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Tag Archives: Orthodox Jewish

Death of a School – But Not Its Spirit (Part 1)

07 Saturday Sep 2019

Posted by ts4jc in About Me, General Transsexual issues

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academia, actor, Alan Jay Lerner, alma mater, alumni, baby boom, Broadway, celebrities, Clarkstown, Congers, Cornell, East Ramapo, firefighters, gentrification, Haitian, high school, Hispanic, Hollywood, junior high school, Kendall Pennypacker, maturing, New York City, Orthodox Jewish, police officers, power broker, prep school, prestigious, private school, professionals, professors, public school, RCDS, reverse migration, Rockland, Rockland Country Day School, Rockland County, South Nyack, suburban, Tappan Zee Bridge, Transgender, Transsexual, Ultra-Orthodox, yeshiva

On August 19, a little over two weeks before a new school year was supposed to start, my alma mater announced that their finances made it impossible to continue. They have closed their doors and declared bankruptcy.

No, I’m not talking about my college, Cornell.  That school is so large, well-endowed and supported by state government that it would take a collapse of civilization to threaten it with closure.

RCDS Pitkin Hall (Main Building)

I’m talking about the Rockland Country Day School in Congers, NY.  I went there from grades 6 through 12, the only grades it served at the time.  It was a bit of a culture shock for me at first when I went there.  I was from a family somewhere in the middle to lower-middle income range, one wage-earner, with typical values of that group.  I was entering a school populated by children of members of the entertainment and creative industries (actors, playwrights, musicians, producers, photographers, cartoonists), academics (Ivy League professors), and professionals (doctors, dentists, architects, stockbrokers, attorneys).  They had been exposed to so much more than I had when I started school there in September 1963.

At the same time as I was making that adjustment, entering a school that covered grades 6 through 12 brought my gender issues front and center for the first time.  Sure I knew that little kids got older and matured.  With a brother five years older, I saw his friends in small groups and even played sports with them on occasion (and held my own, thank you).  Going from a school that was K-6 to a school that was 6-12, suddenly I had panoramic view of the maturing process of the preteen through late teen years.  I didn’t like what I saw.  And I didn’t hear about anyone saying that they were going to change gender once they became adults.  Homosexuality was rarely talked about.  Transsexuals weren’t even on the radar.

But once I became acclimated, I caught up and thrived there.  I didn’t get into Cornell because I was cute.  I got good grades and good scores on standardized tests.  Out of boredom with a teacher who taught only to the middle of the class, my performance in public school started to suffer in 5th grade (same year when it did for my brother) and my parents seized the opportunity to enroll me when one of my public school classmates announced that he would be going there next year.

Based on the remarks I have heard from alumni who graduated from there both before and after me, there are many of us who have fond memories of RCDS.  As sad as it is that the school is closing, it is equally sad that it took something like this to bring the alumni closer together.

The first Tappan Zee Bridge under construction

In a strange way, the school is closing pretty much the way it started.  It was supposed to open its doors in September 1958.  They hired a headmaster and were preparing to begin this brand new experiment in education in Rockland County.  There was only one problem.  They kept waiting for the new headmaster to show up to lead the way.  He never did.  Parents had to tell their children, many of them disappointed, that they would be going back to public school that September.

But the group that started the school was undaunted.  They had a vision to provide a better quality of education for their children without having to send them away to boarding school.  The found a new candidate to serve as the first headmaster, Kendall Pennypacker.  This man arrived with his wife, Ruth, who was the school librarian for many years.  The school began in September 1959 with just a few grades in a house in South Nyack, not far from the same Tappan Zee Bridge that had brought a population boom to Rockland County and made it a little easier for people to commute to New York City, turning the county from rural to suburban.

Alan Jay Lerner

Within a few years, the school received enough donations, Alan Jay Lerner being principal donor, to purchase a plot of land in Congers that was known as the Pitkin farm.  It had been home to one of the first women medical doctors in the United States.  I won’t go into detail about some of the strange things that were found when the school took position of the property.  Suffice it to say that the cleanup and transformation of the farm house and other buildings on the premises into classrooms, a library, an art studio and science labs took longer than expected.  Before the school could be ready for classes that year, everyone (faculty, teachers and students) pitched in to put the finishing touches on the place.  (A member of the class of ’67, someone whose father won five Tony awards, told me that it was her job to paint some of the baseboards.  As one of the younger students at the time, they gave her a job she wouldn’t have a problem reaching!)

Similar to the 1958-59 misfire for the start of RCDS, the school has ended in a similar way.  The latest information given to the press was that the parents were told in May that there was a possibility that the school might not continue in September.  But then they were assured in June that the school was committed to moving forward another year.  This time it wasn’t the head of school leaving that scuttled things.  Current Head of School, Jocelyn Feuerstein, was working every angle she could to find a way to keep the school in operation until the cavalry arrived.  But it didn’t arrive.  The Board of Trustees deemed in mid-August that the school’s finances did not warrant keeping the school open.  The chances were too great in their view that they might start the year and have to close down in mid-year, unable to pay the bills.  That would have made it even more difficult for teachers to find new jobs and students to move to new schools.  Two and a half weeks gave very little time, but at least there is some.

There are short-term reasons and long-term reasons that led to the school’s demise.  First the short-term:

  • Declining enrollment which meant declining income.
  • The sale of the campus to the Town of Clarkstown in early 2018 didn’t save as much money and help finances as expected.
  • Negotiations with the Town for more favorable lease terms failed.
  • A number of students who were supposed to attend in 2019-20, pulled out at the last minute, lowering enrollment revenue even further. Some sources indicated that many were international students who presumably (based on country of origin) were making significant tuition payments, but some local parents concerned because of the May announcement also found alternatives.
  • Efforts to raise funds in the 11th hour from alumni, local businesses, by attracting new students, or to get Clarkstown to reconsider the lease amount were all unsuccessful. Although that May letter had gone out, the reassurance made in June made the board reluctant to send out appeals for donations in any kind of a panic “save RCDS from dying” mode.  And so it has come to an end.

The long-term reasons require a longer explanation.  They are far more complex.  They are also just one person’s analysis.  But this one person has talked to a number of people, has a mind good enough to get into RCDS, Cornell and Mensa, and brings some professional skills to the table.

Hollywood, or more precisely Hollywood becoming more and more the center of the entertainment industry compared to New York City:  Yes, there is still Broadway theater and there are a few studios in NYC, but in general the stars of Broadway don’t have the same celebrity status they had 50-60 years ago.  The exceptions tend to be those who are on hiatus from filmmaking.  Lesser box office appeal would tend to translate to less relative income, meaning less ability to live in the suburbs and send their children to an expensive private school.

Gentrification of New York City: After years of flight from the city, it started to become the in place to be again.  Converted industrial building lofts in Soho and Tribeca became trendy.  As one indicator of how demand changed, a brownstone in a depressed neighborhood like Fort Greene that sold for $20,000 in the mid-1970’s couldn’t be touched for under a million dollars 20-25 years later.  As bus and rail service and transportation terminals became more crowded and dilapidated, the commute became more dreaded than urban life, especially as New York City started to get cleaned up and revitalized.  Stockbrokers, ad executives, publishing executives, college professors and others who had been part of the professional group that supported RCDS were leaving the county in reverse migration.  The supportive community was shrinking and becoming less close-knit.

Demographics: Who moved in to replace the people who moved out?  The population of Rockland County has increased in every census, except for the 1920 census.  While growth was heaviest in the 1950’s and 60’s, there are about 100,000 more people living in Rockland now that the nearly 230,000 counted in the 1970 census (the year I graduated high school).  While much of Rockland was still rural before the completion of the Tappan Zee Bridge and the Palisades Parkway to link the county by limited access road to the George Washington Bridge, it is now the third most densely populated county in New York State outside of New York City (behind Nassau and Westchester).

Ramapo HS (NY)

One group that has moved in heavily is the Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox Jewish population.  6.3% of Rockland households speak either Yiddish or Hebrew at home.  31.4% (~90,000 households) of the county’s population is Jewish, many of them school age children, making them the largest per capita Jewish county in the United States.  At one time, the Jewish population was well represented at RCDS.  At least 12 of my graduating class of 30 identified as Jewish.  But the large Jewish population now has given rise to a large number of Yeshivas.  This is where many Jewish students now go to school.  East Ramapo Central School District is one of only three school districts in the United States where more students go to private school than public schools.  While some go to Catholic schools or nonsectarian schools, this is true throughout Rockland.  The difference in East Ramapo is the large number of Yeshivas.  This is a large group of students who are not candidates to go to RCDS.

Another group that is heavily represented in Rockland is those who are in the public service sector, mainly police officers and firefighters.  There are always exceptions, but generally their children are more likely to go to public schools.  The Hispanic and Haitian residents of the county also generally go to public schools.  13.2% of the county’s households speak Spanish, French Creole or French at home.

There is still a large group of students who would have been possible candidates for RCDS.  But on a percentage basis, it is probably smaller than when the school was founded.  There is also a trend towards more prestigious colleges (while small liberal arts colleges are declining) and in turn more prestigious prep schools.  Many parents and students are looking for the route to becoming Wall Street wizards, real estate tycoons and other power brokers.  A well-rounded education starting in high school doesn’t cut it.  This may be another reason so many local students in the lower grades didn’t continue on to high school and graduation.  And there is another trend that is affecting the candidate pool for the school. It will be discussed in the next post.

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; – Ecclesiastes 3:2

God bless,

Lois

It’s Great to be Heard

18 Monday Jan 2016

Posted by ts4jc in About Me, General Christian issues, General Transsexual issues

≈ 4 Comments

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alabaster box, arrogance, Beelzebub, Caitlyn Jenner, Christ, Cost, Elinor Burkett, faith, false accusations, female, Feminism, gender assigned at birth, gender roles, girlhood, God, grammar school, Jesus, Joy Ladin, Judge, Laverne Cox, Lili Elbe, LinkedIn, loss, Luke 7:37-50, male privilege, Matthew 12:24-27, MTF, New York Times, Orthodox Jewish, pay the price, prostitute, public speaking, salvation, Salvation Army, sinner, stealth mode, stereotyping, TDOR, TED talk, TERF, The Danish Girl, timbrels, Time Magazine, trans feminine, trans man, trans masculine, Trans woman, Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist, Transgender, transgender children, Transition, Vanity Fair, Woman, Yeshiva University

In November 1991, a dear brother in Christ introduced me to the worldwide ministry that I have been associated with for most of my life since then.  Ken is still alive in his late 80’s and to my surprise and delight, remains in my corner to this day.  I visit him and his wife as often as I can and we either go out to eat together or share a meal at their table.  Early on, Ken and Dolores became my spiritual parents, seeing that I was a relatively new believer at the time.

As Ken got older, I became aware of a standard greeting he would have.  Whether it was me or someone else, we would often say hello with a familiar “It’s good to see you, Ken.”  Invariably, his reply would be, “It’s good to be seen.”  With advancing age, you grow in appreciation of each day the Lord has given you.

Having recently watched Joy Ladin’s TED talk based on Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman” speech, and mindful that it was Joy who suggested I start this blog, it brought to mind that when you are part of a marginalized group, it is also good to be heard.  Joy provided a major encouragement to come out of my planned stealth mode after I took the bold step of transitioning to live full-time as a woman in November 2012.  Here was a person whose memoirs had been published, who was giving interviews on NPR and had overcome barriers at an ultra-conservative bastion of gender norms: an Orthodox Jewish institution, Yeshiva University.  And she felt I had ideas and perspectives worthy of sharing with the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0K2YvvQyEw (Link to Joy Ladin’s TED talk)

Since I started my blog, I have grown in confidence to share my views on LinkedIn, participate in a monthly meeting in my county that introduces and discusses transgender issues with cisgender professionals, speak to classes at two different colleges, and in November 2015 (there’s that month again!) speak at a TDOR observance (and post it on You Tube).  Aware that this has a double meaning for many of us in the transgender community, it is good to be read.  And it is good for my message to be heard.

Now there are many voices in the world, and in this Internet Age of You Tube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, a multitude of sites on which to hear them.  Never before has most of the world had such access to those voices.  Let’s face it: many of those voices are not supportive of transgender people.  If that was not the case, Joy could concentrate on doing the things she loves: teaching, writing poetry and spending time with people near and dear to her.  It is the need to speak out against opposition and oppression that motivates Joy and others in the transgender community to divert precious time away from the things we love.

In her TED talk, Joy mentioned a couple of people who have spoken in opposition to her testimony of having a female gender identity.  As much as it saddens me, I have come to expect it from the extreme religious right-wing (even though I have not given up on changing hearts and opinions over time).  But it also hurts when other women (in particular, a portion of the feminist community) do not accept my identity as real and valid.

In part, Joy’s TED talk was in response to Elinor Burkett’s article in the Opinion section of the NY Times Sunday Review, titled “What Makes a Woman?”  Joy mentioned a woman with views representative of what has become known as Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERF).  Those of us who are MTF are told by this group that we have no right to define the meaning of “woman” because we have not endured periods, childbirth, or female socialization, while also having enjoyed male privilege for much of our life.  While being accused by the right-wing religionists of being effeminate sexual deviants, the radical feminists accuse us of male arrogance to think we can define who women are, be better women than “real” women, and invade women only spaces.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/opinion/sunday/what-makes-a-woman.html

Joy points out that like most of us who are MTF, we have paid a tremendous price to do what we are accused of by the TERF community.  We have given up any male privilege we might have had (and not all of us had it or wanted it), lost jobs, been rejected by immediate family and our places of worship, risked our health, depleted our savings and more.  And we did these things long before getting members of our community on the cover of Time and Vanity Fair, or receiving top modeling assignments.  We did it at a time of experimental surgeries (e.g. Lili Elbe), complete disassociation with our former life for most of us, mockery, denunciation, and worse.  Even today, we still face a disproportionate amount of murder, violence and harassment.  Quite a price to pay for so-called male arrogance (which, if we are truly female in spirit, we don’t possess in the first place), no?

Those of us who transitioned in adult life have finally gained authenticity, but we lost so much to get there.  Playing an assigned role, we lost our own selves, the life we would have led, and even experiencing periods and childbirth.  Just as the transgender community has a right to be heard, so does the TERF community.  But it grieves me that they don’t understand that MTF’s have lost far more than we may have gained by living a portion of our adult life as male.  For every MTF who has been successful in transition, dozens more are underemployed, bullied into suicide or murdered.  But even with those who have been successful, what price can be put on giving up being oneself for so long?

Here are two personal stories that happened to me recently that show what I lost and can never get back because I was assigned with a male gender at birth.  The first is serendipitous.

My hair stylist retired back in October.  She recommended the husband and wife team that she uses.  Through an amazing sequence of events, I found out that the wife was my classmate for three years in grammar school over 50 years ago.  After being grateful that I was accepted, not kicked out of the salon, I realized how little I knew about her and most of my female classmates at that age.  I remembered the names, but that was just about it, while I remember many details about the boys in my class.  I also remembered the scorn heaped by both boys and girls on the boys who tried to cross the gender line in any way.  To my loss, I learned quickly and stayed on the side assigned to me.

The second story is associated with my church.  During one of the Sundays in Advent, we had a service featuring the precious young children showing various things they had learned that year.  But what really caught my eye were the little girls (about age 6-8) doing timbrels.  They looked like they were having so much fun.  I remarked as such to the woman sitting next to me that day, a good friend who knows about my past.  She replied that it is a lot of fun, sort of like cheerleading with musical instruments.

My mind flashed back to June.  I was watching the graduation ceremony for new Salvation Army officers.  At one point, girls were doing timbrels.  Suddenly, some of the high-ranking women officers got up and started doing timbrels, too.  They all had such joy on their faces.  That day in December, I suddenly realized why.  They were remembering back to their girlhood and all the wonderful experiences they had.  I never can have those experiences.  But some people see people like me as being selfish and arrogant.  They don’t understand that what we have lost in life is irreplaceable: not what I define as female experience but what women and girls choose as female experience.

If trans women are guilty of male arrogance, how do you explain trans men?  Are they arrogant women claiming to be better men than cisgender males?  Are they redefining male identity?  Or are they, like anyone who is truly transgender, simply saying that this is who I am?  And who I am came before surgery, hormones or change in presentation.

As I was writing this, it occurred to me that there is another group that TERF’s cannot explain by their anti-transgender judgments: the young transgender children who have come forward to assert their true gender identity.  How much male privilege has a pre-school child experienced?  How are they demonstrating a motive to redefine female?  Would you go so far as to accuse these precious little ones of invading female only spaces?  And how do you explain the young trans masculine children?

One of the things that comforts me is knowing that Jesus also endured false accusations.  Here is one that is particularly relevant.

But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils. And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand: And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand? And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges. – Matthew 12:24-27

The irony is that part of the feminist movement was a reaction to the stereotyping of women.  TERF’s do not see that they are just as guilty in stereotyping trans women.  Although trans women comprise a tiny percentage of the population, we are remarkably diverse in viewpoints, interests, gender roles and gender expression.  Like any group, we have honorable representatives and dishonorable ones.

Ultimately, I can only speak for myself.  There are only two who truly know my heart: me and God.  No one else knows the shame I once felt.  No one else knows the cost of the oil in my alabaster box.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ls8ZfeBmHA

And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet,  would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner. And Jesus answering said unto him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And he saith, Master, say on. There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most? Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged. And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven. And they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also? And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace. – Luke 7:37-50

God bless,

Lois

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