Today I met someone I truly admire. The truth is, I’m a pretty critical guy; I tend to start by seeing people’s faults. After I get to know them I usually find something that I like or some aspect of their personality I would like to emulate. But at first, my conceit usually gets the better of me. Not tonight. Tonight I met someone I truly admire.
After a day filled with learning about Budapest, the uprising of 1956, life under communism, visiting with Holocaust survivors, singing and dancing with residents of a home for adults with special needs, and meeting with young people working to revitalize a shteibel and a neighborhood in a forgotten section of Budapest’s Jewish community, we went out to dinner. It had been a full day and I for one thought that dinner was going to be mostly the team just kibitzing. (There has been a blessed amount of kibitzing with this team too. More on that some other day.) Enter Linda Vero-Ban. Linda grew up in Budapest and became very interested in her Judaism as a teen. She a mom now and together with her husband they run a vibrant and growing shul in Budapest. But she does so much that it would be hard to explain in the written word her accomplishments. She saw a need for Jewish books for children written in Hungarian, which reflect the Hungarian context – so she wrote them. She saw a need for programming for teens, so she started it – and now she has 45 teens that meet weekly. And so much more. And when she talks about all of this she does it with matter of fact humility.
During the conversation tonight Linda shared a critical insight. While it’s true that communism fell in Hungary in 1990, 26 years is in truth, not much time. All the teachers in Hungary schools right now either were themselves teachers in the communist system of they were students in the communist system. Only now are there teachers that are starting to come into schools that are open to new ways of thinking about kids and teaching and asking questions. She said, just like it took our ancestors 40 years for there to be a generation that was cleansed of the slave mentality and ready to enter The Land, it will be 40 years until communism’s shadow has been cleansed from the educational system. We are really the first effort in trying to get new ideas and possibilities into the school and into the teachers’ imaginations.
Linda shared her thinking about a Shabbaton that she and her husband are planning for the children of the Scheiber School. We were happy to share with her some of our experiences from running events like that and what type of planning needs to go into it. We talked about how important informal education is in conjunction with formal education. As we talked long into dessert (a yummy creamy filling on top of a small piece of cake with some type of fruit/gelatin topping – right up my alley) we found ourselves vacillating between a glass half full optimism about Jewish life here and a pessimism that is “inspired” by poor economic conditions, rising institutionalized and inter-personal anti-Semitism, and the incredible difficulty in attracting the highest caliber of young person into teaching. And of course, without great teachers, any plan to fix a school and inspire kids is going to fail (said the teacher.)
In the end I think the dinner ended with us all feeling uplifted that the work we are all engaged in is holy work. There are only 2 choices after all, try something to fix this or give up. I’m not a prophet, but I’m pretty sure the Creator would say not to give up.
Linda has not given up. She keeps looking for new ways to serve, new ways to inspire, new way to help Jewish teens and their families. I admire that.
