Original Article Published On The Connecticut Jewish Ledger

Fifty 10th and 11th graders from across the Southern New England region had a true “mifgash” (an encounter) with each other and with Israeli peers from their Partnership 2000 Afula-Gilboa community during a recent nine-day SNEC Mifgash Israel trip.

The teens are participants in high school programs such as MAKOM (Greater New Haven Jewish Federation), Merkaz (The Jewish Center for Community Services of Eastern Fairfield), Yachad (The Greater Hartford Jewish Federation), and Kulanu (United Federation of Greater Stamford, New Canaan and Darien). Three students from the Federation-Jewish Communities of Western Connecticut also participated in the mifgash, which ran from Dec. 27-Jan. 4.

Adam Tager of West Hartford had his chance to write in the “trip blog” of the Israel Experts website (http://www.israelexperts.com) soon after he arrived in Israel.

“It is amazing to be in Israel. There is the universal feeling of home and hospitality, although for most people including myself the thought of actually being in Israel after all this waiting and anticipation has not sunken in yet.” By evening, Adam knew he was in Israel. After returning from the Mediterranean Sea near Atlit,

Tager writes, “We got out under the full moon and the stars with the lights of Israel off in the distance. With the water advancing and retreating on the sands we said the Shehecheyanu and then we knew we are really in Israel.”

According to Dr. Arnold Carmel, principal of New Haven’s MAKOM and SNEC Mifgash coordinator, “The objective was not a trip in the traditional sense-it was a true mifgash-an interactive meeting of 10th and 11th graders from our region with people their own age from Afula-Gilboa.”

Audrey Lichter, director of Greater Hartford’s Yachad program, observed, “For some, it was not what they expected. Instead of simply doing Masada and other tourist destinations, the participants had a chance to share experiences and conversations. The purpose of the trip was to establish a living bridge, to connect in a deep way.”

Mifgash participants spent six nights in homes of peers from the

Afula-Gilboa region, and the Israelis joined the American group for Shabbat in Jerusalem.

“The heart of the experience was home hospitality,” stressed Stacey Battat, dean of students for New Haven’s MAKOM and the person responsible for running the Department of Jewish Education Israel Desk. Participants stayed with families in moshavim, kibbutzim and other homes throughout the Afula-Gilboa region.

Said Lichter, “I visited the home and family of a young emissary who stayed in our home two years ago. It felt like family. Their daughter was in my house, and my daughter stayed in their house when she was in Israel.”

The Americans had an opportunity to experience such every day routines as attending school.

“Visiting the school was cool,” noted Jacob Chatinover, a 10th grader at Hall High School in West Hartford. “The students and teachers seemed very friendly and relaxed. The teachers didn’t mind if you are late (once in a while), and the students call the teachers by their first names. And the students aren’t worried about AP tests and college applications. They will be going off to the army and won’t worry about college for several years. It really put things in perspective!”

Shai Silverman, a junior at the Hopkins School in New Haven, had a similar experience during his visit to a kibbutz school.

“The school was beautiful, and they had a building for each grade,” reports Silverman. “This particular school was very different because there is a farm on the school and each student is required to help around the farm as part of the curriculum.”

Jaclyn Siegel of Bridgeport was impressed by the opportunities to interact with officials from Afula-Gilboa and with Israeli Arabs. She noted in a blog entry, “Today we spent time at the home of the vice head of the Gilboa Municipality. This was such an amazing and unique experience…I didn’t have any idea that we would be spending time in an Israeli-Arab village. It was not at all what you would see on TV. The house was unbelievably gorgeous. The family was so nice and greeted us with a kosher snack on their balcony. They even gave us gold-trimmed glasses to drink from! It was very interesting to me to hear him say that he hopes for peace in Israel – it surprised me but I am glad. It was an experience I will never forget.”

Matt Kochen, also a tenth grader at Hall High School, said, “I thought it would be a little more dangerous. I felt really safe and realize that the

media blows things out of proportion.” Kochen enjoyed getting to “experience real life” in Israel, and “meeting new people.”

While Chatinover noted that “getting to know the culture and getting a feel for the country” were the “focal points” of the trip, he also enjoyed the time spent getting to better know teenagers from his own community and from throughout Southern New England.

The group members have already begun acting as spokespeople and shlichim by sharing their impressions and thoughts at religious schools, synagogues, and Federations throughout the region. Chatinover and Kochen spent a recent day at the Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Hartford.

“Our responsibility is to educate,” said Kochen. “We were telling the students why they should go to Israel!” added Chatinover.

In a letter to Battat the day after returning home, one female participant wrote, “I will spread the mission of peace, I will spread the truth and reality of the people and culture of Israel, and this is what I have been thinking about for the past couple of hours since I returned home. These past ten days have given me everything I could have wanted. I gained friendship, family, and a homeland, in the land of my people.”

The wind blows harder,

Yet I stand strong,

I am a Jew

Israel is my homeland

Where else can we belong?

My heart is here

My spirit lives in the mountain breeze

My soul bathes in the Kinneret

Overlooking Syria, Lebanon and my homeland

The wind blows loudly

Howling in my ears

Slapping my cheeks

Bringing tears to my eyes

Pushing back my chest

My legs do not falter

I will not fall in vain

I am a Jew

Israel is my homeland

Has the spirit of Jews

The endless hope courage, deep affliction, passionate love, ironic humor

Filled with stories and the simultaneous joy and tragedy of humankind

Remember…

And keep the heritage, dignity, traditions and Israeli spirit alive.

Be Strong

We face the ongoing battle against the winds of conformity, fully and proudly.

I am a Jewish girl.

I love deeply, suffer greatly, and have G-d’s breath in me.

I belong in Israel – my homeland.

— Melanie Wise of Hamden

Original Article Published on The Connecticut Jewish Ledger

After 25 years of selling and marketing such products as Stride Rite, Keds and Levi Strauss, Jerry Silverman brings his business sense and passion to a product that lasts many years longer than your average pair of shoes or jeans.

Silverman, the former president of the Stride Rite Children’s Group and the Keds Corporation, was recently named executive director of the Foundation for Jewish Camping (www.jewishcamping.org).

Silverman is passionate about his latest “product” and is happy to discuss the lifelong benefits of Jewish camping.

Research into the impact of Jewish camping has been conducted during the past five years, and benefits of Jewish camping include:

•Research associates Jewish camp experience with increased Jewish practice, identity, leadership, affiliation and generosity, as well as with decreased intermarriage.

•Jewish camp alumni are 50% more likely to join a synagogue and 90% more likely to join a JCC than Jewish adults who never went to Jewish camp.

•65% of professionals in the Jewish community are alumni of non-profit Jewish overnight camps.

Silverman is also quick to point out some astounding numbers about camps and campers currently in Jewish summer camps.

“Non-profit Jewish overnight

camps are full to capacity,” notes Silverman, “We serve more than 120 Jewish camps and 120,000 counselors. But there is only room for 55,000 children each summer, barely 7% of our camp-age population.”

Public foundation

This is where Silverman, the Bildners, and the Foundation for Jewish Camping come in. When philanthropists Rob Bildner and Elisa Spungen Bildner completed the Wexner Program, they were eager to put their new knowledge and skills to use serving the Jewish community. They were inspired, did careful research and felt the opportunity for the greatest impact was in the field of Jewish camping. In 1998, they set up a public foundation to (in the words of Silverman) “drive the message of Jewish camping and to serve as the central address and advocacy voice for information about non-profit Jewish camping.” The

Foundation for Jewish Camping also provides leadership, financial and programming resources to camps, campers and their families across North America.

According to Silverman, “Our number one mission is to significantly increase the number of Jewish kids participating in Jewish non-profit camps.”

Silverman then outlines for current goals of the foundation.

“Our first goal is professionalizing the field of Jewish camping,” notes Silverman. There are currently several grants aimed at keeping people in the field of Jewish camping. Billy Mencow, who worked closely with the Foundation during his five year tenure as director of Camp Ramah

in New England, praises the work of the Foundation. Mencow reports, “They have recognized the critical importance of staff retention, particularly in the college years. The FJC has hit the nail right on the head with its Cornerstone Program. Cornerstone supplied financial incentives for college sophomores to return on staff for a third year. This cohort goes on to become our Roshei Edah and Roshei Anaf – Unit and Department Heads. This is a program whose impact will be long lasting.”

Other grants include the Jewish Environmental and Nature Fellowship, geared to professionals interested in teaching nature and environmental issues in Jewish camps. The Spielberg Theatre Fellowship helps camps develop their theater arts programs. And Silverman notes with great excitement, “In 2006, we will launch a top level development curriculum for top notch, top-of-the line in the field.”

The second goal of the Foundation is what Silverman calls “advocating for the field.” This includes getting the message out about the importance and

impact of Jewish camping- through the media, Federations, etc. Silverman

spends a great deal of his time traveling across the country sharing data and stories with Jewish Federation and other community leaders about the

importance of Jewish camping.

The Foundation’s third goal, “looking at our sense of capacity,” has led to the development of new programs and new camps.

“We need capacity and new customer-centric and customer friendly programs. We need special needs programs, we need specialty camps,” Silverman notes.

Silverman reported on a high-level Jewish arts camp, BIMA, the Berkshires Institute for Music and Arts, which was started this past summer on the campus of Williams College in western

Massachusetts. Started by Rabbi Danny Lehman, the founder of the New Jewish High School in Boston, the camp offered tracks in art, music (instrumental and vocal) and creative writing to 42 students, including six from Israel.

“We will be offering six or seven specialty programs this summer alone,” boasts Silverman. “And we are working to open new camps

with various movements. The Reconstructionist Movement bought and will open its first camp, and we are offering seed grants to get programs off the ground. And we are challenging existing camps to increase their capacity.”

The fourth goal of the Foundation is programmatic excellence.

Existing camps are eligible to receive Program Excellence Grants, where the highest quality programs are rewarded. These programs are then shared through a program bank offered by the Foundation for Jewish Camping.

Ruth Ann Ornstein, executive director of Camp Laurelwood, the only Jewish overnight camp in Connecticut, reports, “We use the Foundation for Jewish Camping as a resource network. We call with questions, and we use them for help in finding staff.” Further, Ornstein is pleased that Camp Laurelwood received a Spielberg Grant four years ago.

The Harold Grinspoon Foundation, based in Springfield, Mass., shares many of the Foundation for Jewish Camping’s goals and has collaborated on several projects, including the Grinspoon Institute for Jewish Philanthropy.

According to Joanna S. Ballantine, executive director of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation, the two organizations are working to help Jewish overnight camps with board development and fundraising. The Grinspoon Foundation has organized a leadership training institute for camp executive directors, and they continue to offer the Campership Incentive Program.

This program funds Jewish children from Western Massachusetts who attend Jewish overnight camps; this program is neither need-based nor affiliation-based. “We believe Jewish camping is one of the important places to make an impact on Jewish families,” reports Ballantine.

Silverman assures readers that he “will be a strong advocate to ensure that the Jewish sleep-away camp remains a viable and growing industry for parents seeking to give their children a lifetime of memories as well as a life-long community one summer at a time.”

And he concludes, “It is my hope to double the numbers of Jewish children attending non-profit camps in the coming years.”

For more information about the Foundation for Jewish Camping log onto www.jewishcamping.org or contact the Foundation at questions@jewishcamping.org

Original Article Published On The Connecticut Jewish Ledger

Are Jewish day school graduates happy?

Audrey Lichter, director of Yachad, the Greater Hartford Jewish Community High School, Hartford venture capitalist Alan Mendelson and two university researchers are trying to find out just that.

Prof. Michael Ben-Avie, a research scientist and associate professor at the Yale Child Study Center and the Center for Community and School Action Research in the Connecticut state university system, and Dr. Jeffrey Kress, assistant professor of Jewish education at the Jewish Theological Seminary, have assembled an extensive project team to attempt to answer the question, “Are Jewish day school graduates happy?”

They had to recast the question into something that could be studied scientifically. Thus, the study “Jewish Day School Education and Quality of Life: An Empirical Investigation of Current Students, Recent Alumni, Parents, and Schools” will attempt to answer the research question, “Do Jewish day schools provide their students with an advantage over their same-age peers not attending Jewish day school?” The researchers address this question by focusing on five indicators “that have been scientifically proven to provide youth with tools to make positive developmental transitions.”

These indicators include connectedness, successful intelligence, satisfaction with work, social and emotional competence, and sense of purpose and meaning.

Kress and Ben-Avie are excited at the possibility that the study will yield “several definitive, immediately useful outcomes.

“If there is another dimension to the benefits of day school education that could be clearly and scientifically demonstrated, then a), Jewish parents would be more likely to enroll their children in day school and the prospects for greater and more rapid growth in enrollment will significantly improve and b), the percent of the Jewish population that would be willing to financially support day school education would increase,” Ben-Avie comments.

“This study will take a very different look at Jewish day school education,” notes Lichter. “We invest hundreds of millions of dollars in Jewish day school education–it is time we learned more about the efficacy of this kind of education, in addition to Jewish continuity. This study can potentially change the entire landscape of the way we speak about and market Jewish day school education.”

Kinder and gentler?

The idea for the study came about one day when Lichter, who is also co-president of the Hebrew High School of New England and founding member and board president of the Jewish Day School Consortium of Southern New England, was talking to Alan Mendelson, a venture capitalist and active member of the Hartford Jewish community.

“I wanted him to consider funding Jewish day schools, and he asked, ‘I know Jewish day schools do a good job for the most part of creating educated and active Jews, but do they create happier people?’” Lichter recalled. “So I said, ‘That’s a great question, I don’t know the answer, but I think I know who we can ask!”

Lichter went to her brother-in-law, Dr. Richard Davidson, who studies Tibetan monks as they meditate. Davidson has traveled extensively with the Dalai Lama and is interested in the Dalai Lama’s quest for creating a kinder, gentler, more in control person through the practice of meditation.

Soon, Ben-Avie and Kress came on board to study the subject. Lichter and Mendelson learned of Ben-Avie and his work in exploring the relationship between learning and development from a member of the leadership team of the Collaborative to Advance Social and Emotional Learning and soon after, the research project team was assembled.

During the spring of 2005, the research team will conduct a pilot study at two Jewish day schools. Once they complete the pilot study, they will refine their research instruments, provide preliminary data, and make plans for the next phase of the study. That will inform the writing of a full proposal, which will include studying the students and alumni over the course of several years.

The team has raised some funds for completing the pilot study but is in need of some additional funding. After the pilot is completed, they will apply to major foundations and individuals to fund a study that will cost at least three quarters of a million dollars.

A recent team meeting was held at the JCC of Greater New Haven.

Dr. Kress noted that there has been “interest in funding both the process and the outcome,” and he thanked the Targum Shlishi Foundation in Florida, The Alan and Peggy Mendelson Fund of the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Hartford, and The Lichter family for their financial support.

Kress and Ben-Avie stressed the potential for a major study with major results if other funders join the process.

“If we can show that engaging in value-laden community education increases the probability of people having these traits,” Lichter said, “then more parents may want Jewish day schools for their children, and we can increase our enrollment and our funding base for Jewish day schools.”

For more information, contact Dr. Ben-Avie at Michael.ben-avie@yale.edu

Original Article Published On The Connecticut Jewish Ledger

NEW HAVEN – If Jews are the People of the Book, then Rabbi Murray Levine can best be described as the teacher, reader, reviewer, collector and now donor of the book.

The 77-year-old “retired” rabbi teaches a class for area rabbis at Congregation Beth El-Keser Israel (BEKI) in New Haven and is preparing to lead a joint BEKI/Congregation B’nai Jacob trip to the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) on Sunday, March 20. Levine received rabbinic ordination from JTS 51 years ago, and he will now present an out-of-print autographed edition of Elie Wiesel’s book, “Ani Maamin” (“I Believe”) to the JTS library.

Levine is a lifelong book lover, and every book in his library has a story.

“This summer, I was vacationing in Pittsfield, Mass., and I came upon a used book sale, where each book was either one dollar or two dollars,” recounts Levine. “When I spotted the Wiesel book, I bought it. It is a cantata about the Holocaust, written in French” (with a facing English translation, prepared by Marion Wiesel).

According to the book’s introduction, “Ani Maamin” “can be called a poem, a parable, a legend – for it is all of these and more. It is a poetic retelling of a Talmudic tale.” Music for “Ani Maamin” was written by Darius Milhaud, and the cantata was performed at Carnegie Hall.

Only 750 copies were “prepared for the occasion,” and each is autographed by Wiesel.

Levine, familiar with many of Wiesel’s works, had never heard of “Ani Maamin” and contacted the JTS library. When Levine learned of the book’s significance, he decided to present the rare book to the world-renowned JTS library.

Levine wrote to Wiesel, inviting him to attend the presentation but he is unable to attend.

As a pulpit rabbi in Framingham, Mass., Levine had presented another book to the JTS library and organized a similar trip to tour the JTS campus.

Other books in Rabbi Levine’s library include books he reviewed for the (now defunct) Jewish Spectator magazine.

“For 35 years, I wrote book reviews for Trude Weiss Rosmarin at the Jewish Spectator; she would send me books, I wrote reviews, and I got to keep the books” (as compensation the reviews), recounts Levine. Of course, many books in Levine’s library are religious texts, which the rabbi has used throughout his distinguished rabbinic career, and which he continues to use today.

Levine served as a pulpit rabbi in the Mill Basin section of Brooklyn for 16 years and in Framingham for 15 years. During his 12 year “retirement” in New Haven, Levine has taught many classes. In addition to his ongoing course for New Haven area rabbis, Levine teaches classes in bibliodrama. Levine will lead a series of five bibliodrama classes as part of Elderhostel at the Nevele Hotel in the Catskills this May.

One special book in Levine’s library is a book he wrote (and compiled)

himself.

“At my 75th birthday party, I gave my three children copies of all the writings I have done over the past 35 years,” notes Levine proudly.

“Sefer HaChayim — Book of Life, a Book of Writings and Remembrances,” contains book reviews, letters from such notables as Dr. Louis Finkelstein, Sen. Ted Kennedy and Rep. Barney Frank, and President Bill Clinton, and documents connected to his 1984 trip to the Soviet Union.