Behind the Headlines: The Great Yeshiva `Riot' Of `68
Forty years ago this spring, Columbia University was rocked by student riots, and Yeshiva University, where I was a senior, was the scene of a major water fight. And therein lies a tale.
Keep in mind that the spring of 1968 was one of the most tumultuous times in modern American history, with the Vietnam war raging, the assassination of Martin Luther King in April and subsequent riots across the country, and only two months later, the murder of Sen. Bobby Kennedy moments after he won the California primary for the Democratic presidential nomination.
One sensed that the violent events taking place, less than five years after President Kennedy's assassination, were changing the course of American history, putting the nation on a downward spiral.
The student riots at Columbia that spring ostensibly were in protest of a university housing plan that would displace poor residents in the Morning Side Heights neighborhood. But they were more about anger over Vietnam, and the assertion of an emerging sex, drugs and rock and roll attitude among young people deeply suspicious of the Establishment.
Caught up in the atmosphere of the times, a group of Yeshiva seniors took the subway down to Columbia several warm afternoons to participate vicariously in the rebellious mood by watching the students screaming at the cops, calling them "pigs" and trying to provoke a violent response.
Despite the less than 60 blocks that separated them, the Columbia and YU campuses were really light years apart. One was at the cutting edge of revolution; one was framed by Talmudic study steeped in disputes of centuries past.
So the edginess of the times, compounded by final exams, played out in a major water fight in the main dorm one spring night at YU, with scores of students in their swim trunks heaving large cans of water on each other, and sometimes out the window onto Amsterdam Avenue.
Soon, the fire department arrived, with firemen wading through the puddles in the dorm halls, axes at the ready, responding to calls from neighbors. Surveying the scene, though, they were good-natured about the mess, and didn't stay long.
Hours later, well after midnight, two student activists from Columbia's SDS chapter, appeared at my dorm room. SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) was the radical group behind the Columbia protests, and it seems they had received word that, in their memorable words to my roommate and me, "Yeshiva was being liberated."
They said they were there to help us plan a takeover of the president's office.
Too embarrassed to explain that the commotion at YU was a water fight, not a student protest - and that any prospective rebellion at YU would have been quelled by a rabbinic scholar announcing that such acts were halachically not permissible, or just not right -- we listened as they urged us to secure maps of the administrative buildings and fortify ourselves for a long stay.
We nodded, scribbled notes, thanked them for their advice, and finally were rid of them, raising our fists to meet theirs in solidarity.
Then we had a good laugh before going back to sleep before another day of Talmud study and exams.
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What About Fatah Anti-Israel Hatred?
The New York Times report this week on the depth of anti-Jewish hatred within Hamas was well documented and important for the world to see, but it gave something of a free pass to Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah and the Palestinian Authority. ("In Gaza, Hamas's Insults to Jews Complicate Peace," April 1)
The article, by Steven Erlanger, focused on Hamas and its various propaganda efforts of incitement against Israel and Jews, from sermons in the mosque to television programming for children praising "martyrdom." It noted that "the Palestinian Authority, under Fatah, has made significant, if imperfect efforts to end incitement."
One of Erlanger's sources, quoted in the story, was Itamar Marcus of Palestinian Media Watch, an Israeli group that monitors Palestinian media.
But Marcus told The Jewish Week on Thursday (April 3) that while there has been "a significant drop in the calls to violence, specifically from sermons," the broadcasts from television operated by the Palestinian Authority continue to praise and promote terror acts against Israel.
"Violent clips that glorify violence continue," he wrote in an e-mail. "In addition, the greatest promotion of violence of all is the turning of murderers and terrorists into heroes, and that continues."
Marcus noted that the East Jerusalem man who shot down and murdered eight yeshiva students in Jerusalem last month was "glorified in the official, Abbas-controlled media," as have been other killers of Israeli citizens. A television special honored the 17-year-old girl who became a suicide terrorist four years ago, "repeatedly calling her a hero, and her act heroic, and a source of pride for Palestinians."
Marcus added that "there has been an increase in hate TV, including lies and libels, for example, about Israel intentionally spreading AIDS and drugs." And all of Israel is regularly referred to as Palestine in the media, with Israeli cities like Haifa, Jaffa and Acre described as Palestinian cities or occupied Palestinian cities.
"It is unfortunate that people who only look at the sermons created this false impression," Marcus wrote.
Seems to me all of the above qualifies as less than "significant" and more than "imperfect" on the scale of Palestinian Authority efforts to tamp down anti-Israel propaganda.
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Behind the Headlines: Scoop Of The Day: Reporters Are Human
The thorough reporting job on the front page of the New York Times today (April 1) describing the depth of anti-Semitism of Hamas, in its sermons and broadcasts, should be commended by pro-Israel readers, particularly those who have complained about the coverage by the newspaper's Jerusalem bureau chief Steven Erlanger as biased in favor of the Palestinians.
But I'm not holding my breath. In fact, pro-Israel critics no doubt will respond to today's story by exclaiming," what took so long?"
It reminds me of an evening some years ago, at the height of the second intifada, when Clyde Haberman, a former Jerusalem bureau chief for the Times (and now a columnist for the paper's Metro section), bore the brunt of anger and frustration from a large audience at an upper West Side Orthodox synagogue. He was on a panel dealing with Mideast media bias, along with Sidney Zion (a tough old-school journalist to the right of
Begin on Israel), as well as a spokesman for the Israeli Consulate, and me.
There was heated discussion about whether the mainstream media was anti-Israel, and Clyde, a fine reporter (and graduate of the Soloveichik elementary school in Washington Heights) who has a low threshold for those who would put the Times in that category, was left to defend the paper, and growing increasingly frustrated.
The Israeli spokesman and I tried to make the case that there was little if any overt anti-Israel bias in the mainstream U.S. press, particularly compared to the European press, but the crowd wasn't buying it. And most of their increasingly heated questions were aimed at Clyde.
At one point a woman asked why the Times had not covered the fact that Palestinian militants held training camps for youngsters, teaching them how to use weapons and indoctrinating them with hatred of Israel.
"Ah, but we did that story," Clyde responded quickly, his voice rising. "In fact it ran on Page One."
Undaunted, the woman responded, "well, why don't you do it again?"
At that point I thought Clyde was going to explode, but he replied: "Why don't you just stop reading the paper and save yourself the aggravation?"
(This was before the local boycott of the Times in the Jewish community. When that occurred, and I notified Clyde that a group of Jews had decided to cancel their subscriptions to the Times during the 10 Days of Repentance, he shot back: "Why don't they do it during the 49 days of the Omer?")
Two points here: One is that if you have it in for a publication (or radio or television network), convinced of its bias, there is little the institution can do to change your mind.
Indeed, an editor of the Baltimore Sun once complained to me that "if we put the entire Torah on our front page every day," it wouldn't satisfy critics in the Jewish community.
Point two is that even journalists are human. They can get emotional and they have long memories - something to keep in mind when dealing with them.
If this remembrance prompts you to write a note to Steven Erlanger, complimenting on his reporting on Hamas, do it today. He is leaving his post soon after three and a half years, and will be succeeded by Ethan Bronner, who covered the region for the Boston Globe before coming to the Times where he has served on several desks, most recently as deputy foreign editor.
Bronner, who is Jewish, has family ties to Israel and is highly knowledgeable on the Mideast, is well aware that he will be closely watched for his alleged reporting biases.
But at least he'll know he is being read.
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Behind the Headlines: YU Controversy Goes Beyond Rabbi Schachter
The subtext of the controversy over the recent shocking remarks made by Yeshiva University rosh yeshiva Rabbi Hershel Schachter -- where he appeared to advocate shooting the Israeli Prime Minister if the government would "give up Jerusalem" -- is less about the rabbi himself and more about the division within the Orthodox community over da'as Torah [literally, Torah knowledge, but meaning possessing a higher level of Divine insight].
Until recently, one of the clear lines that separated Modern Orthodoxy from those further to the religious right was that it did not subscribe to the belief in da'as Torah. That is to say Modern Orthodox Jews believed that Torah scholars should decide matters of halacha, or Jewish law, but not necessarily be sought out for their views on other aspects of life, from politics to personal choices about who to marry or what job to take, as many haredim do.
But that separation has been eroding, and there is a generational divide within Modern Orthodoxy, and more particularly within the Yeshiva University community.
As YU has trained a number of rabbis who excel in Talmudic learning, they in turn have developed strong relationships with students who often study with them for two, three or four years or more. In addition, most of these students first spent a year or two after high school learning at yeshivas in Israel, where the norm was to have a rebbe as a source of guidance and advice not only in Jewish law, but on spiritual and personal matters, especially since these students were thousands of miles from parents, family and friends.
So it is not surprising that these students seek out a rebbe with whom they can bond when they return to America, and that many of these Orthodox Jews, now in their 20s and 30s, are more inclined to consult closely with their rebbe on a wide range of issues than would their parents. A number of these young people tend to subscribe to the notion of da'as Torah, and while they do not necessarily view their rebbes as prophets, they believe these men have greater insights into the Divine because of their breath of Torah knowledge.
The parents of these young people tend to view such devotion with a mix of admiration and skepticism - proud that their offspring take Jewish practice so seriously but wary of sacrificing one's own powers of choice and independence to another, regardless of how learned.
In the case of Rabbi Schachter, the controversy is not only over what he said - he has a history of making blunt pronouncements on Israeli policy, feminism, and the differences between Jews and non-Jews - but on his position within Orthodoxy, at the fulcrum between the modern and charedi worlds.
He is a rosh yeshiva at Yeshiva University, a highly respected Torah scholar throughout the Orthodox community and, most recently, a key decisor for the Rabbinical Council of America on conversion issues.
But despite his "modern" credentials, many believe that in temperament and outlook, he is more closely aligned to the more traditional yeshiva world.
So the argument among many in the older generation of Modern Orthodox Jews is that this man, however great his scholarship, can be judged as flawed and chastised for intemperate remarks he makes. And they would argue that the very nature of such remarks undermines the idea that the rabbi could possess da'as Torah.
The younger set, though, bristles at any criticism of a man of such sage-like stature and tends to believe that the barbs against him are politically motivated by those who want to take Rabbi Schachter down a notch.
YU's leadership is in a difficult position because it recognizes both the level of embarrassment Rabbi Schachter can cause in the "real" world and the fact that he gives the rabbinic school much of whatever standing it has in the influential right-wing yeshiva world.
But then, that's what YU has always been about, seeking the balance of Torah and ma'adah [secular knowledge], in the words of its motto.
Defenders of the rabbi say he should be viewed as above reproach and continue in his various roles of leadership; critics would agree that a rabbinic leader should be above reproach and say that is why Rabbi Schachter should be disciplined.
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Behind the Headlines: Rabbis Out Of Touch With The Power Of Their Words
Pronouncements from prominent, sometimes revered rabbis, should uplift us spiritually, not embarrass us ethically. And I'm tired of trying to explain their behavior to those not prone to sympathize with Orthodox leaders. Take two remarkable incidents that took place here most recently.
Just yesterday we learned that Rabbi Hershel Schachter, Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva University's rabbinical school, advocated shooting the Prime Minister of Israel if the government "gave away Jerusalem."(Read the story here)
He made the statement in a discussion with American students learning at Yeshivat HaKotel in Jerusalem, though it is not clear when. He also said that if the Israeli army was "going to give away Jerusalem," he would tell all Israeli soldiers to resign, and that it is a sin to "destroy" Gush Katif.
Rabbi Schachter, who was just appointed one of the two American rabbis to oversee the conversion process in an agreement reached between the Rabbinical Council of America and the Chief Rabbinate in Israel, is beloved by his many students and highly respected as a Talmudic scholar throughout the Modern Orthodox world.
But he is no stranger to controversy, sometimes speaking out in blunt, politically incorrect terms, be it about women – he once compared them to monkeys and parrots in describing who could read the ketubah at a wedding – or non-Jews, having noted that Jews have "different genes and instincts" than other people.
The rabbi, confronted with his remarks, issued an apology today, saying "they were not meant seriously" and did not represent his feelings.
His defenders say he is naïve, not mean-spirited, and that his words are taken out of the context of his yeshiva environment. But Rabbi Schachter should know by now that his statements are recorded and repeated, and that his words have weight outside the halls of the Beit Midrash.
Would we make excuses for non-Jews who spoke of when it might be proper to kill the Prime Minister of Israel?
And then there were the 33 ultra-Orthodox rabbinic luminaries who banned a chasidic music concert set for a venue at Madison Square Garden Sunday night. Titled "The Big Event," the fund-raiser for a charity providing free weddings for orphans in Israel, would have had separate seating for men and women – even separate entrances. Yet the rabbis said the event would cause "ribaldry and lightheadedness" and "strip the youth of every shred of Fear of Heaven and [lower] them into a pit of destruction."
Some say the rabbis didn't realize what they were signing onto, duped by a prominent member of the community who has it in for Lipa Schmeltzer, the singer and headliner of the show. (The other possibility is that the rabbis are so fearful of secular culture creeping into their communities that they decry a healthy outlet for families and teens.)
How can responsible religious leaders prohibit attending an event they apparently knew little about, causing the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars by the producer and performers – not to mention the charity?
Is the best explanation for these rabbis and Rabbi Schachter that they are naïve and not attuned to the world around them, making statements they don't realize will have ripples of repercussions?
If so, perhaps the walls surrounding our houses of learning have grown too high. Beware of a backlash among disillusioned followers.
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Behind the Headlines: A Seat At The Conversion Table
As reported in The Jewish Week last week (read the article here), The Rabbinical Council of America, the largest group of Orthodox rabbis, has reached an agreement with the Chief Rabbinate of Israel allowing the two groups to work together on conversions.
Our headline ("RCA Seen As Caving On Conversions") was widely criticized by member rabbis here, and perhaps correctly, as less than objective. They argued that their main consideration was not their status but that of the converts themselves. These rabbis say the new agreement assures that after two years of on-again, off-again negotiations between the two rabbinic groups, those converts who settle in Israel, having been approved by new RCA rabbinic courts, will be fully accepted by the rabbinate in the Jewish State.
That is true, but at what price?
The RCA has long prided itself as a big-tent organization for a range of Modern Orthodox rabbis, and it is they who study and work closely with potential converts over a process of many months in their communities. Under the new system, though, the two Yeshiva University rabbis with overriding influence, while highly respected halachic experts, are on the right of the spectrum.
And with only 36 RCA rabbis now deemed by the Chief Rabbinate as qualified for conversions, most of the men and women on the path to conversion will no longer be able to complete the process of study with one rabbi, with whom they tend to build a strong bond.
The new system would appear to strengthen the "old boy" network where the rabbinic judges here will look most favorably on candidates whose sponsoring rabbis they know best. And the decision to centralize the system diminishes the authority of the hundreds of RCA rabbis who are not among the 36 approved by the Chief Rabbinate.
In addition, there is no guarantee the agreement will be binding going forward.
Whether or not they will admit it publicly, Modern Orthodox rabbis in the U.S. know full well that the office of the Chief Rabbinate has lost much of its remaining dignity and respect in recent years, beset by sexual, financial and other allegations.
Indeed, one could argue that virtually the only rabbinic group in the world that gives deference to the Chief Rabbinate is the RCA. After all, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist rabbis are not recognized as clergy by the Orthodox-controlled Chief Rabbinate, and charedi and chasidic groups see the institution as a political pawn of the Zionist government.
That is why it seems ironic that the Chief Rabbinate tends to give the RCA a hard time, questioning their rabbis' bona fides, but then who else can the Chief Rabbis pick on?
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Behind the Headlines: A Risk Worth Taking
Is it possible that if Israel didn't pursue Hezbollah, the terror group would leave Israel alone -- even though it is based on the commitment to liberate Jerusalem, which means destroy the Jewish State?
That's why I have a problem with the premise of an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times by Yediot Achronot corresondent Ronen Bergman ("Bracing For Revenge," Feb. 18), who argues that the assassination of leading Hezbollah terrorist Imad Mugniyah may have been a mistake because it will lead to escalated reprisals against Israel and Jews around the world.
Bergman notes that Israel has denied involvement in killing Mugniyah, who was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans and Israelis, as well as for murdering French, German, Argentinean and British citizens. It was Mugniyah who was believed to have been the mastermind behind the bombing of the U.S. Marines barracks in Lebanon in 1982, which killed 241 American soldiers, and the two bombings in Buenos Aires against Jewish institutions that killed 114, among other atrocities.
But Bergman writes that when Israel has targeted and killed top Hezbollah fighters in the past, the group has retaliated and taken innocent lives and, "once more it is bent on vengeance."
"As Hezbollah draws no fine distinctions between the United States and Israel," he writes, "both nations, along with Jews around the world, might well have to pay the price for the loss of the man whose mystical aura was as important as his operational prowess."
This is a sobering conclusion, and may well be true. But it begs the question: if Israel did not pursue terror leaders, would they give up their arms and ideology and turn their swords into ploughshares?
We know they would, and will, continue to wage war against Israel in any way possible, and the only reason they have not retaliated already is because they have not been able to, aided by the fact that their leaders are worrying about whether they might be next.
Terrorism cannot be defeated through diplomacy, compromise or logic; it must be rooted out. And that is why free men and women everywhere took comfort this week in knowning that Imad Mugniyah will never take another innocent life.
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Behind the Headlines: Is The Internet Good For The Jews?
The Internet, with its instant communication and worldwide reach, is neither good nor evil, according to Shmuel Rosner, chief U.S. correspondent for the Israeli daily Ha'aretz (read his blog here). "It is just another tool" in disseminating information, and it is up to us to decide how best to make use of it.
But Joshua Hammerman, a Conservative rabbi and columnist for The Jewish Week, calls for employing ethical standards on the Web, and asserted that it has the potential for re-energizing synagogues and connecting caring Jews.
Izzy Grinspan, managing editor of Jewcy.com, a Web site appealing to marginally affiliated Jews in their 20s, suggests that the Internet allows young people to explore and discuss Jewish issues from a safe distance, without joining the Establishment.
The three participated in a panel on "Jewish Identity Online: Blogging, Ethics and Community," sponsored by The Jewish Week in partnership with the new downtown JCP (Jewish Community Project), where it was held Wednesday night.
I moderated the discussion, much of which focused on "community," and whether the Internet fosters a sense of camaraderie by connecting like-minded people beyond geographical boundaries or contributes to a sense of isolation, with people participating through the privacy of their homes.
The jury was out on that one, but while some in the audience wondered how the Internet could strengthen Jewish life, Rosner questioned what "Jewish life" really means. He insisted that value judgments should not be made about a technological tool that, for all its impact, remains neutral.
Untrue rumors about Barack Obama's Muslim ties can reach millions of people instantly on the Internet, Rosner acknowledged, but so can information disproving the rumors, he said.
Rabbi Hammerman spoke of how the Internet has helped him as a rabbi not only reach congregants by providing them with information through e-mails, but answer difficult questions they might not pose in person, from the basics of Jewish ritual to highly personal, ethical questions they can ask anonymously.
He said synagogues and Jewish institutions need to think more deeply about adapting to the modern age.
Grinspan said Jewcy.com, whose provocative essays often challenge the organized Jewish community, was creating a community, and it remained to be seen whether these people will, a decade from now, themselves join synagogues and organizations or remain interested in Jewish life from a distance.
The program was videotaped and an edited version will be posted on The Jewish Week Web site in the next few days.
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Behind the Headlines: Jews 'Mostly Mute' or not? / James Besser in Washington
It's good to know important people are reading the Jewish Week, even when their perusal results in criticism.
Recently the Jewish Funds for Justice took us to task for a story with this headline: "Jewish Groups Mostly Mute Over Immigrant Bashing."
Rabbi Jill Jacobs, writing on the group's popular jspot blog site, said this:
"As it happens, Jewish groups have been anything but silent on the immigration issue. As we've discussed here before, more than twenty Jewish groups (including Jewish Funds for Justice, HIAS, ADL, Progressive Jewish Alliance, and others) created a Jewish Task Force for Comprehensive Immigration Reform about a year and a half ago, and have used this body to issue letters and action alerts, put out educational material, and even create a poster."
She's right -- but the Jewish Week story did not argue otherwise.
The story made it clear Jewish groups were at the forefront of the push for immigration reform. But that wasn't the focus of the article; instead, it was on the reaction of Jewish groups -- or lack of reaction -- to the overt immigrant bashing by 2008 political candidates.
Only the Anti-Defamation League has challenged candidates to tamp down the anti-immigrant rhetoric, and the ADL didn't name names. Other groups have been conspicuous by their silence.
But Rabbi Jacobs was also right in that the story did not note that her group has sometimes criticized anti-immigration rhetoric in broad-brush terms, although it has not confronted candidates who have made the issue a staple of the 2008 campaigns.
The article never claimed Jewish groups weren't involved in the fight for comprehensive immigration reform, but only that they have been timid about criticizing the fanning of public rage about illegal immigration as a partisan tool in this year's campaigns.
Perhaps that distinction should have been made more explicit. And it would have been useful and interesting to explore the connection between the failure of this year's push for immigration reform and the anti-immigrant rhetoric that is getting more heated by the day, although that would have required a much longer story.
But did the Jewish Week story suggest Jewish groups weren't leaders in the long, frustrating fight for comprehensive immigration reform? We don't think so.
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A Palestinian To Root For / Gary Rosenblatt in New York
The Palestinian Authority received $7.4 billion in pledges this week from 87 countries and international organizations meeting in Paris. Is that good news or bad news for Israel?
The Israeli government is pleased, and anyone hoping for an ultimate two-state solution with Israel existing next to a viable Palestinian state has to be rooting for the success of one Palestinian leader in particular, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.
An economist with a Ph D. from the University of Texas who worked for eight years for the World Bank in Washington, D.C., Fayyad presented a recovery plan at the Paris meeting this week for a Palestinian state based on economic recovery and security reform.
Pro-Israel Mideast experts say they could not hope for a better Palestinian leader, one who cares more about building up a Palestinian state than destroying the Jewish one.
"He's been heroic," says David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who noted that Fayyad's anti-corruption efforts include closing more than 100 Hamas charities and dissolving groups that gave money to the families of suicide bombers.
Indeed, some Israeli officials worry that Fayyad could be eliminated by Palestinian militants angered over his actions.
Where does Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas fit into this equation? Experts say he may have positive intentions but he has not shown a hands-on willingness to confront Fatah factions opposed to reform the way that Fayyad has.
Makovsky notes that "the countries that could contribute the most" to the Palestinians - the Gulf States - "have done the least." That includes Saudi Arabia, which has not fulfilled major pledges in recent years. It promised this week to give $500 million to the Palestinians over the next three years. We shall see.
Makovsky thinks the Bush administration's goal of solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by the end of 2008 is unrealistic, and he believes the focus should be on the details - easing roadblocks, allowing more trade between the Palestinian territory and Israel, etc. - rather than grand peace agreements.
Skeptics on both sides need to see "positive changes on the ground," he says. That means more security for Israel and more freedom of movement among the Palestinians.
"Even if they [the Israelis and Palestinians] can't score a touchdown, let them move the ball to the 50-yard line and leave the rest [for the next administration], and that would be quite an accomplishment."
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Are Only Orthodox Jews `Religious’?/ Gary Rosenblatt in New York
We published a letter to the editor last week (Nov. 30 issue) from a Stephen Appell of Brooklyn who expressed his “dismay at the regular use of the term ‘religious’ in Jewish publications to refer exclusively to the Orthodox community.”
He raises a good point in that too often “religious” and “Orthodox” are used interchangeably.
The article in question was an Opinion piece entitled “Are Religious Jews The Enemy?” (Oct. 26)
We try to be careful about these and other delicate and often hard to define terms, and Mr. Appell’s letter reminded me of an incident some years ago, when I was editor of the Baltimore Jewish Times.
There had been a fatal Amtrak train wreck in Maryland, including Jewish victims, and our story had a headline that read something like (I don’t have the article at hand) “Orthodox Couple Killed In Train Crash.”
A reader wrote to question whether we would have, if the circumstances had been different, published a headline that read “Conservative Couple Killed,” or “Reconstructionist Couple Killed.”
He was quite right that we were guilty of some kind of imbalance, however unintentional, and since then I’ve tried to use his formula of substituting one religious denomination for another in a headline or story to see if it makes sense and is fair.
We’ve received several letters in response to Mr. Appell’s letter, including one from a reader who claims he has never met a non-Orthodox person who describes himself or herself as “religious.”
That may be, but it begs the question about our responsibility to be as sensitive and impartial as possible in describing someone’s inner beliefs -- not just synagogue affiliation -- and that is always tricky. But worth remembering.
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Fighting Terror Through Kindness/Gary Rosenblatt in New York
Tiki Barber, the former New York Giants star running back, said he was “honored and humbled” to receive the Koby Mandell Foundation Humanitarian Award at the group’s annual dinner Tuesday evening at the Puck Building.
He told several hundred attendees that having been raised by a single mother, he and his twin brother relied on the kindness of coaches, teachers and ministers.
He said Sherri and Seth Mandell do “what those people did for me – you give people a shoulder to stand on.”
The Mandells created the foundation to memorialize their 13-year-old son who, along with a friend, was stoned to death in a cave near their homes in Tekoa, Israel, on Lag B’Omer 2001.
The foundation operates camp programs in Israel for children who lost a parent or sibling to Arab terror, and retreats for women who have lost husbands or children. The Mandells believe that they have reached about two-thirds of the 1,300 Israeli families who have lost a loved one to terror over the last seven years.
Koby was a sports fan, his parents said, and previous award recipients were former Oriole Cal Ripken and New York Mets Manager Willie Randolph.
Barber, who retired last year and is now a commentator on NBC’s Today Show, said he was moved by the Mandells’ response to his question as to how they could deal with their loss. “You said, `because we have other kids,’” Barber noted.
He told the audience he visited Israel in the summer of 2005, at the invitation of Israeli leader Shimon Peres, and found it to be “one of the most beautiful countries I’ve ever been to.”
Earlier, Sherri Mandell thanked the audience for helping her, her family and the youngsters who attend Camp Koby to heal. “Our goal [at the camp] is not just resilience, but post-traumatic growth,” she said, and to use emotional pain as a catalyst for growth. “We’ve become leaders in the field of traumatic bereavement.”
An adult counselor and 14-year-old camper told the guests of how caring a place Camp Koby is, where youngsters can smile and enjoy themselves, knowing that everyone there understands their sadness.
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Nothing Has Changed/Gary Rosenblatt in New York
Thinking about the Annapolis conference and prospects for peace creates an internal battle for me between Mideast hope and Mideast history, between the silver lining and the clouds of skepticism.
I’d like to think a new page was turned on Tuesday, just as I felt when watching Rabin, Arafat and Bill Clinton on the White House lawn more than 14 years ago. Then, and yesterday, the speeches were moving, the expressions of ending violence and resolving differences were powerful. The logic of two peoples sharing a land rather than killing each other over it was compelling.
But I have learned that the Mideast is not about logic.
Annapolis showed that when the U.S. wants to act, it can bring together the leading cast of characters in the Mideast drama. But for all its influence, it can’t make them resolve their differences, especially in light of past experiences – Oslo, Madrid, Wye River, etc. -- and the same willful blindness on the part of American officials.
Why am I pessimistic? For starters, there is no indication that Mahmoud Abbas has the clout – even if he has the intention – of reining in Palestinian militants, or that Ehud Olmert could navigate the political obstacles in selling a plan to return to pre-1967-like borders. Not to mention that Hamas, which reasserted its intention to destroy Israel and increase violence soon, has not been dealt with in the Annapolis talks.
Equally disturbing to me is that the U.S., after being burned by so many previous peace attempts, continues to advance negotiations by ignoring the realities and conditions that undermined earlier efforts. Differences are glossed over through ambiguous rhetoric rather than confronted outright because the impetus is on moving forward. But towards what?
As Natan Sharansky pointed out this week in a piece in the Wall Street Journal, even Israeli officials are always saying not to insist on dramatic changes from Abbas. First strengthen him, they argue – through aid and support – and then make demands. But why should the Palestinian leader ever go against popular opinion – which he helps foster by allowing anti-Semitism to prevail -- especially if he lacks the boldness of a Sadat or Rabin?
Will the Palestinian Authority continue to resist recognizing Israel as a Jewish state? Will it continue to allow, if not promote, hatred of Jews through textbooks, media, children’s television shows and religious leaders?
I pray that I am wrong, but I think that unless and until the Arab world comes to grips with the reality of a Jewish state in the Mideast, the prospects for increased violence in the region in the coming year are greater than those for pea ceful negotiations.
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Behind the Almontaser Stories / Larry Cohler-Esses, Editor at Large
A few weeks ago, I wrote an article for The Nation Magazine denouncing inaccurate smear campaigns against Muslims, Arabs and critics of Israel as a kind of “new McCarthyism”---for which I was strongly criticized in some corners of the Jewish community.
This week I am under attack from another sector of the community, charged with practicing what I so recently denounced. The charge comes from my Page One story on Debbie Almontaser---one of those I cited in my Nation article as a victim of the New McCarthyism.
My story -- headlined “Ex-Arab School Head Rapped for Rally Partners” --highlights the identity or backgrounds of several speakers at a rally in support of Almontaser, who resigned under fire last August as leader of a new dual language Arabic-English public school in Brooklyn. The story implies that these supporters’ backgrounds stand in contrast to Almontaser’s own moderate public positions. It includes the attack of a critic who asks: “Now that [Jewish Week readers] know who the supporters of this school are, are they happy? Are they comfortable?”
The three speakers at Almontaser’s support rally who came under attack were part of a total of nine or 10 who appeared there, including a labor leader, a prominent Manhattan rabbi, an academic and the chairman of the City Council’s Education Committee (all also cited high up in the article). One of those angry about my highlighting the other speakers and their backgrounds asked: “Are you sure this is not tainted by neo-McCarthyism?”
I think the best way to answer this is to relate how the news judgments in this story came about. In this case, this includes how those news judgments interacted with personal feelings I had come to develop about the issues and people involved in this story.
Almontaser resigned last August under fire as founding head of the Khalil Gibran International Academy (KGIA) in Brooklyn. The new public middle school, which opened in September, offers a dual language, dual culture English-Arabic college prep curriculum. One of some 60 dual language public school programs in the city, it aims to draw in students from Arab and non-Arab backgrounds. But from its inception a group of critics has attacked the school and Almontaser herself for, they say, harboring a covert extremist and Islamist agenda.
None of this had any effect until Almontaser granted an interview to The New York Post last August. Almontaser was asked then about her association with T-shirts for local Arab American teen-age girls bearing the message “Intifada NYC.” The T-shirts were produced by Arab Women in the Arts and Media (AWAAM), a group that shared office space with a separate, unrelated group on whose board Almontaser sat. Almontaser was quoted explaining that the root meaning of the word intifada---“shaking off”---had different meanings in different contexts; voicing her understanding that the word “is developing a negative connotation” due to the Israel-Palestinian conflict; and stating her belief that neither the T-shirts nor the girls wearing them meant to extol violence.
Right-wing media outlets slammed Almontaser for not having simply condemned the T-shirts. So did Stop the Madrassa, the group that charged the school and Almontaser with seeking to instill extremism in students. In her suit last week, Almontaser alleged that the Department of Education had illegally forced her to resign as interim principal in the face of this pressure and was now refusing to consider her application for the post of permanent principal.
At the time of her resignation, I wrote a story detailing how this was but the latest episode in a months-long smear campaign by forces opposed to the school who sought to portray Almontaser as an extremist. I detailed specific distortions and falsehoods they had put out about her in the months preceding the ill-fated Post interview. The story reviewed Almontaser’s long history of commitment to nonviolence and interfaith work with Jews and Christians.
The Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater New York and Rabbi Michael Paley, who works for UJA-Federation, were among those who attested to this.
This story and another that followed led Almontaser and her attorney, Alan Levine, to offer me an exclusive interview with her shortly before they filed suit. During this interview, Almontaser reiterated her view that the Post reporter had sought to impose an inappropriate litmus test by asking her about AWAAM’s T-shirts: “I said [to The Post] this organization and its T-shirt have nothing to do with me or the school,” she said.
I also discovered then that I shared a rare common point of personal background with Levine. We had both, it turned out, done civil rights work in Mississippi many years ago and even shared some common acquaintances from that era, an intense and vivid period in both our lives. On top of this, it turned out that Levine’s spouse was Donna Nevel, the person who first recruited me to come to New York and work in Jewish journalism after I finished graduate school in Illinois in 1982. Nevel, with whom I had had no contact for many years, is one of the organizers of the community group defending Almontaser and KGIA.
On a personal level, I liked these people and what they were trying to achieve. I also disliked what I had, through my reporting, found to be the falsehoods, distortions and guilt-by-association charges that school critics had launched against Almontaser.
Because of this, my heart sank when I attended the support rally for Almontaser.
The lead speaker, with Almontaser at her side, was Mona Eldahry, who was introduced as executive director of AWAAM, the group that produced the T-shirts and---equally relevant---the group Almontaser had repeatedly stressed she had nothing to do with. Eldahry praised Almontaser in her speech for having refused to condemn the T-shirts or her organization.
I knew that Eldahry’s role as lead speaker on Almontaser’s behalf with Almontaser next to her ran up against Almontaser’s repeated emphasis previously that she had nothing to do with AWAAM. Whatever the situation before, she did now, and this change was news.
The news impact was similar when City Council Member Charles Barron stepped up to the microphone. Almontaser’s history---one she herself stresses---reflects a consistent commitment to nonviolence in confronting racial and social issues.
In contrast, Barron, after the police shooting of Sean Bell, an unarmed black man in Queens, advocated protest marches and prayer—first: “Then, if they don’t respond to none of that, then don’t ask our people to be peaceful while they are being murdered,” he declared to hundreds at a protest rally last November. “We are not the only ones that can bleed.”
Barron is most famous lately for pushing for naming a street in Brooklyn after Sonny Carson, the late self-described “anti-white” activist involved in the CrownHeights riots and the protests against Korean owned stores in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Of less, but not no significance: I knew a young woman who spoke at the rally from the Council on American Islamic Relations would be of interest to Jewish Week readers. Some non-government investigators, such as Steven Emerson, have accused CAIR of having ties to terrorist groups. Former FBI counter-terrorism investigators have been quoted challenging this. At the same time, the U.S. Justice Department named CAIR as an unindicted conspirator in its recent---failed---prosecution against the Holy Land Foundation for allegedly supporting Hamas.
There was no way the issue of these speakers’ backgrounds could be kept out of a news story. At the very least, Stop the Madrassa would have something to say about how these speakers clashed with Almontaser’s public stand. And since in this case, they were speaking up for Almontaser with her at their side at a rally she endorsed with her presence, I would be obliged to quote the group.
Nevertheless, in my initial draft, I wrote about all this deep down in the body of the story. My lead angle was about Almontaser’s suit and some of the contents of the complaint. But when I turned my story in, Rob Goldblum, the paper’s managing editor, pointed to the section on the speakers and said no---this belongs at the top. Basically, he effectively ruled this, not the suit---whose imminent filing and basic outline had been previously announced and reported----is the story, at least for our readers.
I didn't like this instruction. At the same time, with the clock ticking relentlessly toward deadline, I could not think of one quick knockout response to show he was wrong----by which I mean wrong in his news judgment. Almontaser had made her lack of any connection to the T-shirt people a central point in her position that the Post was wrong to even be asking her about the shirts. Now the leader of the T-shirt people was her lead speaker. This was the "new" in the word "news," independent of whether one thought the T-shirt's message or AWAAM itself was right or wrong in its stance.
Throw in Charles Barron and the woman from CAIR, and the angle Rob favored was reinforced.
Rob Goldblum and I have a long relationship as editor and writer, one in which there is both trust and freedom to challenge and dispute. Yet I could not rebut him. In the rushed and frazzled way in which thought occurs as deadline looms, I concluded that I might well not like Rob’s instruction simply because I DID like Almontaser and did not much care for Stop the Madrassa’s distortions of her record.
I thought: this is what editors are for---to provide the distance from a story that a writer can lose.
Rob's job is to know his publication's readers and what is, or should be, important to them. It's true this can easily turn into simply pandering to their fears. But in this case, the news judgment criteria for Rob's position were pretty solid.
Therefore, my resistance to pandering here would consist of making sure I did not portray the presence of AWAAM or CAIR at this rally one dimensionally, as self-evident evils (as say, The New York Post might). In the space I had (a very big constraint), the best way to do this was by giving good play to the strong responses of Levine, Almontaser's attorney: that the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater New York had actually offered AWAAM a mini-grant of $500 in 2005---a kind of heksher that, he argued, tied JCRC more closely than Almontaser to AWAAM; and that CAIR-NY's chief counsel is a mayoral appointee.
I was not sure what to do about Charles Barron. But Almontaser’s supporters challenge why any of this is relevant to the news. "Does the fact that Charles Baron and speakers from AWAAM and CAIR spoke at her conference cast any doubt in your mind on the facts of her case?” asked one. “If not, why mention them? Because your readers would be interested? How about if one of the speakers was gay?”
If Almontaser was presenting herself as an anti-gay rights advocate who had never had anything to do with gay people, such a speaker at her rally would, indeed, be newsworthy.
In short, there is a big difference between noting the way in which some speakers standing with Almontaser at her own rally stepped on her message; and say, charging---as one of her opponents did---that a member of KGIA’s advisory committee was a speaker at a Muslim youth camp, where another person also spoke who was accused in unidentified “court papers” of helping yet a third person make backup copies of a fundraising site for terrorism. The latter is, to my mind, guilt by association. The former is reporting.
Janet Malcolm of The New Yorker famously wrote about journalists being seducers and betrayers, as a matter of necessity. She spoke about this as a conscious art good journalists cultivated. I never accepted this. But I certainly experienced a deep divergence in this story between my sense of connection and sympathy on a personal level with one side and my professional obligation.
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Deepening The GA Experience/Gary Rosenblatt just back from Nashville
Memo to future planners of the scores of programs offered at the GA (General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities), the most significant annual conference of and for Jewish leaders:
The GA does a very good job of offering panels on a variety of vital issues, from innovations in education to restoring a sense of Jewish Peoplehood. But in dealing with 3,000 people and a range of interests in 48 hours, invariably a number of sessions seem superficial.
There is a certain show-and-tell aspect to many presentations, with three or four expert panelists presenting on a given topic, often by expounding on “what our community does to deal with this issue.” That is followed by a brief and often hurried Q and A segment, with audience members not infrequently noting how their community responds to the issue. And then it’s over.
These sessions generally provide a solid overview on topics ranging from pro-Israel advocacy to fundraising techniques. But for those looking for a deeper discussion of the issues, why not include longer sessions with a limited number of attendees – delegates would sign up in advance – that could more fully explore a complicated subject in a setting that allows for more give and take between experts and the audience?
Maybe delegates could register for a series of discussions on a given track so that over two days they would come away with a real sense of expertise on the issue they chose to explore.
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Carter And The Jews/Gary Rosenblatt in New York
In recent weeks, former President Jimmy Carter has held several private meetings with Jewish leaders, and sought to meet with others, only to be rebuffed.
What’s up?
Why is Carter, whose book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" blames Israel for the lack of peace progress in the Mideast, suddenly trying to cozy up to the likes of Abe Foxman, Malcolm Hoenlein and Elie Wiesel?
Sources close to Carter say he is bent on getting a prime time speaking slot at next summer’s Democratic National Convention and feels that “he has to kosherize himself” with the American Jewish community in order to do so. To date, he has made no apologies for his book, filled with errors of omission
and commission.
We’ll know if he was successful when we tune in to the convention in Denver next August.
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My Most Memorable GA /Gary Rosenblatt in Nashville
This my 25th GA (General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities), and I find myself thinking back on some of the highlights of this annual event, the most influential in the organized Jewish community.
I remember a thrilling encounter between Rabbi Yitz Greenberg and then-Brandeis University professor Leonard Fein that touched on religious and secular influences, at my first GA, in Chicago in 1974; the "off the record" pronouncement made by Arye Dulzin of the Jewish Agency to thousands of delegates in Montreal in 1979 that Ethiopian Jews were about to be rescued; and marching in solidarity with thousands of delegates through the streets of Jerusalem in 2003.
But the most dramatic GA scene I've witnessed took place in Dallas in 1977, late on Shabbat afternoon, when a frail Golda Meir entered a room full of several thousand delegates and was greeted by a spontaneous and spirited singing of "Am Yisrael Chai."
In contrast to the carefully staged and planned presentations of the GA now, when plenaries are scripted to the minute, the beloved former Israeli prime minister delivered an impromptu speech, recalling her career in the service of the Jewish people and, particularly, her connections to the American Jewish community.
We knew she was ill and many in the crowd sensed that she was delivering her farewell address to Diaspora Jewry.
Golda spoke in her raspy voice, a little softer than usual, about how David Ben-Gurion chose her to come to America to raise desperately needed funds for the war effort in 1948, in large part because, having been born in Milwaukee, she spoke English better than other leading members of the new government. Her effort was a huge success, catapulting her career that took her to Israel's highest political office.
Only three years before the GA, Golda had resigned in the wake of a commission report faulting her government for the thousands of Israeli casualties suffered in the Yom Kippur War. Today she is reviled by many in Israel for her role leading up to the war, but for those few moments, the bond between several thousand American Jews and this small elderly woman reminiscing about her career was powerful and palpable, and there was real love in the room.
Then she thanked us for our support, waved good-bye to thunderous applause, and was soon back in Israel, where she died two months later of cancer.
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Bloggers Are Us/Gary Rosenblatt in New York
The question posed at the Columbia Journalism School’s First Amendment Series breakfast this week was “Bloggers: Are They The Future of Journalism?” The answer from the three panelists was a definitive “yes,” even from a self-proclaimed newspaper “dinosaur” like Arthur Browne, the veteran editorial page editor of The Daily News, who added: “But so what? And welcome to the party.”
“It all comes down to audience, interest and economics,” Browne told a packed room of about 200 people at the Columbia University Club in midtown. Any enterprise that can accomplish all three – be they bloggers or newspapers – will succeed.
He noted that “what sets blogs apart” are speed and unlimited space. But facts count, he insisted. Browne said he already sees a “melding” of blogging and journalism, with both striving to become “useful and interesting” to readers.
Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University and advocate of blogging, said that “bloggers are not about to replace journalism” but they “expand the press,” which is a good thing. He cited several examples of niche blogs that, in their specialized interest, ferreted out important information leading to major media coverage. One was firedoglake.com, a liberal blog that raised funds from readers to send six experts to cover the federal “leak” trial of “Scooter” Libby, the vice presidential aide, and transcribe and post the proceedings.
The third panelist, Jen Chung, is editor of the successful website Gothamist.com, now in more than a dozen cities, including New York, where it claims to be the most popular of local blogs. She described how the site began four years ago and combines news summaries, food blogs, social events and a live news map of incidents and accidents around the city.
With a background in marketing and consulting, Chung doesn’t claim to be a journalist, but she said the Gothamist sites are viewed by young men and women who want to know what is happening in the city but “don’t have time to read newspapers.”
She said she is continuing to seek press credentials from the New York Police Department.
Overall, the panel’s message was clear. Blogging has more than its share of crackpots, and most of its content is of narrow interest and opinion-oriented. But the fact that it has its serious participants shedding light on so many more topics than the mainstream press could ever explore means that the field will continue to grow in size and importance, and should be welcomed – with caution.
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Solidarity And Socializing/
Gary Rosenblatt in New York
“Today we pray with our feet,” Lior Sinai of the American Zionist Movement, told hundreds of Jewish students rallying on Tuesday in front of the United Nations for the release of Israel’s kidnapped soldiers.
The protest was one of about 50 planned by the Jewish Agency for Israel and other groups for the same day in communities and college campuses in the U.S. and another 30 in countries around the world, from Australia to Ukraine. It was billed as a “world solidarity day” for the prisoners.
The great majority of those gathered at the UN were yeshiva high school students who chanted “Bring Them Home” and “Let Them Go,” and were addressed by a number of student leaders as well as community and political officials, the new Israeli Consul General, and the mother of one of the kidnapped soldiers.
“Help free our son, your brother,” urged Miki Goldwasser by phone from Jerusalem. Her son, Ehud, now 32, was abducted by Hezbollah in the north in July 206, along with Eldad Regev.
Gilad Schalit was taken by Hamas several weeks earlier.
“This may happen in your backyard” someday,” she warned.
Despite the painful circumstances, the air was festive at the UN event – these were high school students, after all -- and many of the youngsters socialized during the steady string of brief speeches. “It’s camp reunion central,” observed Cynthia Dweck, a senior at the Magen David Yeshiva High School in Brooklyn. She and schoolmate Leona Ashkenazi, a ninth grader, urged bystanders to sign a petition on behalf of the three Israeli soldiers missing for almost a year and a half, and handed out flyers asking people to call the Red Cross and urge the organization to visit the prisoners, which has not happened.
Rachel Klapper, a Baruch College student who organized a campaign to collect signatures on behalf of the missing soldiers, told the crowd how she delivered 3,000 letters “from you” to the families in Israel this summer. “Always use your own power to make a difference,” she said, “and understand the power of your activism.”
Observing the scene, a community organizer asked rhetorically, “How often can we hold a major rally?” He noted that a larger gathering was held at the same spot last month. But how can the community not cry out against the injustice of kidnappings that fly in the face of international law?
It’s an unanswered question, and an impossible situation.
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You Fuse You Lose / Gary Rosenblatt in New York
Jewish educators would do well to encourage teens to pursue their interest in the arts without trying to make them produce Jewish art – at least not at that age.
That was the advice of Rabbi Daniel Lehmann, founder of BIMA-The Berkshire Institute for Music and Art, a summer program for Jewish high school students, at a panel on “Fusing Arts and Culture Into Jewish Learning” at the second annual Sidney Krum Jewish Culture Conference.
Better known as Shmooze `07, the two-day gathering of about 175 serious professionals dealing with various aspects of Jewish art, was held at UJA-Federation headquarters in New York, and was the brainchild of music entrepreneur Michael Dorf. (Actually, Dorf says the inspiration for the conference came from his participation several years ago at The Conversation, a conference retreat sponsored by The Jewish Week.)
When it comes to fusing arts and culture into Jewish learning, as the topic suggested, Lehmann is against it, proclaiming at the outset: “I want to speak against integration” – in contrast to the previous speaker, and to conventional wisdom on the subject.
Lehmann, whose work as founding headmaster of Gann Academy-New Jewish High School of Greater Boston earned him a Covenant Foundation Award for Excellence in Jewish Education, described the serious time provided to the arts at the school and camp he heads, including playwright David Mamet teaching creative writing. “Not Jewish creative writing,” he noted, “just creative writing.”
Lehmann said teens don’t want adults “giving them pre-packaged integration; they reject it.”
His advice: let the young men and women develop a true love for art and instill in them the idea that the Jewish community cares about them as people and as artists without “using” them to produce Jewish art.
Let the students do their work in an intensely Jewish setting and then sit back and observe. “Interesting things will happen,” he said, if not in the short term then at some point in their careers.
It was a refreshing take on a much-discussed topic among Jewish educators.
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Rebirth in New Orleans / Steve Lipman in New York
He’s 24 years old, he entered Saturday morning services with the name of Nash, and left with the name Noah. In New Orleans Noah nee Nash is another symbol of a Jewish community rebuilding itself.
On Parshat Noah, when the biblical Torah portion about the ark and 40 days of rain are read in synagogues, Nash showed up for the first time at Congregation Beth Israel, the city’s major Modern Orthodox synagogue.
I was there on assignment last week, chronicling New Orleans Jewry’s attempts to recoup from the losses it sustained in Hurricane Katrina two years ago. The community lost a third of its residents, including many of its prominent members and leaders.
In the last year, hundreds of Jews have settled again in New Orleans, among them rabbis like Uri Topolosky of Beth Israel, and teachers like Nash.
Rabbi Topolosky’s and Nash’s decisions to move to a decimated city are symbols of New Orleans’ potential future. The Jewish community needs leaders. And it needs regular members.
The rabbi has already met scores of Jewish New Orleanians in shul, in his house, in the city’s pair of kosher restaurants. He invites everyone – virtually none of them Orthodox – to his interactive Shabbat services. There is singing, Carlebach style. There are impromptu Torah discussions. There are responsive readings in English. There is an unorthodox tone for an Orthodox synagogue.
So Nash showed up Saturday morning with his girlfriend, also a young idealistic teacher.
Rabbi Topolosky offered him an aliyah. Nash declined. It turned out he had no Jewish education, no bar mitzvah, not even a Hebrew name.
Finally Nash agreed to be called to the Torah. By what name? The rabbi asked for suggestions. “Noah” was the best name offered. The rabbi read the Hebrew name that conferred on Nash the Hebrew name Noah ben Abraham. Haltingly, he read a transliteration of the Hebrew blessings. Everyone broke out in a round of “Simon tov u’mazel tov,” a traditional bar mitzvah song.
“This,” Rabbi Topolosky announced, “was the first bar mitzvah this congregation has had in a long time.”
On Parshat Noah, the Jewish community of New Orleans gained another member.
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Senior Moments / Gary Rosenblatt in New York
Amid all the kvetching (including my own) about the fear of losing disengaged young Jews, so many of whom show little concern for Israel and affiliating with American Jewish organizations, let us offer a word of praise for their parents and, more likely, grandparents who make up the majority of attendees at so many mainstream Jewish events.
These thoughts come to mind after attending an all-day conference on Sunday at the East Midwood Jewish Center in Brooklyn. More than 350 people turned out for the program, titled “Can We Talk About Israel? Enhancing The Dialogue,” sponsored by The Institute for Living Judaism in Brooklyn and the Hadassah Brooklyn Region.
The majority of attendees were senior citizens, and while they were slow to navigate the stairs, they were quick with their questions and comments.
At the session I addressed, on Jewish journalism, they were knowledgeable and engaged on the issues, and their concern about future generations was palpable.
When I asked how many read The Jewish Week, nearly every hand went up.
Where are their grandchildren? They shrug and acknowledge that young people today have other interests, especially on a lovely Sunday morning.
Jewish groups are right to focus on attracting younger people, but Sunday’s impressive event was a reminder that the backbone of the active and organized community are those who remember and remain touched by the Holocaust and the creation and struggles of the State of Israel. Our challenge is to find new and positive reasons for younger Jews to continue to engage.
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More Than a Newspaper / Gary Rosenblatt, Editor and Publisher
Three projects founded by The Jewish Week are launching anew this week.
First is this web site, which now includes more content from videos to exclusive blogs to unique features than we are able to publish in print each week. We hope you will keep coming back to the site as it continues to grow in quality and quantity, and we welcome your suggestions.
A second project is Write On For Israel, our advocacy through journalism program for high school students, starting its sixth year this Sunday. Created at the height of the intifada, with funding from the Avi Chai Foundation, Write On is committed to teaching high school students a mix of modern Zionist history and skills in journalism and communication so that when they get to college, they will have the knowledge and moral confidence to become the leaders of pro-Israel advocacy activities on campus.
Each year about 30 high school juniors are chosen for the two-year program from about 100 applicants. The group is made up of students from public, private and Jewish high schools in the metropolitan area. They will spend one Sunday a month during the school year in instruction and discussion, hearing from educators, journalists, Mideast experts and media analysts.
The first year culminates with a 10-day free trip to Israel where the students meet Israeli political leaders, journalists and military and diplomatic experts while touring the country.
In their senior year, the group will take on a special project of its own. One of the things we have learned in keeping in touch with graduates of the program is that they become leaders of pro-Israel programs even as freshmen in college.
Also this Sunday, The Jewish Week will sponsor the third annual conference known as The Conversation, a two-day meeting of 65 American Jews who are leaders or emerging leaders in a variety of fields, including the arts, business, journalism, philanthropy and science. Held this year at a retreat near Atlanta, The Conversation is focused around the theme of “being Jewish in America in the 21st century,” giving participants 48 hours to meet, network, discuss, debate, dream together and inspire each other.
Our primary partner in this exciting venture is CLI (Center for Leadership Initiatives), with core funding from philanthropist Lynn Schusterman. Several other foundations are sponsors as well.
What is unique about this conference is that there are no plenaries or panels, no keynote speakers and no planned outcomes. Rather, the participants are invited to propose the topics on the spot that they want to talk about, and then they do.
The program is off the record so that participants can speak openly without concern about being quoted directly. But I hope to report on the themes and points of view that emerge, so stay tuned.
And here you thought The Jewish Week was "just" a newspaper.
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In a Stew Over "In the Mix"
If you think dealing with the issues surrounding intermarriage is easy, just ask any rabbi -- or Jewish newspaper editor.
Julie Wiener's "In the Mix" column about the challenges facing intermarried couples continues to draw heaps of reader mail --some of it positive, some absolutely outraged.
For a sample of the latter, here's something from Jay Saltzman, a reader in Woodmere, who raises an interesting dilemma. Saltzman argues that publishing Wiener's monthly column "undermines what (Jewish Week editors) seem to believe is important to the survival of the Jewish people."
Saltzman goes on to state that "rather than publishing a monthly column about intermarriage, how about a monthly column about the struggles of parents to send their children to private Jewish day schools, the failure of the Jewish 'establishment' to help make tuition affordable and the failure of rabbis to speak out against this utter disaster?"
Publishing "In the Mix," Saltzman writes, is "antithetical to American Jewish survival."
Jewish Week editor Gary Rosenblatt acknowledges that the inclusion of Wiener's column may outrage some readers -- a lot of readers, actually -- but argues it provides an important service to many others who are wrestling with similar issues in their own lives.
"We believe that publishing Julie's column about one intermarried woman's attempts to raise her children as Jews, and the issues she struggles with, is not an endorsement of intermarriage but an effort to explore a situation faced by an increasingly large percentage of families in American Jewish life," Rosenblatt said.
The Jewish Week faces a difficult choice, he said.
"We could ignore or confront these and other delicate issues; we choose to bring them to light and welcome the resulting debate, as long as it is not hurtful on a personal level."
So debate away, and let us know what you think.
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