Missionary Renegade: The (New York) Jewish Week . . . Connecting the World to Jewish News, Culture, Features, and Opinions – Wednesday, 22 January 2014 and Friday, 24 January 2014

Monday, January 27, 2014

The (New York) Jewish Week . . . Connecting the World to Jewish News, Culture, Features, and Opinions – Wednesday, 22 January 2014 and Friday, 24 January 2014

Dear Reader,

A program created three years ago by Yeshiva University to help day schools cut costs is having some positive results around the country. Staff Writer Amy Sara Clark reports.

NEW YORK NEWS

Day Schools Seen Reaping Savings In Efficiency Project

Cost-cutting, added revenue opens new possibilities; not all schools making bottom-line goal.

Amy Sara Clark

Staff Writer

By cutting operating expenses, New Jersey’s Kellman Brown Academy was able to put an extra $60,000 a year back into the classroom and increase its 6th grade enrollment from 10 to 22 students in one year.

Baltimore’s Bnos Yisroel changed the way its volunteers approached fundraising, and increased annual donations by $170,000 in one year.

And after Cleveland’s Fuchs Mizrachi adopted the tagline “It’s more than a school” as part of a new branding strategy, it increased enrollment by 54 students in two years, a jump of 13 percent.

These schools have changed their approach to everything from board/staff relations to website design through a program created three years ago by Yeshiva University's Institute for University-School Partnership.

Funded by the Avi Chai Foundation and local federations and foundations, YU’s Benchmarking and Financial Reengineering Project is working with 29 day schools across the country to improve their bottom line by helping them overhaul the business side of their institutions.

As schools across the country fight to keep tuition affordable for families still struggling from the 2008 recession, the Benchmarking Program is a closely watched experiment in the day school community because of its unique approach.

While there are many programs offering grants to help schools lower tuition, YU is taking more of a “teach a man to fish” approach, working closely with the schools in such areas as cost-cutting, fundraising and student recruitment.

“We’re trying to assure that day schools could be financially sustainable,” said program creator Harry Bloom, the School Partnership’s former director of planning and performance improvement at YU. He is currently strategy manager for financial sustainability at the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education.

The early results are encouraging: two-thirds of participating schools are on track to meet the programs’ goal of improving their bottom lines by 10 percent. So far the schools have increased their revenues by a total of $8.5 million over the first two years and cut costs by roughly $2 million more, according to YU.

But so far, the program is not a panacea; 11 of the schools are not on track to meet those goals, and four of them have shown no improvement at all.

The results are not surprising, observers say, because while all private schools are struggling, day schools face a particularly rough road.

“Jewish day schools have a much more complicated problem then your average school because they have two curriculums — Jewish and secular — and they have to have faculty for both,” said Sarah Daignault, a professor at Columbia University Teachers College who specializes in private school financial sustainability. She is also the founder of the National Business Officer Association, an organization of independent school business managers that focuses on promoting efficiency and best practices.

Daignault points out that day schools also have to contend with less demand — while many private schools have fierce competition for admission, most day schools struggle to fill their classrooms, forcing them to keep tuition low to remain competitive, she said.

“The rest of their problem is that they have a significant commitment to financial aid. Many Orthodox families have three, four, five or six children, so of course [those families] are going to need financial aid,” she added. “They’ve got more faculty than they can support and less money coming in, so what you end up with is this horrendous problem.”

The problem only got worse following the 2008 recession, said Bloom. “There was sort of widespread panic going on among day schools: How are we going to remain solvent?”

In 2010, Bloom and his colleagues set up a pilot program in Bergen County and the next year expanded the program to Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia and Cherry Hill, N.J. In May seven Los Angeles schools joined the program.

Each school took on the goal of improving its finances by 10 percent over three years through a combination of cutting costs and increasing revenue. A goal low enough to be achievable, but high enough to make a concrete impact, said Bloom.

The partnership then collected detailed financial and enrollment data from each school, and then shared it with all the schools so each of could see how it stacked up in such areas as student/faculty ratios, teacher salaries, debt and annual fundraising.

Next a team of consultants guided the participants through the creation and implementation of a three-year strategic plan. A long-term plan was key, said James Moché, YU’s interim director of planning performing and improvement, who created the Benchmarking program with Bloom.

“Many organizations do their budgeting from year to year, and you can’t achieve the kind of systematic change that’s necessary for schools to meet the affordability crisis in one year,” he said.

♦

‘The beauty of the program was that it wasn’t just an assessment and then move on and good luck to you,” said Rabbi Chaim Amster, Bnos Yisroel’s director of development.

“There’s a continuing effort through the program to assure that the plan was actualized.”

Each school figured out where it had the most room for improvement. Some schools focused on cutting expenses, some on student recruitment and retention and others on increasing donations.

Skokie’s Hillel Torah North Suburban Day School hired an additional staff member to work on development, but also put a lot of time into training its lay leadership.

“The board members are really taking the lead, really taking ownership on all these important issues,” said Rabbi Menachem Linzer, principal of the K-8 co-ed school. “We’ve always had committees, but now we have a lay-led fundraising committee, which we’ve never had, and a marketing and communications committee.”

The school has rolled out a Facebook page, the principal tweets daily, and a website redesign is in the works.

Hillel Torah has also shifted its fundraising focus from its annual gala to the recruitment of individual donors.

“When it comes to fundraising, peer-to-peer has proven most effective. … Donors are approaching other donors,” said Rabbi Linzer.

They’ve seen results: donations for the first half of the year have jumped more than $100,000, he said.

In Baltimore, Rabbi Amster’s school also moved its fundraising efforts to donor recruitment, increasing the number of volunteer fundraisers fivefold — and its annual donations increased by 73 percent in one year.

“Events take a great deal of time and they cost a lot and they take the focus away from building relationships,” he said.

At Cleveland’s Fuchs Mizrachi School, a branding coach helped identify the school’s unique selling points and create the tagline “It’s more than a school.”

Realizing that Fuchs Mizrachi’s location — in the heart of a vibrant, welcoming, and affordable community — is a major selling point, they began recruiting young professionals just leaving grad school, branding the entire city as a less expensive alternative to the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Teaneck, N.J., or the heavily Jewish Chicago suburb of Skokie.

Apparently it’s working: in one year, the school’s enrollmentjumped from 408 to 462 in two years.

Other schools have focused on cutting expenses.

At Kellman Brown Academy, a Solomon Schechter school in the Cherry Hill-area of South New Jersey, Head of School Moshe Schwartz saw the biggest opportunity for financial stability in cutting expenses, such as switching the staff’s retirement accounts to a plan with lower fees. As a result, the school’s operating expenses dropped from 12 percent of the budget to under 10 percent, leading to a savings of $60,000.

For Rabbi Schwartz, the program not only helped him cut costs, it also helped him convince school leadership that the changes he wanted to make were necessary.

“It’s helped me to conceptualize to the school community and specifically to our board that we need to run the school as a professionally managed business,” he said.

With the savings, he was able to add three part-time teachers and a full-time nurse. He beefed up the school’s afterschool program, bought more computer equipment and sent teachers to more professional development seminars.

In two years the K-8 school gained about 17 students — not counting the preschool, which now has a waiting list. But more importantly, the Solomon Schechter school is keeping more students through the upper grades — a particular challenge for non-Orthodox day schools.

“They get you thinking a certain way and you run with it and your school can see tangible benefits in curriculum and the overall program — and that leads you to want to do more of this,” he said.

♦

But not all schools have made such progress.

Of the 36 schools that initially enrolled in the program, 29 actively participated, while seven dropped out in the first few months due to “major transitions in leadership,” either in staff or board members, said Moché.

Of the 29 remaining schools, 18 are “on track” toward making the 10 percent goal, he said.

Most of the lagging schools are still working on getting both sides of the school leadership — the staff and the board — sufficiently involved.

“In some schools you might have very strong professionals, in some schools you have a very strong board, but you need both to be successful in this program,” he said.

The program, with its expensive coaching by business consultants, is not necessarily a widespread solution.

Benchmarking’s budget for the first three years is $3.2 million, said Daniel Perla, who works on day school finance at the Avi Chai Foundation. That’s nearly $90,000 per school.

But Perla said he and his colleagues are working on streamlining the program to its most effective components, which would substantially bring down costs.

“I think what we found was that what the schools valued the most in the program was the consultants,” he said. “To get schools to act, they usually need goading and coaching,” he said. The extensive — and expensive — financial evaluation could go.

Despite its limitations, Daignault, the Columbia professor, said the program has real potential.

She calls the 62 percent success rate “a good number,” and its dual emphasis on ambitious-but-achievable goals and long-term coaching effective.

A 10 percent goal, she said, “sounds somewhat reasonable. That being said, it would be hard for any school to improve their performance by 10 percent, so it would require them to figure out new ways of doing things.”

The frequent progress check-ins are also key, she said.

“We’re really going to push these schools to think about this because they’ll have this outside force pushing them, holding their feet to the fire,” she added. “That sounds to me like it may have some real possibility to bring about change.”

amy.jewishweek@gmail.com

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In Beit Shemesh, the Israeli city that made headlines for its intra-religious strife, a group of Modern Orthodox women are taking on the haredi mayor. Susan Reimer-Torn reports on the eve of a key local election.

ISRAEL NEWS

Is Tide Turning In Beit Shemesh Religious Wars?

In fight against haredi mayor, emboldened Modern Orthodox women gearing up for key election.

Susan Reimer-Torn

Special To The Jewish Week

They are the newest, and perhaps unlikeliest, foot soldiers in the bitter battle over religious pluralism in Israel. And when the small band of Modern Orthodox women in Beit Shemesh — the city that many consider ground zero in the ongoing war against religious extremism — ferreted out a case of massive voter fraud in last fall’s mayoral election, its tenacity paid big dividends for secular candidate Eli Cohen.

In an unprecedented ruling late last month, the Jerusalem District Court denounced “massive and systemic fraud” by supporters of ultra-Orthodox Shas Party incumbent Moshe Abutbul, who won the Oct. 23 election by a razor-thin margin. The court nulllified the results and called for new city council and mayoral elections in 120 days.

“The evidence of fraud — [obtained by] poring over Excel spreadsheets, interviewing till all hours — was pursued relentlessly by the women in the party,” attorney Rena Hollander, who ran for city council on Cohen’s Beit Shemesh Chozeret slate, told The Jewish Week. “I think if it had not been for them, the men would have given up.”

Now, as Israel’s Supreme Court is set to take up Abutbul’s appeal this week, the Modern Orthodox women of Beit Shemesh and their secular supporters are gearing up for what will likely be a closely watched new election. It comes about a year after a slate of moderate Knesset members who pledged their support for greater religious pluralism were swept into office. And it comes as memories of the incident two years ago that put Beit Shemesh on the map and garnered headlines worldwide — the searing photograph of an 8-year-old girl making her way to school while being spit at by ultra-Orthodox men for her allegedly immodest dress — are still fresh in people’s minds.

The women’s fight against haredi rule in Beit Shemesh, a city of about 90,000 some 20 miles west of Jerusalem, began in earnest late last spring when they took up the bid to elect the secular Cohen as mayor. Fed up with rigid gender segregation in the city, the women, about 15 in all, were led by Miri Shalem, director of the local Woman’s Council, who has worked for years to bridge the divide between the city’s haredi and Modern Orthodox and secular women. (Shalem’s efforts are part of a broader bid to calm the religious-secular and haredi-Modern Orthodox tensions that have gripped the city.)

The women may have been new to politics, but they were motivated by a sense of urgency, and they learned fast. In time-honored fashion, the women, most of them working professionals, campaigned in the streets, distributing brochures and party literature. They worked the phones in a call center, all in an effort to identify those who might be sympathetic to Cohen and to get them to the polls.

The race between Abutbul and his more liberal challenger figured to be a tight one, as the city is evenly split between haredim and more modern residents. When the Oct. 23 election was over, Abutbul was declared the winner by a scant 950 votes out of 35,000 cast.

Stunned by Cohen’s loss, his women supporters kept their eyes and ears open.

“We overheard some young girls laughing about how they put on different costumes and wigs and went to vote several times,” Shalem said in a phone interview. “Then they said something about fake IDs.”

Following well-grounded suspicions, Cohen’s supporters followed a trail to the apartment of a group of Abutbul supporters, where they discovered falsified ID cards. The evidence was turned over to the police, and the attorney general soon affirmed that widespread voter fraud had taken place.

♦

The court decision on Dec. 25 to void the election was a hard-earned victory for defenders of pluralism in a town that in 2011 became synonymous with the religious wars flaring in Israel; in the last few years, there have been pitched battles over gender seating on public buses, egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall and conversions turned down by what Orthodox centrists viewed as an increasingly right-wing and rigid Chief Rabbinate.

Within a week after the spitting incident, Shalem pulled together a flash-mob dance by a cross-section of the town’s women in the main square. The YouTube video went viral and a women’s movement defending gender equality and tolerance in Beit Shemesh was born.

No group had more at stake in the outcome of the mayoral race than the town’s women. Shalem, herself a Modern Orthodox mother of four, explained, “Beit Shemesh is one of the few places where we can give guided tours of gender segregation. We have huge modesty signs, step-off-the-pavement signs aimed at women, pressure for women to sit at the back of the bus.

“Plus,” Shalem continued, “men-only/women-only hours in grocery stores and medical centers. If we have another five years of a haredi mayor, this is only a beginning.”

The furor over the voter fraud brought thousands of protestors to the street. The women, said attorney Hollander, were stepping into “a male-dominated political arena. Beit Shemesh is worse than most places in that respect.” Eli Cohen, she continued, departed from politics as usual in that “he is concerned with women’s issues. But beyond that, many of Eli’s inner circle are women.”

When reached for comment, Daniel Coleman, a Cohen supporter, spoke in cautious tones. “Women had no less of a role in Eli Cohen’s campaign than men. In every case it was obvious that whatever roles were fulfilled by women, they did so because they were the most appropriate for the job. ... Nobody paid attention to gender. We only focused on what’s best for the campaign.”

While Shalem and her cohorts anxiously awaited the court’s decision, there was a price to pay for their engagement. Many of the town’s haredi residents were deeply offended by accusations of misconduct: they insisted only a small group of zealots was at fault, while their whole community was sullied. Years of effort on Shalem’s part to include women of all stripes in the Women’s Council were unraveling. A key haredi member resigned from the council in outrage, accusing Shalem in an email of “joining others who spread baseless hatred and lies that blacken the haredi community, even while you’re pretending to be inclusive.”

Speaking at NYU Law School at the time of the uproar, the renowned Jerusalem-based ethicist Moshe Halbertal bemoaned what he saw as “a growing theocratic appetite” in Israeli politics. While adding that his “own family has deep roots in haredi culture,” Halbertal regretted “the boiling temperature” of the national conflict, cautioning against the way in which “each side perceives the other as an existential threat.” He explained, “There are high stakes and a small majority can tilt outcomes to the other side.”

Those working to calm tensions on the ground in Beit Shemesh see the new election as a double-edged sword.

“I am glad the law is being upheld to the necessary standard and ultimately it will serve Beit Shemesh well, and set a strong example for all of Israel,” Yoni Scherizen, the program development director at Gesher, a religious organization that works to “bridge the gaps between different segments of Israeli society,” told The Jewish Week. “But equally, there is widespread fatigue in Beit Shemesh — a sense that elections are just about the last thing this torn city needs.

“It could be that the recent pain here will give birth to a genuine coalition and pave the way for a new era at a time when it is needed most, but one can’t help feel it would take a miracle. At the same time,” Scherizen continued, “we have seen how quickly things move in Israel and miracles are worth working hard to bring closer to reality. I believe we can get there.”

The court’s call for new elections has reverberated beyond the borders of the embattled town. The Jerusalem Post named David Heshin, the acting judge who ordered the new elections, the most influential legal person of the year. Rather than deciding on the usual mathematical basis of how many votes may have been corrupted, Heshin, said the Post, “justified his ruling on the broader and bolder basis that democratic legitimacy must be maintained as a value.”

While the tide may be turning after a long struggle, Brenda Ganot, one of Shalem’s Modern Orthodox foot soldiers, who counsels haredi women in weight loss, is cautiously optimistic. “I do expect things to get temporarily worse until after the elections and things settle down.”

Nili Philips, a petite Orthodox mother who was hit in the head by a rock while biking, helmeted, through a haredi neighborhood (she was wearing three-quarter sleeves and long, tight-fitting pants), is suing the municipality to remove the modesty signs. She is equally sober about the future. “Our fight is far from over — this court victory is only an interim victory. The real fight is ahead of us with the new elections, and our future in Beit Shemesh is contingent on winning that fight.”

Supporters of Eli Cohen face an enormous challenge. Key to their strategy is getting the vote out among non-haredi potential supporters. They continue to work the phones and are addressing problems, such as childcare or lack of transportation, that might keep supporters from coming out to vote.

Still, the women of Beit Shemesh are savoring their temporary victory. Hollander, the attorney, emphasizes, “It is definitely fair to say that this would not have come about without the women.” And Ruth Calderon, a Knesset member whose Yesh Atid party champions pluralism and religious tolerance and who was instrumental in recently securing government funds — for the first time — for Israel’s Reform and Masorti movements, told The Jewish Week in an email, “These Modern Orthodox women are an inspiration to all.”

Nili Philips added, “It gives us tremendous strength and hope that the diverse secular public can band together and win an important legal victory.”

Like the majority of Beit Shemesh residents, Ganot looks forward to a new beginning. “I believe that a mayor who cares a lot about respecting all cultures and sectors will be able to build a city where the residents respect each other and live side by side in peace.”

With the new election drawing nearer, Miri Shalem puts the long battle for religious tolerance in stark terms. “We have a choice,” she said. “We either leave or keep fighting.”

editor@jewishweek.org

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Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer reflects on the many sides of Ariel Sharon, a man he got to know up close and personal.

OPINION

Ariel Sharon: A Personal Remembrance

Daniel C Kurtzer

Ariel Sharon is now buried in the land he loved, next to his beloved wife Lily, on a hilltop overlooking the verdant fields of Havat Ha-shikmim, the ranch he retreated to as often as possible each week for the peace and quiet that eluded him in public life. Having served as the American ambassador to Israel during almost all of Sharon’s tenure as prime minister, I had the privilege of being named to the U.S. delegation to his funeral, headed by Vice President Biden. It was a day for remembrance and, to some degree, closure for the millions of Israelis who mourned Sharon’s passing.

The most memorable remarks at the state ceremony at the Knesset came from Marit Danon, the senior secretary assigned to Sharon when he entered the prime ministry. Marit confessed that she had expected to dislike the man whose policies she had so abhorred. Instead, she came to love him for the qualities of humanity that she saw, but which were not visible to the outside. Sharon took in all the people around him, she said -- his professional staff, those who washed the floors or fixed windows. Each individual was important to him. But it was his interaction with the bereaved families she remembered most, those who entered Sharon’s office in prolonged grief and bewilderment over their loss, and yet who exited with a smile of not just consolation, but also a kind of vindication of their loss from a leader who understood and valued in life and in death those who served to defend the country.

The speeches by Israeli leaders, foreign dignitaries, and others were remarkably consistent in their portrait of Sharon. The words “indomitable” and “decisive” and heroic” and “bulldozer” were heard time and again. Sharon’s military exploits were noted, not so much as a memory of heroism or bravery, but as the distinguishing trait of a man who understood as a teenager that his fate was tied to the security and well-being of his country. Moments of some controversy were introduced paradoxically by those who had been his admirers and followers when he was building settlements, but who broke with him -- wouldn’t even talk to him -- when he implemented the disengagement from Gaza and the evacuation of the Gaza settlements and settlers. The most controversial elements of Sharon’s career, Sabra and Shatilla, and military tactics that enraged superiors and colleagues, were left for historians and analysts to ponder.

The Sharon I remember and dealt with daily, indeed far more than any other American during his years as Israel’s leader, was all of these things, and yet more. I experienced his anger, and I laughed with him at his humor. I saw the twinkle in his eye when, repeating his standard presentation on Israel’s security and political situation to the many delegations and visitors he received from the United States, he would glance over at me, as I was taking notes, as though to say, ‘You’ve heard this before, you can recite it from memory, but pay attention lest I add a nuance or two.’

And, like Marit, I remember Sharon the human being, the gentleman, sitting in our Sukkah or joining us for a Chanukah meal and asking whether he could stay a bit longer for, in his words, “he was having a good time.” I came to know that those words –a good time – were really directed at my wife Sheila, who prepared Sharon’s favorite foods, and who would receive a call from him on the day following a visit to our home, thanking her in particular for her kindness. That same kindness was extended to me when he paid a shiva call after my mother died, giving a great honor to a woman he had charmed on an earlier visit and who had been swept into the orbit of his charisma.

Arik Sharon’s life provided an enormous amount of material for historians and analysts to ponder. His legacy will undoubtedly be a mixed one, not unusual for a man of great appetites and great deeds, but more so for a man who was the Zelig character of the first 65 years of Israel’s existence -- at the center of every war and most important battles, in the frame of every picture about politics, famous for his deeds and misdeeds, decisive in building and equally decisive in tearing down.

There are some who believe that Sharon, following the Gaza disengagement, had more peace-related moves in mind. I share that view, but, like others, can only surmise it from the hints and nuances of Sharon’s thoughts and actions in those final months of 2005. Whether Sharon was ready to withdraw from all, or even additional parts, of the West Bank, we’ll never know. But one thing was clear: just as Sharon had changed the face of Israel by removing settlements and settlers from Gaza, that process of disengagement had also changed Sharon.

Yehi zichro baruch. May the memory of a man who loved the Jewish people, was a proud Jew himself, was attached to the land of Israel, and whose life was the quintessential story of Israel’s first 65 years—may that man’s memory be for a blessing.

Daniel Kurtzer, professor of Middle East policy studies at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, served as the American Ambassador to Egypt (1997-2001) and Israel (2001-2005).

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My column reports on an uphill effort to convince the Jewish community to promote in-marriage, earlier marriage and more children - each contrary to popular trends - in response to worries about the American Jewish future.

GARY ROSENBLATT

Continuity: Why Should We Care?

Pew revealed a community in crisis -- let's not waste it.

Gary Rosenblatt

There is an important debate taking place now about how to respond to the dramatic increase in intermarriage in the American Jewish community. Should it be seen as a fact of life to be accepted, even embraced, or a disturbing trend to be countered?

This isn’t about that debate, which was explored here last week (“’Being Against Intermarriage Is Like Being Against Gravity,’”) Between The Lines, Jan. 17.

This is about an effort by an informal group of about two dozen concerned Jews — rabbis, sociologists, lay and professional communal leaders and journalists (myself included) — who believe the community is in crisis and doesn’t know it — or worse, doesn’t care. That conviction is based not only on the data of the recent Pew Research Center study on Jewish identity, but reaction to it: More of a collective shrug from most quarters than a sounding of alarms to the study’s suggestion of a sharp downward spiral in the number, affiliation and engagement of non-Orthodox Jews over the next several decades. (Orthodox Jews have their own issues and fissures, but that’s for another discussion.)

The group met two weeks ago, and six detailed reports, which offered analysis and recommendations, were given. The presenters covered different aspects of the perceived shift toward assimilation as the norm, with intermarriage seen not as the sole cause, but rather the primary symptom of this thinning of Jewish identity.

The presenters’ reports were followed by an animated discussion during which the group, recognizing that its point of view is politically incorrect, sought a strategy for redirecting the generally benign approach of communal leaders and change-makers, like philanthropists. The challenge, in a sense, is how to convince a largely satisfied and increasingly less passionate American Jewry to strengthen its ties and commitment by promoting earlier marriage, in-marriage, more children and intensive Jewish education — all steps that are contrary to prevailing trends.

The real question here for most Jews: Why should we?

Identifying The Concern

The first part of the day was devoted to Pew data and other indications that the community is loosening its traditional ties, beliefs and sense of communal responsibility.

Brandeis professor Sylvia Barack Fishman presented a paper showing, in dramatic fashion, that younger Jews, reflecting wider American lifestyles, are both marrying later and having fewer children. The replacement level is considered to be 2.1 children; fertility rates among American Jews have dropped to somewhere between 1.6 and 1.9 per woman, she said, noting that in New York, haredim average six children, Modern Orthodox 2.5 and non-Orthodox 1.5.

It was acknowledged that effecting change in fertility rates is very difficult; even countries that offer significant subsidies to families for having children have not been successful. But one Fishman suggestion was for a sensitive campaign to provide women with accurate information about the realities of delayed parenthood.

Sociologist Jack Ukeles offered a critique of the way the Pew study is being used, noting that it is limited in its usefulness in terms of policy agenda because it was intended, he maintains, to explain American Jews to non-Jews, “not answer questions of concern to the Jewish community.”

Ukeles wrote that the communal response to increasing intermarriage should be encouraging intermarried families to raise their children as Jewish and “focus on the minority of intermarried households that are somewhat Jewishly engaged.”

Sociologist Steven M. Cohen, who was affiliated with the Pew report, concentrated on what he calls “the shrinking Jewish middle,” asserting that “the number of middle-aged non-Orthodox Jews who are engaged in Jewish life is poised to drop sharply in the next 20 to 40 years. And, absent significant policy changes, their numbers will continue to drop for years to come.” He argued that this cohort is “vital to the sustenance of so many major institutions in Jewish life,” including synagogues, federations, JCCs and many Jewish organizations.

Questioning whether the Jewish community can have “continuity without content,” Steven Bayme of the American Jewish Committee and Jewish Theological Seminary professor Jack Wertheimer described a prevailing “culture of non-judgmentalism” that makes rabbis and Jewish institutions “loath to speak of obligations, for fear of alienating — and possibly losing — even more members.” They also noted that our society’s emphasis on individualism, which they say “American Jews have swallowed … whole,” is contrary to the kind of civic responsibility that Judaism values.

Bayme and Wertheimer call not only for an emphasis on an intensive Jewish education, but “a commitment to challenge the larger culture when it is inimical to Jewish life.” They add that rejecting “radical autonomy and individualism” does not mean retreating into “self-isolation and ghettoization,” but rather “learning to negotiate two civilizations,” as Jews have done in the past.

Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, a leading Modern Orthodox theologian, noted that that the Pew study “confirms a crisis” among U.S. Jews that goes back to the 1960s when society became more open. Since then, Jews have recognized that “identity is a choice, not a given.” But for most, with limited Jewish education, “Jewishness comes in as the second choice.”

He suggested that “the continuity agenda” of the past 20 years “did not fail,” but rather the various efforts just “were not far-reaching enough to stem the tide.” He called for intensifying a variety of social and educational efforts, and initiating an “outreach corps” along the lines of Chabad, with far more funding all around.

Daniel Smokler, director of education and engagement at the NYU Bronfman Center, asserted that until now Jewish educational efforts to counter intermarriage were based on “slogans, pedagogy and the discourse of identity,” and were unsuccessful. He described slogans centered on “doing Jewish” as “vague at best”; the fad-like pedagogy efforts that range from “Punk Torah” to farming to online apps are effective for some but lacking “a coherent … guiding vision of educational aims.” And the discussions on Jewish identity are more about individualism rather than the collective.

In response, Smokler suggested seven educational aims for 18- to 29-year-olds, including promoting Jewish social groups, since peers have a profound impact on the behavior of their friends; Jewish mentor programs; commitment to study Torah; living the Jewish calendar; and “orientation toward Judaism as service rather than consumption.” The key word in such efforts is “covenant,” he said, meaning a relationship of obligation, whether it is with God or with one’s fellow Jews.

What Next?

Each of the day’s presentations was compelling, and there was a good deal of overlap in recommendations, primarily in calling for programs that would bring young Jews into contact with each other socially, as well as calls for subsidized child care, day schools, summer camps, and intensive Israel travel; these would provide the experiential and textual elements needed to create literate, caring Jews. (About the only debate was whether to concentrate more on education or on providing social outlets.)

Most of the proposed projects would require many millions of dollars, but members of the group felt the funds are available. The key, they suggest, is to convince those controlling the purse strings that the cause is worthy and sustainable, not doomed to failure.

In the end, I was surprised how many participants expressed optimism about the future, despite the bleak scenario we all seemed to acknowledge exists today in terms of the attitudes and affiliations (or lack thereof) of the majority of American Jews. There was consensus that morally, practically and politically it was best to emphasize the positive benefits of Jewish engagement, including in-marriage, rather than decry the actions of those who marry out.

But at its core the challenge is to convince large numbers of American Jews that a distinctive Jewish life can have unique value to them. That requires passion, knowledge, commitment to the collective, and if not a deep religious faith than at least a desire to be connected to the history, wisdom, homeland and heritage of the Jewish People. Are we up for the challenge?

Inevitably, as the day went on there were concerns expressed about how best to devise a realistic plan of action that could not be accomplished in one meeting. Should the group form an organization? Join an existing one? Do more research? Widen the discussion? Approach potential funders?

The jury is still out on a plan of action, but there was a sense of urgency and a belief that the Pew report has presented a moment of opportunity to try to alert communal leaders to the need for a dramatic response. As one participant noted wryly, “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.”

Gary@jewishweek.org

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Also this week, a Sharpton ally gains access to City Hall; girls permitted to put on tefillin at two Modern Orthodox local high schools; Culture Editor Sandee Brawarsky on a photo exhibit here featuring life's in-between moments; and two Miley Cyrus-style videos promoting Jewish settlements are getting a lot of attention, pro and con.

NEW YORK NEWS

Sharpton-De Blasio Ties Bring Back Old Wounds For Some

As a mainstreamed reverend enjoys access at City Hall, community leaders recognize change; but some still nurse grudges.Adam Dickter

Assistant Managing Editor

Two decades ago, Rev. Al Sharpton was the ultimate civic iconoclast, speaking what he called truth to power, organizing rallies and attacking the establishment on behalf of the oppressed.

Today, he’s under fire for being too mainstream. Last summer, another prominent black voice, Cornell West, attacked the National Action Network founder in a radio interview as a too-complacent “house negro” of Barack Obama’s “plantation,” failing to hold the president accountable for drone strikes or talk about “Wall Street criminality.”

And as he emerges as a key insider in the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio, with better access to City Hall than he’s had in years and with a top ally appointed as the first lady’s chief of staff, Jewish leaders who have long been wary of him and his agenda, and scornful of his past activism, are wondering how to react.

“He’s not an individual who can be avoided within the public arena,” said Michael Miller, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York. “And yet, in terms of the hurt within the Jewish community, it has not yet healed.”

At 59, making his living as host of “PoliticsNation” on MSNBC, Rev. Sharpton is a changed man in every sense of the word from the days he wore jogging suits and medallions. Slimmed down and somewhat mellowed with age, he marked the 20th anniversary of the Crown Heights riots in August 2011, by accepting criticism that the role he played in the early hours of the melee was misguided and provocative.

“Our language and tone sometimes exacerbated tensions and played to the extremists rather than raising the issue of the value of this young man whom we were so concerned about,” he wrote in the Daily News, referring to Gavin Cato, the child whose accidental death sparked the violence.

Late last year, Rev. Sharpton spoke out passionately against so-called “knockout game” attacks by black men in Crown Heights and elsewhere that targeted Jews, calling them “insane thuggery.”

One Jewish leader noted, off the record, that Sharpton has never emerged as a major critic of Israel at times when other left-wing voices have piled on.

Still, some note that his Crown Heights mea culpa did not include the word apology and that he never brought it directly to the Jewish community there or to the family of Yankel Rosenbaum, who died on the first night of the violence (before Sharpton entered the neighborhood).

While calling the 2011 Daily News op-ed a “a positive development,” Miller said he agreed with Norman Rosenbaum, Yankel’s brother, who said in a response in the same paper that “he has given us no genuine expression of remorse. No real regret for what he did.”

“As I have said over a period of decades, Rev. Sharpton still owes the Rosenbaum family and the community an apology for his actions during that time,” Miller said.

In Crown Heights, the wounds can still be raw. Chanina Sperlin, a board member of the area’s Jewish community council, said he recently refused to participate in a press conference against the knockout attacks if Rev. Sharpton was included.

“He has to apologize, plain and simple, for what he has done, not just to our community but to the Jewish community at large,” Sperlin said. “Not only for making the mob come out but for giving the Lubavitcher rebbe a lawsuit that had no basis.” (Sharpton and his allies launched a wrongful death suit against the Lubavitch because the car that struck Cato was part of the rebbe’s motorcade and went through a light.)

“Until he does that, I don’t want to speak to or know the guy.”

Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham Foxman, who said at the time that reverend’s apology did not go far enough, now says some “in the [Jewish] community believe issues remain, but I think to the overwhelming majority Al Sharpton is part of the mainstream New York political scene. I don’t think those things that bother some … are of significance today.”

Rabbi Marc Schneier, founder of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, agrees.

“He has expanded his horizons and demonstrated a greater commitment to the Jewish community and the state of Israel,” said Rabbi Schneier, who has spoken at the National Action Network’s annual Martin Luther King Day gathering. “I am of the school of thought that people grow in life and a wonderful example of that is the Rev. Al Sharpton. His evolution has been genuine and sincere.”

Around the same time as Sharpton’s Daily News op-ed, author and lecturer Rabbi Shmuley Boteach wrote a piece in the Jerusalem Post calling for an end to “the Sharpton wars.” He noted the time the reverend blindsided him during a joint trip to Israel with a side trip to visit Yasir Arafat in Gaza. But he also noted subsequent acts of contrition and cooperation. “Sharpton can do that, just when you think he’s only interested in himself,” Rabbi Boteach wrote.

Miller said the ties Reverend Sharpton seems to have with de Blasio, while poles apart from the flammable relationship he had with Rudolph Giuliani, is not much different than that of the past 12 years. “Mayor Michael Bloomberg sought Rev. Sharpton’s guidance, and others have as well,” he said.

But a story on the politics website Capital New York this week, headlined “Al Sharpton, insider,” noted de Blasio’s four appearances with Sharpton since he won the election. Sharpton told reporter Azi Paybarah he’d urge the mayor to focus on “job creation, education and police reform, stopping the stop-and-frisk [policy] and racial profiling.”

On Monday the mayor’s office announced that Sharpton’s longtime NAN spokeswoman and adviser, Rachel Noerdlinger, would be chief of staff to First Lady Chirlane McCray.

“I would say wherever we have access to get people in, that have been raised and nurtured in the movement, that I feel will represent what is good for the community,” Sharpton told Capital New York… “I think that is a good thing.”

Rev. Sharpton, for his part, has regularly extended his hand for dialogue with Jews.

“I will meet with them any time, anywhere, and whatever things I have said or done that are injurious or wrong, I will deal with because that’s real leadership,” he said in a May 2001 Jewish Week interview. “Give me the bill of particulars.”

Few took him up on it. Instead, the JCRC routinely tried to marginalize him while embracing other African-American clergy and political leaders. But the media, as well as elected officials, still looked to Rev. Sharpton as the voice of the black community.

One person who has regularly openly engaged with Rev. Sharpton is Howard Teich, a former leader of the American Jewish Congress New York region and board member of the JCRC.

Teich was one of a handful of Jewish organizational leaders to meet with Sharpton and Cato’s father, Carmel, shortly after the riots.

“I saw an opportunity to heal rifts between the two communities,” said Teich. “I faced a lot of heat. I didn’t see him as opposed to the Jewish community but as standing up for his community.” He said it was appropriate for Jewish leaders to remember, “but to hold onto the past when the reality today is different makes no sense to me.”

He recalled that in 1994 the reverend denounced the killing of Ari Halberstam, a 16-year-old chasid, by a Lebanese-born terrorist on the Brooklyn Bridge, and joined with local imams and rabbis to condemn the crime.

Teich recalled that after the press conference, Rev. Sharpton put a hand on Teich’s shoulder, then said, “I bet you were nervous about what I was going to say.”

adam@jewishweek.org

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NEW YORK NEWS

Ramaz Would Permit Girls To Wear Tefillin

SAR High School is allowing girls to wear phylacteries during morning minyan, and Ramaz would do the same, if asked.

Amy Sara Clark

Staff Writer

Following news that the Modern Orthodox SAR High School is now allowing girls to wear tefillin during morning prayer, the principal of Ramaz, a similar institution, said he’d be happy to do the same — should anyone ask.

This is the first time that the Upper East Side Modern Orthodox school has given the OK for girls to wear tefillin during the school’s co-ed morning prayers, but it’s not the first time that girls have been allowed to wear tefillin at the school.

In 2002, two female students were given permission to wear tefillin, also called phylacteries, during a weekly women’s prayer session. But they weren’t allowed to do it during the school-wide daily minyan, said Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, Ramaz’s principal, correcting his earlier remark to The Jewsh Week that such a request hadn’t been made for two decades.

The two decades, he said, referred to the first time Rabbi Lookstein remembers a female student asking to wear tefillin, back in the early 1990s. At that time the school said no, allowing her to instead do wear tefillin at morning prayers at nearby synagogue Kehilath Jeshurun, where Rabbi Lookstein is the rabbi.

Today, things would be different, Rabbi Lookstein told The Jewish Week in a telephone interview Tuesday.

“If we were asked the question today — it’s 20 years later — we are in agreement that if a young woman wanted to put on tefillin and tallit, she could daven with us in our school minyan.”

It’s not that Rabbi Lookstein doesn’t want to encourage a widespread adoption of the practice. But his experience with the female student two decades ago made him realize that if a girl is truly sincere, letting her wear tefillin in public could be a good thing.

“She would come from Westchester every morning at 7:30, instead of coming to Ramaz at 8 — she really put herself out,” he said.

“She had tremendous kavanah,” he added. “As soon as I saw this young woman davening, I thought: this kid is so sincere, she could actually serve as a role model.’”

amy.jewishweek@gmail.com

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PHOTOGRAPHY

Precariously Balanced

Naomi Leshem’s photographs penetrate life’s in-between moments.

Sandee Brawarsky

Culture Editor

A young woman named Moria looks up at the sun while sitting on a thin wire cable. She finds her balance by keeping one leg straight, the other bent at almost a right angle. Her shadow is right beneath her. Naomi Leshem’s photograph was taken in Yakum Park in Israel as part of a series called “Centered,” now on view at the Andrea Meislin Gallery in Chelsea.

The title of the exhibit gives a clue about the five large photographs of young women, each balancing on the wire in a different setting in the nature reserve, and five photographs of young men, each sitting alone in the shade of acacia trees in the Negev desert. While the young women find a physical core to maintain a difficult balance, the young men have had to reach some inner center, to wait, with no cell phones, books or music. Raz leans against a tree whose strong trunk slants leftward; Eyal sits under a young tree in a grove planted in rows. Several nearby trees look like the “Y” in his name.

The young women are poised and look serene, yet the viewer recognizes that in the next moment, or the moment after that, they’ll feel a shift in balance and will either slip off the cable or jump down. The guys look at peace, as though they could remain in their solitude for hours.

The photos are richly colored and detailed, as Leshem captures shadow, wild greenery, stripes of desert grasses, ripples in a nearby stream, a tattoo on a girl’s right ankle and the steady gaze of her subjects as they face challenging situations. She began with the young women, shooting each at high noon on a different day. For the young men, she’d drive with them into the desert, until they found an appealing tree.

If one thinks of prayer as the poet Edward Hirsh describes it, as “passionate attention,” Leshem’s photos are prayerful, deeply observed and full of reverence.

She focuses on moments of transition, between tension and contemplation, precariousness and calm, anticipation and acknowledgment, heaven and earth.

“Photography freezes one second,” she says in an interview. “In this one second I deal with a process that is continuous.”

In an essay, “Locating the Center,” in the exhibition catalog, Kobi Ben-Meir of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem writes that Leshem is “intensively preoccupied” with time.

As she was finishing the photographs and considering the work as a series, Leshem sensed that what was missing was a connection with the viewer. So she began a new phase of the project: for the first time, she traveled around the world, carrying a portfolio of the 10 images and eliciting responses from strangers. Her first stop was Singapore, chosen because of its distance, diversity and spoken English. She knew no one. Traveling alone, she met people and then met others though them. These were not people involved in the art world, just random people with whom she set up two-hour conversations about the work, usually in their homes. After Singapore, she held additional conversations in Switzerland, Germany and Israel. Leshem is a gentle, dignified, engaging person, and it’s easy to see how she might orchestrate meaningful encounters.

She took down their English words in the first hour, and then asked them to write something in their own languages, by hand. Those notes hang in the gallery as manuscripts — in Korean, Hindu, Chinese, Amharic, Hebrew, Yiddish and German — untranslated, and adding to the show’s mystique.

Martin from Germany writes two pages in a flowing script that looks like he’s of a generation that studied penmanship. Divya writes both her name and Mumbai in English, and then the rest in an Indian language, with three paragraphs of beautiful letters on very straight lines. Loretta of Singapore is brief — five lines of neat Chinese characters, with an insert above one line. The Arabic piece by Raafat is arranged in a symmetrical design, its letters centered, as if it were poetry.

In Yiddish, Peretz shares advice, “Think good and it will be good. Thought creates reality ... at the root, one must be optimistic and not only in trying times but always, from morning services to reciting Shema in bed at night.”

In her catalogue essay, Leshem describes some of the individual reactions, which had much to do with cultural influences. For Divya the photos of the girls evoked, “the Indian girls’ pursuit of balance between their family life, work, the home and happiness.” And for Roxhers, an Albanian, the trees and earth reminded him of his homeland. Atresaw of Ethiopia spoke of a sense of freedom in the photos, noting that “women are rootless in midair, while the men are grounded.”

Leshem’s work in “Centered” connects to her earlier series and her interest in the in-between moments of life. In “Runways,” she photographed young women about to begin their army service — they are seen barefoot, at different Israeli air force bases. Her “Sleepers” series featured young men and women asleep, in that stage between life and death, youth and adulthood.

In “Centered,” she again photographs many of the same young people, now in their early 20s, whom she has gotten to know well. I don’t look at them as models,” she says. “They are personalities, individuals.” Of the boys who sat in the desert for hours, she comments, “I know that they are strong, not only by how they look but how they are inside.”

In an earlier series, “Way to Beyond,” she photographed places of disappearance and farewell: a boat anchored where the unseen wreckage of an airplane lies; a desert crater marking where a pilot crashed another airplane. Her work is rooted in part in personal loss. Leshem’s husband, an Israeli air force pilot, was killed in a training accident over the Sea of Galilee in 1991. The photos of the sea are taken there. “Death is final,” she says, “but the places with water and air are still there — the life there continues, in a beautiful way.”

“I’m not a religious person,” she says, "but I have a lot of faith in faith."

“I’m sure that my being Jewish influences my way of seeing. I’m Jewish. I’m Israeli. I’m second generation, a woman, a mother, what I’ve been though in life. Judaism is a big part of it. I’m not talking about Jewish themes, but universal themes.”

Leshem, the mother of two daughters — the younger is now serving in the IDF — lives and works in Kiryat Ono, near Tel Aviv. She teaches photography both there and at the Israel Museum. Leshem has exhibited her works throughout Europe, Israel and the United States, and her photographs are in the collections of the Israel Museum, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and the Norton Museum of Art in Florida.

At the Andrea Meislin gallery, she also exhibits two photographs taken in the Negev from another series called “Forty”; they were shot near the Ramon crater. In these, the blue sky is astonishingly radiant. Drawn to the desert, she captures the grandeur of the landscape in moments, like a fleeting form in the sand or patch of color. In the Bible and also in the texts of other religions, the number 40, she explains, is an abstract number for huge amounts.

“The desert is a place where I can hear the silence,” she says.”It’s so huge and it’s also so concentrated — not just that it’s beautiful, but it makes me feel a part of the universe. A very small but still significant part.”

Naomi Leshem’s photographs, “Centered,” are on view at the Andrea Meislin Gallery, 534 W. 24th St., Manhattan, through Saturday, Feb. 22. Signed copies of the accompanying catalogue are available.

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SHORT TAKES

Mixed Reviews For Pro-Settler Pop

Adam Dickter

Assistant Managing Editor

After two viral videos in which she transformed Miley Cyrus hits into anti-land-for-peace messages, Orit Arfa is reveling in the attention.

Never mind that commenters of all stripes have been unkind and savaged her right-wing views. A blogger for Heeb, who uses a profane Hebrew alias, called the first video “stupefyingly awful,” while a pro-Muslim site blared “Islamophobic Zionist Settler Makes Twerk Video Celebrating Occupation.”

(Fact check: She twerks in neither video, but does pole dance and lick things.)

Haaretz said she should be admired, a description Arfa seems to enjoy, even if it's for making Miley seem subtle.

Last month’s video “Jews Can’t Stop,”(below) a riff on Cyrus’ “We Can’t Stop,” features the Los Angeles-born Arfa strutting around the West Bank proclaiming (to John Kerry perhaps), “It’s our land, we can build where we want.”

As of Friday, the video had been viewed more than 185,000 times on YouTube. Arfa followed it up earlier this month with “Gaza Wrecking Ball,” an ode to the destroyed Jewish communities of Gush Katif.

“Wrecking Ball” (below) had been viewed more than 100,000 times as of Monday. Like the former Disney star, the ex-yeshiva girl swings on a wrecking ball and licks the chain. In the Gaza version, she wears a keffiya (and little else.)

Explaining the imagery on Facebook, Arfa said, “It’s to demonstrate Palestinian society’s sexual relationship with destruction. It’s like they get an orgasm every time they launch a projectile.”

Among the (printable) comments found on YouTube Monday were “WTF?” and advice on how to report the video as “Hateful or abusive content.”

“Please, for the love of God, Never post anything EVER again,” begged SonicFl00d. But Gila Aaronson answers: “Yes shes [sic] provokative [sic] But she speaks truth.”

Arfa, who says her age is “privileged information” (she graduated from high school in 1995), was a reporter for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal and later director of the Zionist Organization of America's West Coast office. She now works in public relations.

The daughter of an Iraqi Jewish mother and a father born in a postwar DP camp in Germany, Arfa attended Jewish days schools in L.A., then embarked on a higher education tour that included seminary in Israel, Columbia University and Stern College here, back to Israel at Bar Ilan University and eventually to the University of Judaism in LA. She calls her higher education “a tailored educational journey.”

As a journalist with an Israeli publication, Arfa witnessed firsthand the Ariel Sharon-ordered expulsion of Gaza settlers in 2005; she found herself being pulled out of the doomed synagogue of Neve Dekalim. The images of Jews carried from their homes by Jewish soldiers stuck with her.

Years later, she was inspired by the playfully defiant message of “We Can’t Stop” (which is about reckless partying) and decided to give voice to her feelings about the settlements and peace process.

She said she isn’t fazed by the haters.

“My skin is very thick,” she tells The Jewish Week in an interview from her home in Ariel, which is on the Israeli side of the West Bank security barrier. Among those posts she read were “Rock on Girl” and “Jew bitch with fat nose.”

Insisting she’s out to start a discussion about the implications of Palestinian statehood, Arfa admits she’s also self-promoting her e-novel, “The Settler.” Both videos contain plugs for the Kindle eBook, (also available in print) which is about a displaced Gush Katif settler who finds solace in the hedonism of Tel Aviv nightlife. The videos have put her name and face in some major Israeli publications and on TV news shows.

“I’m not a selfless warrior,” she says, “but I’d like to think that I make issues that are kind of taboo to discuss more accessible.”

That’s what pop culture is all about, she adds.

In case you're wondering, a third video is in the works. But Afra won't be the star and it's more family friendly, a father and son singing in a bomb shelter. "Hanah Montana would be proud," says Arfa.

adam@jewishweek.org

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Enjoy the read, stay warm and Shabbat shalom,

Gary Rosenblatt

P.S. Whatever the day or temperature, our website is ready for you with breaking news and exclusive videos, blogs, Opinion essays, advice columns and more.

http://www.thejewishweek.com/

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Between the Lines - Gary Rosenblatt

We're Losing The Continuity Battle. Who Cares?

Uphill effort to convince the community to promote in-marriage, earlier marriage, and more children.

This isn’t about that debate, which was explored here last week (“’Being Against Intermarriage Is Like Being Against Gravity,’”) Between The Lines, Jan. 17.

The real question here for most Jews: Why should we?

Identifying The Concern

The first part of the day was devoted to Pew data and other indications that the community is loosening its traditional ties, beliefs and sense of communal responsibility.

What Next?

Gary@jewishweek.org

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STUDIO JW

Studio JW with Simon Deng

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New York News

New procedures set forth by Gov. Andrew Cuomo now in place for nonprofits. Getty Images

State To Scrutinizer Anti-Terror Funding For Non-profits

New regulations will complicate application process for $13 million federal pool.

Adam Dickter - Assistant Managing Editor

As local nonprofits gear up to vie for $13 million in federal security funding, some will face an additional pile of paperwork when they are asked to prequalify under regulations imposed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo last year.

The measure will not affect organizations that received funding last year and are seeking additional grants. But new applicants must go through the state’s unified master contract process.

“In effect, they have to apply to apply,” said David Pollock, associate executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, which offers guidance on the application process.

“Some organizations may not have the resources for it.”

He noted that while social service organizations that receive city and state funds, such as those under UJA-Federation of New York’s umbrella, are already accustomed to providing data for approval processes, smaller yeshivas and synagogues may not have the wherewithal to comply.

The new regulations, developed over 18 months by Cuomo in cooperation with nonprofit groups, were announced last August and intended to ensure that prospective grantees have both the ability to deliver the services promised and proper fiscal oversight.

Ron Soloway, UJA-Federation’s managing director for government affairs, noted that the strictures will serve nonprofits well not only by protecting tax dollars from fraud or waste but also helping them get paid faster, since they only have to qualify once.

“The [information] in the approval process, such who are your board of directors, are things that in his day and age nonprofits are going to need to have to be eligible for funding,” Soloway said.

“We have to work with agencies that might not have the capacity to help them comply with what we believe are solid accountability principles.”

The spending bill authorized by Congress last week includes a 30 percent increase for the Urban Areas Security Initiative, administered by the Department of Homeland Security, over last year’s $10 million. DHS annually accepts grant applications from institutions that can demonstrate that they may be vulnerable to attack.

The majority of funding has gone to Jewish institutions. Last year, that meant $9.7 million. Institutions in New York state generally get most of the money, including 36 percent last year, or $3.4 million, an increase from 21 percent the first year grantswere offered in 2007.

The overall funding pool has fluctuated, from $15 million the first year to a high of $19 million in 2010 and 2011. Last year was the lowest sum, a result of the sequester of government spending.

The security grants program, initiated in 2004, has so far disbursed $138 million through the Department of Homeland Security, excluding this year’s $13 million.

Of that amount, a total of $110 million has gone to Jewish institutions seeking funding for add-ons like barriers and security cameras. Each grant is for a maximum of $75,000. Institutions that received funds in 2013 included synagogues such as the Bay Terrace Jewish Center in Queens; services such as Hatzolah volunteer ambulance of Williamsburg, Brooklyn; yeshivas such as the Jewish Foundation School on Staten Island and community centers such as the Greater Five Towns YM & YWHA.

New York’s senators, Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, both Democrats, have fought hard to protect and increase New York’s share of the funding.

“New York’s religious institutions and nonprofit organizations are the backbone of our communities,” said Gillibrand in a statement to The Jewish Week. “No New Yorker, or American, should ever have to live or worship in fear of being targeted because of who they are or what they believe. I will continue to fight to ensure that our city nonprofits get their fair share of federal resources to guard us from attacks and keep us safe.”

On its security blog, the JCRC warns that New York state’s Department of Homeland Security, which screens applications for the feds, will not consider applications that are not pre-approved through the master grants process.

Applicants must then submit a vulnerability assessment and investment justification, as in previous years. In all, there are now five steps in the process. The JCRC is planning a seminar, as yet unscheduled, on the pre-qualification process.

In addition to the JCRC and UJA-Federation, the Jewish Federations of North America, the Orthodox Union and Agudath Israel of America have led advocacy efforts for continuing the funding.

“The most important change this year is that we don’t know the timing for potential applications to go through the New York state application process,” said Pollock. He said the deadline for applications has yet to be announced because President Barack Obama has yet to sign the spending bill. It could be another 60 days after that before the deadline is set, he said.

JTA contributed to this report.

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Travel

Portland's Etz Chaim, a European-style synagogue turned into a museum. Courtesy Maine Jewish Museum

Jewish Portlandia, East Coast Style

Hilary Larson - Travel Writer

With its starchy white lighthouses and Hopperesque coastline, Portland, Me., is easily pigeonholed as as a summer destination.

But even under cover of snow drifts and icicles, this quaint brick city on the Atlantic is picturesque – and lively despite the chill. After all, Mainers don’t need Florida when they have L.L. Bean: they simply zip up their parkas, strap on snow boats and head downtown to explore an increasingly sophisticated culinary and cultural scene.

It may be chilly outside, but Portland’s Jewish cultural scene heats up in the late-winter and spring months. After a brisk walk along the cobblestoned waterfront, warm up inside the Portland Art Museum, where Jewish artists are a rich part of the American collections; explore a new Jewish museum in an old landmark synagogue; and stay on the cutting edge at the Maine Jewish Film Festival, where all of Portland comes together.

On the east side of downtown, the Maine Jewish Museum opened in the former Etz Chaim synagogue just two years ago. Since then, it has become one of the most delightful — and popular — attractions of its size in southern Maine.

It is also a resounding success story of historic preservation. Etz Chaim, a European-style shul built in the early ’20s to serve a burgeoning urban community, had fallen on hard times as its membership moved out to the suburbs. But preservationists and Jewish residents were unhappy with the prospect of losing yet another tangible piece of Portland’s rich Jewish legacy, so a grassroots movement emerged to save the building and give Portland its own Jewish museum.

The museum’s website lists opening hours as 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. “and by serendipity”; drop by within those timeframes, and enthusiastic guides are on hand to illuminate what makes this stately red-brick museum unique. This spring, the museum expects to unveil a renovation that will greatly improve accessibility to the building with an elevator and better wheelchair access to the historic second-floor interior. The lack of an elevator had been an obstacle for visitors to the three-story structure, although a chair lift has been in place in the interim.

Upstairs is the pretty cream-colored sanctuary, framed in gleaming dark wood and lit by stained glass. But it’s the third floor that frequently strikes the most resonant chord: an exhibition that focuses on Maine Jewish history and, in particular, its tradition of Jewish summer camps, whose color wars and canoe races invite a very particular nostalgia.

Contemporary Jewish artists with a connection to Maine are represented in rotating galleries on the ground floor. If you time your visit right, you may be surprised at the international caliber of the artists on display.

I was surprised to learn how many American-Jewish artists have strong ties to the region — the most famous being Louise Nevelson, the avant-garde Modernist sculptor and outspoken feminist, whose family settled in Maine after fleeing Czarist Russia. Nevelson is also one of a number of American-Jewish artists on view at the Portland Museum of Art, an underappreciated gem of the Northeast.

The others include Alex Katz, with a fresh spin on Pop Art, and the Modernist Abraham Walkowitz — noted for his association with Alfred Stieglitz and his worshipful, exhaustive renderings of the dancer Isadora Duncan.

American art — from neoclassical sculpture to post-Impressionist paintings — is the strength of this diverse and compelling collection. In particular, the PMA has significant holdings of works by Winslow Homer, painter of stormy seas and sunlit fields.

As of last year, Homer fans can complement their viewing with a guided tour of the artist’s studio in Scarborough, which the museum acquired and restored over the past decade. You’ll need to book your excursion in advance for scheduled springtime visits; a van escorts small groups on a scenic ride south from Portland to the Scarborough peninsula. There you can see the world through Homer’s eyes from his rustic wooden cottage, perched on a tidy green bluff overlooking the ocean.

Back in the city, as the ground begins to thaw, the Maine Jewish Film Festival returns in March for another season of cinematic thrills.

Portland boasts of being the smallest city in the nation to host an independent, world-class Jewish film festival; the 17th annual event runs from March 22-29 at venues around town. From the opening gala to the international mix of drama, comedy and documentary films, this is the hottest ticket on the spring calendar — and a great way to experience the diversity that is Portland Jewish life.

editor@jewishweek.org

Maine, Portland

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Dear Reader,

We have weekend treats for you today.

Like a recipe from food writer Amy Spiro, for delicious, chocolatey muffins. When life hands you brown bananas ... make muffins!

When Life Hands You Browned Bananas ...

Turn overripe bananas into a delicious breakfast or snack.

Amy Spiro

Jewish Week Online Columnist

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Your rating: None Average: 5 (2 votes)

Bananas and chocolate, a surprisingly good combination. Amy Spiro

I love convincing people they actually do like food they profess to hate. Can't stand brussels sprouts? Try my roasted garlic version. Hate cooked fruit? Here's a slice of my apple pie. Can't stand coconut? Try these cookies.

But I have to confess I have some culinary no-gos of my own. If you try to get me to eat an olive, I will never forgive you. And while I like eating fresh bananas, I just can't stand the taste of them in any baked goods. But when I let a bunch of bananas go past ripe in the pantry, I knew I had to use them. Maybe I could I mask the flavor with chocolate.

Now, I could still taste the banana in these chocolate banana muffins, so they weren't for me. My coworkers. on the other hand? The muffins were gone within 10 minutes of me walking through the door. (Even I could recognize their moistness and great texture.) So if you don't have any weird food hangups like me, skip the banana bread next time you first yourself with a browned banana, and make these instead.

Amy Spiro is a journalist and writer based in Jerusalem. She is a graduate of the Jerusalem Culinary Institute's baking and pastry track, a regular writer for The Jerusalem Post and blogs at bakingandmistaking.com. She also holds a BA in Journalism and Politics from NYU.

Ingredients:

2 whole very ripe bananas

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup vegetable or canola oil

4 ounces (115g) semisweet chocolate, melted

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup low-fat buttermilk or soy milk

1 1/4 cups flour

Recipe Steps:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 24 muffin tins with paper or foil cups.

Peel and mash the bananas with a fork until smooth. Add in the sugar, eggs and oil and beat until smooth. Beat in the melted chocolate and continue mixing until smooth.

Add in the baking powder, baking soda and salt, then alternate adding the flour with the buttermilk until everything is combined.

Divide the batter up among about 24 paper-lined muffin tins. Bake on 350 F for about 20 minutes, or until test done. Let cool to room temperature.

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We have two Torah commentaries, our Sabbath Week column and a meditation on Mishpatim through the lens of disability, from New Normal blogger Rabbi Michael Levy, who is blind and who works at the MTA.

SABBATH WEEK

The Question Of Rabbinic Courts Or Secular Ones

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin

Candlelighting, Readings:

Shabbat Candles: 4:45 p.m.

Torah: Ex. 21:1 24:18

Haftarah: Jeremiah 34:8-22; 33:25-26

Havdalah: 5:47 p.m.

If two religiously observant Jews are engaged in a disagreement that has financial ramifications, are they permitted to go to a secular court to arbitrate their dispute or must they go to a religious or rabbinic court (beit din)? Is the law different in Israel, which has both religious and secular court systems but where even the secular court judges are Jewish? And if, indeed, Jews are religiously ordained to go exclusively to a beit din, why is this so? After all, the nonreligious judicial system in Israel and the secular courts in America are certainly fair and equitable.

Our Torah portion this week provides interesting responses to these questions. It opens [Exodus 21:1] with the judiciary command: “These are the statutes which you [the Israelites] shall place before them.”

Rashi cites the Talmudic limitation [Gittin 88]: “Before religious judges and not before gentile judges. And even if you know that regarding a particular case they [the gentile judges] would rule in the same way as the religious judges, you dare not bring a judgment before the secular courts. Israelites who appear before gentile judges desecrate the name of God and cause idols to be honored and praised.”

According to this passage, it would seem that the primary prohibition is against appearing before gentile judges who are likely to dedicate their legal decision to a specific idol or god; it is the religion of the judge and the idolatry involved, rather than the content of the judgment, which is paramount. From this perspective, one might conclude that Israeli secular courts (where most of the judges are Jewish) would not be prohibited, and this is the conclusion of Rabbi Prof. Yaakov Bazak. Secular courts in America (where there is a clear separation between religion and state in the judiciary) would likewise be permitted.

However, Maimonides supports another opinion. Although he begins his ruling: “Anyone who brings a judgment before gentile judges and their judicial systems is a wicked individual” – emphasizing the religious or national status of the judge rather than the character of the judgment – he concludes, “And it is as though he cursed and blasphemed [God], and lifted his hand against the laws of Moses” [Laws of Sanhedrin 26:7].

Apparently, Maimonides takes umbrage with a religious Jew going outside the system of Torah law, thereby disparaging the unique assumptions and directions of God’s just and righteous laws.

In order for us to understand what is unique about the Jewish legal system, permit me to give an example from another passage in this week’s portion: “If you lend money to my nation, to the poor person with you, you may not act as a creditor to him, you may not charge him interest. And if you accept your friend’s cloak from him as security for the loan, you must return the cloak to him before sunset. Because it may be his only cloak and [without it], with what [cover] will he lie down? And if he cries out to Me, I shall hear because I am gracious” [Ex. 22:2527].

Maimonides believed in the compassionate righteousness of Jewish law, a law derived from a God of love and compassion taking into account the necessity of ameliorating human suffering, hence he rules that anyone who trades our legal system for a secular one is “a wicked individual, cursing and blaspheming God, lifting his hand against the Laws of Moses.”

Indeed, in his Laws of Slaves, Maimonides clearly sets down a metahalachic principle that must take precedence over biblical and Talmudic laws, such as the permissibility to work a gentile slave with vigor: “Even though the law is such, the trait of piety and the path of wisdom insists that an individual be compassionate and a pursuer of righteousness, understanding that from one womb emanated both the master and slave, that one womb formed them both.” He concludes by insisting that we are commanded to emulate God’s traits and to be compassionate (as God is) toward all His creations. “And it is that principle of compassion which we must always express in executing our laws” [Laws of Slaves 9:8].

As I study the Talmud and responsa literature and ponder the halachic decisions I heard from my master and teacher Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik and from Rabbi Moshe Feinstein (with whom I was privileged to spend a year of Friday mornings discussing practical halachic issues), I could not agree more with Maimonides’s prohibition of eschewing rabbinical courts in favor of secular ones.

But when I study many of the recent responsa of the rabbinical courts of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, when I see how many of the Israeli rabbinical judges rule in accordance with stringencies and refuse to obligate recalcitrant husbands to grant divorces to their suffering wives, when I watch the emotional torture (yes, torture) many sincere converts must undergo at the hands of some insensitive judges blind to the biblical command of loving the stranger, my heart weeps to think that there might be more compassion on the part of the secular courts. I write these words with sighs and sobs; and I believe that God and the Torah are sighing and sobbing, as well.

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is chancellor of Ohr Torah Stone and chief rabbi of Efrat.

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THE NEW NORMAL

Mishpatim: Empathy Is A Gift Anyone Can Give

Rabbi Michael Levy

“Right is might” civilizations mistreat vulnerable people—slaves, strangers, widows, orphans and the poor. This week’s Torah portion obligates us to see to the material well-being of these disadvantaged groups. Equally important is the support we provide through empathy.

Slaves

An Israelite man became a slave if he couldn’t repay some one whom he had robbed. If the slave had a family, the master became responsible for supporting them. The slave’s term of servitude could not last more than six years.

Underlying these precepts is empathy -- concern for the slave’s dignity. While laboring to repay his debt, he was spared the pain of seeing his family impoverished.

The Stranger

“You shall not mistreat a stranger nor oppress him, for you (yourselves) were strangers in the land of Egypt.” [Exodus 22, 20.] While none of us went through Egyptian bondage, many of us have experienced periods of estrangement. The new family on the block, the new kid in school are “strangers.” If a person becomes disabled, some friends and family members suddenly can’t bring themselves to have casual and easygoing conversations with him. This estrangement can be more distressing than the disability itself.

Widows and Orphans

God’s empathy for widows and orphans is so strong that he can’t tolerate their mistreatment:

“If you oppress (any one of them,) causing them to bitterly cry out to Me, …. I will become angry, ….your own wives shall become widows and your own children shall become orphans. [Exodus 22, 22-23.]

The Chofetz Chayim and the Orphan

Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan, popularly known as the “Chofetz Chayim,” was involved in supporting orphans. Once, some philanthropists wanted to discontinue an orphan’s music lessons and foreign language instruction.

The Chofetz Chayim understood the orphan’s unique needs, and emphasized that enjoyment is as important as food and clothing. He commented to those who disagreed with him, “Why should it bother you if the angels in Heaven are smiling?”

All of Us Require Empathy

A disability per se does not automatically cause an individual to feel sad, vulnerable and downtrodden. Too often, however, there is lack of empathy.

Every person, disabled or non-disabled, is a unique individual, created in the image of God. Some one who doesn’t think, walk, see, hear, understand or behave the way you do is still a person who shares many of your feelings and goals. He or she, like you, seeks love, dignity and recognition of his uniqueness. Like you, he/she has particular interests—learning to play the clarinet, studying French, skiing or following every second of the Superbowl.

Going Beyond Sensitivity

“Sensitivity” teaches “what it is like to have a disability.” Those who lead “sensitivity and awareness” sessions must remind participants that any human being they meet, regardless of “disability status,” is unique and wants to be perceived as unique.

May our efforts to empathize with others cause the angels in Heaven to smile.

A native of Bradley Beach, New Jersey, Rabbi Michael Levy attributes his achievements to God’s beneficence and to his courageous parents. His parents supported him as he explored his small home town, visited Israel and later studied at Hebrew University, journeyed towards more observant Judaism, received rabbinic ordination, obtained a master’s degree in social work from Columbia University and lectured on Torah and disability-related topics.

As a founding member of Yad Hachazakah, the Jewish Disability Empowerment Center (www.yadempowers.org), Rabbi Levy strives to make the Jewish experience and Jewish texts accessible to Jews with disabilities. In lectures at Jewish camps, synagogues and educational institutions, he cites Nachshon, who according to tradition boldly took the plunge into the Red Sea even before it miraculously parted. Rabbi Levy elaborates, “We who have disabilities should be Nachshons --boldly taking the plunge into the Jewish experience, supported by laws and lore that mandate our participation.” Rabbi Levy is currently director of Travel Training at MTA New York City Transit. He is an active member of Congregation Aish Kodesh in Woodmere, NY. He invites anyone who has disability-related questions to e-mail him at info@yadempowers.org

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Also, education writer Amy Sara Clark delivers some good news. Lots of day schools are managing to cut costs through a concerted effort spearheaded by Yeshiva University.