Playing the Game By New Rules

This is the last of four articles I wrote for Eilu v'Eilu, a weekly debate published by the Union for Reform Judaism last month. It was written for a Reform audience, but you can transliterate to Conservative, Zionist, Renewal, Reconstructionist, Orthodox, or whatever works for you! You can subscribe to Eilu v'Eilu (and see the other articles on the role of the Jewish educator by me and Larry Kohn, look for volume 41) by going to http://urj.org/learning/torah/ten/eilu/.

In the May 11th issue of the New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell discussed How David Beats Goliath. He described a basketball team of twelve-year-old girls who were not that tall, and most of whom were beginners. Yet they came within a game or two of winning the national championship for their age group. Like Lawrence of Arabia, they won by not playing the game the way others expected them to do. Just as the biblical David approached Goliath without sword, spear or armor. Lawrence’s forces, the twelve-year-olds and David approached their opponent by playing to their own strengths, what they were able to do successfully. David couldn’t win a contest of brute strength with his inferior bronze sword against the giant Goliath’s iron blade. Check out Samuel I and Gladwell’s article. They both make for great reading and learning.

AS Jewish educators, we need to work with our teachers, madrikhim, clergy, lay leaders, parents and students to break the rules in the same way. Some smart people have been writing the obituary of the synagogue school for some time. I believe that the majority of Jewish children are getting their formal Jewish education in our schools because it is a model that can and often does work well for them, not because their parents are looking for the path of least resistance. By each of or institutions (not just the school, but the entire synagogue) examining what we are able to do most successfully, we can change the game in ways that produce spectacular results, just like those young basketball players did. And we can learn from each other, from one professional to another, from synagogue to another, and so on. I can recommend Schools That Work: What We Can Learn From Good Jewish Supplementary Schools, by Jack Wertheimer.

Changing the game means figuring out what we do well. It also means adapting to a changing educational environments. Our learners are digital natives. Our success will depend in part on how we as educators become digital immigrants. And here the Israel experience is instructive. When someone makes aliya (emigrates to Israel), they go through a process of klitah – absorption. Some Olim make a thorough klitah: they work hard to learn Hebrew, with a proper Israeli accent, they try to fit in to the patterns of Israeli life and work and basically live like Sabras as much as possible. Klitah for others is not so much being absorbed and enculturated as it is transplanting the reality they came from into a new place. That easily leads to cultural conflicts: Why can’t they do things the right way over here? We need to work hard at our digital klitah in order to remain relevant to our learners. And we need to continue to understand where they are in other ways as well: emotionally, culturally, intellectually, etc.

In Pirkei Avot, Rabbi ben Bag Bag tells us to turn Torah over and over because everything is in it. He was telling us to help each new generation make meaning for themselves of Torah. And that means turning it ways that are meaningful to them. I just returned from two weeks on faculty at Camp Eisner, one of our URJ camps. I marveled each day as I watched young adults turn Torah over and over with their campers. Not just in the Limud sessions, where we focus specifically on Jewish learning, but in the bunks at night, in the pool, on the ball field and lazing in the shade on Olim hill. They keep it real and right in front of our kids. No technology. Just teens and twentySomethings being living examples of Being Torah. My wife and I send our kids to camp. We have twelve URJ camps. If you have kids, you should too.

I want to thank my colleague Larry Kohn for once again being my teacher, and Rabbi Joan Farber and the URJ Department of Lifelong Learning for creating this forum. I often tell my students that the only bad questions are the ones we don’t ask. I also want to thank all of my teachers, from my first Sunday school teacher Sharon Steinhorn (2nd grade) to those I work with today at B’nai Israel in Bridgeport Connecticut and the Leadership Institute for Congregational School Educators in New York.

Are Bayit Sheini (second Temple) Days Here Again? I Hope Not, For All Our Sakes

Rabbi Stanley M. Davids is Rabbi Emeritus, Temple Emanu-el in Atlanta, GA, and has served as president of the Association of Reform Zionists of America (ARZA-World Union). He now lives in Jerusalem. He shared this letter with Ethan Prosnit, a first year rabbinic student at HUC in Jerusalem and an alum of my synagogue and the staff of Camp Eisner. I work with his father, Jim, who is my rabbi. It is reprinted with Rabbi Davids' permission.

MICHTAV – Faith and Fury
August 15, 2009

I have no fear of crowds and I am no stranger to demonstrations. I have been involved in organizing and participating in mass protests since the mid-1960’s, and have even had the privilege of being arrested outside of the Russian consulate in New York in 1986 during a particularly contentious struggle. The causes have varied – from demanding the rights of African Americans to be able to buy houses in previously segregated neighborhoods, to demanding the right of Soviet Jews to emigrate, to demanding an end to American military involvement in Vietnam – and most recently to demanding protection for the civil and political rights of gays and lesbians here in Israel.

I picketed Soviet cultural events in the United States in the 1960’s and ‘70’s (even though I knew the Bolshoi to be irresistibly glorious), and I once found myself part of a massive anti-Vietnam protest in front of the Washington Monument. At the time, I was in my US Army uniform, since I had no civilian clothes that fit – and thus found myself being reprimanded by the two star general who commanded Fort Belvoir. A memorable occasion.

But I have been staying away from the demonstrations being conducted in Jerusalem every Shabbat afternoon for the past six weeks. Based upon the local and international news reports, I just did not want to have to confront my own deep-seated emotions; I just didn’t want to have to acknowledge that my responses to the demonstrations would be far from sanguine, far from objective.

As with any political theater, the current demonstrations have multiple layers of causation. Ostensibly, the Haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews who, in this case, are an anti-Zionist segment of the Haredi community living in Meah Shearim) are protesting the decision of Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat to permit a private parking lot near the Jaffa Gate (leading directly into the Old City and thus to the Kotel, the Western Wall) to be open on Shabbat. The parking lot serves large numbers of tourists, Jewish and non-Jewish, Israeli and foreign, who come to the Old City on Saturday to shop and to experience sites that are sacred to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. These Haredim do not live close to the parking lot, but view the opening of the parking lot as a violation of their view as to the sacred nature of both Shabbat and Jerusalem itself.

For those managing the demonstrations, there is another significant layer of causation: these Haredim lost out in the campaign that led to Mayor Barkat’s election. Barkat was supported by many of us who were deeply troubled by what has been called the Haredification of Jerusalem. But Barkat might not have won had not the various Haredi communities become entangled in a nasty internal power struggle. That split opened the door for Barkat —and the protesting Haredim are members of a dissident group that now needs to prove its street-creds by capturing public attention.

The third level of causation is that the current demonstrations are part of an overt and potentially explosive battle for the very soul of Jerusalem and for the soul of the State of Israel itself.

Israelis have not yet been able to successfully define for broad acceptance the full meaning of what is involved in declaring Israel to be a just, pluralistic, democratic Jewish state. There is not yet internal consensus about how Israel’s democratic structure can be fully guaranteed while its Jewish identity is granted similar protection. How will Israel’s Arab minority (Muslim and Christian) be guaranteed full and equal treatment? How will non-Orthodox Jewish communities be able to conduct life cycle ceremonies for their members free of government sanctioned coercion? How will the state guarantee the full expression of Jewish multiplicity and diversity?

In the most recent national election, Avigdor Lieberman’s party (Lieberman is now Israel’s Foreign Minister) campaigned on behalf of a loyalty oath which, if ever it would be approved by the Knesset, could severely restrict the civil rights of many non-Jewish and even some Jewish Israeli citizens. The battle being waged by our Progressive Movement and Israel Religious Action Center for the right of Reform Rabbi Miri Gold to receive the same legal status as Israel’s other district rabbis (who just happen to all be Orthodox men) is part of that same struggle for Israel’s Jewish soul. And there are many, many other examples.

But this Shabbat I was invited by several of our HUC rabbinic students to accompany them to the demonstration. At the very least, I could provide a bit of context for them – and could translate what was being screamed out. So I set my hesitancies aside.

We were across from the parking garage, facing the magnificent new Mamilla shopping mall and the Jaffa Gate. Behind us was the architecturally powerful shape of the central campus of the Hebrew Union College and the main offices of the World Union for Progressive Judaism. By 5:45 pm, milling crowds of Haredim had clustered above and behind the garage, rhythmically chanting SHABBAS, SHABBAS. The police were there in full battle gear, including some in body armor. Tourists stopped to try to understand what the tension was all about. News photographers were present in large numbers. The day was still quite warm. Signs were up everywhere inviting people to come to the International Arts and Crafts Fair that has been drawing overflowing crowds.

More voices joined in the chant. Haredim were coming slowly into the area from all directions. Horse mounted patrolmen took up their positions. And then there was a sound quite like that of a rapidly swelling river. Hundreds of Haredi men were moving down the street from Meah Shearim. The chants became shouts, and the atmosphere became super-charged with tension. The first skirmishes started as the police tried to keep the Haredim on the sidewalks and away from the garage, but the human surge could not easily be contained.

The men on horseback were singularly effective, moving directly into the crowds, slowly, steadily pushing them back. Now there were shrieks of outrage, along with SHABBAS, SHABBAS. Large numbers of non-Haredi Israelis, men and women, were watching – and then suddenly they found the demonstrators pushed into their midst. Screaming matches broke out in scattered pockets. Anger vs. anger; indignation vs. indignation; passion matched with passion.

The shouted claims were accompanied by waving hands, pointing fingers and shaking fists. The demonstrators were told that they were a shame to Israel, an embarrassment to the Jewish people, the cause of a potential civil war that would damage Israel more than its Arab enemies could do. The by-standers were told that they should know that the essence of Torah is at stake, that the demonstrators were ready to die to protect the holiness of God’s name, that this was OUR city and in this city Torah law IS the law.

The demonstrators surged against the police and the police pushed back first with restraint – but then at times with grim determination. Some demonstrators were carried kicking and screaming to vehicles that clearly were marked as belonging to the Jerusalem jail system. The crowds cheered those who were carried off as heroes of the day, as martyrs to the cause.

I moved close to where the police and the demonstrators were in direct contact with each other. I heard the words that I feared and dreaded. These demonstrators, resplendent in their garments of 17th century Poland, opposed in every way to the Zionist state, screamed NAZI, NAZI into the faces of the young Israeli policemen. Not once; not just from a few people – that disgusting and utterly inexcusable slander, that ugly blot on the memory of the 6 million, was ringing out from various pockets of demonstrators.

I stood two feet in front of an Ethiopian policeman who probably was no more than 18. I heard the fur-hatted demonstrator scream at him: You are only an Ethiopian. You are not even a Jew. You are worse than a Goy..

My mouth filled with bile. I knew that I was trembling with impotent rage. When the surge ended, I went over to the young soldier and shook his hand and thanked him for the manner in which he had handled this unspeakable assault. He smiled sadly and just said: We should just all stay healthy.

I stayed for two hours. During quiet moments I tried, but I know that I did not succeed, to help the HUC students answer the questions which were inescapable for them: What is going on here? Who are these people and what can be done to protect Israel’s future from them? Our discussions will be lengthy, and they could not be carried out on a sidewalk crowded with sweat and faith and fury this Shabbat afternoon in Jerusalem.

As I walked home, trying to let the beauty of the city heal my wounds, I just kept telling myself over and over again: Israel desperately needs the full involvement, the full presence, the full participation, the full support of Western democratic liberal Jews so as to preserve, defend and protect the dream that is at the very heart of Israel’s existence. The Reform Movement, guided and inspired by the work of ARZA and its partners, must see the battle for Israel’s soul as a critical part of the battle for our people’s future. We need our international leaders to weigh in on this struggle even as they weigh in on matters of Israel’s security and defense needs. We need our young people to realize that their presence here could actually make the difference, could actually determine the outcome, of what is nothing less than a culture war.

How do we share that message? How do we act upon our conviction that the future of Israel deeply matters to us? How do we keep faith with our commitment to Tikkun Olam in our ancient and modern homeland? How will our own children and grandchildren judge our responses to the rising tide of faith and fury? And how do we explain all of this to our first year rabbinic and cantorial and education students as they prepare for their roles as spiritual leaders of our people?

Stan

“Guys, this is a learned Jew kind of thing to know.”

Here is a guest posting from my son Ethan. He is 16. He spent the past semester in Israel on NFTY's EIE program - learning, touring, hanging out and earning ful academic credit for high school. This was the semonette he wrote for Confirmation, which took place a week after he returned. He presents us with the real challenge of seeking the Next Level in Jewish learning. EIE was one of the best investments we have ever made!

Kibbutz Tzuba in the Judaean Hills

As a little kid at Hebrew school on Sunday mornings, learning about Israel is like learning about some magical mystical land. It seems almost unreal, and at that point, I couldn’t even imagine leaving home to go somewhere that was so immensely far away. But, having just come back from that far, far away place, I can say that some of the things that I thought as a second grader in Mrs. Silkoff’s class couldn’t be truer.

I remember being awed by the things that I would hear about Israel when I was a little kid, and having been seeing those things for the past four months and six days, I know now that there was no exaggeration. It seemed to me that everything I saw in Jerusalem or Tel-Aviv or Haifa or Tsfat or anywhere else that we went was more incredible and more amazing than the thing I saw before it. But, there was more to this trip than mere sightseeing.

This past semester, kind of like Confirmation, has been a sort of rite of passage for me. In Israel I learned more about myself, my people, and my homeland than I have in my entire life. And, as confirmation marks the continuation of my Jewish learning as I continue to grow, EIE also demonstrated for me the importance of Jewish education past the whole bar-mitzvah extravaganza.

My Jewish history teacher in Israel, Shira, after giving us a piece of information would all the time say, “Guys, this is a learned Jew kind of thing to know.” And, while some of those “learned Jew” pieces of information I already knew from Hebrew school, or bible stories from my dad, others of those “learned Jew” things were new, slightly more complicated.

Confirmation is also a kind of measure of growth in the sense that we are choosing to commit to Judaism as people who are old enough to make an informed decision. Likewise, some of the things that I learned in Israel, such as politics, or certain intricacies of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or even environmental issues, I was only able to fully understand because I was old enough to.

This semester, I learned that Israel isn’t always pretty. I worked for a day at an underfunded, underdeveloped preschool in Jerusalem. I rafted with my friends through what little is left of the Jordan River, and I even visited an army outpost on the Lebanese border where I had to stay behind ten-foot-thick concrete walls. But, for everything that I saw that was sad or unpleasant, I saw a million things that were spectacular, unbelievable, and beautiful beyond belief.

I walked above the Bahai Gardens in Haifa, and I shopped at a shook that went on forever just next to Shenkin Street in Tel-Aviv. I got to walk through the old city, and stand at the Kotel, and every morning, when I would look out my window on Kibbutz Tzuba, I would see the most unbelievable view of the kibbutz’s vineyards flowing down a slope until they became the sprawling Judean Hills.

So, that Israel that I imagined from inside room 7 just upstairs really does exist to some extent. Israel is as magical, mystical, and every bit as heart-wrenchingly beautiful as I always though it would be. But, because of this semester abroad being such a time of growth and learning, I also realized that it is a complicated, modern, and difficult place as well.

And to me, Confirmation is the point in time at which I can say with authority, “Ok, I know about the history of our people, I know about the issues that we and our homeland face, and I know about the importance of Judaism in my life. Now what? I’m ready to keep going from here, so what can you teach me next?”

Living is learning: Israel Lessons at the Y

Dr. Lisa Grant Associate Professor of Jewish Education on the New York campus of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, and a member of my congregation, B’nai Israel in Bridgeport, CT is my guest blogger this week. This was originally posted on Tze L’umad, a blog for the continuing education for the alumni of HUC-JIR. The editor of that blog wrote: “Her reflections remind us that it is not just curriculum and content that shape education; experience is a critical element in our learning, solidifying and challenging the knowledge we acquire in more formal settings.”

Currently, I’m in Israel as part of the faculty for the culminating seminar of this year’s cohort of Mandel Fellows, a group of seven HUC rabbinic-education students from New York and Los Angeles. Since I’m here for almost all of June, I decided to join the pool at the YMCA for the month. Navigating these waters has been a lesson in cultural literacy.

First there are the hours. I swim first thing in the morning. On Monday and Shabbat (or more accurately in the Y world, Saturday) there is mixed swimming. On Tuesday through Friday, men and women alternate between the early shift (5:45-6:25 am) and late (6:25-7:05). I discovered this after arriving at 6:00 am on a Tuesday to find the door into the pool from the women’s locker room locked up tight.

In good Christian fashion in this Jewish state, the Y is closed on Sunday.
Then, there are the people. By far the friendliest face is that of the Arab man who sits at the desk. Then there’s a cast of regulars who come at these early hours, older women who are rather fixed in their ways. My first day in the pool, I was stared at but no one said a word. If there was a pattern to how these women swim, it was beyond me to figure out. It seemed where ever I swam I was in someone’s way. I basically wove my way through the lanes, trying to avoid the onslaught. This went on for a couple of days. Then I decided to hug the wall and take up as little space as possible. That worked for about 6 laps and then a woman arrived who immediately told me to move.

“I swim back stroke so I need this space,” she said.

“But I’m swimming here now,” I said.

“You are in my space,” she replied emphatically.

So I acquiesced and moved over. Not only did this woman take my lane, but her stroke was so wide that she spilled over into my lane as well, resulting in inevitable bumps and brushes as we swam past each other. After a few laps, she stopped me and started yelling in Hebrew.

“Don’t you see I’m swimming here! She said.

“But I am staying in my own lane. You come over into my space!” I replied.

“You keep hitting me. You must stop. This is unacceptable,” she said.

“But, you are hitting me as well,” I said.

“Just stop it!” she yelled.

“I’m trying, you try too” was my retort. And then I swam off.

The next day, I was waiting with three or four other women for the women-only time to begin.

“Are you from the hotel?” one asked.

“No, I’m here for a seminar.”

“Are you from the hotel?” another asked.

“No, I bought a membership for the month,” I replied.

“Are you at the hotel?” the first woman asked again.

“No.” I said, and thankfully the lifeguard unlocked the door and we could go to the pool.

On the morning of my seventh visit, the women greeted me more warmly. One said good morning; two made eye contact.

Two others whispered, “I thought she was from the hotel.”

My adversary wasn’t at the pool that morning. I swam against the wall, uninterrupted. It was a much better workout, no weaving among the lanes, no glares, no strife. Serene, contemplative, and ordinary.

My experiences in the pool could be seen as a parable about the Israeli street - the erratic traffic behavior, the vacillation between rudeness and kindness in interactions with strangers, and in a much more significant way, the self-righteous and intractable claims on space and territory that different peoples make on this land.

I could leave it at that. Indeed, it’s that Israel that we often encounter in the news and as tourists through our brief encounters with Israeli society. Far from serene, or ordinary, and far more heated and contentious than contemplative.

We have been privileged to delve deeply into a much more hopeful and inspiring side of Israel during this seminar. Throughout the year, this group of HUC Mandel Fellows has been studying issues of leadership, vision, and community building. For our Israel seminar, we added a fourth dimension, the question of Jewish peoplehood. We have been exploring various conceptions of peoplehood through text study and encounters with scholars and through a variety of site visits at innovative organizations that are working to address different tensions and imbalances in Israeli society.

We visited Bet Yisrael, an urban kibbutz, a group of young adults living together and volunteering in a low-income neighborhood in Gilo, a neighborhood in the southernmost part of Jerusalem. The primary “industry” of the kibbutz is a mechina, a gap year pre-army study program for high school graduates. This mechina includes both secular and religious Israelis, and also a few Americans who’ve come to study Jewish texts and volunteer for the year before college.

In Yerucham, a development town in the Negev, we visited Atid Bamidbar, a Beit Midrash that focuses on bringing together the residents of this isolated area through a variety of programs that attempt to bridge the social gaps between secular and religious, and Ashkenazim and Sephardim through study and song.

Debbie Golan, Director of Atid Bamidbar, and some of our HUC Mandel Fellows, and some of the students in one of the sessions we observed (learning and singing mizrachi piyuttim)!

In Tel Aviv, right across the street from the central bus station, we visited Binah, a secular Yeshiva, another study program for young adults either before or after the army. The goals of this institution are to link social action with Jewish study, exposing young Israelis who lack any substantive Jewish learning to the riches of the Jewish bookshelf. Along with study, they work in this difficult, run-down neighborhood that is home to poor Israelis, foreign workers and hundreds (if not thousands) of refugees from Sudan and Eritrea.

These institutions are examples of the many third sector (non-governmental) initiatives to bridge the divides in Israeli society - between rich and poor, religious and secular, Ashkenazi and Sephardi, Arab and Jew. While each are situated in different contexts and have different missions, what they share in common is an active commitment to social change linked with Jewish learning.

In our seminar we’ve have many conversations about what makes us a Jewish people, what binds us, what divides us? We have struggled with definitions and with questions of obligation and commitment to the mixed multitude that makes up the Jewish people and that is so evident in Israeli society.

While ideas are still in formation, we have come to a strong consensus around at least one big idea. Jewish learning is something that all Jews share. Jewish study provides opportunities for rich encounters with our sources, with Jewish tradition and with others who may not share much else other than a willingness to engage with the text and those others sitting around the table. Through Jewish learning we have the opportunity to understand ourselves and others better, to join in a share enterprise and perhaps to discover or forge shared commitments.

Swimming in the sea of Torah together may start out like my swimming at YMCA pool, but once we really make eye contact and listen to our study partner, we break through those barriers of suspicion and tension, and find a way to calmer waters that can nourish us all.

What do we really think about a Jewish State?

This is a post from THE HOT TOPIC - a regular blog on the Haaretz web site and co-produced by Makom. (Find them at http://makom.haaretz.com/topic.asp?rId=135) Robbie Gringrass, an outstanding educator and performance artist living in Israel posted it to his Facebook page. It borders on heresy, yet it asks a question each generation must wrestle with.

What do we really think about a Jewish State?

The time has come. When even arch-enemies such as Gideon Levy see in Netanyahu’s speech reasons to be cheerful, we may presume that Netanyahu has hit on something approaching Israeli consensus.

Among many other statements, contradictory or vague as they may have been, one of Netanyahu’s messages came clear. Those who call for two States for two Peoples must declare
their acceptance of both halves of the statement: a Palestinian State for the Palestinian People, and a Jewish State for the Jewish People.

The Arab and Palestinian leadership could not have been sharper in their response: a Jewish State is out of the question. In so doing, they would seem to be only confirming Bibi’s essential narrative: That the Arab world has never wanted to make peace with a State for the Jews in the Middle East.

Before we go to town excoriating ‘Arab rejectionism’, or chastising Netanyahu for 'destroying the Peace Process', it is time to turn our gaze inwards. Do we Jews accept the idea of a Jewish State? Do we accept that like the French and Greeks, Norwegians and Turks, we Jews are allowed a nation state? Or do we feel that ethnic nation states are racist? (In which case we probably reject the idea of a Palestinian State, too.)

Or do we refute the key Zionist proposition, and insist that the Jews are a religion, a culture, and should not be defined as a nation at all?

Is a Jewish State an un-Jewish idea?

I don't think so. I think we a faith tradition. I also think we are much more. We are a people and a nation. This flies in the face of what we were taught as kids, as our parents generation tried to melt into the melting pot of America. Like every other ethnic group maintaining ties to their culture and homeland, we need to see ourselves as mart of the American mosaic - one variety in the tossed salad of American life.

Similarly, I think the Zionist endeavor (no longer an experiment, over 100 years after Herzl and 61 years after independance) is still a very Jewish idea, even if at times throughout its history political leaders may have made decisions at odds with Jewish values. It is a Jewish state, made up of flawed humans, not a Jewish utopia filled with tzadikim who who always make the right choices. And each of those humans brings his or her own interpretation to the table. I have a boyhood friend living in Ma'ale Adumim. We see the map differently. Time may tell us who is correct, but we both believe we are approaching the idea of the Jewish state from a place of integrity.

What is the difference between a Jewish state and a racist ethnic state? No matter how I might want to be a Greek or an Italian or a Somali, I cannot. Those are identifications that depend upon genetics. I could marry in, but I would not be able to become authentically a part of those groups. While for most of our history Jews have not actively sought converts, they have always been welcome once they completed the process. Their children are our children.

I hope the day comes in our time that Israel is able to be the best it always promised it could be without compromising security for all. I hope its leaders can find a path to peace with integrity. Smearing Israel with the label of racist is both facile and cynical, and at it its core a lie.

The deeper question is for my friends living here in the Diaspora with me. We need to get over our ambivalence and weigh in on the idea of Eretz/Medinat Yisrael. Our children need to hear our voices express how important Israel is the the continued health of the Jewish people, just as we heard it from our parents.

My sixteen year old son just returned from a semester outside of Jerusalem. He reminds me of when the fire of Israel came alive for me at his age. He gets his connection to the Jewish people and to Eretz Yisrael. As he told me his teacher Shira explained: "Guys, this is a learned Jew kind of thing."

The Jewishness of the Jewish state? Guys, this is a learned Jew kind of thing.

How can I help the multitudes of people in need?

This is a guest posting from Mazon, in support of part of Zemanta’s “Blogging For a Cause” campaign to raise awareness and funds for worthy causes that bloggers care about.

Los Angeles is full of wealth & opportunity, yet I see people in need everyday. A shoeless man walks the Sunset Strip; a teenage runaway sits with his dog on Santa Monica’s Promenade; a veteran asks for money and food on the median in front of the gates of Bel Air; and countless faces push shopping carts on the outskirts of Downtown’s Skid Row.

These are the faces I don’t forget as I navigate our city’s congested streets. Their untold story lingers in my mind for miles and miles. I wonder where their family is and how they’ve ended up in their current situation. My mind always circles back to the same question:

How can I, one person, help the multitudes of people in need?

Last night I found part of the answer in a grocery store parking lot. A mother and daughter (not dissimilar to any other pair walking in and out of the store) asked for help and I offered to buy them food. They didn’t ask for much, just bread and milk. I’m lucky to have extra money in my grocery budget so that I was able to help them in this small way.

I went home feeling as if I could have done more, and I will do more by donating to a cause that helps the people in my community. This is where MAZON and local organizations come into play- they have the expertise, resources and scope to help people beyond a few meals.

-Reena Rexrode, Donor Services Coordinator at MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger

This blog post is part of Zemanta's "Blogging For a Cause" campaign to raise awareness and funds for worthy causes that bloggers care about.

Classroom Teaching with Mark Smilowitz

I have just spent 15 minutes on the treadmill learning about the issues involved in bringing "fun" into the classroom. I did it with my i-pod and a podcast on Classroom Teaching from the Lookstein Center for Jewish Education in the Diaspora by Mark Smilowitz. He is a very engaging teacher and very easy to listen to. You can download (or listen online) any of his podcasts (28 so far) at http://www.lookstein.org/podcasts.

Podcasting is a great mix of old and new technology, and is really great because it is portable. I have been listening to podcasts of Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me and Car Talk since my family bought me an I-pod over a year ago. I listen while exercising or cutting the grass. In fact in the podcast I just listened to, he even suggests having the students create their own podcasts engaging in the content of their class

Here is Mark's bio from the Lookstein site:

Mark Smilowitz has taught Judaic studies in middle school and high school levels for 11 years, in Israel. Unsatisfied with the available options for professional growth, Mark sought his own, personal mentor. That's how he met Professor Stephanie "Stevie" Bravmann, a veteran master teacher who, according to one colleague, "knows everything" about education.

Mark emerged from his weekly sessions with Stevie with powerful new insights and ideas about teaching that he immediately implemented with profound impact on his students, not to mention great personal satisfaction. When Mark moved to Israel in 2005, he found that his his new teaching tools worked just as well with children on the other side of the globe.

Now Mark wants to share what he's learned with other Judaic studies teachers. This podcast is an attempt to help teachers - beginners and veterans - find personal satisfaction in teaching. Please send us your comments so we can learn how these ideas affect you. Together we can create a community of teachers committed to excellence and bringing the very best in teaching to our most precious commodity, our students.

Technology for Temples

Adam Simon of the Schusterman Foundation writes on JTA's Fundermentalist Blog about his take on the Nonprofit Technology Network. I urge you to read it and the comments that follow. Here is mine:

Adam,

Very interesting piece. As a congregational educator I am interested both bottles, the old and the new. I know that for many --especially thos below 40 and especially for those below 30, web 2.0 is becoming hardwired into how they perceive the world. We can spend (end lose) the next generation asking people to come into the synagogue and turn off their various devices, or we can figure out how to use the emerging technologies to reach them and enrich their Jewish identity. Then we can draw them in the doors of the shul, where they will choose to pause their tweeting, etc. to be a part of an RT (Real Time) community.

To paraphrase John Dewey from over 100 years ago: we can't bring the Jew kicking and screaming to the synagogue, we have to bring the synagogue to where the Jew is. Right now, cyberland is covering a lot of the Jew's personal space.

I am not convinced that Web 2.0 is the only way to reach them. The life of a synagogue is still essential. But we ignore the technology at our (and the synagogue's) peril.

Thank you for bringing NTEN to us. I am not sure we will make aliya there, but I look forward to you and others bringing the message from that mountain so we can create the Rashi together!

Being Visionary

My rabbi shared an article from the CCAR Journal (published by the Reform Rabbinate) by my teacher Isa Aron, Steven M. Cohen, Lawrence Hoffman and Ari Y. Kelman called Functional and Visionary Congregations. It is a precis of a book coming out later this year from Jewish Lights, and it explores different approaches to what a congregation is and does.

In very simplistic terms, a functional congregation is one that focuses on servicing specific needs of members. The appraoch might seem consumerist (although that is a reduction). It is kind of like a synagogue as Wal-Mart. Jewish Education for children in aisle 15, Shabbat worship in aisle 22, senior programming in aisle 3, etc. It leads, they indicate, to a passivity among the members and a heavy reliance on staff to cater to their needs. It is very easy to leave a functional congregation. Just put your Bar/Bat Mitzvah certificate in the car and drive away.

A visionary congregation is different. Sure, it meets the specific needs of its members. It's focus however is on providing more than discrete products to meet the needs of the moment. It strives to make the members embrace theri own role in a Kehillah Kedoshah, a sacred community. It makes demands of the members beyond the financial. It sets up expectations for individuals and families, young and old, to engage in the life of the congregation and to advance in their own spiritual journeys.

I am being overly simplistic. I recommend the article and I expect to like the book as well.

My rabbi shared the article first with the senior staff and then with the Board of Trustees of our congregation so that we could use it as a lens for self-examination. The study is ongoing. My initial sense is that on the spectrum from functionary to visionary, we are more visionary than functional, but we have a lot of room for expanding the vision, both in terms of how we do what we do and in whom reach and how deeply.

I am fascinated by the metaphor and my teachers and I are going to use this lens as well. A version of the article is at http://www.ujafedny.org/atf/cf/%7Bad848866-09c4-482c-9277-51a5d9cd6246%7D/SYNERGY%20NL%20FALL%2008.PDF, in a publication of the UJA Federation of New York. I would love to hear from anyone reading this blog what you think of the concept, and more importantly, how a synagogue school might use it.

Happy Yom Ha'atzmaut!

An Israeli singer and a Palestinian singer in Israel's submission to the Eurovision song competition. Talk amongst ourselves...

An interview with Noa and Mira Awad--overly simplistic in their solutions? Maybe. But I think it was Rabin who said you can only make peace with your enemies, not with your friends.

Be a Traveler, Not a Tourist

I love the shows on the Travel Channel. When Anthony Bourdain or Samantha Brown take us exploring the world, it feels like we are there. We meet people and get to know a little bit about them. It feels like Tony and Samantha have made new friends wherever they go. The Travel channel’s slogan is “Be a Traveler, Not a Tourist.” Educator Daniel J. Boorstin said that the traveler is active; going strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; expecting interesting things to happen to him. He goes “sight-seeing.”

Fern Chertok, Theodore Sasson and Leonard Saxe - three Brandeis University researchers - have published a study about the Jewish engagement of young people returning from Birthright: Israel trips called Tourists, Travelers, and Citizens: Jewish Engagement of Young Adults in Four Centers of North American Jewish Life. They use the Traveler/Tourist idea and add one more: citizen. Although they were focused on young adults, I think the point extends to our setting. Some of us are adult citizens of B’nai Israel. You see them regularly at services, serving on committees or the board, helping in their children’s classrooms or participating in family education or adult Jewish learning. They have become locals, and they would love it if more of us took up residence.

Others are tourists—occasional visitors hoping to see the sights. They tend to drop off their children or drop in for a celebration or service when they receive an invitation from a friend. The authors of the Brandeis study suggest that for too long the model of Jewish communal life has focused on the dichotomy of Tourist vs. Citizen. They submit, and I am convinced, that we need to find ways to help our tourists become travelers before we can even think about citizenship. We need to help each other empower ourselves to deepen our connections with each other and with the synagogue. And it is happening.

Last month I attended the Religious School Parent Social at my synagogue. Over fifty people came for a purely social evening. No praying, no teaching, no fund-raising. The U Conn semi-final NCAA game was projected on a screen. Music played from the speakers in the pavilion from someone’s I-pod. There were competitive tastings of appetizers and desserts brought by those who were there. And a lot of people whose children are in religious school with each other got to meet one another and hang out. It was awesome! There were some citizens in the room and some tourists as well. By the end of the night, though, I think most were thinking like travelers – at least for that one night.

Our Religious School Committee and our faculty are exploring how we can expand this idea of developing communities of travelers to our classrooms as well. Look for some exciting developments for Kitot Daled – Vav (4th – 6th grades) that we hope will establish or deepen connections the students have to one another.

We have invited the adults in our congregation to help us, to join the journey.
Be a traveler. Drop in, call or e-mail another traveler.

Our Israel Problem

I believe that the State of Israel is central to the identity of the modern Jew. There. I said it. One problem is that the data do not support it. There have been many reports published over the last two decades that tell us how few of us have visited Israel, how many of us don’t make it a point to read or follow Israel in the news and how much Israel has faded into the background of the average Jew’s perception. Still I believe it she (Medinat Yisrael – the State of Israel – is a feminine word form) is central to us all. Like a loved one we haven’t thought about in a long time. So, in light of this, how do we process, connect to and teach about Israel in a time of war – especially the current conflict?

My friend and teacher Joel Grishaver writes in his blog for teachers and parents:

"Crossing the internet are two prayers. One is a prayer for Israel’s soldiers. The other is a prayer for the civilians of Gaza. Both are recommended as the way for teachers to begin their classes.

The problem is not that one is being asked to choose between these two prayers. Supporting both wishes is not a problem. Prayers for safety can’t be too many. And the problem is not that prayer seems to be the major response to war. Prayer is a good response to war. The problem is that this seems to be the only major public response besides a zillion causes to join on Facebook."

On November 10, 1975 the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 3379, stating that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.” I remember helping to organize 3 busses from my high school to the Chicago Civic Center Plaza (where the Blues brothers were finally captured in the film). There were hundreds of buses and tens of thousands of people there from all over protesting the foul resolution.

Because Israel is at War, we need to be shouting “you are connected to Israel.” “You have a relationship with Israel.” “Israel’s future impacts your future.” Now is the time to emphasize knowledge about Israel, Zionist (or post-Zionist) ideology, and simple family relationships. We can teach “The War” or not teach “The War,” but we need to teach “the love.”

What I – and I think most of us really want is for our kids to care about Israel the way that I care about the Chicago Cubs. I rarely go to games, since I live in Fairfield. But Chicago is one of my homelands and the loveable losers of Wrigley Field are ingrained in my neshama – my soul. I keep a schedule above my desk and track the wins and losses. I have the team news feed on my Google home page. Ideally, I’d want our students to care more about Israel than I care about the Cubs, but at the very least, like me and the Cubs I want them to care about the outcome.

So now is a time to make falafel and sing “Im Tirtzu.” We need to be dancing “Hinei Mah Tov u’Mah Nayim” and “Mah Na’avu.” Students should be finding Haifa on the map and learning that Ben Gurion like to stand on his head cause he thought it was good for his health. What we – as teachers and parents need to be doing is teaching Israel more than ever. And, if we do so, the questions about The War will come, and we will be able to answer them the way we want to answer them, providing we add, “And you are still connect to the land, people, and Nation of Israel—no matter how you feel about some of her actions.

And now for something (almost) completely different…

Let’s try something different. Let’s move forward. Let’s focus on goals and outcomes, on growth and on moving Jewish Education and the role of the teachers and lead educators to the next level. Facebook, e-mail in boxes and phones have been busy for much of the past week with friends and colleagues talking about, wondering and speculating about what will happen to CAJE—the Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education—now that they have announced the cancellation of this summer’s Conference on Alternatives in Jewish Education.

The difference I am suggesting is that we not get bogged down in history, gossip or recriminations. I believe that the lay and professional leadership of CAJE is doing everything they can to solve the fiscal dilemmas that led to the decision. And I have tremendous respect for them and for CAJE Executive Director Jeff Lasday in particular. I am not a finance person. I don’t have the answers. I call upon everyone who cares about Jewish Education to be part of that solution. If you have ideas or access to serious funds, contact CAJE directly.

I believe we cannot wait for that solution before beginning the conversation. So let’s have another conversation at the same time. Let’s talk about what’s next. The conversation might be helpful in revitalizing CAJE. It might be useful in figuring out where our field is going. We can’t wait because our students are not going to be able to wait for us to figure it out.

Enduring Understandings
CAJE was born amidst the protests and self-assertion of the young people of the Sixties. The founders wanted the Jewish Communal Establishment to pay attention to and fund the development of teachers and of innovative methodologies. The history is written elsewhere – and it is worth reading. As educators we should approach the dilemma of where next by wiping the slate clean.

[By “educators” I am referring to classroom teachers, directors, principals, clergy, bureau/agency personnel, JCC folks, informal educators, college teachers and program professionals, artists of all kinds serving early childhood, synagogue schools, community schools, day schools, camps, Israel programs, adult learners…you get the idea. The whole gamut of people engaged in transmitting our heritage and identity from all movements and non-movements. The usual suspects!]

What are our goals for the first half of the 21st century?

1. We need to develop the skills of new teachers and recruit lead educators from their ranks. We need to connect them with the vatikim – the veterans – so they can learn from the masters.
   
2. We need to develop the skills of the vatikim. We need to connect them with the newer, younger teachers so we can learn from their creativity and enthusiasm.
   
3. Moore’s Law says that that the data density of integrated circuits double every 18 – 24 months. That means computers continue to get faster, more complex and able to store more data more cheaply. Just as computer capacity has expanded, so too have the lives and capacities of our learners (and their teachers). Remember “Alternatives?” It’s not such a counter-culture term any more. We need to foster creativity in and out of the classroom and in the design of our learning structures. We need to be nimble and we need to talk about how we do that, share best practices and brainstorm together. Some of this can be done on Facebook, wikis and blogs. Some of it needs to be done face to face. Perhaps in smaller local meetings as well as at a conference
   
4. We need a place where we can gather as a learning/teaching community. Some have suggesting regional conferences. Others – myself included – believe the impact of a national conference is essential. While the expenses to individuals might be greater, the ability to bring teachers and scholars and artists to a single location once in a year and the economies of scale make a compelling argument. I remember the impact on me as a first year religious school teacher at CAJE 10 in DeKalb, IL when we sang La’asok B’divrei Torah over Voice of America to the Hebrew teachers of the Soviet Union. The impact is significant.
   
5. Finally, we have to lose the “The way we have always done it” or the “we don’t operate that way” approaches. They lead to stagnation. There is something valuable in consistency. There is also something valuable in responding to current realities. Maybe summer is not the best time to meet—or maybe it is. Perhaps there are alternatives to college campuses—or perhaps they are best suited to our needs. I don’t know. I just know we need to see what works now. That doesn’t mean we have to repeat every conversation every year. We just need to check in once in a while and compare our actions to our goals. When they don’t match, one of them has to change.
   

The Challenge
As many have been, I have been re-inspired by the candidacy and election of President Barack Obama. I am not particularly moved by his ethnicity or politics. I am moved by his message of hope, by the idea that we can each live the American dream if we work for it together.
So here is the take-away. I was not elected for anything. I am not more or less skilled or knowledgeable than you are. I do not have all of the answers. But I believe that together we do have them I have shown you preliminary list of what I think we need to do for our teachers and ourselves. I am still expanding and refining it. Join me. What are your needs as a teacher? As a learner? As an educator?

Let’s begin the conversation. At some point—very soon—we will need to figure out how organize and implement those needs and how to pay for them. Hopefully, while we are learning together, our colleagues will right the ship of CAJE and that can continue be our community’s vehicle. Kein yehi ratzon…

[I want to thank my friends at Torah Aura for giving me a larger platform than my Facebook status to share what I have been thinking and discussing with a few people for the past week. I am not running for anything. I just wanted to go beyond the usual “someone-ought-to-do-something” in which we all engage from time to time. Someone ought to. Someone is you and me.]

Originally posted on the Torah Aura Bulletin Board Blog, January 23, 2009