10/8/98

There's no 'us' and 'them' in Kfar Adumim

    Religious and secular Jews living together in perfect harmony?
    This I had to see.
    Kfar Adumim is so impossibly utopian that they have only one shul. With about 300 families in the hilltop community perched above Wadi Kelt, there should be, as the old joke goes, about 301 shuls.
    Even more remarkable, there is but one school. Their parents may be leftists, their parents may be haredi, but all the children learn together, and what they learn, ultimately, is Advanced Tolerance.
    It didn't happen by chance.
    "Kfar Adumim was founded on the basis of religious-secular integration," says Rabbi Reuven Grodner. "It's in the charter."
    There are two or three familes of the Meretz type, and two or three of the haredi persuasion, and a few who voted for Moledet. But the vast majority range from "more observant to less observant."
    "You don't have to fight for your way of life," says Gabi Antebi. "We eat kosher, but we travel on Shabbat. The only place that accepted us -- as we are -- was Kfar Adumim."
    For Israelis, this sort of coexistence is something of an eye-opener; for immigrants -- and there are many here -- this is how they lived in the Diaspora, where Jews are not hyphenated.
    "The bottom line," says Shkediya Cohen, a sabra and Orthodox, "is we have to see ourselves as being on the same side."
    Ian Friedman (ex-Johannesburg; Orthodox; the newest resident here) gathers his thoughts. "People choose this community because they want to be exposed to a religious influence, but don't want to lose their non-religious lifestyle." He nods to the spectacular sandscape out the window. "It's not just because of the view."
    Remarkably, there have been no unsolvable confrontations. "We talk things out," Chaya Grodner says with a shrug, as if such good will is so easy to come by in this riven land. "Sure, everyone pulls their claws out once in a while, at a neighbor, or in the street. But that's human nature."
    The biggest clash in the community's 19-year history had nothing to do with religion or politics, but growth. Some want to keep Kfar Adumim small and cozy, intimately exurban; others want to emulate nearby Ma'alei Adumim, with its population of upwards of 20,000.
    The debate went on for months. They voted: small won out.
    Another disagreement was which youth movement to court. Shkediya pushed hard for Bnei Akiva, which wasn't interested. Another debate. The solution: the religious branch of the secular Scouts. Perfect.
    Is everything debated, discussed, put to a vote?
    "Unfortunately," says Chicagoan Janis Ben-David, grinning. There's no governing body, just a lot of committees.
    That, then, must be the secret to success.
    "No, no," Janis exclaims. "Not committees; commitment. To tolerance, respect."
    Janis couldn't describe herself as either religious or secular. A bit of both, in fact.
    Would they describe themselves as typical settlers?
    Ooh, that question got them going.
    "No!" said Chaya.
    "Yes!" said Janis.
    Chaya: "When [the media] pick a settler, they pick a woman who's walking with four children and two more in a carriage, her head covered in a scarf, her husband with a long beard and a rifle over his shoulder, and then they come up to Kfar Adumim and say, 'are we in the right place?'"
    Janis: "That's why davka we are the typical settler."
    In at least one respect, it is not a typical settlement: the residents emphatically decided they do not want to be ghettoized by a security fence.
    Imagine the fooferaw if an Orthodox shul went up in Ramat Aviv, or if a pool was installed in Mea Shearim. Here, far from the clamor of the warring tribes, the seculars unquestioningly shared the cost of building the shul ... and the religious families paid for half the cost of the pool.
    "We call it our shul-pool tax," cracks Reuven.
    As long as we're rhyming, what about the school?
    That may be their crowning glory. With a population too small to support two systems, they've created a hybrid.
    "It's an issue that touches the heart of every family that lives here," says Reuven, Orthodox and a former New Yorker. "How can you have a mixed yishuv that only has one school? So we have a national-religious school with a dual track. After third grade the children are all in the same class, but certain subjects are optional. While some kids are learning Talmud or Gemara, other kids will learn music, art, whatever. The class will divide for that hour."
    Janis invokes Kafka: "But by being mixed, the school can't get support from the government. Because the government, or the religious part, doesn't want to support schools that have secular families in it. For example, we don't have computers in our school. We can't get anybody to help us get them, because we're a mixed school. It won't come from this side, and it won't come from that side."
    Instead of support, Kfar Adumim is penalized. Mind you, the Knesset did give the community it's Best Quality of Life Award, in 1985.
    The Orthodox feel their greatest compromise is in education. Their children do not attain the same levels as others do in a strictly religious neighborhood.
    The shul is another hybrid based on good will. It doesn't take wise men of Chelm to figure out a solution, just common sense: the style of prayer is dictated by whoever happens to be hazan. Yemenites, Moroccans, Americans and Belgians happily pray together, as if they were one people. Who'd have thought it possible?
    Reuven credits Rabbi Gavriel Goldman for making the whole thing work. "It is not an easy thing to be the rabbi of a community of this sort. He has to satisfy the needs of a most heterogeneous population. The rabbi could be a very uniting figure, or a divisive one; if he didn't have this personality, the community might have been split a long time ago."
    The overriding symbol of this special community is a jar in Gabi's kitchen. It's the ultimate in Jewish compromise.
    "For when religious people come over," she laughs, "I keep on hand some parve milk."