By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO — U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was lauded Tuesday, April 1, by members of the Jewish Community Center Association of North America for legislation that has benefitted Jews and other minorities in America.
A presentation by former recipient Ronald L. Leibow of the Frank L. Weil jewish Military Award to the Michigan Democrat actually was made in the Senate offices in Washington, D.C., prior to the convention in San Diego. A video of the occasion was shown to delegates in San Diego at a luncheon at which touring young pianist Ethan Bortnick also performed.
The award was named for Frank L.Weil who served as national president of the Jewish Welfare Board, now known as the JWB, between 1940 and 1950. The JWB was formed during World War I to provide materials and nominations for rabbis to serve the spiritual needs of Jews in the American military.
Leibow said that Senator Levin had been an active voice in behalf of Jewish chaplains in the military, care for wounded warriors, reproductive rights for women in the miitary, and the authorization for a memorial at Arlington National Cemetery for fallen Jewish chaplains.
He also noted that Levin helped blocked efforts by Messianic Jews to have their religious leaders designated by the military as “rabbis”–which might confuse Jewish soldiers about the Messianic movement, which is an arm of Christianity.
In the videotape of the short presentation ceremony, with the seal of the U.S. Senate behind them, Levin told Leibow that he is a “proud Jew,” though “not always the most observant” — a comment that drew appreciative laughs from many in the audience who consider themselves secular.
Levin said one of the accomplishments of which he is the most proud was passage fo the Lenny Kravitz Act in honor of the father of the popular singer of the same name, who manned a machine gun to cover the retreat of his platoon and, as their lonely defender, was killed while saving them.
Over the years there was considerable suspicion that Jews and members of other minority groups were discriminated against in the awarding of America’s highest miitary honor, the Medal of Honor. Under terms of the legislation, the Pentagon reviewed the records of people who might have qualified for Medals of Honor and found that a score of people, like Kravitz, had been shortchanged in the official accolades.
On a more personal note, Levin –whose brother Sandor is a member of the House of Representatives, also from Michigan — said that their mother and father always had been active in the Jewish Community Center of their home town, and that his mother, additionally, was devoted to Hadassah.
In another Frank L. Weil Award ceremony, Alan P. Solow, a past JCCA president, presented to J. Victor Samuels, a lay leader at the Houston, Texas, JCC, a plaque in celebration of his work as a business entrepreneur and philanthropist.
Looking over his long career, Samuels said among his proudest achievements were leading a campaign to integrate the public schools of Houston by electing a pro-integration majority to the Houston school board. As a result, he said his city became thefirst city in the southern section of the United States to voluntarily integrate its school systems.
Later, when he became president of the JCC in Houston, he said, it was a time when women’s rights were being raised in everyone’s consciousness. To help women be whatever they wanted in their careers, he said, he helped to establish a nursery program at the JCC that provided children as young as six weeks old full-day care.
In another initiative, he said, Samuels noted that there were 13 days a year that the JCC was closed for religious holidays which left working women without a place where they could entrust their children, and also left some seniors without nourishing lunches.
He said he met with an Orthodox rabbi and persuaded him to allow the JCC to be open on a limited basis for the good and welfare of the little children and the seniors.
Among other notable moments during the luncheon at the Hilton Bayfront Hotel were acknowledgments of the longevity of some individual JCCs across the nation, building up from 25 years (Jacksonville, Miss) to 50 (Greater Boston), to 75 (Portland, Maine) to 100 (West Hartford, Conn.; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Kansas City, Missouri) and finally to 125 years of the existence of the Louisville, Kentucky, JCC.
Pianist and singer Bortnick, 13, made his television debut as a 7-year-old prodigy on the Oprah Winfrey television show and has since been regularly on concert tour, often appearing with top popular music stars. He opened with Mozart’s “Rondo alla Turca” from Piano Sonata No. 11 in A Majorl followed up with the pop standard, “Dancing in the Streets” and then performed “Anything is Possible,” a song he composed, inspired by his baby brother surviving three heart surgeries and going on to become quite active.
Some lyrics:
Believe in Yourself
Suddenly Evertyhing is Magical
Believe in Yourself
Anything is Possible.
As his bar mitzvah project last year, Bortnick toured JCC’s around North America and is continuing that tour this year. Some upcoming dates: April 6, Chandler, Arizona; April 23, Atlanta, Georgia; May 8, Houston; May 11, Cleveland; May 15, Green Bay, Wisconsin; May 21, Charlotte, N.C.; May 25, Charleston, W.V.; May 29, Syracuse, n.Y.; June 1, Reading, Pennsylvania; June 8, Cincinatti; June 15, Memphis; June 22, Portland, Oregon; and June 26, Seattle.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be reached at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com