The RMR B'nai Brith Youth Organization Reunion: May 2019

I’m not the type who attends reunions but my weekend with friends from my teenage B’nai Brith Youth Organization days made me so happy and grateful for the community that nurtured and sustained me. It still does.

Our high school, George Washington, had been a toxic place. The newspaper clippings and Look magazine article that people brought to the reunion documented the ugly race riots that resulted from poorly implemented forced busing and racism in Denver in the early 1970’s.

We could have easily been disaffected, depressed, or delinquent. But we had BBYO and the Jewish Community Center, a refuge where I practically lived, writing and mimeographing pages for newsletters and flyers for meetings, demonstrations, and events. We kept busy.

Through this amazing organization, I learned how to be a leader, how to channel my energy into social action, and how to form deep and lasting personal connections. I discovered and celebrated my brand of Jewishness.

I was elevated for being myself, not something most adolescents experience, as I became the N’siah (president)of my Chapter 201, then the Rocky Mountain Region, then District 2 (an 8 state area from Wyoming to Indiana.) With my wild hair and sense of humor that tempered my intensity, I stayed engaged and activated; my experience informed and influenced the rest of everything I have done in the world since.

At the reunion, on the table of memorabilia, I perused articles about Babi Yar Park, a memorial park in Denver. We mere youths had been instrumental in creating this public space to honor the 31,000 Jews who had been lined up, shot, and thrown into a ravine in the Ukraine in 1941. We held protests to pressure the government of the USSR to allow Soviet Jews to emigrate to the US in the 1970’s and then welcomed Russian Jewish families to the Denver community when they finally arrived.

Now, almost 50 years later, as I studied the room of semi-recognizable men and women, many of whom had raised their own kids and were now becoming grandparents, I thought to myself, such menches, what good people many of us had grown up to be.

I spoke with David, a civil rights attorney, who graciously hosted the Friday night party at his beautiful home overlooking Lookout Mountain and listened as he told me about how he had fought for Gay marriage in Colorado.

Marc, a kindred spirit, who had gotten kicked out of leadership camp with me for smoking pot and held my hand as we flew back to Denver from Starlight, Pennsylvania, talked with me for hours about moths, music, our creative children, our travels, and the book he has written about an eccentric fellow entomologist.

I glanced across the room to see Joanie, one of the smartest and funniest and bravest women I know, laughing as she talked with Melinda, an upbeat veterinarian who lives in Montana with her family and beloved cats and dogs. Like many of us, she alternates between posting happy photos of animals and sentiments of political anguish on Facebook.

Michele told me about her work for the Music and Memory Foundation in New York and I described to her how the only words my demented mom can utter are the lyrics to Frank Sinatra songs I play for her whenever I see her.

I met Spencer, the 19 year old son of Jeff, a sweet man who generously planned the weekend along with master organizers Karen and Joanie. Spencer, an international relations major is headed to Chile; I suggested he read Ronan Farrow’s book War on Peace, about the dismantling of diplomacy, and throughout the weekend we discussed politics. (I agreed with Spencer about the vision of Bernie and asserted the need for new progressive non-white male skin in the game.) We shared our enthusiasm for AOC. The apple does not fall far.

The next night, at a dinner gathering, I embraced my humble and brilliant friend Robin who has left the demands of high profile public service but is working on an apprentice training program in the troubled LA schools. She shared photos of her beaming with her blond curly headed granddaughter, who resembles me.

Before the night was over I sat with a grounded and warm educator, Debbie, a role model who was leaving B’nai Brith Girls as I was just entering it; we exchanged stories about helping kids find their voices through their writing. Sheldon, who works with disadvantaged kids in Brooklyn, showed up at the reunion after Shabbos ended; a group of us met him on Sunday for brunch at a Kosher Jewish Deli across the street from the JCC. Robin S., who works at the Jewish Community Center in Jacksonville , Florida, peppered her speech with wonderful Hebrew words and Jewish references.

Artists, musicians, lawyers, scientists, activists, community organizers, educators, doctors....so many lives, so many stories. Throughout the weekend we spoke to each other about our families, our work, our life journeys. We remembered our shared past, not with nostalgia, but with sincere appreciation. In those days without cell phones and social media to distract us, we spent quality time together. The whole heartedness and kind presence of my peers gave me pause.

A bit of an outlaw, I have often identified with the words of Groucho Marx: “I’d never join a club that would have me as a member.” But BBYO was something much more than a club. We belonged to each other. We used to practice embodying “ruach” or spirit. We sang and danced and learned together. At the end of each meeting we would form a circle, cross and hold hands, sing and sway and listen as we took turns summarizing what we had gained from the gathering.

And so, it is with this tradition in mind that I write this piece, reflecting that my friends and I have indeed come full circle.