THE FORWARD FIFTY
The millennium year may not have brought apocalypse, much
less the messianic age, but it did usher in a new era for American
Jews. The year 2000 will long be remembered for the first‑ever
nomination of a Jew to a major‑party presidential ticket,
sweeping away the last barrier to full participation by Jews in
American society. It was not merely that a Jew could now aspire
to the highest office in the land and win acceptance from the
voters, if not the Electoral College. An Orthodox Jew showed
that he could wear his faith comfortably on his sleeve and win
acceptance, on his own terms, as a leader in the broader society.
The changing nature of Jewish involvement in America
inevitably changes the meaning of Jewish leadership. Until
recently, we were accustomed to seeing a Jewish leader as
someone who stood tall within the confines of Jewish
communal activity, defined narrowly. By the nature of things,
Jewish leaders were generally leaders of Jewish institutions, but
they were with few exceptions hardly leaders of Jews.
The Forward Fifty this year includes a small but growing number
of individuals who exercise leadership in the broader society,
and do so as Jews. Our list includes government officials,
lawmakers, authors and even a few entertainers whose
prominence in the broader society, coupled with their
unabashedly Jewish styles and agendas, made them forces in
Jewish life in a manner and on a scale that few traditional
Jewish leaders can aspire to.
The Forward Fifty is not based on a scientific survey or a
democratic election. Names are suggested by readers and by the
Forward's own staff. The compilation is a journalistic effort to
illuminate some of the individuals likely to be in the news in the
year ahead, and to record some of the trends in
American‑Jewish life in the year that has passed.
Membership in the Forward Fifty does not mean the Forward
endorses what they do or say. We've chosen these people
because they are doing and saying things that are making a
difference in the way American Jews view the world and
themselves, for better or worse. Not all of them have made their
mark within the traditional framework of Jewish community
life, but all of them have consciously pursued Jewish activism as
they understood it, and all of them have left a mark.
Barely one‑third of our Fifty are women, which reflects the state
of gender relations within our community. On the other hand,
this year's list includes a husband and wife, a father and
daughter, two famous brothers and two gentlemen named Steve
Cohen.
1. Joseph Lieberman
In July he was just one of 100 members of the United States
Senate, familiar to those who follow these things as a man of
firm, centrist convictions, a defender of traditional morality and
the only Orthodox Jew in the upper chamber. By the middle of
August, though, Mr. Lieberman, 58, was one of the most familiar
faces in America. The selection of the affable Connecticut
lawmaker as a running mate gave Vice President Gore a
double‑digit lift in the polls and set off a coast‑to‑coast wave of
Liebermania. Suddenly everyone in America was talking about
the rules of Sabbath observance, the history of American‑Jewish
opportunity and even the divisions within Orthodox Judaism. In
choosing Joe Lieberman, Mr. Gore had chosen not just a
politician who was Jewish, but a public servant who lived his
Judaism daily, wore it on his sleeve and made it part of his
public and political identity. They didn't capture the White
House, but they did capture the popular vote, demonstrating
that Americans were indeed ready to have a Jew sitting a
heartbeat from the presidency. American Jews would never be
able to look at themselves and their country in quite the same
way.
2. Deborah Lipstadt
Many consider her a heroine worth of her biblical namesake,
after she successfully defended herself this year in a libel suit
against Holocaust denier David Irving in Britain's High Court.
The 10‑week trial culminated in a scathing decision against Mr.
Irving, and marginalized the so‑called historian for his suspect
research. Mr. Irving brought suit against Ms. Lipstadt and her
British publisher, Penguin Books, alleging that she damaged his
academic reputation in her 1994 book, "Denying the Holocaust:
The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory." A professor of
history at Emory University in Atlanta, she had called Mr. Irving
"one of the most dangerous spokesmen in the service of
Holocaust denial" because he challenged the scope of the
Holocaust and disputed the number and manner of Jewish
concentration camp deaths. In the trial, watched by millions
worldwide, Ms. Lipstadt and her legal team refused to
countenance a hearing on whether the Holocaust happened.
Instead they took the offensive, attacking Mr. Irving. In his April
ruling, the judge labeled Mr. Irving an anti‑Semite and a racist.
As Holocaust denial stands to gain a vast new audience on the
World Wide Web, the decision sets an important legal and
historic precedent. Ms. Lipstadt said she saw the victory not
merely as personal, but also as a blow "for all those who speak
out against hate and prejudice."
3. Charles Bronfman
This scion of the Seagram beverage empire was long in the
shadow of his older brother Edgar, pursuing little‑publicized,
multimillion‑dollar initiatives in Jewish education, Israel
awareness and support for the peace process while Edgar tilted
with European leaders as head of the World Jewish Congress.
This year, however, Charles stepped into the light, becoming the
first chairman of the board of the new United Jewish
Communities. His plan was to broaden the reach of Jewish
welfare federations by bringing in some of his fellow
"megadonors" multimillionaire philanthropists who create
their own Jewish programming, like Birthright Israel, which he
created with Michael Steinhardt. He also hoped to build
flexibility and innovation into the UJC by creating an
independent foundation to launch new projects in cooperation
with outside donors. His initial months have been rocky. The
organization, caught between a host of entrenched forces, has
resisted new visions. Mr. Bronfman admitted this fall that he
briefly contemplated walking away in frustration. But he vows
to fight on until his term ends next year, and he remains the
man to watch at the struggling UJC. He's now heading a task
force to develop a game plan for the organization's future. While
other megadonors support federations through substantial gifts,
only Mr. Bronfman invests so heavily through his personal
involvement.
4. Rabbi Rachel Cowan
A top‑ranking innovator in the realms of Jewish spirituality,
healing and outreach to intermarried and unaffiliated Jews,
Rabbi Cowan is at the cutting edge of some of the hottest trends
in Jewish communal life. As director of Jewish Life Programs at
the Nathan Cummings Foundation, one of the nation's richest
Jewish family foundations, she's at the forefront of the
community's new power center, private philanthropy. A Jew by
choice, ordained at the Reform movement's Hebrew Union
College‑Jewish Institute of Religion, she has headed Cummings'
Jewish programs since their launch in 1989, coordinating grants
with projects from interfaith educational programming at the
Jewish Outreach Institute, to the New Age Elat Chayyim retreat
center, to Amos: The National Jewish Partnership for Social
Justice. Her role at Cummings is sure to be even more central
now that founding president Charles Halpern has stepped down
and Cummings trustees have hired Lance Lindblom to take the
helm. Mr. Lindblom, who is not Jewish, told the Forward he
"feels very lucky" to have Rabbi Cowan's long experience as a
resource.
5. Malcolm Hoenlein
As the professional head of a Jewish organization made up of
four dozen other Jewish organizations, he has what some call
the least appealing job in Jewish communal life, with 50
squabbling bosses to answer to. But Mr. Hoenlein, 56, doesn't
complain. The agency he has headed for 14 years, the Conference
of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, is
commonly recognized in Washington and around the world as
the all‑but‑official voice of organized American Jewry on Israel
and international affairs. Mr. Hoenlein has made the most of it,
turning himself into an essential player on issues from
counterterrorism to peace talks to democracy in Central Asia. An
Orthodox Jew with right‑leaning personal sympathies, he's often
accused of manipulating his agency's procedures or lack of
them to stake out positions to the right of the community's
consensus. This year, with Labor ruling in Jerusalem and
American Jews more divided than ever, Mr. Hoenlein has at
times seemed to occupy himself with side issues, such as
promoting Israeli tourism (even that got him in trouble when he
touted "eternally united" Jerusalem while Prime Minister Barak
was talking about dividing it) and the struggle to free 10 Jews
jailed for spying in Iran. Still, for all his critics' carping, Mr.
Hoenlein remains at his post, seemingly immovable. Now that
renewed Palestinian violence has left the Left flatfooted and the
Likud primed to return to power, Mr. Hoenlein's hawkish
leanings may yet prove dead center.
Politics
Stuart Eizenstat
The signing in Berlin last July of the complex, $4.8 billion
agreement to compensate Nazi‑era slave‑laborers the largest
Holocaust‑restitution pact since the original German reparations
agreement of 1952 was not merely a watershed in the struggle
for justice for Nazism's victims. It was also a capstone to a
remarkable career in American public service. Deputy Treasury
Secretary Stuart Eizenstat, who signed the pact for the United
States, has been Washington's pacesetter on Holocaust
restitution since the administration entered the fray in 1995. For
Mr. Eizenstat, 57, it was just the latest in a series of turns as
pointman on Jewish affairs, going back to 1977, when he joined
the Carter White House as domestic policy chief. In the Clinton
administration he's been undersecretary of commerce,
undersecretary of state as well as number‑two at the Treasury
Department. In every post, he's been the administration's
leading voice for Jewish causes. Besides Holocaust restitution,
he's played a decisive role in such historic measures as the
creation of the Justice Department's Nazi‑hunting Office of
Special Investigations, the establishment of the U.S. Holocaust
Memorial Museum and the creation of America's
refugee‑admissions program, which allows victims of persecution
including Soviet Jews to enter America outside normal
immigration quotas. Without fanfare or publicity, he has served
as America's de facto minister for Jewish rights for 12 of the last
24 years. The outcome of this year's presidential race may have
brought this distinguished career to a close for now, but we
suspect we haven't heard the last of him.
Ari Fleischer
As spokesman for the Bush presidential campaign, Mr. Fleischer
was the articulate voice of a candidate often derided for his
"fuzzy speech." Now this graduate of New York's B'nei Jeshurun
nursery school and Westchester's Mount Kisco Hebrew School is
expected to become White House press secretary. Mr. Fleischer,
together with campaign policy director Joshua Bolten, who is
also expected to stay on, is among a handful of Jews in Mr.
Bush's inner circle. Former communications director of the
House Ways and Means Committee and onetime press secretary
to Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico, he's active in a group
of Jewish congressional staffers who study with the Lubavitch
chasidic movement's Washington representative, Rabbi Levi
Shemtov. In general, Mr. Bush fared poorly among Jewish voters
and was subject to intense scrutiny, partly stemming from his
father's poor reputation among Jews. The new president may
have some fences to mend, and Mr. Fleischer will be called on to
help.
Robert Wexler
Elected in 1996 to represent Florida's 19th congressional district,
after a decade in the state legislature, Mr. Wexler quickly
established himself as a force on Capitol Hill, sponsoring
high‑profile investigations into the poor conditions at the F.B.I.
crime lab and the high price of matzo in south Florida. By the
fall of 1998, the congressman from Boca Raton was emerging as a
national figure, the only House member to attend the signing of
the Wye Accords and one of President Clinton's most articulate
defenders during the House impeachment hearings. Smart,
telegenic he's become a permanent fixture on the cable
news‑and‑chat circuit and Jewishly aware (he's a graduate of
the Wexner Heritage adult Jewish learning program), Mr.
Wexler, now 39, is poised to become one of the most important
Jewish voices in Washington. What secured his inclusion in this
year's Forward Fifty, however, was his passionate defense of
voting rights in his Palm Beach County district, home of the
infamous butterfly ballot. In the coming year we predict he will
be playing an increasingly visible role as a voice of the Jews of
South Florida, America's third‑largest Jewish community.
Stephen Goldsmith
This mild‑mannered former mayor of Indianapolis is one of
President‑elect Bush's few Jewish confidants, having served as
domestic policy adviser during the campaign. Mr. Goldsmith, 54,
is the likely choice to head a new, federal Office of Faith‑Based
Action that would push initiatives to increase the role of
religious institutions in aiding the poor. In this post, he will find
himself on the forefront of implementing Mr. Bush's
"compassionate conservatism," an ideology of which Mr.
Goldsmith and a Jewish convert to Christianity, Marvin Olasky,
were the major architects. He's also likely to find himself in the
firing line of liberal Jewish organizations dedicated to
maintaining the status quo on the separation of church and
state. Just like a certain Democratic vice‑presidential candidate,
Mr. Goldsmith will force American Jews to think about the
ideological conflicts produced by their commitment to helping
the less fortunate and their zealous defense of an impenetrable
church‑state wall.
Jane Harman
Having translated her losing 1998 California gubernatorial bid
into a congressional win in 2000, Ms. Harman, 55, is very much
the comeback kid. In one of the most hotly contested and
expensive races in California, the polished Harvard Law grad
squeaked by Republican incumbent Steve Kuykendall to snatch
the seat she held from 1992 until 1998 in California's 36th
District. In her earlier stint in the House, the energetic,
policy‑minded Mrs. Harman whose swing district in the South
Bay of Los Angeles encompasses major aerospace and defense
concerns served on the Committee on National Security and
the Congressional Caucus on Anti‑Semitism. A former Regents
professor of public policy and international relations at the
University of California at Los Angeles, Ms. Harman, who
worked in the Carter White House and has spent the last two
decades steeped in politics, promises to be a leader in a powerful
posse of Jewish women the House.
Dov Hikind
Few among the rabble of demonstrators protesting outside the
Senate campaign headquarters of Hillary Rodham Clinton ever
made it inside the office door, but Mr. Hikind sure did. Playing
the campaign for all it was worth or perhaps vice versa the
Democratic state assemblyman from Boro Park drew the cameras
in an instant when he accused the first lady of being
pro‑Palestinian and anti‑Israel, just as he drew the cameras at
the end of the campaign by flirting at length with endorsing her.
Although the onetime deputy to Rabbi Meir Kahane ultimately
balked at making any endorsement in a race where the Middle
East loomed large, few got more face time with New York's
soon‑to‑be junior senator. His reputation as top political
spokesman for Boro Park Orthodoxy took a beating after his trial
for embezzlement. Last May, though, several New York City
mayoral candidates and Governor Pataki showed up at his first
fund‑raiser since his acquittal, another sign that the bearded
Brooklynite's star is back on the rise.
Eric Cantor
2000 was Eric Cantor's year. A well‑liked representative in
Virginia's General Assembly since 1991, his election to the U.S.
House of Representatives has effectively doubled the Jewish
presence in the House Republican caucus from one to two.
Seen as a rising star among Republicans, Mr. Cantor, 37, won in
a landslide victory on a conservative platform of limiting
government, cutting taxes and supporting school vouchers. He
garnered an "A" rating from the National Rifle Association. His
views may stand in stark contrast to those of the traditionally
liberal Jewish community, but his record shows a strong
commitment to Jewish causes, from championing Virginia‑Israel
trade ties, to securing funding for Virginia's Holocaust museum,
to ensuring his own children's education at a Jewish day school,
the Rudlin Torah Academy. His presence on Capitol Hill will not
only guarantee that a strong Jewish voice is heard when the
House majority caucus convenes; it will broaden and deepen the
discussion of Jewish values whenever Jewish lawmakers gather
to discuss shared concerns.
Stephen P. Cohen
For nearly two decades he's been the mystery man of Middle
East diplomacy, flying about in private jets to meet with
negotiators and heads of state at crucial moments, appearing
abruptly and disappearing just as suddenly. He's known to the
public mainly as the obscure expert who's constantly quoted in
Thomas Friedman's New York Times columns. His real role has
only rarely been published. But diplomatic insiders know Dr.
Stephen P. Cohen as the Middle East's indispensable
go‑between, the confidant who listens to all sides and explains
them to each other when nobody else can. A Canadian‑born,
Harvard‑trained social psychologist, he began his Middle East
work in the early 1970s, creating Israeli‑Arab "problem‑solving
workshops." Within a decade he was hosting private chats
between top leaders on both sides, first under the aegis of City
University of New York, later with support from liberal Jewish
philanthropists like Charles Bronfman and S. Daniel Abraham.
He's kept it up ever since, running a sort of international
group‑therapy program with a clientele including Shimon Peres,
Moshe Dayan, Anwar Sadat, Hosni Mubarak, Hafez el‑Assad,
Boutros Boutros Ghali and Yasser Arafat. Like most shrinks, he's
unlikely to see any sudden drop in demand for his services any
time soon. Just in case, he took on an even more formidable
challenge last year, joining with Israel's Yossi Beilin to set up a
transatlantic working group to rethink Israel‑Diaspora relations.
Community
Abraham Foxman
American Jewry's most visible, media‑savvy spokesman, the
national director of the Anti‑Defamation League managed again
this year to demonstrate repeatedly that he is one of the few
Jewish leaders with both the spine and political smarts to
deserve the title. He spoke out strongly for church‑state
separation even when it put him in the awkward position of
having to criticize Senator Lieberman shortly after the Jewish
icon was nominated to the vice presidency. Mr. Foxman, 60, also
knocked the Connecticut senator for offering to meet with
Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Taking on the
Democratic nominee at the height of Liebermania wave seemed
like chutzpah, but a subsequent poll found that it touched a
chord: American Jews strongly agreed with Mr. Foxman that the
senator was talking too much religion. On the down side, the
ADL's Denver office faced legal heat and $10.5 million in
damages when it took sides in a squabble between neighbors
and labeled the plaintiff an anti‑Semite. Mr. Foxman was
slammed by Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin after running
newspaper ads seemingly questioning Yasser Arafat's fitness as a
peace partner. And the organization faces a tough challenge
from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which is out to break ADL's
monopoly on tolerance‑training programs in New York. For all
that, Mr. Foxman remains the most recognizable and trusted
figure in Jewish organizational life.
Rabbi Marvin Hier
At a time when experts say anti‑Jewish sentiment and
discrimination are or at least should be fading as Jewish
organizing principles, the Los Angeles‑based Simon Wiesenthal
Center remains a highly visible outpost of anti‑anti‑Semitism.
Under the leadership of Rabbi Hier, 62, and his right‑hand man,
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the center continues to challenge the
Anti‑Defamation League for the title of American Jewry's top
"defense" organization. Like the ADL, Rabbi Hier's center
provides tolerance and diversity training to schools and
workplaces under pressure to change their images. This year he
upped the ante, snagging an important diversity‑training
contract with the police department of New York's Westchester
County, in the ADL's own backyard. The center's highly
publicized campaign against hate groups on the Internet also
mimicking an ADL initiative has been credited with forcing
policy changes at industry giants such as Yahoo and American
Online. Future plans include a Jerusalem clone of the center's
Los Angeles Museum of Tolerance, infuriating officials at Yad
Vashem, Israel's national Holocaust museum. Critics decry the
center's aggressive tactics, accusing it of fear mongering and
oversimplification. But Rabbi Hier remains a canny media
tactician. Case in point: The center has twice won an Academy
Award for best documentary, for "Genocide" in 1981 and "The
Long Way Home" in 1997.
Steven M. Cohen
Fifty‑two percent, 52%, 52%. The percentage of American Jews
marrying non‑Jews, according to the landmark 1990 National
Jewish Population Survey, was spoken like a mantra in the halls
and boardrooms of Jewish organizations throughout the 1990s,
and defined that decade's Jewish communal agenda as a crisis of
"continuity." Only one problem, said sociologist Steven M.
Cohen: The NJPS statistic was inflated by a poorly designed
questionnaire, and the real intermarriage rate was closer to 40%.
That's still nothing to crow about, but what's at stake isn't just
numbers. It's the way a community defines who belongs and
who doesn't. Mr. Cohen, 50, who moved to Jerusalem in 1992
and now lectures at the Melton Center for Jewish Education at
The Hebrew University, has asked questions like those in more
than a dozen books and over 100 articles and monographs, most
recently the groundbreaking "The Jew Within," with Stanford
University's Arnold Eisen. When you hear a statistic on
assimilation, attitudes toward Israel or synagogue affiliation,
chances are it came from a Cohen study. For years the pollster
for the American Jewish Committee's annual survey of
American‑Jewish opinion, he's now the social scientist of choice
for, among others, the Andrea and Charles Bronfman
Philanthropies, the Jewish Community Centers Association, the
Jewish Agency for Israel, the Nathan Cummings Foundation and
the Wexner Foundation. Last week the United Jewish
Communities, sponsor of the forthcoming National Jewish
Population Survey 2000, implicitly acknowledged Mr. Cohen's
critique of its researchers' methods when it appointed him senior
research consultant to the new study.
Steven Bayme
Of all the recent transformations sweeping the American‑Jewish
landscape, none is more startling than the transformation of
American Jewish Committee from liberal voice of an
assimilationist Jewish elite into its current stance as a crusader
for old‑time religion, advocating Jewish day schooling and a
full‑bore war against interfaith marriage. The man behind the
transformation is AJCommittee's director of Jewish Communal
Affairs, Steven Bayme. Mr. Bayme, 50, has emerged in recent
years as the nation's most visible advocate of the
circle‑the‑wagons "inreach" approach toward intermarriage,
which opposes reaching out to welcome interfaith families. He
sees intermarriage as a disaster that could result in a net loss of
up to one million Jews in the next generation, and he's
marshaled the considerable resources of AJCommittee to his
cause, staging prestigious conferences and issuing publications
like last year's "Statement on Jewish Education," which put the
organization, once the champion of "Americanization" of Jewish
immigrants, squarely behind Jewish day schools as "the primary
if not sole solution" to assimilation. Himself a product of the
Modern Orthodox Maimonides High School in Boston, Mr.
Bayme looks to Orthodoxy as a model of a community willing to
"undergo any sacrifice and pay any price financially, culturally,
or even familially [sic] in order to provide quality Jewish
education for its young."
Steven Nasatir
Chief executive of the Jewish Federation of Greater Chicago
since 1979, Mr. Nasatir is a rare pillar of stability in a field swept
by change and uncertainty. While other cities' federations
struggle to redefine themselves against a landscape of change,
assimilation and crisis, Mr. Nasatir's Chicago machine just chugs
along, unchallenged in its traditional role as the central body of
organized Jewish life in the Windy City. In recent years Mr.
Nasatir turned down repeated appeals to move to New York and
take over the management of the United Jewish Communities,
and of the United Jewish Appeal before that at one point
there were rumors that the organization would relocate to
Chicago if only Mr. Nasatir would agree to head it. Instead, the
national organization has emerged as a weak confederation,
largely beholden to the directors of the biggest local federations,
sometimes known to insiders as the "college of cardinals." That
leaves Mr. Nasatir, the dean of the college, to rule the roost
without having to leave home.
Barry Shrage
Officially, his title is president of Combined Jewish
Philanthropies, as Boston's Jewish federation is known.
Unofficially, Mr. Shrage, 54, is known as the Peck's Bad Boy of
the national Jewish federation scene. His criticisms of the
traditional structures of federated Jewish philanthropy,
particularly the Jewish Agency for Israel, have made him
enemies on both sides of the ocean. He led the successful
opposition to plans by the architects of the United Jewish
Communities to create a strong central body that could forge
national policies in social services, overseas aid or Jewish
education. His argument: that at a time of rapid change,
American Jewry needs a decentralized network of institutions
that can experiment with new ways of delivering services,
rather than imposing answers from above. His Boston federation
is a model of innovation, as even his detractors admit, pursuing
a host of new programs in federation‑synagogue cooperation,
social justice programming and even "universal adult Jewish
literacy." He's also led the way, despite his personal commitment
to Orthodoxy, in reaching out to interfaith families, investing
some $400,000 a year in that area alone.
John Ruskay
In his first year as chief executive of the nation's largest local
Jewish charity, UJA‑Federation of New York, Mr. Ruskay, 54,
has started more revolutions and shaken up more conventions
than anyone in memory. Insisting that Jews everywhere face
the same problems of identity and meaning, he's broken down
the old division between domestic and overseas work. Instead
he's set up entirely new divisions with names like "Jewish
caring" and "Jewish peoplehood," testimony to his spiritual roots
in Camp Ramah, the New Left and the chavurah movement. He
speaks of creating "inspired communities" and of bringing
federations and JCC's into that circle as "gateways." Federation
staffers and volunteers say they're not always sure exactly what
he's got in mind, but they're exhilarated at the pace of change in
the huge, hidebound institution. Whether he can turn the New
York federation around and make it a vital center for the
nation's largest Jewish community remains to be seen. If he
succeeds at one‑tenth of his plans, Jewish New York will never
be the same.
Hannah Rosenthal
A longtime Democratic party activist, Ms. Rosenthal left the
Midwest region of the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services in October to take over the Jewish Council for Public
Affairs as it struggles to define itself within a recently
reorganized system of Jewish federations. Created by the
federation movement in 1944 (it used to be called the National
Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council, or Njcrac), the
council served for years as a coordinating body for Jewish
"defense" agencies like the Anti‑Defamation League and
American Jewish Committee, helping them channel their
resources to the community‑relations committees of local
Jewish federations. The council often found itself debating topics
as far‑flung as gun control and the environment. But following
an agreement reached this September with the United Jewish
Communities, which pays its bills, the JCPA is to focus its
attention more narrowly on issues relevant to the federations.
The council might have been expected to be at the forefront of
the traditionally liberal Jewish community's inevitable
confrontations with a Republican administration. Instead, Ms.
Rosenthal and her colleagues will be grappling with the issue of
who speaks for the Jews.
Richard Joel
In 1991, when this former associate dean of the law school at
Yeshiva University took over Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish
Campus Life, he promised to revolutionize Jewish life on campus
by "maximizing the number of Jews doing Jewish with other
Jews." He changed the job description of Hillel directors to open
the door to non‑rabbis, helped move Jewish programming out of
the Hillel house and into frat houses and local bars, and
personally emerged as a top pundit on what ails America's
peripatetic Jewish youth. Any scrutiny he might have faced in
his 10th anniversary year (many say the Hillel makeover was
more sizzle than steak) disappeared when Hillel became the
largest service‑provider for Birthright Israel, sending unaffiliated
youngsters on free Israel trips that Mr. Joel calls the "most
effective arrow in our quiver of engagement." This summer he
was appointed to chair a special commission investigating a
decades‑long case of alleged sexual abuse by a youth leader at
the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America. The
reputation of the O.U., and by extension all Modern Orthodox
congregations, hangs in the balance of the commission's findings,
released this week.
Margery Tabankin
When she left the powerful Hollywood Women's Political
Committee in 1997 and took over Steven Spielberg's Righteous
Persons Foundation, Ms. Tabankin underwent one of the most
talked‑about career changes in California philanthropy. As
longtime head of the political committee, she ruled the glittering
world of left‑liberal political fund‑raising in Tinseltown. At the
Spielberg foundation, formed with the profits from the 1993
blockbuster, "Schindler's List," she has been focused entirely on
the flip side of charity: giving money away. Mr. Spielberg set up
the foundation in 1994 with a mission of promoting Jewish
learning, advancing intergroup tolerance and "using arts and
media to engage broad audiences on questions of what it means
to be Jewish." Under Ms. Tabankin, what had been a predictable
list of grants to youth groups and rabbinic seminars has become
an innovative program combining youth, innovation and a
strongly liberal social‑justice bent. She signed onto last year's
initiative by Jewish family foundations to encourage "civil
discourse" within the Jewish community by denying funds to
groups that flout it. Together with program associate Rachel
Levin, she spearheaded the Joshua Venture, which seeds
innovative Jewish projects by young visionaries. She's also
funded a host of Jewish cultural initiatives, from documentary
films to an online Yiddish theater archive. The job has a term
limit: the foundation was set up to spend down its endowment,
which Hollywood sources say may take another three years.
With more than $55 million in grants to date, the foundation
and Ms. Tabankin aim to spark a revolution in Jewish life before
the money runs out. Not that she'll go begging: She also heads
the Barbra Streisand Foundation.
Spirit
Anita Diamant
The West Newton, Mass., author may be what's called a "viral"
leader: Her influence is spread person‑to‑person and by word of
mouth. Her novel "The Red Tent," a revisionist feminist version
of the biblical tale of Dinah, was quietly released by St. Martin's
in 1997. Paperback publisher Picador sent copies to rabbis,
ministers and independent book group leaders, who
recommended it to their congregants and friends. By now "The
Red Tent" has sold over 400,000 copies, and as a favorite of book
discussion groups, may be the country's most widely studied
Torah "commentary." In addition, Ms. Diamant's five liberal
how‑to guides to Jewish observance, including "The New Jewish
Wedding" and "Saying Kaddish: How to Comfort the Dying, Bury
the Dead, and Mourn As a Jew," are essential resources for
heterodox Jews seeking a welcoming, non‑judgmental catalogue
of the range of Jewish traditions.
Rabbi Eric Yoffie
Two unfortunate transitions have left the president of the
Reform movement's Union of American Hebrew Congregations,
Rabbi Yoffie, 53, with an even more powerful presence atop
American Jewry's largest denomination. The obituaries for the
man Rabbi Yoffie succeeded four years ago, Rabbi Alexander
Schindler, who died in November, reminded readers how
Schindler guided Reform during a time of soaring intermarriage
and intergroup strife. Rabbi Yoffie continued Schindler's bold
some say radical approach to inclusion of intermarried
families, but coupled it with an embrace of more tradition and
spiritual prayer and ritual forms. When Rabbi Sheldon
Zimmerman, president of the movement's rabbinical seminary,
was forced to step down this month over allegations of sexual
misconduct, Rabbi Yoffie lost an important ally in his efforts to
fill a shortage of rabbis and train a cadre of them in his image.
The number of Reform synagogues grew to more than 900 this
year, although the news was largely overshadowed by the move
by Reform's rabbinical body to allow its rabbis to devise and
perform "appropriate Jewish rituals" of commitment for gay and
lesbian couples. "For the first time in history," Rabbi Yoffie said,
"a major rabbinical body has affirmed the Jewish validity of
committed, same‑gender relationships." It will take all of Rabbi
Yoffie's considerable skills to answer once again the question of
whether the move is a sign of Reform going its own way, or just
getting there ahead of everyone else.
Blu Greenberg
Known as the "mother" of Orthodox feminism, Blu Greenberg
gets the kind of reception among Modern Orthodox women that
others reserve for great rabbis: Crowds part as she walks into a
room. A writer ("Black Bread: Poems After the Holocaust," "How
to Run a Traditional Jewish Household" and "On Women and
Judaism: A View From Tradition"), she has spearheaded the two
International Conferences on Feminism and Orthodoxy and is
president of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance. In these
roles, she has prodded the conservative world of Orthodox
Judaism to envision new religious roles and responsibilities for
women in synagogues, rabbinic tribunals, schools and other
institutions. Married to Orthodox theologian Rabbi Irving
Greenberg (see below), her soft‑spoken leadership has inspired
an explosion of women's prayer and study within Orthodoxy.
She serves on the boards of the JWB Jewish Book Council, the
US/Israel Women‑to‑Women Dialogue Project, the Jewish
Foundation for Christian Rescuers, Hadassah Magazine, the
Jewish Women's Resource Center and more.
Rabbi Irwin Kula
With his shoulder‑length hair and an office adorned with
photographs of the Grateful Dead, the Conservative‑trained
Rabbi Kula has carefully cultivated an image of Jewish boomer
cool. Beyond image, though, the 42‑year‑old president of
CLAL‑The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership is
among the few leaders challenging institutions to imagine how
Judaism might adapt to what he calls "an era of unprecedented
freedom, power and affluence." As successor to CLAL's founder,
Irving "Yitz" Greenberg, Rabbi Kula continues to work within
the Jewish establishment, teaching pluralism and leadership
training to young rabbis and lay leaders around the country.
More recently, he has begun reaching out to unaffiliated Jews
with a message of Jewish universalism that takes seriously the
spiritual energies percolating on the margins of Jewish life.
Oprah has paid attention, inviting him twice this year as a guest
on her program, and so has Silicon Valley: Rabbi Kula gave the
closing talk at the tenth TED conference, a high‑power new
media pow‑wow, and was written up in Fast Company
magazine as a "spiritual counselor" of the New Economy.
Rabbi Avi Weiss
He still shows up for the occasional street protest, like the
demonstrations this summer for the freedom of 10 imprisoned
Jews in Iran. But after years of globe‑hopping protests against
Kurt Waldheim in Austria, the Catholic convent at Auschwitz
and more, Rabbi Weiss, 56, says the golden age of Jewish
activism is over. The Jewish struggle has become one of the
soul, not the body politic. In recent months the former militant
has emerged as one of the premier proponents of Modern
Orthodoxy. Together with a fellow moderate, Rabbi Saul
Berman, he has staked out a position on the left flank of
Orthodoxy, waging a rear‑guard action against the yeshiva heads
and fellow rabbis who have become increasingly wary of secular
culture and interaction with non‑Orthodox Jews. A leading
advocate of women's rights in Orthodoxy he sponsors
women's prayer groups and started a quasi‑rabbinic "synagogue
intern" program for women at his Hebrew Institute of Riverdale
he is the driving force behind Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, a
Modern Orthodox seminary that currently enrolls seven
full‑time rabbinical students. His overall goal is to raise up a new
generation of disciples to pursue a welcoming religiosity that he
calls "Open Orthodoxy."
Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum
Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum is not most people's image of a
bridge‑builder. Leader of the Satmar chasidic sect since the death
in 1978 of his uncle, Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, who founded the
sect in Romania in the 1920s, the Satmar rebbe remains a fierce
opponent of Zionism and non‑Orthodox Judaism. And yet, in his
two decades as rebbe he has led America's most reclusive
chasidic movement to a far more tolerant stance toward the
world around it. The community, once adamantly opposed to
higher education, is now allowing young men to enroll in
vocational courses, such as computer networking. It has become
far less pugnacious in its stance toward Israel and Zionism. The
rebbe also appears to have scaled back his movement's
sometimes violent feuding with the smaller but more visible
Lubavitch community and healed some of the internal breaches
that split his own community after his predecessor died without
a son. Under Rabbi Teitelbaum the Satmar community, the
largest faction in the complex world of chasidism is increasingly
emerging as a religious and political force to be contended with,
within Orthodoxy and in the broader community.
Rabbi Shira Stern
As co‑president of the Reform movement's 275‑member
Women's Rabbinic Network, Rabbi Stern was the lead promoter
of one of this year's most controversial Jewish initiatives, the
decision of the Central Conference of American Rabbis to
support rabbinic officiation at gay and lesbian commitment
ceremonies. "This is not a women's issue or a gay or lesbian
issue. This is a human rights issue," Rabbi Stern told reporters as
the Reform rabbis voted on the resolution at their March
convention. "For Jews who have no choice in the matter of
sexual identity, we as leaders of the movement must provide
them with the religious framework in which to celebrate their
union." Having adopted the decision, the movement now must
develop liturgies for such ceremonies, Rabbi Stern said. The
daughter of violinist Isaac Stern, Rabbi Stern is also a staunch
proponent of abortion rights who has shared publicly the story
of her own anguished decision to abort an anencephalic fetus.
She directs the Joint Chaplaincy Program of Middlesex County
in New Jersey.
Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman
and Ron Wolfson
The hot topic this year on the Jewish "renaissance front" was
Synagogue Transformation and the professionals most
responsible for putting the issue on the map are Rabbi Lawrence
Hoffman and Ron Wolfson. Rabbi Hoffman, one of the Reform
movement's leading liturgical scholars, and Mr. Wolfson, a vice
president at the Conservative movement's University of Judaism
in Los Angeles, have pushed ahead with Synagogue 2000, a
transdenominational project that works with congregations to
improve member services, incorporate liturgical and
programming innovations and develop marketing campaigns.
Their formula is heavy on spirituality, music and constant
institutional reevaluation.
Tamara Cohen
Offering women a starring role in Jewish festivals has turned
Ma'yan, the Jewish Women's Project of the JCC on the Upper
West Side, into a blockbuster, and its program director, Tamara
Cohen, 29, into a leading spokeswoman for feminism. The
project began by gathering women for a feminist Passover seder
in Manhattan six years ago, drawing a crowd of 200. By 1999 the
seder drew 1,500 women with the help of folksinger Debbie
Friedman. This year 34 Ma'yan seders took place nationwide.
"We didn't start the idea of a feminist seder, but we've been
committed to making it mainstream in Jewish life," said Ms.
Cohen, the daughter of Middle East activist Stephen P. Cohen
(see above). Accoutrements of the Ma'yan seder include a
women‑centered Haggada, edited by Ms. Cohen, and a cup
dedicated to Moses' sister, Miriam a play on the cup offered to
Elijah the prophet. Ma'yan is working to incorporate feminist
ceremonies into all major life‑cycle events, said Ms. Cohen,
including a new Sukkot compilation completed last fall. Ms.
Cohen edits Ma'yan's quarterly journal, "Journey," which
publishes new rituals and chronicles feminist activism. She is
also spiritual leader of the Greater Washington Coalition for
Jewish Life in Washington, Conn., and a leader of Jews for
Racial and Economic Justice.
Lay Leadership
Rabbi Irving Greenberg
With his appointment by President Clinton to chair the United
States Holocaust Memorial Council, "Yitz" Greenberg may finally
have the platform he's been waiting a lifetime to find. As
founding president of CLAL‑The National Jewish Center for
Learning and Leadership, he championed interdenominational
and interfaith dialogue before they were fashionable, and long
after others had given up. A maverick proponent of Modern
Orthodoxy, a trained historian and a daring theologian, Rabbi
Greenberg has written persuasively about the Holocaust both in
its Jewish particularity and its human universality. He is widely
considered uniquely qualified to steer the Holocaust Council and
the museum in Washington past the internal struggles and
political missteps of its founding generation, and to shape Jewish
memory into the new century. Even without the council
chairmanship, he wields formidable influence as president of
Michael Steinhardt's Jewish Life Network, helping to steer the
iconoclast philanthropist's largesse towards day schools, higher
education and community service.
Belda Lindenbaum
Belda Lindenbaum says she remembers all too well the look she
has seen among young women praying at Orthodox synagogues
and yeshivot: "Catatonia" was how she described it at the last
International Conference on Feminism and Orthodoxy, of which
she was a major supporter. Seeing this lack of involvement in
prayer as stemming from neglect of the young women's Jewish
education, Ms. Lindenbaum, a wealthy New Yorker, has set
about making sure that women have top‑notch institutions for
Torah learning on a par with those for men. She is president of
the board of Drisha, a Manhattan institute for women's Torah
study, and founded Midreshet Lindenbaum, a program in Israel
at which many Americans study for a year or more after high
school. She also funds an Israeli program to train women as
"pleaders" in rabbinical courts and another permitting them to
study Torah while in the army. Such opportunities are changing
the face of Orthodoxy, where status comes from Torah
knowledge.
Michael Steinhardt
This 60‑year‑old retired hedge‑fund operator continues to
operate in the eye of North American Jewry's roughest storm:
battling intermarriage and assimilation and offering young
Americans a positive reason to be, and marry, Jewish. A
full‑time philanthropic entrepreneur, he uses his money and
clout to bring together groups of fellow philanthropists and
incubate programs such as the Partnership for Excellence in
Jewish Education, which provides seed‑money for new Jewish
day schools; Birthright Israel, the Israel‑travel program for
teenagers that has captured the communal imagination in the
last year, and Makor, the innovative Gen‑X Jewish culture
center on New York's West Side (which he reportedly is
preparing to hand over to the 92nd Street YM‑YWHA). The
question that exercises his critics and admirers alike is whether
he can discipline his restless imagination and learn to stay with
his brainchildren until they're on their feet.
Edgar Bronfman
After two decades at the helm of the World Jewish Congress,
Mr. Bronfman has few worlds left to conquer. Last July his
five‑year campaign against Swiss banks ended in triumph when
a U.S. court approved a $1.25 billion settlement for Holocaust
victims and their heirs. A separate negotiation with German
companies to compensate Nazi‑era slave laborers ended, also in
July, with a $4.8 billion settlement. He played a controversial
role in this fall's elections, sponsoring a gala Holocaust
restitution banquet that honored first lady‑turned‑Senate
candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton for what many said was a
minimal role in the campaign. But Mr. Bronfman, 71, has been
showing signs of restlessness with the political hurly‑burly. In a
1996 speech he called for the Jewish community to cut back on
politics and refocus on spiritual nourishment. This fall he acted,
joining with two other multimillionaires, including Michael
Steinhardt, to launch an $18 million initiative for "Synagogue
Transformation and Renewal," or STAR. Addressing STAR's
inaugural conference in Chicago, Mr. Bronfman described his
disappointment with High Holy Day services, which led him to
hire Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg to lead davening in his Upper East
Side apartment. He also described how he'd moved Havdalah,
the Saturday‑night end‑of‑Sabbath ritual, to Sunday night to
accommodate his weekend schedule. Slack‑jawed reactions from
the assembled rabbis suggested that Mr. Bronfman may have
humbled the Swiss, but he had yet to master negotiations with
his fellow Jews.
Morton Klein
The current intifada came as no surprise to Morton Klein, 53, the
pugnacious national president of the Zionist Organization of
America. The Philadelphia‑based activist and his allies were
often marginalized for their relentless campaign to expose
Palestinian incitement, which allies of Israel's Labor government
saw as aimed at delegitimizing talks with Yasser Arafat. In recent
months, however, Prime Minister Barak and some of his main
backers here have started to sound like Mr. Klein when talking
about the Palestinians' failure to curb a culture of hatred in their
schools, media and political rhetoric. Still, there's a wide gap
between being "right" and being effective: For all of Mr. Klein's
efforts, the Barak government is still aiming for a sweeping
compromise with the Palestinians even after three months of
violent intifada and the American government is still backing
the compromise plans. Mr. Klein, who once worked as a
biostatistician with Nobel laureate Linus Pauling and assumed
the top spot at the then‑sleepy ZOA in 1993, has lined up a
powerful network of congressional contacts. Keep an eye on
whether the conservative Mr. Klein is just as persistent with his
criticisms of President‑elect Bush if he fails to move the
American Embassy to Jerusalem and of a Likud prime minister if
he carries on with the peace process.
Barbara Dobkin
This New York philanthropist is still the top banana when it
comes to funding Jewish feminist causes, such as Ma'yan: The
Jewish Women's Project of the JCC of the Upper West Side. But
now the establishment is starting to catch on. In many ways her
activism by example is responsible for the women's foundations
popping up at federations and other Jewish organizations. She
put up $1 million to launch a program for recruiting women to
break the glass ceiling at big‑city Jewish federations. Through
this investment in the maiden project of the Trust for Jewish
Philanthropy, Ms. Dobkin could end up playing a major role in
selecting several top women executives at big‑city federations.
Not a bad display of muscle‑flexing for a trained social worker.
Justice
Judah Gribetz
Few people can simultaneously win the respect of Holocaust
survivors, lawyers and judges especially when the matter at
hand is an allocation plan for the $1.25 billion Swiss banks
settlement but Mr. Gribetz is the kind of guy to pull it off.
When federal Judge Edward Korman named him "special master"
to oversee the massive allocation plan in 1999, everyone from
Edward Fagan, the controversial class action lawyer, to
Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau praised the
choice. Long involved in Jewish issues and city politics, Mr.
Gribetz, a partner at Richards & O'Neill, former deputy mayor,
consulting member of the New York Community Trust and past
president of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New
York, seemed an inspired choice. And so it appears. While some
survivors groups had vociferously lobbied Mr. Gribetz to move
more swiftly in drafting the plan, when he presented the fruits
of two years' labor this fall, few had substantive criticism of the
proposed allocations. Indeed, the most frequently heard cry
about the intricate allocation plan was still "when," not "what."
Now as before, the question is whether Mr. Gribetz will be able
to push the plan through all the legal hoops in time for aged
survivors to see their fair share.
Amy Beth Dean
Called one of the "most innovative figures in Silicon Valley" by
The New York Times, Amy Beth Dean heads the South Bay
AFL‑CIO Labor Council, a federation of 110 northern California
unions at ground zero of the New Economy. Ms. Dean, 37, took
her first job with the garment workers' union after college,
thinking she would stay for a year before graduate school.
Instead she's made the labor movement her life's work and in
1995 became the youngest person to lead a major metropolitan
labor council. Always committed to the Judaism of her Chicago
family, for whom religion was inseparable from social activism,
Ms. Dean was a Fellow of the Wexner Heritage Foundation from
1996 to 1998. In 1997 she helped found the Interfaith Council on
Religion, Race, Economic and Social Justice, a coalition of 30
religious, labor and community organizations that's won for the
San Jose area the nation's highest "living wage" and universal
health‑care access for children under 18. Ms. Dean challenges
New Economy shibboleths by insisting information workers
deserve the same workplace protections won by the labor
movement for a previous era's industrial workers. "I've realized
that a movement for serious power and social justice must be
led by labor," Ms. Dean told the Forward, "but you also need a
spiritual component."
Nancy Kaufman
Nancy Kaufman has become nationally known for advocating a
classically Jewish social justice agenda within an increasingly
conservative federation establishment. As executive director of
the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of Greater
Boston, she helped pilot The Greater Boston Jewish Coalition for
Literacy, a program that has since been adopted by some 25
cities across the nation. "She has transformed the agency to
focus on social justice and linking the greater Boston Jewish
community to its roots in the urban core," said Alan Ronkin, her
associate director. "This transformation has caught on nationally
as a model for Jewish community relations."
Stephen Flatow,
Arline Duker,
Devorah Halberstam,
Daniel Gross
Four families victimized by terrorism turned their tragedies into
appeals for international justice, and people listened. New
legislation this year will allow Stephen Flatow, 52, whose
daughter Alisa was killed in a 1995 bus bombing by Iranian
backed terrorists, to collect damages in his lawsuit against Iran.
Another campaigner for the legislation, Arline Duker, 53, lost her
daughter Sara in a 1996 attack by apparent Iranian‑funded
terrorists in Israel. Both families say it isn't about the money, but
about making state sponsors of terrorism accountable for their
crimes. Accountability was also the mission of Devorah
Halberstam, 44, whose son Ari was slain by a Lebanese‑born
gunman on the Brooklyn Bridge in 1994. After six years of
investigations, pressed by Mrs. Halberstam and her allies, the FBI
announced this month that the killing was an act of terrorism,
not simple "road rage." And Daniel Gross, 33, a former
advertising executive, now works full time for the gun control
group Pax, after his brother Matthew suffered brain damage as
one of seven people shot by a Palestinian gunman atop the
Empire State Building in February 1997 (the shooter killed
himself). Mr. Gross told a reporter earlier this year of the power
that comes when ordinary citizens see violence as something
that "goes from being a seemingly random, high‑profile tragedy
to something that could affect them personally."
Media
Samuel Freedman
With a single book on Jewish affairs, this former New York
Times writer and Columbia University School of Journalism
professor framed the Jewish communal debate for this year and
possibly for years to come. "Jew vs. Jew: The Struggle for the
Soul of American Jewry" painted a portrait of a community in
near‑constant conflict: feminists versus traditionalists, peaceniks
versus right‑wingers on Israel, ultra‑Orthodox Jews against just
about everybody. Although many reviewers said Mr. Freedman's
portrayal was darker than reality and found only rancor where
others saw healthy debate, most acknowledged that he asked a
key question that must be addressed by proponents of Jewish
"continuity" and "renaissance": Is there hope for a secular, ethnic
Jewish culture, or has an "Orthodox model" of religious
belonging and learning, ritual scrupulousness and Jewish day
schooling triumphed?
Cynthia Ozick
As a writer of fiction, literary criticism and political commentary,
Ms. Ozick is a Pilot pen‑wielding triple threat. "Quarrel and
Quandary," her 12th book, hit shelves this fall to the acclaim of
critics who hailed it as her best book of essays yet. Now 72, Ms.
Ozick continues to hold her own among literary giants and is
still one of the only Jewish‑American women fiction writers to
be ranked alongside Philip Roth and Saul Bellow. (The three are
the focus of one chapter in "The Modern Jewish Canon: A
Journey Through Language and Culture," by Ruth Wisse, Ms.
Ozick's only competitor for the title of greatest living Jewish
belle‑lettrist). Although claiming to "resist the political" in the
"Forethought" to her book, Ms. Ozick is also known for her
right‑of‑center advocacy on Jewish matters from the Holocaust
to Israel. She said it was "astounding" that the trial in England
this year against Holocaust revisionist David Irving did not
capture Jewish interest, and in her book she voices disgust at
the commodification of Anne Frank. A long‑time critic of the
Palestine Liberation Organization, she said in October that Jews
should "unashamedly defend themselves in any way they can."
Jon Stewart
In a year when late‑night comedy programming became a major
source of the electorate's understanding of the presidential
campaign a Pew Research Center poll in February found that
28% of all Americans, and 47% under the age of 30, got campaign
news from late‑night talk shows Jon Stewart became the
medium's Ted Koppel. Following a spotty career in stand‑up and
short‑lived TV shows, the 38‑year‑old comic scored big as host of
"The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" on cable TV's Comedy
Central. Mr. Stewart captured the college set with a dead‑on
nightly satire of the news and off‑kilter interviews with real
newsmakers. Born Jon Stewart Leibowitz in Trenton, N.J., he
sometimes refers to Christians as "you people" and once
introduced Senator Lieberman as the "the man who wants to
build that bridge to the 59th century." If Adam Sandler is a
post‑boomer Jerry Lewis, then Mr. Stewart is Generation X's
Mort Sahl or Lenny Bruce: a comedian who unapologetically
filters his political satire through a Jewish sensibility.
Michael Dorf
Defying reports that secular Judaism is dead and that only the
religious model has staying power, impresario Michael Dorf, 38,
continues to champion a brand of Jewish cultural expression
that owes more to Second Avenue than the Second Temple. The
founder of the Knitting Factory, a New York‑based music club
and record label known for musical experimentation, Mr. Dorf
has pioneered new Jewish music with his offshoot label, JAM, or
Jewish Alternative Movement. Artists such as Frank London and
Uri Caine have found a home on the label for their in‑your‑face
avant‑garde Jewish music, which manages to be both irreverent
and traditional. Every December the Knit, as hipsters call it,
hosts a Jewish Music Festival. In August, Mr. Dorf brought his
vision west with the launch of the Knitting Factory Hollywood,
and he plans to conquer Europe next year, opening a Berlin
location. At the Knitting Factory's "Cyber‑Seder," where
musicians perform interpretations of traditional Passover songs
for a Webcast "attended" by thousands of computer users, Mr.
Dorf succeeds where many others have failed at turning an
ancient tradition into something edgy and hip.
Yossi Abramowitz
The Jewish Internet and Yossi Abramowitz, 36, have become
synonymous, and as the Internet is everywhere these days, so is
Mr. Abramowitz. Founder, editor and publisher of the
multimedia, Boston‑based Jewish Family & Life!, Mr.
Abramowitz started the year with a bang when his web site for
teenagers, Jvibe.com, launched its popular sex forum,
Jvibrations. At a time when web sites nationwide are going
belly‑up, Mr. Abramowitz keeps attracting contracts from the
Jewish non‑profit sector. In addition to JFL's webzine lineup,
including GenerationJ.com, JewishFamily.com and
InterfaithFamily.com, he debuted his latest project,
BirthrightIsrael.com, which aims to be the premier source of
information for alumni of the popular Israel trips. He's now
launching a new venture with the Jewish Education Service of
North America, Jskyway, offering distance‑learning for day
school teachers.
Dr. Laura Schlessinger
Liberals hate the idea, but "Dr. Laura" (her degrees are in
physiology and counseling) may have the largest audience of
anyone who claims to speak from and for Jewish tradition. A
Jew by choice and self‑described follower of Orthodoxy, Dr.
Laura often invokes the Hebrew scriptures in her "tough love"
stands against premarital sex, divorce, single parenting,
abortion, feminism and, most notoriously, homosexuality. It was
the last that stalled the Dr. Laura phenomenon which
includes a syndicated television talk show, a radio program
syndicated to more than 500 stations and 20 million listeners in
the United States and Canada, a syndicated newspaper column
and such best‑selling advice books as "The Ten Commandments:
The Significance of God's Laws in Everyday Life," written with
Rabbi Stuart Vogel. Repelled by Dr. Laura's classification of
homosexuality as a "biological mistake" and "deviant sexual
behavior," civil rights and gay rights groups protested to
Paramount Television for carrying the show. Advertisers such as
Proctor & Gamble dropped their sponsorship of the show, and
Canadian broadcasters reversed their decision to air "Dr. Laura."
The show, which in September aired daily in the afternoons, has
recently been bumped to the wee hour of 2 a.m. in major cities
such as New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
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