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A feast of learning

This year June starts off with the holiday of Shavuot, also known as the Feast of Weeks, because it comes seven weeks after Passover. Unfortunately, this important holiday is often overlooked in the excitement of graduations and coming vacations.

What makes Shavuot special? Because it commemorates the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai, it has come to be associated with Jewish study. Many synagogues observe Shavuot with study-ins, sometimes lasting all night.

I think of Hillel’s famous answer to the gentile who asked him to summarize Jewish law while he stood on one foot. “Do not do to others what you would not have them do to you. This is the law. Go and study.”

Studying Jewish law, beliefs, history, and tradition is a lifelong process. For me, as for Hillel, the essence is human relationships. How do we treat each other in daily life? How do we help each other in times of crisis? How do we celebrate our heritage and lifecycle events?

My involvement with United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ has been — and continues to be — a fascinating learning process. Every day I come into contact with men and women in our community who give so generously of themselves and their resources. I have benefited immeasurably from their insights, experience, and wisdom.

One of the wonderful things about our Jewish community is that it offers each of us so many opportunities for learning and personal growth. I hope that Shavuot will inspire you to explore the enticing variety of classes, lectures, special events, and volunteer opportunities offered by our partnership agencies, MetroWest synagogues, and community organizations.

Enjoy the feast of learning and friendship!

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'Maturity Works' through partnerships, relationships in the community  

Jack, age 50, was referred to Jewish Vocational Service (JVS) of MetroWest by his rabbi, who described the man as “desperate” and “without hope.” For the previous nine years, Jack had been a lab technician for a government agency, where he was an exemplary employee with an excellent work history. He needed only one more year to be fully vested in the retirement package.

But just before Jack could reach that milestone, his job was eliminated. Worse, he was summarily transferred to the maintenance department. Never mind that he had no experience or interest in such work. Never mind the heart condition that made it physically impossible for him to do heavy lifting. The department needed maintenance men, so Jack was reassigned.

Not surprisingly, Jack began suffering serious stress. By the time he registered with JVS, he was already under a doctor’s care.

The burdens on Jack were physical, emotional, professional, and personal, in addition to financial.

Jack’s JVS counselor quickly took stock of things. Then she acted. Fast. She made phone calls and wrote letters. Before long, she had helped Jack secure a job within his retirement system, and compatible with his medical limitations and emotional state.

Jack later told her that she had not only given him a new lease on his life, but that she had saved it.

It would likely come as no surprise to Jack that the unemployment situation is particularly bad among the middle-aged.

According to the New Jersey Department of Labor (NJDOL), most people who have been unemployed six months or longer are older than 40, the cutoff established by the NJDOL to designate an "older worker."

Not surprisingly, it is uncommon for most people to have enough money to cope with forced retirement, which is what, after all, protracted unemployment is.

What are adults supposed to do when they lose good jobs and can’t land comparable new ones? How are they supposed to pay their mortgages, cover their health costs, and support their families? How do you postpone expenses that cannot be postponed? How do you buy things without money?

At Maturity Works, a program of JVS, it is understood that these are impossible predicaments, and the only solution for people caught in them is getting out, as fast as possible. JVS is a beneficiary agency of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ.

Maturity Works is a unique and uniquely successful program that provides specialized career counseling and job placement services to men and women 45 to 70 and older, helping those unemployed MetroWest community residents get new jobs on a par with their old ones before debt and trauma can ruin them.

What sets it apart is the involvement of 38 MetroWest synagogues from all denominations in a coalition that has supported Maturity Works since its inception. The coalition has generated job openings and contacts for program clients to follow up with. There has been a high degree of satisfaction and support for the program from clients and area rabbis.

A website, www.mwjobs.org, developed by synagogue volunteers, is free. Jobs are posted at no charge to employers. Likewise, there is no cost to MetroWest job seekers for scanning the listings or for receiving individual and group counseling from JVS job placement professionals. With the indispensable aid of the coalition of synagogues, Maturity Works has so far held three community-wide "Jobathons," phonathons for jobs. These events have brought together the entire MetroWest synagogue community resulting in over 1,300 job opportunities and many new business contacts. Job placements increased by more than 10 percent as a result of the program to a total of 50 percent of those served.

Through its partnership with MetroWest synagogues and outreach to local businesses, Maturity Works has enabled JVS to heighten community awareness of employment issues specifically as they apply to mature workers. With the impending shortage of skilled workers in the workforce as baby boomers begin to retire in record numbers, many employers have not yet accepted the viability of the mature worker to help address this critical issue. As older workers want to go back to work due to financial necessity or the desire to remain active and involved, they can become a great pool of talent for employers.

The program has been funded by The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey. Its innovative design and significant results just three years out won it the 2005 Program of the Year Award from the International Association of Jewish Vocational Services. Funding will end on June 30 after 3½ years of generous support. JVS is aggressively seeking support from other sources to continue these vital and proven services.

For more information about the Maturity Works program or other JVS career counseling, vocational assessment, skills training, and job placement services, contact Linda Zamer, Director of Career Counseling and Placement, at (973) 674-6330, ext. 274 or at .

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Donor Spotlight: Maxine Myers

Although Maxine Myers was a longtime donor to the United Jewish Appeal of MetroWest NJ, she became much more personally involved in the Jewish community after she retired from her career in social work.

“I was so afraid that I wouldn’t have enough to do, that I plunged in,” the West Orange resident recalled. “In the beginning, my most meaningful activity was my hands-on volunteer work. I met weekly with a homebound retired teacher in her 90s whose only pleasure was reading, and she was going blind! What a heartbreaking time for her! I think that I was able to bring her some intellectual stimulation, and we both enjoyed my visit. It also gave her daughter some needed time off.”

Maxine retired from a social work position with Catholic Community Services, where she worked with unaccompanied refugee minors from Vietnam and Haiti. In the process, she acquired a Vietnamese foster daughter. “We are mutually devoted to each other,” she said.

Previously, she worked at the New Jersey Commission for the Blind, where her clients were college students.

As she became involved with UJA, “the most special times were the overseas missions. The women have been so wonderfully dedicated to our Israeli and other ‘sister communities.’ And I have made many friends on the missions. The most recent one was to Poland, where a group of us went on the March of the Living from Auschwitz to Birkenau. It was both interesting and horrible. But the best part of these trips is the camaraderie that develops.”

Maxine’s volunteer activities include service on numerous boards. She has been on the JCC MetroWest board and is now on the board of trustees of Jewish Family Service (JFS) of MetroWest. Last year she co-chaired the JFS Gala. She is also on the boards of the United Jewish Communities (UJC) of MetroWest, the UJC MetroWest Women’s Department, and the Jewish Community Foundation of MetroWest NJ. In the general community, she is involved with Cerebral Palsy of North Jersey.

In her leisure time, Maxine likes to “walk, read, do crossword puzzles, play bridge, and attend theater, concerts, and movies. I have many friends and enjoy their company.”

Her commitment to the Jewish community is part of a family tradition.

“My parents were wonderful role models as they were both active in Jewish organizational life in New York City. Another reason to be communally active is that my children live far away, but I have many grandchildren to visit. One of my sons is a Chabad rabbi in Slovakia. Another, also a rabbi, is involved in business research and ethics in Israel, and my oldest son is in real estate business in North Carolina. My only sister lives in Scarsdale, N.Y., and is also active in her community.”

For Maxine, retirement from her professional career was just the beginning of a rewarding volunteer career!

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Creating partnerships via Religious Pluralism

Jewish identity cannot be taken for granted, either in Israel or the United States. Young Israelis, like their American counterparts, question everything, and concerned leaders in both countries are striving to reach the next generation.

United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ, a leader among North American Jewish federations in encouraging religious pluralism in Israel, implements a variety of innovative programs through the Religious Pluralism Subcommittee of the Israel and Overseas Committee.

On May 14-15, Gvanim B’Yachad, a program now in its fourth year, brought 19 Israeli participants to the MetroWest community to learn more about American Jewish life. Gvanim was developed and implemented by the Jewish Federation of San Francisco, and later by UJA-Federation of New York and most recently, UJC MetroWest. The trip to the United States, which also included visits with the San Francisco and New York federations, highlighted a year-long program that enables people from varied religious and secular backgrounds as well as diverse professional backgrounds to meet monthly to exchange ideas on religious pluralism and Jewish identity and develop action plans to be implemented in their own communities.

The Israeli delegation included a television news anchor, the chief executive officer of a major organization, a journalist, educators, and elected officials, all who enjoyed home hospitality from various subcommittee members and the next day visited local schools, agencies, and organizations. The day culminated by joining with MetroWest Jewish community leaders at a dinner on the Aidekman Campus in Whippany. At the dinner, they explored the challenges of religious pluralism in Israel and the challenges confronting American Jews.

In March, the Religious Pluralism Subcommittee helped to make history by implementing the first Religious Pluralism conference in Israel. The conference brought together 55 directors and lay leaders of the various programs supported by the Religious Pluralism Subcommittee. The participants gathered in Ra’anana for the conference that was organized by Amir Shacham, UJC MetroWest’s Director of Israel Operations. The central purpose of the conference was to provide the opportunity for program directors and lay leaders to meet and learn to better coordinate their efforts. There have already been several program initiatives that have occurred directly because of the connections made at the conference. Participants included 11 lay leaders and three staff members of the Religious Pluralism Subcommittee.

The conference was a landmark for the subcommittee, which got its start in 1998, as an attempt to develop a positive response to the “Who is a Jew?” controversy that arose in Israel. Since then, the Religious Pluralism Subcommittee has sponsored a wide array of educational programs in Israel, with allocations of about $350,000 annually.

In explaining why religious pluralism in Israel is an issue for MetroWest and the entire American Jewish community, Gary Aidekman, chair of the subcommittee, noted that increasingly a large segment of the secular Israeli population — particularly younger people — have lost their connection to Jewish tradition.

“When the State of Israel was established and the Orthodox establishment was given control, many in the secular society either rejected religion altogether or were uncomfortable with Orthodoxy,” he said. “In that reaction, they took Jewish education out of the non-religious state schools. When you do that, you begin to raise issues for the next generation. A soldier might ask, ‘What am I fighting for?’ More and more young Israelis are questioning their connection to the state. Our role is to promote Jewish values and Jewish education to provide a connection to the Jewish state.”

The Religious Pluralism Subcommittee deals with three interrelated areas, Aidekman observed:

1. Fostering religious pluralism by trying to strengthen the various streams — Modern Orthodox, Masorti/Conservative, and Reform/Progressive — so that they grow as alternatives to the religious establishment in Israel and meet the needs of secular Israelis uncomfortable with the Orthodox establishment.
2. Promoting Jewish learning and Jewish values through diversified programs in partnership with the various religious streams and independent organizations.
3. Fostering dialogue among the various segments of Israeli society, from the secular to the Orthodox.

“One of the common grounds in Israel is study, where people can come together and discuss Jewish texts or issues pertaining to Jewish values respectfully,” Aidekman said.

By encouraging dialogue, Jewish learning and values, and a variety of Jewish religious expressions in Israel, the Religious Pluralism Subcommittee is working to help Israelis become more firmly connected to their Jewish heritage.

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JDC helps at-risk young women In Israel

Amita, 21, was just 12 when, by court order, she was removed from her home, where her father had been abusing her, and placed in a residential school, where she remained until she was 18.

Exempt from military service because of her history, Amita volunteered for national service. Once that ended, however, she had nowhere to go and no means to support herself.

Her childhood abuse and years of institutionalization had left Amita ill-equipped for independent adulthood.

She had basic schooling, but no preparation for dealing with the social problems common among young people raised in institutions.

Amita and other young women in similar situations had no family or agency to help in making the transition from a culture of dependency to modern life.

The Employment Initiative, a joint project of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and the Israeli government, was started to address this problem.

The JDC is an overseas partner of UJC MetroWest. And it is UJC’s support of the JDC that helps make such urgent and unusual outreach possible.

Actually, young adults are only one group out of five targeted by the Employment Initiative, as it seeks to break the cycle of poverty for some 750,000 chronically unemployed Israelis by means of custom-tailored programs of help to enter the workforce.

The other four groups are immigrants, the disabled, Haredim, and Arab-Israelis.

Amita’s connection to the initiative was made through its Bridge to Life Program, or Gesher, which first identified her as someone who could benefit from participating. Through Gesher, Amita was given testing to see what her natural aptitudes and talents might be. Then she was given job-search assistance and a grant to complete an accounting course.

“I would never have known from where to begin,” she says. “Now I am getting the resources to become better than the environment in which I grew up.”

Amita also received housing, an apartment in the town of Hadera, where she lives with other girls in the program. This is crucial. It is not only a roof overhead; it is a stable home environment and a support network of peers all making the same transition from dependent youth to independent adulthood.

Amita needed all the aid she was given. Without it, where could she have learned the “soft skills” that a beginner needs to make it into the workforce? Among the essential things Amita learned were effective communication, meeting employer expectations, diligence, and cooperation as part of a team. Institutional care had left Amita unfamiliar with these and other soft skills. The Initiative helped her compensate for this critical gap in her preparation for independent life.

Amita is one of an estimated 100,000 young Israeli adults aged 18-34 without any family support network whatsoever. By the end of 2006, the Gesher program should reach at least 80 more young people, with the kind of meaningful help that Amita has received.

“My friends and I want to tell others like us that there is hope for something more than what we have known as children,” says Amita now.

There could be quite a lot more. The program’s long-term goal is formal integration of its services into Israel’s welfare system so that in the future young people like Amita will be able to make the transition from childhood without a family to successful independent adulthood.

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Travel abroad, bringing it home: UJC Mission reflections

[Editor’s Note: The following is the third article in an occasional series featuring the remembrances and reflections of some of the 18 participants in a leadership mission to Israel in September 2005. The purpose of the trip was to enable campaign and emerging leaders to see for themselves the projects that UJC is funding, and then to translate those first-hand experiences into powerful presentations on behalf of the UJA Campaign.]

Randolph resident Mindy Kahn has the benefit of two perspectives from which to view her experience in Israel, and she uses them both.

Kahn’s professional vantage is from her position as product manager at a telecommunications hardware company.

Her personal viewpoint is that of an active UJC volunteer with a deep and special interest in the relationship between UJC MetroWest and Israel. That is why it was especially important for her, on the mission, to visit projects and programs in MetroWest’s partnership communities.

“I am proud,” she says, “that in business, Israel is just like anywhere else.” She was encouraged by a casual conversation with an Israeli consumer, “about my age and [with] a similar lifestyle, and he said ‘now that Israel is out of Gaza and returning to a more normal situation, we can focus on our internal social issues.’”

Over the course of the mission, Kahn developed a greater awareness of Israel’s social and economic issues, such as poverty, especially among children, and the consequence of inadequate nutrition for growing boys and girls.

Kahn said she learned that last year more than 700,000 children in Israel were living in poverty. Overall, 33 percent of all children in Israel live in households under the poverty line.

“Now that there is finally time and energy for Israelis to focus on their social issues,” she says, “what is our responsibility as American Jews?”

She knows that the answer to the question she has posed will take time and careful thought. “Israel is trying to tackle several economic and social issues, and it is not clear just what role we will be playing. We are entering new territory and we will need to work out new ways of relating to our partners in Israel.”

One example of taking a new approach can be seen at the extended school day program in Ofakim, one of UJC MetroWest’s partnership communities. Ofakim is home to many low-income students. The extended day school program that UJC sponsors there provides each student a hot meal, often the only hot meal the student has for the day. The program also offers classes in music and computers, help with homework, and individual tutoring. These are enrichments, but not really luxuries, especially as the program as a whole enables parents to work longer hours or seek employment, confident in the knowledge that their children are safe and gainfully occupied.

“It is always personally energizing to be in the land of Israel,” says Kahn. “I’m excited about what UJC, JDC (the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee), and JAFI (The Jewish Agency) are doing there, and about the new partnership opportunities that are opening up for us to participate with our Israeli counterparts. I hope more people will go to Israel to get their own first-hand experiences.”

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