Cholim

AMY SESSLER POWELL
Special to The Jewish Journal

Jewish Family Service, in partnership with the North Shore Rabbinical Council and the North Shore Medical Center, is launching a program to train volunteers to visit Jewish patients in the hospital.

The program is designed to meet the need in the community for a Jewish chaplaincy program so that all patients in the hospital can get a visit. Over time, it has come to the attention of area rabbis and Jewish agency leaders that Jewish patients in the hospital are not getting enough emotional support from the community. The need is particularly acute for those who are not affiliated with a synagogue.

“This is a way for Jews to connect to the best part of the Jewish tradition – compassion and reaching out to those in need,” said Rabbi Neal Loevinger of Temple Israel, who has led the effort for the North Shore Rabbinical Council. “Those who are doing the chaplaincy will have a profound deepening of their Jewish experience.”

The program, called Bikur Cholim, visiting the sick, will train volunteers during six morning sessions. The North Shore Medical Center chaplaincy department will do the training in conjunction with area rabbis. Sessions will last one and one-half hours each and will cover hospital protocol, general chaplaincy training and Jewish theological ideas of connecting Jews to each other.

Jane Korins, director of pastoral care at the North Shore Medical Center, described the program as general training in now to really visit the sick and really do a Jewish spiritual care visit.

“I’m planning on learning a lot myself,” she said. “This is the first time I’ve really done a formal program with so many different rabbis.”

“Our mission is to strengthen the Jewish family. We see this as an integral part in helping Jews cope in a time of stress,” said Jon Firger, chief executive at Jewish Family Service.

Rabbi Loevinger stressed the importance of a community program aimed at helping all Jews whether or not they are affiliated. “All the North Shore rabbis realize that visiting the sick is not only a central commandment of Judaism, but an unmet need in our community. This is a win-win-win for the shuls, the hospitals and for everyone.”

Korins said, “We have a large Jewish population that comes here for care. To have someone come in from their congregation implicitly represents well wishes from the whole congregation. That is healing right there.”

The program will start with a few volunteers who can attend the training and commit to visiting Jewish patients at Salem Hospital, North Shore Children’s Hospital and Shaughnessy-Kaplan Rehabilitation Hospital in Salem and Union Hospital in Lynn.

Volunteers need to be able to make visits and attend training during the day. In addition to volunteers to conduct visits, the program will need some volunteers who can manage the database, do light clerical work or make phone calls. While the cost of the program is low for a high community impact, the Bikur Cholim program is also interested in donors.

“Our vision is that this is a seed that can grow into something bigger,” said Rabbi Loevinger. “Ultimately, it can be a network of volunteers, working in the synagogues and greater community so that Jews, wherever they are on the North Shore can be visited on a regular basis.”

For more information or to volunteer, call Jewish Family Service, 978-741-7878.

Amy Sessler Powell is on the board of Jewish Family Service.

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National News

Study Says 6.1 Million American Jews, but Numbers Come in for Criticism

JOE BEFKOFSKY

NEW YORK (JTA) — There are slightly more than 6.1 million Jews in the United States, according to a new study.

If that count — 6,141,325, to be exact — sounds familiar, it is.

The figure, contained in a new study on American religious life, is a two-year-old estimate, first reported in the 2001 edition of the annual American Jewish Year Book, published by the American Jewish Committee.

Such major media as The New York Times and The Washington Post recently reported on the study by the Glenmary Research Center, an arm of a Catholic missionary institute.

“I assumed they had an independent means” of calculating the figure, said Lawrence Grossman, editor of the American Jewish Year Book, who had seen the new coverage. “I didn’t know they got it from us.”

The demographic portrait of American Jewry will change in coming weeks and months, though to what degree is anybody’s guess.

The much-anticipated National Jewish Population Survey 2000-2001 is due out shortly, as is a population study by Gary Tobin, president of the Institute for Jewish and Community Research in San Francisco.

The reports, which will examine the size and character of American Jewry, will fuel intense debate and may shape the agenda for organized U.S. Jewry for years to come.

The new NJPS updates the 1990 version, which sparked controversy with the assertion that in the previous five years, 52 percent of U.S. Jews intermarried. The 1990 survey stirred intense communal soul-searching, and spawned a decade’s worth of efforts at outreach and Jewish identity building.

The 1990 NJPS put the U.S. Jewish population at 5.5 million.

Tobin is among those who have voiced intense criticism of the 1990 survey, and he is no less suspicious of the American Jewish Year Book numbers that recently resurfaced.

“Those numbers are not at all reliable,” he said, because the grass-roots methods used to gather the numbers are “hit or miss.”
One of those who gathered the estimate for the 2001 yearbook is Jim Schwartz, director of research for the United Jewish Communities and director of the North American Jewish Data Bank.

Schwartz also is one of the chief researchers for the UJC’s forthcoming 2000-2001 NJPS.

Schwartz said the 6.1 million figure was based on “local community counts” by 200 Jewish federations, and on information from rabbis and other “informed Jewish communal leaders” in areas lacking federations.

Unlike the other counts from religious movements in the Glenmary study, the Jewish calculation includes self-identified Jews in addition to those who belong to a synagogue.

Schwartz would not say whether the 6.1 million figure differs in any way from the forthcoming NJPS count.

The 2001 American Jewish Year Book figure did shift from earlier editions. In 2000, the yearbook reported the total U.S. Jewish population at 6.06 million.

And in late 2001, Egon Mayer, director of the Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, led a team of researchers conducting a study intended to provide a “second opinion” to the 1990 NJPS.

Using much of the same methodology, Mayer’s study counted 5.5 million Jews — the same as the NJPS figure from 11 years earlier.

The Glenmary study offered snapshots of other religious movements as well. It found:
•All Protestant churches combined claim 66 million members;
•The Catholic Church remains the single largest movement with 62 million adherents;
•The Mormon Church is the fastest-growing religious body, up 19.3 percent from the last Glenmary study in 1990 to 4.2 million members;
•There are 1.6 million Muslims, far lower than the 7 million figure expounded by some U.S. Muslim groups.

The Muslim count was based on those “associated” with mosques, said Richard Houseal, vice president of the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, who advised the 1990 Glenmary study. The study surveyed one-third of the nation’s 1,200 mosques.

Like the Jewish count, the Muslim figure is considered problematic because it relies on “self-reporting,” said James Wind, president of the Alban Institute, an independent group that provides consulting for religious congregations.

In addition, groups may want their numbers either over- or underestimated for political reasons, Wind said.

The American Jewish Committee published a study late last year putting the Muslim population at 1.9 million to 2.8 million, but U.S. Muslim leaders criticized the report as an attempt to downplay the importance of their community.

Though the portrait of U.S. Jewry is also rough because it does not differentiate between Jews who are “rigorous” in practice and those who identify mainly on a cultural basis, the overall number reflects a “more established’’ population than U.S. Muslims, Wind said.

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International News

Should Israel Retaliate If Attacked?

MATTHEW E. BERGER

WASHINGTON (JTA) — A disagreement is surfacing between the United States and Israel over whether the Jewish state should retaliate if attacked by Iraq during an American-led war.

For months, as talk of U.S. action against Iraq intensified, Israeli officials have said Israel can not hold its fire if attacked by Iraq, as it did when showered with Iraqi missiles in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Coupled with those statements was the view that the Bush administration understood and would allow Israel to retaliate.

In recent days, however — as talk of war increasingly occupies the international community — U.S. officials have been asking Israel to just sit tight if attacked.

Asked Sept. 18 if the United States should restrain Israel during a war, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told the House Armed Services Committee that Israel should hold its fire even if attacked.

There is “no doubt in mind but that it would be in Israel’s overwhelming best interest not to get involved,” Rumsfeld said. He reiterated the comments to the Senate the next day.

Secretary of State Colin Powell deflected similar questions from Congress. Powell said he felt Israel’s 1991 decision not to fire back — made under intense U.S. pressure — “was the correct one.”

He added that the Bush administration was “thinking about” available contingencies if Iraq again tried to draw Israel into the hostilities.

The United States would “be in the closest consultation with our Israeli friends and colleagues,” Powell told the House International Relations Committee on Sept. 19. “Both Vice President Cheney and I have experience in dealing with this question and this problem, and I think we would know how to deal with it again.”

The Bush administration is telling Israel the same thing privately, administration officials said.

“That he actually feels this way is not shocking,” one U.S. analyst said of Rumsfeld’s comments. “What is shocking is that he is saying it publicly.”

The main U.S. concern, emphasized by lawmakers on Sunday talk shows, is that Israeli involvement could turn Arab countries against the U.S. effort or even escalate the conflict into a general Arab-Israeli war.

“I think we all recognize there is a downside, that if the Israelis go in it could just be a widespread war in the Middle East,” Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

While the Bush administration is hoping to win Arab acquiescence to an attack on Iraq — as well as permission to use military bases in the Arab world — some fear that an Israeli retaliatory attack against Iraq would move the Arab states from bystanders to active combatants against Israel.

The U.S. stance is “about building a coalition, but it’s also about preventing a coalition against” the United States, one Jewish official said.

But the administration’s statements have rattled the Israeli government.

On the one hand, Israel hopes the U.S. battle plan will include measures to undermine Iraq’s ability to attack Israel.

But many Israeli officials see the decision not to respond to the Iraqi attack in 1991 as a grievous strategic error that undermined Israel’s deterrent power and emboldened Hezbollah and Palestinian terrorist groups to attack the Jewish state.

While Israel hopes to stay out of the war entirely, Israeli officials also hope the United States will support Israel’s need to respond if it is attacked.

“If attacked unprovoked, Saddam Hussein cannot presume that we will automatically repeat the restraint we exercised in 1991,” said Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington.

At the same time, Israeli officials also note that the country is not on automatic pilot, and that decisions about retaliation will be made on a case-by-case basis.

The calculation also would depend on the provocation: A different response would be considered if an Iraqi missile landed harmlessly in the Negev Desert than if chemical warheads hit Tel Aviv.

Some analysts are concerned that Bush’s comments will lead to perceptions that Israel is weak.

“It sends the wrong signal to Baghdad,” said David Makovsky, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “It’s perhaps implying that the U.S. could seek to restrain Israel if it is attacked by Iraq,” making Israel seem like a U.S. pawn.

There also may be political considerations: Not responding might prove detrimental to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who is mindful of a potential challenge from the more hawkish former prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

“To speculate right now about whether or not Israel will retaliate to an Iraqi attack is not constructive,” said Rebecca Needler, spokeswoman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. “It is our hope that Israel will not be attacked, that Israel will not be put in that situation.”

Many Middle East analysts anticipate that the United States will formulate attack plans against Iraq designed to minimize the possibility of a strike against Israel.

Labor Party legislator Colette Avital, who was in Washington to meet with lawmakers, said she believes the best course of action is a pre-emptive strike in the western part of Iraq, hitting bases from which Saddam could launch missiles against Israel.

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With Ramallah Under Siege, Sharon’s Motives Unclear

LESLIE SUSSER

JERUSALEM (JTA) — On the face of it, sending in tanks and bulldozers to demolish most of Yasser Arafat’s Ramallah headquarters doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

For months, Sharon has been trying to weaken the Palestinian Authority president. Now, just when Arafat appeared to be tottering, the siege in Ramallah has given him a new lease on life, at least in the short term.

Thousands of indignant Palestinians, in recent weeks impervious to Arafat’s fate, now are demonstrating in support of their humiliated leader. World and regional leaders, alienated by Arafat’s persistent deceit, are again showing sympathy for the underdog.

And the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution calling on Israel to withdraw from Palestinian cities.

But Israeli leaders claim there is method in the madness: regime change.

Sharon has made it plain that he wants to expel Arafat. Other officials who favor replacing Arafat think expulsion would be too drastic a step.

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and the defense establishment — including Defense Minster Benjamin Ben-Eliezer and the Israeli army’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya’alon — argue that expelling Arafat would do far more harm than good.

By chipping away at Arafat’s compound, pundits say, Sharon has created a situation where there will be nothing left to demolish after future bombings, and no sanctions left to impose on Arafat but expulsion.

“Sharon in his inimitable way is leading Ben-Eliezer and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to the inevitable decision to expel,” analyst Nahum Barnea commented in the daily Yediot Achronot newspaper. “It will happen after the next Hamas terror attack. More than Arafat is our captive, he is a hostage of the Hamas, who couldn’t have asked for a better prize.”

Palestinian officials, too, seem to have gotten the message. Arafat security adviser Mohammad Dahlan reportedly warned Hamas and Islamic Jihad that Arafat would be expelled if they carried out more attacks; in that case, he told them, Arafat’s blood would be on their head.

Arafat himself, according to some reports in the Israeli press, said that if released he would work to restrain the Palestinian terror groups, including the Al-Aksa Brigades of his own Fatah movement — though in the past Arafat has made so many similar promises that by now they impress few Israeli leaders.

Some Israeli pundits worry that Palestinian lawmakers and Fatah reformers, who in recent weeks were becoming unprecedentedly bold in their challenges to Arafat, would now feel obligated to rally around him to avoid appearing as Israeli stooges.

However, Ben-Eliezer believes the Ramallah operation, designed to chip away at Arafat’s authority and status without expelling him, will accelerate regime change.

The more Arafat is seen to be impotent, the thinking goes, the greater the incentive to replace him and the less fear reformers will have of his wrath.

The Ramallah operation is code-named “A Matter of Time.” Though at first the siege may seem to have backfired, Israeli leaders believe that over time — weeks rather than months — Arafat’s decline will be self-evident and the operation will be judged a success.

Even with the siege in full force, they note, Arafat deputy Mahmoud Abbas, better known as Abu Mazen, convened a meeting to discuss the appointment of a prime minister to share power with Arafat.

Though Abbas is a close Arafat associate, Israeli officials see this as a major step toward reforming the Palestinian political establishment and enabling a more moderate leadership to emerge.

One of the more prominent mid-level Palestinian leaders declared openly on Israeli television that the Palestinians need a prime minister alongside Arafat as part of their political reform, but claimed this was not tied to the siege in Ramallah.

However, there is by no means a consensus around Abbas or any other potential leader, or even about the need for a prime minister. Young leaders of Fatah’s Tanzim militia say Abbas and the group of Arafat cronies, most of whom returned from lives of luxury in Tunis to the West Bank and Gaza after the Oslo accords, don’t speak for the Palestinian people.

In other words, even if the Israeli strategy works and there is a regime change, it might end up empowering a more militant Palestinian leadership, made up mainly of Tanzim and/or Hamas radicals.

Though the focus for now is on Arafat, the army has made it clear that Hamas leaders too will be targeted if the organization continues its bombing campaign.

The government reportedly has decided in principle to deport Hamas’ leader, Sheik Ahmad Yassin, but the army is waiting for the opportune moment.

“We have not finished our job in Gaza,” Sharon declared Monday. “The day will come when we will have to concentrate forces there and deal with Hamas.”

Still, the main focus remains Arafat. He is blamed for the failure of the Gaza/Bethlehem First cease-fire effort, under which Israel turned over security responsibility to Palestinian forces in those areas as a test that could be extended to other areas.

Yet even in the Gaza Strip, where P.A. security forces remain fully intact, they did nothing to fight terror, and Arafat himself intervened to prevent his forces from keeping the situation too quiet, the Israeli daily Ha’aretz reported.

The re-emergence of the bombers last week led Israel to reimpose its hold on Palestinian cities, rather than loosening it as envisaged in the rolling cease-fire plan.

On the Israeli left, the siege on Arafat and the retightening of the screws in the West Bank sparked public skepticism about Sharon’s motives. Meretz Party leader Yossi Sarid accused Sharon of playing to the Likud gallery, pointing out that the party is due soon to elect convention delegates who will decide whether Sharon or former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leads the party in the next election.

Labor’s Yossi Beilin describes the Ramallah operation as “Sharon’s horror show,” and accused Ben-Eliezer of being “stupid enough’’ to go along with an attempt to destroy chances for a peace process.
___________________________
Leslie Susser is diplomatic correspondent for the Jerusalem Report.

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Israel Defends Ramallah Siege

NAOMI SEGAL

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli officials say the renewed siege on Yasser Arafat’s Ramallah compound presages the Palestinian Authority president’s impending downfall.

Israeli troops encircled the compound and demolished nearly all the buildings there after a string of Palestinian terror attacks left nine people dead.

The action drew international protests and a U.N. Security Council resolution called on Israel to withdraw its troops from the compound immediately.

The United States said the Israeli siege was “not helpful” to efforts to reduce terrorist violence and advance peacemaking. U.S. officials reportedly fear the siege could overshadow their efforts to build an international coalition to attack Iraq.

Following lengthy debate, the Security Council voted 14-0, with the United States abstaining, on a resolution calling on Israel to end the siege and on the Palestinian Authority to bring terrorists to justice.

Despite the vote, Israeli officials said they expected the operation to continue.

If the Palestinians uphold their obligations under the resolution, then Israel will do likewise, said Ra’anan Gissin, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

But, he noted, “Since the Palestinian Authority definitely not only is not arresting terrorists but actually aiding and abetting them, then it is highly unlikely that we could unilaterally fulfil our part of the resolution.”

Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Yehuda Lancry, said he did not expect the United Nations to dispatch a multinational force to the region to enforce the resolution.

The resolution was negotiated by the European Union and cobbled together with language from competing U.S. and Syrian proposals.

Deputy U.S. ambassador James Cunningham said the compromise resolution was flawed “in that it failed to explicitly condemn the terrorist groups and those who provide them with political cover.”

Israel also launched an operation in the Gaza Strip aimed at preventing Palestinian attacks on Israeli targets.

Nine Palestinians were killed in gun battles that erupted after Israeli forces entered Gaza City.

Backed by tanks, bulldozers and helicopters, Israeli soldiers destroyed 13 workshops where the army said Palestinian terrorists were building rockets.

The army also demolished the house of a Hamas member who killed five Israeli teen-agers in an attack on a Jewish settlement in Gaza earlier this year.

The army did not target Hamas leaders in the raid, despite Sharon’s warning a day earlier that the army would soon target the group.

Israeli officials have warned that they are thinking of expelling the founder of Hamas, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, and a top Hamas official, Abdel Aziz Rantissi.

At the U.N. Security Council debate Lancry defended Israel’s actions.

“Inside the leadership compound in Ramallah are 50 individuals who have planned, funded and orchestrated scores of terrorist attacks and who are responsible for countless deaths of innocent civilians,” he said.

“Rather than take action against those it knows to be complicit in acts of terrorism, the Palestinian Authority, in its headquarters, grants them immunity and protects them,” he said.

While stressing it had no intention of physically harming Arafat, the Israeli government said the siege has two goals: to further isolate Arafat and to force the Palestinians to hand over the suspected terrorists holed up with him.

The siege is code-named “A Matter of Time.” According to Environment Minister Tzachi Hanegbi, the name refers to Arafat’s imminent exile.

“He’s finished, and he has no place left in the Middle East,” Hanegbi told Israel Radio.

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres vigorously disagrees, saying that exiling Arafat would only increase his support.

On Monday, Israeli and Palestinian officials met to discuss ways to end the siege.

Following the discussions, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat met with Arafat at the compound in Ramallah. Erekat later said Arafat refused Israel’s demand to supply a list of those holed up with him.

Israel began the demolitions at the compound on Sept. 19, hours after a suicide bombing killed six aboard a Tel Aviv bus.

By Sunday night, when the army announced that it had completed the demolitions, bulldozers had destroyed all structures in the compound except a British Mandate-era building where Arafat remained with an estimated 200 people.

Some 50 of them are wanted for their involvement in terrorism, Israeli officials say.

Palestinian demonstrators defied curfews in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to protest the siege. Four protestors were killed in clashes with Israeli troops Saturday night.

Critics said Israel had unwittingly revived support for Arafat just as he was coming under widespread criticism for poor leadership and for condoning corruption in the Palestinian Authority.

But there also were indications that Arafat still faced stiff domestic pressure.

On Monday, a group of Palestinians reportedly discussed having Arafat’s deputy become prime minister. Under the plan, Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, would assume the position in a power-sharing arrangement with Arafat.

Arafat is believed to oppose the idea.

Israel’s Army Radio said Monday’s meeting reflected the rise of “an alternative Palestinian leadership to Yasser Arafat, although none of the participants would acknowledge this.’’

The report quoted Palestinian sources as saying that the meetings, which included Abbas, were held with Israel’s knowledge and consent.

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Arts & Entertainment

Ablow Heals, Redeems in ‘Compulsion’

GARY BAND
Jewish Journal Staff

Newburyport author and forensic psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow has written another compelling and provocative psychological thriller in Compulsion (St. Martin’s Press, 2002).

In his third novel, following Projection and Denial, (each sold over half-a-million copies), Ablow’s protagonist, Dr. Frank Klevinger, reluctantly returns to the field of forensic psychiatry to solve the case of a murdered infant child born to the billionaire Darwin Bishop family on Nantucket Island.

Ablow, 40, was raised in Marblehead, about which he remarks, “beware of towns that guide books are written about. There’s always more going on than meets the eye.” He attended Brown University as an undergraduate and Johns Hopkins University for medical school. And, in a sort of “reverse migration,” he moved to Chelsea in 1989 while doing his residency at Tufts New England Medical Center, where he lived for 10 years before resettling on Plum Island.

“Chelsea has always played host to every new ethnic group in the area, and has been a staging ground for many successful people,” Ablow notes.

While still in medical school in Baltimore, he worked for Newsweek, contributed articles to the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, US News and World Report, and USA Today. His published works prior to novel writing include a guide for getting into medical school, and three non-fiction titles: How to Cope with Depression; To Wrestle with Demons; and Anatomy of a Psychiatric Illness, based on the death of a fellow resident killed by a deranged driver.

In 10 years of practice as a forensic psychiatrist, Ablow has researched and testified in some of the nation’s most highly publicized criminal cases, including that of Dr. Richard Sharpe, the doctor convicted of shooting and murdering his wife at point-blank range in Wenham last year.

With all the gruesome cases on which he’s worked, readers may wonder how they influence his writing. “I have a hard and fast rule never to use any real-life stories in my novels,” Ablow says. “The things I come up with in my imagination are nowhere near as dark as the real-life stuff.”

Although Ablow’s protagonist Dr. Clevinger bears similarities to the author, he is simply a creation of Ablow’s imagination. “He is exquisitely sensitive to people’s pain,” Ablow explains. “I don’t share his addictions (alcohol and women) either. But I can imagine them, and how seductive the desire is not to feel, to escape, lose yourself in a woman, and not feel your own pain.” Ablow says Compulsion is “more tame” than his earlier two novels, in which Clevinger showed more of his dark side.

The author says he received 200 rejection letters for a novel before submitting 20 written pages of the book that was to become Denial to Random House. “Come on down,” they said.

As a writer, Ablow says he has only one real skill: telling stories. He says his writing is akin to the process of providing forensic testimony. “I present evidence that makes sense to a jury. My fictional characters have certain qualities that tell you who they are.”

Forensic psychiatry, or “anything at the interface of the law and psychiatry,” Ablow explains, is like “unraveling a mystery.”

“I’ve always been invested with a real desire to get to the bottom of things, a drive to be as close to the truth as possible,” he says. But Ablow believes there is gap between the “reality of people’s lives and what they present to the world.”

He feels that talking about problems is a lost art. From the very beginning of the book, the author invites the reader into the pain of Lillie Cunningham and shows what one man can do to help alleviate that suffering.

“Using intuition to solve something or help another person is too often accepted as commonplace when it’s really miraculous,” Ablow says. And as his protagonist supports, “I have never felt closer to God than I do when journeying into a damaged heart,” Clevinger says in the book.

One of the themes explored in Compulsion is losing control — the fear of reverting from rich back to poor, health back to sickness, freedom back to imprisonment. Ablow says people worry a great deal about being abandoned, reverting to the helplessness they felt as a child.

Upon completing the book, readers will discover that each character has a compulsion, an irresistible desire of some kind, as well as a desire for some form of redemption.

“Psychological thrillers are vehicles to talk about the darkness in people’s lives,” Ablow says. “But everyone has lightness in them and is capable of redemption.”

In terms of the effectiveness of prisons and mental health institutions in helping to contain and heal people, Ablow believes that while certain people are in fact a danger to themselves and society and must be contained, many of the institutions and prisons are doing a disservice and making people far worse than when they were admitted.

“We have some pretty draconian laws in this country,” he says. “Selling drugs can land a person in prison for 30 years.

Once you start expressing that much violence toward people who make bad choices, it blurs the line between punishment and redemption and mars society for all time... Prison sentences are a deterrent, but also have a resonance beyond the case.”

But whether someone is in fact capable of being healed and redeemed depends on many things, the author says.

“The fact is, every little thing matters as to whether one feels competent in the world: role models, siblings, community, it all goes into a big pot. The truth of the matter is that most people try their best not to hurt others, and basic human nature is to be good.”

Projecting is another central theme of the book.

“One of the few ways people who can’t cope with their own pain deal with it is to put their suffering on other people,” Ablow explains. “A lesson of Gandhi and Christ is the capacity to feel pain without inflicting it on others. That’s why Clevinger is a hero. He can be in tremendous pain, but never inflicts it on others.”

In a novel of “elegant metaphors,” the essence of Compulsion is perhaps most clearly expressed by a painting that hangs in Clevinger’s Chelsea loft of one ship tied to another in rough seas. Like Clevinger, who has issues of his own, but allows himself time and again to delve into the troubles of his patients, as the storm threatens to engulf both vessels, the sense of shared vulnerability is depicted. But despite the risk, there is the inherent desire to reach out to another in the hope that both may be saved.

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PENNY SCHWARTZ
Special to The Jewish Journal

Aleph-Bet Yoga: Embodying the Hebrew Letters for Physical and Spiritual Well-Being by Steven A. Rapp (Jewish Lights Publishing, Woodstock, VT; 93 pages; $16.95 paperback.)

Whether it’s aches and pains, the stress of a busy lifestyle, or the anxieties over current world affairs, you’ll find comfort in the pages of Aleph-Bet Yoga, a new book by Boston resident Stephen Rapp.

By day, the 38-year-old Rapp is a manager in the New England office of the Environmental Protection Agency, toiling with pressure-cooker public policy issues such as toxic air pollution. In his work-a-day world, Rapp says, he is in constant communication with people.

But as author of Aleph-Bet, Rapp reveals his inner, spiritual life where he practices a unique form of yoga to balance stress and renew a commitment to his Jewish faith. Rapp likes to mix things up, and in Aleph-Bet Yoga he blends the elements of two ancient and distinct traditions — Judaism, the Hebrew alphabet, and Hatha yoga, creating a new, gracious approach to achieve spiritual well-being.

In a recent interview, Rapp elaborated on the personal connection to Judaism. “One of my spiritual drivers is a Jewish mystical concept called tikkun olam or the repair of the world. Essentially, it views the world as having been broken and obligates us to help repair it or make it whole. This is a big part of what motivates me to work for the Environmental Protection Agency. My yoga practice has allowed me to tap into an incredible inner reservoir of energy. Its introspective exercises have given me the focus and inner strength to work as hard as I can in the external world for tikkun, the repair.”

Rapp’s first introduction to yoga came from a friend in the Peace Corps. But it was not until 1989 that he and his wife, Ulli, took their first yoga classes together, while living in Washington, D.C. “In a way, I could trace my interest in yoga back to my high school sports, where I played soccer and hockey for Randolph High School and our coaches always told us to stretch before games and practices so that we didn’t injure ourselves. Most of my teammates dreaded the stretching but I loved it,” Rapp said.

The poses for Aleph-Bet Yoga bare a remarkable resemblance to the shapes of the 29 Hebrew letters and symbols. Each letter is then paired with a corresponding Hatha Yoga pose which is connected to the spiritual meaning of the Hebrew letter. A related Hebrew prayer and an original poem by Rapp accompanies each of the poses. The letter Yud, for example, is symbolic for a hand. It’s yoga complement is a hand-stretch, part of the Pawanmuktasana, the “wind release”.

Rapp’s poem begins, “By our hands. The world is altered.”

As you reach the letter “lamed” (pronounced La-med), symbol of learning or teaching, the Rapp’s reminder to “smile and take three to five deep breaths,” evokes his gentle approach.

“Lamed” is united with the yoga position “utkatasana,” the lightning pose. “Begin by standing as straight as possible; inhale, raise your arms above your head and then bend both legs.”

“Can yoga be Jewish?” Rapp questions in an opening chapter. The traditions of Judaism and yoga could seem at odds, he explains. Historically, Judaism has intellectual roots, whereas Yoga, based on eastern religions places a greater emphasis on movement and physical well-being. But according to Rapp and other spiritual and religious thinkers he cites, these are superficial differences and should not be a deterrent for Jews who wish to explore the benefits of yoga.

What are the connections between Judaism, the Hebrew alphabet and Yoga? “Practicing yoga focuses the mind and keeps the body healthy. In this way, yoga prepares people to fulfill themselves in their other pursuits. Each of the movements should be done with your full awareness. You may not be able to form all the poses perfectly, but you search for and push your limits to approach the final forms.

“Judaism is similar in that it too should be practiced with intention, or the Hebrew word kavanah,” continues Rapp. “There is a lot within the Jewish tradition that encourages Jews to seek ways of taking care of themselves so that they can fulfill themselves with Jewish actions. The Hebrew aleph-bet is one of the foundations of Judaism. It is the language of Jewish civilization, including prayer, the Torah, the Hebrew Bible, and other legal and spiritual writings. Practicing Aleph-Bet Yoga provides a means for Jews to connect with their own spiritual tradition. In this way, all three elements combine to a whole greater than the individual parts,” Rapp exlplains.

The “ah-hah” moment harmonized unexpectedly for Rapp when a “sofer,” a Hebrew scribe came to his synagogue, Beth David of the South Shore in Canton.

“After he finished repairing one of the Torah scrolls, he got the youngest kids together and explained that the letters were not just marks on a page or scroll but rather they were pictures telling a story. He had them act out the letters. I realized that there could be a way to teach the Hebrew letters to children using their bodies, not just their brains and eyes. I had also been teaching a weekly yoga class in Boston around the same time. And watching the sofer, it all just clicked.”

Clear instructions and a photograph of the stretches and bends are presented for each pose which are then re-ordered in a different sequence for a yoga routine which Rapp says is most beneficial and easier on the body.

“The best way to use the book at home is to read through it first” Rapp says, and he cautions beginners to take their time and not get discouraged if they don’t get the exact pose the first, second, or fiftieth time they try. “Yoga is all about the trying — the intention and the attention, not the final position. “A yoga class greatly enhances a beginner’s work with the Aleph-Bet Yoga book at home,” Rapp suggests.

Does he have a personal favorite letter? “When I practice Aleph-Bet Yoga, I do the entire series” (all the letters plus two vowels), Rapp says. “As far as a favorite, I would probably say it is the letter “aleph” which is a symbol of oxen yoked together. That one really makes a connection for me because the word “yoga” in Sanskrit means to yoke or connect. I also find an easy Jewish connection with the Sanskrit name of the pose, “utthita trikonasana,” which means extended triangle pose. Looking at the form of the pose, I see the rising and descending triangles of the Jewish star.

Steve Rapp is the father of three children who sometimes still join in on Aleph-Bet yoga sessions in their home. He’s available to conduct classes in Jewish community centers.

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Editorial

Message to CJP: Give Menorah Parents a Chance

Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston (CJP) and the association of Jewish Community Centers of Greater Boston made a significant mistake in early August when they agreed to sell rustic Camp Menorah in Essex for private use without consulting the community affected — ours. Now is the time to correct that mistake.

On October 1, CJP’s Board of Directors will meet to decide whether to proceed with the existing purchase and sale agreement, under which the land would be sold for private use. Or whether to accept a rival offer from the Parents Committee to Save Camp Menorah, a group that formed spontaneously in the aftermath of CJP’s startling announcement of the camp’s closing. The parents group is proposing a formula under which a new non-profit corporation, Eight Lights, LLC, backed by private local philanthropists, would compensate CJP for the money it would lose by not selling the camp at this time. For three years, CJP would be paid an amount equal to the interest it would have gained by investing the proceeds from the sale. At the end of the three years, the corporation would buy the camp at the same price offered by the prospective purchaser, about $850,000 for 5.5 of the 6.4 total acres of the camp.

CJP would be protected against loss. The parents would have their camp. It sounds like a win-win for everybody. But it’s not a perfect solution.

For one thing, the camp is a perennial money loser: Its deficit this year is somewhere between $30,000 and $70,000; the parents and their backers will have to assume future debts. For another, in the hands of the parents, Menorah will compete more vigorously against the other Jewish day camp in this area: Camp Simchah, which also loses money. It’s possible both will suffer. Simchah is run by the Jewish Community Center of the North Shore and is subsidized by the Jewish Federation of the North Shore. The Federation, whose own contributions have declined, is not in a position to subsidize a second camp’s operations. Finally, there is the possibility that the parents group won’t have the wherewithal to buy the camp three years from now, in which case they will have only delayed “the inevitable.”

The parents and their supporters are enthusiastic and undeterred by the obstacles. The camp is closed for most of the year; their ambitious plans call for opening it up to the whole community in non-camp months — making it a Jewish retreat center, site of conferences, teen and senior citizen programs, Shabbatons, bar/bat mitzvahs, and rope climbing courses. For any of that to happen, critics note, facilities will need to be winterized, staff recruited and trained, and infrastructure upgraded. Moreover, it should be noted, the effective camp area is shrinking now anyway: an adjacent parcel of land that campers have used for ball games is being sold off separately for development by its private owner.

The Menorah parents have their hands full. But they deserve a chance to succeed. We call on CJP to give them that chance. And we appeal to this community to support the two camps — Simchah and Menorah — to give our children a Jewish camp choice once again next summer.

MARK ARNOLD
Jewish Journal Editor/Publisher

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Local Columnists

On the Road
Time Out of Time

For my faithful readership (all five of you) who’ve noticed, it’s been three issues since I last wrote this column. Prior to this lapse, I’d written 44 consecutive ‘On the Roads’. My car needed a break.

Actually, a slow early summer gave way to a hectic and humid mid-late August when three of the year’s biggest Jewish Journal issues — Wonderful Weddings, Prepare for Rosh Hashanah, and High Holiday Greetings — occupied all my creative and road-tripping time. Hence, no column.

Following the trials and tribulations (as my father would say) of those issues, I boarded a non-Acela Amtrak for a much-needed vacation to see my aunt and uncle in Washington, D.C. over the Labor Day weekend. This was the official beginning of moving out of their beautiful but labor-intensive abode after 18 years. Since I spent the summer of my 14th year at tennis camp at the nearby Sidwell Friends School, it was only fitting that I be there at the end. I was on attic and basement clearing and trash detail with my uncle, while my aunt painstakingly decided what was to go, stay or be given away.

I returned in time to attend High Holiday services. For Yom Kippur, I observed Kol Nidre but opted out of next day services, and for the fourth year in a row conducted my personal Yom Kippur ritual of fasting, walking, and reading Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. And now that I’ve located it on the tape, after sunset I watched the Yom Kippur episode of Northern Exposure, in which Fleishman dreams Rabbi Shulman is the the ghost of Yom Kippur past, present and future, and struggles to repent before the gates of heaven close.

The year past brought unprecedented challenges for the world. September 11. Year two of the initifada. Suicide bombings. War in Afghanistan. Fear at home and abroad.

For me, starting in early May, 2001, everything began to change: my friend and housemate, Rabbi Dov Pikelny, died; then my grandmother, then my great aunt. I then hastily moved from one Salem apartment to my present address on the Salem Common during Halloween weekend. Thanksgiving and New Years were followed by the death of my good friend’s father. Then my former editor was diagnosed with cancer. Then she was cured.

And following the minor mishigas here at the paper from March to June, henani, here I am.

I feel that all these events, both global and personal, did much to further awaken a greater sense of consciousness, responsibility and seriousness in me and in us all.

As we enter a new Jewish year that can only be an improvement on the one past, it is important to consider how that might happen. How indeed might we seize the opportunity to improve and simplify our lives, to treat our friends, family, and co-workers with greater kindness and understanding, to reach out to those with whom we’ve lost touch, and be more involved in our community?

In the midst of the noise and haste of our everyday lives, it’s often difficult to step back from it all and think on these things. The Jewish answer is Shabbat, a one-day retreat from all material and laborious pursuits when more spiritual concerns may be pondered. But as valuable as it may be to keep holy 24 hours a week — “an island of time,” Rabbi Heschel called it — for many it’s just not realistic.

Along those lines, trying to create islands of time throughout the day can be incredibly empowering. To take, as Kurt Vonnegut describes the reading of short stories, “Buddhist cat naps.” Whether in the form of reading, meditating, or walking, driving, cycling or running, recognizing these islands of time can help us navigate the year ahead with greater peace and clarity.
Shana tova.

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In the Shadow of the Tree

Although I always knew I wanted children, it took a Christmas Eve in 1980 to make me put aside the career and the projects and begin planning a family. Steve and I were at the home of Jewish friends, people we thought of as pseudo-family, when we choked back the shock at their Christmas tree.

“We’re still Jewish,” they assured us, bringing us gifts from under the tree. They put their arm around their new son-in-law and explained cheerfully, “We’re just sharing Edgar’s customs.”

With that explanation, I could have retrieved the gifts with my mouth, because my jaw dropped almost to the floor. To our friends, I said nothing. I didn’t want to be impolite or insensitive. I kept reminding myself of the choices each of us is entitled to make.

But on the ride home, Steve and I did some serious soul-searching and came to the conclusion that it was time to craft our own independent Jewish life. More to the point, I had always wanted to be a rabbi and what better way than to give birth to one’s own congregation.

Nine months to the day after our Christmas tree conversion, on September 25th, I gave birth to our first congregant, Francesca Nehama Golub-Sass. She was the most beautiful baby ever created, of course, as grandparents, aunts, and uncles concurred. But beyond her beauty, the responsibility and the privilege of parenting a Jewish child filled me with joy. Frannie, I thought, was the expression of my Jewishness, a living, breathing vessel into which I could pour all my Jewish dreams.

The Midrash says that during the months before birth, while the fetus sits in the mother’s womb, an angel comes each day to teach it Torah. Just before it is born, however, the angel touches the baby’s lips and all the lessons are forgotten. That is why Torah resonates in the Jewish soul, some say, why we are driven to relearn all that we once knew.

And I was driven to teach it to her. I crooned Hebrew lullabies. I filled her room with pictures of the Hebrew alphabet. I positioned her infant seat in front of the candles on Friday nights. Day and night, I spoke to Frannie in Hebrew, and whatever Yiddish I could muster, of holidays and heroes and Torah and Israel.

To make a long story a little briefer, I bathed my little congregant in a childhood of pure Yiddishkeit—at least what I had decided was Yiddishkeit. Since I was a Jewish feminist, I nursed her under my tallit and carried her with me when I was called to the Torah for aliyot. I painted her name in bubble letters on a pink suede kippa and told her that since God didn’t have a gender, we might as well refer to HaShem as “She.”

The traditionalists in my daughter’s day school thought I was a little over the edge. “You’re going overboard with the Jewish stuff,” my father cautioned Steve and me. “When she grows up, she’ll run away from it.” Indeed, I was pushing hard at the edge of the envelope. You sweat a lot, raising Jewish children in the Diaspora in the shadow of Christmas trees.

But Frannie has proved the old adage that one learns much from a rabbi; but the rabbi learns even more from his/her students. She has not become the Jewish feminist I grew her to be. Nor has she run away from the forced feedings. Indeed, the extraordinary privilege of raising a Jewish child—which I once thought was to create a facsimile of oneself—is really the great blessing of seeing your child as heir to all of Judaism.

Frannie complains that I did not give her enough Torah—why didn’t I send her to a yeshiva? Her kashrut is more scrupulous than mine. Instead of a tallit, she wears long skirts to an orthodox (not-feminist!) congregation. And for her 21st birthday, do you know what she wants for a gift? Tzedakka. She wants us to send money for pizza to her cousin and his outfit in the IDF.

Frannie’s Judaism, her intense Zionism and strong commitment to the Jewish people, started with us. But on the eve of her twenty-first birthday, the secular age of majority, I am pleased to report that my first congregant is a robust, spiritually alive and independent Jewish person. Our tradition is rich, so full, so voluptuous and healthy, that any one of us can grab on to any branch of this tree and find ourselves satisfied. That we cling to different branches makes our tree — and us — incredibly strong.
Who would have thought it began with a Christmas tree?

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The Courage of Larry Summers

Lawrence Summers, president of Harvard University, has now done something that, to my knowledge, no other Jew in a high secular position has ever done: He has spoken out as a Jew to a public audience in the institution he heads on the subject of anti-Semitism.

By so doing, he has made a major contribution to the dialogue within and outside the Jewish community. He helped answer a long-standing question for me regarding how it is that individual Jews come to identify with the American-Jewish community and the State of Israel.  

Here is a part of Larry Summers’ address at Harvard’s Memorial Church on September 17.

“I speak with you today not as president of the university but as a concerned member of our community about something that I never thought I would become seriously worried about — the issue of anti-Semitism. I am Jewish, identified but hardly devout. In my lifetime, anti-Semitism has been remote from my experience. My family all left Europe at the beginning of the 20th century. The Holocaust is for me a matter of history, not personal memory.... My experience in college and graduate school as a faculty member, as a government official — all involved little notice of my religion.”

Summers served as Treasury secretary during the Clinton Administration. He noted how little notice the country paid when he teamed with Robert Rubin, Alan Greenspan, Charlene Barshefsky and other Jews to lead the government’s economic efforts: “It was something that would have been inconceivable a generation or two ago, as indeed it would have been inconceivable a generation or two ago that Harvard could have a Jewish president,” he said.

“But today,” he added, “I am less complacent…and comfortable because there is disturbing evidence of an upturn in anti-Semitism globally, and also because of some developments closer to home.”

Larry Summers launched into a listing of serious anti-Semitic and anti-Israel news in the past year, including synagogue burnings, physical assaults on Jews, swastikas paintings in every country in Europe, Holocaust deniers among candidates for high office in France and Denmark, the United Nations-sponsored World Conference on Racism, which gave rise to a virulent expression of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel fanaticism.

He also noted the anti-Jewish activities among academics and students at universities around the world, including Harvard. These activities include European university boycotts of Israeli academics, on-campus demonstrations equating Hitler and Sharon, financial support for terrorist organizations, and the singling out of Israel as the lone country where universities should disinvest its endowment funds.

Why is Summers’ speech so important?

First, we know (because we count a lot) that dozens of Jews today or in recent years head major institutions in the public and private sectors and academia. We Jews, even when we are personally stuck or fighting it out in the ordinary work trenches, get more than a little pride when one of us makes it to the top, particularly, and perhaps only, if he or she is a mensch.
Now we expect spokespersons for major Jewish organizations to speak out on issues of anti-Semitism and Israel bashing, and indeed they do. But I know of no one else who has raised the issue of their own Jewishness and the threat of anti-Semitism, in their own secular institution.

So why did he do it? The answer is, I believe, is that he has had a personal confrontation with anti-Semitism; he understood it completely, reached beyond his own personal situation, and acted accordingly.

Some months after becoming Harvard president in July 2001, as he met with various Harvard professors, he had a private chat with Cornel West, one of a handful of University Professors at Harvard. He asked West, a fiery Afro-American studies professor, to increase his serious academic work and halt the inflated grades of his students. West, in the past year or so, had devoted significant time to a rap CD project, Al Sharpton’s presidential campaign and more than a hundred speeches around the country.

West moved the Summers private chat into a public confrontation, calling Summers “racist,” and importing Rev. Jesse Jackson and others for campus protests. When West later left Harvard for Princeton, he called Summers “the Ariel Sharon of American higher education.” It was less about Summers’ military skills and more a reminder, as if Summers didn’t know it, that he was a Jew.
I suspect that Summers got a lot of unexpected anti-Jewish mail. I suspect that most of the faculty and staff did not get into the fray on Summer’s behalf and that West got more support than Summers anticipated. I think those events were the wake-up call for Larry Summers. He had been lucky enough, or sheltered enough, or smart enough, or born at the right time (1954) not to have personally faced the ugly reality of anti-Semitism.

But once he did, his intelligence, integrity and courage moved him to join the fray.
I thank Larry Summers for moving the issue and the debate about anti-Semitism and Israel bashing to the heart of Harvard and to the front pages of the New York Times, Boston Globe and other media.

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On the Road
The Eye of a Needle

I grew up in a “fairly” orthodox home. In other words we had two sets of dishes: one milchedich (for milk products), one fleishedich (for meat products).

Oh, and one set of glass dishes for Chinese food.

We had chicken on Friday nights, and we went to Shul on High Holidays. We would ride in the car on Saturdays and hope that no one saw us. But two tasks my mother would not do were to sew or iron on the Sabbath.

Now, I do sew and iron on Shabbat, and I did when my children were young. Between car pooling and shopping and working, I was too tired during the week to do any mending, so Saturday was the day to do that chore. I think, however, that God meant for me not to do any sewing at all….

When was the last time you threaded a needle?

I must choose the needle with the biggest eye at the head or the task becomes insurmountable, and then I have to remember where I put the spools of colored thread.

After achieving those mental hurdles, I tear the thread and guess at the length I’ll need. Naturally I rip off too much, and the thread hangs to the floor when I’m sitting in a chair.

I should have cut the thread with a scissors to make it easier, but God forbid, I should start looking for scissors. You realize that I will eventually have to get up and find the scissors, don’t you? Meanwhile I can’t decide whether I should look through the top of my bifocals, the bottom of my bifocals, or remove my eyeglasses altogether.

I put on every light in the room, sit with my back to the window to have sunlight focus on the target, and I attempt to push the thread through the needle.

Every single time I try to insert the thread through the hole, one strand of thread breaks loose from the main “stem” and pushes away from the side of the needle.

I try to thread the needle straight on, sideways, backwards, every which way… I put the thread in my mouth to dampen it to make it easier to loop. Now it’s wet, and it still goes nowhere except off the side of the needle. I am on the verge of throwing the shirt away and buying a new one that has all the buttons intact.

“One more time,” I tell myself, bracing for the final attack....I finally accomplish threading the silver dagger.

I actually do a fine job of sewing the button on the shirt — until the end when I must “finish off.” I circle the thread under the button, ready to make a knot…and just when I’m ready to finish up and tie a knot, a loop of thread appears from nowhere.

“No,” I yell to the heavens. (It wasn’t exactly “no” that I yelled.) I don’t care who hears or sees me at this point. It’s been three days since I started sewing this button on the shirt, and I haven’t moved from the kitchen chair. Somehow, I manage to tie it off and finish, and I never want to see this shirt again; never mind, wear it.