When we are facing health and healing challenges, community and tradition are two of the resources we call upon in Jewish life. I learned this lesson of community and tradition most profoundly from a colleague and mentor, Rabbi Simkha Weintraub, rabbinic director of the National Center for Jewish Healing. It forms the foundation of our Jewish Community Chaplaincy program in Kansas City, of which I have the privilege of serving as Kansas City’s Jewish Community Chaplain.

Both the keva (framework) and kavannah (intention) of the Chaplaincy program reflect these two tablets of the Jewish spiritual care “covenant.” When faced with a life crisis, like a healthcare challenge, many of us feel isolated and disconnected from the Jewish community and tradition. We might need spiritual counseling but may have no rabbi or congregation to call on for support. In particular, Jewish older adults, who make up the majority of Jewish people in hospitals and eldercare centers, feel isolated from the organized Jewish community.

The Chaplaincy program speaks to the spiritual needs of those in crisis. We are part of lives in moments of profound difficulty and transition, from guiding the adult child of middle aged-parents through the family dynamics around coping with serious illness to supporting a middle-aged woman through treatment for a life-threatening illness. And other situations include praying with an elderly man before he dies, chanting Kol Nidre at the bedside of a patient receiving home hospice care, comforting a parent whose middle-aged daughter died suddenly, counseling a young person who attempted suicide and providing support to that person’s family.

Our spiritual care volunteer program enables us to touch the lives of more than 1,700 individuals each year. Spiritual care volunteers are lay members of virtually all of the area congregations trained to visit Jews who are sick and isolated. These volunteers provide a range of Jewish spiritual care in the healthcare community that would otherwise simply not be possible.

I consult regularly with hospitals and eldercare centers about specific patients and their needs, and answer questions regarding how best to serve their Jewish patients and residents. The Chaplaincy Program has become a vital resource for area health care institutions, helping them be more culturally sensitive to Jewish concerns and providing spiritual comfort in dealing with disease and death. I also educate staff and patients at health care institutions around these issues, and we use a booklet entitled “Circle of Healing” that we leave with Jewish patients and residents to aid in the spiritual healing process.

In the traditional Jewish prayer for healing, we ask for a refuah shleima — refuat hanefesh u’refuat haguf, a spiritual healing as well as a physical healing. We know that people are multi-dimensional, with all of the different dimensions of our humanity constantly interacting in a dynamic way — emotionally, physically, socially, psychologically and spiritually.

So in order to talk about a “complete healing,” we must relate to all of these dimensions, emphasizing the spiritual dimension as the realm where the meaning is created and developed. The Jewish Community Chaplaincy Program is a powerful expression of the commitment of the greater Kansas City Jewish community, under the auspices of Jewish Family Services, to do just that.

We are grateful for core funding of the program that comes from the Jewish community, through the support of the Menorah Legacy Foundation, the Jewish Community Foundation, the Jewish Heritage Foundation and the Jewish Federation. We are thankful for additional financial support from six major area healthcare institutions.

With blessings of peace and wholeness — shalom.

Rabbi Jonathan Rudnick, the Jewish Community Chaplain, can be reached at 913-915-7730 or at .

Communitywide Healing service
just around the corner

The Jewish Community Chaplaincy program of Jewish Family Services is hosting a healing service at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 6, at Village Shalom.

The service will be conducted by Linda Sweenie, music director at Congregation Beth Torah, Jewish Community Chaplain Rabbi Jonathan Rudnick and Rabbi David Glickman, senior rabbi of Congregation Beth Shalom, who will be the special guest facilitator.

The healing service is free and open to the entire community, regardless of one’s level of observance. A light nosh will precede the service and sweets will be provided afterward. The healing service will feature both traditional liturgy and contemporary readings and music.

Reservations are requested for the healing service and should be made by calling JFS at 913-327-8250 or sending an email to .

Be proactive advocates

Israelis are on the front lines of an ongoing war. As American Jews, we can be soldiers in the media war against Israel. We can be effective advocates for Israel by being vigilante about biased reporting and fighting back. If a story on NPR, CNN or USA Today is skewed, call them on it. Become active in CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Reporting on the Middle East)

When American Muslims perceive a report or article as anti-Arab or Muslim, there is a huge outcry. Their leaders are proactive in getting their perspective across in the media, contacting political representatives, creating courses on Mideast studies at junior colleges and universities, giving educational workshops in churches, etc.

If Jewish leaders are not effective in advocating for Israel, replace them. If Jewish organizations are failing to live up to their mission statement to defend Israel, stop donating money and tell them why.

Jews are articulate, smart and fund many Jewish organizations. However, when it comes to the media war, the Muslims are beating us badly.

Anita Colman
Mission, Kan.

Opposing opinions don’t affect friendship

Despite our political differences, it was a privilege and an honor knowing Rabbi Morris Margolies for the last 30 years.

I first met Rabbi Margolies when I came to Kansas City in 1982 at the age of 23. I started teaching Hebrew at Congregation Beth Shalom’s religious school when Rabbi Margolies was the senior rabbi. Even though he was busy he found the time several times a year over the next four years to come to my class and observe my teaching. I will always remember him sitting at the back of the class for an hour listening with joy in his eyes. Afterwards we would speak in Hebrew and discuss issues such as Jewish education, history, and his beloved city of Jerusalem where he was born. He was encouraging and supportive of my teaching, acting both as a mentor and an educator.

In 1993 the Oslo Agreement was signed and I started writing in The Kansas City Jewish Chronicle against the agreement and the ongoing negotiations with Arafat, while Rabbi Margolies wrote in support of the agreement. Even though for the next 15 years, I wrote my opinions, which were opposite to his weekly columns in The Chronicle, every time Rabbi Margolies met me, he welcomed me warmly with a smile, a kiss and a hug. We never talked about our political opinions and our political differences never interfered with our respect and liking of each other. We used to discuss his other passions including Jewish education as the means to Jewish survival in the United States and the importance of the success of the Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy.

Despite our differences, I never had doubt that his love for Israel, the Jewish people and Jerusalem was as strong as mine. He truly believed that talking to Israel’s enemies is the only way to bring peace to Israel and help Israel survive.

I will always appreciate Rabbi Margolies’ commitment and contribution to Jewish life in Kansas City. But I appreciate even more that he believed by example that despite our disagreements we are all parts of the same Jewish people and we must be respectful to and responsible for each other. His leadership and inspiration will be missed!

Shoula Romano Horing
Kansas City, Mo.

(Editor’s note: This message from Todd Stettner, executive vice president & CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City, first appeared on the agency’s website and email blast Friday, Nov. 16.)

Imagine that terrorists have taken over the Kansas City Airport and have set up and are firing SAJR rockets (made in Iran) at downtown K.C., Prairie Village and Overland Park. (Yes, these missiles have that kind of range.)
What do you think our military and police would do?

Now, imagine you are a mother, driving your young child, who is strapped into a car seat. You hear the air raid siren, giving you only 15 seconds to seek shelter. This is what mothers in the southern (and now other parts of Israel, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem) are facing every day.

Sadly, Israel is at war again.

I was in Israel when the second Lebanese War started. I heard the boom of cannons and the roar of Israeli jets taking off from a nearby air base to attack Hezbollah. I saw children from the north sheltered in camps in Ramla to ensure their safety, and I met a doctor in Eilat who moved patients from a hospital in the Galilee so they would not be harmed by rockets. But this time things have changed: better, longer-range rockets have made the entire southern and central part of Israel unsafe and if, G-d forbid, Hezbollah joins this fight, all of Israel will be under attack.

As always in these times we are quick to react:

We have opened the Israel Terror Relief Fund locally.

$5 million dollars have been sent already by the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) as an advance against community fundraising efforts.

The Reform and Conservative national movements have pledged to work with this campaign to raise as much money as needed. (Note: Orthodox and traditional congregations in Kansas City are also working with Jewish Federation to help.)

Most important, our partners, the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) are already on the ground to help Israel’s beleaguered citizens.

JAFI is already moving more than 4,000 students, in grades one through 12, to safer, more secure locations. Special psychological counseling interventions for parents and children suffering from emotional trauma are being offered.

The JDC is preparing emergency kits for the elderly and the disabled, and is working with emergency case workers who provide psychological and physical support so that they can stay in their homes during the sirens (most Israeli homes in the area have a safe room).

The Israel Trauma Coalition is operating phone hot lines, workshops for children and parents and team training and support for emergency relief workers in the field in coordination with local community councils.

Ofer Lichtig, Kansas City’s representative in Israel, has informed me that all electioneering has stopped in Israel as all parties and candidates have united around the government to show support.

I’ll leave you with this thought: On my office window sill sits a stuffed dog doll with Velcro at the tips of his front paws and a sad look on his face. His name is Hibuki which means “huggy.” He is a therapy tool used with young Israeli children (typically victims of terror) to get them to talk about why they are sad. With the Velcro on his paws, Hibuki’s arms can be wrapped around a child and fastened to give them a hug. I acquired it after the last war with Lebanon, and I have used it over the years to bring smiles to young children who visit my office. I wish that it could be doing the same — bringing smiles to children in Israel right now — rather than be used for its intended therapeutic purpose.

I invite you to post your thoughts on my blog, keep checking our website (www.jewishkansascity.org), Facebook page, Twitter account, or Ophir Hacohen’s Israel Emissary Facebook page for updated information.

Sol Koenigsberg, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Kansas City from 1968 to 1989, has given us a memoir of his public career, a lively account of the movers and shakers in the Jewish community in the last half of the 20th century, and a guide through Jewish institutional and organizational life in Kansas City. It is an engaging memoir that will evoke nostalgia in the older generation, be a history lesson for the next generation, and serve as a primer and guidebook for future leaders and community members in Kansas City and elsewhere. In many ways it serves as a sequel to Joe Schultz’s edited 1982 “Mid-America’s Promise: A profile of Kansas City Jewry.” But if it also fills in the details and continues the story forward, it is a much richer, more nuanced story not only of Jewish institutions but also leaders and events. If Koenigsberg made Federation the central address of organized Jewish secular life during his tenure, he also played a major role in creating new institutions like the Jewish Community Foundation, the Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy and the Jewish Community Campus.

“Challenge and Growth” is a memoir of Koenigsberg’s professional career as the leading Jewish civil servant in Kansas City; his personal life is mostly absent from the volume. So too are personal stories absent in the discussions and assessments of other professionals and volunteers with whom he worked during those years. He is generous in acknowledging the work of others, and while he is honest in his brief assessment of their contributions, we long for more behind the scenes stories if not gossip. Also absent are aspects of the Jewish community that did not involve Federation — religious life, synagogues, Jewish education other than Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy, the Jewish Chronicle and other Jewish cultural activities, like the Jewish Museum Without Walls, founded by Sybil and Norman Kahn, or issues relating to kashrut and kosher butchers and groceries. He limits himself to what we might call the minhag (local custom) of Jewish Federation.

Koenigberg’s book gives brief biographies of his predecessors at Federation, This sets the stage for his arrival in Kansas City in 1968. A World War II sailor, he used the GI Bill to switch from music to social work. An internship at the University of Pennsylvania — assisting concentration camp survivors — then two years in Detroit helping Holocaust survivors, changed his life: he chose a career in Jewish communal service. When he came to Kansas City in 1968 he was a Zionist who believed in the centrality of Israel to Jewish identity, and found a community still influenced by a past anti-Zionist reputation.

Much of the book recounts for us momentous events and institutional changes in the Kansas City Jewish community during his years. While detailing Federation’s leadership in making Israel a priority in Kansas City, he also discusses the resettlement of Soviet Jews, assistance to North African Jews in Israel, and rescue of Beta Israel — Ethiopian Jews. At the same time he is occasionally critical of the inability of the Kansas City Jewish community to do more in these efforts.

But his memoirs are most important for what they tell us about the future of organized and institutional life in Kansas City. Kansas City played an innovative national role in creating an unaffiliated community day school and in bringing it within Federation; previously Jewish education had been left to synagogues or separate organizations. How that was achieved in Kansas City is still an untold story. Perhaps the greatest accomplishment of Federation during Koenigsberg’s tenure was the building of the Jewish Community Campus, that “unifying entity” that brought together all the major Jewish institutions except what became Village Shalom. Koenigsberg tells the story through his own reminiscences as well as interviews with other active leaders and participants. The visionaries proved right; not only were the funds raised and the debt retired, but both individual agencies and the Campus itself benefitted from their mutual relationship and helped reshape Jewish life. The Jewish community came to concentrate mostly in the area around the campus.

Equally important to understanding Kansas City Jewry and national philanthropy is the rise in importance of the Jewish Community Foundation, the Menorah Legacy Foundation, and the Jewish Heritage Foundation. While Federation retains a central role in long-time community planning, the annual campaign and giving — with its concern over 12-month budgets — is slowly giving way to endowment funds and donor-directed giving. Koenigsberg’s discussion of Jewish Community Foundation and interviews with Foundation leaders provides an essential road map for understanding the changes occurring in Jewish institutional life and philanthropy today.

This book takes seriously Jewish community institutions and organizations in a world in which such structures are undergoing significant, if not radical, change. If you want to understand how institutional Jewish life outside of synagogues got where they are today in Kansas City, this is the book to read. If you want to grapple with the changing organizational structure and what it might mean, this is the best starting point. And for anyone seeking to understand what is happening nationally in Jewish institutional life, this is a good primer.

David Katzman is professor emeritus at the University of Kansas, and was affiliated with the History and African and African-American Studies departments as well as the Jewish Studies Program. He contributed a chapter on the origins of Federation to “Mid-America’s Promise.” He is currently researching 19th-century Midwestern German-speaking Jewish communities and is zayde to five grandchildren.

Losing a penetrating voice

Rabbi Morris B. Margolies attained what Heschel called “moral grandeur” not solely through brilliant sermons and teaching, though both were thrilling for those of us lucky enough to have been raised on his words. He understood that spiritual convictions could not be confined to the prayer book or the synagogue, but must be exercised in the world at large, through community action, social protest and political criticism fervent enough to rattle the old stained-glass windows on The Paseo.

He had the truth-telling impulses of both a scholar and a muckraking journalist, combining historical reverence with an almost prophetic willingness to arouse and disturb, if that’s what it took to shake off complacency in his congregation and his city. No guide was more important to my parents (the late Milton Firestone and Bea Firestone Flam, who once co-owned and published The Chronicle) as they shaped The Jewish Chronicle over two decades, and no voice penetrated as sharply as his in advocating a Zionism of compassion and understanding, in hundreds of columns in these pages. Intentionally or not, he turned out to be a born editorial writer.

Through words and deeds, he opened the eyes and formed the consciences of tens of thousands of Kansas Citians.

David Firestone
Brooklyn, N.Y.

I originally wrote the article below in January 2009 in response to the events surrounding Operation Cast Lead. Beginning in November 2008 Israel was faced with a barrage of hundreds of rockets and mortars fired from Gaza. After a month of attacks with devastating impact on Israelis living in the south, Israel responded with Operation Cast Lead including air and ground initiatives. This article was written in response to heated debate about Israel’s response. With more than 140 rockets fired from Gaza into Israel last weekend — and Israeli counterattacks — I sadly felt the need to re-post this article.

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I’ve started writing a dozen letters — but haven’t finished or sent any. I have discovered I’m all too human. All too conflicted. All too emotional. And all too stressed.

I’m having heated mental arguments with practically every news report, op-ed, article and post. It doesn’t matter left, right or center — I just want to argue because there are no easy answers, everyone is wrong and I’m tired.

My office is just within range of Hamas rocket fire — I’ve felt it shake at the impact of Grad rockets. [Now I work in Jerusalem and am no longer within range.] I’m not worried for my safety as my office was once the armory of the village where we’re located and it is a “safe room.” But it is nonetheless unsettling. My office is one of the places people come if a siren goes off. I find myself staring at photos of my children more than usual while at work — and spending more time with them than usual when I’m home.

In their school today one of the projects is creating gift boxes for Israeli soldiers — brothers, sisters, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors and friends of the students. My 6- and 7-year-olds [now 10 and 11], Gabi and Micah, are scared for their cousin in the IDF who just got a field assignment. They asked why she has to go to the war.

During dinner they asked if there are rockets landing in Tel Aviv. (They heard me and my wife, Varda, talking about a meeting in Tel Aviv). I’m a left wing, peace-loving, card-carrying liberal. I don’t live in the West Bank — or even Sderot. This is not a conversation I want to be having with my children — but I don’t have a choice.

Every time I hear a news report of a rocket hitting I pray to hear “no damage” at the end of the report. However, this is profoundly misleading. Along with hundreds of thousands of other Israelis, I’ve now heard the air raid sirens, run to the shelter, and felt the ground shake. I understand the deep emotional, psychological and spiritual damage even when there is minimal physical damage or loss of life.

I am mentally and physically exhausted from the anxiety and stress. But most of all I’m sad.

Sad that I have to think about whether going to work is safe — and where to run when the sirens sound.

Sad over the death of hundreds of Palestinian civilians.

Sad that my 6 and 7 year old children know stories of people hit by Hamas rocket fire.

Sad by what I sometimes perceive as a lack of sensitivity to the horrible suffering and anguish of so many Israeli families — especially the children — who have been living with the constant threat of rockets for years.

Sad at the conditions in which the Palestinians in Gaza have been living for so long — and Israel’s role along with Hamas in perpetuating this situation.

Sad to think that our children — young Israeli soldiers including kids from Gezer — are in the situation where they have to defend our people from those whose mission is our destruction — they and other innocents caught in the middle.

Sad at what this is doing to our souls.

Sad that thousands of Israeli children have been scarred for life — living in fear of rocket fire for more than eight years and for whom the “color red” means “take cover.”

Sad at the image portrayed of Israel throughout the world right now.

And sad that this is how I’m bringing in the New Year.

At Gezer there were some refugees from the south of Israel staying for a respite. Their childrens’ first question upon arrival was “where is the nearest bomb shelter?” They still couldn’t sleep at night.

What’s a parent to do? What’s a country to do?

I’m a rodef shalom — a pursuer of peace. I pray for a peaceful two-state solution. I pray for a quick end to the violence and for successful diplomatic intervention. I pray for true leaders — Palestinian, Israeli and international — with the hearts, souls, courage and strength to take bold steps toward peace. I pray that all Abraham’s children will be able to sleep soundly at night.

I pray for shalom.

Originally from Kansas City, Rabbi Steve Burnstein is director of the Saltz International Education Center of the World Union for Progressive Judaism (the international umbrella of the Reform Movement) in Jerusalem. He lives at Kibbutz Gezer with his wife, Varda Livney; their son, Micah; their daughter, Gavrielly; and Kitty-the-Dog.

Rabbis protest Israel’s

treatment of women at the Kotel

The response of the Israeli government to the arrest Oct. 16 of Anat Hoffman while she was leading worship at the Kotel is clearly inadequate and needs to be responded to further.

For instance the area of the Kotel that is considered a synagogue was recently expanded to include the entire visitors’ area. This has never been the case previously, and is an encroachment on the freedom of assembly and freedom of religious expression.

Second, the Israeli government, through its Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren, has pointed out that the area under the nearby Robinson’s Arch was reserved for egalitarian prayer. We would like to make note that Robinson’s Arch is not the Kotel HaMaaravi, the Western Wall. This means that the Western Wall, the holiest site in world Jewry, is now exclusively run by and largely for the ultra-Orthodox, according to their customs and rules, no matter how discriminatory.

Nonetheless, the State of Israel requests the support of all of world Jewry, even as it excludes de jure and de facto our participation in the religious life of Israel. If Israel is our homeland then it is the homeland of all religious Jews of whatever expression, not exclusively the ultra-Orthodox.

Ambassador Oren’s response to Hoffman’s arrest is that “civil disobedience is the right of every Israeli, but exercising that right can lead to legal consequences.” We believe he cannot simply dismiss the outrageous arrest of Anat Hoffman on the basis of law. The vast majority of religious Jews in the Diaspora are being systematically barred from participation in accordance with our longstanding customs and rituals. Indeed, the right of women to pray in public, which is part of traditional Jewish life for millennia, is being abridged. This outrage cannot simply be excused, but must be protested by all those who truly love Israel and her people.

Kansas City area rabbis
Rabbi Doug Alpert, Congregation Kol Ami
Rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn, Temple Israel
Rabbi David Glickman, Congregation Beth Shalom
Rabbi Mark Levin, Congregation Beth Torah
Rabbi Alan Londy, New Reform Temple
Rabbi Herbert Mandl, Rabbi Emeritus, Kehilath Israel Synagogue
Rabbi Arthur Nemitoff, The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah
Rabbi Beryl Padorr, Research Medical Center, Pastoral Care Department
Rabbi Rebecca Reice, Congregation Beth Torah
Rabbi Moti Rieber, Lawrence Jewish Community Center
Rabbi Jonathan Rudnick, Kansas City Community Chaplain
Rabbi Neal Schuster, Kansas University Hillel
Rabbi Alexandria Shuval-Weiner, The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah
Rabbi Linda Steigman, Kansas City Community Rabbi
Rabbi Debbie Stiel, Temple Beth Sholom, Topeka
Rabbi H. Scott White, Congregation Ohev Sholom
Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz, Kehilath Israel Synagogue

Proud to vote for Romney

In response to Sandy Salz’s letter in the Nov. 1 edition of The Chronicle, we are proud to vote for Mitt Romney.

Lisa and Lenny Cohen
Prairie Village, Kan.

The teenage years are difficult in general. However, life is infinitely more challenging when your parents begin fighting all the time; your beloved grandmother is failing both physically and mentally; your best friend Alexis has become a cruel bully; your not-quite-boyfriend Jake is distant; and worst of all you overhear the rabbi whom you love and respect having sex on the bimah. During her 15th year, these are the issues that confront Rachel Greenberg in “Intentions.”

Rachel is by no means a perfect human being. Like everyone around her she has her failings. In the course of those months when her world begins to fall apart, Rachel’s grades suffer. She questions her self-worth. She experiments with drugs and sex. Worst of all, she gets even with her friend Alexis in a way that is utterly wrong.

Yet Rachel is basically a good person. Rabbi Cohn, for whom she now has no respect, had spoken to her confirmation class about the concept of kavanah  which means intention. In religious terms, it can be interpreted as not merely following religious practices by rote, but with intention. Your actions and prayers should have meaning. When her grandmother is hospitalized, Rachel realizes that the kavanah of her actions during the past several months has been partially made up of evil intentions. She comes to knows she must redirect her behavior and make amends for the wrong actions and the hurt she has caused. One by one she works to atone for her actions, saving a confrontation with the Rabbi for the very last.

Heiligman’s novel will be a page-turning read for young adults. It is also one of those cross-over titles that will appeal to adult readers as well. It’s somewhat rare to discover an excellent young adult novel with a specifically Jewish theme. “Intentions” is that book.

Heiligman’s biography “Charles and Emma,” which offers young readers an account of Charles Darwin’s personal life, is a Printz Honor Award Winner and a National Book Award Finalist. Her latest is sure to be on the awards lists as well.

Andrea Kempf is a retired librarian who speaks throughout the community on various topics related to books and reading.

Anatomy of voting

for the American president

The reasons Americans vote for a candidate can be: party affiliation; special issues, e.g., abortion; ethnicity; broad issues like taxes, U.S. debt, foreign policy, health insurance, unemployment, and religion.

There is a rare situation in which voters should abandon all the above considerations: when a candidate reveals qualities which conspicuously make him or her unfit to be president. We have such a situation in the 2012 election.

For the past four years, the Obama administration has been negotiating with Iran to stop its project of building nuclear weapons. Mr. Obama’s achievements in these negotiations have amounted to zero. The assumption that “economic sanctions will bring them to their senses” was wrong. In Tehran, they are laughing about American stupidity in general, and Mr. Obama’s stupidity in particular. Iran has not changed by one iota its march toward its nuclear goal. A nuclear Iran would be an existential threat to Israel. Moreover, a nuclear Iran could become the spark for igniting a global nuclear war — the dreaded World War III. This would be the most destructive war in mankind’s history. It would annihilate a large portion of the human race.

Mr. Obama has proved beyond any doubt his inability to resolve the Iranian problem. He is the Neville Chamberlain of the 21st century. The United States today is infinitely more powerful than England was in the 1930s. Without landing troops in Iran, the United States has a decided military ability to resolve the Iranian problem.

A serious but inconspicuous shortcoming of Mr. Obama was contained in his 2009 speech to the Muslim world. Superficial listening (the speech is available online) impressed people that the speech was even-handed, with Mr. Obama waving an olive branch toward the Muslim world. However, those who listened carefully could not help but raise the question: whose side is Mr. Obama on? A person who is not recognizably pro-American should never become our president.

Bottom line: Mr. Obama’s disqualification for the presidency is absolute. A second term for Mr. Obama could translate into a disaster not only for America, but for the whole world.

Zeev Dickman, Ph.D.
Overland Park, Kan.

Who paid for Romney ad?

The Oct. 25 edition of The Jewish Chronicle had an ad on the back cover supporting Gov. Romney for president. This ad was “Paid for by Kansas City Jews for a Safe America and Israel.” The ad had as its first line “Obama supporters ‘proudly’ support his reelection.” Well it appears that the “Kansas City Jews for a Safe America and Israel” do not have enough pride to sign their own names to their ad.

Sandy Salz
Overland Park, Kan.

“Be a mensch Morgan,” they say. My dad, my mom, my grandma. They all want me to be a mensch. What’s a mensch? It’s the nicest, the most open-minded, the most caring a person could be. It’s a Yiddish term that was brought over to the United States by Jewish people in the late 19th and early 20th century.

So how do I “be a mensch?” It’s something I’ve always struggled with. Am I a mensch? How can I become one?

Everyday, I get thrown into situations where I may not display the qualities of a mensch. A big struggle of mine centers around my religion and how others around me react to it. It’s true, it’d probably be easier to go to church on Sundays or celebrate Christmas in December. It would be easier to acknowledge Easter in the spring instead of Passover. It would be easier to make a Christmas ham instead of matzah ball soup. But my family is Jewish, so explaining to others about my religion isn’t always that easy.

And when I think about all the struggles that my people have gone through before me, in theory, telling someone that I’m Jewish in 2012 shouldn’t be that hard.

But it is. Whenever I tell people about my faith, I am often struck with how high a level of ignorance others have. To some it’s almost as if they don’t even see me. They see my face, my hair color, my nose, and suddenly they are confused. I don’t add up in their minds.

“Really? You don’t look Jewish.”

I hear it all the time. At first I feel surprised, embarrassed, even ashamed. What’s that supposed to mean? What do you mean I don’t look Jewish? It’s a religion. Not a race. It’s my religion.

And yet, I say nothing. And my thoughts pound me. Five thousand years of scapegoating, persecution, bullies, and I can’t even stand up for myself. And I can’t tell them it’s wrong. I can’t stand up and be a real mensch. I can’t even act brave when someone is questioning or insulting the very values that make up my core.

So now I want to say what I haven’t been able to say before. I’m proud. I’m proud of my culture, my religion and of myself.
My religion doesn’t define me, I define my religion.

But I know the generalizations. I’m supposed to have curly dark brown hair, dark eyes, pale skin, a big nose and a small pale frame. I have blonde hair and an average-sized nose. I’m also a practicing Jewish American. The latter generalizations are so 1942 and World War II. They are the untrue, sweeping statements that brutally murdered 6 million of my people.

Every time I hear an ignorant stereotype my feelings are hurt. I hate that people think I need to fall into a certain category. The Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe best explains why the human race has a knack for generalizing. He says, “The whole idea of a stereotype is to simplify. Instead of going through the problem of all this great diversity — that it’s this or maybe that — you have just one large statement; it is this.” In other words, humans are uncomfortable with our differences so we try to box people up. To make ourselves more comfortable. To generalize instead of acknowledge reality. It’s obvious that creating a barrier isn’t right, but sometimes it’s easier than getting to know someone who is different. It’s very easy. So easy that I’m guilty of it too.

During the fall, my family joins Jews all over the world in celebration of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah. My favorite part of Rosh Hashanah is that instead of looking ahead to the next year, we reflect on the prior year. We don’t have a countdown at midnight, or make resolution lists, or pop champagne bottles when the clock strikes 12. There aren’t any extravagant late-night parties, or confetti and balloons. Rosh Hashanah is about finding your true self, and getting back down to your core values. I get to spend time with my extended family and it gives me a really good chance to just slow down and evaluate myself.

This year, during my reflection I decided to examine how I see others. I looked at the judgments I make based on race, religion and appearance. I want to change because I want to be a mensch, but also, because I know how it feels. How it feels to be the brunt of a disrespectful joke, or be questioned for my beliefs. And I have a hunch I’m not the only one who knows how it feels. There must be millions of people out there who are left out or discounted for how they dress, how they talk, the color of their skin, the person they love, the party they vote for, the country they’re from, the country they live in, or even just the way they go about living their daily lives.

But still we are quick to judge or quick to criticize even when we can understand the pain it causes. I can assure you, taking the time to get to know someone else, learning about another culture or just slowing down to appreciate someone or something that differs from your personal lifestyle will be worth it.

I think that we as citizens of the world have to remember that we aren’t here to box up, and scrutinize others. We’re here to love one another. We’re here to capitalize on our differences and celebrate them.

Now, don’t start categorizing me as being a person who likes to make big smart quotations all the time. Trust me, I’m not that pretentious. But the quote from sociologist Charles Horton Cooley perfectly illustrates an ideal way to look at the world; “Our individual lives cannot, generally, be works of art unless the social order is also.” He means that we ourselves can’t be beautiful and appreciated, if our world doesn’t want to perceive us as so. To gain a certain level of respect we must also give that same level of respect to others.

This year, I hope you can join me in my fight against stereotypes, generalizations and barriers. Join me as I hope to open my mind and be more tolerant of others and their own practices. Join me in celebrating the variety and differences that make our world a beautiful place to live. Join me in becoming a true mensch.

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” — Helen Keller

This article was originally published in the Shawnee Mission East Harbinger, the school’s student newspaper. Morgan Krakow is a sophomore at SME and co-editor of the opinion page. She is the daughter of Andrea and Jason Krakow, the granddaughter of Marlene Krakow, Larry and Susan Krakow and Vicki Johnson and a member of Congregation Beth Shalom.