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A Thanksgiving for the world

Autumn is the time of year for giving thanks. It is the season of the harvest, when, literally and symbolically, the fruits of our labors arrive and we take the opportunity to reflect on all we have received.

The fall festival of the bounty of the earth is a tradition shared by people around the world. In Judaism, we have Sukkot, and, coming shortly, we will join with all Americans in celebrating the distinctly American holiday of Thanksgiving. Many Hindus observe the Festival of Onam; in Africa, there are celebrations of Kwanzaa; in China, there is the Harvest Moon Festival. Virtually everywhere around the globe, people are giving thanks.

This year, as Jews it might seem we haven’t very much to be grateful for, after the war with Hezbollah and now the need for reconstructing so much of Israel and for restoring so many Israeli lives.

Nevertheless, we do. Israel remains secure, despite the realization of the strength of its foes, and she is taking steps to increase her defenses and the security of her citizens. During the war, Israel received support from countries around the world and, perhaps even more important, from people all over the globe, to a degree we have not seen in decades. It is becoming clear to people that the entire civilized world together is fighting the same fight, the fight Israel has been facing from its inception.

What we have most to be grateful for is what we have in common with everyone, the things that bring the world together. Like the harvest festivals themselves, like the “thanksgiving” in all its traditions and languages, we all share a love of our families, a desire for peace and security, a willingness to face our common dangers and announce that we stand together. There is much that divides us, but there is also much that shows us we are largely the same. Those are the things that are best about us, and they are what we can build upon, to bring about a better future—to repair the world: Tikkun Olam.

Kenneth R. Heyman
President
United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ

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Israel Emergency Campaign update
Much has been achieved, more needs to be done

The results of the Israel Emergency Campaign (IEC) to date are impressive. They speak of the dedication to Israel of the Jewish community, in the MetroWest community and around North America. Even so, the job is not over, and the needs in Israel continue to require our response.

Nationally, the IEC has raised so far roughly $340 million, of which $5.2 million has come from MetroWest community pledges. With 100 percent of all IEC funds going to Israelis in need and $109 million presently on hand, some $92 million to date already has been allocated to help the elderly, the disabled, the very young, recent immigrants, and others in need.

Even so, the needs in Israel are enormous. The costs of rebuilding are currently expected to be in excess of $1 billion. The reduction in the Israeli GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is one percent (approximately $1.27 billion). The Bank of Israel estimates that, during the war, the weekly damages to the economy were $166–$244 million and the total damage to all business sectors has been $445–$667 million. In all, the cost to Israel of the war will be in the billions of dollars.

Participation in the IEC has been remarkable, and everyone who contributed, in the MetroWest community and throughout North America, has the right to feel proud. We have stood by our brothers and sisters in Israel in this, their time of greatest need in decades.

But we are not there yet. Far more needs to be done, and much more money must be delivered, for the rebuilding of the infrastructure and the restitution of innocent lives.

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Donor Spotlight: Ava and Bruce Kleinman

For Ava and Bruce Kleinman of Convent Station, involvement in the MetroWest community is a family affair.

According to Ava, when the Kleinmans moved to the MetroWest area from Washington, D.C., they were very interested in being part of a Jewish community. For Ava, her interests developed in UJC.

“Federation is in my family background,” she pointed out, “and my father was active in many charitable organizations. During the Six-Day War, he went from door to door raising money for Israel.”

Her participation at UJC has been extensive. It began in the early 1990s with her involvement in the Jewish Women Lawyers group under the Business and Professional Women’s Council.

“I was impressed with the women, the content of the meetings, and the professionalism of the organization,” Ava observed. “That is what brought me into Women’s Department.”

In 2002, she joined the Religious Pluralism Committee, of which she is now the chair. She is also on the board of Jewish Vocational Service, the board of the Women’s Department, and the UJC Executive Committee, among her other areas of participation.

What began Bruce’s participation in the local Jewish community was not family but friends.

“One of my law partners who was very involved in the Jewish community included me in many things he was involved in, and stressed to me the importance of service to our community,” Bruce says.

Bruce started out with JCC MetroWest — first, as a member. He soon became co-chair of the Insight Committee, which conducts the JCC’s speaker series. He then became a JCC Trustee, co-chair of the Center for the Arts at the JCC, and now is Vice Chair of the Board for the JCC. He also participates on other committees and task forces, including the task force concerned with the future of the Alex Aidekman Family Jewish Community Campus in Whippany. He is also President of Cerebral Palsy of North Jersey.

When the Kleinmans speak about the feeling behind their dedication to the Jewish community, they talk like family — continuing each other’s thoughts, even thinking together.

Speaking about the reasons that involvement is so important, Ava noted, “Being Jewish and developing the potential in the Jewish community is ingrained in us.”

“Tikkun Olam,” said Bruce.

“Community is important,” said Ava. “We’re all family.”

Asked what their goal is as donors, what they wish to achieve through their giving as well as their personal efforts at UJC, Ava explained, “To leave things better than the way they were, in the community and in the world. We try to make a difference. We want to help in the little ways that a family of Jews can help change the world.”

“Our focus is on the Jewish community,” added Bruce, “but we are guided by Tikkun Olam. For example, the programs at the JCC are available to, and benefit, the public, and so the JCC becomes an asset to the neighborhood in general.”

Their involvement with the MetroWest community has been so extensive and done with such dedication because, from the time they came here, they found this Jewish community to be distinctive.

“We’re very impressed with the commitment of the MetroWest family,” explained Ava. “We have a great community, and we feel at home here.”

“And we’re proud to be part of it,” added Bruce.

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Interview with Brigitte Gabriel

On Oct. 5, 2006, Brigitte Gabriel appeared as the guest speaker at “Hineni: Here I Am,” the United Jewish Appeal (UJA) of MetroWest NJ Women’s Campaign Day 2007. Gabriel, a former Lebanese journalist and author of the recently published book Because They Hate, writes and speaks frequently in support of Israel and the Jewish people. She is also the founder of the American Congress for Truth, a website dedicated to providing information on the Middle East conflict.

The campaign event, which was attended by 150 women, also paid special tribute to Lois Lautenberg, who this year was named a recipient of the nationally bestowed Kipnis-Wilson/Friedland Award.

Gabriel spoke to the audience of women community leaders about her life growing up as a Christian in Lebanon and her experiences as a teenager during the Lebanese Civil War. In particular, she explained how her mother’s life was saved at an Israeli hospital after a bombing attack and how the experience showed her that Jews were not the devils her government had claimed they were. She concluded with a warning about the grave threat to the Western World posed by “Islamo-Fascism.”

Gabriel’s talk received an enthusiastic response, with many audience members remaining afterwards to purchase her book and have her sign their copies.

Before the book-signing, Speak E-Z had the opportunity to speak with Gabriel about her thoughts on the threat from radical Islam.

What is the one thing Americans most need to understand about radical Islam?

Radical Islam is bent on destroying us. There is no negotiating with radical Islam. You’re not going to be able to have a peace treaty with radical Islam. They are interested in either converting us or killing us. It’s as simple as that.

How should we understand the average Muslim living in a Muslim country?

There are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world today. Not all of them are radicals. We estimate the radicals are between 15 and 25 percent. That’s 180 to 300 million; that’s like the population of the United States. Those are the ones who are willing to die to kill us. We estimate about 75 percent of the Islamic population resent the West. They do not consider us moral enough. They resent our way of life, they resent our freedoms, because it simply goes against the teachings of Islam.

The 75 percent, what do they want?

To eliminate the Western influence in their lives. All they have to do is watch American television, and any Mullah will have a great recruiting point. Drugs, sex, divorce, and violence. You cannot tune in the television and have children in the room without them seeing blood, killing, murder, ugliness, stabbing, gun fights. There is no respect for the family, no respect for the parents. It is very different from the way they want to conduct the family. This is why their resentment against us is growing greater and greater.

Is it the influence of American culture in their civilization, or is it the desire that we change? If they didn’t see us, would they care?

The desire is that we change. In accordance with Islam, they want to establish a Caliphate and Islamic rule all over the world. They want to get back the old glory, like they used to be in Spain, Italy, and Andalusia. This is what they’re after. Islam is becoming stronger, because of the petro dollars pumped into the Middle East. They are sitting on the largest wealth creator in the world. So now that they have the funding, they are recruiting. They want to go global. This started years and years ago. It’s not only starting now.

You say there is no negotiation, that we’re talking about people who are not interested in peace.

With the radicals, we cannot negotiate, but what we need to do is support the moderates, lift them up and empower them. It is so difficult to do because there are not many of them, and at this point they are simply irrelevant. So, we do our best to work with what we have. We need to challenge the Muslim community, and challenge the Western Muslims. We have to say: You came to America for a reason. You came to the West for a reason. You have benefited from Western privileges and blessings. If you value what the West has given you, a better life than from where you came, this is the time when you need to stand up, when you need to rally people like you. You need to stand with us and support us in our fight with radical Islam. Because in the end, if the radicals have their way, you’re going to suffer like the rest of us under Sharia law. Look at how the Muslims lived under the Taliban. There were executions in football fields.

In the confrontation with radical Islam, if we can’t negotiate a peace, what do we do instead? How does this end?

You cannot send messages of appeasement. Appeasement only empowers them. We have already seen this, beginning in 1983, when Hezbollah bombed the marines in Lebanon. Because the West turned a blind eye to evil, evil has spread throughout the world. When Israeli blood was flowing on the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem because of suicide bombings, the world didn’t give a darn. It was only after Sept. 11 and America was attacked that the world came to understand. Now, we are finding that America and the West are fighting the same enemy that Israel has been fighting for over 50 years.

So as long as this festers, there’s no end.

Since we cannot send messages of appeasement to the terrorists, unfortunately, we’re going to have to go to war. We’ve got to go to war and we’ve got to win that war, as we did with Hitler. People tried to appease Hitler. It didn’t work. They just bought Hitler more time. And this is what’s going to happen with radical Islam, until the West develops the resolve that we will not tolerate evil. And only when the West realizes that this is pure evil, that it is dedicated to our destruction, that’s when they’re going to start learning how to deal with evil.

And it’s going to require a price in civilian casualties and lives. As always, war is not pretty, but sometimes you have to make the hard decisions, to lose a few in order to save millions. And when we’re dealing with a radical enemy that is working on developing nuclear bombs and biological bombs, and stating publicly they want to wipe Israel off the face of the planet, the world must react. Let’s not wait until a disaster happens. We need to appeal to the conscience of the Western World to take action.

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Daughters of Israel: Revitalizing Lives

The kind of work done at Daughters of Israel (DOI) and the reasons for it — as with so many agencies and programs in the MetroWest community — is best appreciated one example at a time, one life at a time.

DOI is now celebrating its 100th anniversary. Its mission is to provide a continuum of care and geriatric services to the Jewish elderly and disabled in the MetroWest community, regardless of their ability to pay.

DOI provides long-term skilled nursing and residential care on its Plafsky Family Campus in West Orange. Its 303-bed, state of the art, skilled nursing facility is the only kosher geriatric center in the MetroWest area.

In addition to the long-term care services and facilities, DOI also provides short-term, sub-acute care and rehabilitative services. The goal is to help the clients regain function to the greatest degree possible, following an incident such a as stroke, fracture, amputation, or acute episode of a degenerative or neurological disease. The professional staff provide occupational, physical, and speech and language therapy, as well as help plan the client’s transition back into the home environment.

The goal is, in essence, to revitalize a life — to return clients to their former lives to the degree physically possible.

It is best seen in an example of a client whom we will call “Marvin.” Marvin came to DOI after suffering a stroke. Marvin was in his late 80s and had been a very active senior. He had done volunteer work, helping at a library; had been driving his own car; and had walked and worked out at the gym every day. The stroke left him almost fully paralyzed on one side. He had difficulty speaking and couldn’t stand or walk on his own.

The first thing the DOI staff did with Marvin was determine what his life had been like immediately prior to the stroke. The objective then was to work mutually to establish goals for his therapy: set objectives for returning Marvin to as many of his prior activities as the staff deemed it was possible to do and as he was willing to work toward.

This is the beginning of a therapeutic regimen at DOI, to personalize the therapy by determining how the clients have been living: did they walk, did they drive, were they involved in their careers? The staff then works with the client to set concrete goals for a return to that life, in part or fully, if possible. The goals not only serve to give the therapy a direction but also to boost the attitude of the client, give the client a sense of purpose — something to hope for, and to work for.

The attitude Marvin brought to DOI was very upbeat. He was prepared to work every day to achieve what he wanted: his old life back. The goals for Marvin had to be modified goals, given the severity of his stroke. A three-month program of physical and speech therapy was established for him. At its end, Marvin was able to walk with assistance, he was able to return to the gym and work out with some of his previous equipment, and he was able to resume his volunteer work with the help of a professional companion and a walker.

When Marvin was discharged, DOI staff provided a half dozen mobility aids for him to use at home and educated his family and his professional companion about the needed modifications in his house. Although Marvin did not need it, the staff are also prepared to provide clients with home visits and a full plan of care following their being discharged.

Marvin was so pleased with the results, he returned to DOI a month later, to visit the staff, to show them how well he was doing, and to thank them in person, for revitalizing his life.

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The PACT that helps bind Ethiopian Jews to Israel

Over the decades, Israel has become home to Jews from around the globe. When they make aliyah, they bring with them the heritage of their earlier homelands. They add to the richness and diversity of Israeli culture. They also prove that the Jewish tradition is resilient. It retains our values and ideals even as it becomes enriched by the traditions of the world.

Today, the largest ethnic group making aliyah are the Ethiopian Falas Mura. More than 100,000 have immigrated to Israel from Africa. Another 18,000–20,000 will be arriving in coming years.

PACT is one of a variety of programs developed by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), one of UJC’s overseas agencies. These programs are designed to help Ethiopian-Israelis integrate into their new homeland by striking a balance between the Israeli culture they have joined and the heritage they bring with them.

PACT (Parents and Children Together) is JDC’s program to provide comprehensive educational and community services for Ethiopian-Israeli preschoolers. Using a holistic approach, PACT also offers targeted training and support to their parents, educators, and service providers.

Once Ethiopian families arrive in Israel and begin the process of absorption, they face the challenges that come from entering into a new culture and new social circumstances. The professionals from PACT focus on the difficulties of preschoolers, difficulties that often can be successfully dealt with when working with both children and their parents.

Eli (age 4) was introverted. Kindergarten was clearly his first experience in a social framework, and he isolated himself from the other children. One day, a PACT liaison recognized his fear and offered to play with him. He shied away. The next day, the liaison returned with some bright red toys. He moved closer to her that day. By the end of a week, he waited at the door for her. By the end of a second week, she had created group games that involved other children. By the end of a third week, Eli had no time for her. He was busy with his friends. He is now a different child, happier and with a learning performance that has improved beyond expectations.

Lior, the youngest son of Asamao (father of four), had several learning difficulties that required professional treatment. Asamao took offense at the report that his child needed special education and refused to sign the consent form. The PACT liaison understood the cultural barrier and explained to Asamao in Amharic the importance of the treatment. Today, Lior is making clear progress, and Asamao, knowing that there is someone he can turn to, has become involved in the education of all his children.

Zehava (mother of three) is a single mother who was unsure of how to begin a new life when she arrived in Israel. A PACT professional helped her find daycare facilities and subsidies for her children. With more time to devote to her own education, Zehava enrolled in and graduated from a PACT caregivers training course. Today, Zehava is a part-time counselor and participates in Eshet Chayil, an employment and empowerment program for Ethiopian-Israeli women.

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