The Benefits Bank is an Internet based software system that helps low and moderate income individuals and families apply and e-file for a range of tax and public benefits. Prior to that, he served as the Director of Student Services for the Jewish Employment and Vocational Services at its Center City Philadelphia campus.

Ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary, Rabbi Levine brings a fascinating background to JSPAN, having been the Hillel Director at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Arizona. He also served as a chaplain for the United States Air Force in Thailand and at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi.

“Mort Levine will be a great addition to JSPAN,” according to JSPAN President Jeff Pasek. “We are looking forward to drawing on his experience and expertise in outreach efforts as JSPAN continues to widen both its network and its impact on public policy concerns.”

Rabbi Levine commented, “I anticipate an exciting year for JSPAN. With the ongoing enthusiasm and energy of the members and supporters, I am confident that we will be able to accomplish these goals.” Rabbi Levine can be reached by email at: jspan@jspan.org.

The redistricting lecture by Professor Bruce Cain and Representative Daylin Leach drew an enthusiastic audience that packed a large meeting room at the Villanova Conference Center on August 22. The talks examined the gerrymander issue - when the process of drawing voting district lines is used as a tool to eliminate voter choice, and to substitute "safe" seats owned by one or the other political party.

To continue, click here.

Theodore Mann was enlisted by the American Civil Liberties Union in 1957 to draft the original Complaint on behalf of Schempp. In the dialogue below, Jeff Pasek, President of JSPAN, poses a series of questions to Ted, a JSPAN Board member since its inception, about his role in this case.

Stephen D. Solomon, a professor at NYU, just completed a book, published several weeks ago, titled "ELLERY'S PROTEST - How One Young Man Defied Tradition and Sparked the Battle over School Prayer." It's about Schempp v. School District of Abington, the Supreme Court case that outlawed Bible reading in public schools. Given your central role in the most pivotal church-state case in American history, I was hoping you might answer a few questions.

How did the ACLU reach a decision to challenge Bible reading in the schools?
Ted: Sixteen year old Ellery Schempp wrote a letter to the ACLU's Philadelphia office complaining about the practice. Based on research by Bernard Wolfman (then a lawyer with Wolf Block, later Dean of Penn Law School, and still later a Harvard Law School Professor) who had concluded it was a very close call but that the case might be won, ACLU's Freedom of Expression Committee overwhelmingly decided that the case should be brought. ACLU's Board, on a 10-9 split vote, agreed.

What was your first involvement in the Schempp case?
Ted: ACLU first asked Wolfman to represent Ellery, but he (Wolfman) felt that the fact he was Jewish might be a diversion from the major constitutional issues involved. ACLU then referred Ellery to me and I devoted the next three weeks to researching the issues and drafting a Complaint. This was fifty years ago, the summer of 1957. I had been in practice for only three or four years, so I sent the draft to the two men whose opinions I most respected regarding issues involving church/state separation, Leo Pfeffer and Shad Polier, for review and comment.

At the same time, however, according to an op-ed in the August 23, 2007 edition of the Jewish Exponent by Boston-based columnist Leonard Fein, "the leaders of the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs and B'nai Brith International....have steadfastly refused to endorse (the) bill currently before Congress that would formally acknowledge the fact of the Armenian genocide. How can that be? Why do they shy away from using the word "genocide" to describe the tragedy of the Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Empire Turkey?"

To read Leonard Fein's analysis of the issues surrounding this stalemate in Congress and in the organized Jewish community in its entirety, click here.

To read an in-depth story of the current debate among the leadership of the ADL over this issue, click here.

But nothing in Washington is obvious! The bill has met with strong concern from disability rights groups across the country because electronic voting machines offered many disabled Americans their first opportunity to vote independently. The available technology to make paper ballots accessible is not adequate, according to some disability groups.

A compromise has been negotiated in the House which requires all electronic voting machines to include paper trails by 2008, but it allows the use of unreliable cash-register-style printers. By 2012, the bill would ban these more error-prone paper trails and require durable paper ballots. The bill would not ban electronic voting machines altogether, but it would make the paper ballots the vote of record and would also require manual audits to ensure accurate counts.

Should JSPAN support the latest version of the Holt bill? As MoveOn.org Political Action has stated, "On the one hand, the compromise is imperfect. On the other, it's our only chance to make significant national progress before the 2008 election."

What do you think? Click here to offer your comments.

JCPA will launch the campaign with what is known as the "food stamp challenge". Participants are being encouraged to spend the week between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (September 14 - 21) subsisting on the budget of the average food stamp recipient: $1 per meal per day ($21 for the week).

JCPA Executive Director Rabbi Steve Gutow explains that "the challenge is designed to call attention to the inadequacy of the food stamp benefit and to galvanize support around a strong reauthorization of the nutrition title of the (2007) farm bill", which is being voted on by the Senate during that week. Leaders from close to two dozen communities across the country have committed to taking the challenge with JCPA as a dynamic way to become engaged in the anti-poverty campaign.

If you are interested in receiving resource materials on how to take the food stamp challenge, contact Melissa Boteach at mboteach@thejcpa.org or call (202) 212-6039. If you are interested in getting involved in the JCPA anti-poverty campaign, contact Burt Siegel, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, at bsiegel@philafederation.org or call (215) 832-0651.

For a JCPA analysis of the 2006 income and poverty data, released on August 28 by the Census Bureau, click here.

For more information on why anti-hunger advocates care about the farm bill, click here.

For a first-hand report by H. Eric Schockman, executive director of MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, entitled "Food Stamp Diet Challenge: Surviving on $21 Per Week", which was published in the Philadelphia Jewish Voice, click here.

In the August 31, 2007 edition of Israel Policy Forum Friday, M.J. Rosenberg, Director of IPF's Washington Policy Center, suggests that Abbas is the key to these questions. "There are things Israel can do to improve its own situation. Israel needs to deal with Hamas, on some level,....if the Kassam rocket shelling is to stop." And most importantly, "Israel (must) do everything it can to reach an agreement on final status issues with President Abbas."

Mr. Rosenberg feels that both seemingly intractable issues, Jerusalem and Palestinian right of return are, in fact, "resolvable". Israel, in his estimation, needs to strengthen the Palestinian Authority and to "empower... Abbas by reaching a deal with him that Hamas will feel pressured by Palestinians to support".

M.J. Rosenberg posits his own question: "Does Israel really want Abbas to succeed or, as in the past, is it satisfied using Hamas as a pretext to avoid dealing with the issue of borders, settlements and Jerusalem for another generation?"

To read M.J. Rosenberg's essay in its entirety, click here.

Become a member of JSPAN or renew your membership now. It's easy to do on our website by credit card, or you can mail in your donation. JSPAN is your progressive voice and action agency, and needs your help now!

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