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7/4/07
Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --
When it comes to marriage between people of two different faiths, does love really conquer all?
Rabbi Zvi Block>> Where are the kids going to go? I know what they're going to do. They're going to go one week to Hanukkah with the Jewish parent, one week to Christmas with the non-Jewish parent. Totally confused.
Val>> And then --
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Val Zavala>> Okay, so it's hard to sing, but is that reason enough to dump the national anthem?
It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times.
Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.
And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.
Val Zavala>> It's a decision almost every person of faith has to make. Do they marry inside or outside their religion? For those who marry outside, they say it's more inclusive, but others say it dilutes their religious practice. Saul Gonzalez takes a look at what interfaith marriage means for Christians and Jews.
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Saul Gonzalez>> With the lighting of candles and reciting of prayers, Gary and Christine Goldhammer are starting their Passover Seder meal with their daughter, Alexandra, and invited family and friends.
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Saul Gonzalez>> Although they are both participating in this Jewish tradition, the Goldhammers don't share the same faith. Gary is Jewish, but Christine is Lutheran. Theirs is one of the growing number of Jewish-Christian interfaith marriages in the United States.
Christine Goldhammer>> I honestly don't think it has to be one way or the other. I think you can make it work if you have both religions.
Saul Gonzalez>> Like many other interfaith couples, the Goldhammers make their marriage work by putting their religious differences aside, such as a belief in the divinity of Jesus. Instead, they look for common ground.
Christine Goldhammer>> I think that's kind of the nature of an interfaith marriage. You have these conflicts already and you have to be able to communicate through them.
Gary Goldhammer>> Well, you start at the beginning, you know. There's no God but God and that where it all starts and begins and ends. So you have that connection. Everything else really is not that important.
Saul Gonzalez>> The growth of interfaith marriages in the United States has been especially significant to the Jewish community. According to a national survey conducted by United Jewish Communities, the number of American Jews marrying someone of a different religion has grown from about thirteen percent before 1970 to nearly fifty percent today.
Rabbi Steven Carr Reuben>> "We believe, we teach, that the words that matter in that Torah scroll are universal and the people that matter in our lives and in the world are universal."
Saul Gonzalez>> Rabbi Steven Carr Reuben, who has written a book on interfaith marriage, views the increasing number of Jews in relationships with someone of a different religion as a positive development both for Jews and the wider society.
Rabbi Steven Carr Reuben>> It's the natural outgrowth of having a society that is open and free and accepting where there aren't the same barriers that shut down communities and make people live in ghettos and make people live only with their own religion, of their own race or their own culture or their own kind, whatever that might be. Every interfaith relationship is like a pebble in the pond. There are ripples that go out that touch many more people than just that couple and their kids.
Saul Gonzalez>> For many American Jews, though, interfaith marriages shouldn't be a cause for joined celebration. In fact, they worry that the relationships could have a profound and damaging effect on the health and future of Judaism.
Rabbi Zvi Block>> To us, it's a nail in the coffin.
Saul Gonzalez>> Zvi Block is an orthodox Rabbi who criticizes fellow Jews who see interfaith marriage as a path to assimilation.
Rabbi Zvi Block>> I have no such interest. I'm not anxious to be accepted. I have no interest in integrating or assimilating or becoming a part or becoming as if that's some sort of arrival or some sort of rite of passage. I don't need any of that. The very fact that we live under a threat of assimilation means that we could easily melt away and our traditions and our history and all that we value fall apart and become, God forbid, extinct.
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Saul Gonzalez>> Such fears often stem from demographics. Numbering between five to six and a half million people, American Jews account for only about two percent of the United States population. It's feared that interfaith marriages could shrink the number of Jews because such relationships increase the chance of children being raised in either the non-Jewish faith of a spouse or in a home that's largely secular.
Rabbi Zvi Block>> Where are the kids going to go? I know what they're going to do. They're going to go one week to Hanukkah with the Jewish parent, one week to Christmas with the non-Jewish parent. Totally confused.
Saul Gonzalez>> You don't think that's sustainable?
Rabbi Zvi Block>> Oh, it's destructive.
Saul Gonzalez>> Destructive?
Rabbi Zvi Block>> Destructive to the new generation, absolutely.
Saul Gonzalez>> Because?
Rabbi Zvi Block>> Because the kids are confused. There's conflicts there.
Saul Gonzalez>> Then there's the issue of whether the children of interfaith couples will be accepted by the wider Jewish community because of the traditional belief that a child is Jewish only if he or she is born of a Jewish mother.
Alexandra>> "Against their will, they made bricks and built cities to the Pharaoh, the king of Egypt."
Saul Gonzalez>> Although the Goldhammers are raising their daughter as a Jew, Gary encounters some ambivalent feelings from within his own family because Christine remains Christian.
Gary Goldhammer>> My sister, I think, still has trouble accepting that we're raising our daughter Jewish and, in some ways, in her mind that she is not really Jewish and that we actually don't have a Jewish marriage because, you know, Christine is Christian.
Saul Gonzalez>> Even before they have children, many interfaith couples, says Rabbi Reuben, feel like outcasts from both faiths.
Rabbi Steven Carr Reuben>> A lot of the weddings that I do, by the time they get to me to ask me if I would officiate at their wedding, they've already been to other clergy, rabbis or non-rabbis, and felt rejected, felt turned down. It happens all the time.
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Saul Gonzalez>> Judaism has traditionally shunned the proselytizing and evangelism, but faced with the reality of interfaith marriages, many synagogues and Jewish institutions are trying to make it easier for non-Jewish partners to learn about Judaism and perhaps convert.
Rabbi Neal Weinberg>> "So the Jewish year is made up of twelve months, but three hundred fifty four days, so it's eleven days shorter than the solar year."
Saul Gonzalez>> Conservative Rabbi Neal Weinberg is the Director of the Introduction to Judaism program at Los Angeles's University of Judaism.
Rabbi Neal Weinberg>> "And so they opened up the Ark, they took the Torah out, they did special prayers and now it's in a new month hoping to have a good and prosperous month."
Saul Gonzalez>> During his six-month class, students learn about Jewish history, faith and traditions.
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Saul Gonzalez> Those non-Jewish students who take this class are invited by Rabbi Weinberg to think about converting. He says such efforts are indispensable to the future of American Judaism.
Rabbi Neal Weinberg>> This is the wrong time in our history to not allow people the opportunity to become Jewish who want to become Jewish. We should be trying to welcome more people into the Jewish fold who are ready to live a Jewish religious life, so this program helps prepare them to make that decision whether they want to embrace Judaism or not. "We ask God that we merit the opportunity to raise many good Jewish children and that our people become as numerous as the fish in the ocean."
Saul Gonzalez>> Marlon Franklin, born and raised Catholic, is taking the Rabbi's class and plans to convert before he marries his girlfriend, Elysa Charlestein.
Marlon Franklin>> Finding this religion, you know, Judaism, I mean, I saw all the things that I was looking for.
Elysa Charlestein>> Now that we're going to have a Jewish home, everything is going to be unified. It's not going to be, you know, Judaism, Christianity, how to raise the children, what to do, how to bring this equality. It's more that the both of us will now be Jewish. We're going to have a Jewish home and that we're a part of the Jewish nation and people.
Saul Gonzalez>> However, the Goldhammers say that matters of love often can't and shouldn't be guided by religious identity.
Gary Goldhammer>> You know, we live in the world and, for good or for bad, we have to continue to live in the world. We're going to love who we love and we're going to be with who we want to be with and that's just the way it has to be.
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Saul Gonzalez>> For Life and Times, I'm Saul Gonzalez.
Val Zavala>> So what do you think of interfaith marriage? You can post your opinion. Just go to kcet.org and click on the Life and Times Blog.
Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times".
Val Zavala>> When it comes to cosmetic surgery, Hollywood stars get the star treatment. But what about the hundreds of Iraq war veterans who come home in need of cosmetic surgery and the government doesn't always pay for it? Where can they turn? Sheryl Kahn has our story.
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Sheryl Kahn>> Three year old Sebastian McQuigg likes to play with his dad and his trains. But there was a time not too long ago when his father wasn't able to do this because Sebastian's dad, Staff Sergeant Paul McQuigg, was seriously injured in Iraq when a roadside bomb went off.
Paul McQuigg>> Someone was watching and said the bomb blew up on my side of the vehicle.
Sheryl Kahn>> Paul regained consciousness several days later in a military hospital in Germany. When he saw his face in the mirror, he was shocked.
Paul McQuigg>> My whole head was the size of a beach ball. I was so swollen. I had no hair.
Sheryl Kahn>> More than a dozen surgeries later, Paul was still left with scars on his head and abdomen.
Paul McQuigg>> I had an open wound. You can see the scar here right in the middle.
Sheryl Kahn>> As well as on the side of his face, inside his mouth and on his tongue. He's unable to eat and has to be fed through a tube in his stomach.
Jacqueline McQuigg>> Shrapnel went through one side of his jaw to the other side of his jaw.
Sheryl Kahn>> Paul's mother, a registered nurse, moved from the Midwest to San Diego to help care for him and for Sebastian, whose own mother is no longer in the picture.
Jacqueline McQuigg>> "Did daddy get an owie on his face?"
Sebastian>> "Yep."
Jacqueline McQuigg>> "And on his tongue?"
Sebastian>> "Um-hum."
Jacqueline McQuigg>> "Does daddy have a hard time eating?"
Sebastian>> "Yeah."
Sheryl Kahn>> Jacqueline McQuigg says that it hurts to see her thirty year old son in such pain. Not all his injuries are visible. Paul has severe headaches and memory problems, but the worst part, Jacqueline says, is the way some people have treated her son since he came back from Iraq.
Jacqueline McQuigg>> He's very intelligent, but because he has the speech impediment, he's not always treated appropriately when he approaches people in public or when he's tried to talk on the phone because he wants to be very independent and take care of his own. Several people hang up on him on the phone because of his speech.
Sheryl Kahn>> Paul says that treatment sometimes makes him angry, but he's learned to live with it. Like other veterans who've returned home with similar wounds, Paul would like to get back to normal, to the way he used to live and look.
The military says there's not much more they can do for him and that's where this woman, Rancho Mirage resident Maggie Lockridge, comes in. Maggie is a Vietnam-era Air Force veteran and retired nurse who once had a thriving consulting business providing luxury aftercare for wealthy cosmetic surgery patients.
Maggie Lockridge>> We had the movie stars, we had the news commentators, we had you name it, we had it. People in politics and Duchesses and Princesses.
Sheryl Kahn>> Lockridge says she was watching a television special about ABC anchorman, Bob Woodruff, who'd been critically injured in Iraq, when she had an epiphany. She says she realized wounded veterans needed much more help than they were getting from the Veterans Administration.
Maggie Lockridge>> It's the shrapnel scars and the burns that need new grafting and just the disfiguration from the artillery wounds that they have that aren't always permanently addressed.
Sheryl Kahn>> So Lockridge started a nonprofit to raise money to provide cosmetic surgery for injured Iraq veterans. She called it Iraq Star, a play on the phrase "rock star", because she wanted to treat the veterans like celebrities, using her connections to get them the kind of help usually reserved for Hollywood's "A" list.
Dr. Norman Leaf>> "Paul, I'm going to ask you to tell me a little bit about your history."
Sheryl Kahn>> Beverly Hills cosmetic surgeon, Dr. Norman Leaf, treats so many celebrity patients that his office has secret entrances so stars can slip in past the paparazzi. Dr. Leaf says he's not in favor of the war in Iraq, but does support the troops who've served there and wants to do what he can to help.
Dr. Norman Leaf>> They come back and, you know, they need to get jobs. They want to date.
Sheryl Kahn>> But even with the help of doctors like him who volunteer their time, Iraq Star needs lots of donations to help Paul and other wounded veterans. Still, this is a great first step for Iraq Star and for Paul. Paul realizes that he's getting movie star treatment here in Beverly Hills, but he says that's not what's important. What really matters is just knowing there are so many people who care.
Paul McQuigg>> It's humbling. It's that humbling.
Sheryl Kahn>> Sheryl Kahn in Beverly Hills.
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Val Zavala>> Okay, let's admit it. There are times when even we adults would love to get down and dirty. Well, now there's a perfect place, for kids at least, to wallow in the mud. Orange County reporter Roger Cooper takes us to the Puddle Park.
Roger Cooper>> Cleanliness is next to Godliness, we're told. Not in this place. Here in this spot in the heart of Huntington Beach, mud rules and the name of the game is getting dirty.
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Roger Cooper>> What is this place?
Mark Hoxie>> This is a playground for kids approximately five to twelve year olds, but we don't turn anybody away because of their age. It's just that we're more appropriate for that age group.
Roger Cooper>> Adventure Playground is operated by the city of Huntington Beach each summer. Mark Hoxie may be the city's Coordinator for Community Services, but you can tell he's a kid at heart.
Mark Hoxie>> We have a tire swing. They slide down the tire. It goes down the cable for about fifty feet or so and they bounce around.
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Roger Cooper>> Being here is like entering Mark Twain's mind, to watch Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn and Becky at play.
Mark Hoxie>> We have a pond with rafts in it. They push themselves around kind of like Tom Sawyer. We have a rope bridge going over the pond. We have a building area where the kids can check out hammers and saws and then we also have a mud slide which they slide down a hill. We squirt them with a hose as they go down and then they land in a hole of muddy water.
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Roger Cooper>> What do you think the fun of this is to a kid?
Mark Hoxie>> It's a place where kids can do things that they can't do anywhere else. In Orange County and Los Angeles County, there's not a whole lot of open land in the cities, so it's a place where they can go and get dirty. They can build with hammers and nails and the parents don't worry about it.
Roger Cooper>> Everyone needs a chance to hit the nail on the head.
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Roger Cooper>> This is done by the city?
Mark Hoxie>> Yeah, it's part of the Community Services Department of Huntington Beach.
Roger Cooper>> How long has it been here?
Mark Hoxie>> It's been in this location since 1983 and the original one, which was right across the street from us, was started in about 1974.
Roger Cooper>> Do you know why it got started?
Mark Hoxie>> From what I've seen, there was a man from Europe who had noticed in the wreckage of World War II that the kids were playing in that and having as much fun with that as they were having with their toys, so he came up with the idea of having a place where there was just junk to play with.
Roger Cooper>> How do they get back home once they get dirty?
Mark Hoxie>> We have a shower and we have a couple of changing rooms. They're not real fancy, but they can at least get rinsed off, a little bit cleaner, a little drier and then not mess up the cars as they go home.
Roger Cooper>> When you were a kid, would you like to have had this?
Mark Hoxie>> I grew up in Huntington Beach here and I was aware of the original one, but I was never able to get over there. I wish I had because it was a lot different than this. I came here to this one as a volunteer. I was about nineteen years old and we had a great time. I was one of those adults who was doing all the kid stuff at the time.
Roger Cooper>> So you've been in the mud yourself?
Mark Hoxie>> Yes. We also have a tradition on the last day that the staff will go around and do all the stuff and have a little crazy time.
Roger Cooper>> It's the old swimming hole that most of us had or would love to have had when we were kids, and it's alive and well in Huntington Beach. In Orange County, I'm Roger Cooper for Life and Times.
Val Zavala>> Okay, so our national anthem is really hard to sing, but the Star Spangled Banner has a lot of other things going for it, as commentator, Cris Franco, tells us with some help from some very patriotic young people.
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Cris Franco>> You probably know who wrote the words to the Star Spangled Banner.
Student>> "Francis Scott Key".
Cris Franco>> She got it right. But do you know who wrote the music? Time's up. It was John Stafford Smith who originally composed the melody as a British pub song. "Do you know what battle our anthem commemorates?"
Student>> "World War II."
Cris Franco>> "It was actually during the War of 1812. Do you know what year the War of 1812 was?" And, Oh, Say, do you understand the lyrics? "Do you know what a rampart is?"
Student>> "No."
Cris Franco>> If you missed any of these questions, you're like sixty-one percent of Americans. That's why the National Association of Music Education has started the Anthem Project. Their mission is to teach every one of us the Star Spangled Banner's beautiful lyrics, rousing music and dramatic history. And why are so many Americans lacking in their knowledge of our Star Spangled anthem? Is it a lack of patriotism? Ha, hardly.
Students>> "We love America."
Cris Franco>> Music professionals believe that it's lack of education due to lack of funding. Today only four percent of a school's budget goes to music education and less than half of our students get any type of music education whatsoever.
It also might have to do with the fact that the Star Spangled Banner is a difficult song full of vocal gymnastics and cluttered lyrics. Musical Director, Gerald Sternbach, explains the anthem singer's dilemma. What is the dreaded musical leap?
Gerald Sternbach>> Well, the octave in the fifth. It starts with the lowest, "Oh, say", down to the A-flat if you're in the key at A-flat. And the highest note, "And the rocket's red glare", that's E-flat. So that's the fifth above the octave, so a rangy song.
Cris Franco>> And a singer vocally has to prepare to do that leap.
Gerald Sternbach>> Absolutely, yes. You have to have the solidity for the low parts, and the high parts, "And the rocket's red glare", you've really got to hit that E-flat right there.
Cris Franco>> That's the money note, right?
Gerald Sternbach>> That's the money note.
Cris Franco>> The young thespians at the Pasadena Junior Theatre volunteered to show us their money notes.
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Cris Franco>> Even yours truly threw vocal caution to the wind.
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Cris Franco>> And because Key conceived it as a poem, not a song, the lyrics are a mouthful. I know when I was a kid I thought the lyrics were about some guy named Don Jose. You know, "Jose, can you see by the Don's early light" (laughter).
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Cris Franco>> So it's no surprise that, when I asked the youngest group to sing our national anthem, they replied --
Student>> "Can we sing a different song that we all know?"
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Cris Franco>> "Casper" is a pretty good story, but the story behind our Star Spangled Banner is even better. On the evening of September 13, 1814 during the War of 1812 -- long war -- Washington attorney, Francis Scott Key, watched the powerful British Navy attack Fort McHenry.
The young American forces fought back all night long. The brave patriots battled the Redcoats until the very end. As dawn broke, Key spotted the flag he'd seen the night before still flying. America had won. Inspired, he scribbled on the back of an envelope a poem he called "The Defense of Fort McHenry".
It became America's national anthem in 1931. Over the years, people have lobbied to change the Star Spangled Banner and replace it with "God Bless America", "This Land is Your Land", "Oh, Beautiful for Spacious Skies", "My Country Tis of Thee". But I say, drop the Star Spangled Banner? Never. Why?
Student>> "Because it's a good song."
Cris Franco>> It is. The music, though demanding, is also exciting. And, yes, the lyrics are tight and tricky, but they're also poetically powerful. Add those ramparts, whatever they are, and you've got our Star Spangled Banner.
It was born when our country was born and it's not all about getting all the high notes right or hitting all the words letter-perfect. It's about our collective American families standing together, taking a deep breath and creating one big united sound. Boy, they got good.
Val Zavala>> Okay, what is a rampart? A rampart is "an earthen fortification consisting of an embankment often with a parapet built on top". What's a parapet? That's for next time. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. Take care.
Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.
And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.
Sponsored in part by:
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