____________________ The Jewish Citizen              by Donald H. Harrison

Are people really kind?  Pat Feldman is so sure they are, we can bank on it!

SAN DIEGO—While out to a D.Z. Akins Deli dinner last evening with cousins Bruce and Pat Feldman, Nancy and I learned that Pat had asked Bruce for an unusual 57th birthday gift earlier this year: a design contract for a new website that she had been mulling since her mother, Phyllis Berue, had died two years earlier in Philadelphia.

It was to be a website all about kindness.

The idea came to her after she spoke at her mother’s funeral about a formative mother-daughter interaction. Today, Pat lives a comfortable life.  She has a good job with the Internal Revenue Service, and Bruce is a Navy dermatologist with the rank of captain.  The Feldmans have raised four grown children in Solana Beach.  They also are active in nearby Cardiff by the Sea at Temple Solel, where Pat is a former Sisterhood president and is

now chair of the social action committee. 

However, when Pat was growing up as one of seven children, her family was so poor that they were on welfare. 

In those days the Berues thought a lot about having enough food.  Pat contributed the money that she earned as a babysitter to the household budget. After school, her younger brother, Paul, used to stock the shelves at a local grocery store for which he would be paid in food items.  And the family received from the government welfare assistance in the form of food stamps.

One of the benefits of food stamps back then was that if you shopped at a participating market you would receive in proportion to your purchase some S&H Green Stamps that could be redeemed for consumer goods.  The more books you filled up with the green stamps, the more expensive the item that could be redeemed.

The Berue family decided that they would save up for a toaster—and Pat recalled how as a 12-year-old she anticipated the feel of the toast on her tongue, the taste of melting butter, and even, perhaps, the sweetness of some jam. 

It was her job to lick the stamps and paste them into the booklets. When, at last, they finally had enough for a toaster, Pat and her mother walked together to the redemption center. 

 “As we were looking at the toaster, and my mother kept looking at the books, I said, ‘mom, it is okay, we have enough books and we’re going to get the toaster.’  There was a young girl there, she must have been 18, maybe 19, and she was looking at the toaster also, and she had a baby in a stroller and one on her hip.  She did not have enough books for the toaster, and I knew that my mother was going to give her all those books, and I thought, ‘here it goes,’ and she did, of course.  Then she turned around and said to me, ‘come on sweetie,’ and we just walked home in silence.”

That was the story that Pat told at her mother’s funeral, and “it stimulated a feeling in me that I want to give back.  I realized that what my mother gave me was a kind heart, to be kind to others. 

“That was why I wanted to start The Kindness Bank (www.kindnessbank.com),” Pat said.  “I realized that I had to go out into the world and help change the world one kind act at a time, and hopefully inspire people to do the same thing, especially today with the war in Iraq, and violence in the world, and killing because of religion—that’s what I want to do.”

Pat's brother, Paul, is similarly motivated.  Today the owner of the Pickles Plus Deli in Philadelphia, his employees know never to turn a hungry person away.  "They know they should give them a seat and a cup of coffee," Pat said.

Cousin Bruce told us that when the Kindness Bank project began, “I was skeptical; I thought this sounded way too altruistic, a little too sweet to really have much an effect, but I have actually seen people respond to Patricia, and it seems to touch a very sensitive spot.  People think for a moment back to someone who was kind to them during their upbringing—a teacher, or a mentor, or a coach, or someone who gave them a break or a chance, and a little light goes on and a story comes.”

At the IRS offices downtown where Pat works, “there are some people who are under stress because of the nature of the work they do, and I was most surprised that they were looking at the site,” Bruce said.  “People have come to her after experiencing road rage, or professional rage, or stressful encounters, and telling her, ‘I sorely need your site.  I need to tap into something good or nice.’”

Visitors to the site will encounter a video of Pat telling the story about her mother and the Green Stamps, and also explaining why she decided to treat Ana, a cafeteria worker, to a manicure and also to contribute some money to help Ana pay that month's mortgage.   Ana is one of those nice people who remembers what workers like to eat, and just how they like it prepared.

The services of the cameraman who shot the video were donated by his employer, Leo Benevides, whom Pat met on a Temple Solel retreat where she had volunteered as a counselor.  One kindness can lead to another.

It seemed surreal, amid the plenty of bountiful D.Z. Akins dinners, to be listening to stories about hungry people, but such is an irony that we all should remember: that amidst plenty, there is hunger.

Several of the stories on the website posted by Pat deal with providing food for homeless people.  Knowing the story about how her own family had to worry about where its food would come from, it is clear why Pat so readily extends a hand in kindness to the homeless people who many others pretend not to see.  She knows that it is not only lazy people are poor or homeless.

Pat also told us the story of George Lee, a man who belongs to a club that likes to restore old Mustangs.  One day he arranged for members of his club to pick up patients at Balboa Naval Hospital, where Bruce is assigned, and to take them to a car show.  Other club members stayed behind at the Naval Hospital, getting a surprise ready for the patients.  They donated a reconditioned golf car which they had modified to transport patients with casts of various kinds from building to building of the hospital complex.

Readers who want to share their stories about kindness—whether it was an act that they gained satisfaction from doing, or one which they were the beneficiary of receiving—now have a place to relate their stories on Pat’s website, which carries no advertisements. 

You see, www.kindnessbank.com  is intended not for profit, but as an example of the very idea it promotes.

Kindness.




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Three recommendations for changing Jewish education

By Alan Rusonik

SAN DIEGO—A study was recently produced by the Jewish Education Services of North America (JESNA) which is a national Jewish education agency whose mission is to make vibrant, inspiring, and truly excellent Jewish education available in every community in North America.   The study should be of interest and importance to our Jewish community in general and to individuals involved more directly in Jewish education in particular.

The study is titled “Redesigning Jewish Education for the 21^st Century,” and is a working paper from JESNA’s Lippman Kanfer Institute. The study suggests that the new environment in which Jewish education operates in the 21st century demands a new set of design principles for Jewish education itself. The design principles that it proposes are built around three key concepts:

1. Empowering the Learner - Empowering the learner as an active agent in fashioning his/her own learning experience.

2. The Centrality of Relationships - The centrality of relationships and the social experience of learning as dynamic forces that shape an evolving identity and build commitment and community in a fragmented world.

3. Life-Centered Jewish Education - Jewish learning as “life-centered,” addressing the totality of our aspirations, concerns, and experiences.

Over the past few years, many schools and congregations have made changes in the way they approach Jewish education that have been innovative, effective and impactful; however, the changes are only marginal and not systemic nor do these changes “embrace complex change on multiple levels” which is what is needed if we truly want to address today’s challenges and today’s realities.

As I read the study, many questions came to my mind, among them were: How ready are we to make these changes?  How willing are we to take the necessary risks associated with these changes?  What is my role in the process (as a teacher, a school director, a parent, a community member?)  What are the resources (both financial and human) that are necessary to make these changes?  The answers to these and many other questions will be critical in seeking systemic change in our community.

The Agency for Jewish Education wants to be at the forefront in facilitating this change.  However, the AJE cannot lead this change alone.  We need the help and support of the entire Jewish community, including you, our local educators, who will be key to the change process.  As the AJE moves forward in redesigning Jewish education for the 21^st century, parts of this study will act as a guide in the process.  I encourage you to read the study, which is available on-line at www.jesna.org and I welcome your thoughts, suggestions and input.  Together, we can make a difference in the quality and design of Jewish education in San Diego and make San Diego a model for a creative, exciting, accessible and meaningful community of Jewish learners!

Rusonik is executive director of the Agency for Jewish Education in San Diego