Volume xiX, Issue XVI | thejewishvoice.org Serving Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts
23 Tishri 5774 | September 27, 2013
Dr. Irving Fradkin, the ‘Johnny Appleseed’ of college scholarships From one dollar to one billion
ESPN’s Mike Greenberg kicks off Alliance Annual Campaign An entertaining start to strengthening the Jewish community By Irina Missiuro Special to The Jewish Voice
By Arthur C. Norman anorman@jewishallianceri.org
FALL RIVER, Mass. – In 1958, a young optometrist in Fall River saw a need: The children of poor and working class parents were unable to afford college. Dr. Irving Fradkin saw a waste of talent and potential and set out to fill that need. He started selling one dollar memberships to what became Scholarship America, the parent of thousands of local chapters of Dollars for Scholars (see the Aug.2 issue of The Jewish Voice for related stories, “Dispersed Hope High alums help send kids to college” and “An American dreamer). Three billion dollars and two million scholars later, Dr. Fradkin sat for an interview with The Jewish Voice. Excerpts follow:
Special Issue: BAR/BAT MITZVAH
Q. This all started in 1958; what got you going 55 years ago? A. I started helping my father in his bakery and intended to stay in that business. I hurt my hip playing football in school and could no longer be a baker. So I started taking college
PROVIDENCE – Event Chairs Neil and Randi-Beth Beranbaum, along with Alan and Marianne Litwin, hosted the evening event of the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island’s 2014 Annual Campaign Launch at the Biltmore Hotel on September 17. Before sports talk show host Mike Greenberg, the featured speaker, appeared, the audience of more than 300 had time to meet and greet both old and new friends Sharon Gaines, chair of the Alliance board, welcomed the more than 300 guests and invited all to participate in the wealth of programs, events and services that the Alliance offers throughout the year. She said,
fradkin | 8
greenberg | 16
Arthur C. Norman
Dr. Irving Fradkin
Courtesy Jewish Alliance of greater rhode island
Susan Leach DeBlasio and Mike Greenberg at the Jewish Alliance Annual Campaign Launch.
Jewish day schools try new models for success By Uriel Heilman AKRON, Ohio (JTA) – During a High Holy Day discussion about repentance in Sarah Greenblatt’s Jewish values class, not all the students are listening. One girl stares out the window at the azure sky. Another sits in the back, doodling. But a boy in the front row wearing a creased black skullcap sits transfixed, notebook open, pencil poised.
“Why is reflection and repentance so important around Rosh Hashanah?” Greenblatt asks. The boy’s hand shoots up. “The Torah, and also the Bible, tells us how to live right, how to get right and how to stay right,” he says. This might be a typical scene in any Jewish day school except for one thing – the boy isn’t Jewish.
Fifth-grader Seth Pope is one of 58 nonJewish students at the Lippman School, Akron’s only Jewish day school. Four years ago, the school – then known as the Jerome Lippman Jewish Community Day School – was teetering. Enrollment had tumbled to 63 students, 33 of them Jews, and it was unclear whether the school could survive. Like a number of day schools in
Jewish communities with dwindling populations, Lippman for years had been accepting a few non-Jewish students, but without any modifications to the Jewishfocused curriculum. With the 46-year-old school at a crisis point, however, board members decided some fundamental changes were necessary. They changed the school’s name, SCHOOLS | 26