NA'AMAT WOMAN Summer 2010

Summer 2010

features Magazine of Na’amat USA

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Big Issues on Campus..................................................................4

Summer 2010 Vol. XXV No.3

Empowered through education and knowledge, a growing number of Jewish students are taking a stand against anti-Semitism at their universities.

Editor Judith A. Sokoloff

By Natasha Rosenstock

Assistant Editor Gloria Gross

When the Kibbutz Was a Kibbutz................................................... 8

Art Director Marilyn Rose

On the 100th anniversary of the kibbutz movement, a veteran kibbutznik looks back at the good old days. By Amnon Shamosh

Editorial Committee Harriet Green Sylvia Lewis Sharon Sutker McGowan Liz Raider Shoshana Riemer Edythe Rosenfield Lynn Wax

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Raphael Lemkin and the Genocide Convention............................. 12 A landmark conference explores the living legacy of the man who coined the word genocide and sacrificed his personal life and health to help prevent and suppress atrocities. By Aviva Cantor

We’re Headed for Success...........................................................20 Na’amat usa Officers

The Na’amat Leadership Seminar was marked by the enthusiasm of the

PRESIDENT Edythe Rosenfield

participants and their ability to dynamically interact and generate fresh ideas.

VICE PRESIDENTS Harriet Green Sylvia Lewis Lynn Wax Chellie Goldwater Wilensky

departments

TREASURER Irene Hack

President’s Message By Edythe Rosenfield................. 3

FINANCIAL SECRETARY Deborah Weiner

Na’amat News..................................................... 16

RECORDING SECRETARY Reggie Rog

Heart to Heart: Alone in the Crowd..................... 18

By Fredricka R. Maister

Na’amat Woman (ISSN 0888-191X) is published quarterly: fall, winter, spring, summer by Na’amat USA, 350 Fifth Ave., Suite 4700, New York, NY 10118, (212) 563-5222. $5.00 of the membership dues is for one year’s subscription. Nonmember subscriptions: $10.00.

Signed articles represent the opinions of the authors and not necessarily those of Na’amat USA or its editors. Periodicals class postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. Postmaster, please send address changes to: Na’amat Woman, 350 Fifth Ave., Suite 4700, New York, NY 10118.

E-mail: naamat@naamat.org Web site: www.naamat.org

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Book Reviews..................... 22 Our cover: Parents join their children for a spring planting at the Na’amat day care center in Tzoran.

Around the Country............. 28

Na’amat Usa Area Offices Eastern Area 350 Fifth Ave., Suite 4700 New York, NY 10118 212-563-4962 easternarea@naamat.org

Southeast Area 4400 N. Federal Hwy., Suite 11 Boca Raton, FL 33431 561-368-8898 marjorie.moidel@gmail.com

Mission Statement The mission of Na’amat USA is to enhance the status of women and children in Israel and the United States as part of a worldwide progressive Jewish women’s organization. Its purpose is to help Na’amat Israel provide educational and social services, including day care, vocational training, legal aid for women, absorption of new

immigrants, community centers, and centers for the prevention and treatment of domestic violence.

Na’amat USA advocates on issues relating to women’s rights, the welfare of children, education and the United States-Israel relationship. Na’amat USA also helps strengthen Jewish and Zionist life in communities throughout the United States.

Midwest Area 10024 N. Skokie Blvd., Suite 226 Skokie, IL 60077 847-329-7172 naamatmdw@aol.com Western Area 16161 Ventura Blvd., #101 Encino, CA 91436 818-981-1298 wanaamat@sbcglobal.net

Dear Haverot,

T

o paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson: It isn’t the length of one’s life but the depth that is so important. And during the past three years of my life serving as national president, I have surely lived the depth.

Working with Talia Livni, Na’amat Israel president, and Shirli Shavit, director of Na’amat’s International Department, has been rewarding. Sending monthly allocations, Na’amat USA has continued to support Na’amat as it addresses Israel’s many social service needs and the emergencies that arise in a country that faces many dangers.

We have supported the people of Sderot, particularly our two day care centers there, throughout the bombings from Gaza. We have built a number of new day care classrooms, including in Ra’anana and Shoham. We continue to build in Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Dimona and to renovate and repair our many facilities that service 19,000 children. We kvelled when Na’amat was awarded the Israel Prize for “a lifetime of contribution to the state and society” during the celebration of Israel’s 60th birthday. Our Professional Scholarship Fund is enabling hundreds of women to pursue their university degrees. Our new center for the empowerment of women, Mercaz Oshra, is growing with activities, support groups and legal services.

Our Circle of Hope campaign is

providing scholarships for troubled teenagers to get a second chance in our special high schools.

When my synagogue’s yad (Torah pointer) went missing recently, I was proud to replace it with a beautiful wooden one, given to me when I visited our technological high school in Jaffa. Made by one of our students, it is simple and lovely.

As I sit in shul every Saturday and look at the yad, I see the fruits of our work and know that our fund-raising endeavors are enabling disadvantaged teenagers to be productive and self-assured.

“Na’amat is Israel’s largest and most powerful women’s organization in Israel,” we were reminded

by Talia Livni when she visited several of our clubs and councils in the United States last year. She emphasized the important advocacy work the organization does, fighting for women’s rights in the Knesset, the Supreme Court and in the streets with rallys and demonstrations.

“Na’amat cannot do what we do without your help,” Talia told us.

“With your help, we influence and shape life in Israel.”

Yes, we help make it happen and will continue to do so — and knowing this has made my tenure as president very rewarding.

During my presidency, I visited many clubs and councils, helping to strengthen the bonds between clubs, councils and areas. Both at meetings and formal speaking engagements, I had the opportunity to be up close and personal with dedicated women who have worked (some for many decades) on behalf of Israel through Na’amat USA. I was able to give special attention to

understanding how their particular community functions and how their clubs and councils operate, as we discussed ways of moving forward with membership and fund-raising drives.

Perhaps the highlight of that type of interaction was my participation in our National Leadership Seminar this past March (see page 20). A broad spectrum of leaders and potential leaders were involved, which was encouraging for the future of our organization. Some of these talented women will be joining our national board and will be installed at our 40th National Convention, July 11 to 14, in Boca Raton, Florida.

Also during my term, I proudly represented our organization at meetings of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, as well as its leadership missions to Israel; the American Zionist Organization; and the Jewish National Fund. I attended the meetings of the Jewish Agency, World Zionist Organization, and the international meetings of Na’amat with members of our sister organizations from various parts of the world.

This being my last President’s Message, I thank each of you for giving me the honor of representing you. I look forward to greeting you at what will be an exciting convention.

Shalom and lehitraot (see you again),

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Big Issues on Campus

Empowered through education and knowledge, a growing number of Jewish students are taking a stand against anti-Semitism at their universities.

by NATASHA ROSENSTOCK

W

hile the days of quotas limiting the number of Jews on American and Canadian campuses have long passed, urgent reports are coming out of many Jewish organizations decrying the rise in antiSemitism on North American college campuses. Alarming headlines such as, “Is UC Irvine Safe for Jews?” on the cover of The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles and incidents where police are required to protect pro-Israel speakers are causing Jewish students and their parents to ask themselves if going to a certain university will put them in a hostile environment.

Typical anti-Semitic occurrences include students carving swastikas into desks or drawing them on dorm walls, and writers making anti-Jewish comments in student newspapers. However, some events fall into a gray area where there is

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much debate over whether anti-Semitism is involved — as opposed to antiZionism (calls for divestment, boycotts and sanctions against Israel; protesting and shouting down Israeli speakers; and the marking of Israel Apartheid Week). In either case, Jewish students often feel uncomfortable or threatened.

One of the recent incidents: An organized group of Muslim students continually interrupted Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, while he spoke at the University of California, Irvine. The university arrested 11 students and the ambassador eventually finished his speech. Videos of the event that were circulated on YouTube caused outrage in the pro-Israel and Jewish communities.

Another: At Carleton University in Canada, students chased one Jewish student and one visibly pro-Israel nonJewish student with machetes, while shouting at them for being Zionists.

And at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, a student newspaper published an online Holocaust denial ad.

In this era where blatant anti-Semitism is not in fashion, those accused of anti-Semitism often deny that their actions deserve this label, so it may prove useful to first define it.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, the word “anti-Semitism” is attributed to Wilhelm Marr, a German “agitator” who founded a political party in 1879, The League of Antisemites, which campaigned for the expulsion of Jews from Germany. Anti-Semitism refers solely to hatred directed against

Courtesy, Hillel, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Courtesy, Hillel, UCI

Courtesy, Hillel, UCI

Opposite page: Students at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, hold a Holocaust Remembrance Rally; above and right: Hillel activists at University of California, Irvine, hold events supporting Israel.

Campuses today have turned into the battleground for the future of Jews of the world.

Jews. Many college students have heard anti-Israel activists tell them that they cannot be anti-Semitic, because as people of Arab origin they are also Semites.

According to the ADL, the “interpretation that Arabs are ‘Semites’ and therefore cannot be anti-Semitic (or are victims of anti-Semitism) is not based in the historical origins of the term…. Had the terms ‘anti-Judaism’ or ‘anti-Jewism’ been utilized instead, there would not even be any confusion regarding their meaning; however, the term ‘anti-Semitism’ was chosen in order to cloak the hatred of Jews in a supposed scientific respectability.”

Natan Sharansky, former Soviet dissident and current head of The Jewish Agency, provides Jewish students, along with those looking to assist and support them, a framework in which to judge whether anti-Israel sentiment and activity has crossed the line into anti-Semitism.

In the foreword to the fall 2004 Jewish Political Studies Review, published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA), Sharansky sounded the alarm on anti-Semitism in what he calls “the free world.” Since the JCPA published his “3D” test, it has quickly become the standard by which Jewish

organizations — including ADL and StandWithUs, a pro-Israel group created in the wake of the 2000 second intifada — measure anti-Semitism in the context of anti-Israel activity.

Sharanky’s 3D’s ask if the anti-Israel speech or activity is Demonizing or De-legitimizing Israel or subjecting it to a Double standard not imposed on other countries. Speech or activities that fall into these categories are distinguishable from legitimate criticism of Israel and should be considered antiSemitism.

Sharansky and Yoram Hazony, founder and provost of The Shalem Center in Jerusalem, say the university environment, and the 3D activity there, is of utmost importance for North American Jews, the future of the Jewish people and Israel.

In his February 18, 2010, Jerusalem letters series, “University and the Jews,” Hazony writes, “[Universities] may well turn out to be the arena where the fate of Judaism in our time is ultimately decided.” With future government, business and educational leaders spending formative years in the university environment, Hazony asserts, “the university [is] the single most important institution in the Jewish educational system — and this is

true whether we like it or not.”

At www.torahcafe.com, Sharansky declares: “Campuses today have turned into the battleground for the future of Jews of the world. On the university campuses there is some strange unity between those fundamentalist Muslim forces which want to destroy the state of Israel and those so-called liberals who under the slogans of human rights, freedom and democracy, are taking Israel and joining the most awful efforts of demonization and de-legitimization of our state.”

Responding to Hostility

How to respond to the hostility generates diverse opinions — and sometimes controversy.

In a widely distributed essay published in February of this year, “Time for a Jewish Tea Party?” Dr. Charles Jacobs, political activist and founder of The David Project, a pro-Israel educational organization, writes, “For years, the Irvine campus has witnessed publicly funded anti-Israel and anti-Semitic speakers and programs; and, for years, the established Jewish community has failed to respond effectively. At Irvine, where Jews are sometimes frightened to openly identify themselves, only the stalSUMMER 2010

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It may be strategically more effective to spend time presenting a positive Courtesy, Anti-Defamation League

image of Israel rather than reacting to negative attacks.

wart Zionist Organization of America and the valiant grassroots group StandWithUs have consistently challenged the university to fulfill its responsibility and protect the students and free speech.

Hillel, the national Jewish campus organization created in times of peace to ensure that Jewish boys meet Jewish girls, staffed with warm-fuzzy Kumbaya-niks, remains in denial — or worse.”

Jeff Rubin, the associate vice president for communications for Hillel, did not want to comment on the statement

by Dr. Jacobs regarding Hillel, as he had not seen or heard about the essay. However, he did address the subject. “There are groups on campus, such as Muslim groups or groups that have a particular political bent to them with whom we try to find common ground and have dialogue with as best we can. Very often it works, and sometimes it doesn’t work. We are very clear that there are lines we will not cross when it comes to Israel, and if we have to go to our separate corners and not have a dialogue, then that’s fine.”

Rubin differentiates between the several types of anti-Semitism Hillel sees on campuses. “There are anti-Semitic comments, editorials, columns and cartoons in the school newspaper that are born out of pure ignorance, perhaps from someone who grew up in a small town and never met a Jew before getting to college. Or a student will make a generalization about Jews that comes from a lack of understanding about the Jewish community — so that’s just pure ignorance without perhaps any kind of hateful motivation behind it.” Other 6

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times, he says, groups will use potent anti-Semitic symbols for attention or spray graffiti on the Hillel office to provoke a reaction for whatever twisted reason.

“Depending upon what we understand the motivation to be and the seriousness of the incident, we calibrate a response,” explains Rubin. “If it’s an interpersonal thing, it could very well be that charges can be pressed that we have to follow through on. Our first priority is always [ensuring] the security and the welfare of our students.”

Hillel will then collaborate with university administrators, as well as whichever Jewish community organization is responsible for public affairs in a given community, to make sure there isn’t something larger afoot and that it doesn’t spill over to the local community. Rubin says the local officials play a critical role in ensuring that an effective response is taken.

While Rubin could cite several obvious and specific anti-Semitic incidents on campuses, such as the vandalizing of a Succah at Stanford University last year, he doesn’t agree with some who say there are Jews on campus uncomfortable displaying symbols of their Judaism. “Students are really proud about being Jewish,” he points out.

“Even in what some people consider the most hostile environment, students still feel comfortable wearing even an Israel Defense Forces T-shirt. I don’t think you can state that college campuses are a place where Jewish students are uncomfortable.”

Rubin cites Rutgers University in

New Jersey as an example of a campus where one finds anti-Israel sentiment crossing the line into anti-Semitism, while at the same time, one finds Jewish, Christian and Muslim students taking positive action to coexist and communicate. “Rutgers has very outspoken anti-Israel students on campus.

One of the posters they put up in the student union said: ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.’ So, basically, what they were saying is we are going to eliminate the state of Israel. In my mind, that crosses the line to antiSemitism if you’re going to talk about eliminating an entire country full of Jews. This goes back probably five or six years.”

He adds: “Hillel was able to use that incident as an opportunity to educate the campus about Israel and Jews.

Rutgers also created a residence where Jewish, Muslim and Christian students, who all had a particular interest in the Middle East, live together to allow them to get to know one another and to see each other more as individuals and less as cultural stereotypes.”

There is clearly less anti-Semitism at North American universities if you look at it from a historical perspective, observes Rubin. “Remember, there were times when Jewish students couldn’t even apply to certain colleges, or when there were quotas or where Jewish students couldn’t participate in a fraternity or sorority on campus because they were blacklisted. All of that has gone away. In our literature going back 50 years, there were coded references about schools that were more or less open to Jewish

Courtesy, Anti-Defamation League

Courtesy, Hillel, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Opposite page, above and below: Anti-Israel and anti-Zionist events at universities have gone beyond legitimate criticism of Israel and have been marked by hateful attacks against Jews and the Jewish state, crossing the line into blatant anti-Semitism. Right: Ethics panel responds to a Holocaust denial ad placed in The Badger Herald at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

being good at being reactive to being pro-active on the campus issues, observes Lauter. “Our sense is that students are now much more prepared to handle the anti-Israel scene on campus. There’s not as much angst. The kids are confident. They are well trained and know they have the support of the organized Jewish community to back them up.”

As part of their pro-active efforts, ADL’s education department reaches

out to campus newspaper editors and other leaders and brings them to Poland and Israel each summer.

According to the ADL’s latest audit, there were 40 campus-related incidents in 2009. Some were Israel-related, some not, such as verbal harassment or swastikas drawn on dorm room doors.

“Sometimes during an anti-Israel rally, there can be political speech never concontinued on page 26

Don’t let them push you around. Don’t let your teachers mislead you. It’s your university. You have the right to demand fairness and sensitivity.

Courtesy, Anti-Defamation League

students. Today, Jews are welcome with open arms on campuses throughout the United States, and Jewish students are showing up on campuses they’ve never been on before.”

The ADL, known for its long history of fighting anti-Semitism, is providing resources to students through Hillel and to administrations when necessary, such as the handbook, “Responding to Anti-Israel Campaigns on College and University Campuses.” The ADL also specifically reaches out to university presidents and provides training based on its handbooks; it says schools are enormously grateful for the resources.

The ADL Web site offers this advice to students: “The key to responding to anti-Semitic and anti-Israel campaigns is to think strategically. Students often feel that confrontation and counter-programming are their only options, and in some cases, protesting is not only appropriate but necessary.

Anti-Semitic incidents and speech should not go unnoticed. However, in the long run, it may be strategically more effective to spend your time presenting a positive image of Israel rather than reacting to negative attacks.”

Deborah M. Lauter, director, Civil Rights for ADL, works with the education department in a number of ways now. She says they have been involved in the UC Irvine issues the last few years, and they are working against the divestment campaign at UC Berkeley in conjunction with Hillel and other Jewish organizations.

The Jewish community, including the ADL, has redirected its efforts from

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When the Kibbutz Was a Kibbutz On the 100th anniversary of the kibbutz movement,

a veteran kibbutznik looks back at the good old days.

by AMNON SHAMOSH

W

hen the kibbutz was a Kibbutz, every kibbutz had a dining hall to nourish both the body and the soul. And even without an Ark for Torah scrolls, it was redolent of sanctity and faith. Three times a day we sat there around our own “Shulhan Arukh” (which was not the 16th-century “Prepared Table” of Jewish religious law). We took our meals there, and it served as our social, cultural, spiritual and ritual center. Community singing that rose to the heavens was heard there every Friday and holiday eve. If neither “Eli, Eli, Shmah Koli” (My God, my God, hear my voice) nor Hannah Senesh’s “Eli, Eli, may these things never end: the sand and the sea, the murmuring of the waters, thunder of the heavens and man’s prayer” was not prayer, then I don’t know prayer.

When the kibbutz was a Kibbutz, every Sabbath eve and on all festive occasions, the dining hall floor shook from the hora and an entire repertoire of folk dances. During the couple dances, we drew spiritual elevation from the earthly momentum of rising skirts. Perspiration dropped into our Russian embroidered shirts that had been pressed in the communal laundry in honor of the Sabbath.

This Sabbath-sweat differed from the smell of pioneers after a hard day clearing stones in the fields or milking cows.

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One couple after another stopped dancing and unobtrusively went out into the moonlit night. Since our crowded housing created an imposed togetherness, the couples had no privacy, so they made their way to the hayloft. Try explaining to their grandchildren what “to the hayloft” betokened.

When the kibbutz was a Kibbutz, it had many, many social reformers from all exiles and all outlooks. We even had a shoemaker from the nearby ma’abara (immigrant camp) who reformed shoes. After a few years he died.

Meanwhile, the social reformers became reformers of our own newly devised social outlooks and forms. They enacted bylaws for weddings, bylaws for temporary visitors, and a plethora of bylaws — both odd and necessary — that hobbled members’ feet and imprisoned their spirit. Mass overcame essence; it limited freedom and constricted horizons. They called it privatization, and it was written by lawyers.

When the kibbutz was a Kibbutz, it had extreme ideological streams that were reflected in the conflicting outlooks of their members. There were three movements led by archbishops and synods. One pair of bishops was Meir Ya’ari and Yaakov Hazan of Kibbutz Artzi who were opposed by Tabenkin, Zisling and Ben Aharon of Kibbutz

HaMeuchad. Slightly less authority was wielded by Lavon and Rotenstreich in Ichud HaKvutzot. How right history was when it named the country’s airport for Ben-Gurion, for he soared above all of them. At that altitude the divisions appeared artificial, even laughable: whereas history will remember the divisiveness and hair-splitting politicians as mere footnotes.

When the kibbutz was a Kibbutz, I was pleased and proud that I had chosen it as my way of life. There were many like me. A sense of mission lifted our spirits, even as our strength diminished.

We made many foolish errors, undoubtedly innocent. Whoever left a kibbutz remained bound by invisible ties to its pulsating heartbeat and still believed in a better, more just and humane world.

When the kibbutz was a Kibbutz, we used to say: “Ein davar (never mind), we don’t have a pool, but we have a living stream to splash in.” The food is offal, but on Shabbat we’ll get chicken. Never mind, next year will be better. Until one day we awoke and found that there was no Davar newspaper and no Al Hamishmar newspaper. No ideology and no values.

When the kibbutz was a Kibbutz, on Saturdays and holidays during the fruit harvest we got up before dawn feeling good despite tiredness and despite losing a day of rest spent with the

When the kibbutz was a Kibbutz, every Sabbath eve and on all festive occasions, the dining hall floor shook from the hora. During the couple dances, we drew spiritual elevation from the earthly momentum of rising skirts. children. The togetherness and common effort reminded me of waking early for Slichot prayers in my childhood. We regarded the harvest as a holy service. The seeming desecration of the Shabbat was not regarded as such by the builders of the homeland who later got their “Sabbaths” back, adding them to their annual vacation days.

When the kibbutz was a Kibbutz, we lay on the lawn looking up at the star-studded sky and at the bare arms of the young women in the hashlama group that had come to reinforce the kibbutz. Together we ate watermelons, seeds-and-all, singing sentimental songs — “How Beautiful Are the Nights of Canaan” — to the Volga and the Danube accompanied by the murmuring of the

nearby Hatzbani stream. Beautiful, too, were the girls with their short pants.

How beautiful we were in our own eyes.

When the kibbutz was a Kibbutz, there were a number of elected office holders: There was a domestic mazkir (the “mayor”), an external mazkir who was the treasurer, and a purchaser who spent all week in the big city buying supplies for the agricultural branches and for the members — from farming machinery to seeds to women’s bras and children’s socks. And the purchaser’s son got a rooster on a stick — red and sweet.

When the kibbutz was a Kibbutz, it had a small notions store, free for all members. It had toothbrushes, soap and shoelaces, cigarettes, chocolate and candy, brooms and condoms. Everyone got

what they needed. The weekly general meeting debated long hours on the definition of “needs” and their limitations.

For instance: Shloimaleh lost a comb every week at work in the fish ponds.

Would it be proper to limit him without compromising the value of “to each according to his needs”? The meetings debated this question seriously until Shloimaleh grew bald.

When the kibbutz was a Kibbutz, there was a communal shower that had a corrugated sheet metal partition, with holes between the women’s and men’s sides. Both were fully exposed and not only physically: also how they undressed, hung their clothes, soaped up, rubbed a towel on their backs or pounced on a pair of rare wooden clogs Illustrations by Avi Katz

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The weekly general meeting debated long hours on the definition of “needs.” For instance: Shloimaleh lost a comb every week. Would it be proper to limit him without compromising the value of “to each according to his needs”? The meetings debated this question seriously until Shloimaleh grew bald. thus exposing to the other side the unmediated psyche of the pioneers. For instance, when we were in the shower of kibbutz Kfar Giladi, we waited expectantly to step into the wet clogs of the veterans of Hashomer, that first defense organization founded in Palestine in 1909. We imitated how they wiped their backs and crotch. And we wiped our ears thoroughly, not to miss a word of the stories they told of their exploits.

When the kibbutz was a Kibbutz, it made its fatal mistake on two issues: the tragic split that stemmed from political extremism coupled with inflexibility in the absorption of the mass aliya of those who came from Arabic-speaking lands. The madness and absurdity in the split went so far as to divide families and to cause kibbutz members to come to blows. The following example illustrates one such missed opportunity. An important kibbutz in the Jezreel Valley took in a large group of children from Syria who had immigrated before their parents. The kibbutz assigned them its best educators and laid on many special treats. But in unthinking jest, the members called the newcomers “barchash,” horrific flying gnats. Anyone who has worked in the fields in summer knows how insufferable and maddening and hateful these tiny insects can be. And despite talking and singing in Arabic, the young immigrants were sensitive and perceptive enough to realize that with the coolness of winter, the barchash disappeared. Immigrants from the East found neither the kinship, tradition nor compassion, so essential to them.

When the kibbutz was a Kibbutz, there was a general meeting every Saturday night. The main speakers had permanent seats and fixed opinions.

Differences of opinion was the name of the game. These led to barbs and insults and profanity. The general meeting 10

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turned into a shouting match of expletives. What did we discuss? What didn’t we discuss? Everything from a tractor, to a comb, to a bathtub; from permission to go abroad, to attending gardening courses or an extension course for a kindergarten teacher. The “evil inclination” had a field day. The general meeting, the vaunted basis for kibbutz democracy, declined from year to year and foretold further declines.

When the kibbutz was a Kibbutz, an umbrella was an out-and-out urban bourgeois accessory. A jacket and tie were for Purim costumes. All the children wore high shoes. Oxfords were for city folk. Silk stockings were hidden deep in the closet. Cosmetics was a dirty word, with the accent on “cuss.”

Dyeing one’s hair was worse than a dyedin-the-wool hypocrite. Four dress shirts for the veteran member demonstrated that “each would receive according to his needs.” A bank account was only for the treasurer and the purchaser. We didn’t lack for anything. And even the daily Davar newspaper was delivered every morning, so we could read about yesterday’s world. The old world, where everyone went around unashamed with money in their wallets.

When the kibbutz was a Kibbutz, there weren’t air conditioners for the melting heat, but there was a warm atmosphere — a melting pot of diasporas. There wasn’t a cosmetician but there was beauty. The nurse in the infirmary — a kibbutz member, of course — would accompany each patient to the hospital and bring a warm meal and smile to the bedridden patient at home.

We knew every child by name, his good points and bad; we knew the regular guests, relatives of every member. If anything, we knew each other too well.

The motto was never tell a member everything you think about him.

When the kibbutz was a Kibbutz, socialism was the name of the game.

This was the most successful socialist experiment of the 20th century, maybe of all time: a voluntary, apolitical, practical, ordinary socialism that was in line with the morality of the prophets and brought well-being and satisfaction to tens of thousands of kibbutz members for 100 years. Many erred seeing it as the fulfillment of the ideas of the Communist revolution whereas, in fact, it tried to fulfill the ideas of the French revolution: liberty, equality and fraternity. Of necessity, zealous pursuit of equality stifled freedom, and the tension between the two impacted on brotherhood.

When the kibbutz was a Kibbutz, it had pretensions to change man’s nature.

The naïve assumption — a reverse paraphrase of Genesis 8:21 — was that the inclination of man’s heart is inherently good. One only had to create a suitable environment around a person and give the children a quality education. A hundred years have passed in a few hundred kibbutzim, and it seems that actually it was man’s nature that changed the Kibbutz. Even God couldn’t change man’s nature and keep him in the Garden of Eden. See the Book of Books.

When the kibbutz was a Kibbutz, my house was visited by many authors from around the world, from Kirghiz to China, all the way to Australia and Argentina. Many of them asked a question I found hard to answer. How is it that every morning thousands of people get up in hundreds of kibbutzim and go out to work, without supervision, without reward, without threat of punishment?

They work hard willingly every day with purpose and enthusiasm, out of commitment to an idea. What instills a sense of responsibility in them, the desire to do what they were assigned to do? What does a kibbutz do about

those who stay in bed or go out for a hike instead of going to work? I answered that we don’t have anyone like that and saw doubt in their eyes. I added, and if there were to be too many like that, there couldn’t be a kibbutz.

When the kibbutz was a Kibbutz, it was an interesting experiment of establishing a secular Jewish culture, comprehensive and enriching. This historic challenge, so vital for a country with a majority of secular citizens, was sidelined, leaving us with a heavy sigh in our hearts, together with the entire kibbutz movement. A whole generation grew up on the kibbutz Pesach seder, on the harvest ceremony of the Omer, on the festive pageant bringing in the first fruits on Shavuot, on the plantings of Tu B’Shvat, and on the communal, enthusiastic Kabbalat Shabbat celebration. But it didn’t know how to transmit any of this.

When the kibbutz was a Kibbutz, education of the younger generation held the highest priority. The goal was that the children wouldn’t rebel but would continue on the path that we had started. Communal education demon-

strated an exaggerated self-confidence.

Motivated by the need to have women in the kibbutz work “productively,” children’s houses with communal sleeping arrangements were built. Theories were propounded about the advantages of the system and the belief that if children lived, studied, and grew up together, they would adjust and love the communal life. But the communal sleeping arrangements broke down under the pressure of the mothers and the children who grew up in them. The following generation didn’t follow. Both children of the kibbutz and its proponents integrated very well indeed into the environing society.

Personal ambitions that had been frustrated in the kibbutz rose to the fore in the army. Perhaps in the arts and in academic studies as well. The kibbutz valued mediocrity and promoted it.

When the kibbutz was a Kibbutz, I wrote a book, A Kibbutz Is a Kibbutz Is a Kibbutz. The title was based on Gertrude Stein’s famous saying, “A rose is a rose is a rose.” I compared the kibbutz to a rose — beautiful, colorful, sweet smelling and prickly. I agreed with Stein’s assertion

that no verbal definition could equal the fullness of its beauty and uniqueness to anyone who had not seen it, to anyone who had not lived it. As a rose, the kibbutz drank from the blessed spring of socialist Zionism. In the new century, it makes do with sewage water. Will it live?

Will it flourish? For another hundred years? And perhaps more. “Our hope is not yet lost” [from “Hatikvah”].

Everything I’ve said up to now is manifestly the result of subjective thinking and insights. It was hard for me to articulate them. I would be happy if there were people, here and there, who would agree with me. I would be gratified if my words raise a smile, a longing, a sigh or a hope.

Author and poet Amnon Shamosh is a founding member of Kibbutz Ma’ayan Baruch. He was born in 1929 in Aleppo, Syria, and immigrated to Palestine as a child. He was awarded the President’s Prize for Literature in 2001. This article was translated from the Hebrew by Trudy Greener and Amnon Hadary, and first appeared on the Ameinu Web site: www.Ameinu.org.

Callouts:

The weekly general meeting debated long hours on the definition of “needs.” For instance: Shloimaleh lost a comb every week. Would it be proper to limit him without compromising the value of “to each according to his needs”? The meetings debated this question seriously until Shloimaleh grew bald.

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Raphael Lemkin and the Genocide Convention: Living Legacy of a Lonely Lawyer A landmark conference explores Dr. Lemkin’s relentless work against genocide.

by AVIVA CANTOR

W

hen a journalist entered the partially destroyed home in a Bosnian village, he saw a strange sight: There were three dead old men slumped at the table, but there were five small coffee cups on it. What had happened here? The old men were having coffee late one morning. The door was flung open. Two young men burst in with submachine guns: Serbian militiamen. The Muslim men welcomed them — they were the sons of their neighbors — and one of them got them cups of coffee and invited them to join them at the table.

The militiamen shot the old men dead. They left their coffee untouched.

This atrocity among so many others occurred during the Bosnia War of 19921995, when many Serbian actions were considered genocide under the terms of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The Convention (Article 2) defines genocide as any of five actions “committed with

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intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” (see box on p. 14).

The Convention was unfortunately not employed to stop the atrocities in Bosnia. But it did provide the basis for the creation of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in 1993, which indicted, arrested and tried more than 155 Serbians, including two major perpetrators (see box on p. 15).

The term genocide was coined, conceptualized and defined by one man who drafted the Convention text and sacrificed his personal life and health to make it part of international law. His name was Dr. Raphael Lemkin.

A lawyer by profession and multilinguist by avocation who escaped Poland at the beginning of the Holocaust, Lemkin (1900-1959) lobbied tirelessly inside and outside the U.N. for the

adoption of the Genocide Convention, which took place in December 1948. It went into force in January 1951, when ratified by 20 nations, of which Israel was the second.

It was only in 1988 that it was ratified by the United States, when President Reagan signed it. By that time, Lemkin was already dead and buried for close to 30 years.

In November 2009, a few months after his 50th yahrzeit, the Center for Jewish History (CJH) in Manhattan held a conference, “Genocide and Human Experience: Raphael Lemkin’s Thought and Vision.” Co-sponsored with the American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS) and Yeshiva University Museum (YUM), it brought together a group of historians, political scientists, jurists, anthropologists and philosophers from all over the world. The conference, organized by CJH director of Special Projects Judith

The term genocide was coined, conceptualized and defined by one man who drafted the text of the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and sacrificed his personal life and health to make it part of international law.

Siegel, was accompanied by an exhibition, “Letters of Conscience: Raphael Lemkin and the Quest to End Genocide.”

Lemkin’s Life

Raphael Lemkin was born on June 24, 1900 and raised on a farm 50 miles from Bialystok in czarist Poland. His father, Joseph, was a farmer; his mother, Bella Pomerantz, was an intellectual, artist and student of philosophy who homeschooled him and was his greatest childhood influence. When he was 6 years old, pogroms in the Bialystok region involving fiendish mutilation rituals resulted in the murder of 70 Jews and grave injuries to 90 others.

At the age of 11, Lemkin read in Henryk Sienkiewicz’s Polish masterpiece about the Roman Empire, Quo Vadis, of the throwing of Christians to the lions, and later, accounts of massacres of the Carthaginians and the French Huguenots. He asked his mother why there is no law against killing “defenseless people just because they are different from you.” She told him he must “study more and think more and find the answer for yourself.” He resolved to look for answers.

Lemkin entered the John Casimir University of Lvov in 1920, planning to major in philology. He already knew seven languages; he later added three more.

A professor, in response to Lemkin’s question about the slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians during World War I, told him that international law precludes interference in the sovereign affairs of a country. The young student began to think that a law to stop the murder of a group must be created, and switched his field to law. He subsequently became a

public prosecutor in Warsaw.

In 1933, Lemkin, who had already grasped that the Nazis would inflict “unprecedented” atrocities on ethnic minorities, wrote a paper for a League of Nations’ international conference in Madrid, proposing laws against the obliteration of national, religious and racial groups and the destruction of their cultural works. The Polish government, trying to cultivate/placate the Germans, refused to let him attend (his paper was read aloud but the proposal was tabled), and he was forced out of his job.

When World War II broke out in September 1939, Lemkin fled Warsaw and eventually found refuge in Sweden, where he taught law at the University of Stockholm. He persuaded the Foreign Ministry to instruct consular officials to provide documentation of German orders of mass murders in countries they occupied.

This material formed the basis of his 712-page book, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (see box on p. 15), the first allencompassing work on the enormity of Nazi brutality and destruction. Published in the U.S. in 1944, it was also the first work in which Lemkin both used the word “genocide” he had coined and wrote of the need for an international treaty to prevent its recurrence.

By this time, Lemkin had made his way to the U.S. to teach law at Duke University in North Carolina and work for government agencies in Washington D.C. He tried, unsuccessfully, to get officials — including President Roosevelt and Vice President Wallace — interested in taking action against the mass murders of European Jews.

Raphael Lemkin’s War Department and United Nations identification cards.

Raphael Lemkin Papers, American Jewish Historical Society, New York, NY

Lemkin was in Nuremberg in 1946, working as an adviser on the staff of the chief prosecutor in the trials of Nazi war criminals. He became greatly distressed that the term genocide was not used in the Final Judgment. Even more significant to him, the Tribunal’s Charter and Judgment specified that “acts committed before the outbreak of the War were not punishable offenses.” He was disturbed that these documents enshrined the principle that what a government does to its own citizens does not fall under international law. Lemkin was unhappy about this as precedent, said William A. Schabas of the Irish Center for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland, “because he looked to the future.”

The Final Judgment was rendered in October, after a summer in which Lemkin traveled in Europe and met people in DP camps, including former colleagues, and heard their horrific stories. In September, his distress worsened when he found out that 49 members of his family, including his parents, had been murdered, wrote the late William Korey, former director of International Policy Research of B’nai B’rith. “The death of his beloved mother who had played such SUMMER 2010

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Lemkin tried, unsuccessfully, to get officials — including President Roosevelt and Vice President Wallace — interested in taking action against the mass murder of European Jews. a key role in his early life was especially shattering” to him, said independent researcher Jim Fussell, who is writing a biography of Lemkin.

The Nuremberg Judgment, Lemkin later wrote in his incomplete and unpublished Totally Unofficial: The Autobiography of Dr. Raphael Lemkin, was “the blackest day” of his life. It compounded the trauma of his parents’ and relatives’ murders, and left Lemkin in “extreme psychic pain,” said Schabas.

He developed dangerously high fever and high blood pressure.

He checked himself out of the hospital after hearing on the radio that the first agenda of the General Assembly (GA) was being prepared and would be finalized in five days’ time. He rushed to New York to initiate work on getting his idea of a Genocide Convention translated into reality. The next four years were a period in which “the idea of one man became an international treaty,” said Fussell. Lemkin later wrote that “he found temporary relief from my grief in this work” and “transformed my personal disaster into a moral striking force.”

Lemkin, Fussell said, underwent a “complete transformation” in 1946 from a man with many interests and friends to one who was single-minded, and gave up his personal life. Diplomats and U.N. correspondents, whom Lemkin lobbied unremittingly, later remembered him as a slightly stooped figure scurrying with

two large battered briefcases from delegate to delegate.

He succeeded in getting enough delegates to sponsor a resolution to declare genocide an international crime and to instruct a U.N. body to draw up a draft of a convention for the next GA session. In the course of a six-week period, he successfully lobbied all the delegates to get the resolution passed. On appointment by the secretary-general, Lemkin did the major drafting of the Convention, during which time he took a leave from his teaching job at Yale University Law School.

Prof. Alexander Laban Hinton of Rutgers University told the conference that mass murders of a social class would be considered genocide under the Convention. But the final text, which underwent tortuous political wrangling, did not include political or economic groups.

Nor did it include cultural genocide — a provision that both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. opposed. The inclusion of what Lemkin called “the destruction of cultural memory” was dear to his heart. He considered it a crime against civilization, which “results in the loss of [a group’s] future contribution to the world.” Hinton defined cultural genocide as the systematic and organized destruction of the art and cultural heritage in which the “unique genius” of a people is revealed, and of the cultural pattern of a group, which “must remind

Main provisions of the “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide” Article 2: Lists five actions committed with intent to destroy a group: killing its members, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, inflicting on it conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures to “prevent births” within it; and “forcibly transferring children to another group.”

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them of their history” and results in their “spiritual death.”

After the GA voted to adopt the Convention in December 1948, it still had to be ratified by 20 states to go into force. Lemkin, after being hospitalized again, leaped once more into his “lonely crusade,” wrote Korey, and lobbied without respite at the U.N. He had to borrow money for food and often went hungry. He could hardly stand on his feet at Lake Success and “had to look for support of a wall or a seat.”

Because of Lemkin’s unrelenting advocacy — facilitated by his being well-versed in the languages, traditions and concerns of many nations — the Genocide Convention was ratified by 27 states and went into force on January 12, 1951, which he called “a day of triumph for mankind and the most beautiful day of my life.” Since then, 140 countries have signed on.

Lemkin then worked on getting more ratifications of the Convention; he feared that without U.S. ratification, the Convention might share the fate of the League of Nations. His efforts failed due to the revival of the power of the right wing, which accelerated when the Korean War speeded up the acceptance of its nativism, xenophobia, isolationism and anti-Communism. Fear of the loss of American sovereignty — opening the country to international scrutiny — was used as an argument by

Article 3: Actionable crimes: genocide; attempts, conspiracy and incitement to commit it; and complicity in genocide.

Article 6: Persons charged with genocide shall be tried by a country’s tribunal or by an “international tribunal” with jurisdiction in countries which have accepted it.

Artitcle 8: Any signer may call upon any U.N. organ to take appropriate action under its Charter for “the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide” or any acts listed.

Major international treaties and prosecution since 1951

genocide. One of the eight senior officials on trial was convicted of organizing the systematic rape of Tutsi women, which the • International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), court found to constitute the genocidal act of “causing serious the first such special tribunal, was established in May 1993 at The bodily or mental harm to members of the group.” The judge ruled Hague. The ICTY arrested Slobodan Milosevic, president of Serbia that “sexual assault formed an integral part of the process of and Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and charged him with 66 counts of destroying the Tutsi ethnic group and that the rape was systematic crimes, including genocide, in Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo (he and had been perpetrated against Tutsi women only, manifesting died in 2006, during the trial). The ICTY also arrested Radovan the specific intent required for those actions to constitute Karadzic, president of Republika Srpska (Serb enclave in Bosnia), genocide.” and indicted him in 2009 on charges of genocide in organizing the • The International Criminal Court (ICC) became a permanent 1995 massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Moslem civilians in Srebrenica, tribunal in July 2002, aiming to prosecute individuals for genocide and of Croat civilians. His trial began and was postponed and and other crimes. As of fall 2009, it has received 2,889 complaints resumed in 2010. about crimes in at least 139 countries and dismissed those in • International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was established all but Uganda, Congo and Central African Republic, for most of 1994 after the Hutu massacre of 800,000 Tutsis. Major testimony which the perpetrators charged are still at large. An ICC prosecutor was given by Canadian Maj. Gen. Romeo Dallaire, chief of the initiated an effort in January 2010 to charge Sudan president Omar U.N. Mission there, who, to his intense pain, was unsuccessful Hassan al-Bashir with genocide. in his unrelenting efforts to bring about intervention to stop the

southern (white) senators who feared that the Convention might be used to target the treatment of blacks, who were escalating their struggle for civil rights amid lynchings and other atrocities.

After 1951, Lemkin was largely ignored and then forgotten, though he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize five times in the 1950s. He kept on writing, but no publisher would issue his books, including his three-volume History of Genocide and his Introduction to the Study of Genocide (its publication by Lexington Books is anticipated). These, his memoir and other papers are located at the AJHS, American Jewish Archives at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati and the New York Public Library, whose expresident, Vartan Gregorian, opened the conference.

Lemkin had no money except the $100 a month the Jewish Labor Committee gave him, and a tiny one-time grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. Ill and in dire poverty, Lemkin collapsed and died of a heart attack on Aug. 28, 1959. Immediately after his death, the landlord ordered his friends to clear out his one-room apartment near Columbia University, which was piled high with books and papers. The American Jewish Committee paid for his burial at the Mt. Hebron Cemetery in Queens. Seven people attended his graveside funeral.

Lemkin’s Legacy

“The history of the 20th century required Lemkin’s imagination to describe [group] rights,” said Prof. Berel Lang of Wesleyan University, who traced the expansion of the idea of human rights from individual rights — advocated during the 18th-century European Enlightenment — to its extension, derived largely from Lemkin’s views and work, to group rights. The problem, he continued, lies with who decides what these rights are and what if one group’s rights conflict with another’s or with individuals. He emphasized that it is crucially important not to misuse the word genocide, which he defined as the violation of a group’s right to existence inside and outside a nation, no matter who was responsible.

Prof. Benjamin Valentino of Dartmouth College said that debate continues to rage among scholars, international lawyers and jurists as to whether a specific event constitutes genocide because most people believe that using that word “implies a clear moral judgment” and a “clear obligation to do something”; Lemkin saw the word in these terms. Therefore, he continued, “the stakes are high.”

The speakers were united in favoring intervention but differed on what kind of intervention — military political, economic — and by whom. continued on page 25

Find Out More Reading John Cooper: Raphael Lemkin and the Struggle for the Genocide Convention” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) Daniel Goldhagen: Worse Than War: Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity (Public Affairs, 2009) William Korey: An Epitaph for Raphael Lemkin (American Jewish Committee, 2009) Raphael Lemkin: Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1944; reprinted, with additional material by Samantha Power and William Schabas, by Law Books Exchange, 2005) Samantha Power: A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide (Basic Books, 2002) Viewing Christiane Amanpour: “Scream Bloody Murder” (2008) — world’s failure to prevent or stop genocides, from Armenia to Darfur — CNN documentary Daniel Goldhagen: “Worse Than War” — PBS documentary Lemkin conference: proceedings, dates, speakers’ biographies; links to his papers; companion programs; exhibition: cjh.org/lemkin The United Nations Casebook, “Genocide,” CBS, 1949

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News Na’amat

Stories from the Glickman Center

N

a’amat’s Glickman Center for the Prevention and Treatment

of Domestic Violence in Tel Aviv provides services for some

1,000 women a year in its outpatient clinic. About 30 women and their children reside in its secure shelter. Following are the stories of two women who changed their lives at the center.

Emma

Emma is a self-employed 40-year-old and the mother of a teenage girl and boy. Throughout her 18-year marriage, her husband verbally abused and humiliated her. The first time Emma contacted the Glickman Center was following an incidence of physical violence. When she tried to call the police, her husband grabbed the phone and smashed it. Yet, the police came and ordered him to stay away from the house for a week; they advised Emma to contact Na’amat.

When Emma arrived for her first counseling session, she was upset and confused. At that point, she was advised to begin a therapeutic process with a social worker. The husband came back after a week, and Emma continued her life as usual. She went to work and took care of the children, but every Tuesday she would come to the Glickman Center at 6 p.m. for a three-hour group meeting with women who were victims of domestic violence; the sessions were mediated by a social worker.

As time went on, she grew stronger and gained the courage to offer her kids a healthier role model. Outside the home, she was an independent woman, and at home, she was no longer a doormat for her husband who had abused her in front of them.

After 10 months of therapy, there was another violent episode, not unlike previous incidents, but this time Emma had a different reaction: She was determined to put an end to it. She went to the police, filed a complaint and 16

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of her. Two years later, their second child was born, and because of economic difficulties, her boyfriend pressured her to move in with his parents in their home in an Arab village.

But his parents said they would agree only on one condition: that she convert to Islam and wear traditional garb and a veil. Natasha agreed to these conditions, thinking that if she wanted what’s best for her children, she had no other choice.

A short time after they moved in with his parents, Natasha converted to Islam in a short ceremony in the Shari’ah court (where she didn’t understand a word of what was said in Arabic).

Her husband became violent and demanded that his mother accompany Natasha wherever she would go — whether to the grocery store or Natasha, a Christian woman, married a Jewish man even to the baby clinic. when they were living in Russia, and seven years His mother didn’t allow Natasha to call her ago they moved to Israel along with his elderly friends or cook or even speak with her children parents. They all lived in a tiny apartment, but af- privately. ter six months, Natasha’s husband returned to RusAfter a violent incident in which the husband sia for work — or so he told her and his parents. hit Natasha in front of his mother, the neighbors Natasha stayed in Israel and continued to live with called the police — and this is how she got to her husband’s parents. For some reason, he didn’t the shelter. want to be in touch with them, and they’ve lost In the shelter, Natasha felt she could freely track of him. tell her story. She received counseling, and the After about a year, Natasha left his parents’ shelter’s lawyer was able to help her undo the apartment, moved to a different city and got legal complications she had with her marriages. a job. She met a man who she later learned The staff in the shelter helped her to rehabiliwas a Muslim and became pregnant. Just be- tate her life with her children. She also was able fore the baby was born, he moved in with her to explore the possibility of going back to her and became controlling and very possessive original religion. met with an attorney at the Glickman Center.

Following the complaint to the police, a restraining order was issued against the husband.

This time Emma was not worried about financial issues, because the center helped her to contact a state-issued lawyer who filed a claim with the family court, free of charge, suing for custody of the children and for alimony.

Today, about a year later, Emma is divorced, her former husband pays support, and, most important, the two children are relaxed and are not afraid to bring their friends home. When the school year ended, both kids brought home report cards that were significantly better than previous ones.

Natasha

Letters of Appreciation n Supervisor nal Educatio io at N ’s at am ’ To Na ilat Adaki, Hillerovitz: mother of Sh e th Dear Ms. Yael am I d y care erav an sgat Ze’ev da My name is M the Na’amat Pi in es bi ba e one of th echian, r, Server Segm ve gi re center. ca ’s er ed away. y daught r brother pass One week, m he e us ca be to work e other caredid not come replaced by th as w e sh e, senc yev and Hanna During her ab Mina Smenda a, er ts ha bu A a givers — Sim er, of my daught a. ev D excellent care d ok an to r, en he om to w All the themselves ng ti ap cked ad pi I s, need s. When fulfilling her d any change ce ti ring no du d ey di th if daughter notifying me unt what my co re ld ou w her up, they lm, responsibi the day. professionalis y, it iv Of it r. ns he se d th on They displaye love and warm gmechian’s, and lavished Se — as l on el ti w vo as de , ity, ble behavior da en m m co r course, thei ar long. sional and went on all ye s such profes ha it d ou pr Na’amat can be gratulaoyees. ar koach (con vo de ted empl work and yish od go e th Keep up tions)! eciation, In deep appr i Merav Adak

To the Be it Frieda Day Care Last mon Staff: th, the p arents of Center in the Beit F Ramle we rieda Day re in organized Care by the kin vited to a special ev dergarten Ethiopian staff to le ening and Moro arn abou cca center in t th the evenin n cultures. The pa rents cam e g and fou while Mo e to the nd it bea roccan an uti d Ethiopia ground. n music p fully decorated, layed in th After Shlo e backmit, the d ents and ir e c tor, and M Children iri, the PA Together) introducto CT (Parrepresenta ry tive, mad Ethiopian remarks, the pare e so nts were and Moro invited to me ccan trad One of th taste it io nal dishe e mothers s. first roast prepared ing the g b u na, Ethio ree with a sp pian coff ecial spic n coffee beans, th e and ma en grindin ee, clay pot. king the g them In additio coffee in n to the cookies a a special coffee, tr nd popco aditional rn were se the room devo rved. On , an the other popular in other mother mad side e moflett North Afr as, thin c of ica, whic or honey re h were se (or both), rved with pes and they Moroccan butter also taste zabane, w d the trad hich is a sugar. ition confectio n of egg wh al Some of th ites and e parents can outfi and staff ts brough wore tr t by one The child of the kin aditional Morocren partic derg ipated in parents. traditiona arten teachers. l dances It was a m with their agnificen new expe t e v ening, in riences. teresting and full o We hope f to have su thanks fo c h a d d it r the won ional acti vities, an derful init Sincerely, d many iative.

The paren ts of Beit Frieda Da y Care Ce nter

Women of the North Unite!

O

n March 8, Na’amat held a festive event in Tiberias to commemorate International Women’s Day. Some 500 women, mostly from the north of Israel, participated in the event, which was held to demonstrate solidarity with the women of the area.

Talia Livni, president of Na’amat, told the gathering: “Currently, the potential for employment for women in the north, both in the Jewish and Arab sectors, is not fully utilized in comparison to the center of the country. The Israeli government must allocate resources for developing employment opportunities and enhancing existing factories to increase the range of employment opportunities and to seek to adapt the labor

market to women and working mothers, and encourage employers to employ women through incentives.”

According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, women’s participation rate in the labor force in the north is lower by 17 percent than the participation rate in the

Na’amat leaders, from left, Yehudit Zusmanovitch and Talia Livni with actress Osnat Vishinsky.

center of the country.

Livni said that women from the north and the periphery of Israel are the first to be adversely affected by the lack of employment options and lack of government investment in the north. Forty-two percent of the women in the north participate in the labor force, while the national average is 51 percent; in the center of the country, it is 59.5 percent. Women’s unemployment rate in the north is the highest in Israel — 9.4 percent versus 5.3 percent in the center.

It also turns out that the proportion of women employed

in the north of Israel who work in lower paying jobs is greater than the proportion in the overall female population. Eight percent of them work in non-professional jobs, while the national rate is 6.6 percent, and only 12.1 percent are employed in academic professions in comparison to 14.6 percent in the entire population.

The other speakers were Tamar Gozansky, former Member of Knesset; Yehudit Zusmanovitch, chairperson of Na’amat’s women’s rights department; and Yafa Ifergan, an outstanding local leader who is the chairperson of Molitan’s Workers Association. (Molitan is a textile factory that was on the verge of closing but seems to have been saved by a buyer.)

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Alone in the Crowd

by FREDRICKA R. MAISTER

U

nlike my married sister who can’t go to Burger King by herself, I don’t mind eating out alone. Going to a movie, the theater, a museum or even abroad by myself is not an issue. I often welcome the opportunity to travel solo for the freedom it allows me to meet interesting people and explore new places.

On the other hand, attending weddings, bar/bat mitzvahs and other such communal affairs without a partner makes me one unhappy camper who just wants to go home.

For me, a single woman over the age of 45, paying my respects at a funeral is less depressing and more uplifting than being invited to one of these so-called “happy” events.

I recently attended the bat mitzvah of my good friend Judy’s* daughter. My initial reaction to such invites is typically “Do I really have to go?” In this particular instance, Brandy was a child who I had watched grow from infancy to young womanhood and I wanted to bear witness to her special day. For me, declining the invitation was not an option.

Although I looked forward with excitement to Brandy’s bat mitzvah, I was beset with increasing anxiety and dread as the date drew closer. I would only know a handful of the guests, mostly family members. One other single friend had a family obligation that day and would not be there, so I would be virtually on my own in a universe of couples and their families. My sister commiserated, “Yeah, you’ve got two strikes against you.”

One might get the impression from my reaction that I am shy. On the contrary. I am capable of talking to anyone about anything and, if the music moves me, I will boogie all by myself.

I learned in advance from Judy that I would be seated at a table with three couples and a single woman. Based on previous experience, I knew that I, an unattached single, would have to initiate conversation with my coupled tablemates, acting like an interviewer, that is, asking them questions about their lives without them asking me any questions in return. After extending myself, I could expect the wives to barely acknowledge me — and the husbands, fearful of their spouses’ reactions, to shrink from further conversation with me as if I were a femme fatale bent on threatening their marital bliss.

To emotionally prepare for the bat mitzvah, I fortified myself beforehand with a lot of self-talk. “It’s just four hours out of my life,” became my mantra. “You can get through it,” I told myself. I didn’t expect to have a good time. My 18

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goal was to get through the discomfort and isolation as fast and as painlessly as possible.

The cocktail hour felt interminable. With record speed, I exhausted my schmoozing opportunities, all of which I initiated, with the few guests I knew.

I even tried to strike up conversations with strangers.

That attempt proved disastrous when one woman’s opening line was, “Which kids are yours?” and I responded, “I don’t have kids,” adding, “I’m single.” Single! OMG! She turned her back on me and rejoined her husband a few feet away.

I spent much of the time wandering aimlessly from room to room, pretending to look for someone or something. I made a number of unnecessary trips to the bathroom. Sometimes I paused to look out the window but there is a limit to how many times you can feign wonder at the streets below. I eventually found some solace (and killed my appetite) at the appetizer table where I chatted with the friendly catering staff.

I welcomed the sit-down meal. At long last, I belonged to a group, even if that group consisted of coupled strangers.

The other single woman at our table arrived just in time to be seated. She explained that a personal emergency had prevented her from attending the cocktail hour. Why hadn’t I thought of that!

My single counterpart and I had much in common. We were both women over the age of 45 and writers who had worked for years in the publishing industry. Too bad that she was seated across the table from me, too far away to have a meaningful conversation.The good news was that she was a good conversationalist and savvy at “interviewing” our coupled tablemates, which took the onus off of me to singlehandedly initiate and maintain conversation.

At least the deejay refrained from playing slow, romantic cheek-to-cheek type music. I have been at affairs when the moment a slow song is played, there is a sudden mass exodus of couples to the dance floor, leaving me alone at an empty table, the quintessential wallflower.

No one asked me to dance, but I didn’t let that stop me.

I pushed myself to the center of the dance floor and danced with myself. At one point I beckoned a single woman I had met earlier at the synagogue service to come dance. Without a moment’s hesitation, she got up and hit the dance floor. I was starting to have some fun! She thanked me afterward. “I had been dying to dance. I could barely sit still,” she told me.

Brandy’s bat mitzvah celebration finally ended and I

Judith A. Sokoloff

went home. However, the experience lingered in my consciousness for months.

I kept harking back to “the old days” when I embraced these occasions with enthusiasm and gusto.

How I loved to dress up, meet new people and party. I recalled how the singles table was always the liveliest, most raucous and free on the dance floor. Even the married guests seemed friendlier and more engaging, the world less divided into couples and “others.” An invitation to a wedding or bar/bat mitzvah felt like a shared cause for celebration, not a dreaded social obligation to be endured alone.

Since then, I can count only two occasions when I have not felt like a social outcast. In both instances, I was one of the few white guests at the nuptials of a black couple. Married couples went out of their way to talk to me. Husbands, at their wives’ suggestion, asked me to dance. I concluded that as members of a minority they understood what it felt like to be shunned by the majority. I remember feeling quite touched by their sensitivity and inclusiveness.

If warm receptions were a thing of the past, I wondered how other single women in the post-45 range coped with couple-oriented communal affairs. Did they too feel ostracized because of their unattached status?

I conducted an informal, unscientific survey of some single woman friends for their take on this issue.

Only contrarian Ruth found it liberating and fun to be alone at these affairs. “Having once been married and miserable sitting with my asocial husband who needed me to do all the talking, I now do the talking for myself,” she said.

Ruth’s gay divorcee liberation aside, everyone else surveyed could relate to my experience of feeling like a “fifth

When you are married, people treat you better.

They show more interest when they see you have a husband on your arm, a status symbol.

wheel,” of not having anyone ask you to dance, of having to act like you are enjoying yourself. In fact, Cynthia said, “You’ve got to steel yourself and try to smile through the discomfort.”

Kathie, in a position to know, having been single for many years and now married, even noted, “When you are married, people treat you better.

They show more interest when they see you have a husband on your arm, a status

symbol. You’re more of an equal.”

So how does “the odd woman out” survive these social situations with her self-worth intact?

Rhonda and Miriam accompany each other; “who cares if they think we are gay” is their attitude. Kathie used to bring a gay male friend.

A number of women, like Rosalie, said they avoid these affairs altogether. “I send a gift and my regrets. Sometimes I make up a story that I will be out of town. I hate to lie, but I’ve got to protect myself,” Rosalie explained.

While total avoidance may seem like the easiest way out of these social affairs, what happens when a good friend or close family member is hosting?

As I ponder this dilemma, Judy has informed me that Eve, her second daughter, will be bat mitzvahed next year.

“Make sure you save the date,” she said.

I’ve already marked my calendar. It’s just another four hours out of my life.

——*Some names have been changed at the request of the individuals.

Fredricka R. Maister, a freelance writer, lives in New York City.

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We’re Headed for Success!

Na’amat Leadership Seminar Motivates Members.

Photos by Robin Lieberman

T

hirteen Na’amat USA members from around spoke about how new technolthe United States gathogy can help Na’amat increase ered at the Cleveland Marits visibility and membership. riott Hotel in March for the Sara’s main points were: Na’amat USA national lead1) Identify our competiership seminar. Under the tion for members and dollars theme, “All Aboard — We’re (not only other Jewish womEdythe Rosenfield, national president (far left), Headed for Success,” they enen’s groups, but hospitals, muand Liz Raider, national leadership development chairwoman (standing), are shown with some of the seminarists. thusiastically participated, they seums, etc.) and identify what learned and they bonded. makes us different and special.

The three-day event inWe said that Na’amat listens cluded speakers on public relations, ibility and attract new members; Marcy to the women in Israel and we respond membership involvement and the cur- Shankman talked about the organiza- to what they need. The heartbeat of rent challenges facing Jewish women’s tion’s image and vision and how to ac- what we do is women working in Israel organizations. Chosen by the areas or complish goals. to fill gaps in [social] services for women councils for their leadership skills and Other sessions dealt with the struc- and families. We should emphasize our potential, the seminarists were Karen ture of Na’amat in the United States point of differentiation, e.g., the work Saharack, Ellen Lerner and Joyce Jo- and Israel and strategic visioning for with women and families in Israel. seph from Greater Chicago Council; Jewish women’s not-for-profits. A high2) Who are the women we want Robin Lieberman, Susan Haas and Lin- light was a group activity in planning to reach? What do they care about? da Schoenberg from Cleveland Coun- a marketing program based on the na- Where do they hang out? What should cil; Judy Kobell and Marcia Weiss from tional byaws, with campaign materials be our main message to them? How can Pittsburgh Council; Lois Joseph from and presentations. The seminar pro- we reach them?

Las Vegas; Raena Zucker from Florida; gram was developed by Liz Raider and 3) Once we get e-mail addresses, we and Hilary Botchin, Rene Peters and national vice president Lynn Wax. can send e-blasts with graphics and links.

Talma Zelitzki from San Fernando Val“The seminarists have been very Our programming here should be ley Council. actively sharing ideas and enthusiasm topically linked with our programs in “The seminar was marked by the via e-mail since they returned home,” Israel. For example, speakers can inenthusiasm of the women and their said Raider. “This group of women of- clude a woman lawyer here who helps ability to dynamically participate in our fers much potential as well as resource women obtain a get (traditional Jewish interactive framework,” said Liz Raider, for our future leadership.” divorce decree); a person who works national leadership development chairWhat did the seminarists say about with a horse riding therapy program; someone from a crisis nursery. woman. National president Edythe their experiences?

Rosenfield and Western Area coordinator Marilyn Bristol also participated in Susan Haas Marcia Weiss the sessions. Three outside profession- I found this seminar exceptionally well The leadership conference was a great als spoke and ran workshops. Michelle planned and executed. The presenta- venue for a stimulating exchange of Levin ran a workshop on motivation; tion by Sara Stashower proved to be the ideas and an exploration of new and expublic relations expert Sara Stashower most informative. Long associated with citing ones. It provided an opportunity explained how new technology can Liggett Stashower, an advertising and for camaraderie as we learned together help the organization increase its vis- public relations firm in Cleveland, she and shared our experiences, triumphs 20

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and frustrations. The participants’ energy and the potential for further creative development led to a lingering “high.”

The most meaningful thing to me was creating a new logo for Na’amat.

The older generation knows the former name, Pioneer Women, and some younger women are just recognizing the name Na’amat and what the organization is actually doing in Israel. Well, we came up with some great ideas and developed a new logo and tag line. I appreciate what Na’amat is doing in Israel and I am so happy to be part of it.

Joyce Joseph

I felt very privileged to have been invited to this seminar. To be able to meet dedicated Na’amat women from all over the United States and to be able to share our ideas and concerns Enthusiastic seminarists worked on several hands-on projects, was a special experiincluding a marketing program for Na’amat USA. ence. Kol ha kavod to our leaders who organized this enlightening seminar.

We had an opportunity to address the rel- continue where we left off. I felt honored evance of Jewish women’s non-profit orga- to be among those chosen to attend.

Robin Lieberman nizations in today’s world; to learn about There is something energizing about the use of technology to increase our vis- Raena Zucker spending a couple of days with a group ibility; and the importance of leadership. The most important thing I got out ot of women. This particular group was inthe leadership seminar was confidence telligent, talkative, fun and was brought Karen Saharack in Na’amat ’s future. With women like together by a common goal: How can Thirteen Na’amat women from all parts the ones at the seminar, both the lead- we continue to make Na’amat USA a of the country discovered through lis- ers and the participants, we will suc- dynamic, successful organization and tening, discussing and presenting that ceed. I hope to use some of what I continue to attract new members as our we share similar values, problems and learned from the planning presentation core group is aging. No small agenda. goals for Na’amat USA. We all became in my work for Na’amat as well as in We came from different parts of closer, not just because we were stuck in reaching my personal goals. the country, and some of us are involved the hotel elevator together but because Impressive is the word I would in the same struggles. We shared what we made emotional connections based use to describe this seminar. I was im- is working and what isn’t. It felt like a on similar visions of our organization. pressed by the Na’amat leadership; im- starting point for coming together again Using what we learned about success- pressed by the speakers on planning, at the national convention. It was also ful organizational planning, setting and publicity and leadership; impressed a good experience for me to help with achieving goals and leadership qualities, by the exercises that were assigned to the implementation of this seminar, as we can develop Na’amat name recogni- make us think and follow through. Im- I was the local contact along with our tion, attract new and younger members pressed by my fellow participants, by executive director here. and increase involvement and commu- their warmth and their commitment nication. to Na’amat. Liz took us on a wonderful Hilary Botchin train ride and it was a great example of I walked into the leadership seminar Linda M. Schoenberg women working with women. knowing very few people. I walked The conference was an inspiring event; out having made some new friends each attendee brought with her a unique Lois Joseph and having gotten a lot of information, perspective. I wish the mean age had I have been a member of Na’amat for which will be most useful for my future been 15 to 20 years younger (alas, me in- seven years and have been the presi- work with Na’amat. Our discussions cluded) as we see the hard work we have dent of Rimonim club in Las Vegas for on creating a revised logo and tag line ahead to engage new members of this less than a year. I felt so honored when were very inspirational; the two teams demographic. I wish we could have had I was asked to go to Cleveland for the worked very well together to come up several more hours with Sara Stashower leadership seminar. with a great new logo. Congratulations whose ideas seemed to resonate with us.

There is so much to share and tell to the organizers for putting on such a I believe that many of us were motivated of what took place. We had thoughtful successful seminar. to attend the convention so that we could discussions and three great speakers. ­— Judith A. Sokoloff SUMMER 2010

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Book The Three Weissmanns of Westport

By Cathleen Schine New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux 292 pages, $25

L

ast August, my brother gave me a Kindle for my birthday. I was suspicious. A book is a book is a book. There is nothing better. A Kindle does not smell like a book or have the heft and texture and promise of story. It is hard to love a Kindle the way you might love a favorite hardcover. I knew it was expensive. Since my brother is very different from me — he’s an athlete, and he takes his facts very seriously and truly loves his Kindle — I suspected I never would. Still, I used it a little, downloading what he suggested — the Washington Post, Sherlock Holmes.

In the winter I went on vacation, and decided a plane ride was a good time to download a novel. The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine was the novel I chose — not War and Peace (which seems like travesty on a Kindle). Schine’s breezy incredibly readable story seemed Kindle perfect.

But to be sure that the hardcover experience was not altogether different, (Is a book a different book, depending on how we read it? Or where? That’s one of those endlessly ponderable questions.)

I read it in hardcover, too. Both experiences were a lot of fun.

Schine, like Elinor Lipman, another author who can tell a good story (her recent Family Man is a relative of Three Weissmanns — a little different, a little similar), has the gift of taking her reader by the hand and leading her through her story, very personally, like a best friend.

Take the first sentence: “When Joseph Weissmann divorced his wife, he was seventy-eight years old and she was seventy-five.”

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Without Schine saying much, you just know that he had an affair. Maybe his first. Probably with someone in his office. (Her name was unfortunate — Felicity.) A lawyer, he continued to work. Her story is not about that affair (thank the gods). Instead, it’s about his wife of 48 years — Betty. She liked Joseph. He’d been handsome once. He was reliable, predictable, even distinguished. And she thought he liked her.

How you start over at 75, and what happens next, is the story of this book.

Betty isn’t alone. Betty has two middle-aged daughters — Miranda and Annie, yin and yang. Miranda is a sexy flamboyant literary agent — tons of affairs, money, drinks at new hotels. Manolos. Think “Sex in the City.” Annie is a different type. Literary librarian. Divorced. Grown sons. Lonely but quiet about it. Not much sex. The whispered library life.

Betty and Joseph and the daughters (adopted by Joseph — Betty was a single mother when they met) lived in one of those apartments we New Yorkers wish we had — rambling and large, overlooking Central Park, full of a life well-lived: books, couches, views of trees. After 48 years, Betty has to leave.

Her wealthy cousin Lou offers her a cottage in Westport, Connecticut — part of his estate, not far from the water. Her daughters move in with her.

This is part goodwill and part survival for them as well. Miranda suddenly falls apart — her business implodes, and she loses her livelihood and her life. And Annie, although she continues her library life, implodes, too, in her librarian way.

What happens is the women — three people who could not know one another better — learn to live another

life. It isn’t one of those Darkness Before the Dawn Stories, where everything has to fall apart before it all gets better. And it’s not O. Henry, either. No big surprises or revelations.

What the book has is the author’s gift of telling a very good story. She brings other characters into the narrative with unusual grace. It’s as though they tiptoe in: Enter a successful middle-aged single-ish (circumspect) male author, Frederick Barrow. Available.

Articulate. Anne might possibly fall in love. He, too. The reader pictures them having cautious sex, keeping their socks on just in case.

Enter two instantly dislikable young skinny superficial women in their 30s.

Friends. Crystal and Amber. Amber has a panda tattoo. She does massage. Even the bad characters (they sort of are) are fun to read about.

This is a kind, sweet book. Reading it made me happy.

— Esther Cohen

Devotion: A Memoir

By Dani Shapiro New York: HarperCollins 245 pages, $24.99

I

n her intensely personal memoir, Devotion, author Dani Shapiro notes that like writing, yoga, meditation and prayer all share the same difficulties: “…the sitting down and making space…the clutter and piles of life are suddenly, unusually enticing.” Devotion offers us a glimpse into the process of making that space that informs Shapiro’s spiritual quest to conquer her own anxieties and inner chaos and make sense of her own beliefs.

Shapiro is haunted by the tragic death of her Orthodox father “who played by the rules” (engaging in daily prayer and ritual) and believed deeply in a God who failed to protect him from a fatal auto accident when Shapiro herself was barely an adult. The frighten-

ing, near-fatal illness of her infant son and the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers, visible from her Brooklyn apartment, serve only to heighten the anxiety and emptiness in her life as she enters her 40s.

Shapiro has a regular yoga practice but has a nagging feeling that she is only scratching the surface. “My bookshelves were filled with books I had bought with every good intention…containing serious insights about how to live. Over the years they remained unopened.

Taking up space. What would happen if I opened the books…opened up myself…. It wasn’t so much that I was in search of answers…. In fact, I was wary of the whole idea of answers. I wanted to climb all the way inside the questions and see what there was.”

As she proceeds on her journey, she finds herself in a receptive state that propels her to take one small action after another. “I had stepped into a stream and was now being carried along by an unfamiliar, powerful current,” Shapiro writes. The current includes learning with three very important individuals who present themselves as teachers in her life: Stephen Cope (director of the Kripalu Institute for Extraordinary Living), Sylvia Boorstein (a well-respected Buddhist teacher), and Rabbi Burton Visotzky (a friend who is a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary).

Many of her entries speak to the serendipity that led her to these people and to the synthesis of their teachings into her beliefs.

Brought up in an observant Jewish home, her father’s Orthodox practice and belief stood in stark contrast to her mother’s atheism.

Shapiro has a traditional Yeshiva education and knowledge of Judaism, and yet dismisses what this heritage might have in her search for meaning in her life with

her observation that “the daily business of being an observant Jew was pretty much a full-time job.” Only when she finds herself living in rural Connecticut surrounded by a world devoid of Judaism and contemplating the age at which she thinks her son should begin some religious education does she explore Jewish communal institutions.

Her impulsive purchase of a mezuzah on a vacation in Venice becomes a metaphor for the place her own Jewish tradition has, somewhat late, in her own spiritual journey. She purchases the mezuzah as a protection of some sort against the evils and uncertainties of the world, but it is not until several years later that she searches for that same mezuzah, which has been shoved into a drawer, to mount on the doorpost of her Connecticut home. She is reluctant to mount it herself and e-mails her mentor, Rabbi Visotzky, for instructions as to how to attach it and what prayer to say, secretly hoping that he will volunteer to do it for her. Instead, he e-mails her the simple instructions with the transliterated prayer, which she recites with her son as she finally realizes that she must mount the ritual item herself.

Shapiro’s readers follow her as she participates in yoga sessions and silent meditative retreats, and as she wraps herself in her father’s tallit and tefilin for the first time, though the reader is also left to wonder how and if these daily practices become integrated into her life.

Much of the book deals with her struggle to push away the obstacles to her belief. While Dani Shapiro is a seeker on a spiritual journey, she also is a believer, in spite of herself. During her son’s terrifying illness, she says: “I didn’t believe that God had caused this to hap-

pen, nor did I believe that, by praying to him, he would spare us. Still every moment of every day became a prayer….

Never once did I wonder who — if anyone — might be listening.” Several years later, she asks her husband Michael if he had prayed during this time, and he replies that it never occurred to him.

When she reveals to him that she did pray, he asks her if it helped. “It certainly didn’t hurt,” she answers.

She tells a survivor of the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers, who asks her to help him find meaning in his own survival, “God wasn’t up in the sky pulling the strings.” Drawing from her own grappling with her father’s death, she tells him: “I had risen out of the sadness and loss and did the only thing worth doing. I tried to become a better person…. You make it mean something.

That’s all you can do.”

Shapiro’s journey is recalled in small snippets, not unlike journal entries. They are not necessarily chronological, and it’s sometimes confusing which events of her life are informing her observations. But the free-form style makes the book easy to pick up and return to — almost like a book of meditations. And the snippets become a fabric of simultaneous doubt and belief that provoke one’s own inner journey.

It is clear from some of her recollections of early times that Shapiro has long been a seeker. In her early 20s, she secretly questions whether she is actually an alcoholic or believes in a higher power when regularly attending AA meetings. “Despite all my self-doubts and guilt about the God stuff — I was comforted by a sense of belonging that I never experienced before.”

At the end of the book, as Shapiro prepares her son for the Orthodox funeral of his great uncle, she tells him, “They believe in God differently than I do.” Watching her cousins who still live by “Torah-based Judaism,” she conSUMMER 2010

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firms her husband’s observation that “I had chosen life on the outside. I was an outsider.” As the author weaves together images of her own meditation on the yoga mat against the image of her Orthodox relatives reciting Kaddish in Hebrew and her son’s New England prep school classmates reciting the Lord’s Prayer in response to his request that they say a prayer for his uncle, the reader is well aware of all of the questions with which Shapiro has grappled, but wonders if she is still missing that sense of belonging.

— Marilyn Rose

Why Should I Care?

Lessons From the Holocaust

By Jeanette Friedman and David Gold New Milford, NJ: The Wordsmithy 263 pages, $15.00, softcover

I

t is not often that a book title comes our way as a question, but that is the case with Why Should I Care? Lessons From the Holocaust. It is surely an important question — perhaps one of the most important in this world. Will it interest its targeted audience — youth? I think so. It will also interest many adults.

Unhappy with books and movies and other forms of Holocaust education — author Jeanette Friedman said in a JTA article that “there is erosion, misinterpretation, trivialization and, perhaps worst of all, exploitation of the Holocaust as a fund-raising and political bludgeon” — she and co-author David Gold have come up with a new way to attract and challenge young people.

Readers, especially the younger ones, will appreciate the book’s peppy style, the slew of on-the-spot quotations, the rich anecdotal material, the links to Web sites (including one specifically for the book, www.whyshouldicareontheweb.com) and to popular culture — rap artists, Harry Potter, Borat, Star Wars. The information is packaged in short captivating nuggets, good for short attention spans and those used to retrieving material quickly.

Readers will also appreciate the authors’ attitude. Friedman and Gold, both 24

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children of Holocaust survivors, make it clear that the book is “not meant to be a treatise or speculation on God, good or evil. We are not writing theology. We are trying to be practical and describe what is observable about people’s behavior. For some, the Holocaust is all about God. For…this book, it’s about people and the way they behave.”

Why Should I Care? exhorts one to repair the world (tikkun olam) and empower oneself to effect change — but it is not preachy. The authors discuss the concepts of freedom, power, evil and the difference between ethics and values. The straightforward values lessons go down easily. Do the right thing: We can prevent genocide by changing the ways people think about each other, the ways we think about ourselves and the ways we treat each other. We must fight racism and hatred; if not, evil will flourish. We are responsible and accountable for our actions. We can’t remain silent in the face of injustice and the killing of innocents.

A chapter on courage addresses slavery, genocide in Africa, torture and terrorism, with stories about the heroes and the righteous ones who have rescued the innocent. The many forms of resistance against the Nazis in the ghettos, camps and forests are discussed in

the chapter, “The Bold and the Brave.” Holocaust denial is another topic. Compelling stories of survival are also told.

A long epilogue presents horrifying statistics about genocide, for instance: “Since the beginning of the 20th century, more than 50 million individuals have been murdered in acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing…. We cannot fathom what talents and new universes were destroyed.” A “Concise History of the Holocaust” (about 20 pages) is also part of the epilogue. This is followed by a large appendix with notes on topics such as the Nuremberg Laws, the Six Pillars of Character, the Definition of a Sociopath, and includes remarks by President Obama, German Chancellor Merkel and Elie Wiesel at Buchenwald in 2009.

The overall construction of the book is not as smooth as it could be; sometimes odd detours and a questionable order of topics make for a rocky flow of information. But this does not detract from its many commendable attributes.

Jeanette Friedman told me over the phone that high school and university educators are responding very positively to the book. I can see why.

— Gerd Stern

Stock Up on Na’amat USA Greeting Cards, so You’ll Always Have Them on Hand.

We have a large selection of lovely cards for all your needs: birthday, anniversary, new baby, get well, in memory, mazel tov, thank you, note card, to brighten your day.

Contact the national office for details: 212-563-5222 or naamat@naamat.org.

Genocide

continued from page 15 Prof. Lawrence Woocher of the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention of the U.S. Institute of Peace stressed that while ”economic shock” could “trigger the need for a scapegoat,” and environmental-economic stress could activate group conflict, genocide is not a “spontaneous event” but one that is organized by a leadership clique.

To sustain the atrocities, the clique needs economic means — which enable it to provide arms and other materiel to low-level perpetrators — and, therefore, disrupting them might be effective.

All the speakers on the topic of intervention agreed with Woocher that it must take place at an early stage. This was also the basis of the proposal by author Prof. Daniel Goldhagen, speaking after screening a preliminary version of his powerful film for PBS, “Worse Than War.” He suggested the creation of a “dedicated organization of democratic nations to craft prevention, intervention and justice” in cases of genocide. The new organization, Goldhagen said, must be capable of “identifying when a genocide begins,” and must trigger measures “to activate an anti-genocide system” because “waiting a few days is a catastrophe.”

Prof. Donna-Lee Frieze of Deakin University in Melbourne told the conference that “genocidal cultural destruction” (a term she prefers to cultural genocide) is usually the “first phase” of genocide. The murder of a group’s intellectual leaders and the destruction of its cultural symbols (art, buildings, monuments, books) are designed to render the group “defenseless” against physical attack, and constitute “evidence of intent to destroy” it. Prof. Peter Balakian of Colgate University described these atrocities in Armenia.

Factors Contributing to Intervention

Speakers at the CJH conference discussed two important social and historical factors in the evolution of thought and action on intervention in cases of genocide: the increasing influence of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the development of international law.

From the latter part of the 19th

century, humanitarian groups began to protest and/or provide proactive assistance to victims of human rights atrocities. Some examples: the assistance to the Irish during the potato famine; the Congo Reform Association brought the atrocities in that Belgian colony to international attention after reports even before 1900 called it a “slave state,” said Prof. Benedict Kiernan of Yale University.

NGO influence continued to grow and had a major impact on the adoption of the Genocide Convention in 1948 by the U.N. The Committee for an International Genocide Convention established by the National Council of Christians and Jews — with Lemkin as its theorist and strategist — submitted a petition to the U.N. with signatures by leaders of 166 NGOs from 28 countries with memberships of over 200 million people in September 1948. Three months later, the Convention was adopted.

Ruth Messinger, president of American Jewish World Service and a speaker at one of the CJH’s companion programs that followed the conference, said that NGOs’ work is “helpful” with work in education and advocacy, but acknowledged that “we haven’t gotten responses from governments that we would like to see. It’s slow-going.”

Regarding the sluggish pace of the evolution of international law, Schabas emphasized that it “moves forward in spurts of activity” such as those during and after the 1915-1919 Armenian genocide, the Nuremberg Trials, the adoption of the Genocide Convention, and the creation of international tribunals in the 1990s.

It took 42 years from the time the U.N. adopted the Genocide Convention for it to take any action on genocide.

Most of those years were those of the Cold War, when action was impeded because the U.S. was “lukewarm” to attempts to prosecute genocide, said Schabas. But “building on Lemkin’s great and detailed work,” said Messinger, is going on.

In 1993, drawing on Article 8, according to which any signing party could authorize a U.N. body to take up a case of genocide, the Security Council established the ad hoc International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugo-

slavia. In 1997, it established another ad hoc tribunal on Rwanda. In 2002, acting on Article 6, the U.N. founded the International Criminal Court. China, Israel, Russia, Sudan and the U.S. have not joined it (see box on p. 15).

Lemkin never received a Nobel Peace Prize for his pioneering work, which he so richly deserved; efforts should begin for a posthumous one.

Nowhere at the U.N. is there a bust of Lemkin, nor is any street named after him near the Secretariat building or elsewhere in New York or Washington. The only monument to him is his tombstone, which reads, “Father of the Genocide Convention.”

Over 60 years after the adoption of the Convention he created and championed, “our world is not a world free of genocide,” said Bosnian Muhamed Mesic of the Brainswork Institute, a think tank in Vienna. (Egregious examples are the genocides in Congo and Darfur.)

Nevertheless, the small but palpable advances of the tribunals and courts demonstrate that, to use Mesic’s words, Lemkin’s “larger-than-life legacy is growing over time.”

Lemkin’s work is “proof that one man can make a difference,” Messinger said. Lemkin made the world conscious that there is such a mega-crime as genocide and that the international community is responsible for making sure it does not continue to be perpetrated.

He created a workable instrument for nations to do so. With this consciousness and with this instrument and others it inspires and motivates, the international community may possibly be able one day to overcome power politics, indifference and inertia to rid the world of genocide. The world may yet fulfill the inspiring vision of the lonely lawyer, linguist and humanitarian pioneer Dr. Raphael Lemkin.

Aviva Cantor, the initiator of Lilith magazine, is the author of Jewish Women, Jewish Men: The Legacy of Patriarchy in Jewish Life,” a feminist exploration of Jewish history, culture and psychology (HarperCollins, 1995) and The Egalitarian Hagada.© Copyright Aviva Cantor 2010. All Rights Reserved. Cantor can be reached at eisenspring@yahoo.com.

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Campus

continued from page 7 sidered anti-Semitic, but sometimes things can get out of hand with anti-Semitic epithets shouted that are clearly not acceptable,” Lauter says.

StandWithUs offers students and organizations numerous resources, including stand4facts.org, a passwordprotected Web site with biographical information, sample questions to ask, and flyers about anti-Israel speakers who come to campuses.

Roz Rothstein, executive director of StandWithUs, sees “similarities across far too many campuses where campaigns for the de-legitimization of Israel are being used, and when that happens, it usually escalates into something that resembles anti-Semitism. Thankfully, Natan Sharansky did define it, and we have been helping students and community members look at it in this way.”

Rothstein continues: “There are certain schools where we hear from students all the time. At DePaul University, Norman Finkelstein [the controversial political scientist and author] lay his seeds of hatred — and since he’s left, we’ve seen the students are actually afraid to wear the Magen David on campus. We just got a call that Loyola University in Chicago is in dire need of support. There are certain campuses that have stronger Muslim student unions and far-leftist groups that have this agenda and are working in tandem to really destroy…Israel’s image on their campus. That is their target goal and what they will do with their campaigns and programs.

“In the last 12 months, we’ve seen more of these incidents than we have in the last nine years. What matters is that Israel’s voice on campus is not being heard because now we’re being told we need thousands of dollars of security to secure a speaker that will come and represent Israel, whereas the other side comes as a free for all. No one is going to threaten anybody who represents the Palestinian point of view.

“We brought four soldiers from Israel to speak on campuses [in response to the Goldstone Report], and they were unable to speak in Northern California at a few campuses because of this issue 26

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of security, so now free speech is not free.”

This past March, a broad spectrum of organizations in the pro-Israel community countered Israel Apartheid Week with Israel Peace Week on many campuses in the United States, reflecting a heightened awareness about antiIsrael activities. Joining StandWithUs, The David Project and Hasbara Fellowships in their condemnation of the week were J Street and its campus arm, J Street U, and the liberal Zionist group Ameinu.

One approach the ADL, StandWithUs, ZOA and Hillel are working together on is the need for more civil rights protections for Jews on campus.

These organizations, along with nine others, sent a letter in March 2010 asking U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, to assert his authority and clarify that Jews are included under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Title VI protects against discrimination based on race, ethnicity or national origin.

Although it does not include religion, Jewish groups want Jews to be included on the grounds that Jews are often discriminated against for ethnic characteristics and not just religion. In addition, previous Supreme Court decisions have indicated that Jews are considered included under the Title VI umbrella.

The need for those protections on campus is not news to the U.S. government. In April 2006, the United States Commission on Civil Rights issued findings and recommendations regarding incidents of anti-Semitic harassment at college campuses throughout the nation.

A Look at Two Campuses

Zac Kaye, Hillel director for the University of Toronto and its affiliate, commuter campus York University, says that while York has been in the center of anti-Israel movement on campus for the past 7 to 10 years, there is a rich Jewish life for students, including a Hillel, a kosher dining hall and a very well known Jewish studies program.

Still, says Kaye, the anti-Israel activity on campus has seeped into every aspect of student life, including misuse of the podium by professors and teaching assistants (T.A.’s), campus confrontations between groups, extra security

needed for both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian speakers, and even the use of both the student government and T.A.’s employee union to disseminate the proPalestinian message on campus.

Kaye reports: “One student was wearing a Tzahal [Israeli army] T-shirt, and a T.A. said, ‘If you want to come to my class you can’t wear that.’ That student did complain, and the T.A. was found to be in breach of whatever the rules are.”

An increase in the appearance of swastikas etched in desks in the library, found in bathrooms and other places may be the result of ignorance or something else, Kaye says, but they definitely contributed to the creation of an unwelcoming atmosphere. “There’s no question that Jewish students feel that the rhetoric has crossed over from what they consider anti-Israel to what they feel have been anti-Semitic attacks.”

As for assertion of StandWithUs that the cost of security is preventing pro-Israel speakers from coming to campus, Kaye says that while he has gone out of his way to ensure students feel safe at pro-Israel events, the most it has ever cost for the security is $200. He also points out that the longstanding policy that groups pay for any extra security for their speakers, as determined necessary by the university, is enforced equally.

In fact, not long after Netanyahu’s 2003 speech at Montreal’s Concordia University was cancelled due to proPalestinian protesters, Hillel invited Daniel Pipes to speak. According to Kaye, this not only served as a catalyst for pro-Palestinian groups on campus to organize, but they also told those at Hillel, “He’s not going to speak here.”

Kaye’s response to that, of course, was to tell them that they were never going to dictate who’s going to speak.

“The administration, in light of the events at Concordia, decided that he should speak because universities… should be open to public debate and discourse…and proceeded to create a physical space…on a sort of isolated part of campus. They took out the glass and replaced it with bulletproof glass.

They agreed that we could go ahead with the speech, but it would be a controlled audience…. The abiding im-

age that I’ll always have is looking out from the inside, and seeing a phalanx of about 20 Toronto policemen on their horses.” And, he adds, York University paid for all of it.

“The view of most people on campus to this day,” Kay observes, “is ‘a plague on all your houses . “What’s this all about? Those Jews and those Arabs!’”

The irony is that at York University we have very few Palestinian students.

Most of the active [anti-Israel] students are Jewish.”

There has been progress on the campus toward creating a more civil climate, according to Kaye. “Last year, the university set up a task force in response to the constant confrontations on campus and various other activities that the university felt were not in keeping with the ethos of freedom of speech and civil discourse. The goal of the task force was to create a climate on campus that allowed for civil discourse and reduced the level of violent confrontation and where you could actually sit in a room and have a discussion.”

There are still unresolved issues with anti-Semitism in the student government and their alleged manipulation of the elections to advance their proPalestinian views. The university is currently looking into voting irregularities in the last election. This is an improvement from the year before when Hillel brought similar allegations to their attention.

“We’re not letting down our guard,” Kaye emphasizes. “We will continue to promote very positive Israel activities.”

Greg Steinberger, Hillel director at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, is also troubled about certain incidents. “If you’d asked me 10 months ago or even five months ago, ‘What is Jewish life like on campus?’ I would say there hasn’t been a better moment for Jewish life on campus…it’s a welcoming, hospitable place for Jewish students.”

The running of a Holocaust denial ad in The Badger-Herald is one cause for concern. He explains that its placement was essentially the result of the lack of due diligence and of an outsider manipulating the system to place his ad online for 30 days. By the time the newspaper understood what was going on, they had already committed them-

selves to a situation they were unable to back down from. Steinberger attributes their reluctance to back down to the arrogance of 18 to 21 year olds rather than any sort of anti-Semitism.

They opened up a Pandora’s box in a whole variety of ways that has created discomfort for Jewish students, says Steinberger. The man who ran the ad was emboldened and is now running another online ad with a different Midwestern university newspaper. “He started these very unpleasant YouTube videos where he addresses the chancellor, myself and the editor in chief as a way of having a direct five-minute conversation with a host of people on campus and creating turmoil, anxiety or pressure.”

Jewish students took the situation and created a Holocaust Remembrance Rally.

Steinberger sums up: “One can say, [Norman] Finkelstein was here this week, the newspaper had 30 days of terrible stuff, there were terrible comments in the paper, there’s a Mideast studies class that is typically bad, has no academic rigor and is taught by somebody who is controversial. All of that makes for the case that the university is an anti-Semitic place. I would disagree, but that argument could absolutely be made.”

Preparing for the Future

Jewish organizations are pro-actively recruiting the next generation of leaders and finding them at the most influential time — during their college years.

Some 1,300 students attended the 2010 AIPAC Policy Conference, representing over 350 colleges and universities, including Christian and historically black colleges. Over a quarter were student government presidents. Some did not have any connection to AIPAC until it offered them a free trip to Washington.

Jonathan Kessler, leadership development director for AIPAC, points out that future foreign policy makers emerge from student government, Democratic and Republican college groups, and the leadership of sororities and fraternities.

Kessler says: “How are we going to beat back an anti-Israel divestment

resolution at Berkeley? We’re going to make sure pro-Israel students take over the student government and reverse the university vote. This is how AIPAC operates in our nation’s capitol. This is how AIPAC must operate on our nation’s campuses.”

Ben Harris of JTA reported that Professor Alan Dershowitz was greeted like a rock star at a late night Q & A session with Berkeley students. Dershowitz told the students: “Don’t let them push you around. Don’t let your teachers mislead you. Stand up to your teachers…. It’s your university. You have the right to fight back. You have the right to demand fairness. You have the right to demand sensitivity. Don’t let them take the agenda away from you.”

Students are taking charge. When a Jewish student at the University of North Dakota was unable to convince the administration that the drawing of a swastika on his dorm floor was a hate crime, he went to the media (he was the only Jew in the dorm). For weeks, the local ABC and Fox affiliates reported on the story and kept the issue in the spotlight. When something similar happened the following year, the university took stronger action against the perpetrator and acknowledged it as an anti-Semitic incident.

Mark Weitzman, director of government affairs and the task force against hate and terrorism for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, spoke at a Baltimore Yom HaShoah observance, along with Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley — something Jews facing quotas years ago could not have imagined.

He summed up the dangers of antiIsrael sentiment turning into anti-Semitism. “The anti-Semitism that exists today is not necessarily…the anti-Semitism of the crude variety that scribbles swastikas on synagogues. It is a more sophisticated, politically active antiSemitism…that is prevalent in different parts of the Western world.”

Natasha Rosenstock is a writer living in Potomac, Maryland, with her husband and daughter. This is her fifth article for Na’amat Woman. She can be found at www.natasharosenstock.com.

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AROUND THE COUNTRY √ Palm Beach Council holds its annual Scholarship Luncheon, featuring guest speaker Avi Mizrachi, executive director of the Foundation for Holocaust Education Projects in Hollywood, Florida. From left, standing: Raena Zucker, council president; Irene Hack, national treasurer; Marjorie C. Moidel, Southeast Area coordinator; Joyce Schildkraut, national board member; Mr. Mizrachi; Rosalie Grad, national board member; and Leatrice Kolodney, scholarship chairwoman; seated: Frieda S. Leemon, past national president.

π Amat club of Akron, Ohio, hosts its annual “Super Salad Supper” at the home of Rita Stein, where participants bring salads, side dishes, entrees and desserts.

Prizes are given for the best recipes, which are published in the Akron Jewish News. Guest speaker Cheryl Saferstein, daughter of life member Deborah Saferstein, spoke about her five months in Jordan as part of the School for International Training program. From left: Linda Groden; Lani Rothstein, event co-chairwoman; Marilyn Groden, treasurer and event co-chairwoman; and Michal Levine, past president.

π New York snowbirds held their mid-winter luncheon in Boca Raton, Florida. Particpants brought stuffed animals to be donated to the local women’s shelter. Guest speaker Eliezer Rivlin from the Israeli Consulate in Florida spoke about the critical issues affecting Israel. From left: Bernie Resnick; Mr. Rivlin and Isabel Resnick, Sabra club president (Brooklyn, NY).

π Esther Goldsmith club of Lakewood, New Jersey, honors club president Debbie Troy Stewart with a Builder in Israel certificate. From left, seated: Annette Basri and Rita Michel, treasurer; standing: Elaine Perdeck, program vice president; Pearl Epstein, Spiritual Adoption chairwoman; Helen Marder, recording secretary; Rachel Vogel, raffle chairwoman; Irma Komar, location chair; Debbie Stewart; Dorothy Weidenfeld; Estelle Roey; Doris Crudup, membership vice president; and Honey Greenberg.

π Masada/Natanya club (Broward Council) holds its annual Spiritual Adoption luncheon. Guest speaker Rita Sherman, treasurer of Penina club (Palm Beach Council), gave an inspirational talk about the early days of Na’amat USA and about the Na’amat day care program in Israel. From left: event chairwomen Bunny Cooperman, Barbara Gubernick; Sherman, event chairwomen Lil Tauber Mart and Helen Cantor.

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π Forty members of the Masada/ Natanya club (Broward Council) were treated to a Chinese buffet at a paid-up membership luncheon. Guest speaker Joyce Schildkraut, national board member, spoke about the latest news from Na’amat Israel and the upcoming Na’amat USA convention. From left: treasurer Elaine Rosenberg, Schildkraut and copresident Helen Lefkowitz.

π Members and friends enjoy a fund-raiser held by the Nitzanim club (San Fernando Valley Council). The guest speaker was Zoe Klein, chief rabbi of Temple Isaiah and author of the book, Drawing in the Dust, a fascinating novel that delves into the world of biblical excavation in Israel.

From left: Linda Blanshay; co-president Danielle Klausner; Rachel Perez; Klein; Marci Heskel; program and education vice president Yael Swerdlow and Haleila Nusinow.

π Shalom club of Long Island/Queens Council celebrates Mother’s Day. From left, seated: Nadine Simon, co-president and council spiritual adoption chairwoman; Carol Knecht, Susan Gottlieb, Reggie Rog, national recording secretary and council treasurer; Diane Hershkowitz and Florence Lefkowitz; standing: Linda Biderman, Rudy Ainn and Tal Ourian, council fund-raising vice president.

π Boston Council invited attorney Warren J. Hurwitz to speak about issues concerning the group — health care proxies, wills, trusts, estate taxes and long-term care. His mother, Vera Hurwitz [z’l], was a life member and past editor of the council’s newsletter. From left, seated: Ethel Valinsky, Sara Ben-Meir, Warren Hurwitz, Rose Yang and Annette Matross; standing: Liz Blumenthal, Avis Jacobson, Doris Lelchook, Janice Porter and co-president Pearl Porter.

π Kadimah club of Palm Beach Council presents “Night at the Races,” a successful fund-raiser. From left: Doris Bernanke, Gloria Green and Lillian Schoenfeld, program/education vice president.

π Cleveland Council members and Friends of Na’amat USA enjoy a Lunch Musicale with Alex Federiouk on cymbalon and Jozef Janis on violin at the home of Myra and Rick Stone. From left: Florence Dobrin, Marguerite Morris, Anita Cohn (seated), president Robin Lieberman, Carolyn Frankel-Siegel and Myra Stone.

π Members of the Masada/Natanya, Medina and Negev/Gila clubs enjoy the “Chai Tea,” which took place at the home of Broward Council co-president Ruth Racusen. From left: Matty Katz; Gloria Freiling; Raya Morrison, Masada/Natanya club fund-raising vice president; Mildred Cohen and Helen Cantor, Masada/Natanya club program/education vice president.

π “Spring into Green” was the theme of San Fernando Valley Council’s festive spring luncheon. Eilat club put together a boutique with more than 20 vendors; Tikvah club coordinated a silent auction; and Nili club provided prizes for raffle winners. From left, seated: event co-chairwomen Eileen Maddis and Joey Bilow; standing, first row: Hilary Botchin, fund-raising vice president; Renee Mansdorf; Rene Peters, Marci Gussin, president Esther Friedberg and Kathy Rosenblatt; second row: Phyllis Mahler, Michelle Eskenazi, Robyn Beresh, Sandi Cummins and Sandy Cohen.

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Circle of Hope Donors

Convention Registration Form

Na’amat USA is grateful to the following for their generosity.

Thank you for helping at-risk Israeli teenagers achieve scholastic success and personal growth in Na’amat technological high schools.

One ($1,600) or More Circles Fannie Falk In Honor of Robert & Steven Russel Esther Hirsh Niki Schwartz Frieda Leemon June & Bernard Sperling Doris Lewy Palm Beach Council Others Joe Bornstein Norwegian Cruise Line Natalie Charach Sally Oberlander Emilia Davidoff Margo Schild Lois Joan Davis Shira Shacter Ida S. Duldner Ellen Toker Phyllis Ingwer Roma B. Wittcoff

NA'AMAT USA 40TH NATIONAL CONVENTION BOCA RATON, FLORIDA, JULY 11-14, 2010 Please print your name as you wish it to appear on your badge.

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Welcome to the New Life Members of NA’AMAT USA

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Convention Package: $400 (per person, double occupancy); single supplement $150. The package includes all hotel taxes, service charges and tips, plus opening night reception, 2 dinners, 2 breakfasts and closing brunch.

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EASTERN AREA Aveeya Dinkin East Syracuse, N.Y. Ila Goldman Seaford, N.Y. Dina Vincow Fayetteville, N.Y.

Talia Mahboubi Beverly Hills, Calif.

Rachel Margolis Los Angeles, Calif.

Tehila Umiel Sherman Oaks, Calif.

SOUTHEAST AREA Blossom Levine Pembroke Pines, Fla. Shana Margolis Altamonte, Fla. Brenda Nullman Miami Beach, Fla.

FRIENDS Adam Barbag Boca Raton, Fla. David Pevsner Los Angeles, Calif.

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Please send to Na’amat usa, 350 Fifth Avenue, Suite 4700, New York, NY 10118.

For further information, call your area office or the national office at 212-563-5222 or fax 212-563-5710.

MIDWEST AREA Bernice Kangisser Beachwood, Ohio Janet Pevsner Northbrook, Ill. Erica Schwab Highland Park, Ill.

AFFILIATES Laila Millie Margolis 6 months old Los Angeles, Calif.

Sponsored by Great-Grandmother Marcia Pevsner

Send NA’AMAT USA Your E-mail Address

WESTERN AREA Samantha Bardelman Oakland, Calif.

Parvin Fogel Calabasas, Calif.

Nina Gabay Beverly Hills, Calif.

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30

Ava Morris 9 months old Santa Monica, Calif.

Sponsored by Grandmother Debby Firestone

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SUMMER 2010

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Please send your name and e-mail address to naamat@naamat.org.

Na’amat USA values your privacy. Your e-mail address will never be sold or provided to an outside party.

NA'AMAT USA 40th National Convention

SPREADING SUNSHINE WITH NA'AMAT July 11-14, 2010

z

Boca Raton, Florida

CONVENTION HIGHLIGHTS Sunday, July 11

Tuesday, July 13

9:00 A.M.-5:30 P.M. — Registration

8:00-9:00 A.M. — Breakfast

7:00 P.M. — Gala Opening Ceremony Welcome: Chellie Goldwater Wilensky, National Convention Chairwoman; Edythe Rosenfield, National President; Talia Livni, President, Na’amat Israel; Susan Whelchel, Mayor of Boca Raton.

Keynote speaker: Gabriela Shalev, Israel Ambassador to the United Nations.

Entertainment: Shalom Band.

9:00-10:00 A.M. — “Anti-Semitism” Speaker: Andrew Rosenkranz, Florida Regional Director, Anti-Defamation League.

Monday, July 12

10:15-11:45 A.M. — “Women in the Workplace” Panelists: Beverly Hinton, Deputy Director, Birmingham office, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; Adria Silva, President, Florida National Employment Lawyers Association; Erika Rotbart, former President of NELA.

7:30-8:30 A.M. — Breakfast

1:15-2:15 P.M. — “Israel and the Muslim World” Speaker: Eli Kavon, Writer and Lecturer, Nova Southeastern University.

8:30 A.M.-Noon — Business Plenary Credentials, treasurer’s and president’s reports; election of officers and national board; bylaws.

2:30-3:30 P.M. — American Affairs Session Speaker: Mark Raider, Professor of Modern Jewish History, University of Cincinnati.

1:30-2:30 P.M. — “Life in Israel and the Diaspora” Speakers: Judy Telman and Elizabeth Norohian.

6:00 P.M. — Area Photographs

2:45-3:45 P.M. — “Successful Volunteer Organizations” Speaker: Rabbi Charles Simon, Executive Director, Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs.

3:45-5:00 P.M. — Area Coordinators Session 7:00 P.M. — Celebrating Tel Aviv Dinner Speakers: Masha Lubelsky, WZO Exec. Committee (“Zionism Today: Is it Still Relevant?”); Paul Hirschson, Deputy Consul General of Israel in Florida (“100th Anniversary of Tel Aviv” and “Update on Israel”).

Entertainment: singer Susan Linder.

7:00 P.M. — Installation Banquet Speaker: Talia Livni, President of Na’amat Israel.

Entertainment: singer Bob Weiner.

Wednesday, July 14 9:00-10:00 A.M. — “Using Social Media” Speaker: Rebecca Higman, Network For Good.

10:30 A.M. -12:30 P.M. — Closing Brunch Presentations and awards.

Speakers: Talia Livni and new president.

Spreading the Sunshine With NA'AMAT! Join us in Boca Raton, Florida, for the 40th National Convention of NA'AMAT USA.

July 11-14, 2010 at the

Marriott Boca Raton

Experience the spirit and excitement of a NA'AMAT USA convention. Join dynamic women in stimulating discussions and important plenaries.

Enjoy socializing with members from across the United States and visitors from Israel. Generate new ideas and help shape the future of the organization.

Top Israeli and American personalities Gala banquet and festive entertainment Sessions on critical issues Election of national officers And much, much more!

Make our convention part of your family vacation!

See pages 30 and 31 for registration form and program.