By Diana Brement,
JTNews Columnist
Editor’s note: This article has been corrected regarding the status of the Buckholtzes lay leadership certification.
Alison Buckholtz became the Jewish lay leader of the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station — by default.
As the family — husband Scott and little ones Ethan and Estee — prepared to move to the Northwest in 2006, she called the NAS chaplain’s office. She’d already heard there was no organized Jewish presence on Whidbey, so was surprised when an assistant told her about an Oak Harbor synagogue. A little research revealed it was a Messianic congregation. That made her mad.
“It’s hard enough being a Jew in this part of the country,” says Alison.
She quickly contacted the base chaplain who “could not have been more understanding. He absolutely, immediately understood the implications,” but complained that they didn’t have a Jewish lay leader. So she volunteered herself and her husband, too — unbeknownst to him, as he was elsewhere on base at the time.
She began by organizing a High Holiday dinner. She ordered kosher wine and went “to Safeway and talked to them about round challah,” exactly as she would have done in Potomac, Md., where the family had lived (in a very Jewish neighborhood) before Anacortes, and where she grew up.
“Nobody called,” she says. ” I felt like a jilted bride.”
A Hanukkah party two months later was much more successful, attracting 30 people. That mix of military and local families now forms the core (corps?) of the station’s Jewish group.
While she grew up attending services regularly, Alison says her kids, ages 5 and 3, are getting a completely different experience. “We do everything at our house,” which they think of as a community center.
The family was recognized by the Seattle Hebrew Academy for Veterans Day.
“It was really a moving ceremony,” Alison says, “I was very honored.”
It was an eye-opener for Ethan.
“He has Jewish friends and there’s a community [here],” but a whole school of Jewish kids amazed him.
Alison and Scott are both certified as lay leaders by the Jewish Welfare Board, which provides resources and support. Chabad’s Aleph Institute also helps, and Alison has attended events in Bellingham both at Chabad and at the town’s Reform synagogue, Congregation Beth Israel.
A journalist, Alison’s work has appeared in many prestigious national publications. Her book, Standing By: The Making of an American Military Family in Time of War, will be published by Penguin in the spring and can be pre-ordered at Amazon. For information about the NAS Whidbey Jewish group call the chaplain’s office 360-257-2414.
|||
Noah Leavitt, president of Congregation Beth Israel in Walla Walla, and his wife, Helen Kim, are working on a study of intermarriage between Asian and Jewish Americans, which springs from personal interest.
“It just so happens we fit the demographic of the types of couples we’re interested in,” Helen explained.
They know many similar couples, and keep hearing of more.
Helen, a professor of sociology at Whitman College specializing in race and ethnic studies, and Noah, who has a law degree and lectures at the college, have teamed up with Be’chol Lashon (In Every Tongue), the research and community-building arm of the Institute for Jewish & Community Research. This San Francisco-based non-profit think tank informs Jews and the general public about Jewish racial diversity (bechollashon.org/projects/asian_study.php).
The couple says there’s little research on the subject and almost nothing examining Jewish-Asian interracial and interfaith marriage.
They’re beginning by gathering stories through interviews and an online survey which, launched a few weeks ago, has had over 100 responses (it’s on the Web site). The greatest number come from the West Coast, including Western Washington, where there appear to be “oodles” of such couples. They hope the study will circulate around the country so they can determine regional variations.
Both Noah, who grew up in Ithaca, N.Y., and Helen, who grew up in the Bay Area, are involved in their local congregation, a community of about 35 families.
“It’s real frontier Judaism,” says Noah. “Do it yourself or it doesn’t get done.”
Helen grew up with many Jewish friends and dated other Jewish men before meeting Noah in graduate school.
“I started more seriously incorporating Jewish practice into my life,” in college, she says, and conversion has become “more of an interest…I just need to find the time and right person to study with.”
The couple had their first child this summer. Ari is four months old and Noah and Helen hosted the first mohel-conducted bris in Walla Walla, “for as long as we can remember.” (Dr. Aaron Witz of Swedish Hospital did the honors.)
Because of growing racial diversity among Jews, Helen says, “it’s not unsurprising…that I would feel comfortable doing this now as opposed to 20 years ago [and] especially now that we have a kid.”
The stereotypical racial picture of what an American Jew looks like still creates a challenge for the non-white Jewish college kids who Helen speaks to regularly.
“All aspects of their identity are questioned because of what they look like,” she says. “One of the cool things [Be’chol Lashon] is doing is trying to dispel that image…There is no one race attached to the Jews, but I think understandably it’s very common for people to fit a kind of face with what American Jews look like.”