They are the ones we should be embracing and helping – but they are the very people we shun. These are the people to whom we don’t say hello or give the proper time of day because they no longer dress like us.
And if you think dressing in a “modest” manner is what makes someone frum, I can show you people who are dressed very tzniusdik while cheating in business, on their spouses, etc.
Being frum means being a mensch and treating all people the way Hashem wants you to treat them. We take people in for a Shabbos while every other day we shun teens who were frum but have lost their way. How hypocritical is that?
Shira Cohen
(Via E-Mail)
Beverly Hills Frum
Ten years I penned an article for The Jewish Press comparing my new residence in Portland, Maine, with my former life in Brooklyn.
Time has moved on and so have I.
This past September my wife and I took the big jump and opted for Southern California. The details as to how we landed in Beverly Hills will be left for another time. Suffice it to say that here we are – and what an eye-opening experience it has been.
My wife and I grew up on the East Coast and to us Beverly Hills was, to put it mildly, part of Hollywood’s “dreamland.” Of course, no significant Jewish life could be found within its borders.
Or so we imagined.
A ten-minute walk from my residence presents me with a marvelous dilemma. There are five Orthodox synagogues for me to choose from, ranging from Young Israel to Chabad to Persian to Syrian to Moroccan styles of davening.
The Chabad was the first synagogue in Beverly Hills, now celebrating 36 years under the leadership of Rabbi Yosef Shusterman. Each of the shuls has a daily minyan morning and evening. Each offers a fabulous kiddush on Shabbat. Each features a variety of classes for men, women, and children of all ages.
More than 60 percent of the residents of Beverly Hills are Jewish, with 8,000 families having come from Iran. All five members of the city council are Jews. (And many of the street signs have the logo of Beverly Hills in abbreviated form – BH.)
The “cross/don’t cross” streetlights which usually require the pedestrian to push a button are timed to automatically change on Shabbat. The supermarkets carry all the kosher food anyone could want, with delivery services available from the nearby Pico area.
An eruv? Of course! Day schools? Choose one of your liking (in town or just around the corner).
There is only one problem, as I see it. Once word gets out, the frum population will surely increase, necessitating expansion of the shuls’ facilities.
Rabbi Simcha A. Green
Beverly Hills, CA