Dear Reader,
Bernard Madoff, in an interview from jail this week, said he feels no remorse for the harm he did to the Jewish community with his enormous financial scam. Many in the community beg to differ, as Associate Editor Jonathan Mark reports.
NEW YORK
Madoff, Five Years Later
No regrets about betraying Jewish clients, despite ‘affinity’ nature of crime.
Jonathan Mark
Associate Editor
Sholem Aleichem, who lost his money in the Odessa stock market, used to say that when you’re rich, people think you’re not only clever but handsome, with a voice like a nightingale.And for years, Bernard Madoff — it was always “Bernie,” pals to the rich and insiders — was so clever, so flattered, that just about anyone who was anyone in the Jewish community trusted Madoff Securities with their millions of dollars; from Sandy Koufax to Elie Wiesel, from Israel’s Technion to Hadassah. In 1996, like asking Clyde Barrow to guard a bank, Yeshiva University asked Madoff to be a trustee, where he advised the other YU trustees, many of whom were savvy businessmen, to invest $100 million of the university’s money with Madoff, yet another piece of a Ponzi scheme that exploded in 2008.
Now 75, Madoff lives with another convict in an 8-by-10 cell at Butner federal prison in North Carolina for 150 years or death, whichever comes first. Five years after his conviction, in a March 20 jailhouse interview with Politico, Madoff was asked if he had any remorse about the “disproportionate devastation” of Jews who lost a staggering amount of money, close to $400 million, by investing with him. No, said Madoff, “I don’t feel that I betrayed the Jews. ... I don’t feel any worse for a Jewish person than I do for a Catholic person. ... I betrayed people that put trust in me — certainly the Jewish community. I’ve made more money for Jewish people and charities than I’ve lost.”
The reporter for Politico, M.J. Lee, says she kept pressing him on his denial of betraying Jews “because that answer surprised me so much.” But Madoff insisted he didn’t hurt one group more than another. “Religion,” says Madoff, “had nothing to do with it.” For Madoff, it never did.
Steve Bayme, national director of contemporary Jewish life at the American Jewish Committee, was taken aback by Madoff’s audacity.
“Oh, he hurt the Jewish community very badly,” says Bayme. “Aside from individual tragedies, Jewish charitable and nonprofit institutions were seriously hurt. If he says ‘I didn’t hurt the Jewish community,’ I have strong problems with that.”
Madoff was the master of the “long con,” the confidence game that takes years to cook. It was Jews, more than anyone, who had confidence in him, one of their own. He gained the confidence of Jews in country clubs on Long Island and in Palm Beach and, it was reported, “through his position on the boards of directors of prominent Jewish institutions, he was entrusted with entire family fortunes.”
On the one hand, Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, co-president of CLAL – the National Center for Learning and Leadership, says, “This whole story says more about those Jews who attach importance to Madoff’s Jewishness, than it says about Madoff.”
He was not a religious man when he embarked on his crime spree, he was not a religious man when appointed to Yeshiva’s board, and there’s nothing particularly Jewish about him now. Madoff, the former Yeshiva University officer, told Politico that he doesn’t bother keeping kosher in prison.
The most Jewish thing about him is his victims. “Jews were disproportionately affected by Madoff’s crimes,” says Rabbi Hirschfield, “as all so-called Ponzi schemes play on ethnic, cultural or religious ties. It’s also why Jews disproportionally profited from him before the whole thing came apart. Each side focuses on the half of the story that they want to, but both are true.”
One Jewish leader, who asked not to be identified, noted that “Madoff simply thinks like most liberal and under-35 American Jews increasingly do: wronging a Jew or a non-Jew is equally wrong, as there is no unique special responsibility to Jews. Of course, the irony of this is that the wealthy Jewish class who were the primary victims of Madoff assumed they had some special inside connection with a fellow Jew, and so Madoff could be trusted. Greed, confusing being wealthy with being good, all combined with the delusion of Jewish ethical superiority to create the perfect Madoff storm.”
(On Monday, three days after the Politico interview appeared, a federal jury found five of Madoff’s former business associates guilty of security fraud and misleading auditors and investors. They could face up to 30 years in prison.)
Here’s a short list of what was lost by Jewish institutions: Yeshiva University, at least $100 million; Hadassah, where a former chief financial officer, Sheryl Weinstein, said she had an affair with Madoff, $90 million; Los Angeles Jewish Community Foundation, $18 million; Elie Wiesel’s Foundation for Humanity, $15.2 million; America-Israel Cultural Foundation, $15 million; United Jewish Endowment Fund, somewhat less than $10 million; Ramaz School and Cong. Kehillath Jeshurun, $9.5 million; Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, $6.4 million; Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, $6.4 million; Maimonides School, $5 million; SAR school, $1.7 million; and American Friends of Yad Sarah, $1.5 million, among many others.
You couldn’t come up with a list like that among Catholic schools or secular charities, though here and there were investors such as the Korea Teachers Pension (losers of $9.1 million).
As Samuel G. Freedman reported in 2008 in The New York Times, “the conspicuous fact remains that no institutions explicitly, or even implicitly, affiliated with Reform, Conservative or Reconstructionist Judaism had investments with Mr. Madoff. How exactly Mr. Madoff earned entree to the Modern Orthodox community, especially in Manhattan, remains unclear. By most accounts, he is not Orthodox himself. But one of his middlemen, J. Ezra Merkin… is a fixture of the community,” someone who once had been a president of the Fifth Avenue Synagogue, a board member at Ramaz and SAR, and a trustee of Yeshiva University.
All of this seems long ago and far away, except it’s not. Yeshiva University’s investment rating, for example, according to Moody’s Investors Service, is in free-fall. “In January, Moody’s downgraded Yeshiva to junk bond status. In 2008, before the Madoff scandal broke, Yeshiva was ranked by Moody’s at Aa2, the third-highest grade. According to Bloomberg News. “The university was in the midst of ambitious growth when Madoff’s Ponzi scheme unraveled, adding faculty and expanding campuses around New York.” The university is now selling 10 buildings, two-thirds of the university’s housekeeping staff has left, and some academic departments have been ordered to slash 20 percent of costs.
It wasn’t until after Madoff’s arrest that YU adopted a conflict-of-interest rule that the university could not do business with board members, such as the business between Madoff and Merkin. The scandal, says Bayme of the AJC, “caused virtually everyone to evaluate the way they’re doing business. It sent shock waves through the community, with lessons to be learned, in terms of governance, conflicts of interest, and people are a lot more careful and judicious about these things than they were five years ago. It was a rude awakening. This is something I’ve seen all over. These five years have caused considerable re-evaluation in practices and policies.”
One Jewish leader who asked for anonymity, told us that he wondered how much introspection there really has been about “the culture we have created regarding money and influence.”
One rabbi, the head of a Jewish institution that was indeed “betrayed” by Madoff, preferred not to comment on anything Madoff had to say. “Let him rot in jail,” the rabbi said.
jonathan@jewishweek.org
Bernie Madoff, Ponzi scheme
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The board of the public school district in Lawrence, NY is made up of a majority of Orthodox Jews who send their children to yeshivas and day schools, prompting criticism from some public school parents. Staff Writer Amy Clark, after reviewing the school board's record and visiting the schools, assesses the situation.
NEW YORK
Five Towns See Fresh Tensions Due To School Sale
Old divide between Orthodox-controlled school board, public school parents reopens; budget moves paint nuanced picture.
Amy Sara Clark
Staff Writer
A referendum on whether to sell a public school building in a Long Island town to a yeshiva is stirring up a decades-long conflict between the Orthodox families who send their children to private school and the non-Orthodox Jewish, black and Hispanic families who send their kids to public school.The Board of the Lawrence Union Free School District — which also includes nearby Atlantic Beach, Cedarhurst, Inwood, Woodsburgh and parts of Woodmere and North Woodmere — has accepted an $8.5 million bid from The Hebrew Academy of Long Beach, or HALB, to buy the Number Six School, as long as voters approve the sale in a March 31 vote.
Supporters of the sale say selling to HALB will preserve the 6.6-acre property’s sports fields and playgrounds for community use and, because the vast majority of HALB’s students live in the Lawrence district, the sale will save the district approximately $700,000 a year in busing and other fees paid to the Long Beach School District for the some 550 Lawrence kids who currently commute there.
It’s likely the referendum will pass: last year voters rejected a $12.5 million bid to put a medical facility on the site due to concerns about traffic and the loss of green space. Since then, there have only been a few bids on the property and area real estate brokers say it’s unlikely the district will get a higher bid than HALB’s.
However, whether or not the sale goes through, this latest conflict revives tensions that began in earnest in 2001 when Orthodox residents began winning seats on the school board on a platform of reducing wasteful spending. Those tensions reached a peak in 2006 when yeshiva parents gained the majority of seats and voted to close School Number Six despite their consultant’s advice to close School Number Four, which was designed for young children but had less outdoor space and other amenities.
In taking control of the board, Lawrence’s Orthodox community is part of a trend of Orthodox private school parents running for public school boards, including in towns such as Lakewood, N.J., and East Ramapo, N.Y., both of which now have Orthodox majorities. But while the state has validated critiques of East Ramapo’s board, annulling the sale of an elementary school to a yeshiva after deeming the purchase price to be under market and investigating the sale of another public school, Orthodox board members in Lawrence say claims that their board is not acting in the best interest of the public schools do not hold water.
“We’re no Ramapo,” said Lawrence school trustee Murray Forman.
“The bottom line is I’ve been doing this now for close to a decade and every decision that this board has made that has risen to any controversy has been upheld,” he said.
The board has managed to keep taxes stable “through very prudent financial management,” he said. “We had a declining student enrollment so we consolidated buildings, which cut expenses and provided money for capital expenditures.
“We just managed this very well. I would posit to you that every other district on Long Island is looking to us and looking to catch up,” Forman added.
Indeed, financial records, a tour of the schools and interviews with more than two dozen board members, public school parents, teachers, administrators and real estate agents for the most part support Forman’s contention: while the Orthodox takeover of the school board has created a great deal of resentment and mistrust, the board does not appear to be trying to drain the schools of resources.
According to area real estate agents, it’s not surprising that the price for Number Six School would drop after the community voted down the medical center’s bid.
“It’s probably more common than not,” said John Hoblin, senior managing director at Hunt Corporate Services, a Long Island-based firm that specializes in commercial real estate.
“Because of the extra land that usually comes with a school property, developers have an initial interest in it, but when a hearing is done [the developer’s plan] is rejected because of concerns of too dense of a population,” he said. “Then the school board needs to go back to the drawing board and say what would be an acceptable use, and often that use will come at a lower price because it won’t be as dense.”
As for the quality of the education, it appears to remain strong, according state and district financial records.
A comparison of the Lawrence Union Free School District’s budgets between 2005-6 before the board had an Orthodox majority and in 2011-12 after six years of private-school parent rule shows that there haven’t been major cuts in instruction or programs.
For example, in 2005-6, general education per pupil “instructional spending,” which excludes such district-wide expenses as special education, transportation and district administration, went up 27 percent, compared to the state average of 25 percent. Elementary school class size went down 9 percent, from an average of 21 students in 2005-6 to 19 students in 2011-12.
The percentage of students who graduate with a regent’s diploma jumped 11 percent (from 78 percent in 2005-6 to 89 percent in 2011-12) and eighth grade math scores also improved, with the percentage of students testing at or above grade level increasing from 56 percent in 2005-6 to 81 percent in 2011-12.
During a recent visit to the district, this reporter found the schools to be pleasant, spacious and orderly. The students joked with each other as they walked through the wide, light-filled hallways of the middle school and the band and orchestra classes were in full swing.
All of the parents approached outside the Inwood elementary Number Two School said they were quite pleased with the school system, praising in particular the addition of an after school tutoring program and the clear concern showed by schools Superintendent Gary Schall for the needs of the district’s poor and minority students.
“When my kids were little, I remember when they came home with the homework, and I was not even able to help my kids. It was very, very frustrating for me,” said Sandra Orallana, who sent four children through the public schools and is president of the Spanish Association for the Five Towns Community Center.
“Now they have a very nice [tutoring] program. … Parents are so happy because kids come home at 5:30 with their homework finished.
“But the more important thing is that now we have someone we can talk to,” she said referring to Schall. “He really, really worries for the community. For the first time, in 20 years, we had somebody to come and ask, ‘What can I do for you?’”
Alongside the praise, however, there’s no shortage of criticisms.
The board did make plenty of cuts. Between 2005-6 and 2011-12, language, summer and reading programs were cut. However new programs were added, such as additional plays and a robotics course.
The board recently switched the high school schedule from nine periods of 42 minutes to eight periods of 48 minutes, which cut out one of the teacher’s two prep periods and increased their time in the classroom by 48 minutes a day.
While schools Superintendent Gary Schall praised the change for shifting “$1.4 million in teacher time from planning to instruction,” Lori Skonberg, president of the Lawrence Teachers Association, said the shift has forced students to cut down on the number of electives they are taking because there are fewer periods in the day.
Blasia Baum, immediate past president and current treasurer of the district’s PTA, said that while she supported the shift to eight periods at the time, she now believes that the change has made Lawrence students’ college applications less competitive than students from the neighboring district of Hewlett-Woodmere.
“Hewlett has 10 periods,” said Baum, who sent all three of her daughters to the public schools. “Those kids, each year they can take so many more classes, and they can take so many more AP classes. It’s just so competitive here.”
The board also eliminated 20 positions last year, including a mixture of part-time and full-time teachers that was the equivalent of 9.2 full-time teachers, a social worker, two secretaries and eight facilities staff, which, Skonberg said, has caused the remaining secretaries to be overworked.
Skonberg has also criticized the elimination of several programs including gifted and talented, summer school, the Quest research program, language instruction in the elementary schools and a social worker.
Another frequent critique of the board is that it used only part of proceeds from the 2007 sale of another elementary school, Number One School, for capital improvements and used the rest to keep taxes from going up.
Of the $31 million the school received, $17 million were used for capital improvements, such as converting the high school athletic field to Astroturf, improving the theatrical lighting system in the high school auditorium and adding new science labs. The remaining $14 million went into a reserve fund “that enabled us to keep taxes low and at the same time enabled us to maintain programs,” said Schall in an e-mail, calling the move “fiscally responsible and ahead of the curve,” and something that other districts are also doing to maintain programs.
However, the “everyone is doing it” argument fails to convince Baum. “It sounds so wonderful that we’re going to save the money, but that money is not going to go to the kids, it’s just going to reduce the budget,” she said.
As to the question of whether the private school-parent board is harming the public schools, Baum says no, but that’s not enough.
“I think they’re doing their best to maintain the schools,” she said. “But all they’re doing is maintaining.”
And the Orthodox-controlled board has only increased tensions in an already divided community. After one school board meeting, Baum remembers, one Orthodox man who was not on the board yelled, “Yes, we’re going to close your schools and we won’t stop until they’re all gone.”
In another incident that irked critics, the yearbook of a girl’s yeshiva ran a photo of Lawrence Middle School with the caption, “Pardon us while we’re under construction,” Baum said.
It was a joke, she said, but it “enraged so many people.”
“It’s such a divided community,” she added. “It’s not a comfortable place to live here — so people are leaving the district, or switching their kids to private school.”
amy.jewishweek@gmail.com
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Israel's ambitious Holocaust-era restitution project is in danger of ending. Staff Writ__er Stewart Ain has the story.
NEW YORK
Israel’s Holocaust Restitution Arm Weak
Project HEART losing funding even as initiatives seen bearing fruit for heirs.
Stewart Ain
Staff Writer
Project HEART, the Israeli government’s ambitious Holocaust-era restitution project designed to compensate survivors and their heirs for property lost during the Holocaust, is in danger of ending or being seriously diminished, The Jewish Week has learned.A budget shortfall has already meant that the project’s office in Milwaukee, Wis., was forced to cease operations Jan. 1. The office, located at A.B. Data, a direct marketing company, has processed the nearly 200,000 claim forms that survivors and heirs have filed since Project HEART began in February 2011.
Funding for the Project HEART, an initiative of the Israeli government in partnership with Jewish Agency for Israel, was provided in 2009 following the government’s 2007 decision to get involved in restitution efforts. That money will be depleted May 31 and the project has thus far not been funded for the next fiscal year.
Sources close to Project HEART told The Jewish Week that Israel’s Ministry for Pensioner Affairs had initially funded Project HEART (Holocaust-Era Asset Restitution Taskforce). But not enough money has been budgeted for the next fiscal year and other ministries are being asked to contribute for a total of about $2 million.
Neither Pensioner Affairs Minister Uri Orbach nor Finance Minister Yair Lapid responded to an email from The Jewish Week seeking comment.
In the meantime, the efforts of Project HEART in conjunction with the office of New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli may be about to bear fruit for as many as 1,500 Holocaust survivors and heirs.
At the request of Project HEART, DiNapoli’s Office of Unclaimed Funds crosschecked the names of Project HEART claimants with the database of 28 million unclaimed accounts maintained by New York State’s Office of Unclaimed Funds. The office — which holds money from dormant bank accounts, uncashed checks or insurance checks — and found 3,000 matches. Based on a follow-up search of those individuals, a spokeswoman for DiNapoli said the office has narrowed the list to 1,500.
“We will be contacting these people beginning next week to confirm that they are the rightful owners of the unclaimed assets,” she said.
Sources told The Jewish Week that Project HEART had also planned to meet with DiNapoli and other state officials to discuss what action can be taken to convince an Austrian bank to open its books and pay the dormant accounts of Holocaust victims.
The accounts had been opened in several Hungarian banks prior to the Holocaust. After the war, the banks refused requests to acknowledge those accounts, and within the last five years the Austrian bank acquired them.
“The Austrian bank is licensed to do business in New York State,” said one source. “We have a claim against the banks it absorbed, and when you acquire a bank you get its assets as well as its liabilities.
“If it is still possible to get the Austrian bank to review and compensate living survivors and their heirs — we feel that bank should have its feet held to the fire.”
There are numerous other efforts Project HEART has initiated and that are also about to come to fruition.
Armed with a bundle of claims it has collected, Project HEART began approaching European countries in which private property was lost seeking compensation for those families. Within the last year, meetings have been held with officials of Poland, Croatia, Macedonia, Austria, Germany, France, Romania, Lithuania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, the European Parliament and the Ukraine.
Project HEART’s delegation to Poland included Rafi Eitan, the former minister of Pensioner Affairs, and Bobby Brown, Project HEART’s executive director.
“Issues of property rights and Holocaust survivor rights were discussed with Polish leaders,” said one source. “The talks were well received and Project HEART is hopeful that there will be a breakthrough in Holocaust rights in the near future.”
Project HEART initially reached out to New York State Comptroller DiNapoli in the belief that European Jews in the beginning of World War II might have deposited money in Swiss banks that was then transferred to their New York branches. Although much of that money was transferred back to Europe after the war, it is believed that funds belonging to Holocaust victims and survivors remained in New York branches. Those funds were later turned over to the Comptroller’s Office do to inactivity.
DiNapoli’s office set up a special webpage for those who believe they may be the rightful owners to unclaimed funds — www.osc.state.ny.us/ouf/holocaust.htm.
Anya Verkhovskaya, Project HEART’s project director in Milwaukee, pointed out that many European Jews deposited money directly into New York banks “because New York was such a hot area and because a lot of Jewish families in western Europe had relatives or people they knew in New York.”
In addition, she said, European Jews “did limited traveling and wanted to keep money safe in New York. And there were some New Yorkers who were visiting Europe and got stuck in the Holocaust.”
“We might not be talking about a lot of people,” Verkhovskaya said. “But the justice we could bring to these families is not measurable — it is a life changing closure. If we could help a few families, it would really be groundbreaking.”
Sources said that should only limited funding be forthcoming to keep Project HEART alive, the U.S. operation might be closed as a cost-saving measure and all claims processing would then be done in Israel.
“They built the system and have the software and were doing a remarkably good job,” said a source of A.B. Data. “Now they want us to bring it all here. … It’s all in a state of flux.”
Verkhovskaya said she is “not privy to all of the details” regarding a possible move of the operations to Israel.
“We’ve successfully operated on the ground, processing from the U.S. claims from 137 countries around the world,” she said. “We stand by to offer whatever service we can. I will remain with A.B. Data but we will have a team available to got Israel if required to help set up whatever needs to be done there. We’re on standby, ready to do what needs to be done.”
Since it started Project HEART has been asked survivors and their heirs to fill out claim forms detailing as best they can the type of property they lost in the Holocaust for which they received no restitution. In particular, the group is seeking claims for private property that was located in countries that were controlled by the Nazis or Axis powers at any time during the Holocaust; private property that belonged to Jews as defined by the Nazi/Axis racial laws; and private property that was confiscated, looted or forcibly sold by Nazi forces or Axis powers during the Holocaust.
stewart@jewishweek.org
Project HEART
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Also this week, how and why Hillary Clinton helped put the American Jewish Congress back on the map; Park Avenue Synagogue's Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove on the power and constraints for rabbis; award-winning Fresh Ink for Teens essay on what Jewish leaders should know about teens today; and Heather Robinson on whether singles are marketing themselves too heavily.
NEW YORK
Hillary Clinton Helps Put AJCongress Back On The Map
Friendship with Jack Rosen explains her addressing much-reduced organization.
Gary Rosenblatt
Editor and Publisher
As the recipient of the American Jewish Congress Stephen S. Wise Award at a festive dinner last week at Cipriani, Hillary Clinton clearly was the star attraction. The former first lady and secretary of state received a standing ovation March 19 from the 400 guests before and after her talk, which defended and explained President Obama’s position on the Israeli-Palestinian and Iran talks. She played a critical role on both issues as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.But the real triumph of the evening was for Jack Rosen, president of the reconstituted AJCongress, who proved that he could attract an honoree who is one of the world’s most respected leaders, and a crowd of prominent business and political leaders to an event sponsored by an organization that has virtually no staff, a vague agenda and consists solely of the 19 people who make up its board. It is headed by Rosen and includes business associates, friends and his sons, Daniel and Jordan.
Few, if any, in the audience knew or cared that the AJCongress, founded in 1918 and led by the likes of Rabbi Stephen Wise, Felix Frankfurter and Louis Brandeis, is no longer a membership organization and is essentially a shell of its former self.
After losing virtually all of its money as a result of the Madoff scandal in 2008, the AJCongress all but disappeared from the scene, suspending its activities and laying off staff in 2010. Rosen revived it last year, changing the constitution so as to guarantee its control by him and his handpicked board.
While references were made from the podium Wednesday night about the proud history of the Congress in combatting anti-Semitism and promoting civil rights, there was no talk of specific programs on its current agenda.
Critics, including former staff and board members, say that as president, Rosen — a major donor to both political parties and businessman specializing in real estate — operates the Congress primarily as his calling card, giving him cachet with international political and business leaders.
He denies the charge, and noted in his remarks at the gala dinner, after being introduced by the emcee as “the great and powerful Jack Rosen,” that “we’ve had detractors, and one or two are here today.” He smiled as he quoted Winston Churchill’s remark that “nothing is as exhilarating as to be shot at without result.”
The message, if appreciated only by this critic, was clear. Several stories over the last several years in The Jewish Week about Rosen’s bold takeover of a legendary national Jewish organization mattered not a whit to the dinner attendees, few of whom were regulars on the Jewish organizational circuit. There were numbers of guests from the Asian, Persian and Russian communities, reflecting Rosen’s wide range of business and political associates and friends.
The dinner chair was Nazee Moinian, prominent in the Persian Jewish community in New York, and honorary dinner chair was Leonard Blavatnik, the Ukrainian-born international businessman.
The most important friend in the room Wednesday night, clearly, was Clinton, and in her remarks, she answered the unasked question as to why she would lend her prestige to the current AJCongress.
She spoke warmly of Rosen as a longtime friend of hers and her husband “going back to Arkansas” and whose “leadership is known all over the world.” She praised Rosen’s “leadership, passion and advocacy,” adding that “it’s fair to say that you cannot say ‘no’ to him.”
In her talk, she reiterated the “rock solid” relationship between the U.S. and Israel, based on “personal ties” and shared values. She said this was a “crucial” and “pivotal” time, given the upcoming deadlines for separate talks on the Mideast peace process and Iran’s nuclear program. “The status quo is unsustainable” on both fronts, she said, adding that while she is “personally skeptical” about progress with Iran, “I want to keep testing, keep pushing” on the diplomatic front before concluding that effort.
She praised her successor, Secretary of State John Kerry, as a “forceful advocate” and asserted, “America will always have Israel’s back.”
Several speakers alluded to the possibility of Clinton running for president in the next election. Actress Julianna Margulies (“E.R.” and “The Good Wife” on television), in introducing Clinton, noted that the AJCongress award was for “lifetime achievement, but we all know there’s a lot more to come.”
gary@jewishweek.org
OPINION
All A Rabbi Can Command These Days Is Respect
Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once wrote, “Faith is a blush in the presence of God.” Put another way, the purpose of a synagogue, or any house of worship for that matter, is to alert congregants of the gap between who we are and who we should be — an awareness that often induces us to blush. The paradox embedded in all synagogues is that at one and the same time they seek to embrace Jews “where they are,” yet also direct them towards “where they ought to be.” All of which makes the job of a rabbi really interesting. Because if the project of religion is to inform, admonish or inspire individuals toward bettering themselves and the world in which we live, then it follows that a rabbi’s task must be the same. From the time of the Prophets to present-day congregational life, sound religious leadership is marked not by parroting the choices Jews would otherwise make, but rather in inspiring Jews to live the lives they would otherwise not lead. Be it feeding the poor, supporting the State of Israel, or preaching the value of endogamy — a rabbi’s job is prescriptive in nature — to reach beyond what everyone else in secular society tells us is inevitable and unavoidable.
We live in an age of radical autonomy and permeable social boundaries. Ever since the Enlightenment, rabbis no longer possess the political authority, inclination or time to check up on what Jews are and aren’t doing. The only thing a rabbi or any religious leader can command in this day and age is respect. Every rabbi knows that that the choices of his or her congregants make are ultimately their own. We all understand that as congregational leaders what we say or do may result in a congregant leaving our community. As leaders called on to serve a community, we are all aware of the tipping point whereby the gap between us and our congregants may widen to the point of finding ourselves out of a job.
But just because the dynamics of the playing field have changed doesn’t mean the values have. Even in modernity, especially in modernity, the unique, sensitive and critical nature of rabbinic leadership must be affirmed. Rabbis and congregants must understand that the statement of Jewish values can never be contingent on the assent of the Jew in the pew. Do you treat each other kindly? I don’t know, but our tradition makes clear that you should. Do you give charitably? You may or may not, but I am here to remind you of your obligation to do so. Are you faithful to your spouse? Statistically speaking, odds are that not all my congregants are, but it should come as no surprise that I preach that they should be. Do you keep kashrut and Shabbat? I have no intention of ever “spot-checking” families, but the message from the pulpit remains constant week in and week out. The whole point of rabbinic leadership, as the saying goes, is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
My colleagues and I think very carefully about what we do and don’t affirm as values. What we say (or don’t) about same-sex relationships, the importance of Jewish camping, day school education, Israel advocacy, endogamy or any other sensitive issue is never a decision made lightly. And no matter what we decide, we are all aware that no matter what we say, many in our community have chosen and will continue to choose otherwise. We preach these things because we believe them, because we believe our stances are justified by the tradition and because we believe that these behaviors offer the greatest possibility for the growth, strengthening and defense of the Jewish people. But we do not preach these things because we assume you will agree with us. The explicit or implicit social contract between rabbi and Jew is based on love, trust and dialogue — with or without accord. As Rabbi Israel Salanter stated: “A rabbi whose community does not disagree with him is no rabbi. A rabbi who fears his community is no man.”
All told, the most important thing a rabbi can model for congregants is his or her own struggles. I have no idea who my children will or won’t marry. I have no idea how long I can keep sending my kids to shul, Jewish day school and Jewish summer camp before they hit system overload. I can’t even claim to know for sure what combination of Jewish educational experiences holds the greatest promise for a child’s Jewish future. I have stayed up more nights than I can count wondering if in this day and age if it is conscionable for me to live anywhere but Israel. There are a lot of ideals that I believe should be held sacred, and I will be the first to admit that I don’t live up to all of them. And while some may call that hypocrisy, the words I would choose are authenticity and integrity. In other words, the most honest and effective form of leadership a rabbi can provide is not to pontificate, but to share his or her humanity. Even rabbis don’t have it all figured out — so we certainly don’t expect other Jews to have done so. Our commitment is to wrestle with God’s will — every day of our lives.
One of the most moving passages offered by the tradition comes towards the end of the Torah when Moses enjoins his people to live a life of mitzvot. “It is not in the heavens … neither is it beyond the sea … No, it is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to observe it.” (Deuteronomy 30:12-13) We do not live in the world as it ought to be; synagogues remind us of that fact. But synagogues also inspire us towards leading the life we long to lead and remind us that our ideals are not as far away as we think. It is altogether doable. Most of all, synagogues remind us that we are all engaged in this struggle — clergy and laity together. Each one of us reaching out for truth even as we admit to being unsure of where it lies, all of us seeking to make real God’s will here on earth.
Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove is spiritual leader of Manhattan’s Park Avenue Synagogue.
OPINION
Fresh Ink Essay Contest Winner: Juliet Freudman
Juliet Freudman
You Tell Us We’re The Future, But We’re Also The Present
We are the good, the bad and everything in between. We are our mistakes, our failures and our sins. We are Saturday nights taking selfies with red cups, Monday mornings asleep during first period and Thursday evenings procrastinating on Buzzfeed. We are our addictions to the Internet and our obsessions with Instagram. We spend too much money on Starbucks and too much time on Snapchat. We gossip and we lie. And we would join a revolution for the sweet taste of rebellion. No shame. No regrets. YOLO. We’re teenagers and we’re pretty selfish sometimes.But we are more than all of that. We are determination, action and endless potential. We are Saturday nights spent bent over textbooks, Monday mornings taking tests at 8 a.m. and Thursday evenings coming home after 11 hours in school. We are more AP classes and extracurricular activities than we can count on one hand. We are the presidents of our high schools, the star athletes and the unbelievable virtuosos. We have loud, controversial opinions and we want everyone to hear them.
We believe we’re invincible ... but what is so wrong with that? What is so wrong with believing that your dreams can come true? We ignore the skepticism and cynicism that seems to come with age, but we are far from ignorant. We are aware of what is going on in the world around us and just because our eyes are glued to our computer screens doesn’t mean we are blind to everyone else. We have passion in our hearts and fire in our bellies. Our faith in ourselves does not result in naïveté to the harsh realities of this world but in determination to make a difference. And don’t underestimate us; we will make a difference. We already are.
You tell us we’re the “future.” But we are also the present. We’re here right now and we’re ready. We are involved in AIPAC, J-Teen Leadership and Write On For Israel, The Jewish Week’s program for teen journalists. At the age of 14, Rebecca Kantar, from Boston, founded Minga, a nonprofit organization that combats child sex trafficking in the United States and the world. In high school, Nittai Malchin, from Palo Alto, Calif., founded One Love Advocates to improve education in communities struggling with destructive or endemic problems, specifically in Haiti. Tatiana Grossman, also from Palo Alto, Calif., created Spread the Words, a foundation that works to increase literacy rates in Africa, and by the time she was 16, she had shipped over 23,000 books to approximately 115 villages. These are only three of many examples of Jewish teenagers who saw a problem and took action.
So yes, we have our faults. We are not perfect, but we will never try to be. Because we are not ashamed. We are proud. As the rapper Ke$sha preaches, “We R Who We R,” and Lady Gaga affirms, “Baby, we were born this way.” Criticize our priorities and question our decisions, but do not underestimate us.
Juliet Freudman is a senior at Great Neck North High School in Great Neck, L.I.
OPINION
Fresh Ink Essay Contest Winner: Michal Leibowitz
Michal Leibowitz
We’re Not Broken, We’re Something New
Editor’s Note: This article is the grand prizewinner of the most recent Fresh Ink For Teens writing contest. More than 70 contestants from around the country and Israel answered the following question: “What Do You Want Jewish Community Leaders To Know About Teens Today?” Juliet Freudman’s accompanying article was the runner-up. The winner and runner-up received $200 and $180 Amazon gift cards. Fresh Ink For Teens is a Jewish Week-sponsored webzine by and for Jewish teens.We are not what you think we are. We are not too-short skirts, not skinny-jean thighs. We are not parties, not tank tops, not poster children for everything you don’t believe in.
We are evolutionary phenomena, cell phones stitched to our fingers with something stronger than thread. We are pious one day, heretical the next. We are questions and answers and wondering if there is anything to believe in. We are The Jewish Week and The New York Times and the feeling you get when the world has flipped sideways overnight. We are shades of gray.
Mostly, we are confused.
We are people in bodies still a little too tight, still a little too empty. We are Jewish, but no one ever asked what we wanted; we are glad we were never given the choice because we are scared we would have chosen wrong. We are machines that came without manuals, toaster ovens you put together a little too quickly.
It is not your job to fix us.
We are not broken, we are something new and different and beautiful. We are nectarines in winter, flames in an airless room. We are not supposed to exist like this, here, in this strange in-between. Not children, not adults, not atheists, not believers. Both Jewish, and modern, we are proud of our roots and ashamed of our names.
Michal. My middle name is Michal. It marks me, forever, as something other.
“Mickayl?” people ask, as they try to twist their tongues around the syllables.
“Mitchel?”
“It’s Michal. M-I-C-H-A-L.”
“Oh, Michael. Where are you from?”
“New York,” I say.
“Right, but where are you from?”
“New York.”
I am only half lying. I am from chicken soup, challah rolls, the ghettos of Latvia pre-World War I. I am from America, from liberty, from Starbucks coffee and old blue jeans.
I am from a place where education has failed. My peers and I have not learned to live as Jewish Americans, have learned only to live as Jews. And Americans. We spend hours learning Talmud, but when was the last time you ever heard a goy mention the Talmud? Some days we are more Jewish than Americans, most days it is the other day around.
Today, we are balancing more than you know. We are cramming two people into one body, trying to reconcile ourselves with ourselves. We don’t fully believe these identities can truly be melded, that there can really be synthesis in this generation.
Yes, you can try to guide us. Yes, you can show us your path.
But guiding is not the same as steering, warnings are not the same as cautionary tales and children are not their parents. Let us make our own choices. Let us make our own mistakes. Let us struggle, for a while, in these neck deep waters.
Let us choose to find land on our own.
Michal Leibowitz is a senior at the Samuel H. Wang Yeshiva University High School for Girls in Holliswood, Queens.
TABLE FOR ONE
Product Placement
Are Jewish singles marketing themselves too heavily, and hurting their romantic prospects?
Heather Robinson
Contributing Editor
“… fools give you reasons, wise men never try.”— From Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “South Pacific”
Alison Greenberg, 40, a Manhattan marketer, has been online dating for many years.
Strikingly pretty, with a delicate profile and olive skin, ambitious and highly successful, Alison (not her real name) had, throughout most of her 20s, enjoyed the life of a big-city single woman, never lacking dates or attention from men.
Then came the attacks of Sept. 11; afterward, Alison felt keenly the lack of one special someone with whom to share her life. Also, one of her life goals was — and is — to start a family.
Alison figured going online would make her search for love more efficient.
She has been online dating off and on for the better part of 13 years. At present, she has profiles on four sites: CoffeeMeetsBagel.com, OKCupid.com, Hinge.com and PlentyofFish.com. At one time, she also had profiles on JDate.com, and Match.com.
Alison estimates that from the age of 27, she has gone on an average of about 25 dates per year with men she met online.
In addition, she says that about 10 more dates per year come from “real life”; all told she estimates she’s been on 455 dates in those 13 years.
In that time, she’s had one semi-serious, on again/off again four-year relationship with a Jewish man she met online. (A tall attorney, he met her specifications for external qualities; however, she suspects he lacked the self-insight and emotional maturity for a healthy, sustained intimacy.)
In creating her profiles, she draws upon her skills as a marketer.
“I position myself telling a story,” she told me. “It’s not just, ‘Here’s what I bring and here’s why you should pick me,’ but here is me … with specific tidbits that are true to me but that I think might also be appealing to the right man.”
It seems to me that even a woman like Alison, who seems entirely sincere in her efforts to meet her life partner, perhaps by virtue of the online dating medium, ends up marketing herself rather than letting go and letting life — and possibly love — happen.
Having done a bit of online dating myself, I can’t help but wonder: in a business-driven city, within an achievement-oriented community, are New York’s Jewish singles treating the search for love too much like a job, and ourselves as products to be marketed?
With a number of self-help books on the market purporting to show us how to find love, both in the culture at large and within our Jewish-American subculture — from “Data, a Love Story,” whose author, Amy Webb, says she found love by marketing herself like a product and quantifying her potential partner using a 72-point list, to “Married in a Year,” in which millionaire matchmaker Patti Stanger offers a 12-month action plan for “sealing the deal” — are we simply trying too hard? And could our businesslike, problem-solving approach to finding love be self-defeating?
Because, despite no shortage of matchmakers, dating experts and love coaches, fewer Jewish New Yorkers seem to be settling down, with Jewish mates or otherwise. And with all the dating sites out there, the idea of meeting someone in a bar or at a party is beginning to seem almost quaint.
Even some Jewish dating experts think we ought to relax and quit approaching love like a job with a deadline.
“Who can hear the sweet sounds of love with the sound of a clock ticking in their head?” said Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, author of “Kosher Lust.”
While Rabbi Boteach believes it is vital for singles to put themselves in situations where opportunities for love can arise, such as “synagogue, and volunteering for charities,” he cautions singles about getting obsessed with programs that preach marriage within a rigid timeframe regardless of circumstances and feelings.
“Desperation subverts the possibility of love, so it doesn’t work,” the rabbi said. “I believe in love and marriage, and that we are all enhanced by marriage, but I don’t want women believing their core identity is about being attached to a man only. It’s not a healthy message.”
Rabbi Boteach added, “We live in a society that makes people feel if they are 30 or 40 they are past [opportunities to marry and have families] and that’s not true.”
Michelle Frankel, owner of NYCity Matchmaking and a dating coach, says that while she does believe in having an action plan, she stresses to clients the need to live life to its fullest regardless of whether one is single or coupled.
“You definitely have to put yourself in places where it can happen,” said Frankel. “But I tell clients, no matter what, ‘Live your life and build yourself.’”
Postscript: Alison tells me that recently, following another disappointing online date, she fled to a hotel bar for a drink, and a man approached her. He is an airline pilot, and looks nothing like the man she envisioned she would spend her life with. She describes him as a “gentleman” and says she is enjoying his company.
editor@jewishweek.org
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Enjoy the read,Gary Rosenblatt
P.S. Please check out the newest version of our website ¬ faster and easier to navigate and read ¬ for breaking stories, videos and exclusive blogs, op-eds and features.
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Between the Lines - Gary Rosenblatt
How Obama Should Deal With Bullies
President Obama is getting beat up pretty bad lately — from the likes of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Syrian President Bashar Assad, who are testing his foreign policy moxie. Also from much of the press, world opinion and national polls, for not standing up to the above, and for projecting a sense of weakness from the leader of the world’s most powerful nation.One problem is that our president appears to have a Hamlet personality, thoughtfully questioning his every option, when many of us want him to project Josiah “Jed” Bartlet, the leader of the free world in the TV drama “The West Wing,” a man of intellect and integrity who is not afraid to use military force when necessary. (Not to mention that he negotiated a peace deal between Israel and Palestine in 2005.)
The trouble is Obama is living in the real world, not one scripted by Aaron Sorkin, and he is finding that his adversaries don’t play by the rules. They lie, they cheat, they crave power and they are murderous in their intentions and actions. Tracking down and killing Osama bin Laden was a major victory for Obama, but events have escalated, and deteriorated, since then.
How should the president respond to ongoing foreign threats when he, understandably, would prefer to focus on domestic issues rather than overseas crises? What’s more, he has learned all too well the limits of U.S. military intervention abroad — more than a decade in which we have lost thousands of brave soldiers and trillions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan with precious little to show for it.
Now the president is trying to solve both the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iran’s drive for nuclear arms on a self-imposed timetable that is almost up, while dealing with a surprise power grab by Putin in Ukraine.
Anyone with simple answers to such complex problems is either foolish or unrealistic, or both. Perhaps Obama should ignore the pundits and political critics and seek advice from psychologists on how to handle bullies. After all, bullying has become a major focus of national attention in recent years, with plenty of wise counsel directed toward parents in helping their children cope at school or in social situations, be they in real life or on the Internet.
Some of this advice could be helpful to our commander in chief. In fact, he may well have followed the first rule about being confronted with bullies, which is to avoid them if you can.
Certainly when it comes to the Syrian crisis, with Assad killing more than 100,000 of his own people in a civil war now entering its fourth year, Obama did his best to look the other way in terms of calls to support the rebel forces. He argued that, given the nature of those forces, which includes al Qaeda-affiliated operatives, there was real danger that weapons provided by the U.S. would fall into the wrong hands. But doing next to nothing proved to be a moral and strategic disaster. His big chance to help would have been at the outset of the crisis, before the Syrian protests against Assad involved violence. By the time he reneged on his own “red line” last fall, backing off military action in response to proof Assad was using chemical weapons, it was clear the U.S. was, as Mideast policy expert Aaron David Miller described it, “risk-averse rather than risk-ready.”
Two other recommendations from bullying experts appear contradictory. One is: “Stand tall, be brave and send the message ‘don’t mess with me.’” The other is: “Avoid fighting back, it might be dangerous.”
But the latter is based on the assumption that the bully is bigger and stronger than you. How does the advice apply when the one being poked and tested represents the ultimate in power and resources?
Let’s leave that an open question for now, and see what other advice is offered.
Psychologists counsel youngsters to “feel good about yourself” and “get a buddy to be a buddy.” Obama seems to have a healthy ego, and he has been trying to encourage the leaders of the European Union to work with him on several fronts, with mixed results. They have been on board for strong economic sanctions against Iran, in a U.S.-led effort, but more resistant to get tough with Putin, the supplier of a significant percentage of their oil and gas.
As for “learn self-defense” and “outsmart the bully,” our president certainly is trying to heed those recommendations, mindful that “if you do what bullies say, they will keep bullying you.” But it’s not so simple. For example, Obama has made the case that it is best to try the diplomatic route in preventing Iran from having nuclear weapons because, if talks fail, the world will see that he tried and subsequently support him if he decides to use military means to thwart Tehran’s goal.
That’s fine, as far as it goes, but Israel, Saudi Arabia and others in the region are increasingly convinced that Obama will never launch another U.S.-armed action in the Mideast. And in Moscow, Putin has watched Obama step back from the brink, most recently in Syria, and pursue talks with Iran even when its president boasts of outsmarting the West while continuing Tehran’s nuclear program — as well as its support for Hezbollah and Hamas, Iran’s terror proxies in Lebanon and Gaza.
Which brings us back to the two pieces of anti-bullying advice that are at odds: “Don’t mess with me” and “Avoid fighting back.”
Obama has employed both, talking tough but not following through with significant action. It isn’t working because Khamenei, Assad and Putin don’t believe Obama will do much more than step up his rhetoric, and maybe increase sanctions that fall short of reversing their plans.
It’s a mean, nasty world out there. I truly empathize with Obama and appreciate his desire to focus on problems on the home front. But the conflicts abroad aren’t going away; they’re escalating. And if he doesn’t deal with them effectively, it will be the home front that is threatened next.
That’s because bullies know when you’re bluffing, and they only back down when they’re convinced you mean business.
Gary@jewishweek.org
Gary Rosenblatt has been the editor and publisher of The Jewish Week for 20 years and has written more than 1,000 “Between The Lines” columns since 1993. Now a collection of 80 of those columns, ranging from Mideast analysis to childhood remembrances as “the Jewish rabbi’s son” in Annapolis, Md., is available. Click here for details.
New York News
The Prospect Park Residence, home to 120 senior citizens, is set to close in early June. Michael Datikash/JW
Families Organize Against Closure Of Park Slope Nursing Home
Rally planned, lawsuit eyed after assisted living facility tells its 120 residents to find new homes.
Steve Lipman - Staff Writer
The families of 120 elderly residents of a soon-to-close Brooklyn assisted living facility will take their cause to the streets this week. Their next step, perhaps, is the courts.Several dozen people demonstrated last Saturday outside the Prospect Park Residence, a 15-year-old, nine-story building in the Park Slope neighborhood across from Grand Army Plaza, which is to close by early June. The Residence’s management announced at an emergency meeting earlier this months that it will “surrender its operating license” to the state Department of Health — in other words, go out of business — within 90 days.
“The families were stunned — people were very, very upset,” said Emily Berger, whose 89-year-old mother, Mary, has lived in the Residence for five years.
Emily Berger was part of the demonstrators who marched this week at a farmer’s market near the Residence, carrying a petition, and signs that declared, “We Shall Not Be Moved” and “Don’t send my Great Grandpa away.” A second demonstration is set for this Saturday, she said, and they will continue to keep the topic “in the public eye.”
Several members of the City Council attended the rally, including Brad Lander, a Democrat who represents Park Slope, who called the Residence’s closing one of the “cruelest, most heartless act[s] I have seen in my time as a City Council Member. It has caused real trauma for the residents, who are our neighbors and family members.”
The councilman said his office is working with the family of residents “to explore legal action.” No lawsuit had been filed by early this week, Berger said. “The plan is to stop [the closing], if possible.”
The residents’ relatives, mostly children, immediately started looking for new housing in the Greater New York area for their fathers and mothers, Berger told The Jewish Week. Many of the residents and children participated in a crowded public meeting last week at nearby Congregation Beth Elohim, Berger said.
“It’s a grassroots thing,” she said.The relatives “want to make sure their voices are heard. We want to let people know” the plight of the soon-to-be-displaced seniors, and of the 67 staff members who will lose their jobs.
The Residence offers kosher food in its dining area and weekly visits by a rabbi, she said, and the facility, which admits residents on a nonsectarian basis, has a majority-Jewish population.
“Since 2009, Prospect Park Residence’s ownership and management have taken extraordinary steps to ensure a stable and predictable environment for its residents and staff by absorbing escalating costs,” the facility’s executive director, David Pomerantz, said in a statement. “However, five years later, the economic recovery remains sluggish and the company’s tax obligation has skyrocketed — increasing by nearly $1 million. Today, despite its best efforts, Prospect Park Residence is no longer viable.”
Pomerantz said the Residence initiated a “process of an appropriate transition to new accommodations” for the residents, some of whom live in a dementia unit.
“Since the announcement, management has been making one-on-one appointments with the residents and their families to help evaluate individual needs and preferences, and examine the available resources in the community,” a spokesman for the Residence told The Jewish Week in an email message. “Residents will not be left without a place to go. The intent is to safely and seamlessly relocate residents to other residences that will meet their needs.”
The spokesman for the building said, “There are no immediate plans for the building.”
Rabbi Andy Bachman, spiritual leader of Beth Elohim, called the residence’s closing “plainly immoral” in a written statement given to the local blog, F--ked in Park Slope.
The decision “lacks basic Jewish values of decency,” the statement added, alluding to the owner, Haysha Deitsch, reportedly a member of the chasidic group Chabad-Lubavitch.
The rabbi told the news website DNAinfo.com that he and several members of his congregation have had relatives living in the Residence; he said Beth Elohim members may take unspecified steps to keep the facility from closing.
Berger said her mother, a Bronx native who had lived out-of-town for several decades, moved back to New York in 1982, worked as a fundraiser for UJA-Federation of New York, lived on the Upper West Side, and moved to the Brooklyn residence because of “health difficulties.”
Berger lives two blocks from the Residence; another sister lives in the area. “I see her at least once a week, often more often,” she said. Grandchildren stop by frequently to visit in the Residence. “She has been happy there,” she added.
The residents “have a community” in the building, with many age-appropriate activities, Berger said. She called the closing of the Residence “like breaking up a village. It’s very hard for the elderly. Some … are very fragile and can’t handle the uncertainty. It’s total uncertainty at the end of their lives. They felt they had a place where they could age in place.”
Food and Wine
Courtesy of Fair Trade Judaica
A Sweet, Ethically-Sourced Passover
Kosher chocolate goes fair trade in a partnership between T'ruah and Fair Trade Judaica.
Lauran Rothman - Food and Wine Editor
On Passover—a holiday that celebrates freedom from suffering—it just doesn’t make sense to partake of foods whose route to our tables is marked by strife. That’s why this year, T’ruah, a rabbinical organization that campaigns for human rights, and Fair Trade Judaica, which promotes fair trade as a Jewish value, have teamed up with the ethically-sourced chocolate brand Equal Exchange to promote kosher for Passover chocolate.“You have to put your money where your mouth is,” said Rabbi Lev Meirowitz Nelson, director of education at T’ruah. He explained that the use of child labor is rampant in cocoa cultivation and harvesting: it’s been documented in the cocoa fields of the Ivory Coast, where 40 percent of the world’s cocoa is produced, as well as other African countries. But as consumers, we have enormous power to use our dollars to back up our demands for ethically sound products.
“This is doubly true around a holiday that celebrates freedom,” the rabbi said. “It would be a sad irony to celebrate with chocolate that’s harvested by child workers.”
Ilana Schatz, the founding director of Fair Trade Judaica, agreed. She explained that the idea of fair trade, kosher for Passover chocolate came to her in 2010, when at a conference she had to opportunity to view a documentary film entitled “The Dark Side of Chocolate.” The film documents the persistence of child labor and slave trading in the cocoa fields, a practice that persists despite a 2008 pledge by the Chocolate Manufacturers Association to end such abuses.
“’This is a contemporary Passover,’” Schatz said she thought to herself after viewing the film. “Within 15 minutes, I had the idea for the fair trade chocolate for Passover campaign.”
Like any kosher certification process, certifying Equal Exchange—a soy- and lecithin-free chocolate, and therefore a good candidate for hechsher—took some time. Last year, just ten days before Passover, word came down from Rabbi Aaron Alexander of the American Jewish University that bars marked pareve, if purchased prior to Passover and eaten during the holiday, were good to go. And this year, that designation has been added to the Rabbinical Assembly’s list of kosher for Passover foods.
Schatz noted that Equal Exchange’s efforts to clean up chocolate production are far from unique: consumer pressure has forced the hand of many large chocolate companies. In England, all of Cadbury’s milk chocolate is now fair trade certified, and Hershey’s has stated its intention to certify by 2020.
“I think we forget that how we spend our money has a huge effect on what happens in the world,” she said.
But what about a matter just as important as ethics: taste?
“Oh, it’s excellent chocolate,” Schatz said. “I’ve tried every single flavor, and there isn’t one that I don’t like.”
Eight flavors of kosher for Passover, fair trade chocolate are available for purchase at shop.equalexchange.coop/pesach.
Click here to watch the documentary "The Dark Side of Chocolate."
Travel
The author's husband, in a rental car, pulling into a bed-and-breakfast in Calogne, Spain. Hilary Larson/JW
Tips For The Summer Driving Season
Hilary Larson - Travel Writer
Over the past several years, my husband, Oggi, and I have rented more cars than I can count. This is not because we are carless New Yorkers with a weekend travel habit. Rather, it’s because both of our careers keep us in a state of constant mobility, with shifting home bases across two continents.Along the way, I’ve observed two things. One, that renting a car is an exercise fraught with complexity, confusion and, not infrequently, frustration. And two, that many people pay more than they need to, because getting the best deal requires a certain amount of savvy.
I’ve come by this knowledge the hard way: through experience. So as we head into the summer driving season, here are a few choice tips for navigating your ride.
1. Your online reservation guarantees your rate, not your car. This may seem obvious to those who rent often, but for those who don’t, it can come as a surprise to arrive at the rental counter and discover there is no car waiting. That printed reservation you’re waiving means nothing to the clerks who handed over the last set of keys to a compact car hours ago — especially if, as with many reservations in the U.S., no credit card was used to hold the transaction.
Incidentally, it’s usually the smaller cars they run out of. You’ll generally be offered a larger car or van — at a substantially higher rate. The day I need the car, I generally phone the rental counter directly at whatever location I’m picking up from, confirming that they have a vehicle available. If they don’t, I have time to call around to see who else might.
2. When renting a car abroad, always confirm insurance coverage for each country you may be visiting. Both the rental car company and the credit card restrict liability based on where you travel with the car. Those restrictions may be obvious — countries where car-theft is rampant, or road conditions particularly poor — but they aren’t always.
A few years ago, for instance, I discovered that American Express would cover me anywhere in Western Europe — but not Italy, where I was headed with Oggi for a two-week road trip. I didn’t inquire as to their logic, but once Oggi headed into Roman rush-hour traffic, he had his own theory. “I thought my region had the worst drivers in the world,” he said, referring to the Balkans. “I was wrong.”
3. If you need to extend your rental, and rates have gone up, you may be able to extend at your original rate. You can often do this for up to a month; it pays to ask.
4. When renting abroad, if something seems fishy at the rental car counter, raise the specter of American Express. I keep mentioning Amex because this is the name that strikes fear into the heart of foreign merchants everywhere. So given how often misunderstandings can pop up at the rental counter, I’d never rent a car with another card.
Once, returning a car in Athens, I was repeatedly told I’d have to sign for an extensive insurance policy that effectively doubled the cost of the rental — and to which I had never agreed. There was a lot of heated back-and-forth until I threatened to call American Express and dispute the charge. Suddenly the clerks looked at each other and, turning to me, agreed to let it go. “I always use the American Express, too,” one told me.
4. A one-way road trip can be cheap — if you’re strategic. Drivers traditionally faced hefty fees for dropping off a rental in a different city from pickup. But that’s not always the case anymore — especially if you are essentially saving the company money by moving the car to a more seasonally profitable region.
Last year, for example, I rented a car in Miami and drove it all the way to New England. It was May, when the Passover and spring break crowds are long gone and snowbirds had migrated north. Rental-car companies were eager to move cars where the customers were; as a result, I spent about $100, including insurance, for a 10-day rental.
5. If you don’t own a car, you can still get a reasonable liability policy — but not from the rental car company. Like many New Yorkers, I do not own a car and therefore am not covered for liability under an existing policy (my credit card covers collision and damage). Purchasing liability coverage at the counter easily doubles a good daily rate, about $15 per day in the U.S. But most people don’t realize that an insurance company like Amica can often write you a rental-car liability policy that will cover your temporary vehicle — and the rate is substantially cheaper.
Overseas, I double-check my coverage with Amex, and then buy a comprehensive policy anyway. In Europe, where the customer is generally always wrong, it’s peace of mind that has no price.
editor@jewishweek.org
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