Why We Work

Personal
Perspectives

o understand the role work plays in the lives of contemporary Jews, The
JEWISH NEWS spoke to people here, and in the cities where we have sister

publications: Baltimore, Vancouver, Palm Beach. Everyone we spoke to had a story to
tell — each felt that work filled a profound place in their lives, whether positive or neg-
ative. Each, too, spoke of a desire to "do something for others" — to take part in work

that connects them to their community.
We met a photographer who found comfort in a time of crisis, when she went out

on a photo shoot with Elie Wiesel. We talked with a retired stockbroker who turned to Torah
in middle age and learned to follow his bliss, and a middle-aged woman who left a promis-
ing career track to be close to her family. And we spoke with a federal court judge, whose

work provides a forum for realizing his Jewish values.

D E TR O I T J E WI S H N E W S

Comforts Of Home

58

Geri Baum was making it in Hollywood,
the American Promised Land if ever there
was one. She headed west from her native
Baltimore in 1978, at age 23, and by the
time she hit 30 she had a good job with
Columbia Pictures and was making a
name for herself, playing her own songs
in nightclubs on the side.
But some things are more important
than work, she found. Back on the East
Coast, Ms. Baum's young aunt died, and
her sister got married. Then — on Ms.
Baum's birthday —her grandmother died.
Ms. Baum flew out overnight for the fu-
neral, but she had to be back at work the
next day and couldn't stay for the shiva.
"It was horrible, just miserable," she
says, looking back. Not long after, she de-
cided it was time to come home. "I was
afraid I was missing things that I would
regret later. It became a question of: Am
I working to live, or living to work?"
But bailing out on a good job, deserting

a promising career path, is never easy,
and it took Ms. Baum almost two years to
work up the courage to make the move.
During that time she became involved
with the Jewish community in Los Ange-
les, and that connection helped her gath-
er the courage to quit.
"It put me back in touch with my roots,"
says Ms. Baum, who grew up in a tradi-
tional household. (Her father is a kosher
caterer, so the family was always able to
be together for Shabbat and holidays.) Be-
coming involved with the Jewish com-
munity "allowed me to talk to people, and
make some sense of things."
Ultimately those talks led Ms. Baum to
feel that while her work was significant,
it was "more important to come back to
where I have family, to where my roots
are. Because I had lived away from here
— not just in California but in New York
and Israel, too — I really came to value
this place."

Having decided to put family and roots
above a traditional career trajectory, the
41-year-old Ms. Baum today finds herself
both fulfilled ... and frightened.
"I think a large majority of people work
just to make a living, and what they do
outside work is what makes them happy.
I don't want to do that anymore, I want
something more," she says, but admits
that "it is scary sometimes, when I'm feel-
ing alone and wondering if I can take care
of myself."
As an unmarried woman, middle-aged
and between careers, Ms. Baum says she
feels a lot of social pressure as well "be-
cause I haven't lived a normal, stereotyp-
ical life."
When she returned to Baltimore, Ms.
Baum worked for some eight years in cor-
porate public relations, but finally had
to admit that corporate life was not for her.
Interviewed earlier this summer, Ms.
Baum said she was working as a freelance

writer and public relations professional,
while going through an intensive period
of career re-evaluation. She said that she
has found a lot of satisfaction in doing vol-
unteer work, including teaching drama to
troubled adolescents, and added that she
would like to get that same feeling from
whatever work she decides to do next.
Free-lancing can be rough, though.
When she doesn't have work to do, Ms.
Baum says, she "can get real down. Work
can give you purpose, a reason to get up
in the morning, to go somewhere and in-
teract with people."
So the going is not always easy — but
Ms. Baum says she has learned something
of tremendous value: that even if you have
to work for a living, "you still have choic-
es. Some people choose to take a job where
they can just make a living, and then find
happiness elsewhere. But now I need to
find happiness in my job." ❑

— AKS

