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Page 2-THE NEWS-May 1980 THE CHARLOTTE JEWISH NEWS Published monthly by: Charlotte Jewish Federation and Jewish Community Center Marvin Bienstock, Director Charlotte Hebrew Academy Rabbi Stmford Tucker, Director Editors A.nn Longman Rita Mond Club Editors. Rose Massachi & Mary Gordon Feature Writers Estelle Hoffman Muriel Levitt & Michael Shapiro International News Marta Garelik Copy Reader Fran Burg Copy detuiline the 8th of each month P.O. Box U220188 Charlotte, N.C. 28222 Prom the Director ... by Marvin Bienstock ^^toria^ The Emigrants A Loving and Giving People It is a well known fact that the Jewish people have been emigrants throughout history. This dates back to the days when we first traveled into Egypt and sojourned there to become slaves unto Pharoah. Tlien we emi^ated back to the Promised Land from whence many of us again left for other lands, and we became a scattered people only to run firom the despots, the pogroms and the Holocaust. But throughout we have pursued, cherished and em braced freedom. Wanderers? Refugees? In any gathering of Jews, it is rare to find one who lives in the same city, state or sometimes even country where their forefathers were bom and lived. One factor has always remained constant; no matter where we have lived we have been contributors. Contributors to society in many fields, such as art, music, medicine and politics. We all know the famous contributions made to mankind by Jews, but what about the every day lesser contributions that we have made to the communities where we live. We stick our necks out, sometimes too far, but we also help to make this world a better place to live for ourselves, our children, our children’s children and also our neighbors. We can still give more of ourselves. Recently many of us attended a seminar on volunteerism. Hopefully the impact of th^a seminar provided the impetus to revive volunteerism in our community. ITiough we may only sojourn here, let us utilize our resourcefulness to help make Charlotte an even better pilace. If you are called upon by any of the local organizations to help, we sincerely hope your response will be an enthusiastic “YES!” The Tables Are Turned As we were readying to go to press with this issue, we were pleasantly surprised by a phone call from Judy Gaultney of The Charlotte News requesting an interview about our work as editors of The Charlotte Jewish News. Eager to publicize our fledgling newspaper we ecstatically said, “We’d be delighted!” She arrived during our Hrst session of editing copy for this issue with photographer Jeep Hunter in tow. What a different feeling it is to be “on the opposite side of the table.” Instead of us firing questions and quickly jotting down the remarks, it was Judy instead. She watched and listened patiently as we worked and chatted incessemtly. All the while Jeep was busily snapping candid shots from every angle, amidst a very cluttered and disorganized kitchen work table. Judy is a lovely, competent reporter who made us feel at ease with all her many questions. We spoke about the beginnings of the paper, our trials and tribulations, and our able and helpful staff whose help we could not do without. After a short while, Judy became more of a friend to us than a reporter. On page 5 we have taken the liberty of reprinting the story as it appeared in The Charlotte News on April 12th for those of you who may not have read it. Judy really captured our thoughts and feel ings concerning the inception and continuation of this newspaper and its impact on the community. From our first issue to the present “we have gone a long way,” but there is still a long road ahead of us to realize all of our goals. We sincerely thank Judy for her time and her excellent article. Across The Editors^ Desks The Editors welcome comments and letters express ing all points of view and reserve the right to edit. 11118 space is reserved for our readers. Please let us hear from you. People have troubles. That’s a sad but real fact of life. Sometimes the troubles are relatively small like strained communications between hus band and wife or parent and child. Sometimes the troubles are overwhelming as in divorce, death of a spouse, alcoholism, loss of a job or taking care of an aging parent. When troubles strike, the wise thing to do is to seek under standing assistance in solving them. Sometimes that help can come from a relative or fnend. At other times it is a Rabbi, or psychologist, or counselor to whom a person can turn. And then again, there are some problems for which there is little assistance available. For the past year, the Board of the Federation has been addressing itself to developing a counseling service to provide help in two such critical areas, vocational and geriatric problems. It began with an awareness that a number of peo ple each year come to Charlotte to take a specific job and find themselves unemployed when things just don’t work out. The Board also was aware that job loss was and is happening to es tablished Charlotte Jews as well as to newcomers. Tlien there are the spouses who, out of necessi ty as well as choice, are trying to enter the job market. Sometimes the circumstances are beyond the control of the employee. Other times the prevailing problems are within the personality of the employee. Above and beyond all this, there are often other employers with just the right jobs available, but there is no system of com munication to get employer and employee together. A trained social worker of the kind employed by Jewish Vocational Services around the country could be of inestimable help. It also began with the painful awareness of the problems of the elderly and the effects of these problems on their children. Condominium conver sions and increased rental costs have made separate housing ex tremely difficult to find. The up ward spiral of medical costs presents a grim spectre which often prevents an older adult from seeking early treatment. Added together with the general financial climate of the com munity the result is increased tension and upset between generations. A trained social worker could not only help families to better understand and deal with each other, but also provide the resources whereby families could work on viable solutions. Perhaps you are asking how one social worker can do such a wide variety of tasks. The Com mittee on Social Service ' appointed by the Federation Board asked the same question. Under the chairpersonship of Pearl Kier and committee members Stan Greenspon, Judi Strause, Aaron Gleiberman and Sally Schrader countless hours have been spent working on just that question and on the problem as a whole. They have discovered that a trained MSW (Master of Social Work) leams two skills. The first is the ability to help people help themselves by putting problems into perspective and by planning, step by step, work toward solutions. The second skill is the ability to gather information on all the available community resources which can be of assistance and to help people get to these resources efficiently and effectively. There is one more part to this second skill and that is the ability to create resources, such as a job bank, by developing and working with appropriate members of the community. A competent social worker is much like a family practice doc tor. She/he can work with peo ple in a wide variety of problems with the understanding of when a specialist is needed and who that specialist could be. The Social Service Committee and the Federation Board have gone far beyond the preliminary stage. The funds for bringing such a social worker to Charlotte have been allocated for a pilot period. They have also instituted a national search for candidates. The criteria in cludes an MSW or PhD in Psy chology, an understanding of and commitment to the Jewish community and practical ex perience in either or both vocational and geriatric ser vices as well as general counsel ing. The Committee feels the applicants should not be from Charlotte because of the in timate nature of the work and difficulty in reorienting from friend or neighbor to social worker. You can be of great help to the Committee. Perhaps you know someone living elsewhere who is qualified and might be interest- Why not get in touch and ask that their resume be sent to the Social Service Committee, Charlotte Jewish Federation, P.O. Box 220188, Charlotte, N.C. 28222. If you would like more details before making con tact you may call me at 366-0358 or Pearl Kier at 366-4317. Freedom For All The Honorable Julius Rousseau Judge of the N.C. Superior Court Iredell County Cou^ouse Statesville, N.C. 28677 Dear Judge Rousseau: 1 must take exception to your ruling of FViday, Nterch 28,1980 in the case involving the Old Time Fiddlers’ Convention. I was stunned by the implications involved. I have no special interest in the convention, or the activities that allegedly occurred during the annual weekend. I will leave the defense of the convention itself to civil libertarians. But according to the report in The- Charlotte Observer, you said in open court: “lliis is not SPEAKING OUT “Hooray! Fve been summoned for jurf duty!" the kindoffunctiontobeheldon Easter weekend, when people’s minds are focused on history’s greatest event — the resurrec tion of our Lord and Savior — the two things don’t coincide.” I would respectfully contend that your action is a violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, to wit: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Your action in effect establishes Christianity as the state religion, because you per mitted this convention to be put on, on any other weekend. Bas ed on this precedent, other judges could well decide to ban other activities on Easter weekend, in effect saying that the rights of those who were not Christian did not matter. For the people of my faith, Easter Sunday is not a special day, though as you can see from the enclosed bulletin, our young people are serving as baby sitters at a nearby church on Easter Sunday so those good Christians can attend their ser vice. But in a society free of a state religion, all normal forms of entertainment and commerce ought to be permissible on Easter (even if those who or dinarily provide such entertain ment and commerce voluntari ly choose to close for religious reasons). Your reasoning would force the closing of the beach resorts on Easter weekend, traditional ly a major source of income for them. You would ban the Greater Greensboro Open. Ob viously, most of those attend ing this event would be Christians. On the other hand, suppose we said that Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement and holiest day of the Jewish calendar, also had to be a total holiday — a tit for tat situation wiUi Easter. I would contend that mandatory closing of all business and in dustry would be just as wrong there. And surely we have all seen the problems with the Blue Laws, because, ^ually applied, they would require three days of closing a week — on FViday because it is the Moslem Sa^ bath, from sundown FViday to sundown Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, and all day Sunday, the Christian Sabl^th. Tlie country might well benefit from such an enforced four-day work week, but it would be at the ex pense of a tremendous burst of inflation. I hope you will reconsider your action, which, as I said, sets a dangerous precedent. It is enough that Pierce Van Hoy voluntarily decided not to have the convention on Easter weekend, without making such a move mandatory. The majority of people in America may well be Christians, but there are millions who are Jewish and millions more of other faiths who do not believe in Christiani ty. America, though a land where the majority rules, has never been a land where the rights of minorities were denied for long. 1 hope that Jong-stand ing constitutional principle did not begin to be reversed on Fri day, March 28, 1980 in your courtroom. Thank you for your considera tion. Sincerely, Robert Conn President, Temple Beth El
The Charlotte Jewish News (Charlotte, N.C.)
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