BigThink

Posted by Saul Garlick, Executive Director

On March 4th, I was afforded the special opportunity to address the annual dinner for the Jewish day school I attended in Denver, CO. Below are my comments:

13 years ago, in 1996, I gave a speech at my Herzl graduation, the theme was “Peace.” It was the first real speech I had ever given and it was to a Herzl/RMHA audience. This is the second real speech I have ever given, and it too, is before a Herzl/RMHA audience. (You really are supportive!)

More seriously, that speech was about a vision, a dream that has come to be embodied by the individuals that I join on this podium today. Rabbi and Joyce Foster, Linda Kornfeld, and Ozzie Malek, your work and your families’ work, have been an inspiration for peace, and your decision years ago and today to establish and support a school that would put peace and justice at the core of its daily activities has had, and will continue to have, a profound impact in Denver and around the world.

The honor of speaking this evening cannot be overstated and the privilege of articulating my thoughts before this distinguished group of community leaders, mentors and friends, is a particularly special one for me this evening.

I mention my speech from that day because I am reminded of the main point I was trying to make as a 12 year-old.

On November 4, 1995, my sister’s 18th birthday, Yitzchak Rabin was assassinated by a fellow Jew. I remember being deeply saddened and I asked my third-grade teacher Ms. Curry why that had happened. I also wondered why there couldn’t be peace in the world. Ms. Curry looked back at me and said, “Before there can be peace in the world, there must be peace in our playground.”

So I join you tonight, at a time when the world is at war, the economy is in shambles and the Jewish community is reeling from the Bernie Madoff scandal. I join you tonight when people are filled with a dynamic mix of hope and despair.

I join you tonight to make one simple point: No matter the hurdles or the pressures, keep the Herzl/RMHA vision alive.

We have a responsibility to lay the foundation for peace in our playground. Once that foundation exists, we can make peace in our global playground. When we have the tools, the understanding, the values and the confidence that come from a profound secular and Judaic education, we have all that we need to build a better global society.

Herzl/RMHA provided me the foundation. And so it follows that we MUST meet the challenges that encumber the rest of our global community.

I have come to believe that that poverty is unacceptable in our time and morally reprehensible for all time.

In 2001, as a 17 year old with opportunities all around me, I decided to start a group to organize my friends around local education issues. I called it the Student Movement for Real Change (SMRC). When the US was attacked on Sept 11 that year, my priorities shifted to addressing global issues. A shoebox in hand, I asked my high school peers to contribute $1 to help Afghan children. 45 minutes later we had raised $474 and the idea that we could do more never wore. Supporting Afghan children, understanding that their welfare is linked to our welfare, offered peace in our playground, just as theirs was soon to be attacked by the United States Army Special Forces.

The next year I went to South Africa for a family wedding. During the visit, I had the special privilege of visiting a rural community called Manyeleti. In Manyeleti, HIV/AIDS rates are as high as 30% and many hundreds of children were learning under trees. Immediately upon seeing a school where 80 kids didn’t have a classroom at all, much less a library or computer lab, I pledged to raise $10,000 to build the classrooms needed. We raised the money with SMRC, and years later I returned to stay in the village. I stayed with a man called James and his lovely family. They moved their things out of the master bedroom to accommodate – we were the first Americans or white people to stay in the village at all, and it was considered a big deal for the community. We stayed there and planned to bring young people back to the community to work over the summer.

In 2005 a student leader of SMRC approached me about a feature article she had read about a terrible water shortage in Kenya. After asking me if Student Movement would support a water project in Kenya, this young leader, Lily Muldoon, went to Kenya for a semester of college. She went to a rural community there, and found poverty like we have never even known. Children dying from dehydration and waterborne illness, lack of sanitation, and virtually no access to basic health care, much less a decent education. Lily returned and proposed the community and a water project for us to begin the work of reducing the number of children dying from these causes each year.

South Africa and Kenya are two parts of the global community suffering from neglect, poverty, epidemic and corruption. They are playgrounds that have such little peace that many dismiss them as hopeless, backwards and destined for failure.

But if I have learned anything in the last 7 years of working with students around the United States and with communities in Africa, there can always be peace in the playground, it just depends on how hard we are willing to work to achieve it.

And it is hard. In 2001 I started a high school club. Today I am responsible for people’s lives that join us on international trips to live and work in these communities. I meet with government bureaucrats who are corrupt, incompetent and selfish. I include over my desk a quote by Churchill that sums it up: “Success is going from one failure to another without any loss of enthusiasm.” I must meet payroll, cover health care benefits and exceed the rising expectations society has of non-profits. Doing good in itself is not good enough. Doing good extremely well is the only way that peace can be realized.

Each year I have the privilege of taking dozens of students to Africa in our Global Development Internship to live and work in poor rural communities. While you stay in such a place, you begin, over time, to understand local norms and culture. You also see the horrible suffering that is easily hidden behind the beautiful smiles of the young people of the community. Last year, at the end of an 8-week internship with about 30 people in Manyeleti, South Africa, I had the opportunity to see James. What I saw was an emaciated man, in late stages of the AIDS virus. We took him to the hospital, as he writhed in the van in pain from even a touch. Days after I left, I learned that James, the father I had stayed with during my first visit to the community, had died of AIDS. His wife is HIV-positive, and his family is now fatherless. In Manyeleti, education and awareness so that young people know how to stop the HIV/AIDS scourge would bring peace to our playground.

In Kayafungo, Kenya, I learned that a small girl collecting water drowned while reaching into the dam to fill her jerry can of 20 liters, enough water to get her family through the day. Her mother was in our Hygiene promotion workshops in a nearby village, learning how she might be able to fend of illness to provide her daughter a better life, when the tragedy happened. In Kayafungo, running water means peace in our playground.

On college campuses nationwide that are torn by the aggressive statements of Pro-Israel and Anti-Israel, Pro-Palestinian and Anti-Palestinian commentary, I have also found another awesome possibility. People coming together to debate solutions and find their way in a world that seems to be going mad. Young people, at a rate I have never seen, are begging for the opportunity to engage in our global community and make a difference. Wrangling and animosity against the other is not fulfilling, only improving is. Students are finding peace in their playground through the thousands of hours of service they provide their communities and their peers, and with the foundations of a good education, they are ready to lift the shovel and get to work in the most troubled lands around the nation. The challenges are real, but the opportunities are endless.

In 6 short years, young people I have worked with have built 56 latrines, 13 handwashing stations, two schools and a water dam in Kenya. They have sponsored soccer fields, libraries, classrooms, community centers and HIV/AIDS programs in South Africa. They have done it through their audacious pursuit of a better life – a peaceful playground – in all communities. They are Alyce and Annette Blum, Jessica Marks, Dita and Haidi Garlick, Jacob Heitler, Sarah Kramer, Micah Friedman, Dena Miller and dozens of other members from this playground.

Herzl and RMHA gave me a confidence to do work in marginalized and difficult places across the globe. I realize now that peace in our playground leads to peace in other playgrounds.

But much like building a water pipeline in Kenya is immensely challenging, strengthening and improving the institutions of the Denver Campus for Jewish Education will not be easy. If you have children or grandchildren, they should be enrolled students at Herzl/RMHA. If you have philanthropic interests, invest in this school system, and put a down payment on the future. To the teachers who provide the inspiration and the homework – many of my favorites are with us this evening: Sheila Silverman, Jerry Rotenberg, Judy Sylvan, Bryan Hay, Henya Bergman, Craig Halper – you form the core of my knowledge and understanding, your work is the most important in the world. If you are a student here, work hard and embrace the opportunities at hand – they are immense, unique and can be even stronger. After all, it is you everyone is here to celebrate.

The foundation right now in our community is shaken and some of our society has ruptured. The work to build and rebuild is upon all of us, let’s make sure not to cut any corners. Let’s find peace in our playground once more.