Friday, September 13, 1974—THE BULLETIN—7
A. BREITBART
JEWISH HISTORY
Instructor: AARON BREITBART REGISTER FIRST NIGHT OF CLASSES THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19th, 7:30 p.m.
Major Trends in Jewish History from the time of JesHS, medieval period. Golden Age in Spain, Crusaders, Jewish Mysticism, Enlightenment, New World, Zionism, Holocaust and Israel.
Offered for the First Time TEN THURSDAYS — 7:30 - 9:30 p.m. ot LANGARA COLLEGE 49th Avenue near Combie Street
Under Co-Auspices of Voncouver School Board and Conodion Zionist Federation, Pacific Region
Atlaiito housewife revives Jewisli inmates 'Congregofion'
ATLANTA — A 48-year-old housewife and former Hebrew teacher has stimulated regular worship services and Jewish discussion meetings for some 40 Jewish inmates who comprise Temple Yaacov, the Jewish congregation aA the Atlanta federal penitentiary.
Mrs. Connie Giniger, mother of two grown daughters and an activist in B'nai B'rith community programs in Atlanta, has been bringing candles and grape juice —wine is banned—for the Sabbath blessings and arranging celebrations like the seder for over 18 months.
A letter from one of the inmates to B'nai B'rith headquarters in Washington, asking for prayer books, got Mrs. Giniger started.
Her first visit to the prison was an emotional experience. She said she kept thinking of all the prison movies she had seen.
Normally 15 inmates occasionally attended the makeshift Friday services, but word had spread of her first visit and on that day 40 came.
She recalls that in the conver- ^ sation that followed, the prisoners asked for prayerbooks and books on Jewish history and culture, as well as contact with Jews "on the outside."
She asked Marshall Solomon, vice-president of B'nai B'rith's Atlanta lodge, to help her find volunteers to visit the prison.
Solomon has since become the cantor and the list of volunteers has become so large a rotation schedule became necessary.
With the help of the lodge and the Atlanta Bureau of Jewish Education, Mrs. Giniger developed a regular Wednesday evening "rap session" at which the prisoners.
the lodge members and others "talk about anything and everything."
The inmates usually steer the conversation toward Jewish themes, she said.
Just before Passover, a rabbi came to explain the seder. At another session a cantor discussed cantorial works. On one oc-cassion, a Lubavitcher was the guest and the inmates joined him in chasidic dances.
She said topical Jewish events are popular, such as the Yom Kippur War.
She reported that the prisoners pooled funds to make their own United Jewish Appeal contribution.
Mrs. Giniger said she encourages teenagers from the B'nai B'rith Youth Organization and local synagogue youth groups to help during festivals. The youngsters made the prisoners a Torah cover as a Chanuka gift.
The boys were rewarded with watchbands and the girls with knitted ponchos made by the inmates in the prison workshop.
The prisoners get a steady flow of books, records, greeting cards and letters from B'nai B'rith members and others in the Atlanta Jewish community.
Mrs. Giniger arranges for yahrzeit candles, Jewish calendars and anything else members of a Jewish community in prison may want and need.
Mrs. Giniger was bothered by the grime and dirt of the prison room used as a chapel and told the prison officials about it. When she arrived the next week, the room was furnished and freshly painted.
She said she had long ago shed her stereotypes about convicts.
declaring that they were"ordinary humans, desperate for someone to care about them, to give a sense of belonging."
She said she keeps contact, as a go-between, with families and inmates.
Her goal, she said, is to build a one-to-one relationship between the prisoner on the inside and "a concerned Jew who will be his liaison with the outside."
She reported that "food is the most important thing" in a prison and that when, at a seder, "the men talked less about the food and more about how good it was to be together. I knew that Temple Yaacov had succeeded."
WHin HOUSE OBSERVES HIGH HOLIDAY SEASON
WASHINGTON —In planning the sununit conference to combat inflation, the White House has cancelled a preliminary meeting for Sept. 17 and 18 because those dates conflicted with the observance of Rosh Hashona, a White House spokesman said. The new dates for the preliminary session will be announced soon. The summit itself was moved up to Sept. 27 because the White House noted Yom Kippur is observed the day before.
TO HAVE A HOME—B'nai B'rith Senior Citizens Housing committee chairman Abe Cramer (centre foreground) listens as U.S. President Gerald Ford outlines the impact of the $11.9 bUUon Housing and Community Development Act he had just signed into law. Twenty-nine B!nai B'rith sponsored low rent apartment projects that had been stalled by a moratorium on federal housing programs will be able to proceed under the new law.
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CHICAGO — Tensions stemming from differing levels of expertise between volunteers and professionals must be avoided by "mutuality of respect" if the goals of Jewish communal agencies which they serve are to be met, Max F. Baer, international director of the B'nai B'rith Youth Organization has warned.
Declaring in his annual report to the golden anniversary meeting of the B'nai B'rith Youth Commission here that volunteers and professionals "must be equal partners in working to achieve" those goals. Dr. Baer said the effectiveness ofthe two categories of workers depends in large part on such reciprocal respect.
"The volunteer's lack of the specialized training which we attribute to the professional never justifies slighting or discrediting the volunteer," he said.
"On the other hand, the professional's dependency upon the agency for his livelihood never justifies depreciation of his role" by the volunteer.
He added that "the democratic process" often brings "to positions of leadership relatively inexperienced individuals." As a result, some professionals "become impatient when such persons are slow to grasp the insight which the professional learned in graduate school."
But, he stressed, in graduate school, professionals "have been taught to accept the individual whether youth or adult, as he is.
and to commence the relationship at the level of the individual's understanding." But, Dr. Baer reported, "there
is also a failure" on the part of the volunteer "to respect the professional."
Since the Jewish communal agency "is often the volunteer's avocation and the professional's source of livelihood, the volunteer often feels that he has a greater sense of commitment and conviction in agency endeavors."
Dr. Baer warned that "rapport can crun^le" when the reputation and dignity of the professional "are denigrated by overly harsh judgements of a few volunteers."
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