A New Spin on an Old Holiday

With the precision of a commando raid, the squad of young men wearing combat uniforms sized up their target in the Fairfax area of Los Angeles and moved into position.

Which explains how Bella Salzman found herself surrounded Tuesday by camouflage-clad youngsters dancing in a ragged circle as they sang an off-key rendition of a drinking song.

“I was expecting you,” Salzman told her visitors. “If you hadn’t come, the day wouldn’t have been the same.”

With that, Salzman reached for her purse and wrote a check to teenagers putting a new spin on the 2,500-year-old Jewish tradition of Purim.

Instead of participating in the normal gift giving on the holiday that celebrates the triumph of Jews in ancient Persia, teams of singing and dancing teenagers in Los Angeles knock on doors soliciting cash donations.

Youngsters trampling the green rug in the foyer of Salzman’s Vista Street home were raising money for an Israeli educational group. Last year the 96 students at Yeshiva Gedolah of Los Angeles’ Michael Diller High School raised $31,000. This year’s goal: $44,000.

And they’re not alone. Other schools around town also organized Purim collection drives. And groups from as far away as Toronto, Baltimore and Philadelphia reportedly sent youngsters to Los Angeles to solicit Purim donations.

“They are earning big bucks. People fly in from out of town for this purpose,” said Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, director of the Jewish Studies Institute at the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

“L.A. is targeted because there are pockets of orthodox Jewish affluence and they are close to each other in Hancock Park, Beverly-Fairfax, Beverly Hills and Beverlywood.”

Tradition calls for children to wear costumes on Purim. To save money on costume rental, the Lev L’achim group in Israel shipped over military uniforms for younger Diller High students to wear. Seniors rented Civil War-style uniforms to distinguished themselves from underclassmen.

Aaron Wolin, 17, said the Hebrew songs were about joy and happiness, including “one whose title in English means, ‘The Person Is Obligated to Get Drunk.’ ”

Vista Street resident Rachel Stern laughed as she wrote out her check. The teenagers encircled Jeff Unger of North Hollywood and danced for him as he pulled up with his family to deliver their own gift to a friend. The young people caught Leah Hoffman as she pulled into her driveway with her son, Akiva, 5.

Donations on Vista Street ranged from a few dollars to $100 handed to Fishel Schreiber, 15.

The youths relied on lists of previous donors and members of local Jewish groups when picking homes to solicit. But there were a few mix-ups, and several Protestants and Catholics received surprise visits.

No problem, said Ari Adlerstein, also 15. “Last year we went to a wrong house and came away with a $50 donation from a guy who wasn’t Jewish,” he said.