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"Shared Dreams" by
Rabbi Marc Schneier of
the Hampton Synagogue, Westhampton Beach

Newsday: Student Briefing Page ▪ May 23, 2001

Learning They Have a Dream In Common
By Paul Wisenthal

Seventeen-year-old Natira Blue recently recounted to her class why she stopped shopping at a grocery store in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. “The Hasidic owner kept staring at me,” she said. “I guess they figured because I was black, I would steal something from them.”

A junior at the Bronx High School of Science, Natira was one of 34 students of different races and religions who, in a social studies class, talked recently about discrimination they have experienced. Their sharing was part of the school’s first experiment with a Shared Dreams curriculum developed by the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, a New York- based group that seeks to break down racial stereotyping.

The three-hour curriculum, which can be done on one day or over three days, explores how Jews and African-Americans have historically worked together to fight racial injustice, focusing on the close history of support between the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Jewish community.

It’s based on the book Shared Dreams (Jewish Lights Publishing) by Rabbi Marc Schneier of the Hampton Synagogue, Westhampton Beach, the founder and president of the foundation. (Materials are donated by the foundation to participating schools and can be downloaded from the group’s Web site, www.ffeu.org.)

The curriculum also encourages students to examine whether they speak out against injustices, whether they are tolerant of others or take action to promote equality. They also were encouraged to write down one realistic goal encompassing King’s ideas that they will try to accomplish in the next year.

At the school, teacher Morton Minchenberg recalled for his students his own experiences with racial bigotry. He lost family members in the Holocaust. As a 20-year- old Yeshiva College student in 1960, Minchenberg learned that most Woolworth stores in the South would not serve blacks at their lunch counters. This led him to take part in a student picket line at a Woolworth store in Washington Heights. “We held up picket signs and marched back and forth in front of Woolworth’s,” Minchenberg said. “We thought that everybody would respect our picket signs. To our amazement, Jewish and African-American Woolworth shoppers totally ignored us. We were invisible,” he said.

For Natira, the class was a revelation. “I did not know that many Jews worked or even died for the civil rights movement. When I go home, I now see the Jewish community in a much more positive light,” she said in an interview later. “Both communities have a lot more in common, because both were persecuted for many years.”

Gene Bongiorni, the school’s vice principal and social studies chairman, said, “We value this kind of exchange and hope to expand it to other minority groups and other .classes next year.” Schneier said his quest for improved racial understanding began in 1979, when relations were strained: The black community was upset over Israel’s close relationship with South Africa, which had a government that discriminated against blacks, and the Jewish community was upset that some black leaders, including then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young, had met with Palestine Liberation Organization members.

“People had forgotten the close bonds between blacks and Jews during the civil rights movement,” said Schneier. “Dr. King mobilized black communities in the South to break down segregation laws and help blacks register to vote. Many Jewish leaders supported him during those turbulent times.”

Masha Mitsengendler, a 17-year-old junior at the Bronx High School of Science, is an immigrant who knows about that treatment. Ostracized by her schoolmates in St. Petersburg, Russia, because she was Jewish, she recalled to the Bronx students, “I would come home crying. My teacher told me, ‘You have to leave Russia because you are Jewish and have no future here.’“ Masha said of the Shared Dreams program, “I believe these classes help break down mistrust among different religious, ethnic and racial groups.”

Daniel S. Lee, 16, a Korean student from Bayside, related an incident from his own life. Last year he watched his father ask a black woman and her three children to leave his shoe store after she made anti-Semitic remarks about a new Jewish store owner across the street. Daniel asked his dad why he gave up a $30 sale. “He told me if she wants to be ignorant or racist, that’s fine, but don’t beat it into your kids.”

Twenty-three Jewish day schools in Queens and 63 on Long Island have adopted the program, as have 12 New York City public schools. Manhasset High School is among the Long Island schools that expect to start the program this fall.

(The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding is located at 1 E. 93rd St., Suite 1C, New York, N.Y. 10128.)

Paul Wisenthal is a freelance writer.
Sanjay Nadesan contributed to this story.

Copyright © Newsday, Inc. Produced by Newsday Electronic Publishing.

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