CEO Susan Roth’s new venture is within the mitzvah business

JERUSALEM -- Susan J. Roth, a diminutive woman, likes to think big.

Running against the clock to accomplish the nearly impossible is just her style. So when she was approached to lead Operation Refuah -- a campaign to collect thousands of signatures affirming unity among Jews around the world in time for Tisha B'Av -- she didn't hesitate.

"Sure, why not?" she said, despite the fact that there was only a month to go.

And in that month, she got down to work. She did collect hundreds of thousands of signatures (from 32 countries), printed 10,000 posters, set up a dozen tables in local malls and bus stations and lined up 200 volunteers to read all the names at the Western Wall.

"Important things happen fast," she said. "We're not given a chance to think. Bravery comes with action, not with thought. If you think about it, you wouldn't do it. If we had a year to plan, I can't imagine what we could have accomplished."

Roth's face may be familiar to audiences that have seen the prize-winning documentary "The Komediant" which tells the story of her family's contribution to Yiddish theater, including her twin brother, actor and singer Mike Burstyn.

Roth, Orthodox and in her mid-50s, doesn't look dizzy or dazed from the logistical nightmare she has undertaken. In fact, dazzling is more like it. Her short blonde hair is perfectly coifed, she laughs easily and seems relaxed during an interview in her apartment, which overlooks Jerusalem's Old City walls, where she lives half of the year. She spends the other half in her New Jersey home.

"This project is capturing people's imagination," said Roth, who is the founder and CEO of SJR Associates, a publishing house that specializes in spiritual titles. She is also the founder of the Eshet Chayil Foundation, a charity organization.

The text of the scroll that people were asked to sign is innocuous. It states: "We the undersigned join with other Jews around the world who believe that we are indeed one people with one heart and one soul and we will focus on the mitzvah of 'Love Your Neighbor as Yourself.'"

In fact, the message is so harmless that even politicians, the frontline soldiers of Jewish internecine warfare, are willing to sign. Last month, Roth met with Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert who gladly set his hand to the petition.

"Brotherhood and bridging our differences is an essential task," said Olmert. "There is no single act that can accomplish this. However, we must do everything that can contribute to this end."

A last-minute decision to hold the reading of the names on erev Tisha B'Av to accommodate the lengthy reading of the names proved to be fortunate: There were skirmishes on the actual holiday involving Palestinians at the Temple Mount throwing stones on Jews praying at the Wall below.

"It was so lovely, but we were very lucky," said Roth. "Had we waited until Tisha B'Av we would have been in trouble."

Roth felt that while many of the signatories were from the diaspora and not there physically, they were "there spiritually at the Kotel...I hope it will begin to make a difference."

Since the holiday has passed, the Eshet Chayil Foundation is recording the names on its Web site, and the listings remain at the Wall.

"We Jews in Israel and around the world are being besieged with terrorism, anti-Semitism and tragedies of all kinds," said Roth. "We must join together to bring about what is needed most -- unity and love for each other."

To spread this message, volunteers looked for attentive ears at malls and schools, where the Eshet Chayil Foundation set up desks with flyers, stickers and refrigerator magnets. The Web site itself drew in many signatures.

Roth traces her passion for old-time Jewish principles and her global view to her childhood, when from age 7 she and her brother performed around the world in Yiddish theater with their parents, actors Pesach Burstein and Lillian Lux.

"I was raised entertaining Holocaust survivors all over the world. I must have gone to 20-odd Jewish schools. I didn't like the life I was leading because the minute you made friends you had to leave them. We were the perennial wandering Jews."

Roth left the theater at age 19 to marry Michael Roth, a land developer in New Jersey, 13 years her senior. Her parents and brother almost didn't make it to the wedding because they were performing that night -- they rushed to the chuppah with their makeup still on.

"I grew up like a gypsy living out of a trunk, and it was one of the reasons that I wanted to settle down in a little house with a white picket fence, a couple of kids and a dog." Roth had two children, and as soon as they were in school she began her own academic career, obtaining a master's degree in comparative religion and philosophy from New York University.

"I'm not a shopper, and I'm not a lady who lunches and I can't imagine just sitting around doing nothing," she said.

Besides her academic studies, she also published a book on Kabbalah, "Moses in the Twentieth Century: A Universal Primer." It was genealogical research for her book that led her to the discovery that she is a descendant of the Ba'al Shem Tov, Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav and the first Lubavitcher Rebbe, Shneur Zalman of Ladi. She says she can also trace her lineage to King David.

"I feel that I am continuing the work that they did," she said.