Newsmaker




Monday, January 27, 1997

Name: Daniel Bender
Age: 47
Occupations: Temple Emanu-El education director; city budget analyst
Education: Hebrew Union College, U. of Southern California
Recreation: Swimming, trumpet

"We try to work with the entire child, with whatever they bring to us in terms of background," said Dan Bender, who has directed the education program since 1994.

"If they are ethnically Japanese, we try to honor that part of them, but encourage them to behave as Jews religiously. We don't try to divide up things we do with the child from things we don't do with the child."

Bender was honored last month by the National Association of Temple Educators. He was one of several teachers nationwide to be awarded the title Reform Jewish Educator in ceremonies at the Hebrew Union College/Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City.

With him was his wife, Valerie, a University of Hawaii curriculum researcher and one of 10 part-time teachers at the Honolulu temple school.

Being of Japanese ancestry, she was acknowledged as unique at the conference of Jews with mostly European roots. They have an 11-year-old daughter, a student at the temple school.

Bender pursued rabbinical studies at the New York college and spent a year living in Israel to become fluent in Hebrew.

After teaching at Temple Emanu-El in the 1970s, he returned to school for a master's degree in public finance and administration. His full-time job is as a budget analyst with the city.

"The city encourages us to work in the community. The temple has provided me with a calling, and I'm fortunate they allow me to be a part-time education director."

Bender said that in teaching the complexities of the religion and culture, "working with children, we look for a handle, their artistic sense, their culinary sense, their language skills, ability to dance.

"We try to help them use that instrument to play Judaism on it, and make it positive, so that by the time they get to be adults, they have had such an overwhelming positive experience that they identify as Jews.

"We try to make sure that at the end of the process, we end up with the whole child ... a complete happy person."

Bender said the school aims to involve the whole family in the learning process, for instance in preparing for holidays or for a mitzvah day of parents and children doing good deeds in a project such as cleaning up the building. "In this way, the children see the parents in action, the model is a powerful one."

The school also conducts a Wednesday night adult class on introduction to Judaism, but it is not a religion that seeks converts. "There is so much spirituality going on in Hawaii. People want to know 'how do you experience this life, how do you do your spirituality.'"