I zoomed in on two local webcasts today and although they dealt with different topics, they both made me feel good about belonging to a strong, caring Jewish community. I was particularly impressed that the presenters had compassion not only for their own immediate circles of family and friends, but also for society at large, and particularly for people who struggle to make ends meet.
One webcast, co-sponsored by the Murray Galinson San Diego-Israel Initiative and the Hive at Leichtag Commons, featured Israeli screenwriter Ronit Weiss-Bercowitz, who recently served as a visiting faculty member at San Diego State University and was the writer of A Touch Away, a popular Israeli television series that dealt with a “forbidden love affair” between a Russian immigrant and a Haredi young woman who were neighbors in the economically challenged town of Bnei Brak.
The other webcast, sponsored by the Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego, featured a conversation between JCF’s board chair Janet Acheatel and local philanthropist and businessman Robert Price.
Berkowitz, in conversation with Chaya Gilboa, Director of Jewish Engagement for the Leichtag Foundation, explained that Russian immigrants to Israel and the Haredim both are marginalized groups who face unflattering stereotypes. Russians sometimes are dismissed as vodka drinkers and “not-real Jews” while the Haredim are castigated as “religious fanatics” and as people who refuse to serve in the Israeli military.
A television series dealing with characters from both these groups initially was a hard sell, Weiss-Berkowitz said. Television producers didn’t think the Israeli public would be interested in anything so far out of the mainstream. Nor, for that matter, was either group overly enthusiastic about being presented by a secular, non-Russian Israeli to the public. Especially the Haredim were concerned whether the series might inflame anti-religious sentiment, she said.
However, the series caught on because the characters weren’t stereotypes but were flesh and blood people, loving and wanting the best for their families, while dealing with their own internal conflicts. The fact that a young man and a young woman from these two different communities clearly were attracted to each other added “will they or won’t they?” Romeo and Juliet type suspense to the plot. Perhaps more important than that part of the plot was the “inside look” that the series provided Israeli viewers into the dynamics of the two communities. We see how hurt being rejected out-of-hand makes Russian immigrants feel, while sensing their cultural pride coming from a nation that loves literature, classical music, and ballet. We also see how the Haredim try to live up to an ideal of piety, all the while faced with a fast-changing modern world in which it is no longer possible to isolate themselves.
The impact of the series, agreed Gilboa and Weiss-Berkowitz, was to get mainstream Israelis to reconsider some of their stereotypical thinking and begin to look at the people in both groups with a new, kinder perspective. Such is the powerful role that television can play.
Robert Price is the president of Price Philanthropies and the chairman of the PriceSmart, among other roles. Along with his late father, Sol Price, he helped to found the Price Clubs, which subsequently merged with Costco. After the merger, the Price family developed PriceSmart warehouses in Central America on the model of the old Price Clubs and Costcos. That company has 8,000 employees in those countries.
When the coronavirus pandemic hit, Price said, his first concern was to keep all 8,000 employees in Latin America employed, knowing that loss of their jobs could devastate their families. “In no way would we allow them to become unemployed,” he said. So, while the stores were either closed or reduced in hours, “we cross trained them,” he said. He added that he was proud that of the 8,000 employees, only 40 had contracted the virus and none had died from the disease. Congratulated upon putting employees ahead of shareholders, he responded that it was his and his father’s philosophy to put employees first, customers second, on the theory that if a company does that, shareholders also will be treated well.
Central American governments reacted differently to the coronavirus, he said. In Nicaragua the government denies that coronavirus even exists, and people who wear masks can be cited by the police. In neighboring Honduras, on the other hand, the government required 50 percent of the stores to be shut down.
Asked about personal challenges that he has faced, Price said the biggest came in 1989 when his teenage son Aaron Price became ill and passed away. Death of a child can have a tremendous impact on a family, he said, prompting him and his wife Allison Price to make it their stated goal to stay “united” in that stressful period. Following Aaron’s death, Price’s father, Sol, established a fellowship in Aaron Price’s name, in which select students from across the city were formed into a small group and exposed in-depth to the workings of business and government. Among one working class cohort of Aaron Price Fellows was Assemblyman Todd Gloria (D-San Diego), who is now a candidate to be mayor of the city. (Price described him but didn’t mention him by name, not wanting the presentation to sound “political.”) Price said his advice for other students is to set goals for themselves, then deduce the steps necessary to figure out how they can achieve that goal.
Asked about his current charitable priorities, Price said his philanthropic foundation allocated $5 million to help people who are out of work, or who might be subjected to domestic violence in this high-tension period. As the owner of residential and commercial properties, he has cut rents by 50 percent to tenants, and also has been contributing to funds to help undocumented workers in this country as well as inmates of detention centers. He said he also has been trying to help people in the fields of the performing arts, whose work has been shut down by the pandemic.
Republished from San Diego Jewish World