I NOTEBOOK
First,
The Good News
Author Danny Siegel
says the Jewish
community should
trumpet its success —
and start to work on
problems that still exist.
DANNY SIEGEL
A
n expert is anyone who
comes from more than
50 miles away.
In that sense, I am an ex-
pert on the American Jewish
community since I spend my
life traveling from communi-
ty to community teaching,
preaching and most of all
learning about mitzvah work.
As a speaker on The Jewish
Circuit, I am always meeting
inspiring Jews and picking up
hints about the Jewish corn-
munity by being one day in
llicson and two days later in
New London.
THE GOOD NEWS
1. The Plethora of Fine
Jews: It makes no difference
if the audience or seminar at-
tendees number 350 or 25,
everywhere I go—every-
where—there are so many fine
people, unsung, unpublicized,
sustaining the Jewish com-
munity. They are all ages,
both sexes, in every shape
and height and weight. They
are the seller of JNF trees on
a one-to-one basis, they are
the finders of the fine quality
couch for recently-arrived
Soviet Jewish immigrants,
they are the ones who tutor
the special-education adult
who wants to be part of a con-
firmation class in a
synagogue. They are the mi-
nyanmakers for the shivas of
people who otherwise would
not have a minyan. They are
the ones who pick up the
flowers the day after a bar
mitzvah or right after a
Jewish community dinner
and take them to the old age
home or hospital. And they
48
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1989
Special to The Jewish News
are the ones who make sure
the rabbi's discretionary fund
has enough money to bury
with dignity a Jew who dies
without enough of an estate
to afford a decent funeral.
I cannot think of a town I
have been in in the last 25
years where I haven't met at
least one or two of them.
They are the Builders and
Sustainers, the Quiet Ones,
and they are everywhere.
2. The Adult Bar and Bat
Mitzvah People: No question
about it: the single most
powerful and long-lasting
Jewish educational program
in America is the adult bar
and bat mitzvah program.
All I need to do at one of
my programs is ask, "Have
Everywhere I go —
everywhere
there
are so many fine
people, unsung,
unpublicized,
sustaining the
Jewish community.
—
any of you ever had an adult
bar or bat mitzvah, and, if so,
what was it like?" — Boom!
Hands go up, faces light up,
the flow of words begins: the
excitement for many of learn-
ing Hebrew at long last, of be-
ing able to follow the prayer-
book, to stand before family,
friends, and the congregation
and announce,' "I have begun
my journey. I feel good."
One such, a certain Barbara
Bermack, of Pomona, N.Y.,
began by secretly learning
Hebrew to surprise her son on
his bar mitzvah, then
celebrated her own bat mitz-
vah, then became president of
the synagogue. Another—a
great grandmother—joined
her granddaughter and
became a bat mitzvah on the
same day. Courageous people,
and glorious benefits for
them, their circle of friends
and relatives, and the entire
Jewish community. No longer
will they complain, "I got a
lousy Jewish education as a
kid.- They are doing
something about it. Univer-
sally, they recommend the ex-
perience to others, no matter
how many hours, weeks,
months, it takes to prepare.
They take seriously
Maimonides' ruling and the
ruling of everyone from the
Talmud Until modern day
Jewish law codes: If a parent
wishes to study lbrah, and a
child wants to learn, the adult
takes precedence. Adult
Jewish education is not a side
issue, an adjunct tacked on to
other budgets. It's the issue.
3. While Standing on One
Foot—How to Learn to Read
Hebrew in One Day: It's been
done in more than 25 dif-
ferent locales, this Hebrew
Literacy Marathon. More
than 1,000 people have been
through the program. Rabbi
Noah Golinkin, my childhood
rabbi from Arlington, Va.,
storms into town with his
wife, Dvora, and the class set-
tles in for a long day of
AlefBet, complete with
calisthenics, nosherei, and
lots of humor.
After years in congrega-
tions, Golinkin is "retired"
and living in Columbia, Md.,
and doing what he has
wanted to.- for years. First
developing a 13-week course
called the National Hebrew
Literacy Program which
taught 60,000 or more people
how to read Hebrew, he boil-
ed it down to one-day while
simultaneously recognizing
the need for the longer course.
Does the one day Marathon
work? Yes. On the Shabbat
afterwards, can people follow
what is going on in
synagogue? Yes. Rabbi
Golinkin admits that a follow-
up session is beneficial, but
they are over the hump, all
those people who said, "I'll
just never learn to read
Hebrew."
Call 301-964-ALEF and see
for yourself. The Hebrew
readers benefit, their families
benefit, the community will
benefit beyond our wildest
expectations.
THE BAD NEWS
So much for the good news.
Three items of bad news:
1. Oy, The Russians are
Coming: These are exciting
times, and they should be
reminiscent for many of us
the immigration of our own
grandparents and great
grandparents. But something
is awry when it comes to the
settling of the new wave of
Soviet Jewish immigrants.
For years we kvetched that
the Russians wouldn't let our
people out. Now big numbers
are coming and we are raising
funds to help pay for the
settling-in process.
But I hear the rumblings,
the grumbling, the under-
tones that communal leaders
pass on to me: some people
don't want to give for the
local campaign for settling
the immigrants. They say,
"The last ones—look what we
did for them, and now that
they are here for a few years,
they're not involved. They
stay to themselves, they don't
want to integrate into the
community."
lb that, my only response
is, that, as I understand the
mitzvah of pidyon shevuyim
(redeeming captives), it is up
to us to help bring them to
freedom and get them started
in the new life, and up to them
to decide what to do with that
freedom and that new life. We
owe them everything and
they don't owe us anything,
though everyone would be
delighted if they did get more
involved. The mitzvah is our
obligation.
How sad that so many of
us—Russian descendants—
do not call to mind the boats,
the steerage, the ancestors
with their pushcarts, their
dry-goods stores, their junk-
yards, all to put us through
college and medical school.
How soon we forget.
2. The Still Slower-Than-
Desired Response to Growing
Problems in Special
Segments of the Community:
That means battered spoUses,
Jewish adult alcoholics and
drug abusers, runaway