• COMMUNITY VIEWS
Throughout Our Culture
We Need Strong Mentors
IP-
never know the taste of a cheeseburger
ebster's New World
or pizza with pepperoni in her life!)
Dictionary defines cul-
and observing the High Holidays. I
ture as the "ideas, skills,
witnessed a woman who was full of
arts of a people commu-
morality, spirituality and holiness. She
nicated or passed along to succeeding
is always filled with joy whenever she
generations".
gets a chance to be a part of a Jewish
The Jewish culture was passed onto
experience. I can listen to her stories
me mostly by my bubbie. Although
for hours about her experi-
not a formally educated
ences as a little girl coming
woman, my bubbie knows
to America from Russia with
quite a bit of Jewish religion
all the other Jews. In fact, I
and culture and has been
have videotaped her telling
obedient and loyal to it
them so I will never forget
throughout her life.
not only her words but her
As I write this, I am
way of telling these stories.
reminded that she wanted
Unfortunately, not only
(no, insisted!) that I use her
did she teach me spirituality
name in my articles.
she taught me superstition as
"Yussella," she says, "I notice
well. Admittedly, to avoid
ORT
K
JOE
when you mention me in
bad luck, when I accidentally
Speci al to
your articles you don't say
spill
the salt, I shake it over
The Jewi sh News
my name ... why?"
my left shoulder three times
"Bubbie," I respond, "I did
(or is it my right shoulder? ...
not know you had a name
I can never remember so I always do
until I was a teen-ager ... everyone
both just in case); if I sneeze while I
calls you bubbie, even your friends!"
am talking about someone who has
So, my response is to tell you about
passed away, I lift both my ears; and if
how my bubbie, Mary Beltzman, has
it seems like someone is giving me the
touched my life with her 88 years of
evil eye I say "tooh-tooh-tooh"
Jewish wisdom.
through my index and middle finger
I had quite a bit of contact with
over and over again.
Bubbie Beltzman growing up because
My Bubbie Beltzman taught me
she helped my mother raise me. She
well. I will always have wonderfully
taught me the reasons and meanings
warm sweet memories of this strong
behind lighting candles for the
matriarch lovingly caring for me and
Sabbath, keeping kosher (as a child I
teaching me the Jewish way. I hold her
was always so upset that she would
in high reverence.
Joe Kort is a psychotherapist in private
But I did not have anyone to teach
practice in Royal Oak.
me the gay way of life. As a gay little
IV
PUBLISHER'S
NOTEBOOK
Rekindle Shabbat
At The JCC
ARTHUR M. HORWITZ
Publisher
The spirit of
Shabbat is being
"rekindled"
throughout the
community,
except at its com-
munity center. At
the JCC, Shabbat
is just another
Saturday.
With an infusion
of funds from the
Berman-Cohn Pilot Fund For Jewish
Continuity, substantive programming
relating to Shabbat celebration is
being developed or enhanced at vari-
ous synagogues and Jewish agencies. A
snappy logo, fluttering banners and
"How To" pamphlets have helped cre-
ate broad awareness of the unifying
power Shabbat has on the Jewish peo-
ple.
But there are no banners and no
hoopla about Shabbat at the Jewish
Community Center facilities, which
have opened on Saturday afternoons
since 1961 with the specific intention
of making "every effort to transmit an
appreciation of the distinctiveness of
the Shabbat and an appreciation of its
basic values."
According to Harmony 6'
Dissonance, a history of Detroit's
Jewish community from 1914-1967
by Dr. Sidney Bolkosky, the commu-
nity split in 1959 when JCC leader-
boy and gay teen and now a gay adult,
there are and were no gay bubbies to
teach about gay culture. So, in the gay
and lesbian culture, our identity is
formed in adulthood and we mentor
each other and ourselves. Some very
wonderful things characterize our cul-
ture. One is that we are not bound by
gender roles. This is a freeing experi-
ence so that when partnered, stereo-
typical expectations do not exist.
Everything has to be negotiated.
Imagine two men partnered in which
both have been groomed to be bread
winners and providers as men usually
are. Someone has to take care of the
home. Or two women partnered, hav-
ing been raised to be nurturers and
ship voted to open on Saturday after-
noons. Virtually all of the communi-
ty's rabbis — Orthodox, Conservative
and Reform — opposed the opening
as did The Jewish News. It was seen as
a desecration of Shabbat. Two years
later, the Curtis and Meyers JCC
opened.
With intervention from Max Fisher
and a unity committee headed by
Mandell Berman and Stanley
Winkelman, Saturday afternoons at
the JCC were to focus on cultural
activities. (These last two words were
italicized in the committee's final
report.)
According to the book, JCC execu-
tive director Irwin Shaw envisioned
the following:-
* small friendship groups for chil-
dren under 14
* cultural programs of singing,
drama and story telling
* cultural programs in Yiddish and
home based. Someone has to go out
and work. So we get to decide what
works best for us and not what we are
expected to do.
We also have more freedom around
sexuality than other cultures. This is
largely due to heterosexuals having
defined lesbians and gays mostly by
our sexual desire so we explore and
examine our sexual nature more open-
ly.
-
I think the best feature of our cul-
ture as gays and lesbians is our overall
level of courage and honesty. It takes
bravery and sincerity to come out of
the closet in this anti-gay society in
MENTORS
on page 26
English for older adults
* swimming
* "low organization" games in the
gymnasium.
Today, a typical Shabbat afternoon
at the Maple-Drake Jewish
Community Center finds no cultural
activities and nothing that focuses on
the day's distinctiveness. Rather, the
Health Club is buzzing with activity
from the hum of treadmills, stairmas-
ters and stationary bicycles, the flicker
of a half-dozen or more television
screens and the pounding rhythm of
an aerobics class. The Rosenberg
Athletic Complex is hosting, for a fee,
two or three birthday parties for chil-
dren. A wheelchair basketball tourna-
ment is taking place in the gymnasi-
um with souvenir T-shirts for sale at
the door.
The library is dark. The classrooms
REKINDLE
on page 27
12/26
1997
25