American Jewish Spirit – “Judaism on the Line”

Jason Rubin is in the Marines Corps Flight School and his Torah study has really taken off.

When Jason and his wife, Shannon, first heard about Partners in Torah’s TelePartners program from the Rabbi back home at their Conservative Temple in Roanoke, Virginia, they had just arrived at a military base in Kingsville, Texas. “Bases are usually situated in smaller communities, where there are generally very few local resources for Torah learning,” says Jason. At the time, Shannon was pregnant with their first child. Both felt the need to get more connected to Judaism and to make their home – wherever the military would take it – a more actively Jewish one. “The fact that this program has been able to accompany us from Texas to Havelock, North Carolina has made it a priceless opportunity for both Shannon and me,” Jason says, “There’s nothing else out there that would work quite this well for us.”

Jason and Shannon both study weekly with partners from the greater New York area. Before beginning, Partners in Torah staff asked each of them a bit about themselves, their backgrounds, their education, and their goals. This information, along with their ages, their interests, their learning styles, and the times they’d be available for study an hour a week was all considered in matching them up with a partner.

TelePartners, a free program which is a project of Torah Umesorah – National Society of Hebrew Day Schools, began over a decade ago as a spin-off of a face-to-face project called Partners in Torah. The first partnerships met in person in Twin Rivers, New Jersey at a venue coordinated by National Director Rabbi Eli Gewirtz. With many happy local pairs continuing to learn together – many to this day, over twenty years later! – the idea for TelePartners seemed compelling.

“We realized we should make this type of learning available to people who lived far from centers of Jewish education and didn’t have a local area program like this — and to people who might not come to such places, even if they were nearby,” says Rabbi Gewirtz. And thus the telephone study program was born – a sort of a Beit Medrash (study hall) without borders.

Since that time, a lot has changed and much has remained the same. The plummeting costs of long-distance calling and the mobile phone revolution have allowed people to stay connected almost anywhere, at any time. The organization provides calling cards for long-distance relationships and has used up-to-date technology to match over 18,000 people by phone thus far.

Jason and Shannon, as new Jewish parents living in an area that is pretty isolated from the greater Jewish community, come up against new situations all the time. The study partnerships have provided a forum for their questions. “It’s not like we need to make a list and try to find a Rabbi somewhere…” Jason says. “We just wait for our weekly hour for some friendly and knowledgeable advice.”

What are the other advantages of telephone study for people who may have local resources? Jason muses a bit. “I can see that for some people, walking into a synagogue and asking for help from someone more knowledgeable could be really intimidating. Partners in Torah made it really easy to get access to this Torah study without any such discomfort. I hit it off right away with my partner, Kalman. And I know Shannon is extremely pleased with her study partner, too. But we still appreciate the fact that had things not gone well, the Partners in Torah staff would make it easy to get it right – we wouldn’t have had to get confrontational with the partner directly. We get regular calls to check in and make sure we feel we are getting what we want out of this.”

Mark Ahdoot, a NASA aerospace engineer living in Rockville, Maryland, finds the big draw of Tele-Partners to be the time he saves learning from home instead of getting to and from somewhere else (Think of it: no buttoning up the coat, no babysitters, no parking…). Each pair sets their own weekly appointment at a mutually convenient time. This convenience is a big factor in what makes it work for Mark. “Also, the fact that each study pair concentrates on topics of interest to them through Partners in Torah, rather than following a syllabus created for groups, means you can maximize the opportunity and focus on what you’d like to work on.”

Mark and his partner, social worker Ben Zeilingold of Lakewood, New Jersey, got to meet last year at the wedding of Ben’s son, held in Baltimore. “Meeting Ben was really interesting. He wasn’t anything like what I expected. I am tremendously impressed by how educated and how family-oriented he is. We’ve become close friends. The learning goes both ways, as we each play the roles of teacher and student, sharing what we know, and we grow from our partnership.” Mark referred his brother, Habib, a busy physician living in Alexandria, Virginia to Partners in Torah as well, and is very pleased that Habib has embarked upon his own study partnership.

For Ava Ashendorff of Chestertown, New York, studying with a partner by phone is great. As a “phone person” who spends most of her working day on sales in her family business, Ava thinks she can focus better on the phone than she would in person. She finds that there are fewer distractions. And studying by phone has given her access to an opportunity not easy to come by in the Adirondack Mountains. With the nearest synagogue 30 miles away, Ava’s opportunities to be involved in meaningful Jewish studies are few and far between. She attends some classes locally but finds that her study partner provides her with a more custom-made connection. “Feige and I get at things in a more personal way. Asking a Rabbi just isn’t the same. The Rabbi explains things in a technical way – Feige and I just relax and talk.”

The impact has been huge. “I’ve gotten a chance to get a better understanding of Judaism as a whole. The learning has given me a sense of Jewish self that I’d been searching for.”

Ava has been studying weekly with her partner, Feige Hoschander of Brooklyn, New York, for more than two years. The two live over 300 miles apart and finally met last summer when Feige’s family was vacationing in the Catskills. Ava and her husband drove for two hours to spend the day with the Hoschanders – putting a face to the voice and getting acquainted “in person” with this woman who, sight unseen, had become such an important part of Ava’s life.

From the sidelines, it’s awesome to watch the connections forming. Dena Yellin, National Study Coordinator of TelePartners, is charged with matching the partners and getting them started. “The most incredible part of the experience of studying by phone has got to be the we-arestrangers- and-best-friends thing,” she says. “It’s fun to watch it happen.

Sometimes it’s something like the fact that you suffer from the same medical condition – this makes no difference from a strictly learning standpoint, but it somehow smoothes the way and makes you feel you can indeed relate. “Sometimes, it’s less dramatic as you find that although we all seem so different from one another, we can all come together in the pursuit of Jewish knowledge. Almost always, you find words you didn’t know you had, either to answer your partner’s questions or to ask about things you always wanted to know but never thought you could. Learning Torah together with your partner, in this very personal way, is a powerful thing, and it engenders great closeness.

“It’s always interesting to see Tele-Partners meet for the first time at the annual Retreat we run. They come at each other from different sides of the hotel, and no, most of them say they wouldn’t have recognized their partner on their own. (Overheard: Oh my gosh, I was sure you were tall!) But by that point, people are so comfortable with each other from their time on the phone that all this superficial stuff falls away. They’ve managed to get past the physical, transcend the here-and-now, and get at what’s really important to them.”

Tele-Partners who cannot attend the Retreats often arrange to meet at some point. Whether this takes the form of having lunch together or trekking across the continent to spend Shabbat at a partner’s home, it’s often a family event. “It’s only natural,” says Dianne Feldstein of Boston. “My partner has enriched the life of my whole family. We get off the phone and I rehash everything we’ve learned. My kids have gotten used to hearing me say, Rachel says this, Rachel taught me that…So when Rachel and I were finally getting together, they refused to be left out!”

Family is very often a reason many people get involved with TelePartners in the first place. Keeping up with the kids can be a great motivation to delve into further study. Whether their kids just started Hebrew school and already know more than their parents, or are getting ready for their Bar Mitzvah, parents appreciate the opportunity to keep pace with their children’s Jewish education. Even college students looking for Jewish learning on campus have inspired others to get a TelePartner.

When Jackie Braslawsce began her new job as Program Director of the Hillel Jewish University Center in Pittsburgh, she quickly realized she had to get with the program a bit more.

“So many college students around me were engaged in Jewish learning,” she says, “It inspired me to get moving on it myself.” When Jackie heard about Partners in Torah’s Tele-Partners program at a Hillel conference in 2003, she signed up.

Jackie’s partner, Matty Freed of Boisbriand, Quebec, “has changed my whole world,” says Jackie. Jackie and Matty study by phone each week. In addition to her post at Hillel, Jackie was an expectant mom when she and Matty began, and this made her think more about what she wanted to pass on to the next generation. “Matty taught me the importance of the solid foundation a Jewish mother gives her child.” With three children of her own, Matty helps Jackie find applications of what they study together that she can pass on to her daughter. Officially, the topic they study is the Torah portion of the week – “but it’s really so much more beyond that. She has taught me how to live my life more Jewishly. I’ve since joined weekly learning with Aish Hatorah here in Pittsburgh and with the local Kollel – all this is because of the inspiration Matty gives me to go further.”

Studying by phone has been an interesting experience. “The relationship we have made, although we haven’t ever met yet, is so strong that it’s positively weird! We’ve exchanged pictures – but I have much more than just an idea of what she looks like. Thse connection we’ve created is so powerful that it’s changed my whole life!”

Jackie now serves as Director of Engagement at Hillel, and has found that learning Torah with Matty enhances her professional life, too. “Studying with Matty helps me keep focused on why I do what I do to help young people get connected to Judaism.”

Whether the telephone that brings partners together is cordless, cellular, or hands-free, the connection between partners is palpable. And their combined connection to the timelessness of Torah study is yet another link in Jewish education spanning the generations.

…Got to run – my partner’s waiting! Photos courtesy of Partners in Torah

Summer 2006 | www.ajspirit.com