Pearl's last words inspire book of essays
Northbrook Star, May 11, 2006
BY KEN GOZE STAFF WRITER

Four years ago, in the moments before he was murdered, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl looked into the camera set up by terrorists who had kidnapped him in Pakistan and said, "My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish."

What his executioners apparently took as a confession, Jews around the world saw as an act of defiance and dignity, an affirmation of core identity by a man who was not particularly religious but proud of who he was.

Ric Bachrach of Northbrook's Temple Beth-El saw it as a wake-up call, for himself and everyone else in his congregation to take stock of what it really means to be Jewish.Expanding on a project first launched by Pearl's father, Judea, synagogue leaders asked the more than 700 families in the congregation to try to define their identity in essays.

More than 200 answers were recently compiled into a book and a short video in preparation for Judea Pearl's appearance at 7 p.m. May 19 at the temple, at 3610 Dundee Road. The event is free and open to the public.

"The answers are all over the map, and it's one of those beautiful things where there's no wrong answer, but congregants have sent in things" relating to every theme imaginable, Bachrach said. "Some came from faith, some from culture, some from food, some from lifestyle. It means something different to everybody."

Even without the fear of getting a wrong answer, many participants found it to be a difficult piece of writing because they had never tried to reduce such a big part of their life into words. In her essay, congregation member Ellen Hattenbach answered the question without ever taking it head-on. She described preparing Kosher meals, for family rituals of passage and for a trip to Israel, but said she is too busy living Judaism to come up with some sterile definition of it. "It's just the way I live, and I express it that way, so writing it was very difficult," said Hattenbach, who also serves on the committee which coordinated the essay project and other activities around the "I am Jewish" theme.

Susan and Marc Levine's essays were outlets that let them examine why they bothered to reconnect with and actively practice their faith as adults. In one sense, Susan Levine said, both she and her husband were in a perfect position to take their identity for granted. Both their families are American-born Jews going back three generations. The appeal of practicing the religion now for her is the support that comes from being part of a community in the congregation. She was reminded of that with the recent death of her grandmother.

Susan and Marc Levine's essays were outlets that let them examine why they bothered to reconnect with and actively practice their faith as adults. In one sense, Susan Levine said, both she and her husband were in a perfect position to take their identity for granted. Both their families are American-born Jews going back three generations. The appeal of practicing the religion now for her is the support that comes from being part of a community in the congregation. She was reminded of that with the recent death of her grandmother.

"They send their condolences, they come and then you go to services, which we do regularly, and you say the blessing, you say the prayer for those who have died, and for 11 months I will hear my grandmother's name and mourn with the temple community," Susan Levine said. Marc Levine said he also wrote about a sense of community because it is ultimately what helped him reconsider his faith. His family moved to Northbrook when he was in sixth grade.

"As soon as I was Bar Mitzvahed, I was out the door. I wanted nothing more to do with religion or synagogue or anything, and I sort of got dragged back into religion kicking and screaming when I started dating" Susan, Marc Levine said. "I wound up getting very involved because it was a warm, friendly place, and it became a community, not only someplace to go for spiritual matters but it also someplace we went to and we found friends and other parts of our social life."

He now serves as the congregation's vice president for education. After reading Pearl's book and selling the idea to the congregation, Bachrach found the question so difficult that he wrote four separate essays to tackle the issue. He has been struggling with the some form of the question for six years, since he found himself at a turning point. By his late 30s, he decided he needed to get something more from his faith if he was to stay with it at all. He did stay with it after a long talk with Rabbi Sidney Helbraun.

"I said to him, 'I'm not sure where I stand on the whole issue of God,' and he laughed and he said, 'Well, join the club,' (meaning) that it's a vast group you belong to and let's talk," Bachrach said.

From the thousands of years of tradition and writings that came out of Judaism, Bachrach said he found one story that helped define his own understanding. It involved a Torah scholar who as punishment by persecutors was forced to preach the entire Torah while hopping on one foot. "He basically said that the essence of the Torah was to treat others as you would be treated yourself, that everything else is just commentary," Bachrach said. "For me what does 'I am Jewish' mean? It means that it's a way of life, it's a way of understanding where we fit as part of a community and how we treat other people."

For more information on Judea Pearl's May 19 appearance, call the temple office at (847) 205-9982.