In the past three years, Naomi Lauter has made her way to 64 different American cities, many of which do not roll readily off the tongue when accompanied by phrases such as “vibrant Jewish community.”
The average Bay Area resident might be surprised to learn, however, that flourishing Jewish communities exist outside of Los Angeles, Chicago, South Florida and New York, said the 71-year-old Lauter, an AIPAC national community consultant. She’s found out as much on her trips to locales such as Nashville; Charleston, W. Va.; and Asheville, N.C.
“You don’t expect it when you go to a place like Asheville,” about which novelist Thomas Wolfe said he couldn’t go home again. “The town supposedly has 1,300 Jews,” she said. “They have two synagogues with 500 and 600 families in each one. And they have a federation and a Jewish community center. And they’re very pro-Israel.”
After serving as the Pacific Northwest regional director of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, from 1983 to 1998, Lauter retired — for about two minutes. At the behest of AIPAC National Director Howard Kohr, Lauter took her show on the road.
In the past three years, she has helped to establish 15 AIPAC offices around the country and bolster grassroots support in dozens of others.
“She’s got a knowledge base of American and Israeli politics and an institutional knowledge of what works. She’s built these systems over and over again. It’s easy for her,” said Elliot Brandt, Lauter’s successor as AIPAC regional director in San Francisco.
“That woman has more passion and drive than anyone I know. Her famous expression when we all left the office at 11 at night was ‘take the rest of the day off.'”
Lauter is pleasantly surprised at the thriving Jewish communities she has come across in her travels off the beaten path.
In Greensboro, N.C., she boasts, a day school serves more than 3,000 students and 40 percent of the local federation’s money heads overseas. Allentown, Pa., whose factory closings were chronicled in a Billy Joel song, now features a thriving day school and federation. An Israeli turns up in almost every town she visits — even in Arkansas.
Just as mountaineer George Mallory ascended Mount Everest “because it’s there,” Lauter visits the Jews of three-stoplight towns “because they have congressmen.”
“Sometimes, the people in small communities have more of an effect on members of Congress than places where there are thousands of Jews,” said Lauter, who, other than an impromptu three-day layover in Boston, has not altered her travel plans because of September’s terrorism.
“They become closer, more influential. If you look at the history of Jews in small American towns, they’ve succeeded at work, and been involved in the community at large, and know many people in the community. So it’s just natural for them to be involved in politics as well.”
The notion of taking AIPAC’s message to locales other than the big city is one Kohr backs to the hilt. He’s equally adamant that Lauter is the perfect person for the job.
“The key to the success of the pro-Israel movement in this country is developing relationships in all 435 congressional districts in the country. That’s what Naomi does,” he said.
“I’ve seen situations where Naomi takes a community where literally nothing existed in an organized fashion and within six months convenes a meeting between 150 members of the organized community and a member of Congress. The members of Congress marvel that there are hundreds of people in place in their areas when they didn’t think anyone had any interest. That has a very powerful impact.”
Yet not every Jewish community is thriving. Lauter has visited many turn-of-the century shuls south of the Mason-Dixon line that today are either abandoned or utilized by only a handful of elderly Jews.
Meanwhile, in St. Joseph, Mo., only 150 Jews remain in a town that once housed more than 3,000. In a decade, predicts Lauter, they’ll all be gone. On the bright side, however, these Jews aren’t simply vanishing but often searching for larger Jewish communities.
On the whole, Lauter’s worldview has been brightened by the communities she’s visited on her journeys.
“We keep hearing about how we’re dying off, and certainly many of us have assimilated,” said Lauter, who resides in Ross when she’s not crisscrossing the nation. “But there are people who stay really dedicated to Jewish life, especially in smaller communities. It’s so exciting to be able to meet all these different Jewish communities and see their dedication.”
Lauter is on the road every other week, and her next destination (“my 65th place!”) is Las Vegas. While few non-gamblers are likely to express joy and longing to visit Vegas, Lauter does — as she would any destination.
“I enjoy this so much, I want to do it until I can’t do it anymore,” said Lauter, still a full-time AIPAC employee. “I love training new people. I’ve been around a lot of young people, and I love getting them excited to go to the smaller Jewish communities and start organizing.”
Adds Kohr, “We’re talking about the most experienced, the most capable, and, I’ll make the case, the most passionate person working at AIPAC. Put that together and it makes for a powerful combination.”
Lauter’s trips have also reminded her how deeply intertwined Jews are in the nation’s fabric.
“We’re so rooted in America,” said Lauter. “In Nashville, a young man said to me that he’d been there for five generations and had 300 cousins in the city alone. That’s one of the things that’s so exciting for me.”