November 26, 1999/17 Kislev 5760, Vol. 52, No.13
Gift of acceptanceProgram brings message of diversity, understanding to young and old
CHRIS GARIFO
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 Sharon Friendly, front row second from right, says "The Gift" cast is like a family. |
"My father was a religious man," Friendly recalls. "As far as everybody else was concerned, (their being with a non-Jew) was fine. (But) for his daughter to go for a walk with a gentile man was the biggest shandeh (shame), and it was just awful."
Today, Friendly draws on that experience and other childhood memories in her role as a cast member of "The Gift," a diversity program/presentation originally developed for the city of Phoenix's 1998 Martin Luther King Jr. celebration at Phoenix Symphony Hall. Created by Ren‚e Morgan Brooks and Fatimah Halim, who works in the Phoenix Parks, Recreation and Library Department's At-Risk Youth Division, the program has been adopted by Chase BankCard Services in Tempe for presentation in the workplace, and is branching out into local schools.
"'The Gift' was a piece I created hoping to bridge gaps among people," says Halim, who came to the Valley 20 years ago and coordinated the Phoenix mayor's King breakfast for 13 years. "I knew that if people told their individual stories, it might touch a space other presentations could not."
Friendly's story includes her father's opposition to her show-business dreams.
"As far as my father was concerned, (show business) was worse than worse," Friendly says. "I talk about how, if I had wanted to be a cantor ... that would have been great with him; but, because I wanted to sing in show business (with) all the loose ladies and all the 'terrible' people, he made my life miserable. So, I talk about that.
"I talk about how the death of my father brought me back to religion. I talk about the traditions (of Judaism and) about traditions being passed down from generation to generation to generation."
The cast is made up of 15 people representing a broad spectrum of races, religions, cultures and sexual orientations. Each cast member tells his or her own story during the presentation, while dressed in clothing representative of their particular culture.
"We all have a story," says producer and business manager Rollon Thompson, 54. "('The Gift') is really about cultural competency and diversity; but it transcends that, in that you really connect with people on a very personal and very emotional level, because a lot of the stories that are told by the individuals aren't just specific to them and their ethnicity or their religion; it's a story that we all experience.
"We've all shared joy and sorrow and suffering and heartache and happiness, and we all aspire to be, or at least I hope we all aspire to be, better people."
Thompson says each story is unique and, through the sharing of the stories, the audience comes to realize that each storyteller - whether a Jewish, black, Native American, Mexican, Chinese, white or gay American man or woman - represents part of the fabric of America.
"It's the American experience and ... we get the opportunity to see that we all participate in it," Thompson says. "We all have something to offer."
Halim says the cast was picked carefully. Each member either was somebody she knew personally or was referred to her by someone she knew.
"There's a spirit we were looking for in each cast member," Halim says. "That was openness, (a spirit) of love."
She says she sought out people who had been through difficult times but "elevated themselves because of it. They've learned from what they've gone through in a very Godly way."
Friendly says the presentation's effect on the audience - and the cast - is "powerful."
"We have audiences crying; we have performers who have heard the same stories over and over and over again, crying because, at different times, we're touched by how it's happened to us, how our stories have happened to us, and how they touch the audience. ... Even though I'm Jewish and you're black and you're Chinese, our parents are still our parents; our siblings are still our siblings. When your mother cries, when my mother cries, it's all tears - not black tears or Chinese tears or Jewish tears."
Friendly says the experience has put her "in touch" with her heritage.
"It got me really proud to stand up in front of everyone and say, 'Yes, I am Jewish. These are my experiences; these are what I'm passing on to my grandchildren and to my circle of friends who maybe are not Jewish,' " she says. "It just has helped me put my life in focus. That's how much of a gift it has been for me. And then to be a part of all these people; we are like a family."
That family currently performs about once a month, usually for Chase employees, as part of that company's efforts toward improved diversity training. The troupe has traveled to Chase headquarters in New York City twice and to the company's facilities in Wilmington, Del., and Tampa, Fla.
"We are just committed to making diversity real and alive and well," says William Dobbins, site vice president for Chase in Tempe.
Dobbins says that what helps make "The Gift" successful is its inclusiveness.
"I think you have to start from the basis of being all-inclusive," he says. "You have to incorporate everyone to see the similarities we have among each other. There should be no exclusions."
Dobbins says Chase will continue to present "The Gift" - not only to its 2,300 employees in Tempe, but to the employees' families next year as well.
"We want family members to see what their husband or wife or father or mother is seeing here," Dobbins says, adding that the company has a number of other diversity efforts going on as well.
Thompson says that employee surveys conducted by Chase after each presentation have indicated overwhelming acceptance of the program.
"The Gift" generally is presented to Chase employees in three back-to-back sessions, with each audience having 150 to as many as 225 people.
"So, we reach close to 600 people or more (in a day), and maybe one or two (employee survey) responses out of all those will say something like, 'This was a waste of my time; this wasn't about diversity, this was about something else; why didn't they serve popcorn?' ... Only one or two out of the entire audience (say things like that), and I think it's remarkable that only one or two people would have a negative comment."
Thompson says that while other efforts in this regard - such as the use of a diversity awareness counselor, or posters and group sessions that tell people what they should or should not say and do - are "all well and good," the only way to really change behavior or outlook is by providing "an impact experience. They have to have an awakening; they have to be touched emotionally."
Sue Kern, who helps with publicity for the program and grew up in an Irish-Catholic/Jewish household, says "The Gift" has had a profound impact on her.
"I definitely should have brought tissues," Kern, 32, says, adding that each cast member "somehow touches each audience in some way" that's different for each person in the audience.
She says one of the stories that moved her was that of a 19-year-old Navajo woman who, because of language barriers, couldn't communicate with her grandmother on the Navajo Nation and, when in the Valley, she felt she didn't belong because she's not "blonde and blue-eyed."
"I wanted to raise my hand and say, 'I'm blond and blue-eyed and I feel like I don't belong either,' " Kern says. "It's not about being blonde and blue-eyed."
Kern says growing up in a household that celebrated Hanukkah and Christmas and Passover and Easter was "a little confusing;" but it was also interesting and helped her grow into someone who is "more open to people of all different kinds of beliefs."
Kern grew up on Long Island in New York. She graduated from Arizona State University, where she majored in journalism with a public-relations emphasis. She attends services at Temple Chai in Phoenix and has been thinking about taking Judaism classes there.
"I think it's important to learn about my heritage," she says.
Friendly says being a member of the cast has affected her not only as a Jewish person, but as a total human being.
"As a person I have gained more insight into how human everybody is," the mother of two grown children says. She has a son, 36-year old Jordan Ungerman, in Toronto, and 33-year-old daughter Lezli Ungerman lives in Florence, Italy. Each has two children.
Friendly says she has also experienced a strengthening of her Jewish identity that has allowed her to stand up to anti-Semitism. She says that, because she's a blonde, people don't generally recognize her as being Jewish and will thoughtlessly make anti-Semitic remarks around her.
"I used to be very meek and mild about anti-Semitism, as so many Jews have been over the years," Friendly says. "They sort of take it and don't want to fight back. I don't do that anymore. I really tell people that I'm proud to be Jewish and they're not right in what they're saying."
"The Gift" experience has also changed its founder, Halim, who grew up in Harlem and learned as a child not to be open to other people. That began to change when she started working for the city of Phoenix.
"Since doing 'The Gift,' I've become even more open," says Halim, a mother of five children. "I see myself as being part of a greater whole than before. I've become more sensitive and, each time we do it, I just learn something more about everybody else. I can say that I continuously grow through this process, and it's been absolutely incredible for me."
Halim and Thompson want to bring the program to more than just corporate customers.
In September, the cast performed for 200 to 300 Phoenix school students, mostly 15- and 16-year-old art students, and at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts. The troupe will also give a presentation in the Paradise Valley Unified School District in January, and is trying to line up Phoenix colleges.
"This is ideal for school kids, and I don't care what age they are," says Thompson, whose own children are grown. "There's a lesson here. The teachers from the schools that were in attendance (in September) were commenting that they were trying to find any way they could to reach out to these kids and communicate messages of diversity, inclusion, acceptance and understanding. They hadn't found a way to do that, but this was the ticket."
Friendly, a member of Temple Beth Israel in Scottsdale and one of only three in the cast with professional acting experience, says she was invited to join the troupe about a year ago after filling in for another cast member, and the experience has been "extraordinary."
"Before each performance, we join in a circle and ask whoever it is that we would ask, be it God or whoever our spiritual being is, that our message gets to the people's hearts," Friendly says. "And that's what touched me. From the time that I started the show, all I'd do is cry. I can't help it. ... It just touches my heart, touches my soul, touches my spirit. It touches everything that's within me. And it's made me a better person being a part of this whole group."