Calling Florida Pastor Terry Jones’ proposed burning of the Koran on Sept. 11 both “catastrophically stupid and fundamentally immoral,” Rabbi Jordan Millstein, religious leader of Temple Sinai in Tenafly, said such an act would have major repercussions.
Jones — pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla. — has proposed that 9/11 be declared “International Burn a Koran Day.” Defending his idea on MSNBC’s “Hardball” on Aug. 26, the pastor said, “We want to send a very clear message” to Muslims that Sharia law is not welcome in America.
Hired four years ago to teach math at Ma’ayanot Yeshiva High School for Girls, she learned that while students there had performed dramas, they had never done any musicals.
Setting out to remedy that, she directed and produced their first musical, “Oliver,” which she describes as a “great success.”
Loss of income is only one effect of the economic downturn, says Sheila Steinbach, director of clinical and adult care management services at Jewish Family Service of Bergen and North Hudson.
“The downturn has caused higher stress levels in families. Over the past two years, I’d say we’ve seen a 50 percent increase” in the number of women who report domestic violence, said the Teaneck resident, whose agency recently won a $45,000 grant to help abused women.
The monies — a Stop Violence Against Women Act grant awarded through the New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety — will provide counseling and employment services to 24 domestic violence victims.
Secaucus resident Joe Traum finds special meaning in the lyrics of Billy Joel’s song “Piano Man” — especially the line, “Paul is a real estate novelist.”
Traum, retired real estate investment broker and author of the newly published suspense thriller “Waking Up,” says he always dreamed of being a writer.
In 2005, after concluding his final business deal, “the time had come. I finished work in March 2005 and in April joined the Gotham Writers Workshop.”
Cordoba House supporters cite religious freedom as crux of debate
Some local groups strongly support the mosque.
While their reasons range from First Amendment freedoms to trust that rank-and-file Muslims are well-intentioned, they speak with passion about the right of their fellow citizens to build houses of worship.
Rabbi Steven Sirbu, whose Teaneck synagogue has partnered with the town’s mosque, Dar-Ul-Islah, to create an ongoing Jewish-Muslim dialogue group, wrote to his congregants, “I have long believed that Muslims occupy a similar place in American society today that Jews occupied about a century ago.”
On behalf of this newspaper, Rabbi Steven Sirbu asked members of the Temple Emeth-Dar-Ul-Islah Mosque dialogue team how they felt about the Cordoba House controversy and what effect, if any, the controversy might have on relations within the two communities. Below are some of the replies.
Stephen Friedman, a board member of Temple Emeth, said that while initially (before joining the dialogue team), “I had to overcome some trepidation and irrational fear, due to the frequent media association of Islam with terrorism that had filtered into my consciousness … after a year of dialogue I count my Muslim colleagues as my friends.” This does not mean, he said, that there are not differences needing to be addressed, “but the fact that as a group we were able engage in meaningful dialogue on challenging issues like the Middle East conflict was very encouraging.”
Seeing the light” is not an abstract concept. It is a hard reality, with spectacular implications, says Fort Lee resident Tomas Sheleg.
Sheleg, originally from Israel, traveled to Haiti in July, installing light fixtures that not only garnered gratitude but, he says, saved lives.
“There are lots of robberies during the night. People in the camps are living in pitch black and girls are being raped,” he said. “It’s a common thing since the earthquake. No one understands the scale” of what is happening there, he said, adding that television images don’t show the full horror of the situation.
Almost exactly a year ago, Fair Lawn resident Anna Olswanger was watching the movie “Julie & Julia” when a scene from the film hit so close to home it took her aback.
Olswanger — author, literary agent, and creator of the new website Yerusha, inheritance — described her feelings as she watched actress Meryl Streep, playing Julia Child, read a letter from her sister.
“When she came to the part where her sister said she was pregnant, Julia began to cry, painfully,” Olswanger recalled. “Her husband moved over to her. Julia, through her crying, said, ‘I’m so happy,’ and her husband answered, ‘I know.’ Of course,” said Olswanger, “both he and the audience knew that she was not crying from happiness for her sister, but from her own grief of not having children.”
For some time, Risa Tannenbaum and Sara Kaplan have been concerned about the children in their congregation who — after going through Temple Sinai’s early childhood program — might “miss some Jewishness” during the year before they enter kindergarten.
To create a “bridge” for these children and, said the two educators, serve both their own congregation and the entire community, they have created a program at the Tenafly Reform synagogue, “reaching out to the unaffiliated in the community who might want to have a taste of Judaism.”
Tannenbaum, director of the shul’s early childhood center for the past three years, describes the new venture as “a free pre-K parent/child interactive holiday program for unaffiliated families in the community.” The monthly sessions, for 4- to 5-year-olds and their parents, provide a way for families to “dip their feet” in Jewish life, she said.
Karen Brand — recently named outreach coordinator for Jewish Family Service of North Jersey — has two goals.
“We want to educate people in the community as to what’s available” from our agency, she said. But in addition, “we want to market JFS as a partner with other agencies in the community.”
“Some local organizations are unaware of our services,” she said, noting that she has already met with area principals about offering programs in their schools for both faculty and students.
