Adam Levin - The Instructions

May he.

Sincerely,

Rabbi Avel Salt

Principal of Judaic Studies, Solomon Schechter School of Chicago

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From: Michael Schloss

To: Avel Salt

Date: Thur, 8 June 2006 09:40 AM CST

Subject: Fwd: Important

Avel,

Is this not the same Gurion you’ve spoken so highly of? I hope not.

Best,

Michael

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From: TorahScholars Listserv

To: Michael Schloss

Date: Thur, 8 June 2006 09:11 AM EST

Subject: Fwd: Important

I can’t see what this has to do with the TorahScholars listserv, but if one of you wants to post something, who is Tsvi to deny him?

— Tsvi

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From: EastCoastTzadiksListserv

To: TorahScholars Listserv

Date: Wed, 7 June 2006 10:27 PM EST

Subject: Fwd: Important

Friends,

Were the words “no little bit disturbing” for some reason unavailable this evening, I believe I would describe this Fwd as “very compelling.” Though I must also say I doubt its authenticity. Feel free to post on this topic.

----- Forwarded message —----

From: FIFTEEN23FIRSTSAMUEL

To: EastCoastTzadiksListserv

Date: Wed, 7 June 2006 8:59 PM EST

Subject: Fwd: Important

Sent: June 7, 2006, 2:01 PM Central-Standard Time

Subject: Fwd: Important

From: akalisch@northsidehd.edu (Alan Kalisch, Northside Hebrew Day School)

To: rfeldman@northbrookhd.edu (Richard Feldman, Northbrook Hebrew Day School), unger@schecterschool.edu (Lionel Unger, Solomon Schechter School), weissman@goldstein.edu (Benjamin Weissman, The Goldstein School), hnieman@ansheemet.edu (Harold Nieman, Anshe Emet), mkleinman@nshechterschool.edu (Michael Kleinman, North-Suburban Solomon Schechter School)

Fellow Headmaster Rabbis:

Earlier today, one of our third-graders, Moshe Levin, was on his way to morning davening when a first-grader, David Kahn, stepped out of the doorway of a bathroom at the opposite end of the hallway and shot Moshe in the eye with a slingshot-type weapon that David and, I fear, no few others, refer to as a “pennygun.” It appears that the attack on Moshe was provoked yesterday afternoon, on the after-school bus, where Moshe and some other boys teased David — by all reports rather harshly — about his stutter. Moshe has suffered a bruised retina and much psychological trauma. The doctors tell us that the ocular injury should heal shortly, baruch H-shem, but it is impossible to know how long the psychic damage will linger.

After having met with David, I am entirely confident that he is repentant and will not repeat-offend. Nonetheless, the boy must be expelled from Northside. For David’s sake, justice would do well to be tempered with mercy here, but our no-tolerance policy against violence need be unequivocally enforced for the good of the school. If David should attempt to enroll in one of your schools at the start of next year, I urge you to keep that in mind. It is my hope that you would admit him as a second-grader — we are only three days away from the end of the academic year, and he is a good boy, a good student. He would come to you with my highest recommendations.

Of greater concern than the attack itself are the pennyguns. There is evidence which suggests that a number of boys at Jewish day schools throughout the Chicago area may be in possession of these weapons. This evidence comes in the form of a photocopied document, titled “Ulpan,” that we discovered during a search of David Kahn’s desk. A copy will be faxed to each of you. As you will soon see, the document not only offers instructions for how to build weapons, but instructions for how to teach others to build them. Most troublingly of all, “Ulpan” terminates in a call to arms in the name of the Jewish religion.

I am confident that desk- and locker-searches should do away with most of the weapons and copies of “Ulpan.” We are currently in the process of performing such searches at Northside. I would imagine that the students whose weapons are not discovered (and confiscated) will — upon witnessing the penalties (one-day suspensions) suffered by those students who are found to be in possession of the weapons — see the academic, if not the moral, liability in carrying pennyguns, and will proceed, of their own volition, to dispose of their weapons, as well as their copies of “Ulpan.”

Of greatest concern is the document’s author, Gurion Maccabee, a nine-year-old Northside sixth-grader who most of you know, if not personally, then by reputation. After his expulsion from the Solomon Schecter School, I admitted Gurion to Northside because I believe in mercy, in second chances. Our student body had, up until this point, profited by that belief. Now we suffer for it.

Students, as Headmaster Unger can attest to, follow Gurion. Many call him “Rabbi.” In class, they defer to him in all matters, whether secular or Judaic, and on the playground, they stand on line to speak to him. He is as intelligent and charismatic a boy as rumors would suggest, but he is equally as disturbed. When, earlier today, in conference, I asked Gurion why he felt the need to arm his fellow students, he said that his aim was to “help the Israelite children to protect themselves from the increasingly violent population of Canaanites for whom you (I, Rabbi Kalisch) would have us lay down.” He then made reference to the antisemitic violence that took place three Saturdays ago, outside of the Fairfield Street Synagogue after services, commenting that, “Sometimes a scholar must become a soldier.” When I pointed out to him that the teenagers who’d thrown the stones at the congregants had, within twenty-four hours of the attack, been taken into custody by the authorities, he said, “There’s no King in Israel.” When I let him know that he would be expelled from Northside, he told me, “There’s no King in Israel.” And when I told him that I would be sending a letter about him to the heads of all the Jewish parochial schools in and around Chicago, urging them to bar his enrollment, Gurion said, “There’s no King in Israel.” A short time later, while waiting in my office for his father to pick him up, he became visibly upset, and called me a “snivelling Sadducee.”

The boy’s mother — a mental-health professional, herself — has, since his enrollment at Northside, done everything she can to limit our social worker’s access to him, has taken him off his medication (if ever she administered it at all — this was being looked into), and refuses to acknowledge that he needs help. Judah Maccabee will hear nothing against his son. The situation is impossible. I sincerely hope that some institution in this world will make Gurion better, but it is my whole-hearted belief that his continued presence in any of our schools would only be detrimental to the well-being of the local Jewish community. I hope you will not grant Gurion another chance. He would surely disappoint you.

In closing, I ask you to please forgive the informality of this group e-mail. If the information it contains did not require immediate dissemination, I would have taken the time to send individualized letters by post. Please feel free to contact me with any questions you might have. I will do my best to answer them.

Sincerely,

Rabbi Alan Kalisch,

Headmaster, Northside Hebrew Day School

PS: Janice and I will be hosting a 4th of July picnic at our family farm. The foals born there this spring (2 of them!) are not only healthy, but beautiful — just to see them walking, with all their horsey pride, is a treat — and we want to share our joy with others, as well as some kosher barbecue and traditional festivity (the fireworks, though nothing compared to those you’d see at Navy Pier, do rival the suburban), so if you’re willing to shlep the kids out to Galina, please do so; we have many guestrooms for those who’d like to stay overnight. RSVP to this email address.