FACING EVIL, FINDING GOD
Jean Bloch Rosensaft and Elizabeth McNamara Mueller
I
t was a personal tragedy that propelled
Rabbi Stephanie Bernstein
,
N ’09, toward
the rabbinate. Her husband Michael
Bernstein, a lawyer for the Justice Depart-
ment’s Office of Special Investigation (OSI),
was killed in the bombing of Pan Am Flight
103
in 1988. He was returning from Vienna,
where he had persuaded the Austrian gov-
ernment to accept Auschwitz SS guard Josef
Eckert upon his deportation from the U.S.
Of the twenty-four former Nazis who had
been deported from the United States dur-
ing OSI’s first 10 years, Michael Bernstein
was responsible for seven.
At the time of his death, Stephanie
Bernstein was a clinical social worker with
two young children. A lifelong Reform Jew
who had grown up within a vibrant com-
munity in Duluth, MN, she sought out the
comfort of her community at Temple Sinai
in Washington, D.C., and became increas-
ingly involved as a lay leader and ultimately
served as the synagogue’s President. “Com-
munity is at the heart of who we are as Jews.
Judaism rests on the covenant that God
made with us as a community,” she explains.
She applied to HUC-JIR after a decade
of consultation with her rabbi, Fred Reiner,
C ’73. Being in her late 40s, and wanting to
explore what it would be like to study with
students the age of her own children, she
trained for the Hebrew admissions exam
with classes at George Washington Univer-
sity. This experience, along with “studying
Torah with Methodists” at Wesley Theolog-
ical Seminary, which has a high percentage
of second-career students, helped prepare her
for her years at HUC-JIR.
Married to Henry Winokur since 1990,
Bernstein went off alone to Israel and at 50
was the oldest rabbinical student of her Year-
In-Israel Program cohort. She nonetheless
bonded with the much younger students of
her
mahazor
(
class), who became among her
closest friends at HUC-JIR. She vividly re-
calls their hike through the Negev, which
was supposed to be six hours, but lasted
much longer, and required her to climb
down a metal ladder built into the side of a
MEET HUC-J IR’S STUDENTS
2009
ISSUE 72 | 23
rael. Iranian Jews are Zionists, I thought, they
just cannot publicly proclaim their support.
Yet the enthusiastic speech given by Shiraz
Jewish officials of their participation in annual
anti-Israel parades shattered that opinion.
What about Iran’s support for Hamas
and Hezbollah? Given the reality of Iranian
rockets reaching Beersheva through the hands
of Hamas, this issue is more pressing than
ever. Many Iranians believe that their govern-
ment’s focus on Israel is part of the national
vision to emerge as a regional power. Support
of Hamas and Hezbollah allows Iran to wield
greater influence with its Arab neighbors.
From what I could gather, the average Muslim
citizen seems frustrated that tax dollars are
fleeing the country to support organizations
like Hamas and Hezbollah when the economy
at home desperately needs revitalizing.
Bottom line: I walked away with more
hope than fear. Over 60% of the country is
under the age of 30. That 60% statistically
looks quite favorably towards the United
States. I spotted more than one young man
donning U.S. army gear… in public. Young
women compelled by teachers to spend their
lunch break in the mosque quietly rebelled by
gathering in the back around a pile of L’Oréal
and Lancome eyeshadow. Potential for reform
exists. Certainly, the government’s structure
does not invite it with a religious Supreme
Council able to veto any progressive legisla-
tion. Nevertheless, the country continues to
evolve. The devastating effects of the Iran/Iraq
War marked a turning point in Iranian politics
and a general shift toward pragmatism.
The American Jewish community pos-
sesses a unique opportunity. We have 20,000
brothers and sisters living in Iran whose col-
lective story remains largely untold. Their
existence hints that someday, a different rela-
tionship with Iran may be possible. In
learning and sharing their narrative, we begin
to put cracks in the wall of fear constructed
around Iran. Their narrative
will
contradict
our own on everything from Israel to inter-
marriage. That may not be easy to hear. But as
Jews, as people deeply committed to remem-
bering stories, we cannot refuse to listen out of
fear that acknowledging another’s truth will
negate our own. If there is any hope of conflict
resolution, we first have to be able to ac-
knowledge two conflicting narratives
simultaneously.
Stephanie Bernstein, N ’09, (center) surrounded by classmates.
