Original article

World ranked 224, Israel’s Amir Weintraub ekes out a living playing World Team Tennis as a Boston Lobster. It helps pay the bills in the sport he loves.

BOSTON — Call it “tennis light,” “family-friendly tennis,” or perhaps, most importantly for players like Israel’s Amir Weintraub, call it “three weeks of tennis with a guaranteed paycheck.” Welcome to World Team Tennis.

For pro players like Weintraub, World Team Tennis is an opportunity for a few weeks’ steady income in a precarious field. Currently ranked 224th in the world, Weintraub ekes out a living playing such relatively minor events on the pro circuit, racking up points with the hope of making it to a major tournament.

World Team Tennis was co-founded in 1974 by tennis legend Billie Jean King (with former husband Larry King) and is based on a concept of gender equity. It consists of eight teams, which travel more than 60,000 miles to play 56 matches; this year’s season ran from July 7 to 24.

Weintraub and his Boston Lobsters finished its 2013 Mylan World Team Tennis season with 23 wins and 15 losses. Eastern and Western Conference Championships were held July 25, followed by the Mylan WTT Finals on July 28 where the Washington Kastles prevailed.

Unlike more conventional professional tennis matches, whose sets and matches can last several hours, WTT matches consist of just five games. Game scoring is no-ad; the first team to win four points wins the game. Tennis without deuces means matches last no more than 30 minutes — even with breaks for on-court dances by mascot Larry the Lobster, MC announcements and cheers (“OK Crustacean Nation-Turn up the Heat!”; “What time is it? Break Time!”), and even on-court player interviews.

During a brief opening night rain delay, the courtside announcer asked Weintraub such playful questions as his first concert (Scorpions), an instrument he’d like to play (guitar), breakfast today (Dunkin’ Donuts), the last concert he saw (Rihanna) and strangest gift ever received at a tennis tournament (a cape from Uzbekistan).

The Lobsters opened the 2013 season at their new home, the Joan Norton Tennis Center at the Manchester Athletic Club on Boston’s North Shore. Each night of the WTT season, fans were treated to men’s and women’s singles, men’s and women’s doubles and mixed doubles. The coach of the home team decided the order of events.

Weintraub represents the level of great athletes who hover around the top without quite breaking into the ranks of big prize money

In the first match of the evening, Weintraub, playing in his second WTT season, defeated Jesse Witten 5-2. Witten, playing in his sixth season with the Sportimes, reached a career high of 163 in singles and 274 in doubles. Weintraub and partner, Eric Butorac, closed out the evening with a 5-2 doubles win over Witten and Robert Kendrick (who reached a career high of 69 in 2009).

But even before Weintraub’s impressive opening night performance, Darlene Hayes, Chief Development Officer and General Manager of the Boston Lobsters, noted, “We are really excited to have Amir play with the Lobsters. He played WTT for the first time last season. We watched and were very impressed with how he played for the Springfield (Missouri) Lasers and for Israel’s Davis Cup. So we scooped him up!”

The good-natured, slim, 6 foot 2 inch (188 cm.) Weintraub, the only Israeli playing this season in the WTT, spoke with the Times of Israel prior to his first match with his new team. The Rehovot native was introduced to tennis at age six when his father, Luis, begin hitting balls with him in a parking lot. Luis also served as his designated driver, and was responsible for getting Amir to and from the Israel Tennis Centers in Jaffa, forty-five minutes each way.

Following a three-year stint at Israel’s Wingate Institute, Weintraub trained at a tennis academy in Vienna, Austria.

“It was hard being alone for two years,” recounted Weintraub, who was sixteen at the time. Upon returning to Israel, Weintraub qualified as an “outstanding athlete” and served the full three and a half years in the Israel Defense Forces. He continued to train at the Israel Tennis Centers in Ramat Hasharon and has been playing professionally since 2005.

Weintraub on the court (photo credit: Howard Blas/Times of Israel)

Weintraub represents the level of great athletes who hover around the top without quite breaking into the ranks of big prize money. In January 2011, Weintraub even participated in the qualifiers of his first Grand Slam — the Australian Open — but he never made it into the main draw.

He has won several low-paying Israel Futures events, and he was a finalist in the 2011 Bangkok Challenger tournament. In 2012, Weintraub reached a career high ranking of 161. In 2013, he qualified for the main draw of the Australian Open, but lost in the qualifiers of Wimbledon.

Weintraub, now 26, constantly reflects on life “below 100” on the pro tour.

“The players below 100 are not less good, but less consistent than the top 100,” said Weintraub. “Every week, we travel somewhere else. I travel about 30 weeks a year. Because we have no relations with the Arab countries, there are no tournaments close to Israel. It’s a hard life.”

A post on weintraubamir.com entitled, “Waiting For an Offer from the Bundesliga,” begins, “If you’re not a top-100 tennis player, you’re doomed. Financially speaking, it will take you a few years to see that you are broke, you’ve spent all of your parents’ money and you’ll ask yourself why you haven’t pursued a football (soccer) career instead.” He explains why tennis leagues in Europe can be lucrative for tennis players, but Weintraub hasn’t played in these leagues. “You usually need a European passport to play in the European leagues.”

So Weintraub found himself in Boston, where it may sound ironic that a Jewish Israeli has been for three weeks, a “Lobster.”

“It is very intense. There are so many matches. And it is a tough format — you get few chances to come back.”

But, it helps pay the bills.

Following the Lobsters season and a series of tournaments, Weintraub is currently playing in Vancouver, where he has made it to the second round. He hopes to qualify for the US Open, which kicks off in late August. Then, it is off to Belgium where Weintraub joins teammates Dudi Sela, Jonathan Erlich, and Noam Okun for their September 12-15 Davis Cup matches. And finally, back on the road again —hoping to make a living doing what he knows and loves. Even as a Lobster.

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Original Article Published On The Times Of Israel

Mixed marriages, special needs kids, Russian immigrants, Israelis: How inclusive is your child’s Jewish camp?

NEW YORK (JTA) — Is there a more enthusiastic camper in the world than Ezra Fields-Meyer, a 17-year-old with high-functioning autism and a regular at Camp Ramah in Southern California?

Not if you ask his father.

Tom Fields-Meyer says his son’s annual visit to the rural retreat in Ojai, 80 miles northwest of Los Angeles, is a much-anticipated opportunity for Ezra to spend time with all kinds of children in a fun and nurturing environment.

“The four weeks he goes to Ramah and is away from us are really the four best weeks of his year, which is a little bit hard for a parent to say,” Fields-Meyer said. “The kids in his program are almost celebrities. I think camp is great for all kids, but especially for those like Ezra.”

A summer camp experience can be transformative for kids like Ezra, but many Jewish camps believe that special-needs kids — along with other minority Jewish populations, like Russian Americans, Israeli Americans and the children of interfaith marriages — are severely underrepresented in the Jewish camp system.

“Break down the percentage of kids from various backgrounds who attend and the numbers are not where we want them to be to reflect the broader Jewish community,” said Abby Knopp, vice president of program and strategy at the Foundation for Jewish Camp, a group that seeks to expand access to the Jewish camping experience.

In a conscious effort to promote diversity, Jewish summer camps are working to boost the participation of minority communities in the camp experience.

According to FJC, of the estimated 72,000 youths who attend nonprofit Jewish camps each year, approximately 1,000 are special needs — a blanket term for children and adolescents with a range of disabilities including Down syndrome, autism, paraplegics and visual impairment.

Only 3 percent to 4 percent of children from the Russian Jewish community attend camp, though they represent 15 percent to 20 percent of Jewish children overall, the FJC said. The percentage of Israeli-American kids who attend camp is about the same. Interfaith children comprise about 18 percent of Jewish campers, though their fraction of the larger Jewish youth population surely is much higher.

Camps have taken a number of approaches to integrate special-needs children, ranging from full-immersion programs in general camps to creating specific facilities uniquely for them.

Ezra Fields-Meyer attended a mixed program at Ramah. During the day he took part in the same activities as the wider camp population; at night he stayed in separate sleeping quarters.

“[Ezra] can go go the same camp with his two brothers, be part of the same community, but also acknowledge he has different needs,” Tom Fields-Meyer said.

Some camps have taken inclusivity a step further. At Camp Ramah in New England, special-needs kids have the option of a full immersion program that includes shared accommodations.

“About 12 years ago, families asked if we would consider an inclusion program,” said Howard Blas, the head of the Tikvah program at Ramah New England, in Palmer, Mass. “What they meant is to take the kids and have them be part of the program with the mainstream kids.”

In response, the camp invited Spencer Salend, an expert on inclusive classrooms at the State University of New York at New Paltz, to draw up a curriculum for the joint program. Two kids — one with Down syndrome and one with autism — took part in the pilot eight years go. Now, as many as 12 disabled youths participate each year.

“The idea was that if we started younger, their bond [with the other campers] would be greater,” Blas explained. “We had some very different outcomes. Some have come through the whole program having a great experience. We’ve had some that have been difficult.”

Despite some disappointments, Blas says the initiative on the whole has been positive and productive. But Rabbi Allan Smith, the former head of Union for Reform Judaism’s camp network and now the director of a Jewish camp for special-needs kids in Pennsylvania, says special needs kids who spend summers with peers with similar disabilities come out much more confident and better prepared to interact with mainstream children.

“My position is don’t play games,” Smith said. “Don’t do tokensim and put kids into an environment where they are doomed to fail.”

Another priority has been bringing more Jews from the former Soviet Union and their offspring into the camp fold. Part of the challenge there is introducing the camp idea to a community that doesn’t fully understand it.

“If you look at most of the kids who go to camps, their parents went to camp, too,” said Knopp. “There is a 100-year-old tradition here in America that Russian-speaking Jews are unfamiliar with. Families in the Former Soviet Union sent their children to camp, but they don’t understand the importance of sending their kids to Jewish camps.”

Israeli-American parents also shy away from sending their children to overnight summer camps for similar reasons, the FJC said. Many of them go back to Israel for the summer to visit relatives.

Jewish camps have had more success attracting the children of intermarried families. Though the FJC pegs the percentage of Jewish campers with only one Jewish parent at about 18 percent, Paul Reichenbach, the director of camp and Israel programs at the Union for Reform Judaism, says that up to 40 percent of children at some URJ camps have at least one non-Jewish parent.

Reichenbach says camp curriculums must be sensitive toward children of mixed faiths or they risk becoming alienated from the community. He says the language in some brochures and the content of some programs were adapted to reflect this change.

“While we are all for Jewish values,” Reichenbach said, “we have to recognize we are dealing with kids that are far more pluralistic than they used to be 20 to 30 years ago.”

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The Original Article

The month leading up to the camp season is action-packed, a bit stressful and most of all—exciting. In less than a month, hundreds of campers with a range of disabilities will arrive at Jewish summer camps across North America.  While the off-season is similarly busy with hiring staff, interviewing prospective campers, planning programs, attending conferences and staff trainings with Camp Ramah colleagues, it allows some time for reflection on our work, and for considering expansion, refinements and new directions—both within our own Ramah camping movement and in the larger Jewish camping world.

The entire Ramah community eagerly awaited the survey conducted by the Foundation for Jewish Camp (FJC) and Laszlo Strategies called “Preliminary Research on Special Needs in Jewish Overnight Camp.” One key finding was that “the majority of those involved in camp – including staff, campers, and parents – care about this issue and agree that every Jewish child, regardless of a disability or special need, should be able to attend a Jewish camp.  Most involved prefer an inclusion model, with clear recognition that not every camp is able to serve every need…”

We in the Ramah camping movement have been providing overnight, day and family camping and vocational training opportunities to children and young adults with a wide range of disabilities since 1970, when the first Tikvah Program was started in Glen Spey, New York, and soon after relocated to Camp Ramah in New England in Palmer, MA.

Our experience in our eight Ramah camps in the US and Canada has shown the importance of offering a wide range of models and programs as “one size certainly does not fit all.” For example:
● Breira b’Ramah at Ramah Berkshires offers a full inclusion program
● Ramah Outdoor Adventure Program in the Rockies offers Tikvah, where campers with a range of disabilities participate in the same challenging outdoor activities (mountain climbing, horseback riding and more) as their neurotypical peers
● Ramah California now has a dedicated Tikvah educator charged with creating inclusive opportunities for Tikvah campers and with educating the entire camp community about disabilities
● Ramah Wisconsin offers camping and vocational training opportunities to campers with Asperger’s Syndrome and other disabilities alongside their neurotypical peers.  They share adjoining bunks, put on a joint play and more.

Now, Ramah Wisconsin is pleased to introduce Tzofeh, a full inclusion program for incoming 4th-6th grade campers, as well as for 7th-11th grade campers requiring additional support with a range of disabilities related to social skills, speech, language and executive functioning.

The FJC/Laszlo survey is a welcome reminder that there is still work to be done, and campers to be served.  We in the Jewish camping world should continue rising to the challenge of creating a range of programs offering different models and serving a wide range of disabilities.

We at Camp Ramah are proud of our 43 years of work in the field and we look forward to continuing to grow and serve.

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Parade part of day-long festivities celebrating Israel-US ties

NEW YORK — More than a million New Yorkers came out Sunday to show support for Israel by attending the city’s annual Celebrate Israel Parade. Hundreds of thousands of spectators lined the route of the parade along Fifth Avenue, drowning the street in a sea of blue and white.

The parade was one in a series of New York-area events — which actually started Saturday night, with the Empire State Building lit up in blue and white.

At 8 a.m. Sunday morning, thousands of runners set out on a sold-out Celebrate Israel 4-mile (6.4-km) run in Manhattan’s Central Park. According to the Celebrate Israel website, “The four-mile run is a symbolic journey through Israel, from Eilat to Tel Aviv.” Israeli runners were treated to a performance at the Central Park Bandshell by Israeli-born recording artist, performer, educator and music therapist, Dafna.

The Celebrate Israel Parade, started in 1964 and formerly known as the Salute to Israel Parade, featured school groups and other Jewish organizations from the tri-state area, floats, and marching bands.

“I’ve been marching for 31 years with Ramaz. Exciting, community building, great experience for faculty and students to share their love and commitment to Medinat Yisrael. We get a chance to demonstrate our connection to our spiritual and sovereign home,” said Ira Miller, dean of Ramaz Upper School on East 78th Street in Manhattan.

Marchers made their way up Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, from 57th Street to 74th Street. The colorful marchers carried illustrations, collages, paintings, and other art forms that reflected the 2013 parade theme, “Picture Israel: The Art & the Craft.” According to the parade website, the art work was designed “to show the diversity of Israel and its people, the land/sea/cityscapes, accomplishments, etc.”

Security along the parade route was tight, with bomb-sniffing dogs on the ground and police helicopters above.

Among the Israeli participants at the parade were Home Front Defense Minister Gilad Erdan, Immigrant Absorption Minister Sofa Landver, Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon and MK Dov Lipman.

“I have been to New York many times, but this was my first time representing Israel as a member of Knesset in this important parade,” said American-born Lipman of the Yesh Atid party.

Lipman thanked the US and the city of New York for its friendship towards, and support of, the Jewish state.

The day’s festivities were set to end in a friendly soccer match between the Israeli and Honduran national teams.

Meanwhile, several thousand people attended a Closer to Israel march in central London Sunday afternoon, the UK’s first Israel parade in five years.

The event culminated in a celebratory gathering in Trafalgar Square, which was addressed by Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks and Israel’s Ambassador to the UK Daniel Taub, as well as Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove, who declared he was “proud to be a friend of Israel and proud to be a Zionist.”

Entertainment was provided by Israeli pop star and former Eurovision finalist, Harel Skaat.

The community at the event raised funds for Help for Heroes, a military charity that has been in the news since soldier Lee Rigby was murdered last month by Islamic fundamentalists in London, while wearing a Help for Heroes t-shirt.

(Source: http://www.timesofisrael.com)

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