“I need a fix — of being with dynamic women,” said Hannah Rosenthal, executive director of the national Jewish Council for Public Affairs, to the more than 200 people gathered for the annual meeting of the Women’s Division of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation May 3 at Brynwood Country Club.
As she looked at her audience, Rosenthal added, “And I’m getting my hit.”
Dynamism seems to be the keyword for the Women’s Division, the second largest division in the federation’s 2001 Community Campaign.
Addressing attendees before Rosenthal’s talk, campaign chair Marlene Lauwasser praised the volunteers for their accomplishments in raising more than $2.2 million for the campaign, which she said “reflects a 6.5 percent increase to date over last year.”
Terri Stevens received the 2001 Ann Agulnick Young Leadership Award in recognition of her leadership, awareness and commitment to the challenges of Jewish communal life, and dedication to the continuity of the Jewish people.
Stevens said she learned about volunteering from her mother when she was a young girl, “wrapping holiday gifts for ORT at Southridge shopping center.” She said she hopes “to teach these same values to my children.”
She was active in B’nai B’rith Girls, where she believes she learned the skills she now uses in her work with the federation. Supporting BBYO is vital, she said, because “it’s important to keep teens involved with other Jewish teens.”
In other action, Penny Deshur was installed as the organization’s president, succeeding Jody Kaufman Loewenstein, who has completed two terms in the position. Other officers include Marlene Lauwasser, Joyce Lefco, Julie Gorens-Winston, Susan Angel Miller, Shari Sadek, Andrea Schneider, Judy Shapiro and Terri Stevens, vice presidents.
Washington update
Former Wisconsinite Rosenthal urged attendees to become more involved in the political process during her talk, “Washington Update: United or Divided?”
“The spinmeisters,” she said, “are doing a terrible disservice to us.” They would want us to believe “that we are moving toward the middle and that we are going to see less divisiveness in Washington. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Although she’s not sure how Israel will be affected by this climate, Rosenthal believes that “the alliance between the American people and Israel will remain strong. Recent polls, even those taken during the intifada, show this, and we didn’t think we’d see this.”
“However,” she cautioned, “we need to let our elected officials know that we care about peace and our extended families in Israel, and that we care about the current disengagement policy of the [George W.] Bush administration. Peace does not happen at the level of disengagement we are currently seeing, and we don’t know where it will lead.”
Likewise, on the domestic front, Rosenthal fears that Bush appointments, like that of John Ashcroft as attorney general, the push for charitable choice in faith-based programs, inadequate budget increases for education, the real possibility that women could lose many rights depending on the voting and composition of the Supreme Court, and the tax cut will further polarize society at the expense of “fairness and fundamental values.”
“We have a record surplus that we read about all the time. But is the country and its elected officials saying that this offers an opportunity to invest in areas we couldn’t before?”
“No,” she said emphatically. “The poor are getting poorer and more desperate. The rich are getting richer, and the middle class will disappear. The Bush administration wants to give some money back through its tax cut, but 44 percent of it is going to the richest 1 percent of the people in this country. In the education field, it wants to give the money back, but through vouchers, and it wants to deal with societal problems by giving money to religious groups through charitable choice.”
“It is time for us to do something,” Rosenthal said. “What three things should Jews do? Torah, which speaks to our love of and concern for education; chuppah, which is literally marriage but speaks to strengthening families of all sorts and our community; and Ma’asim Tovim, which is good deeds — and a call to action.
“We need to look into the eyes of power and know that we can do something. We need to speak to whomever we can, and as often as we can, about fundamental values and issues of fairness for women, children and the poor in our country.”
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