UJA Federation News

Getting the Flavor of a Nonprofit Executive’s Job

Tue, 15 May 2012 10:53:00 -0400

To paraphrase an old saying, don’t judge a nonprofit until you’ve walked a mile in the executive director’s shoes. On May 10, as part of UJA-Federation of New York’s annual Executive for a Day program, 31 lay leaders visited 16 agencies in UJA-Federation’s network to meet with the executive leadership and learn more about the services they provide, challenges they face, and strategies they employ.

From left to right: Ira Machowsky, executive vice president, F•E•G•S; Gail Magaliff, CEO, F•E•G•S; Gail Liss; Sam Liss; Loni Kraut, associate director, Wall Street Division of UJA-Federation. Photo courtesy of F•E•G•S Media Services.

Phillip Altheim first proposed the idea for the Executive for a Day eight years ago. In talking to his fellow lay leaders who’ve participated over the years, Altheim has found that, “everybody’s response was almost the same: they had never realized the responsibilities of the executive director, they had never experienced how extraordinarily bright the [agency leadership] were, and how grateful the agency executives were for what UJA-Federation brought to the table.”

Just as important as gaining greater insight into the workings of the agencies themselves is making personal connections with their leadership and staff, according to Jill Mendelson, deputy managing director of UJA-Federation's Jewish Communal Network Commission. Executive for a Day is “a useful experience for donors to understand the nature of the work, meet the people who make things happen, and better understand the spirit of collaboration between UJA-Federation and its agencies” she says.

Gail Magaliff, CEO of F•E•G•S Health and Human Services System, one of the agencies that participated in Executive for a Day this year and in previous years, feels that the program’s strength is creating better-informed donors. “When people do get involved more, and see for themselves what an organization does, they then have a much richer, fuller understanding of the organization they’ve made a choice to contribute to,” she says.

And the lay leaders appreciate that deeper understanding as well. “The breadth of services that F•E•G•S provides is truly overwhelming,” says Gail Liss, who visited F•E•G•S on Executive for a Day with her husband Sam. “It was incredible to see the vast number and types of services they provide to a wide and varied population.”

An Eye-Opening Experience

For Ken Mazer, who visited Westchester Jewish Community Services (WJCS) with his wife, Melissa, the things he learned during Executive for a Day hit even closer to home. “It was a great eye-opener,” he says. “I live in Westchester County and I’ve been involved with UJA-Federation in one form or another for over 20 years. Most of [my involvement] has been with agencies in the city or on Long Island, so to see what went on in Westchester was particularly meaningful for me.”

From left to right: Bernie Kimberg, chief operating officer, WJCS; Ken Mazer; Melissa Mazer; Alan Trager, CEO, WJCS.

But it’s not just the donors who are getting exposed to new ideas. Alan Trager, CEO of WJCS, says that “when you get people that are interested in the services we provide, but also in how the organization works, very often they’ll ask questions that are very thought-provoking.” He added, “These conversations often lead to new lenses through which we can look at our agencies and the services we provide.”

Below is the list of agencies and lay leaders that participated this year:

The Jewish Education Project − Philip Altheim, Isidore Mayrock, Jack Rahmey

Selfhelp Community Services − Renee Barasch

New York Legal Assistance Group − Judy Baum, Peter Baum

YM & YWHA of Washington Heights & Inwood − Lee Brodsky, Lauren Fixel

Jewish Child Care Association of New York − Martine Fleishman, Gary Gordon, Karen Kasner, Paul Levy

Sid Jacobson Jewish Community Center − Ellen Forrest, Rina Pianko

92nd Street Y − Karen Friedman, Vicki Portman

Jewish Community Relations Council of New York − Donna Jakubovitz, Alisa Levin

The Educational Alliance − Evelyn Kenvin, Joyce Kramer

F•E•G•S Health and Human Services System − Gail Liss, Sam Liss

Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services − Matthew Lustig

Met Council on Jewish Poverty − Michael Lustig, Jill Smith

Samuel Field Y − Ralph Marash

Westchester Jewish Community Services − Ken Mazer, Melissa Mazer

Edith and Carl Marks Jewish Community House of Bensonhurst − Tina Price, Nina Ross

Ramapo for Children − Dina Zuckerberg

Russian Charity Ball Celebrates Leadership

Mon, 14 May 2012 11:51:00 -0400

UJA-Federation of New York’s Russian Charity Ball, which celebrated the leadership of established members of the Russian-speaking Jewish community as well as the next generation, took on added resonance when it was held at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Manhattan on May 10th. The museum is regarded as a “living memorial to the Holocaust.”

Honoree Sophia Grojsman receives award from Lawrence Wajnberg. Photo: Ross Den Photography

It was a fitting backdrop to honor Sophia Grojsman, recipient of the Lydia Vareljan Humanitarian Award, who is the daughter of Holocaust survivors. She and her family left the former Soviet Union in 1957 with the help of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, UJA-Federation beneficiary agencies.

Grojsman, a perfumer, has designed more than 20 of the world’s most popular aromas, said Lawrence Wajnberg, honorary chair of the Russian Division, who also noted that she is regarded in the industry as “the first nose of America.”

Edward Geyman (second from left) presented the Emerging Leaders Award to Eugene Braude, Eric Golysky, and Rebecca Buyanovsky. Photo: Ross Den Photography

In accepting her award, Grosjman expressed that she was grateful for the honor and pride in being a Jew born in Belarus who had become successful in a field known as a French business.

The nearly 200 guests heard John S. Ruskay, executive vice president and CEO of UJA-Federation, pay tribute to the Russian Jewish community.

“I love coming to this event because the Russian Jewish community has something to teach us,” he said. “Which is that we are in this together and we need to help each other. We need to create Jewish life that’s inspiring and meaningful to your children and mine, and we’ll only be able to succeed if we figure out how to do this together.”

Ylena Klurfeld, outgoing chair of the Russian Leadership Division, who also received an Emerging Leaders award. In the background is Amir Bronstein, one of the event chairs. Photo: Ross Den Photography

Ruskay also noted that developing leadership is key, and that’s why UJA-Federation is collaborating with the Wexner Foundation to create a new program for Russian-speaking Jews in New York. The Wexner Heritage program has a rich history of cultivating communal leaders of the Jewish community all over the United States.

He congratulated the first Russian-speaking cohort of the Wexner Heritage Program and said, “We need leaders with vision who speak truth to power. You have so much to teach us about Russian culture and Jewish culture, and how much it can fertilize Jewish life.”

Emerging Leaders Recognized

“This event brings together the founding Russian Division with Russian Leadership, our next generation,” said Elena Kliss, event chair, along with Amir Bronstein, who is also chair of Russian Leadership. “We represent a dynamic cross-section of today’s Russian-Jewish Americans, all motivated to strengthen our connection with the Jewish community and help people in need.”

Edward Geyman presented the first Russian Leadership Emerging Leaders Awards to Eugene Braude, Rebecca Buyanovsky, Eric Golynsky, and Yelena Klurfeld.

“This award represents a positive outcome arising from the struggles endured by the Jewish people,” said Klurfeld, who is also Russian Leadership’s outgoing chair. “We’re here today because of organizations like this, and we don’t have to ask ourselves what a better life would be, because this is our better life. My heartfelt gratitude to UJA-Federation for giving me the chance to be a leader in my community.”

Westchester Celebration Honors Those Who Give Back

Thu, 10 May 2012 12:52:00 -0400

The Talmud tells the story of a Roman emperor who notices an old Jewish man planting a fig tree. The emperor asks the man why he is planting the tree when he can’t hope to eat its fruit in his lifetime, and the man replies, “As my parents planted before me, so shall I plant for my children.”

From left to right, the honorees at the 2012 Westchester Celebration: Mark Bilski, Tracey Bilski, Ed Sperling, former director of Edenwald Center; Tara Slone-Goldstein; and Wayne Goldstein. Credit: Michael Priest Photography.

The man’s reply was a fitting theme for this year’s UJA-Federation of New York Westchester Celebration, which honored members of the community who have made an exceptional impact and given back to the next generation.

Held at the Hampshire Country Club in Mamaroneck on May 9th, the celebration honored Tracey and Mark Bilski, and Tara Slone-Goldstein and Wayne Goldstein, along with a special tribute to Ed Sperling, former director of Edenwald Center, which is under the auspices of the Jewish Child Care Association, a beneficiary agency of UJA-Federation.

After Westchester regional chair Pam Wexler introduced the theme and spoke about the impact of the honorees, Marty Greenberg, a longtime friend of Sperling’s, took the podium to introduce him. He spoke about Sperling’s tireless commitment over his 28-year tenure at Edenwald Center, a residential treatment facility in Pleasantville, New York, for boys and girls with autism, emotional or behavioral issues, or other developmental challenges.

“I discovered in [Ed], a unique human being whose concern for children is unparalleled; children not only who are Jewish, but children of all races and creeds, and Ed has dedicated his life to helping those children,” Greenberg said.

The Westchester Celebration’s event chairs, from left to right: Joseph Gantz, Paula Blumenfeld, Heidi Rieger, Polina Erlikh, Westchester Regional Chair Pam Wexler, and Laurie and Stephen Girsky. Credit: Michael Priest Photography.

Two years ago, Sperling was in a bicycle accident in Israel, which left him in a wheelchair. He spoke about the recovery process and how he gained an increased appreciation for the relationships and friendships he had formed through his work over the years, and the significance of UJA-Federation’s network of agencies.

“After over 40 years of helping people, and providing service to those in need, it’s very difficult being on the other side of the spectrum,” he said. “It’s very humbling, but very much appreciated.”

An Opportunity to Make a Difference

Sperling was not the only honoree with a history of working with children. Both the Bilski and the Goldstein families played, and continue to have, pivotal roles in J-Teen Leadership, a community service and leadership initiative for Jewish high school students funded by UJA-Federation.

Wayne Goldstein, and his wife Tara Slone-Goldstein as he spoke during the acceptance of their honor. Credit: Michael Priest Photography.

The Bilskis’ daughter, Amanda, was one of the founding teens who persuaded her peers to go on a service trip to New Orleans in 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. “UJA-Federation provided a real-world opportunity for our children to make a difference for others,” said Tracey Bilski.

Children from both families spoke about their parents, and when it was Josh Goldstein’s turn, he shared a weekly ritual he’d grown up with, where each family member would go around the table, share a small mitzvah they had done, and put some money in a tzedakah box.

When his father, Wayne, spoke at the end of the evening, he voiced a commitment to inculcating the value of giving to charity beyond the boundaries of his family’s dinner table.

“We are humbled by the incredible support shown to UJA-Federation tonight on our behalf,” he said. “And we hope that you will continue to make UJA-Federation and tzedakah a part of your lives going forward.”

Joe Steranka, PGA CEO, Gets Sports for Youth Honor

Wed, 02 May 2012 10:46:00 -0400

After nearly a quarter-century career with The PGA of America, Joe Steranka, CEO of the organization that promotes the game of golf around the globe, has no shortage of accolades. But on May 1st, when he was recognized as this year’s honoree of UJA-Federation of New York’s Sports for Youth initiative, it was clear that this program, and this award, had special meaning for him.

Junior Bridgeman presents PGA CEO, Joe Steranka with the Sports for Youth award. Photo: Michael Priest Photography

“I can think of no greater deed than sharing the gift of sports with young people in America,” Steranka told friends and colleagues assembled from all over the sports world at New York’s Grand Hyatt Hotel. “Virtually everyone in this room was involved in sports in some way, shape, or form and it helped us develop our competitive drive, our ability to work with others as a team, and certainly results in a lot of who we are today.”

While introducing Steranka, Russell E. Wolff, the Sports for Youth chair and executive vice president and managing director of ESPN International, explained Sports for Youth’s work and why it’s so important.

“Sports for Youth is giving underprivileged children and children with special needs a chance to be part of what so many other kids love to do: getting a hole in one, scoring a goal, dreaming of hitting a ball out of the park,” said Wolff, who was last year’s honoree.

Sports for Youth provides funds for a variety of projects, including sports equipment and facilities at Henry Kaufmann Campgrounds, allowing children at Bronx House to go on climbing and outdoors trips, and supporting Soccer For Peace, which brings Israeli and Palestinian kids together to play sports.

A Model of Selfless Dedication

The ballroom of the Hyatt included many big names from the world of professional athletics, including NBA commissioner David J. Stern, a founder of Sports for Youth, and the award presenter, Junior Bridgeman, a retired NBA player and former board member of The PGA of America. The ceremony was also attended by prominent sports news executives such as John Skipper, president of ESPN, Mark Lazarus, the chairman of NBC Sports Group, and David Levy the president of sales, distribution, and sports for Turner Broadcasting.

From left to right: Jimmy Roberts, commentator for NBC Sports and author; Donna Orender, Sports for Youth chair and CEO of Orender Unlimited; Joe Steranka, Sports for Youth honoree and CEO of The PGA of America; Junior Bridgeman, restaurateur and former member of The PGA of America Board of Directors; and Russell E. Wolff, Sports for Youth chair and executive vice president and managing director of ESPN International. Photo: Michael Priest Photography

Many of the speakers had known Steranka as both a colleague and a friend for many years, including Sports for Youth chair Donna Orender, and the emcee for the event, Jimmy Roberts, a commentator for NBC Sports.

“I’ve known [Joe] for the better part of two decades and I think he has been the absolute personification of selfless dedication to bettering the lives of others,” Roberts said.

For information about Sports for Youth, contact Danielle Zalaznick.

Honoring Agency Trustees

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:19:00 -0400

Many people who work in the nonprofit world are used to wearing many hats and shouldering many responsibilities. On April 26th, UJA-Federation held a ceremony to recognize the dedication and leadership of network agency trustees, who serve in leadership roles both at their agencies and at UJA-Federation, saying the commitment they exhibit is a big part of what allows the community to address so many needs in New York, Israel, and around the world.

John S. Ruskay addressing the network agency trustees with New York City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn. Photo: Michael Priest Photography

New York City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn addressed the trustees and agency executives in the audience, and acknowledged the importance of the work their agencies do, going above and beyond the needs that the government can meet.

“The truth is, if it wasn’t for all of your organizations and the support that UJA-Federation gives them, more New Yorkers would go to bed hungry every night, fewer New Yorkers would have job training that they needed, and fewer New Yorkers would have the support that their families need in trying times,” Quinn said.

While Quinn spoke of the importance of the agencies’ work, the event chair for the evening, Patty Silverstein, thanked the agency trustees and agency executives themselves, as did Alisa Doctoroff, chair of the board of UJA-Federation. “Successful agencies don’t just happen,” Doctoroff said. “They’re the result of strong boards, and CEOs, and volunteers, all working together, and your wisdom is essential to that mix.”

A Philanthropic Tradition

John S. Ruskay, executive vice president and CEO of UJA-Federation, contextualized the valuable work that the agencies and their leadership make possible in light of recent Jewish holidays both joyous (Passover) and somber (Holocaust Rememberance Day). “We’re the heirs of an extraordinary community and philanthropic tradition that never forgets avadim hayinu, we were slaves, and that we have an obligation to care for everyone,” he said.

From left to right: Helen K. Samuels, chair of the Jewish Communal Network Commission, Alisa Doctoroff, chair of the board of UJA-Federation, Marcia Riklis, general chair of the 2012 campaign, New York City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, Patty Silverstein, agency recognition event chair, and John S. Ruskay, executive vice president and CEO of UJA-Federation. Photo: Michael Priest Photography

After Ruskay spoke, Marcia Riklis, general chair of the 2012 campaign, reiterated the purpose behind all of the time, energy, and resources that the trustees invest in their agencies and in UJA-Federation. Without the money that we raise together, she said, “we would not be able to provide a safety net for vulnerable populations. We would not be able to help so many to explore and express their Judaism in meaningful ways. And we would not be ready to innovate and respond to crisis when necessary.”

Toward the conclusion of the event, Helen K. Samuels, chair of the Jewish Communal Network Commission, thanked the network agencies who participated in the campaign, including the 13 agencies that had 100 percent campaign participation by the trustees, and 18 other agencies that had exceptional campaign participation.

UJA-Federation Receives Catholic Charities Award

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:25:00 -0400

Praised for “extraordinarily generous” efforts to help those in need in New York, UJA-Federation received the Good Neighbor Award from Catholic Charities on April 25th.

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan presented the award to UJA-Federation Executive Vice President and CEO John S. Ruskay in front of an audience of 350 people from Catholic Charities’ member agencies at CitiCenter in Manhattan.

John S. Ruskay, executive vice president and CEO of UJA-Federation of New York, receives Catholic Charities’ Good Neighbor Award from Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, with Catholic Charities executive director, Monsignor Kevin Sullivan, at left. Photo courtesy of Catholic Charities.

Catholic Charities’ executive director, Monsignor Kevin Sullivan, said UJA-Federation “has been a dedicated good neighbor to so many in need in New York. In addition, UJA-Federation has been a good neighbor to Catholic Charities in collaborating on critically important projects and services to make New York more compassionate and just.” He praised Ruskay as “one of the leaders around town who everyone can count on for wisdom and cooperation.”

Ruskay said he was “deeply, deeply honored” to accept the award for UJA-Federation and praised Catholic Charities for its work. He said of the two organizations, “We share the embrace of an abiding obligation and commitment to care for all.”

“And while some in our city live with unprecedented affluence and comfort,” Ruskay said, “There is a second New York — one experiencing deep poverty." Those needs are central to both UJA-Federation and Catholic Charities, he added.

John S. Ruskay speaks to represenatives of the 90 human-service agencies that comprise the Catholic Charities Federation. Photo courtesy of Catholic Charities.

Besides accepting the award, Ruskay was the keynote speaker at an evening program that convened the 90 human-service agencies that comprise the Catholic Charities Federation. Ruskay spoke of the common goals and history of UJA-Federation and Catholic Charities, both of which were incorporated in 1917. “We share a commitment to collective responsibility for all in the metropolitan area. And this is both precious and remarkably against the grain of contemporary culture.”

In calling for UJA-Federation and Catholic Charities to find new ways to work together, Ruskay said, “If we can forge these efforts to create the inspired and caring communities that will be essential to each of our faith communities — and I believe we can — we will strengthen the likelihood of shared communities of belief and commitment that recognize that we are all God’s children, and that everyone deserves to live fully as people created in the image of God. In these ways, we can also help this great country regain its value balance and reaffirm the responsibility to care for all.”

Changing Autism Awareness is Focus of Symposium

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 11:14:00 -0400

When a South African couple was concerned about their young son who had stopped speaking and avoided eye contact, they wanted to bring him to the local hospital, but the boy’s grandparents insisted they see a witch doctor, keynote speaker Roy Richard Grinker told a rapt audience of more than 200 guests at the UJA-Federation of New York Hilibrand Autism Symposium held on April 25th.

Keynote speaker Roy Richard Grinker addressed cultural perspectives of autism.

Grinker is professor of Anthropology at George Washington University and also the father of a 20-year-old daughter with autism.

“The parents were frightened because they believed the witch doctor would say the boy needs to get evil out of him and remove spirits from his body,” Grinker continued. “But they followed custom and left the boy in the witch doctor’s care for two days. When they returned, the witch doctor said, ‘I know what’s wrong with your son. He has autism.’”

Grinker used this example to highlight how a wave of autism awareness is “spreading all over the globe.”It was a theme repeated throughout the day as the conference explored the changing dynamics of living with autism.

Travis Epes, chair of UJA-Federation’s autism committee, said the needs in the community continue to rise for people with autism and UJA-Federation supports a host of programs to meet those needs through its network of agencies and government advocacy.

“We are researching better ways of understanding the needs of young adults with autism in the New York metropolitan area so we can facilitate new initiatives for our network agencies,” Epes added. In collaboration with the Autism Science Foundation, UJA-Federation is starting a study to focus on what activities offer meaningful engagement for young adults with autism.

In terms of current work, one network agency, the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan, was recognized by Linda Walder Fiddle, founder and executive director of the Daniel Jordan Fiddle Foundation, as the recipient of an ignition grant from the foundation. The grant was for the JCC in Manhattan’s Adaptations program that includes a girlfriends group, dating group, and a web-based dating initiative for young adults with autism that will start this fall.

Changing Culture Influencing Autism Prevalence

Amy Harmon spoke about her recent front-page article in The New York Times about young adults with autism.

This spring, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 1 one in 88 children is now diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder by age 8. Grinker said this is a “documented change in culture, not a change in prevalence.”

He attributed the rise in the number of children identified with an autism spectrum disorder to children who were “under-recognized, and under-served” before. Grinker also spoke of factors that influenced the increasing number of children with an autism diagnosis, ranging from the birth of child psychiatry to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

And he posed the question about what needs to change as a result.

“We need to stop being afraid, and stop seeing autism as some diagnosis of devastation,” Grinker said. “We need to stop seeing autism as a loss, as something taken away. That’s not how people with autism want to present themselves. They are who they are.”

Everyone Knows Someone With Autism

The symposium also featured guest speaker, Amy Harmon, a national correspondent for The New York Times, who wrote a recent front-page article, “Autistic and Seeking a Place in an Adult World,” that profiled a 20-year-old high school student with autism as he sought employment and friendship.

Harmon was prompted to write the story because she was curious to learn about how children with autism she had met a decade ago were now living as teens and young adults. But, she said, she didn’t expect her original proposal to turn into an 18-month reporting process and 7,400-word story, as it did.

Her editors allowed the longer story to run, Harmon said, because there was a sense that “everyone knows someone” with an autism spectrum disorder and the article would speak to many people.

The symposium also included speakers who discussed people with autism spectrum disorders who come into contact with the criminal justice system, as well as highlighting a residential center that uses a farm-based curriculum for people with autism.

More than 30 communities, and many individuals, participated in the conference through live streaming from UJA-Federation’s website.

For more information about UJA-Federation’s support of autism programs, contact or 1.212.836.1762.

Honoring Agency Volunteers

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 15:13:00 -0400

When A-list celebrities go on volunteer missions in Africa, the press takes notice, but many volunteers never get recognized for the time and energy that they give back to their communities. That’s why, in celebration of National Volunteer Appreciation Week, UJA-Federation of New York held a volunteer recognition ceremony on April 23rd to acknowledge the commitment of volunteers from many of our network agencies; agency staff nominated the volunteers for this honor.

Sue Resnick, who volunteers her career counseling skills with Connect to Care at the Samuel Field Y, addressing other volunteers at UJA-Federation’s volunteer recognition ceremony.

Sue Resnick, one of the volunteers being recognized, spoke about her experiences working with Connect to Care clients at the Samuel Field Y. As the CEO of a career consulting company, she has volunteered to help clients with job readiness for the past 10 years, and she first got involved with Connect to Care two years ago.

“I want to help people secure employment because a job truly gives a person self-worth,” she says. “If you are good at what you do, you feel good about yourself. A job allows you material, and spiritual, advancement.”

John S. Ruskay, UJA-Federation’s executive vice president and CEO, also addressed the gathered volunteers via video message. He said that volunteering “is about weaving together people … that’s what you’re doing each week when you provide the gift of your time, your presence, and your compassion to those in our community.”

Mark Utay, chair of UJA-Federation’s Volunteer & Leadership Development Division, and Roberta Marcus Leiner, senior vice president of agency relations at UJA-Federation, also thanked the volunteers being honored.

The 2012 Volunteers of Excellence are:

Peggy Arnowitz — Bronx Jewish Community Council
Irene Dinerstein — Gurwin Jewish Nursing & Rehabilitation Center
Mike Feit — Central Queens YM & YWHA of the Samuel Field Y
Renee Fishweicher — Jewish Community Council of Washington Heights-Inwood
Steven D. Fleischer — Selfhelp Community Services
Bonnie Goldberg — Mid-Island Y Jewish Community Center
Renee Gross — Sid Jacobson Jewish Community Center
Walter Kher — YH & YWHA of Washington Heights & Inwood
Lynn Korda Kroll — Foundation for Jewish Culture
Toby Kronengold — DOROT
Ozette Manant — Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services
Earl Miller — Jewish Association Serving the Aging
Tricia Moslin — Parker Jewish Institute for Health Care and Rehabilitation
Barbara Neves — F•E•G•S Health and Human Services System
Lee M. Nigen — Council of Jewish Organizations of Flatbush
Sammy Nourieli — Tanger Hillel at Brooklyn College of Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life
Jamie Okin — Jewish Community Center of the Greater Five Towns
Steven Portnoy — Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty
Sue Resnick — Samuel Field Y
Stephanie Roth — Westchester Jewish Community Services
Jaimie Sadeh — Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center
Paula Silver — Bronx House Jewish Community Center
Tamara Slobobdskaya — Jewish Community Council of Canarsie
Martha Sobel — New York Legal Assistance Group
Lisa Swerdlow — Jewish Home Lifecare
David Topol — Barry and Florence Friedberg Jewish Community Center
Alexander Tsiring — Edith and Carl Marks Jewish Community House of Bensonhurst
Nicolette Wanunu — Kings Bay YM-YWHA
Evan Weinberg — Henry Kaufmann Campgrounds
Beverly Zelkowitz — Riverdale YM-YWHA

For the full bios of all of the volunteers, you can download the event program as a PDF. We also hope all our volunteers will take advantage of special discount opportunities throughout our network. To find ways you can volunteer your time, visit our volunteer services page, or contact us at 1.212.836.1883 or .

High Tech Institute Trains Ethiopian Israelis

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:23:00 -0400

Tech-Career is a technological training institute in the foothills of Jerusalem that promotes a powerful vision: helping to generate a middle class of successful Ethiopian Israelis by preparing students for better paying high-tech jobs.

Students at Tech-Career, supported by UJA-Federation of New York, are also learning about much more than computer science.

Avi Farada trains at Tech Career to become a software developer. Photo courtesy of Tech Career

“We’re also learning to be socially active,” says Avi Farada, 22, “and to be a role model for younger members of our community.”

By training Ethiopian Israelis for positions in high tech, Tech-Career hopes Ethiopian Israelis will integrate more fully into Israeli society.

“I don’t compare myself to my mother and father, who transitioned from Ethiopia to Israel,” explains Farada, whose parents are factory and maintenance workers. “I look at other young people my age who are taught to aspire for more and to work at a career rather than a job, and that’s what I’d like to do.”

Since it began in 2004, Tech-Career has trained more than 200 graduates.

Students typically start classes after their army service and participate in courses that run from six to nine months. Classes focus on software development, software quality assurance, and PC and network technical support.

Creates Stepping Stones for Community to Follow

“Many people who graduate here and find programming jobs come back to Tech-Career, volunteer, and help up get to know the world we’re trying to get into,” Farada says. “They create a stepping stone for us.”

Career preparation, through leadership workshops and visits to high tech companies and IT departments, is a key part of the training, notes Naomi Zimmerman, Tech-Career resource development director.

“Our job placement is 72 percent,” she says. “Our aim is to increase it to 80 percent.”

For Farada, graduation is in three months.

“I hope to become a software developer,” he says. “The graduates helped us get our feet on the ground, and then we’ll turn around and help others. By our success, members of our community will see they can have a better life and will aspire to do more.”

Listening to Holocaust Survivors

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:09:00 -0400

By John S. Ruskay

We come together each year on Yom HaShoah to remember and renew our conviction to bring light into a world that has survived unthinkable darkness. This year’s UJA-Federation staff event took the remembering to a place at once deeply personal and awe-inspiring. It was conceived around a simple premise — storytelling. Listen. Bear witness. Remember.

Grouped at tables of about 10, each of us met one Holocaust survivor, some with members of his or her family, who had been invited to join us for the morning with the help of several of our network agencies. It’s often hard to put one’s arms around history. Who can fathom the experiences of six million? But when you look into the eyes of someone who experienced the horror firsthand, it becomes painfully real. At my table, a magnificent woman named Esther Bauer spoke of how, at the age of 18, she was thrust into a series of camps. She spoke of living on a slice of bread and water soup for weeks and the close connections she developed with other young women she met during those harrowing years. When asked what her key message was, she said, “Never give up!” Tears came to my eyes.

Staff members who were children and grandchildren of survivors spoke. One of our colleagues, Anat Barber, told her grandmother’s story. She was one of Oskar Schindler’s Jews, working in his factory. It was her connection to Schindler that saved her and her sister when events brought them face-to-face with Dr. Mengele in Auschwitz.

Anat shared a photo of her grandmother surrounded by family. She now has three children, 13 grandchildren, and 35 great-grandchildren — with us today because of one man. I often think about what it took to be the “Righteous Among the Nations” — Gentile men and women who risked their lives to save the Jews. What does it take to stand up against tyranny? To do what is not easy, but is right. And what more can we do in our own lives to emulate this kind of courage? Anat said that her grandmother’s life has taught her that: “A Jew is a Jew is a Jew.” Whatever our differences and disagreements, we are one people, one community bound together. I think it was a reminder for all of us of why we do this work — and why it matters so much.

Looking around the room yesterday, the survivors were frail. They have lived more than one life. They have demonstrated a resilience few can imagine. And they will not be with us forever. Having them with us was a precious gift. Their lives, their memories, and their stories are a blessing.

John S. Ruskay is executive vice president and CEO of UJA-Federation of New York.

AT&T, JWT Worldwide Executives Honored at Global Marketing Dinner

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 12:24:00 -0400

Neither Bob Jeffrey nor Daryl Evans is Jewish, and yet when their friends, colleagues, and family stood, one by one, to toast these influential men at UJA-Federation of New York’s Global Marketing Leadership Award Dinner on April 18, the word continually used to describe them was mensch, the Yiddish word for a person of integrity and honor. One friend even described Jeffrey as having a yiddishe neshama, a Jewish soul.

From left to right, emcee Bob Woodruff of ABC News; Daryl Evans, VP of consumer advertising and marketing communications at AT&T; Bob Jeffrey, chairman and CEO of JWT Worldwide; and Michael Kassan, event chair for the Global Marketing Leadership Award Dinner. Photo Credit: Michael Priest Photography

The event chair, Michael Kassan, said that though there is no shortage of Jewish professionals in the marketing business in New York, the decision to honor Jeffrey, the chairman and CEO of JWT Worldwide, the world’s fourth-largest advertising agency, and Evans, the vice president of consumer advertising and marketing communications at AT&T “reflects both the mission of UJA-Federation to help all people, and the caliber of our honorees.”

Bob Woodruff, of ABC News, who acted as the emcee for the evening, introduced the honorees and drew connections between their field and the work that UJA-Federation does.

“As the people in the marketing and communications field know so well, the world is totally interconnected, so it’s gratifying to know that UJA-Federation has both a local and global reach,” he said. “What happens thousands of miles away can have the same impact as if it occurred right next door.”

Michael Kassan (left) presents Daryl Evans with the Maxwell (Mac) Dane Award for Humanitarian Excellence. Photo Credit: Michael Priest Photography

Prior to being honored at the dinner, both Jeffrey and Evans visited some of UJA-Federation’s beneficiary agencies to see firsthand some of the work made possible by donors to the organization. “I personally visited Met Council on Jewish Poverty just to see one small piece of what they do. An amazing organization,” Evans said. The most amazing thing, he added, “was the passion of the people that provide the services and how proud they were to show me what they do.”

Jeffrey, who visited F•E•G•S Health and Human Services System, said that seeing the power of the network of agencies reminded him of his mother, who, when he was a child, took it upon herself to help her neighbors with anything from navigating landlord-tenant issues to helping them get funding from the city to insulate their houses.

Bob Jeffrey (left) accepts the Global Marketing Leadership Award from Bob Woodruff. Photo Credit: Michael Priest Photography

“The lesson she taught to me and my brothers and sisters is that when things are wrong, you can’t just ignore them, you’ve got to roll up your sleeves and get to work,” Jeffrey says.

Israeli Artists Learn About Jewish Texts

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 11:50:00 -0400

The Beit Midrash for Creative Artists in Tel Aviv, supported by UJA-Federation of New York, has taken on the ambitious goal of changing what it means to be a serious Israeli artist today.

At the Beit Midrash, which is a program of Alma College for Hebrew Culture, distinguished Israeli artists study classic Jewish texts to inspire their creative process, says program director Ruth Calderon. These studies have led to new albums, dance performances, books, and art exhibits, and Calderon notes that this new creative work is changing Israeli culture as well as making Jewish texts more accessible to secular Israelis.

Tsibi Geva, an Israeli visual artist influenced by the Beit Midrash, with one of his paintings. Photo: Ron Amir

“I grew up on a kibbutz and didn’t learn about Jewish traditions, Mishnah, or other texts,” says visual artist Tsibi Geva, who also teaches at Haifa University and the school of art at Beit Berl College. “At Alma you can study and learn about Judaism from a modern, critical, and contemporary point of view. The program makes a bridge to Jewish texts for people like me who come from a nonreligious part of society.”

Influence Beyond Individual Artist

Since the Beit Midrash started six years ago, more than 100 leading Israeli artists have studied at Alma, including musicians, painters, dancers, choreographers, and graphic artists. Artists from each field study together, and the 2011-12 session at the Beit Midrash is focusing on writers and poets.

“We try to influence the whole field, not just an individual artist,” Calderon explains.

During the first year of the program, artists meet every second Friday to study Torah, Talmud, Mishnah, Kabbalah, and Hebrew literature and poetry. They meet once a month during the second year and many retain more informal connections with Alma for years later.

“The Beit Midrash gave me a different focus and as a teacher I relate the texts to what I learned in Alma,” Geva says. “Also I’ve changed the style of my teaching from lectures to studying and discussion where all students are invited to be active —which I took from the Jewish tradition of studying together.”

In collaboration with the well-regarded Israeli painter Larry Abramson, Geva also led an evening workshop that included a discussion about the creation of the world in Jewish texts and the creation of art.

“I continue to go to talks at Alma when I can,” says Geva who attended the Beit Midrash four years ago. “It’s part of my life now.”

Making Words Real About Hunger

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 13:47:00 -0400

By John S. Ruskay

While our seders are behind us, major themes have lingered in my consciousness. This week, I keep returning to the moment when we lift the matzah and invite all who are hungry to join us, saying, “This is the bread of affliction. Let all who are hungry come and eat.” The words are easy to recite; the challenge is to make them real not only on seder nights but throughout the year. To do so, we may need to better understand hunger — to look it straight on when it is far easier to look the other way.

Our colleague, Rabbi Steve Gutow, president and CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, participated in the “Food Stamp Challenge” last fall, where he joined with religious and community leaders and eight members of Congress to live on the weekly $31.50 food stamp allowance. On day two he wrote: “When you cannot purchase a bag of potato chips or a bottle of orange juice, you are suddenly and frighteningly aware that severe limits are upon you — and this was only the second day of what will be a difficult and complicated week. Imagine living one’s life under such a restraint.”

Each week, I meet with members of our community and describe the range of agencies and programs we help make possible in New York, in Israel, and throughout the world. I am occasionally asked why we are spending precious resources on food when there is a government safety net. My response is to invite them to join me on a visit to a food distribution center.

I still vividly recall my own visit to a center in Brooklyn operated by Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, one of our premier human-service agencies. On that visit, elderly Jews and recent immigrants from Russia stood in the cold for hours to be first in line to receive Met Council boxes filled with the basics — cereal, rice, coffee, flour, eggs. For those who stood so patiently, this is about having enough food for their families.

At our seders we imagine ourselves slaves and empathize with the oppressed. When we fast on Yom Kippur, the Haftorah reminds us that we fast so we will be moved to “feed the hungry.” Together, they instruct us to take steps so we can each live more fully. Collectively, so we identify with and take responsibility for both our own people and all who are struggling — even with the help of safety nets.

After a week of living with the limitations of poverty, Rabbi Gutow wrote, “There is a time to ‘rise up’ and to say, particularly to those dwelling in the richest country in the world, ‘It is enough!’ Our battles to help America prioritize its values and its willingness to spend money on those who are hungry must be waged with a new vigor.” We must challenge ourselves to see what so often goes unseen. To visit food pantries. To empathize with those who are hungry. Then to rise up and do something about it — and it begins by providing food, hope, and whenever possible, a path to self-sufficiency. And this is what we must keep doing. Every day.

John S. Ruskay is executive vice president and CEO of UJA-Federation of New York.

See more about what our funding makes possible at Met Council sites.

Aging Independently With a Little Help

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 15:58:00 -0400

Three days a week for the last six years, Gordon Bromberg has helped Long Island older adults with services that they cannot handle on their own. In his own car, he drives them to and assists them at the supermarket, the drug store, the doctor’s office, and other important local destinations — allowing the seniors to remain in their own homes and lead an independent life.

Gordon Bromberg (left) regularly helps Martin Hafkin (right) and other seniors with their grocery shopping. Photo Courtesy of Mid-Island Y JCC.

“I get a good feeling out of helping people,” he says. “I’ve had a good life and I’m just giving a little bit back.”Bromberg is one of 50 volunteers for seniors who are “aging in place” through programs at the Mid-Island Y JCC in Plainview, a beneficiary agency of UJA-Federation. The efforts are designed to support the concept of Neighborhood Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities and to serve clients who are homebound.“Many of the volunteers develop an ongoing relationship with our clients,” says Robyn Berman, who directs the programs at the Mid-Island Y. “They might be feeling lonely or isolated and otherwise unable to live in the homes they’ve occupied for many years.”An example of such a relationship is the one that Bromberg has developed with Martin Hafkin. Hafkin, a 75-year-old former musician, has lived in Plainview since 1974 and raised his family there, but now walks with a cane and is limited in the activities that he can perform on his own.Bromberg spends three hours every Tuesday with Hafkin, taking him shopping and carrying his packages. “We both come from the same neighborhood in Brooklyn,” says Bromberg. “I don’t know what I’d do without him,” Hafkin adds. “He even listens to my stories. He’s a friend.”For more information on other volunteer opportunities in the UJA-Federation network, visit our volunteer services page or call 1.212.836.1883.

REX Gala Honors Justin Green’s Philanthropic Legacy

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 12:06:00 -0400

Real estate, especially in New York, is often a profession that is passed down from one generation to the next, and at UJA-Federation’s Real Estate Executives (REX) annual gala this year, it was clear that the importance of philanthropy can be imparted that way as well.

Justin H. Green accepts the Larry A. Silverstein REX Award from Silverstein. Photo: Michael Priest Photography

Nearly 400 industry executives filled the ballroom of the Grand Hyatt New York in Manhattan on Wednesday, April 4th, to honor Justin H. Green, CEO and managing member of HaysVentures LLC, immediate past chair of REX, and the recipient of the second annual Larry A. Silverstein REX Award.  

“This year’s honoree, Justin Green, is particularly special in my case because I had the joy of working with, (Green’s grandfather) Meyer Steinberg, or as I knew him, Mike,” said Larry Silverstein who presented the award. “Justin, it’s really enormously gratifying to see you grow up in your grandfather’s footsteps. Let me tell you, if he were here tonight, he would kvell.”

In introducing Green, Lloyd Goldman, Real Estate & Allied Trades Division Chair, explained just what Green’s grandfather would have to be so proud of. “Justin has already made a tremendous difference in our community and has left an indelible mark on UJA-Federation,” he said.

At the REX Gala (from left) Lloyd Goldman, Real Estate & Allied Trades Division Chair; Justin H. Green, immediate past chair of REX; Larry A. Silverstein, presenter of the REX award; Alfonso Kimche, REX Chair; and Lee Deutsch, REX Vice Chair. Photo: Michael Priest Photography

When Green himself took the podium, he explained how it all began with his grandfather.

All in the Family

“My grandfather was very involved with UJA-Federation and supporting Jewish organizations, and he instilled those values of helping others in his family as well,” Green said.

In the fall of 1999, after graduating from college and getting his first job in real estate, Green said his grandfather called him into his office and told him that now that he was out of school and in the working world, it was time to give back. He suggested Green start by getting involved with UJA-Federation. “Twelve years later, I am still in awe by the magnitude of services this organization offers,” he said.

Green also thanked the chairs who made the event possible: William Friedland and Matthew Snyder for chairing the event, Rod Kritsberg and Lynn Zises for serving as journal chairs, and Alfonso Kimche and Lee Deutsch the chair and vice chair of REX.

“You’ve heard how the money raised here tonight will help make a difference in over 4.5 million people’s lives in over 60 countries,” Green concluded. “What you may not know is that UJA-Federation is about so much more than facts and figures. It is a community where we can make an incredible difference in the lives of people in need.”

Why Passover is So Different

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 14:43:00 -0400

By John S. Ruskay

After an exhausting day preparing our home for Passover, I found myself late Sunday evening going through boxes. Instead of dishes, these boxes were filled with readings, poems, and articles saved from seders past. Adorned with handwritten notes from family members no longer with us, some discolored with wine and food stains, they were reminders of long nights engraved in my memory. As I reread them, the questions that kept coming to mind were: What is so different about Passover? Why does Pesach hold such a special place among Jewish festivals?

For starters, Passover is the only holiday where the central ritual takes place in our homes. Gathered together as families, we witness children and grandchildren maturing far too quickly, tearfully conscious of empty chairs. While each family’s unique dynamic lends a different energy to the table, the basics are the same. The matzah, bitter herbs, salt water, and four cups of wine are before us so we can fulfill the commandment in Exodus 13:8: “You shall tell your child.” In every generation, we are commanded to re-tell the story so we can experience the Exodus “as if” it is our story.

In reviewing the scores of readings that family members and guests had contributed over the years, two themes stood out — the collective and the personal. The events that begin with our Exodus from Egypt, and 40 days later when we receive Torah at Sinai, constitute the beginning of the Jewish people. This is our core story.

Letty Cottin Pogrebin brilliantly framed our annual retelling of the story as a way to “stay connected to human suffering even after we have ceased to suffer,” strengthening our capacity to empathize with the oppressed, the stranger, and the persecuted. Exodus 23:9 sums it up: “You shall not oppress a stranger for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.”

Beyond its collective narrative, Passover also speaks to each of us in deeply personal ways. Many of the readings I found sought to make the Passover story about our own stories. How can I identify the things in my life — the narrow spaces, Mitzrayim — that are preventing me from fully living? What steps do I need to take to embrace life more completely?

Passover offers the opportunity to relive an epoch saga that was not ours directly but can be made ours each year. The text of the Haggadah beckons each of us to this task. This is a holiday for participants, not spectators. And that is why each year, as we approach Passover, many of us search for readings and interpretations to expand our collective and personal quests, providing new perspectives to engage with this extraordinary festival.

I hope each of you and your loved ones have a joyous and meaningful Passover, replete with readings that can be lovingly packed away and revisited in future years. And I hope our Christian colleagues and friends have an equally joyous Easter. Together, let us celebrate spring and the renewal of life.

John S. Ruskay is executive vice president and CEO of UJA-Federation of New York.

Oprah, Wiesel Honor Zaslav at Leadership Awards Dinner

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 11:59:00 -0400

Oprah Winfrey, Elie Wiesel, and Tom Brokaw paid tribute as David Zaslav, president and CEO of Discovery Communications, received the Steven J. Ross Humanitarian Award at UJA-Federation of New York’s Entertainment, Media & Communications Leadership Awards Dinner on April 3rd.

Honoree David Zaslav, center, receives award from Oprah Winfrey and John Hendricks. Photo: Michael Priest Photography

More than 400 guests attended the event, held at 583 Park in Manhattan, which raised $1.2 million.

“David is a true humanitarian who teaches us and encourages us to be our best,” said Winfrey. “He uses his personal power for good and uses his life to reach out.” Of UJA-Federation, she said, "I salute your commitment to God's work here on earth."

Chairs of the UJA-Federtion Entertainment, Media & Communications Division, from left, Aryeh Bourkoff, Matt Blank, Mike Fricklas, and Michael Kassan. Photo: Michael Priest Photography

John Hendricks, founder and chairman of Discovery Communications, recognized Zaslav’s “great character and integrity,” and said, “He is guided by an unwavering moral compass that steers him toward remarkable fairness in his business life and endearing compassion and generosity in his personal life.”

Aryeh Bourkoff, chair of the Entertainment, Media & Communications Division, along with Matthew Blank, Michael Fricklas, and Michael Kassan, told the guests, “Your support makes it possible to care for people left out of the bounty so many of us enjoy.”

To get a greater understanding of UJA-Federation, Zaslav visited the Mary J. Blige Center — a program of Westchester Jewish Community Services, a UJA-Federation beneficiary agency — that works with underprivileged women.

“The Mary J. Blige Center are the real humanitarians,” he said. “They quietly work every day to make a difference in the lives of women.”

Tom Brokaw, master of ceremonies at the Leadership Awards Dinner. Photo: Michael Priest Photography

Zaslav also shared a conversation he had with Winfrey a year ago about which interview, out of the thousands she had done over 25 years, had the most impact on her. She told him it was reading Night, written by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, and then interviewing Wiesel at Auschwitz.

That discussion led Zaslav to meet Wiesel, who also spoke as part of the tribute.

“I am here to honor David,” Wiesel said, “And to recognize that UJA-Federation does good because it is centered on the beautiful, elegant, and noble concept of helping someone.”

From left, honoree David Zaslav with Elie and Marion Wiesel. Photo: Michael Priest Photography

Journalist Tom Brokaw served as master of ceremonies and also moderated a panel discussion on the Arab Spring. The panelists were David Ignatius, Washington Post columnist and associate editor; Robert Ford, United States Ambassador to Syria; and Aaron Miller, distinguished scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

The evening closed with a performance by Jackson Browne who played guitar and switched to the keyboard for his final songs, including “The Pretender.”

For Young Adults With Disabilities, a Place to Gain Job Skills

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 10:49:00 -0400

Searching for a job can be difficult in any economy, but the challenges of a typical job interview increase by an order of magnitude for young adults on the autism spectrum or with other forms of learning disabilities.

Hannah Badain (right), a JCC in Manhattan Adaptations fellow, with one of the participants in the Connections program.

At the Adaptations program of the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan, a beneficiary of UJA-Federation, the young adults in their 20s and 30s who participate know this all too well. Many of them are on the autism spectrum, or have another developmental challenge that has made it hard for them to find their place in the world, both socially and vocationally.

Hannah Badain, a New York native who studied psychology in college in California, says that joining Adaptations was “one of the first things I did after I graduated, and the best thing I’ve done since I’ve come back to New York.” She was concerned about moving back home because she didn’t have many friends still living in the area, and she was drawn to the program’s mix of social programming and vocational opportunities.

Recently, Badain became one of the JCC’s 10 Adaptations fellows. During the fellowship, which is supported by UJA-Federation, Adaptations members get the chance to explore their strengths and preferences by working 15 hours a week at the JCC. Badain is involved with a program called Connections, where she works with young adults with developmental disabilities.

“They have a lot of confidence in me,” she says of her coworkers at the JCC. “I’m a very unconfident person. Their believing in me has helped me to start to believe in myself and to realize that I have strengths that other people value.”

Finding the Next Step

Beyond the fellows in the program, Adaptations offers other employment-related services for its 300 participants. Notably, the JCC works with Job Path, a nonprofit that helps the Adaptations community both with searching for jobs and dealing with issues or challenges that arise in their current workplace.

“For the younger participants, we’re definitely providing some of their first job experience,” says Allison Kleinman, the director of Adaptations. “People in their 30s and beyond come to us with a pretty disappointing career history, and I think this is a chance to figure out, ‘What am I really good at, and where can I feel supported and figure out my next step?’”

But just as important as helping participants find their passion, and finding ways to support themselves, is the community that Adaptations works to create. “Our participants are people who don’t feel connected to other people, or to a community,” Kleinman says. “They’ve been constantly in search of ‘where do I fit in?’ and a lot of them, for first time in their lives at 25, say, ‘This is where I belong.’”

If you’re interested in learning more about how our community is responding to the needs of people with autism you can visit our autism page. Additionally, the Fifth Annual UJA-Federation of New York Hilibrand Autism Symposium will be held on Wednesday, April 25th as part of National Autism Awareness Month. Those who can’t attend the event in New York have the option to tune in via webinar.

Israeli Hummus Wins in Brooklyn

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 14:38:00 -0400

By John S. Ruskay

Something important took place in Brooklyn this week.

On Tuesday night, the Park Slope Food Coop, the largest urban food cooperative in the United States, overwhelmingly rejected a motion to boycott Israeli-made products. As widely reported in the press, the diverse community of the co-op — Jews and non-Jews, young and not so young, liberals and not so liberal — came together to reject the de-legitimization of Israel taking place on its turf. I take this as but the latest indication that despite the hyped rhetoric, Americans affirm the right of the Jewish people to a Jewish state. The victory in Park Slope follows many others, for notwithstanding years of organized efforts, the so-called BDS movement — advocacy for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against Israel — has consistently been defeated. Not one university, corporation, or community has voted to sanction, divest, or boycott Israeli products or the Jewish state. Not one.

Yes, there are different views about what policies the Israeli government should or should not pursue. There is also debate about a broad range of internal issues and conflicting views about what Israel can and should be. Those debates are in keeping with a vital if messy democracy. But what happened in Park Slope and elsewhere reflects the consensus that the Jewish people have a right to a Jewish democratic state. And Jews don’t boycott other Jews.

Votes like the one in Park Slope don’t just happen. The Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, together with the Israel Action Network — a joint project of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and the Jewish Federations of North America — all heavily supported by UJA-Federation, undertook a multifaceted campaign working with community leaders in Brooklyn. Their efforts included providing advice and support to the co-op’s anti-BDS group named “More hummus, please;” drafting and publishing an interfaith statement against BDS in partnership with a coalition of Brownstone Brooklyn rabbis; placing ads in Brooklyn newspapers (both print and online) urging co-op members to vote against the referendum; launching a comprehensive “Get Out the Vote” campaign; hosting major events at Congregation Beth Elohim titled “Progressive Voice against BDS,” where representatives of Americans for Peace Now, J Street, and the New Israel Fund denounced the BDS movement; collecting statements from elected officials; creating www.voicesagainstBDS.com; and more.

Even as the struggle continues, what took place this week in Brooklyn should provide a ray of optimism. There are dark clouds in the east and urgent issues that require our attention. But this week as we prepare for Passover, Israeli hummus prevailed, as did the Jewish people and all who care about Israel. We may not yet be delivered from the narrow place of Egypt, but it’s a good win.

John S. Ruskay is executive vice president and CEO of UJA-Federation of New York.P.S. For a lighter but telling take on all this, see the coverage by The Daily Show at http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-march-27-2012/co-occupation.

Jonathan Safran Foer Explores New Haggadah

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 12:33:00 -0400

Jonathan Safran Foer came to UJA-Federation of New York on March 28, to talk about his latest project, the New American Haggadah. Foer spoke with Rabbi Michael Paley, the Pearl and Ira Meyer scholar-in-residence at UJA-Federation’s Jewish Resource Center. The author of the popular novels, Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, says he chose to tackle the challenge of repackaging this ancient text both out of a passion for the story of Passover itself, and from dissatisfaction with the reigning title, the Maxwell House Haggadah, of which more than 50 million copies have been printed.

In conversation with Paley, Foer talked about the Haggadah he edited, and worked on in collaboration with novelist Nathan Englander, who provided the translation, and a number of commentators. Here is a condensed and edited transcript.

Jonathan Safran Foer and Rabbi Michael Paley discussing Foer's latest book, The New American Haggadah, at UJA-Federation of New York.

Rabbi Michael Paley: I want to put it right out in the beginning: I love the book. I read it and admired it, so I wanted to put that in this context. How did you come up with the idea of doing a new Haggadah, particularly since you wrote about how many Hagaddahs there are already?

Jonathan Safran Foer: As you’re saying, it’s not an original idea at all. In fact, it’s pretty much the least original idea for a maker of books to have, in the sense that there is no book that has been revisited more times than the Haggadah. Of all books that have ever been created in human history, no book has been revised more times than the Haggadah has. So the question is, why does everybody want to do it, not why did I want to do it?

Paley: Why does everybody want to do it?

Foer: It’s one of the most awe-inspiring stories ever told. It’s one of the oldest, continually told stories; it may be the most well-known story across cultures. Not everybody on the street knows what an afikomen is, but everybody knows what the ten plagues are.

My family, like most families probably, there’s only twice a year, on consecutive nights, when we would gather to discuss the really big themes. Not only slavery and freedom, but who we are as individuals, as a family, as a people.

The seder is very much constrained by the Haggadah, especially for Jews of my generation, in the sense that we have much less Jewish literacy than, say, my grandparents had. We depend on the guidebook more than previous generations have.

So I began to wonder what would be the best kind of guidebook? What would contextualize this event, what would make us feel engaged with the story, and maybe most importantly, what would encourage us to take this empathic leap that the Haggadah asks for, which is to feel as if we at the table are, ourselves, presently being liberated from Egypt? A successful seder is one in which people around the table feel like characters in the story that they’re telling.

Paley: When you say that we're in the Haggadah as well, in some ways, you mean Americans. You called it the New American Haggadah. I think you note in the introduction that it’s just where it’s published and if you think about Haggadahs, they often get the name of where they’re published. But it is a strongly American Haggadah, and I think Jeffrey Goldberg, one of your commentators, even said we don’t feel in exile here — for the first time, maybe in Jewish history, we live in a diaspora where we don’t feel in exile. That must shade the whole experience of the Haggadah. Do you think it’s time for a different Haggadah because it’s America, because it’s a most hospitable place for us to live?

Foer: I don’t think of it as being exclusively American; I don’t think that whatever American quality it has would forbid access to people who aren’t American. But we are at an interesting moment in American Jewry. We have undergone our own kind of Exodus from cities into suburbs, from struggle into affluence, from tradition to modernity, from familiarity, from Jewish literacy, to a kind of estrangement, to a kind of ignorance. And I say this not with a wagging finger, but pointing at myself.

Paley: You’ve said that this project ended up taking a lot more time and energy than you’d expected, but that over time your investment in the project deepened without your ambition for it changing. Tell me more about that.

Foer: Well the ambition was always to make a Haggadah that would work for our families, so it’s a strange ambition because we have very different families. You know, Nathan’s sister is Orthodox, and it was important to him that she and her family be able to use this. I grew up in a Conservative family and we are flexible Jews, let me put it that way.

Whereas when he thought about her, he thought about liturgical choices, when I thought about my family, I thought about the kinds of conversations that would be stimulated, and the pacing of the book. We never thought about a Jewish community when we were making the book, in the sense of the reception of the book.

I think it’s actually a terrible mistake to do so because you create something based on assumptions of others rather than your own sense of what's authentic, what’s moving what’s inspiring, what’s engaging. So it’s been really interesting to see how the book has gone out into the world.

Paley: What is your favorite part of the Haggadah?

Foer: I guess my favorite parts tend to be the ones that are most problematic, you know, most fraught. The ten plagues are a good example. How do we with kids make sense of it, the notion that a kind of communal judgment is passed on an entire population? Obviously there were Egyptians who were not guilty and yet their kids were killed too after God hardened Pharaoh's heart. It’s very problematic.

So we could turn away from it, pretend it isn’t there, or we could say, “Here's what we have, this is this document that is more than 3,000 years old, what meaning can we find in it and how can we apply that meaning to our lives?” One of the things that’s so exciting about the Haggadah is that it’s not just a mental exercise, it is intended to guide our lives, to bring us closer to that metaphorical Jerusalem of next year.

The Haggadah is nothing if not an aspirational book, and an optimistic book, a book that envisions something better, and questions what’s wrong with the present and how we can urge this moment toward a better moment. And that is the most dignified adventure that a human can go on, you know, wanting to participate in the repair of the world.

It’s not a coincidence that Gandhi and Martin Luther King and just about every social justice movement of the 20th century has borrowed from, or appealed to, the story of the Exodus. It is a story about wanting to be better as individuals, as a family, as a people, and as a planet.