Once a Place of Hope, Now a Source of Tension

By KIRK JOHNSON

ASPEN, Colo. — The Silver Lining Ranch has often been a scene of anguish over the years, and also of hope. Since the late 1990s, thousands of children with cancer have come here to experience a few weeks of outdoor life in a beautiful spot through a group co-founded by the former tennis star Andrea Jaeger, who became an Anglican Dominican nun after leaving the professional tennis circuit.

But these days anguish appears to be winning out. The Little Star Foundation, which runs the ranch, is teetering on the brink of collapse, Ms. Jaeger said, through that most earthbound and profane of things: real estate.

The 6.5 acres that the ranch sits on, just outside downtown Aspen, was donated in 1994 and is now immensely valuable in this enclave of superwealth. But a proposed sale of the property, intended to bolster the foundation’s finances and create a long-term endowment, has backfired.

Neighbors of Ms. Jaeger, who is president of the foundation, say the proposed sale, for $13.5 million — to the Chabad Jewish Community Center, a synagogue transplanted to the central Rockies from the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn nine years ago — is illegal, citing covenants of a homeowners’ association that allow the property to be used only as a private home or for treating terminally ill children. Despite the covenants, the Aspen City Council unanimously approved the sale in May.

Most of Little Star’s operations have ceased and many employees have not been paid for months. The loans that were supposed to support the foundation until the sale have come up short.

The result is a stew of recrimination, entrenchment and talk of lawsuits. High-minded goals and spirituality have given way to lawyers and money, which Aspen has in abundance.

Ms. Jaeger, 44, who was briefly the No. 2 women’s tennis player in the world before injuries forced her from the game at age 19, spoke in tones of nostalgia and grief as she recited from memory the odyssey of the children who had come through her care.

In an interview in the silent main building (most of the foundation’s work was transferred in 2006 to a property in Durango, Colo., in preparation for a sale, and to reduce costs), she spoke of the hurdles of illness and life, and — all too often — death, that the children faced. She ran her fingers down the hand-painted tiles left behind on a wall in the recreation room and spoke of their memories and dreams: a relapse and decline, a first experience riding a horse, a hope of living long enough to attend college.

“I don’t think they said, ‘I’m going to wake up today and destroy thousands of kids’ lives because I want to choose my neighbors,’ ” Ms. Jaeger said, referring to members of the homeowners’ association. But the blocked contract is having that effect, she said, as children are turned down for help and programs are cut.

One member of the five-family homeowners’ association agreed that the results of the standoff were lamentable. But the member, Peter Gerson, said Ms. Jaeger was entirely at fault for entering into a contract in violation of property covenants.

“It’s an unfortunate situation, but the Silver Lining Ranch people brought it upon themselves,” said Mr. Gerson, who like all the owners lives far enough away, across a private open space of woods and fields, that the ranch buildings can barely be seen, if at all.

At the City Council hearings, the homeowners’ association also raised concerns about a sale to Chabad on grounds that a new use would increase traffic and noise problems on Ute Avenue, where the Silver Lining Ranch has its driveway — even though no other members of the group other than the ranch even use that road to reach their homes.

As for having Chabad as a neighbor, Mr. Gerson said he would be for it; the rabbi who directs the center, Mendel Mintz, is a friend, he said. But Mr. Gerson added that the covenants allowed only the two approved uses on the property and that Chabad did not fit.

“We’re powerless to do anything,” Mr. Gerson said.

The president of the homeowners’ association, Thomas P. Reagan, said of the land covenant: “It was meant to be extremely restrictive, and the proposed use does simply not fit the allowed use.”

Some people in town, including a former City Council member who supported the sale to Chabad, point out that the homeowners’ association was not powerless and amended the covenants earlier this year after the contract between the foundation and Chabad had been signed but before the Council’s vote to approve the sale.

The conference call to amend the covenants took place in January without Ms. Jaeger’s participation, and the homeowners approved language that would “clarify” the original intent of the covenants — that only terminally ill children or market-based private housing were allowed on Lot 5, the ranch property.

“They probably didn’t like the Silver Lining Ranch use either, but they had to put up with it,” said Jack Johnson, who served on the Council for four years before being defeated in an election in May.

Mr. Johnson said he thought the association’s goal was to get a private homeowner on the land. “If they continue to bully and block,” he said, “there’s no doubt of their intentions.”

Rabbi Mintz said that until the legal cloud was lifted, he could not close on the sale without exposing the community center to liability. He said he had seen no evidence of anti-Semitism, only the expression of wealth.

“It’s part of dealing with very affluent people who are used to having things go their way,” he said in an interview at the group’s downtown Aspen community center.

But as Ms. Jaeger readily admits, she also had a clear financial motive. Some people say she may have undermined support for her cause by having tried to do the same thing a few years ago that it appears the homeowners’ group wants to do now — shifting the property back to a private, higher-value use.

She initially tried to sell the ranch to a family for $24 million, which would have gone a long way to building Little Star’s endowment, she said in the interview. But the City Council denied permission, saying the best use of the land was for nonprofit community use. That reduced the value of the land and buildings almost in half and led to the negotiations with Chabad.

Mayor Mick Ireland of Aspen said he thought the newly restrictive covenants were an effort to “straitjacket” the city into allowing a change back into private use as a solution to everyone’s problems — more money for Ms. Jaeger’s foundation and the dropping of objections from the neighbors. Mr. Ireland said that would not happen.

“As a community, we want to encourage places of worship and kids’ facilities; that’s what communities do,” he said. “It’s not our job to make a property more marketable.”

Jewish Community Center sees silver lining in ranch

Aspen City Council is set to decide an application on Monday that would see the Jewish Resource Center Chabad of Aspen make its new home at the Silver Lining Ranch in east Aspen.

The application would add a 700-square-foot accessory dwelling unit residence, improve driveway and circulation access and add 10 parking spaces to the property at the end of Ute Avenue, which from 1999 through 2007 served as a getaway for children with cancer and other serious illness.

The existing 15,000-square-foot building would not be changed, save for the relocation of some interior walls to convert some of the downstairs space into preschool classrooms that would serve between 35 and 45 children each day.

In 2006, Aspen Chabad had received land-use approval, and had began the permit process, to build a new Jewish community center on Main Street. The 35,000-square-foot facility would have taken over the block where the L’Auberge D’Aspen rental cabins now sit.

Rabbi Mendel Mintz said he changed course when the ranch became available, because its gorgeous, wide-open setting seemed more fitting for a spiritual institution where a children’s day care center would be a major component. The congregation, one of two major Jewish organizations in Aspen, serves about 100 local families, Mintz said.

“Look at this,” Mintz said, motioning to the dramatic Independence Pass view. “Why should we be on Main Street?”

Not everyone thinks the relocation is a great idea, as the city has been fielding letters from neighbors, some of whom live across the Roaring Fork River in the Stillwater subdivision, who oppose the change in use plan.

One letter from an across-the-river homeowner states the homeowner’s belief that the Jewish community center would bring a high-intensity use to the ranch and would degrade the natural setting. Others who live along Ute Avenue have voiced concerns about traffic impacts the center would add to the street.

Mintz said he sees the traffic concerns as legitimate, and that Monday’s presentation to the council will include details on how the center will use vans and carpooling to reduce traffic to the center, which will have just 20 parking spaces. As far as neighbors across the river who are complaining, the rabbi said he was perplexed as to how some homeowners, the closest of whom is 700 feet away, could be troubled by the thought of more children running around the ranch’s 6-acre property.

Hillel and Chabad work to increase diversity on campus

Jewish organizations share their views on diversity

By: Katelyn Bell
Posted: 4/7/08

Jewish students on campus are saying they think diversity at CU needs to be emphasized more.

"I think that diversity is lacking, hugely," said sophomore music and sociology major and Hillel board member Phillip Rubinstein. "I grew up in a very diverse city and when coming to CU it was a big change."

Rubinstein added that he noticed for the first time how much race affects people's personalities. In Los Angeles, his hometown, Rubinstein said there was tension between racial groups but they still got along.

"You either hated a race or didn't really care," he said. "When coming to Colorado, these students had no experience with other races. I think that as a generality there are large groups of people here that experience different cultures for the very first time."

Hillel has an open door policy in terms of the events and programs they host outside of the Hillel house, and never limit activities to Jewish participants only.

Rubinstein said the open door policy will help the issue of diversity at CU because they do a lot of community of service with a Jewish attitude.

"When we are out doing something we are doing it as a Jewish organization instead of just as students who happen to be Jewish," he said. "We are representing the Jewish community through our actions. We also have specific multicultural outreach programs such as No Pork, which is a Jewish-Muslim alliance and other various programs."

Rubinstein added that not only do they strive to teach others about their culture but they also take the same initiative to learn about others.

Junior psychology and sociology major Rachel Ptaszek is also a board member of Hillel. She agrees with Rubinstein about the limited diversity on campus.

"I think that it's unfortunate that there is a lack of diversity," she said. "By having a limited pool of individuals we are cutting ourselves short of different viewpoints."

Ptaszek said she thinks collaborating with and supporting other multicultural groups can improve diversity relations on campus because it will bridge the gap between cultures.

Other students agreed with Ptaszek's sentiments.

"I feel like the people that are considered minorities are really trying to make an effort to make people aware of other cultures," said sophomore history major and Hillel member Amy Leszman.

Leszman said a few ways Hillel can improve the lack of diversity is through their programs.

"Hillel always puts on a variety of programs…Israel at 60th Birthday Bash," Leszman explained. "Another is the How To, one of them being How To Change The World. Holocaust Awareness Week promotes knowledge of not only the past but Jews in general and other minority groups."

Rebecca Levin, sophomore political science major and president of Chabad, said she thinks the campus should promote inclusion of all groups of people.

"I think there is a really big lack of (diversity) and the diversity that there is here doesn't have a big enough effort to include everyone," Levin said. "The majority of people don't include the minorities enough."

Similar to Hillel, Chabad has an open door policy in that they are open to people who are non-Jewish.

"We encourage our members to invite non-Jewish friends to our Friday night Shabbat, just so that they can see that we all have a lot of similarities to each other," Levin explained. "By doing this people can see that Jewish people are similar to everyone so we can all still relate."

Levin said members of Chabad try to improve diversity by making themselves a noticeable presence on campus.

"It disappoints me that such an academically successful school cannot be successful in diversity," Levin said.

Rick Gaines, a junior MCD biology major and member of Chabad, said he doesn't find CU extremely diverse ethnically but more diverse in the interest and activities on campus.

"Pretty much anything you can think of is a student group," Gaines said. "We have a lot of congregations, sports and political groups which has a lot of diversity."

He added that he thinks President Benson will be directed towards funding which will indirectly lead to more diversity by lowering tuition and increasing financial aid.

Gaines said since Jewish holidays are typically family and community oriented, students will feel welcome in the Jewish organizations on campus. By having a strong sense of community, Gaines said he thinks students will be more willing to come to CU, which will in turn increase diversity.

"We are open to more students in that sense," he said. "When I was a freshman I came down with a bad cold and the rabbi and his wife made me Matzah ball soup and brought it to my dorm. This made me feel very at home. This shows how strong the Jewish community is here."

Contact Campus Press Staff Writer Katelyn Bell at Katelyn.bell@colorado.edu. © Copyright 2008 Campus Press

Aspen awaiting first synagogue

$16 million structure on Main Street slated for completion in 2010
By By Julie Hutchinson, Special to the Rocky

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Jews have been a part of life in Aspen since miners first staked claims in 1879.

There has been a Jewish congregation in the resort town for 30 years, meeting in a church. Now a second congregation is about to give Aspen its first synagogue.

The $16 million, 34,000-square-foot structure will occupy half a city block at 435 W. Main St. alongside exclusive boutiques, restaurants and high-priced hotels.

The Jewish Community Center Chabad of Aspen, which will incorporate six existing structures declared as historic, will include a sanctuary and lecture hall, ballroom, classrooms, library, gym, mikvah (ritual bath), kosher cafe and retail shop.

The Jewish Community Center bought the land in 2003 for $6.3 million and construction will begin this summer, with completion slated for 2010.

New York-based Chabon Architects worked for more than a year with the city's preservation commission on the design. Aspen-based John Olson Builders will be the general contractor.

Chabad of Aspen will be the first synagogue in the Roaring Fork Valley, according to Executive Director Rabbi Mendel Mintz, 32, who was sent to Aspen eight years ago with his wife, Leiba, after teaching in California and Georgia.

"This is important for many reasons, first and primarily that none of those things that we are building exist now," Mintz said. "Secondly, there is no Jewish home in Aspen. It's a place that has a strong Jewish presence and people who are very proud to be Jewish, not to mention visitors."

The Aspen Jewish Congregation, which is not affiliated with any denomination of Judaism, never built its own facility. Though separate from Mintz's group, the two congregations are friendly.

"We have a good working relationship with them," Mintz said.

Chabad Aspen currently holds classes for about 65 children in a small building on the West Main Street site and counts as many as 1,000 participants during major religious holidays, when services are held at a hotel to accommodate crowds.

Chabad, one of the fastest-growing branches of Orthodox Judaism with centers around the globe, reaches out to all Jews regardless of their level of observance. Mintz said his aim is not to build an Orthodox community but a place where all Jews feel welcome.

He estimates that about 1,000 Jews consider Aspen their primary residence. "If you asked me to prove it, I couldn't - it's based on people you meet on the street," he said.

Aspen isn't the only high-end skiing mecca where new centers of Jewish worship and culture are opening. Mintz's brother, Dovid Mintz, founded the Chabad Center of the Vail Valley in 2006. In May, Jackson Hole, Wyo., will welcome Rabbi Zalman Mendelsohn, who visited Aspen for a weekend "to see how we did it," Mintz said.

Certainly one reason Aspen's Jewish population is growing so fast is the rabbi's family. Mintz and his wife have welcomed four children since they arrived in 2000.

"And they're all Aspen natives," Mintz said. "Two of them were on the mountain yesterday."



Major synagogue donors

Chabad Aspen's fundraising goal is $22 million. As of December, $10.2 million had been raised. Some of the million-dollar-plus donors include:

* Steel Partners Foundation. This Aspen-based nonprofit is funded by Steel Partners, a hedge fund operated by entrepreneur Warren Lichtenstein, an ally of billionaire corporate raider Carl Icahn.

* Roland and Dawn Arnall. Roland Arnall, who died in Los Angeles on March 17, was ranked No. 85 on the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans in 2006. He founded Ameriquest Mortgage Co., which ceased doing business last year. Arnall helped found the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.

* Gerald and Barbara Hines. Gerald Hines is founder and chairman of Hines Interests, an international real estate development firm based in Houston. Hines owns the 460,438-square-foot Mountain View Corporate Center in the Interlocken Office Park. Hines developed the 52-story Wells Fargo Center in downtown Denver, better known as the cash register building, completed in 1983, and the 180-acre Five Trees ski-in/ski-out residential community in Aspen.


© Rocky Mountain News

Festival of sights

Menorahs can be whimsical and unusual

By Melanie M. Sidwell Longmont Times-Call

LONGMONT — During Hanukkah, an eight-candle menorah called a “hanukkiah” represents the eight nights of the Jewish minor holiday, with a ninth candle lighting the others.
But what a hanukkiah is made of is really up to the imagination: Potatoes. Mah-jongg tiles. Mirrors. Popsicle sticks. Jewel-encrusted metal.
“It’s not what the menorah is made of that’s important, but that you’re honoring Hanukkah, the festival of lights,” said Sharon Schaffner, an artist and member of the Boulder Arts & Crafts Cooperative on Pearl Street, which is presenting its annual Judaica Show through Jan. 2.
“It’s become a fashion statement,” she said of the variety of materials menorahs come in.
The Judaica Show features Jewish objects, such as dreidels and hanukkiahs made of glass, pottery and metal and even whimsical ones shaped like a moose, a whale and domestic pets.
The Longmont Shabbat Group, a local unaffiliated Jewish organization, holds an annual community menorah lighting during which guests bring their own hanukkiahs from home to light.
Susan Scruggs said the the most unusual one she had seen “was something my dad’s family used to do during the Depression, when his family couldn’t afford candles.”
“The kids would each make a fist and put a match between each finger, lighting the matches and saying the prayers very fast as the matches burned,” Scruggs said. “It is also a portable menorah, because all you have to have is a book of matches. I once did this when I was on a business trip because I was traveling light and couldn’t take my menorah and candles with me.”
Yakov Borenstein — a rabbi with Chabad of Longmont, an “unorthodox Orthodox synagogue” — is planning to use bowling pins as a makeshift menorah during a “Chanukah Bowl” at Centennial Lanes on Dec. 9.
“People ask me all the time, ‘What does a menorah have to be made of?’ But a holy thing like this can be made of anything,” he said.
Borenstein recounted a time when he was stranded somewhere during the start of Hanukkah, so he and his companions used what they had: some empty plastic soda bottles and string.
Hanukkiahs “tell our own stories of light,” said Cherie Karo Schwartz, a Denver author and Jewish storyteller who spoke during the opening of the Judaica Show recently.
“The variety of menorahs show that at any given moment, there is light to be found,” she said. “Each person’s style shows how we bring light to the world.”

Melanie M. Sidwell can be reached at 303-684-5274 or msidwell@times-call.com.