O pinion
THE VIEW FROM HERE
A Letter From the Editor
BY LIZ SPIKOL
WHEN I FIRST met Joshua
Runyan in a Starbucks four
years ago — black coffee for
him; cappuccino for me — I
thought I was going to talk
with him about the death of the
Jewish press in Philadelphia.

I was a staff writer at
Philadelphia magazine then
and Josh was the new editor-in-
chief of the Jewish Exponent. As
a native Philadelphia journal-
ist with strong feelings about
hometown pride, I had grave
concerns about the ability of
a Maryland-based editor to
effectively cover the local com-
munity. I prepared a number
of tough questions meant to
demonstrate that an outsider
could never truly understand
the city or do it justice.

But as has so often happened
in my 20-plus years in journal-
ism, things turned out quite
differently than I expected.

First of all, I learned that
Josh was a Philly native, and
the editorial staffers he’d hired
were local. He agreed with me
about Philadelphia’s singular-
ity and the importance of local,
on-the-ground reporting.

He also believed in the
importance of the Jewish press
and wanted nothing more than
to see Jewish community news-
papers flourish and grow. We
both shared precisely the same
concerns about the sustainabil-
ity of Jewish newspapers and
the future of media overall.

It was a reassuring conversa-
tion in terms of the Exponent,
which I saw was in good hands.

So when Josh and I spoke
again some months later — after
he’d done the sensible thing
and moved to Philadelphia
for good — about my coming
onboard to work for him, I
already knew we shared the
same core values when it came
to editing: balance, integrity,
accuracy. I also suspected that
I would feel at home working
for a Jewish newspaper, and I
was right.

In addition to enjoying cov-
ering the Jewish community
as a reporter, there were unex-
pected benefits. I never had
to explain any of the Yiddish
words I used; everyone was
warm as matzah ball soup and
evinced incredible concern if
I complained of the slightest
pain; and the managing editor
always had a supply of tissues,
plastic silverware and ibupro-
fen in his desk.

After my first week at 2100
Arch St., I called my mother and
said the words she wanted badly
to hear: “It’s a totally haimishe
place. I’m going to be fine.”
Since then, I have occupied
a number of different roles
for our parent company, from
Exponent staff writer to editor-
in-chief of the Baltimore Jewish
Times and the Jewish News
of Greater Phoenix. I’ve also
helped manage Washington
Jewish Week and the Pittsburgh
Jewish Chronicle.

After many years in the
so-called secular press, I’ve been
blown away by how engaged,
excited and connected readers
of Jewish newspapers are —
especially in Philadelphia.

As other publications across
the country struggle to main-
tain a Letters to the Editor sec-
tion, the Exponent has a steady
flow of reader feedback, both
online and via regular mail. We
get lots of phone calls, too, from
people who want to talk about
particular articles we’ve run.

As a nostalgia junkie, some
of my favorite calls come from
readers who are excited to see
a familiar name in a story —
maybe it’s a second-grade best
friend they lost touch with or a
son who recognizes his veteran
father’s World War II buddy.

Sometimes we can even make
reunions happen.

And when I ran the Mazel
Tovs section — which features
bar and bat mitzvahs, births,
weddings and engagements — I
regularly had long talks with
people whose families had been
reading the paper for years and
felt the Exponent announce-
ment of a child’s simcha repre-
sented the culmination of their
Jewish Philadelphia upbringing.

Quite often, when I’ve called
a source for an interview, they’ve
said, “The Jewish Exponent?
My grandma will be so proud!”
Even celebrities get a kick out of
appearing in these pages.

All of this makes the
Exponent a true community
newspaper. Even in a densely
saturated media environment
with so many disparate options,
its existence remains vital to its
readership, which means that
those of us tasked with shep-
herding it through its next phase
have a serious responsibility.

So it is with great care and
deliberation that I take the
reins of the Exponent from
Josh’s able hands, as he moves
See Spikol, Page 16
In Memory of the Victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
BY MARCIA BRONSTEIN
MY GRANDMOTHER Rose
worked in a sweatshop when she
arrived in the U.S. as a 15-year-
old. She even had the needle
marks on her nails to prove it.

It was there that the sewing
machine sewed through her fin-
gers many times. She was appre-
ciative of the work, though, as it
was that job that allowed her to
stay in America and send money
home to her family in Russia.

Rose, then known as Ruchel
Rabinowitz, left Minsk with a
caravan of others who were
walking out of Russia through
its frozen heartland, head-
ing to brighter futures. She
had a ticket for a crossing to
14 MARCH 7, 2019
American on the Cunard Line,
purchased for her on Jan. 27,
1923, by her sister Anna in
Brooklyn, New York.

Rose made it to Riga, Latvia,
on March 21, 1923, where $108
awaited her, money that her sis-
ter had sent through the Hebrew
Sheltering and Immigrant Aid
Society of America (HIAS).

According to the paperwork in
family files, the payment would
be made “when the payee pres-
ents himself” at the European
HIAS office.

On April 12, 1923, Anna
mailed a letter from Brooklyn
to the American Consul in Riga
on my grandmother’s behalf.

Dear Sir: Please read this
plea from an anxious young
woman and may you be inclined
to act favorably in her behalf.

My sister, Ruchel Rabinowitz,
whose present address is c/o HIAS
Riga, has been waiting over three
months away from her home and
among strangers, for her visa and
passport to the U.S. Soon her stay
in Riga will become illegal and she
will be penniless because of her
forced detention. Doubtless, you
are doing all within your power
to aid people who are placed in
such unfortunate positions, nev-
ertheless, I shall pray every night
until this letter reaches your own
hands and that you will do some-
thing to soften the misery of one
sister in Riga and the other here.

The necessary papers for
obtaining the visa have been
JEWISH EXPONENT
in your office for three months
and your favorable action in
this case will earn for you the
undying gratitude of two sisters.

Please kind sir, help us.

My grandmother did finally
arrive at Ellis Island on July 4,
1923, on a ship that had set sail
from England. She was reunited
with her sister in New York and
they both held piecework jobs in a
sweatshop, while attending night
school, learning English, going
to dances with young men and
enjoying life in the new world —
where they didn’t have to worry
about Cossacks, pogroms or being
recruited into the Russian Army.

Rose sent money to her parents
every month and believed in the
American dream.

She was like so many of the
young women who worked in
sweatshops in the U.S. in the
early 20th century. In March,
the month of the anniversary of
the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory
fire, we think about those who
died on March 25, 1911, in the
garment factory located in the
Asch Building in Washington
Square in New York City.

Many of the workers, like
my grandmother, had recently
arrived from Europe and held
piecework jobs in the factory.

And they were trapped — they
had no opportunity to escape
from the flames as the build-
ing collapsed. The doors were
See Bronstein, Page 16
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



O pinion
Rabbis Take Steps to Address
Harassment Issue
BY RABBI JOSHUA WAXMAN AND
RABBI JILL MADERER
ALL PEOPLE OF conscience
have been shaken and disturbed
by the revelations that have come
to light in recent months about
prominent public individuals
who have abused their power to
create hostile and humiliating
workplace environments
We have seen countless exam-
ples of people in power using
promises of advancement or
threats of demotion to demand
sexual favors from employees.

Of course, the organizations that
have employed these predators
have publicly promoted values of
respect for all employees and zero
tolerance for harassment, even
as they have privately devalued
and humiliated victims. The val-
ues these companies have pub-
licly espoused are not matched by
their inner workings.

In discussing the Ark, which
lay first at the center of the
Mishkan which the Israelites car-
ried with them in the desert and
then was housed in Solomon’s
Temple in Jerusalem, the rabbis
of the Talmud make an import-
ant observation. The Torah pro-
vides a detailed description of the
construction of the Ark, which
is to be made of acacia wood
and then covered with gold, both
inside and out (Exodus 25:11).

Given that the Ark is never
to be opened, the ancient rabbis
wonder why the inside needs to
be coated with gold just like
the outside. In response, they
derive the principle of “tocho
k’varo” — that our inner val-
ues must match our outward
appearances if our community
and our religious institutions
can be places where God can
truly dwell (B. Yoma 72b).

If the twinned problems of
sexual harassment and cov-
er-ups are out there in the wider
community, then they’re in
here, in our Jewish community.

Jewish communal leaders
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM have also been guilty of such
offenses. All of us have work to
do to prevent harassment, sexual
assault and devaluing or disre-
spectful language or behavior.

This includes Jewish leaders who
represent critical Jewish teach-
ings and values such as dignity
for all people — people who
should be held to the highest
standard for ethical behavior.

All of us, including in the
Jewish world, are at risk of putting
on one face in public but revealing
a different one in private. We need
to do the sacred work to ensure
that what is on the inside matches
what is on the outside.

The Board of Rabbis of
Greater Philadelphia recognizes
that we need to ensure our local
Jewish organizations are truly
embracing and living the ethi-
cal standards and values that we
publicly promote, including the
imperative of tocho k’varo.

As an organization, we have
joined with Jewish Federation of
Greater Philadelphia to create two
half-day trainings for synagogue
employees who hold supervisory
responsibilities. These trainings,
following the B’kavod: Safe,
Respectful Jewish Workplaces
curriculum, focus on the syna-
gogue environment and provide
crucial information and guidance
to improve our communal insti-
tutions and to commit to making
our synagogue communities safe
and supportive environments.

And the Board of Rabbis rec-
ognizes we need to do still more
— not just demanding that our
communal leaders to take part
in these crucial trainings, but
engaging in them ourselves. As
clergy we have an indispensable
role to play both in understanding
the dangers that people in posi-
tions of authority can fall into,
and in modelling our own moral
leadership by taking a clear stand
against harassment and abusive
conditions in our communities.

Therefore, the Board of Rabbis
has worked with the B’kavod
staff to create a special training
program for rabbis and cantors,
focusing on the issues we face as
spiritual leaders. The training will
take place next week, and we are
subsidizing the cost for all par-
ticipants to emphasize the vital
importance we place on making
sure our synagogues and the orga-
nizations where we work can be
safe and supportive for all people
who work, visit, and pray in them.

In a time of increasing aware-
ness around this critical issue,
our moral leadership demands
that we take a proactive stance
to help protect against dangers
and dynamics that we know
exist in the Jewish world, just as
in the wider world. The two of
us have solid feminist creden-
tials and consider ourselves sen-
sitive, aware and caring. Still,
we understand that we — all of
us — make mistakes and need
to learn how to do better.

While there is no precipitat-
ing event in the local commu-
nity that leads us to take this
step, we believe that raising and
responding to these issues is part
of our commitment and respon-
sibility as rabbis and spiritual
leaders, and we are grateful for
the opportunity for growth this
program and the conversations
that come out of it will provide.

The Ark was the place where,
according to Torah, God’s pres-
ence was most directly manifest.

If our synagogues are also to be
houses of God, we need to ensure
that, like the Ark, our inside
matches our outside. Only when
our highest values permeate
every aspect of what we do, inside
and out, are our synagogues wor-
thy of being places where God’s
presence can truly dwell. l
Rabbi Joshua Waxman is spiritual
leader of Congregation Or Hadash
in Fort Washington and is president
of the Board of Rabbis of Greater
Philadelphia. Rabbi Jill Maderer
is senior rabbi of Congregation
Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia.

JEWISH EXPONENT
KVETCH ’N KVELL
We’re Not Born to Hate
JOSHUA RUNYAN’S COLUMN (“How Do You Learn to
Hate?” Feb. 21) raised an important issue as he celebrated the
birth of his youngest son. A baby is, as he posited, the embodi-
ment of a tabula rasa, a clean slate, on which much will be writ-
ten, by his parents, his family, his community and so on.

So how does an innocent child grow to be a mensch or a
white supremacist (G-d forbid)? As Rodgers and Hammerstein’s
70-year-old musical South Pacific put it so cogently in their song
“You’ve Got to Be Taught to Hate”: “You’ve got to be taught from
year to year, it’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear ...

you’ve got to be taught.”
Racism is not born in you — it happens after you’re born.

Was a 4- or 5-year-old dressed in a KKK robe born hating black
people and Jews? Was a 10-year-old from Westboro Baptist
Church holding a sign that reads “G-d hates fags” born hating
gay people? No and no — they were both “carefully taught from
year to year.”
Rachel Garber | Philadelphia
Barrack Alums Support Unions
We are a Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy alumni family that
values human dignity, worker’s rights and social justice. We
learned about the importance of unions through the lifelong
dedication of our grandfather Leon Shore, who was one of the
founders and leaders of the Philadelphia Teachers Union.

We were lucky enough to learn in the homey walls of old
Akiba. Since changing the name and location, the only connec-
tion that we have is the teachers. Learning at Barrack is unique
due to the teacher’s support and commitment. The ethical work-
ing conditions, provided to the teachers through the union, is
precisely what enabled them to give it their all.

We are deeply concerned about the board’s decision to nullify
the union (“Barrack Board to No Longer Recognize Union,” Jan.

23). It was a point of pride that our private school had a strong
union. In Elon’s 13 years of teaching, he can attest that staff
are strongest and more dedicated when unionized. In order to
express our Jewish values of honoring work and labor, we should
have a union. Dissolving the teacher’s union is hypocritical and
a poor example for a Jewish institution.

We could never send our children to a school that was
involved in union busting. Happy teachers who are secure in
their jobs and able to take risks in their teaching create a warm
school environment. That is where we want to send our children.

We hope the board rethinks this decision, and we stand in
solidarity with the teachers. l
Elon Shore ’01 | Princeton, N.J.

Mira B. Shore ’06 | Philadelphia
Doron Shore ’12 | Botswana
Statement From the Publisher
We are a diverse community. The views expressed in the opinion columns and letters
published in the Jewish Exponent are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect
the views of the officers and boards of the Jewish Publishing Group and/or the Jewish
Federation of Greater Philadelphia. Send letters to letters@jewishexponent.com or fax to
215-569-3389. Letters should be a maximum of 200 words and may be edited for clarity
and brevity. Unsigned letters will not be published.

MARCH 7, 2019
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