Most members of the state Jewish community favor raising government-mandated minimum wages.
However, a raise in the minimum wage for Wisconsin that appears likely to be implemented in 2009 may adversely affect the Madison Jewish community’s day camp, Camp Shalom, forcing it to raise fees and, for the first time, turn away children whose families are unable to pay.
This was one of the matters discussed by 13 members of the board of the Wisconsin Jewish Conference, the community relations and state government monitoring organization, at their meeting Sunday. Others included:
• A controversy in Green Bay over the placement of a crèche (birth of Jesus) display at city hall for Christmas.
• Failed efforts to pass a law to get the State of Wisconsin Investment Board to divest from Sudan and Iran.
• Efforts by Paula Simon, executive director of the Milwaukee Jewish Council for Community Relations, to obtain reparations payments for Holocaust survivors who had done work in various European ghettos during World War II.
• The planned showing in a Green Bay museum of a touring exhibit from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum this November.
As reported by conference director Michael J. Blumenfeld, the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development has been working to promulgate a rule raising the state minimum wage to $7.25/hour effective this coming July 24.
Blumenfeld shared with the WJC board members a letter dated Aug. 15 written by Steven H. Morrison, executive director of the Madison Jewish Community Council, to Jennifer Ortiz, administrator of the DWD’s Equal Rights Division, and to Roberta Gassman, secretary of DWD in Gov. Jim Doyle’s cabinet.
Morrison wrote that the raise would equalize the wages for adult and teen workers at Camp Shalom, translating to an additional expense of $72,000 in 2009.
This would “overwhelm our already extraordinary scholarship program,” wrote Morrison, which provides full or partial scholarships to 20 to 25 percent of the campers.
Raising adequate scholarship funds “would likely be impossible, causing us, for the first time in 55 years, to turn away children because of their family’s inability to pay camper fees,” he wrote.
Blumenfeld and other participants did not know to what extent this issue might affect other Jewish camps in Wisconsin. But Blumenfeld said he felt “optimistic we can work something out” with DWD to lessen the possible negative effects of the measure.
In Green Bay last Christmas season, the city council, at the urging of then-council president Chad Fradette and other aldermen, placed a crèche display at the city hall.
During that time, Rabbi Shaina Bacharach of Congregation Cnesses Israel there and four area Christian clergy jointly signed a letter protesting the display, according to the synagogue’s Web site.
In addition, the Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation filed a lawsuit contending that the display violated church-state separation.
However, according to the foundation’s Web site and an editorial in the Sept. 12 Green Bay Press Gazette, Green Bay Mayor Jim Schmitt met recently with local clergy to develop a policy that would keep the display secular.
On Monday, Sept. 15, U.S. District Court Judge William Griesbach listened to about two hours of argument in the case and said that he will issue a written decision within 30 days.
Conference board member Joel Pittelman of Milwaukee asked the Green Bay members whether the conference should be helping in this effort. Green Bay member Tom Pick replied that it probably was not necessary as “most of Green Bay” is opposed to religious displays in city hall.
Blumenfeld reported that a bill to divest Wisconsin from companies doing business in Sudan in protest of the genocide in the Darfur region there “went nowhere” during the past legislative session.
Because of that, “my sense is that it would be more challenging” to bring up a similar measure regarding Iran, because that “brings in the Middle East,” Blumenfeld said.
Simon discussed the German government’s Ghetto Fund, which provides a $3,000 payment to Holocaust survivors who performed work in the various European ghettos during World War II — “what many of us believe to be the final Holocaust survivor reparation program,” she said.
Simon reported that she is “the only one in the state trained to file the forms” for this and that she has assisted 13 people with them so far. She asked conference members to convey information about this effort to survivors in their communities.
Simon also announced that 86 Wisconsin schoolteachers will travel to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on Sept. 22.
The Green Bay members announced that the Neville Public Museum of Brown County will be hosting a touring exhibit from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Fighting the Fires of Hate: America and the Nazi Book Burnings,” Nov. 13-Jan. 11.
Libbie Miller of Green Bay said the exhibit is “a first for our museum.”
In other community news reported at the meeting:
• Congregation Emanu-El of Waukesha will be celebrating its 70th anniversary in 2009 and will be having its first-ever congregational trip to Israel around this Thanksgiving, according to Mark Levy of Waukesha.
• Congregation B’nai Israel in Oshkosh this spring will be marking its 60th anniversary in its current building and has recently made the building handicapped accessible, which Oshkosh member Barbara Kuhn called “a major investment.”
Attending this meeting were members of Jewish communities in Appleton, Green Bay, Madison, Milwaukee, Oshkosh, plus a member in Wausau who participated by speakerphone.
The conference is a program of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation.
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