The schools that raised me did it via humiliation. They would embarrass kids who were “different” or who (even accidentally) misbehaved. I’ve become the bully they taught me to be by using humiliation as a tool to defend myself when I feel threatened.

Tomorrow I’m entering a “DBT” program designed to help coach people with similar upbringing see the world in a more healthful, kinder way.

Until tomorrow, um… you’re all losers

Dear friends,

Today I am handing JCorps over to Sheva Tauby who also runs iVolunteer. JCorps will remain independent and known as JCorps. Elad Blumenthal (elad@JCorps.org) will help oversee the transition and continue to run JCorps in Israel.

Given Sheva’s experience building iVolunteer, an organization helping Holocaust survivors, her perseverance and dedication, and her experience and connections in the Chabad and broader Jewish community, she’ll be able to foster JCorps’ global expansion. JCorps will remain open to all Jewish young adults ages 18-30 who are unmarried/unengaged and will remain observant of Jewish law so all can participate in all events.
I will use the additional time to focus on my comedy, businesses and personal life. JCorps has become too big for me to run as a side project and it deserves more than I am willing to give as it grows into new cities and onto new continents. I am excited for its potential and expect to see JCorps active and vibrant in cities around the world. I will be leaving JCorps, grateful for many gifts it has given me over six wonderful years and proud of the thousands of people we’ve fed, comforted, mentored, and visited and the many relationships, friendships and marriages we’ve enabled. Being among such wonderful volunteers has been a blessing.

Farewell,
Ari
Founder, JCorps
Founder, 12gurus / 12gurus:Charity / 12gurus:Health

When I was ten years old I sat at the front of Mrs. Vetoso’s English class and listened as a girl named Dana read aloud an essay about a boy in the room who had big ears and dandruff.

The class thought the essay was hilarious. Twenty years later, I remember exactly where I sat and how their laughter felt as is shattered through my back and down my spine. Maybe it was the big ears.

Dana read the entire essay. The class laughed at every line.

Mrs. Vetoso just sat there.

Mrs. Vetoso is who I think of when I hear the word “evil”.

She once called my dog fat.

But calling a dog fat doesn’t make you evil, it makes you a bitch.

Evil is knowing something is wrong and not doing anything about it.

Mrs. Vetoso’s watching a girl bully someone and not stopping it is what makes her evil.

This “It Get’s Better” campaign is great, BUT…

If you’re a teacher and you let a kid bully another kid, you’re evil.

Don’t tell a victim, “It get’s better.”

Make it better.

A friend was renting space in the living room of an apartment, using Chinese Shoji screens to divide his space, and canvas taped to the ceiling to fill the four-foot gap above them — not a pretty, private, or quiet solution.

I had the idea to use styrofoam insulation boards, which come in different widths (2′ or4′) and thicknesses (.5′ to 2′) and are 8′ tall, to create light, temporary walls. Since foam insulation is used to dampen sound and insulate against temperature changes, it would have that added benefit.

Foam walls

Tools and Materials needed:

• Foam Board (we used 10 pieces of 8′x2′x2″ Dow Styrofoam Blueboard)
• Furring Strips (we used 16 pieces of 6′ strips. Although 8′ would have been ideal)
• Screws (3.5′ self-drilling screws and 2′ self-drilling screws)
• Drill
• Saw
• Metal L brackets

1. Line the boards next to each other on the floor,
2. Place a furring strip on the top edge, above and below the board (so the board is sandwiched between two strips)
3. Drill a screw through the top strip, foam, and bottom strip.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 on the bottom edge and in the middle of the foam boards (to add rigidity to the  wall.

The total time to buy the materials and assemble is 2 hours. If you can build Ikea furniture, you can handle this.

Building a foam wall

Creating a Corner

To make a right angle, you can screw foam-into-foam and also screw metal L brackets into the foam on the inside. Having a corner enables the walls to be free-standing. (Otherwise, you can screw an L-bracket into the furring strips and then into the wall. Use anchors before screwing into drywall or plaster.)

Wall Color / Style

It’s the final hours of Holocaust Remembrance day and like most folks I didn’t do much for it. For me, it was a normal Sunday, volunteering with kids, brunch with friends, sushi dinner, intimate late night conversation. It feels a little wrong to have such a great time on such a day, which got me thinking about a old man I met at a senior center while volunteering with JCorps. He was a Polish man.

For those who don’t know, the Polish were horrible to the Jews during the war. While some countries begrudgingly went along with the Nazi takeover, the Polish willingly and eagerly assisted in the extermination of the Jews. Today, when young Jews walk in the streets of Poland, the natives are still known to spit at them. And so I felt torn, sitting next to this lonely Polish man. He was weak and old and his memory was spotty, but he was Polish and would have been in the army then, and that made me uncomfortable.  And then he began to talk about The War. I readied myself to walk away in disgust, but curiosity got the best of me.

I asked him where he was during the war, and he said, “All over Europe.” It felt evasive, and feeling no respect for this man, I pressed impatiently, “Were you in the camps?” “Oh yes.” And then, after a silence, he said, “We helped liberate them.” “Wait, what army were you in?” “The US Army,” he said, becoming taller and prouder in his wheelchair. Needless to say, my tone changed.

He discussed what it was like to see the camps and their prisoners — “unbelievable”, was a common word. He discussed living skeletons of human beings, starving children, broken men. Sixty years later, I could see his eyes still could not process what they saw.

Today, I had a great day because of what that man did 60 years ago. And chances are, so did you.

I was fortunate to sit with one of the last living American heroes who freed my people from the worst tragedy to ever befall us. Let us remember their contributions, a gift we can never repay, and let us us pray their incredible light continues to outshine the formidable darkness of evil. It is because of men like that Polish-American man that we can say…

Never Again.

Ari at MSNBC’s Your Business (1) from Ari Teman on Vimeo.

When I was a kid, I complained of being busy. “Good,” someone said, “busy people get more done.”

Now I run a “social volunteering” network that’s entirely volunteer-run — by busy people. My greatest challenge is in finding them, so I thought I’d share some things I’ve learned and ask for your ideas.

We have a lot of A Players. The girl who runs our New York senior center volunteering is a marketing exec who also runs her synagouge’s young adult division. The person who oversees our Jerusalem branch is a full-time student who travels and dances and organizes events for other programs. They don’t “have” time, they “make” it.

Then we have the deadbeats. These are people who take more time to write letters about why they can’t do something than it’d take to do it. They immediately run to schedule meetings, and talk about why things aren’t feasable rather than jumping in and trying them. They don’t seem to notice their total lack of progress. Worse, they involve friends who are even flakier than them. Steve Job’s rule that “A Players hire A Players, but B Players hire C players…” is true.

So the question is: How do you find the A Players? (And, how do you avoid the deadbeats?)

Here are a few things I’ve tried that seem to work.
PLEASE comment with your ideas, and give brief examples of how they worked.

• Look for people already active in their community.
  • These are busy people getting things done.
• Make it easy to express interest and then a bit tricky to join.
  • Capture their names immediately and then give them a task requiring some persistence. Leaders follow through.
• Look for people who challenge your rules (not who just ignore them!)
  • These are people looking to improve your organization. Fear them, then follow them. They’re your best source of new ideas.
• Be open about your needs, your failures and mistakes.
  • A simple status update on Facebook (”I’m looking for reliable people in … “) has netted me more quality referrals and offers than contacting a dozen leaders of major organizations.
• Welcome criticism.
  • When I published a newspaper (remember those?) a guest writer wrote a harsh and detailed email lambasting us for how we’d edited his article. We made him the News Editor. He was the best we ever had.
• Reward Selfishness
  • The girl who runs one of our children’s hospital programs is obsessed with babies (her words). So we don’t try to get her to run a Soup Kitchen event. She likes kids.
• Appreciation
  • When someone does something, no matter how small, give them huge thanks! We all want to feel needed.

===
What doesn’t work:

• Cold Emails
  • I’ve seen people post on our Facebook Walls and contacted them for help. Maybe people who are willing to post on a wall but not hunt-down a leader aren’t leaders.
• Asking unreliable people to recommend reliable people.
  • They don’t understand the definition of reliable.
• Paying people.
  • If someone can’t keep their word, they can’t do it with your money in their pocket either.

Seriously funny

By BENJAMIN SPIER
07/09/2010 16:41

Ari Teman joins the growing list of American comedians looking for a laugh in Israel.