38 Old Country Rd
Garden City,
NY 11530

(516) 741-7304

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• Viewpoint
• The President Reports
• Religious Education
• Pledging Finale
• Travel Group for Singles
• Pandora's Box -- Public Affairs Committee
• Do You Know . . .?
• Ethical Culture Grace
• Entertainment 99
• Internet Reponse
• Book Group
• Personals
• Film Night at EHS

I belong to a clergy association. (What are you doing here? some of my Garden City colleagues query. What are you doing there? some of the anti-religious members of our Society ask.)

I've been a member for more than 20 years and by now there is only one person who has been associated for a longer time.

My schedule doesn't allow me to attend many meetings but I do manage to get to one or two during the year. Our Society hosted the December meeting where I did the presentation on raising a moral child.

That part was easy. More challenging was what came next. The meetings always end with lunch and the host minister gives the benediction. The problem is that Ethical Leaders don't do grace.

However, just a few weeks before, we had had our Thanksgiving celebration. Every once in a while, a literal-minded person will challenge me and say, Who do you thank when you don't believe in God? That's not a hard question at all. There are many things to be thankful for and many people to thank. So at our celebration we read our Thanksgiving grace composed more than a half century ago.

So that's what I read before lunch. I made copies and passed it around. I asked everyone to take a moment to read it silently and then asked all who wanted to read along with me.

This was a big hit. In fact, three ministers asked for copies and the Garden City Cathedral plans to add it to their book of prayers.

This seems a fair turnaround. We have been borrowing some of their melodies for our songbook for years. This is how religions transform over time - borrowing from here and there, taking what fits, tossing away the worn.

One difference between us and other religions is that we are still building up our body of tradition and we are more willing to be experimental. This fits our nature. We aren't turned to the past as much as living in the present and facing

the future. Welcome to the New Year.

===== Arthur Dobrin

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Walking through the door marked 'the last year of the century' is almost eerie! Yet, we have all done it, almost quietly. 1999 is not getting its due because of all the excitement generated by the coming of the millennium. There is a blind rush to 'get on with it' - put this year aside and let's get to the 21st century! My children and their children are already plotting where and how they will celebrate the arrival of the year 2,000.

I haven't got enough years left, however, to wish an entire year will fly by with incredible speed just to usher in a new century. No, I for one, want 1999 to take its time, not to skip a single day or even a single hour. I want every minute to be completely filled with its normal count of sixty seconds per.

This twentieth century has been one of totally unbelievable excitement, discovery and accomplishment so why count it as 'finished' or 'over' one moment before it actually is. There are bound to be many more innovations and challenges before December 31, 1999, as one second to midnight, arrives. And so, let us proceed slowly and carefully through 1999, not waste a single day or even one small hour and live it all to its most complete and its fullest.

My wishes for a 'happy New Year' extend to all with one single admonition:

DON'T RUSH ME!

======= Richard Rapp

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This year the Sunday School will see six students graduate. All of these 8th grade students have been with us for at least five years and a couple of them started with us when they were in 1st grade. During these years they have learned some Ethical Culture history, shared facts and opinions about the world they live in, discussed values important to their ethical growth and enjoyed the freedom to be who they are in a loving environment.

In their Senior years, especially with the expert guidance of their teacher, Nancy Goldstein, these youngsters have developed the ability to self-reflect and empathize more readily with those they encounter.

The first two senior students being affirmed are Justin Milizio on January 17 and Derek Smith on February 14.

Justin is an expressive young man who is interested in all kinds of reptiles. He has a pet iguana named Godzilla. Justin also collects rocks, coins and knives. He plays soccer and is in the Scouts. He enjoys learning science and plans to be a veterinarian when he grows up. Justin loves pizza and feels that it's important to get a good job and succeed in life.

Derek Smith is an outstanding musician who can play piano, guitar, violin and bass.

He cares about animals, likes to read and watch TV. Social studies is his favorite subject and he really enjoys eating blintzes.

Derek wants to be a rock musician when he grows up. He believes it's most important to make the right ethical choices that will make yourself and others happy.

In future months, I will highlight our remaining graduates. I hope our members will enjoy getting to know these young people better.

====== Linda Napoli

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This is the sixth consecutive and final newsletter article that the Pledge Committee will submit to the EHS community related to the 1999 Pledge Campaign.

The entire Pledge Committee thanks the canvassers who knocked on your door and asked to speak with you about your family pledge. The Autumn Dinner Committee must also be thanked for putting together a beautiful evening event where we all celebrated together.

Through newsletter articles, personal meetings and appeals, dinner celebrations and so many other ways have we expressed the message that pledging generously to our religious/educational home makes a lot of sense.

With the generous financial support of the entire membership our plans, our community aspirations, our building and grounds and our future together are ore secure. We have reached a new beginning upon which we can continue to build in future years.

Thank you for supporting your community. If you have not already submitted your 1999 pledge now is the time to do so and to feel really good about yourself and the community that you continue to create.

====== Andrew Jacobs

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The Travel Group for Singles is for single, widowed, divorced or separated people. Each month, those interested in traveling will have the opportunity to hear about new things in the field of travel, and to network with their peers. Annual membership is available, or, you can pay per meeting. We will be meeting, at the Society, 38 Old Country Road, Garden City at 7:30pm. Refreshments will be served.

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Mumia Abu-Jamal is a journalist who has received awards for his reporting on police misconduct, abuse of authority, racism, education and housing in Philadelphia.

Mumia has authored Live from Death Row and Death Blossoms plus numerous columns and commentaries. Mumia was the co-founder and minister of information of the Black Panther Party's Philadelphia Chapter at the age of 15. At 16, the FBI's surveillance of him began.

After Mumia's outspokenness drew the wrath of the authorities and caused him to lose some of his work, he began moonlighting as a cab driver. On the night of Dec. 8, 1981, Mumia came upon a bizarre scene. He saw his own brother being viciously beaten by a police officer. He exited his cab and approached. Shots were fired. The officer critically wounded Mumia. The policeman was also shot and later died. Mumia was charged with the killing and later convicted. The sentence was death.

Many problems and irregularities exist regarding Mumia's plight. There was no attempt to find the two men that witnesses said fled the scene. Also, the dead officer was holding the driver's license of yet another man. Two months after the incident, an officer remembered that he heard Mumia "confess" while he was in the emergency room. The officer had simply forgotten to mention it at the time or write it in the reports, the story went. The emergency room doctor said the confession never happened. The coroner found that the officer was shot with a 44-caliber weapon. Mumia has a licensed gun, a 38. Mumia's gun was never checked to see whether it had been fired nor was Mumia checked for powder burns. A witness who saw the murderer leave the scene was never called to testify at the trial. A prostitute, facing jail time and loss of her children, was coerced into changing her testimony and accused Mumia of the crime. Later, she recanted at a Pennsylvania Supreme Court review of the case, reverting to her original story.

Eleven preemptory challenges were used to knock almost all Blacks off the jury. Criminal Court Judge Albert Sabo, who presided during Mumia's trial, has the distinctions of presiding over more death sentences than any other sitting judge in the U.S., and of being denounced by a group of district attorneys who had appeared before him. Sabo barred Mumia from most of his own trial for protesting an incompetent court-appointed attorney. That attorney, who didn't want the case, was later disbarred. In addition, Judge Sabo came back from retirement to preside over the Pennsylvania Supreme Court review of the case, in essence being the reviewer of his own behavior.

On this past Oct. 29th, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied Mumia a retrial. Under the Anti-terrorism Bill, he may not receive justice in the Federal Courts.

We can call upon the following people to insist on a fair trial: President Clinton: (202) 456-1414 Pa. Gov. Thomas Ridge: (717) 787-2500, Fax: (717) 772-8284 Atty. General Janet Reno: (202) 514-2000, Fax: (202) 514-4371

Up to date information can be found on the internet at: http://www.mumia.com

====== Bob Horn

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Duffy and Will Spencer would love to find other couples that enjoy ballroom dancing.

Tapes of Sunday morning addresses are available, thanks to Chris Stanley who regularly maintains our audio equipment.

Wayne Outten is one of the nation's leading authorities on employee rights. He just established his own legal firm in Manhattan.

Dorothea Hays is professor of nursing at Adelphi University. She is one of the foremost experts on bereavement groups and presently runs the support group at the Society with Pat Milizio and Jim LoPresti.

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For the fruits of field and forest, farm and garden, river and ocean; For our people who give their lives to rearing and cultivating our food and to transporting it on highways and waterways of the earth; For shelter and for raiment; For comradeship in work; for fellowship in leisure; and for healthy recreation; For the beauty of nature and art; And for all the blessings of democracy and freedom; We lift up our thankful hearts.

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Entertainment 1999 turned out to be a wonderful fund raiser for the Society. Anne Sheraga and her friend, Margie Glickman, sold 51 books netting a profit of $306.00.

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I happened upon your web site in a timely fashion; your comments about the lost children of Ethical Culture were apt - being one myself. I had been thinking about you, wishing there were a society here in Western Mass. so that my children could take a step up the ladder from being just godless pagans and enjoy the benefits I enjoyed of "Ethical", as my family called it (as in,"going to Ethical"). Are any of my compadres still members? Stanley Shapiro, Elissa Berardi, Sue Rapp, Steve Braunstein, Judy Weil, were some of the friends from Sunday preschool through the youth group of whom I have managed to lose track. I assume that we are all part of the subject of your December Viewpoint.

After reading your article and examining my own reasons for not having returned to the flock I find myself sadly in agreement. However, I do not believe there is necessarily a lack of emotional underpinning given to the Sunday School children. I have very strong emotions, not just about my old friendships, but about the movements and the moments that brought us together. Was part of it unique to the time? We were jeered by the KKK going to Civil Rights rallies to hear Dr. King and Dick Gregory speak and sing We Shall Overcome, we marched to free the Panthers and marched to end the War. The emotions tied to all that are very powerful and maybe nothing on that scale still exists.

But for me there were many more small moments, also powerfully emotional, which happened in the Sunday School rooms on Old Country Road. Discussions about The Lord of the Flies and The Catcher in the Rye of a sort that never would have been possible elsewhere gave me a social milieu for my otherwise solitary love of books (in those pre Oprah days). Songs by Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan (and even the Who) to which I was introduced by teachers and classmates now give me the chills whenever I hear them (thanks to their emotional baggage). The idea of an ethical life with which we were inculcated seems to have become some sort of substitute emotion to the belief in God which is why I guess it was a Sunday School. The guidance we were given to seek out those less fortunate and give of ourselves still allows for much emotional play.

There is much more, but really I should just say thanks to you and all those members whose support allowed the Sunday School to exist. I do not think I would rather have those emotions and memories replaced with a liturgy no matter how many candles are llit. There is at least one child who went through that program who has an emotional soul, however divorced from their rational existence, with valued beliefs that were learned at your Sunday School. While this is not the answer to your recidivism problem maybe it reinforces your point that there is an important emotional component in the Sunday School that might benefit from your members' involvement. Or at least from their patience and good humor.

It is probably just a question of critical mass. A couple more millennia and Ethical Humanism will probably be in ascendancy and won't be concerned with a few million more or less members.

Best Regards,

===== Rick Plaut, Longmeadow, Massachusetts

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Do you like to read novels? Do you like to read good novels? Do you like to read good contemporary novels? Do you like to discuss novels with others? Come join us in our fiction book group. We meet every other month on a Friday night. All the books chosen are available in paperback and none is more than about 200 pages. So read for pleasure, read for stimulation, read to break the "frozen seas of soul".

• February: H, Eliabeth Shepard - "A very poignant, enthralling debut." The Boston Globe
• April: Guided Tours of Hell, Francine Prose - "Irresistibly readable." The New York Times Book Review
• June: Breath, Eyes, Memory, Edwidge Danticat - "Danticat's calm clarity of vision takes on the resonance of folk art." - The New York Times Book Review

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• Milt Masur's father died in Isreal in January 1999.
• Lyn Dobrin has been selected as one of the honorees at the 14th. Annual Women's History Luncheon of the League of Women Voters of Nassau County held at the Milleridge Inn cottage in Jericho on March 19, 1999. Lyn is being recognized for her work with Amnesty International, Adelphi Breast Cancer Hotline and other women related work.
• Condolences to Sherry Platnick on the death of her brother.
• We are saddened to announce the death of Paul Kaplan at age 38. Paul was the son of George and Sandy Kaplan and, with his three sisters, graduated from our Sunday School. He was living in England with his wife and two daughters. A memorial service will be held for Paul at the Society on Saturday February 6th at noon.

Hosted by Paula Grenot and Lisa Saft Join us in viewing films that we like, on a giant screen TV, which may or may not present ethical issues . . . you be the judge. After the film stay for a brief (but heated?) discussion. Popcorn to be provided. Please BYOB (beverage). Schedule as follows:

• Thursday March 18,1999, 7:00PM- "Times of Harvey Milk" : 1984, 87 min. Oscar winning documentary about one of the first openly gay politicians.
• Thursday May 20,1999, 7:00PM - "Cold Comfort Farm": 1995, 105 min. Upbeat British farce w. wonderfully bizarre characters.