Blogs
entries tagged with: Passaic
N.J. students are among first to study at new Tiferet site
(tags):
Five high school grads from Teaneck, one from Bergenfield, and one from Passaic are among students finishing an academic year in the new four-story facility of the Tiferet Center for Advanced Torah Studies for Women in suburban Jerusalem.
According to co-founder Rabbi Azriel Rosner, Tiferet was founded in 2005 with the unique goal of providing a complete community for gap-year students, where teachers all live in the neighborhood and maintain an open-home policy for the 60 young women from London, Toronto, Florida, Texas, Memphis, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, Boston, and the New York metropolitan area.
Given that nearly 70 different seminary programs are available for overseas women before college — 51 of them in Jerusalem — each one must find a niche that attracts a particular type of student. Tiferet is in Ramat Beit Shemesh, about 45 minutes from the capital city.
“Because we are a little out of the Jerusalem social scene, our emphasis is on girls who are coming to Israel to learn and grow and not necessarily be part of that scene,” said Rosner. “Everyone involved here lives within walking distance, and for students thousands of miles from home this adds an aspect of integration. Judaism is more than academic; it is also experiential, and our setup offers an experience of being part of an Israeli community.”
 | New Jersey students at Tiferet include, from left, Jessica Listhaus (Livingston), Alana Blumenthal (Teaneck), Lindsay Stadtmauer (West Orange), Ariel Mischel (Teaneck), Rachel Moradi (West Orange), Alyssa Zaretsky (Teaneck) and Michelle Fleksher (Passaic). Not shown are Leora Koenig (Bergenfield), Sara Weiss Kallus (Teaneck), Doren Glaser (Teaneck), and Tehilla Goder (Hillside). |
Michelle Fleksher of Passaic, a 2009 graduate of Ma’ayanot Yeshiva High School for Girls in Teaneck, said Tiferet interested her primarily for its self-contained atmosphere.
“I was looking for something smaller and warm, and here we’re in a community and can go to visit our teachers whenever we want,” she said. “Coming from a place of not liking to be away from home, that was the number 1 reason for me to choose Tiferet.”
Alyssa Zaretsky of Teaneck explained that each student is assigned an “adoptive” family, providing an insider view of Israeli life. The families “live in a very modest way but have everything they need, and they and their children are happy,” she said.
Fleksher noted that unlike many other seminaries, Tiferet offers college credit based on attendance, not exams or papers. “When it comes to testing I can get very stressed, and I didn’t want that,” she said. “You are here because you want to be. It’s very calming.” She hopes to study nursing in the United States after completing a second year at Tiferet.
The new structure, faced in Jerusalem stone, houses classrooms, a dining room, a study hall, and student dormitories. Its construction was financed by private donations and what is referred to as a “substantial” no-interest loan from the Caroline & Joseph S. Gruss Life Monument Fund. To keep up with enrollment demand, added Rosner, a second building is planned.
Students can choose from among classes in Bible; Jewish history, law, and philosophy; and Talmud, prayer, Zionism, and Israel advocacy. Like most other seminaries, Tiferet offers hikes and trips to national parks, landmarks, and archaeological sites. Also like other programs, it holds classes from morning till night and leaves one day a week free for community volunteering.
Bergenfield resident Leora Koenig, a Frisch School graduate, said her service involved playing with children in a local family so that the mother could devote extra time to their autistic sibling.
Alana Blumenthal of Teaneck came to visit the school when she was a senior at Bruriah High School in Elizabeth. “I saw that no one was bored,” she related. “I sat in on a class and was inspired right away. This was the way I wanted to learn and spend the year. And once you get accepted, you’re immediately part of this huge family that is Tiferet.”
Rutherford’s small Jewish community establishes an eruv
Cong. Beth El is the only synagogue in Rutherford, tucked away on a residential stretch of Montross Avenue. Since the 1950s, the formerly Conservative shul has been housed in the same tree-shaded Queen Anne mansion — inconspicuous behind shade trees on a street lined with spacious, well maintained homes.
But this now modern Orthodox congregation of about a dozen families has quietly succeeded in establishing an eruv with a three- to four-mile perimeter, half a mile wide. At 5 p.m. today, the borough’s mayor, John F. Hipp, will issue the formal proclamation declaring its existence.
Although he praises the support he received from the mayor and the synagogue board, the person most responsible for this feat is Rabbi Nossan Schuman, a serious, slightly built father of five who came to Rutherford last August — less than a year ago — with a mission. “I had previous experience with creating an eruv at my last posting, in Indianapolis,” Schuman explained. Beth El became Orthodox 15 years ago, when members saw young congregants leaving and realized attendance had plateaued. “They knew that ultimately, growth would depend on an eruv,” the rabbi added, “so three years ago they had a fund-raiser, but the project never got propelled into actuality.”
Just across the river from Passaic, with buses and trains to New York and direct access to New Jersey Transit’s Secaucus Junction station, Rutherford has begun attracting young professionals. With the eruv, it’s hoped that some of them will be Jewish, open to modern Orthodox observance, and interested in living in a small close-knit community that is only a mile or two away from the crowds and the commerce of busy Passaic Park. Right now, the congregation is composed of a wide range of Jews, some who have been congregants since before the conversion — “some who are shomer Shabbos and some who are not. Everyone is welcome,” the rabbi said. “We respect each other and share a belief in the value of Torah. We are nonjudgmental; people are free to grow.”
While establishing an eruv in Bergen County in less than a year may seem like a major accomplishment, Schuman’s only complaint is that the process took longer than he expected. “Between getting the permissions from the utility companies and attending borough meetings — even the construction — every single component took longer,” he said.
Another element was the groundwork, done by the rabbi himself “going around town by bicycle and car, from telephone pole to telephone pole,” he recalled, “and a couple of times, being stopped by the Rutherford police for suspicious activity.”
Thanks to his previous experience, Schuman was able to keep costs down by making an effort to use telephone poles that already had covers, which minimized the cost of attaching a lechi, a post to hold the eruv in place.
“It’s a good skill to have,” he laughed, “but once you get involved in eruvin, you never look at a telephone pole the same way!” (For a map of the eruv, go to jstandard.com.)
A native of Forest Hills, N.Y., Schuman grew up, he said, “in an assimilated family.” He developed an interest in Torah as a freshman at the University of Michigan, and returned to New York to study first at NYU, then at Yeshiva University, and finally, for nine years, at Yeshivas Chaim Berlin in Brooklyn, where he was ordained. His first posting, however, was to Santa Barbara, a seaside mecca for tourists and laid-back Californians. But Schuman found the natives to be open to spirituality, and he and his wife Pessy discovered that they liked helping people “develop a path to Judaism.” In fact, 13 Santa Barbarans came to him seeking conversion not related to marriage, he said, “and all but one followed through.”
His next post, in Youngstown, Ohio, was also a major change from Brooklyn. Again, it was an opportunity to provide many with their first exposure to what he describes as “the depth of a Torah class or the splendor and joy of a Shabbos meal.”
But after Indianapolis, the Schumans decided it was time to find a community that provided good Jewish schools for their three girls and two boys now ranging from 5 to 13 1/2. Rutherford gave them all the perks of Passaic’s schools without the growing urban atmosphere.
Unfortunately, his children must also seek friendships in Passaic, since Beth El, at present, includes no other families with children even near their age. The board is applying for membership to the Orthodox Union, but how does a synagogue survive both physically and spiritually with so few congregants for so many years?
“It survives,” the rabbi said, “because it’s able to rent out rooms to a school and the gym to a winter baseball camp, so the building is sort of self-supporting.” But, he acknowledged, “it’s amazing it has survived. It seems there has been a will for this synagogue to persist, so we’re hoping for a rebirth.”
 |
Clifton-Passaic Y slated to closeAmid budget troubles, federation had sought merger with North Jersey
One year ago the YM-YWHA of Greater Clifton-Passaic celebrated its grand reopening, and the dedication of a newly renovated half-million-dollar playground. One month ago the Jewish Federation of Greater Clifton-Passaic, facing budget deficits and major drops in its fund-raising campaign in recent years, decided to sell the Y, a 105-year-old institution and the only Jewish community center in the Passaic-Clifton area. The Y, also known as the Tri-County JCC, houses the federation, Jewish Family Service, the Riskin Children’s Center, and the Holocaust Resource Center. Federation leaders say they intend that these agencies would remain open after the sale of the building but remained noncommittal about Y programming beyond September 2011. The Y still expects to offer camp for the summer of 2011. The board voted to sell the building at its July meeting and put the building on the market later that month. Community members did not learn about the move, however, until they received a letter in early August. “The decision has been brewing for several years,” Ed Schey, the federation’s executive director, told this newspaper last week. “It became very difficult these past several years to maintain the services we want to at the Y. We just don’t have the wherewithal to continue.” He pointed to a diminishing donor base as the result of a donor’s death or relocation out of state. Late donors’ families often don’t continue the tradition of contributing, he said, while those who move away shift their dollars to local charities. The changing demographics of Passaic — the city has experienced a boom in its Orthodox population in recent years and is home to 10 Orthodox synagogues, while Clifton has one Conservative shul — has also played a role. While Y leaders estimated at least 50 percent of the Y’s users are Orthodox, the federation has not been successful in fund-raising in that community. Ten years ago, the federation’s campaign raised more than $1 million. Schey would not provide specifics but said the campaign today is about half of that. According to 2008 tax forms, the latest on file with the website Guidestar.org, the federation collected $5,162,965 in total revenue between Oct. 1, 2007, and Sept. 30, 2008, but faced expenses of $5,583,671 — a deficit of more than $400,000. Just to open the doors of the Y — paying for electricity, heating, and other basic needs — costs approximately $600,000 a year, according to the Y’s executive director, Kenneth Mandel. With the federation facing a $1.5 million budget deficit, he said he was saddened by the decision but understood it. “I look at this building and say this is a community asset,” he said. “By selling this building you’re never going to be able to have a building like this again.” The Y has approximately 1,300 members including family units, and Mandel estimated that about 1,000 people pass through the doors each day. This year’s summer camp is at capacity, with 600 children enrolled. The Y’s operating budget is $2.7 million; it receives $178,000 from the federation and the rest is raised from other sources. Each year the staff wonders if that will be the final year, Mandel said, but various grants and last-minute donations have kept the building afloat. The Y staff took a 10 percent pay cut last year, representing a savings of $200,000, Mandel said. The federation had looked at merging with one of its neighboring federations, but plans to merge with the Jewish Federation of North Jersey in Wayne fell apart when that organization merged with the UJA of Bergen County & North Hudson to form UJA Federation of Northern New Jersey. From 2002 to 2008 the Passaic-Clifton federation held conversations with the United Jewish Communities of MetroWest, but those talks eventually broke down. “We didn’t want to be in a position next September to say, ‘We’re closing tomorrow,’” said Mark Levenson, who concluded his eight-year presidency of the Passaic-Clifton federation in June. “We have been deliberating for a long time to come to what I call a soft landing.” The 7-acre property went on the market last month, Levenson said, although he would not disclose the asking price or the broker. The federation is not shutting down, Levenson emphasized, acknowledging rumors that followed the sale’s announcement. “The campaign will continue; what federation does will continue,” he said. “We are not closing the federation. The federation absolutely is in control and the implementer of this decision.” The federation board is open to ideas to save the Y, Levenson said, but only a large infusion of dollars will work. “Unless there is some real concrete plan of real funding to help address the gap in keeping the building going, good intentions just don’t get us there,” he said. “We need actual real cash to keep the building going.” When Mitch Morrison, a Passaic resident who is vice president and group editor of CSP Information Group, received the federation’s letter, he quickly began to mobilize efforts to save the Y. As of Monday, when he spoke to this paper from a business meeting in Utah, he had been trying to organize a meeting with federation leaders for the end of this week. An initial e-mail asking people for help has attracted lots of attention, he said, and he’d like the federation to examine all options from the community. “Let’s pause,” he said. “Let’s take a deep breath and let’s regroup and see if we can create a model that is truly representative of a broader Jewish community and can we do it under a financial model that not only allows the institution to survive but to thrive.” Passaic has experienced a demographic change, not a demographic decline, Morrison said. That separates the Passaic-Clifton Y from other agencies in decline across the country. He envisions new models of operation and outreach for the Y that bring in the Orthodox, the Russian émigre´s, the non-affiliated, and Jews from smaller communities nearby. “If you take the attitude of ‘let’s rebuild this from scratch, what kind of fund-raising model could you create,’ you could potentially create something very dynamic and robust,” he said. Schey said that the federation would negotiate with a buyer to see if Jewish Family Service, the Riskin Children’s Center, and the Holocaust Resource Center could stay in the building. Whether the federation ends up renting space back from a buyer or if the building will be razed depends on who buys it, he said. “The executive committee of the federation and board of trustees of the federation will review carefully all of the proposals and make a decision that’s in the best interest of the Jewish community of Clifton-Passaic,” he added. Edith Sobel, the former editor of the Jewish Community News, praised the federation and its relationship with the paper when the JCN was housed at the Y. “It was a very wonderful experience for me,” she said. Valerie Sharfman, director of the Holocaust Resource Center, declined comment. Jewish Family Services receives $125,000, or about 10 percent of its annual budget, from the federation, which has been “a pretty secure funder,” said Esther East, executive director of Jewish Family Service. “We are very saddened by the fact that the financial difficulties have resulted in this loss,” she said. “We’re losing the one communal institution in the Clifton-Passaic community where Jewish people cross-denominationally come together. That’s a big loss.” Teaching the ShoahPassaic students learn about prejudice at D.C. museumPassaic students learn about prejudice at D.C. museum
As a language arts teacher at the Lincoln Middle School in Passaic, Sharon Surloff realized that her eighth-grade students, mostly black or Latino, had grown up knowing little, if anything, about the Holocaust. Projects to remedy this were already under way. In her class, the teenagers had already studied Elie Wiesel’s “Night” and had been deeply moved, she said. She was also engaging them in discussions, bringing in survivors, taking field trips, and doing Holocaust-related projects. Something was missing, however. “As a teacher, I know that providing students with an educational opportunity that will touch them emotionally is the most promising way to turn a school lesson into a life-changing experience,” noted Surloff, who grew up in Fair Lawn. The missing ingredient, she decided, was a trip to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. To do that, however, she needed the funds. “I wrote a grant letter and did research in the public library to find foundations,” she said. “My mother [Fair Lawn resident Evelyn Surloff] helped me with the leg work, and we found some donors.”
While some of those donors have chosen to remain anonymous, one — whose husband was killed on 9/11 and who is looking for worthy projects to fund in his name — actually sought out Surloff and offered to help. The teacher is also receiving financial assistance from the Warren and Mitzi Eisenberg Family Foundation. “It is unfortunate… that the children in our poorest communities have little exposure to the history of intolerance of the Jews in Europe, and even less of the relevance of that experience to their own situation,” Surloff wrote to potential donors. “It is my hope that by providing this experience, we will fill that gap in their knowledge and help to reduce the intolerance we see today in our local minority communities and our society at large.” For several years, Surloff took her students to the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City. Thanks to a grant from the museum, students did not have to pay for their transportation, admission, tour guides, or the interns who come to the school to meet with them both before and after their field trip. She said, however, that her students were “primed and eager for the logical extension of their Holocaust learning.” This year, Surloff will be making the Washington trip for the fifth time. For her students, she said, the visit is an “eye-opening” experience. For one thing, many have never been outside Passaic. “I have never gone that far from home before,” wrote one student. “My family is from Mexico and we are poor, we struggle to buy the things we need, so I feel extremely lucky to have been able to go.” That same student was deeply moved by the Holocaust Museum. “How could the Nazis hate so much that they would kill, and in some cases, torture children?” he asked. “Learning about the Holocaust was interesting, but seeing the documentation in the museum made it really come to life in a way that reading a book can’t really do.” “At the end of the museum exhibits, there was an opportunity for us to take an oath against genocide,” he added. “I signed my name to the oath and I am going to start researching to see what I can do to stop modern-day genocide. I may be only one person, but maybe I can make a difference.” “I just couldn’t hold back my tears as I became witness to the horrors that the Nazis committed against the Jews,” wrote another student, who said it was an “honor” to listen to a survivor at the museum telling her story. “I took a moment to thank her for letting me hear her story and [told her] how blessed I felt.” Another student wrote of his joy at seeing the nation’s capital. “I am the first generation in my family to be born in the United States, so it meant a lot to me to go and see the White House. To me, the White House represents everything about America because it is a symbol of the president and the freedom that this country has to offer. I ran right up to it and held onto the gates.” “One of the most important things I learned from [my teacher] is to stand up for what I believe in, especially when I see something that I think is wrong,” noted the same student. “I never want to be the person who does nothing. I am better than that.” Surloff said it was her students’ interest and curiosity that inspired her to pursue this project. “They had a thirst to know more,” she said. “It came from them, not from me. The best teachers let their students guide the instruction. It turned into something bigger than I thought it would be.” She has seen some “beautiful things” come out of the Washington trips, she said. “The first year we were there we told the students they had to be dressed appropriately and act appropriately,” she recalled. “The students were looking at something and a student from another school pushed past us. One of my students turned to me and said, ‘How could somebody come to this museum and push someone around like that?’” A second incident occurred after her students were treated badly during a recreational activity. “They were so dejected by this,” she said, noting that students from another school had addressed them using racial slurs. “Someone should take them to the Holocaust Museum,” said one of her students. “They need to learn something about racism and bias.”
Page 1 of 1 pages
|
