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ADL regional director’s motives for stepping down unclear

By Rachel L. Axelbank

Following Andrew Tarsy’s announcement this week of his resignation as New England regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, local leaders are saddened by his decision but ready to go forward without him.
“I decided that it’s time for me to move on,” Tarsy told the Advocate on Tuesday, shortly after his letter of resignation – signed “with love and prayers” – went out via e-mail to members of the ADL New England community and scores of his other colleagues and friends. Other parties, including ADL New England staff and board members, were notified as early as Sunday, according to an ADL spokesman.
Tarsy said that the timeline of his departure from the ADL has yet to be determined. And as for what comes next, he can’t yet say.
“I’m looking into that, but I really haven’t been able to spend any time thinking about it,” said
Tarsy, an attorney-turned-civil rights activist.
Tarsy’s counterparts at other agencies were surprised and chagrined to learn of his impending departure.
“We’re all curious about what’s behind this,” said Larry Lowenthal, executive director of the Boston Chapter of the American Jewish Committee. “Without a doubt, many people are going to have suspicions that he’s leaving against his will.”
Tarsy’s resignation is the latest development in a prolonged period of professional limbo, during which he was fired and then rehired by the ADL’s national office after publicly dissenting from ADL national’s initial stance on the 20th century Armenian massacres, which did not recognize the killings as genocide. He declined to comment on to what extent this summer’s controversy inspired his resignation.
“I think it’s very clear what happened,” said Nancy Kaufman, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston. “He is a courageous Jewish professional who spoke out based on his own personal beliefs and wasn’t able to … influence his national system, so he’s taking the moral high road and saying ‘I can’t do this.’ You fight the good fight and then you know when to leave. I think the regional office will be weaker for it.”
On Tuesday, the national chapter issued a statement that read in its entirety: “Andy Tarsy has tendered his resignation and we have accepted it.”
ADL New England Board Member Jason Chudnofsky said that Tarsy’s departure will not affect the overall operation of the regional organization.
“It’s all about the brands, and less about the people – you never put your entire future on any one person at any one time,” Chudnofsky said. “I support the ADL brand and what the brand stands for.
“I think Andy made a professional decision to say, ‘because of all the things that happened, I think it’s time to move on and give the reins to someone else.’ It’s all about the team, and ADL still has a wonderful team of people.”
Tarsy was inclined to agree.
“I’ll miss working with wonderful people who are committed and passionate and who have given me far more than I’ve given them,” he said, naming the ADL New England board, staff and volunteers as well as other members of the community.
Likewise, Lowenthal expressed his admiration for Tarsy’s stance on the Armenian issue as well as his handling of the past year’s controversy between the local Jewish community and the Islamic Society of Boston. Kaufman commended Tarsy’s work to push the new state government on issues concerning hate crimes and his efforts to counter the Somerville Divestment Project.
“He’s a terrific young Jewish leader,” she said. “The question is now about who comes in next.”
According to James Rudolph, ADL New England board chairman, it will be important for the branch’s next director to maintain strong working relationships with local organizations and to also acknowledge the bigger picture.
“Anybody who is hired has to recognize that we’re part of a national organization,” said Rudolph, who added that a search committee is currently being formed to find Tarsy’s replacement. “I really enjoyed working with Andy and I’m sorry to see him go. He really brought new energy and enthusiasm to the office.”
Still, the question of what he’d like to be remembered for gave Tarsy pause. “I’ve been so busy, I’m not capable of reflecting that deeply,” he said, chuckling. “I would say that I’ve tried to bring the ADL’s mission to life for the best interests of our community.”
And as for his general outlook?
“I feel very good.” he said. “I’m excited for Chanukah, and I’m excited for our leadership celebration [Wednesday] night.” Tarsy declined to comment on what he hopes to receive for Chanukah.

By Rachel L. Axelbank

Needham native Gary Davidson never imagined he’d become a rabbi or join the military. Yet this fall and winter he will be fulfilling his title of Chaplain Captain Davidson by serving the air force cadets stationed in the Persian Gulf as one of nine active-duty rabbis in the entire United States Air Force.
While Davidson was raised Jewish, he only became professionally interested in Judaism much later in life. The change came, almost by accident, while he was visiting a friend in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights.
“It opened my eyes to Judaism and made me want to learn more,” said Davidson. He had been seeing a career counselor, grappling with burnout after two years spent working in psychiatric wards and a group home, and he suddenly had a new direction. “I was inspired,” he said. “I decided to combine my love of helping people with my new love of Judaism and become a rabbi.”
A telephone conversation with Davidson soon reveals this love of helping people. He is clearly devoted to his parents – who still live in Needham – and to the congregation in California that he led for the six years following his ordination, as well as to the air force cadets he has served since his first non-contract “internship” with the U.S. Air Force more than ten years ago.
However, Davidson has yet to find a wife to serve as the object of this caring devotion, even though he has had some national attention in this area.
While serving Temple Beth Shalom of Long Beach, Calif., Davidson founded a singles group that garnered media attention. Local stories snowballed into coverage by Entertainment Tonight. The end result? Davidson was featured alongside the likes of George Clooney and Derek Jeter as one of People magazine’s 100 most eligible bachelors in 2000.
Despite this high-profile personals ad, he is still searching for a rebbetzin.
“I like the soft, sweet, feminine type,” he said. “Someone with a big heart.”
In the meantime, however, he has found a way to reconcile his rabbinical calling with his military profession.
During his four months in the Persian Gulf, Davidson will carry out the same duties as any USAF chaplain, which include “visiting with the troops, offering spiritual and emotional support and counseling and meeting with the leadership to discuss morale,” he said. In addition, Davidson has already led High Holiday, Shabbat and Succot services and will lead a Chanukah celebration while overseas.

Lecture focused on Boston roots of legendary composer

By Rachel L. Axelbank

In a room of experts on legendary composer and Boston native Leonard Bernstein, professors, biographers and the like could not surpass the knowledge and insight of Leonard’s brother, Burton Bernstein.
And when a panel of such experts could not explain why Leonard never composed a liturgical symphony even when offered a blank check, Burton was singled out and called upon to shed some light.
“The simple answer,” he said, “is that he didn’t want to.”
This intimate insight into the great composer’s religious inclinations was one of many to be gleaned from the “Boston’s Bernstein: Jewish Identity and Community” segment of Harvard University’s Leonard Bernstein symposium last week. Attendees of the event, which took place last Friday, were treated to three academic lectures on the ways in which Bernstein’s childhood in Jewish Boston influenced his career. The session was followed by a Q&A period.
Leonard’s roots were undeniably Bostonian: he was born in Lawrence and grew up in, successively, Mattapan, Allston, Mattapan, Roxbury and Newton. He was bar mitzvahed at Congregation Mishkan Tefila in Roxbury and attended college at Harvard. And although by the 1950s his career had taken him to – and ultimately kept him in – New York City, he became highly involved in the Brandeis University arts program, commuting weekly to teach there and organizing the school’s first creative arts festivals.
This was “a manifestation of his ongoing … sense of duty to the city of Boston,” said lecturer Sheryl Kaskowitz.
“Without the Mishkan Tefila … one wonders whether Jewish music would have played such a role in his life and career,” said lecturer Jonathan Sarna.
Burton corroborated the panelists’ sentiments. When asked about the influence of Jewish Boston on the trajectory of his brother’s career, he told the Advocate that “‘enormous’ is to put it mildly.”

By Rachel L. Axelbank

Jon Stewart is, in his words, “not the nice man from the television show.”
While performing at the Wang Center Theatre on Oct. 6, Stewart delivered not only the side-splitting political commentary that has made his a household name but also a healthy dose of profanity, vulgarity and cultural stereotyping.
Such is to be expected of most live comedy today; Stewart in fact said as much. Furthermore, the collective audience – this reviewer included – was highly amused and wholly unoffended. Stewart is a brilliant comedian and takes a political stance that sits well with most Massachusetts residents.
Judaism was among the many topics he lampooned. His comments ranged from discussing the purpose of skullcaps to differentiating between American Jews (“let me help you with your tax form”) and Israeli Jews (“hold my machine gun while I take a leak”).
In making these statements – and particularly in prefacing them with “I’m a Jew, obviously” – Stewart may have been perpetuating stereotypes.
Then again, Stewart never claimed to break down barriers.
But his incisive humor proves that he stands in a class alone as a cultural commentator.

By Rachel L. Axelbank

Last week’s “GesherCD” release party brought together numerous youth-friendly Jewish organizations, several Boston-based Jewish musical groups and swarms of local Jewish young adults.
The Oct. 5 event was in celebration of the recent merging of the JCC’s Jewish InterAction with GesherCity Boston, a Jewish resource network for people in their 20s and 30s. The merger will make possible more of the “clusters” – common interest groups – and community-wide events that are GesherCity’s primary objective, said Alison Rosen, young adult program director.
“This event brings GesherCity to life – it’s not just an e-mail address,” said Rosen.
And it certainly did. For the occasion, the Comedy Connection at Faneuil Hall was transformed into an activities fair-and-cocktail party hybrid. Rows of tables ran the length of the room, where representatives from Jewish organizations provided leaflets and candy in exchange for contact information.
In addition to the merger, the event celebrated the release of “GesherCD,” an exclusive collection of works by local Jewish musical groups. The CD was given to attendees as a party favor. Though the musicians didn’t receive financial compensation for their contributions, the CD distribution allows people to become familiar with musicians in the community, said Seth Kroll of Family Junction, a local band that is in the process of completing its second album.

By Rachel L. Axelbank

David Rakoff is impossibly unassuming.
Comedy Central’s Oct. 5 episode of “the Daily Show” showed him at complete ease chitchatting to superstar host Jon Stewart for the entertainment of millions. Still, hardly more than 24 hours earlier he claimed to be “gob-smacked” at the crowd that had packed into the Brookline Booksmith for his first-ever appearance in the area.
“I always thought I’d never play in Boston,” he said, drawing chuckles. Following the reading and the Q&A period, it took him nearly an hour to work his way through the book-signing line, as he spent minutes visiting with every fan that stepped up to the table bearing his lipstick-red paperbacks.
Rakoff, who was raised in what he calls the “secular humanist” tradition of Judaism, is a humorist/social commentator whose second book, “Don’t Get too Comfortable,” was released in paperback last month. The book is a stupendous series of candid societal snapshots, captured perfectly by Rakoff’s brilliant word-smithing. Yet Rakoff remains humble.
He was uncertain as to whether his Ashkenazi status has contributed to his command of humor.
“Every aspect of my makeup is ineluctably bound up in my outlook,” he said.
Some people play up the fact that Rakoff is gay and Canadian as well as Jewish – yet to read his work, one would hardly know it. While there is much potential for Rakoff to take comedic advantage of his native citizenship, religious identity and sexuality, he refrains from taking these cheap shots. Instead, he only refers to his occasional “buyer’s remorse” at having obtained U.S. citizenship, relates that he has little experience ogling naked women and sprinkles his text with impeccable use of Yiddish. Otherwise, his humor relies exclusively on simple observations delivered with staggering intelligence.
At the reading, Rakoff allied himself with aspiring writers, deflecting an audience member’s implication that he has made it and now writes with ease. Quite the contrary, said Rakoff, who
spoke about the need to accept that “what you’ll produce will be, necessarily, bad.” The challenge of writing is not like the question of how to turn ingredients into something tasty, he said. “It’s more like, ‘How am I going to reverse-engineer this rotten food into something that won’t make people sick?’”
If this is the case, then David Rakoff is a miraculous chef indeed.

Orthodox service does matchmaking the old-fashioned way

By Rachel L. Axelbank

In an era of impersonal e-dating, the women of the Shidduch Connection are working to bring traditional Orthodox matchmaking into the 21st century.

Mindy Gewirtz founded the group six years ago in response to what she calls a “shidduch emergency.”
“The single population was exploding,” said Gewirtz, the Rebbetzin to Young Israel of Brookline. “People were able to meet and hang out but were having trouble finding potential spouses.” Thus the group was created as a subset of the YIB Chevrat Chesed (caring community), filling a void within the local Jewish community.
The appearance of such online dating services as TotallyJewishDating.com, JDate.com and Frumster.com has in many ways made mate-seeking immensely easier for Jews. However, what these sites offer in convenience, they lack in credibility.
“Because people make their own profiles, they can write whatever they want,” said one member of the committee. “You really have no idea what you’re getting. With a shadchan [matchmaker], there’s more accountability.”
At present, the Shidduch Connection is a strictly volunteer organization built with the primary objective of making shidduchim – matches – between unmarried Orthodox men and women. Those seeking assistance complete a questionnaire on themselves and their criteria for a mate, then undergo a personal interview that enables a committee member to better address the individual’s character and needs. The enriched profiles in hand, the women of the Shidduch Connection then put their heads together.
The beginning of the year’s first meeting – held last month in the Gewirtz’s home – was consumed by general maintenance.
“We need a new name,” one member said, reminding the others of their concern that “shidduch” may be too suggestive of the Old Country and, therefore, off-putting to some.
Next on the agenda was planning future events and meetings.
“Part of the idea behind the Shidduch Connection is to bring in people from other congregations in other communities,” Gewirtz said in a later interview.
The group reflects this and is composed of women from many congregations, who collectively represent more than 450 singles in Boston, New York, Israel and beyond.
The housekeeping out of the way, they got down to the business that had brought them together.
Their skill and investment were immediately apparent. They worked efficiently, taking turns laying out basic information and then, if a match seemed possible, delving more deeply into the nitty-gritty. It was at this point that their advantage over the online databases became clear: While a computer can easily generate matches from such concrete qualities as age, location and hobbies, it can come nowhere near to touching on the indefinable characteristics that make each person unique. But the committee members can, and they did.
There was first the question of religious observance, a great deal more complex than it might initially seem. The term “Orthodox” – “Whatever that means,” joked one woman – is itself parsed into several sub-categories. And although a computer could in theory handle these as well, each is in reality highly subject to interpretation. The committee managed this by employing a lexicon of English, Hebrew and Yiddish terms to convey what they understand about the people they had interviewed.
Other factors received the same consideration.
“I just don’t think he’s smart enough for her,” said one woman.
“Their families won’t mesh,” offered another.
On they went, debating everything from physical appearance to general disposition. And when a pairing of names survived the candid evaluation and suddenly became a potential shidduch, the shared smiles were accompanied by a mild pounding on the table and celebratory whooping.
Continued expansion will threaten all this. Still, it may be necessary.
“Our current ‘database’ is a lot of work to create and very quickly outdated,” Gewirtz said, gesturing to a fat little spiral-bound volume with the word CONFIDENTIAL stamped across its front in red.
As if to illustrate her point, two committee members later debated whether one of their clients was available to be matched. “Have you talked to him in the last three days?” asked one, putting an end to the discussion.
There are in fact lesser-known Jewish online dating services within which real shadchanim do the “marriage advocacy” on behalf of the singles, and there has been talk of “renting” technology from one such service but keeping the Shidduch Connection a distinct entity and its files private.
“Technology is not the solution,” said Gewirtz, “but it can enable.”
Nevertheless, one hopes that the choices made will not compromise the Shidduch Connection’s truly human quality, the love that visibly crosses the women’s faces as they discuss their clients. Not every one of the singles is a close personal friend, but they might as well be, and you don’t get that from a computer.

Chabad and police department play annual game

By Rachel L. Axelbank

For a few hours on Sept. 17, Wellesley Honeywell Field served as a convention center for the Wellesley Police and Wellesley-Weston Chabad.
The two groups had come together for their third annual charity softball game, dreamed up a few years ago by Chabad Rabbi Moshe Bleich.
“I love playing sports,” said Rabbi Bleich, who is listed as shortstop on the Chabad Shluggers’ roster and rumored to have a healthy competitive streak. But he began the tradition as a means to more ends than just athleticism. “It’s a way to give charity, further our community relations and play sports all at once,” he said. Each year, the game benefits a local – and, preferably, Jewish – charity with a collective donation from the players of both teams. This year, the money went to the Rachel Molly Markoff Foundation, a private Wellesley Hills organization dedicated to countering juvenile cancer, particularly brain tumors.
“It was a very, very special afternoon,” said Eliane Markoff, co-founder of the charity and mother of its late namesake. “Though it’s a sad cause, we were very touched by what he [Rabbi Bleich] did for us and the Foundation.”
She added that she also enjoyed meeting the police in a positive environment.
Officer Tim Barros, unofficial captain of the Wellesley Police team, agreed.
“It’s nice for people to see us off-duty and not wearing uniforms,” he said.
Police players wore white “Wellesley PD” jerseys emblazoned with individual badge numbers on the back. By contrast, their opponents wore navy “Chabad Shluggers” gear.
The differing uniforms aren’t all that keeps the spirit less than completely charitable. Rabbi Bleich and Deputy Police Chief Bill Brooks have a friendly standing wager that the man whose team loses must attend a public event in costume as dictated by the winner.
“It’s very trusting of him,” said Officer Barros, “since he doesn’t actually play in the game.”
When the final score two years ago sent Deputy Chief Brooks into the Chabad Purim party in full rabbinical garb, “he made it perfectly clear that it was not to happen again,” Officer Barros added.
So far, it hasn’t. When the police prevailed last year, the Deputy Chief was a bit more lenient, requiring only that the rabbi proclaim the Wellesley Police Department the greatest softball team in the world.
As for this year, the Police Department was again triumphant, but some may claim it was by pure luck, as Rabbi Bleich became suddenly ill before the game and was unable to play. Now fully recovered, he maintains that the outcome would have been different if he’d been present. And he is unfazed at the prospect of what Deputy Chief Brooks has in store for him.
“What’s he going to make me do, go to the police station dressed as a cop? I always wanted to be a cop anyway, so for me it’s a win-win situation.”
Really, it’s a win-win situation for everyone.

J.P. Licks introduces Rosh Hashanah delicacies

By Rachel L. Axelbank

Manischewitz wine sorbet and noodle kugel ice cream? It sounds like a joke. Yet these frozen treats are exactly what J.P. Licks owner Vince Petryk is serving up throughout the area in honor of the High Holidays.
“It just seemed like something fun to do,” said Petryk, who is not himself Jewish but who claims to have appreciated sweet kosher wine and noodle kugel for years. “I looked at the calendar, saw that Rosh Hashana was around the corner, and suddenly had an idea,” said Petryk. He researched, consulted, experimented and then prepared for the tasting.
“I crossed my fingers,” he said.
The superstition must have worked: one flavor is positively cozy in its mixture of cream and mild spice; the other is an unmistakable fruity ice treat with a kick.
Both flavors won favor amongst Petryk’s employees and the Advocate staff alike, drawing exclamations of pleasant surprise from the skeptics.
Credit is due to Petryk’s superb instinct for flavor, sure, but it seems that he also had chemistry on his side – specifically, fructose and glucose.
Because sugar is critical to holding a sorbet together, Petryk explained, sorbet made from sweet kosher wine will not have the same compromise in flavor as, say, champagne sorbet, which “ends up tasting like Asti spumante.”
As for the ice cream, the sugar cooked into the noodles lowers their freezing point, thus sparing the consumer what would otherwise be an unpleasant mid-cream crunch.
Manischewitz wine sorbet and noodle kugel ice cream debuted on Saturday in the eight J.P. Licks creameries in and around Boston, and should be available for three to four weeks. Like all of the company’s creations, both of these limited edition flavors are kosher under the supervision of Rabbi Halbfinger and will make for a sweeter New Year for all.

By Rachel Axelbank

The film “Gloomy Sunday” debuted on DVD Sept. 12, nearly seven years after it was first released in 1999 and ran in Boston theaters for an impressive 70 weeks.
Based on the legend of composer Rezsô Seress’ “Hungarian Suicide Song,” the film has the “perfect balance of bitter and sweet,” that one character accords to its title song, but only just. The bitterness is so vast that it threatens to wholly overwhelm. The sweetness is like an emotional life raft barely buoyant enough to keep us afloat through the closing credits.
That the film is named for a song suggests that “Gloomy Sunday” is about music. It is, and yet by the time the last frame has passed off the screen, we realize that music is in fact not the nucleus of but a vehicle for the action. For though the song lies at the heart of what transpires, the storyline is fraught with dichotomous themes to flank this central one – love and hate, desire and satisfaction, hope and despair. The list reads like a Met playbill; indeed, this haunting story – borne on music and with a tragic heroine unmistakably evocative of Pucini’s Tosca – begs the operatic comparison. Some anthropologists suggest that there is a finite set of story constructions to which all human tales are reducible, and “Gloomy Sunday” corroborates this theory. For beneath it all, the film is a darkly beautiful showcase for a story far more and far too familiar, about loss at the hands of the Nazis.