CHAI-LIGHTS MARCH 2006 Affiliated with The Society for Humanistic Judaism and the Congress of Secular Jewish Organizations Volume VIII. No. 7 The Pacific Community s PURIM CELEBRATION Will be on: Sunday, March 19 th 1:00 4:00 PM Barbara s and Mark s Home 25111 Black Horse Lane Laguna Hills, CA Come for the food... Stay for the fun! There will be music, games, and crafts. Prizes for best costume. FUN 4 ALL There will be a holiday play, complete with groggers for the audience to boo the villain Haman. Many carnival style games will be set up for the children, and there will be Bingo games too. Naturally we will have hamantashen for everyone to eat! Please RSVP by March 15 th. To get directions, and let us know what potluck dish you can bring, please call (949) 643-3729 or email barbarapprice@aol.com.
March 2006 CHAI-LIGHTS Page 2 CALENDAR Friday, March. 3rd, 7:00 PM SOCIAL CONCERNS MEETING Diane Tellefson will speak on "Just Immigration Reform" at the Newport Harbor Lawn Bowling Club (see page 3) Saturday, March. 4th, 10:00 AM BOARD MEETING at the home of Bob & Karen Knecht Tuesday, March 7th, 7:30 PM BOOK CLUB at the home of Jack & Bernice Stein (see page 2) PC DINES OUT THAI The next Dine Out date is: Sunday, March 19th, 6:00 P.M. Thai Dishes Restaurant 10065 Garfield Corner of Brookhurst & Garfield Fountain Valley, CA RSVP to Karen no later than March15th. Because of the need to make reservations, there can be no exceptions regarding the RSVP date. Ph: 714/739-1366 E-Mail: Knechtfour@aol.com Leslie Zwick Lorna Hargis MARCH BIRTHDAYS 3 rd 13th Sunday, March 19th, 1:00 PM PURIM PARTY/CARNIVAL at the home of Mark & Barbara Price (see page 1) Sunday, March 19, 6:00 PM DINE-OUT GROUP at the Thai Dishes Restaurant (see page 2 ) Saturday, April 8 th, 5:00 PM PACIFIC COMMUNITY SEDER at the Newport Harbor Lawn Bowling Club Sunday, April 30 th, 1:00 PM UKELELE JAM At the Newport Harbor Lawn Bowling Club (see page 3) ANNIVERSARIES Barbara & Mark Price Marilyn & Jerry Ackerman 13 th 29th BOOK CLUB The last Book Club meeting was held on Thursday, February 16th at the home of Shirley and Seymour Spiegel. We started the meeting by reading an article from a newspaper which had to do with DNA, and how recent DNA research tends to disprove the claims of the Mormons and the validity of the Book of Mormon. It was an interesting and provocative article. We then read two selections from our current book, which is "Stars Of David", which is a book of short biographies of famous Jewish Americans. We read the sections about actor Gene Wilder Including material on actress Gilda Radner, and then about actor/director Leonard Nimoy, of Star Trek fame. It was interesting to read about their Jewish backgrounds and how being Jewish has affected their lives. We will continue in that book the next time. The next Book Club meeting will be on Tuesday, March 7, 2006, at 7:30 P.M., at the home of Jack and Bernice Stein, in Huntington Beach. Call Jack or Bernice, at (714) 968-0998, a couple of days ahead of time to RSVP or for directions. Come to the Book Club for a stimulating reading and discussion, and for good refreshments. Marty Annenberg
March 2006 CHAI-LIGHTS Page 3 UKULELE JAM Sunday, April 30 th, 1:00 P.M. At the Newport Harbor Lawn Bowling Club For the Benefit of UKES FOR TROOPS Spreadable but not edible Ukulele Jam is a sweet mix of Uke players and singers aged from 12 85 years. Serving anything from From Time Goes By to Zippedy Doo-Dah, Beach Boys to Johnny Mercer. Ukulele Jam will stir the emotions with classic ingredients. (Wait till you hear Havah Negilah played on a Uke). About Ukes for Troops: One hundred ukuleles are strumming up smiles from Southern California to Iraq, where soldiers of Hawaii's 29th Brigade Combat Team are sharing their love of the instrument. It started out as a simple idea of Shirley Orlando, blossomed under Anita Coyoli-Cullen, and then the aloha spirit just exploded. "I wanted to send ukuleles to the troops in Iraq," Shirley Orlando of Huntington Beach, Calif., said in a phone interview, Then Coyoli-Cullen was contacted by Orlando, the owner of a shop specializing in Hawaiian paraphernalia. In May 2005, Orlando donated six ukuleles and song books to the 29th Support Battalion stationed at camp Anaconda, 50 miles north of Balad. "I just sent them six on a lark," Orlando said, "and the lark kind of exploded." The shop is also the home of two ukulele groups -- the Kolohe Ukulele Players and Ukulele Jam. When the Kolohe Ukulele Players learned of Orlando's donation, they in turn donated $600, which was enough to send an additional 30 ukuleles and songbooks to Hawaii's citizen soldiers. Lt. Col. Norman Saito, commander of the 29th Support Battalion, wrote in an email to Orlando and Coyoli-Cullen: "You have brought joy to all of us, and all of us are determined to learn and play the ukulele of memorable songs of Hawaii that brings our heart and souls close to home from a far away place in Iraq. Well, if anything, I think we made history here in Iraq. Your love and support to us has brought about the goodwill and brotherhood we share with the Iraqi people here at LSA (Logistical Support Area) Anaconda, Iraq through our love of music played by the simple strings and wooden ukulele instrument." So far Ukes for Troops has sent over 400 ukuleles to US soldiers in combat zones. "I just sent them six on a lark," Orlando said, "and the lark kind of exploded." All proceeds from the Ukulele concert will be donated to Ukes for Troops. BRING YOUR FRIENDS, RELATIVES AND NEIGHBORS! SOCIAL CONCERNS Diana Tellefson, an organizer for the United Farm Workers, will speak on "Just Immigration Reform" on Friday, March 3, at 7:00 p.m. President Bush's guest worker proposal has caused a rift in the Republican Party. There is much anti-immigrant sentiment in the country and in Congress. What is a just and rational immigration policy? We will explore these very timely issues with Diana. Please join us at the Newport Harbor Lawn Bowling Club, 1550 Crown Drive, Corona Del Mar. This event is sponsored by the Pacific Community Social Concerns Committee. For information, call Ruth Shapin at (714) 567-0188. A Light Flickers On Warsaw The unexpected revival of an old-established community It takes ten Jews to form a minyan. So how many are needed to stage a Jewish revival? Before the Second World War, Polish Jews numbered around 3.5 million, or some 10% of the total population. The Holocaust, followed by a later emigration encouraged by Communist and Anti-Semitism, has left just 10,000-odd. Yet in the nick of time, just before the last generation of Holocaust survivors dies out, the Polish-Jewish world is showing signs of flickering back to life. A decade ago, Warsaw s Nozyk synagogue had a mainly elderly congregation, most of whom were educated in the glory days before the war. Today its services are dominated by young Poles with a keen interest in their roots. In October, the city of Cracow acquired a full-time rabbi for the first time since the war. From war veterans to students, Jews of all generations are producing newspapers, running societies and affirming their heritage.
March 2006 CHAI-LIGHTS Page 4 Million Voices for Darfur, SHJ Joins the Campaign - Deb Godden In Darfur Sudan, since February 2003, over 400,000 men, women and children have died while another 2.5 million innocent civilians have been forced to flee their burned-out villages. In early September, 2004, President Bush declared the death and destruction in Darfur to be genocide, but there`s been little change. The Society for Humanistic Judaism, and the Association of Humanist Rabbis have been part of the Save Darfur Coalition since November, 2004. Members of SHJ affiliates have written letters, held community meetings, raised money for humanitarian aid, and met with federal elected officials and State Department staff. At last, the Darfur genocide crisis has become increasingly visible with more prominent coverage by high profile television news and on the front pages of major newspapers. We're getting close: the U.S. government is beginning to respond, and President Bush is beginning to speak about involving NATO. We need to keep up our efforts. Jerry Fowler of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum says, Our work brings witness to today`s crimes and injustices to challenge and sound the alarm. The Save Darfur Coalition, in cooperation with over 150 faith-based, advocacy, and humanitarian aid organizations, has launched the Million Voices for Darfur Campaign to raise awareness of the genocide and promote the actions necessary to end it. The goal of the campaign is to generate one million hand-written and electronic postcards from Americans demanding a stronger and more effective U.S. response, all to be delivered to President Bush. Specifically, the campaign calls on the United States government to support a stronger multinational force to protect the civilians of Darfur. The Rev. Gloria White-Hammond, M.D., National Chairperson of Million Voices for Darfur, exhorts us to speak out for justice, or remain silent and be rendered irrelevant. She says she will not give up, get up, back up, or shut up. Nor should we. We invite all SHJ members to help with this push to make sure that the U.S. government acts. Becoming one of the Million Voices for Darfur is one of the quickest, easiest social action activities ever: We ask all SHJ members to log onto www.savedarfur.org or http://action.ajws.org/campaign/millionvoices to complete an on-line postcard. We intend also to do some postcard-writing at the SHJ Conference in Boston. More information can be found on websites of the forefront organizations: Save Darfur Coalition (savedarfur.org), American Jewish World Service (ajws.org), as well as the International Crisis Group (icg.org) and the Friends Committee on National Legislation (fcnl.org). Hello from CSJO!!! Did you know... 1. The Social Action committee of CSJO is a member of the Save Darfur Coalition...find out more for yourself at darfur@democracyin action.org 2. CSJO is a member of Brit Tzedek V'Shalom an organization working for a just peace in the Middle East. Find out more at...www.btvshalom.org or info@btvshalom.org 3. CSJO is a member of the Secular Student Alliance. Find out more at: listmaster@secularstudents.org I wish you all a Happy Purim!!! All the best, Rifke Feinstein, Executive Director
March 2006 CHAI-LIGHTS Page 5 SHJ Joins Secular Coalition for America Harriet Maza With the advent of the 2006 calendar year, the Society for Humanistic Judaism became an active member of the Secular Coalition for America (www.secular.org). According to its director Lori Lipman Brown, the Secular Coalition of America is the nation s first lobbying organization that works to increase the visibility and respectability of nontheistic viewpoints in the United States and to protect and strengthen the secular character of our government as the best guarantee of freedom for all. With the recent addition of the SHJ and also the Freedom From Religion Foundation (www.ffrf.org), Herb Silverman, president of the Secular Coalition for America, expressed his delight: I am thrilled that we now have seven outstanding national organizations from across the nontheistic spectrum. By working together, we hope to publicly promote our perspectives and take them to the political table. Other members of the coalition include the American Humanist Association, Atheist Alliance International, Institute for Humanist Studies, Secular Student Alliance, and Secular Web (Internet Infidels). SHJ asks its members to support our membership by sending donations to the SHJ office that are made out to the Secular Coalition for America. We are happy to forward them to the Coalition. Brown will address SHJ members on Saturday, April 29, at the SHJ Conference 2006 in Boston. JEWISH CULTURE SCHOOL After studying Jewish life cycles for two sessions, the Culture School held a naming ceremony for the students at the home of Jake Price on Sunday, February 12, 2006. Karen Knecht, Madrikha, officiated, and families of the students were present as well. After a brief introduction about why we have ceremonies for naming, Karen presented certificates to each student with their English and Hebrew names, as well as their birthdates on the Hebrew calendar. She also gave a brief Explanation of each of the Hebrew names to each of the children. Barbara Price, teacher at the Culture School, gave each of the students a symbolic gift for their future: A MARSHMALLOW: To wish them a sweet and satisfying life. A KEY: To show them that they hold the key to their future. A PENNY: To remind them to give Tzedakah. The word tzedakah comes from the Hebrew word for justice or fair treatment. Giving tzedakah is the right thing to do. A BAND-AID: To remind them that we are all responsible for Tikkun Olam, the repair of the world. A CHOCOLATE HERSHEY S KISS: To remind them to show their love for their family by giving plenty of kisses. It s a great way to promote shalom bayit peace in your home. AN ERASER: For the mistakes we all make. Experience comes from making mistakes. The only bad mistakes are the ones we don t learn from. A RUBBER BAND: To remind them to s-t-r-e-t-c-h their minds and their learning. AN ISRAELI FLAG: To remind them of the connection of the Jewish people to their homeland, Eretz Yisrael. A COLORFUL CLIP: To remind them to connect what they learn at school with what they do at home. A GOLDEN THREAD: To remind them of the Golden Rule. Love your neighbor as yourself. Remember, what is hateful to you, do not do to your family, friends, classmates, teachers, etc. As Hillel said, That is the law; all the rest is explanation. Following the ceremony, the families enjoyed a celebratory brunch of bagels and lox, sponsored by the school.
March 2006 CHAI-LIGHTS Page 6 The Genesis of Yiddish - Part 1 Rosalie Gottfried, Madrikha Although its history extends a thousand years, its path is so circuitous that trying to get it all into a short piece is impossible. For anyone interested (and every Jew in the world should be interested, since that s where our roots are) the book from which I ve taken my material is titled Words On Fire by Dovid Katz and the story is the genesis of Yiddish. Yiddish itself is only about a thousand years old. But many of its phrases, idioms, and embedded historical references are much older. They fed into Yiddish in a continuous language chain that preceded ancient Hebrew, progressed through Hebrew and then Jewish Aramaic, and ended up in today s Yiddish without interruption despite an ever-shifting geography and changing historic circumstances. Its roots include ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and ancient Akkadian, a language that was widespread in Mesopotamia from 3 to 1 B.C.E., and in Talmudic times words were softened, abstracted, and shifted, eventually becoming Yiddish. This is a 5,000-year odyssey for some of the most basic words, such as mazl. The historical origin of Hebrew was the ancient Canaanite language combined with the spoken Aramaic of Abraham s time. To this was added an Egyptian component, particularly proper names, the best known of which is the name Moshe (Moses). Sometime after the Babylonian exile of 586 B.C. Hebrew was no longer used as a spoken language and instead Aramaic was once again used as everyday speech since Hebrew was now considered to be a sacred language used for writing, studying, and praying. And so the Jewish language chain took root. It originated in the remote Jewish past with the consolidation of the first Jewish fusion language, Hebrew. Over a thousand years later, their descendants, the Judean exiles in Babylonia, created the second major Jewish language, Jewish Aramaic, from the Hebrew (itself a fusion of Canaanite with an older form of Aramaic) they brought with them and the Babylonian Aramaic they found in their new home. Now history takes over as the Assyrians were overwhelmed by the Persians in the south and the Babylonians were overwhelmed by the Persians in the north. The Persians were then conquered by the Greeks who were then overtaken by the Romans. In August of 70 A.D. the Romans crushed a major Judean revolt; destroyed Herod s Temple in Jerusalem and dispersed the surviving Israelites. By now, Persian, Greek, and Roman words had entered the everyday speech of the dispersed population. By the 7 th cent., there was an enormously creative Jewish tradition that was transplanted to Spain and Portugal as a result of the enlightened Arab caliphate. This stretched to the middle of the 11 th century and ended with the conquest of Baghdad in 1055. It spelled the end of the long Oriental period in Jewish history. Although historians still don t know, by and large, the routes, years, geographical sources or reasons behind the substantial migration to many parts of Europe, one major exception is the migration of Near Eastern Jews under Islamic rule as a result of the Islamic conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. As these new communities became acclimated to their new surroundings, they bestowed Jewish names on the territories they now inhabited. The new areas usually started out more or less with one of the languages of the nation state and became gradually absorbed into the growing Jewish language of the new communities. They came up with terms based on internal cultural categories and concepts and carried these new phrases and words with them regardless of the changing political borders of the times. They were named in a spirit of linguistic playfulness that brought meaning as well as fun to the new Jewish life in Europe. Place names were infused with biblical sounds as a way of the Jewish residents amusing themselves who now found themselves in these strange surroundings. The name Ashkenaz was bestowed on the Jewish culture area that gave rise to Yiddish and was destined to become the most extensive cultural empire in Jewish history. The biblical Ashkenaz was Noah s great-grandson.
March 2006 CHAI-LIGHTS Page 7 PERCEPTIONS OF JEWS "Indeed it is difficult for all other nations of the world to live in the presence of the Jews. It is irritating and most uncomfortable. The Jews embarrass the world as they have done things which are beyond the imaginable. They have become moral strangers since the day their forefather, Abraham, introduced the world to high ethical standards and to the fear of Heaven. They brought the world the Ten Commandments which many nations prefer to defy. They violated the rules of history by staying alive, totally at odds with common sense and historical evidence. They outlived all their former enemies, including vast empires such as the Romans and the Greeks. They angered the world with their return to their homeland after 2000 years of exile and after the murder of six million of their brothers and sisters. "They irritated mankind by building, in the wink of an eye, a democratic State which others were not able to create in even hundreds of years. They built living monuments such as the duty to be holy and the privilege to serve one's fellow men. "They had their hands in every human progressive endeavor, whether in science, medicine, psychology or any other discipline, while totally out of proportion to their actual numbers. They gave the world the Bible and even their "savior". "Jews taught the world not to accept the world as it is, but to transform it, yet only a few nations wanted to listen. Moreover, the Jews introduced the world to one God, yet only a minority wanted to draw the moral consequences. So the nations of the world realize that they would have been lost without the Jews. And while their subconscious tries to remind them of how much of Western civilization is framed in terms of concepts first articulated by the Jews, they do anything to suppress it. "They deny that Jews remind them of a higher purpose of life and the need to be honorable, and do anything to escape its consequences. It is simply too much to handle for them, too embarrassing to admit, and above all too difficult to live by. "So the nations of the world decided once again to go out of 'their' way in order to find a stick to hit the Jews. The goal: to prove that Jews are as immoral and guilty of massacre and genocide as some of they themselves are. "All this in order to hide and justify their own failure to even protest when six million Jews were brought to the slaughterhouses of Auschwitz and Dachau; so as to wipe out the moral conscience of which the Jews remind them, and they found a stick. "Nothing could be more gratifying for them than to find the Jews into a struggle with another people (who are completely terrorized by their own leaders) against whom the Jews, against their best wishes, have to defend themselves in order to survive. With great satisfaction, the world allows and initiates the rewriting of history so as to fuel the rage of yet another people against the Jews. This in spite of the fact that the nations understand very well that peace between the parties could have come a long time ago, if only the Jews would have had a fair chance. "Instead, they happily jumped on the wagon of hate so as to justify their jealousy of the Jews and their incompetence to deal with their own moral issues. When Jews look at the bizarre play, taking place in The Hague, they can only smile as this artificial game once more proves how the world paradoxically admits the Jews uniqueness. It is in their need to undermine the Jews that they actually raise them. "The study of history of Europe during the past centuries teaches us one uniform lesson: That the nations which received and in any way dealt fairly and mercifully with the Jew have prospered; and that the nations that have tortured and oppressed them have written out their own curse." --Olive Schreiner, South African novelist and social activist Board of Directors 2005-2006 President: Phyllis Jacobs 949/644-2712 Phlj@cox.net Vice President: Leslie Zwick 714/893-2715 jerlesz@earthlink.net Secretary,: Alice Selfridge 562/592-0999 selfridg@earthlink.net Treasurer: Karen Knecht 714/739-1366 KNECHTFOUR@aol.com Membership: Alice Selfridge 562/592-0999 selfridg@earthlink.net Program Committee Co-chairs: Shirley Spiegel 714/378-1186 sspiegel@socal.rr.com Marsha Harman 714/536-7181 HARMSSSS@aol.com Publicity Chairs: Felix Kopstein 562-598-5230 Psylogic@adelphia.net Marty Annenberg 714/846-2428 MARAN5901@aol.com Hospitality, Jerry Zwick. 714/893-2715 jerlesz@earthlink.net Past President: Jack Stein 714/968-0998 JStein7901@aol.com Madrikhot: Rosalie Gottfried 949/249-3755 Rosart1@aol.com Karen Knecht 714/739-1366 KNECHTFOUR@aol.com CSJO Rep: Karen Knecht 714/739-1366 KNECHTFOUR@aol.com SHJ Rep.: Alan Jacobs 949/644-2712 alanjac@cox.net Board Members At Large: Shirley Klipper 562/860-1068 KASK2@aol.com Jerry Ackerman 714/505-1947 JMA111@aol.com Lee Jacobi 714/838-2836 LeeJacobi@earthlink.net Max Lechtman 714/897-1181 bythemax@socal.rr.com Marilyn Ackerman 714/505-1947 JMA111@aol.com Newsletter: Alan Jacobs 949/644-2712 alanjac@cox.net Bernice Stein 714/968-0998 JStein7901@aol.com Jewish Culture School Representative: Barbara Price 949/643-3729 barbarapprice@aol.com Committee Chairs: Tributes: Gerry Lumian 949/642-2753 GERILU2@aol.com Social Concerns: Ruth Shapin 714/633-0922 ruth@shapin.org Jerry Ackerman 714/505-1947 JMA111@aol.com
March 2006 CHAI-LIGHTS Page 8 HUMOR FULL HOUSE A rabbi, a minister, and a priest were playing poker when the police raided the game. Turning to the priest, the lead police officer said, "Father Murphy, were you gambling?" Turning his eyes to heaven, the priest whispered, "Lord, forgive me for what I am about to do." To the police officer, he then said, "No, officer, I was not gambling." The officer then asked the minister, "Pastor Johnson, were you gambling?" Again, after an appeal to heaven, the minister replied, "No, officer, I was not gambling." Turning to the rabbi, the officer again asked, "Rabbi Goldstein, were you gambling?" Shrugging his shoulders, the rabbi replied, "With whom?" A LIVING WILL IS IMPORTANT Mr. & Mrs. Schwartz were sitting in the living room and he said to her, Just so you know, I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and fluids from a bottle. If that ever happens, just pull the plug. His wife got up, unplugged the TV and threw out all of his beer. Chai-Lights is published monthly by the Pacific Community of Cultural Jews, Orange County, CA Editors: Alan Jacobs, Bernice Stein Phone: 949/262-5850 E-mail: PacifComm@aol.com, http://www.pccjews.org An annual Newsletter subscription may be purchased for 18.00. Chai-Lights 21152 Lockhaven Circle Huntington Beach, CA 92646