Holiday’s Meaning Practiced Year-Round

By midweek, eight menorahs had been set out in Reggie Front’s kitchen. Sixteen neatly wrapped gifts filled a box near her living room. A tray of cookies, baked in the shape of dreidels, cooled on the counter.

And today, her dining room table will be filled with food, ready to feed her two children and 14 other relatives who will come over to celebrate the final day of Hanukkah.

But Front won’t overlook the historical message of the Jewish celebration, which marks the Israelites’ military victory over their oppressors in 165 B.C.

To her, Hanukkah means understanding diversity, a message she has put into practice through her volunteer efforts, which range from serving on the Orange County Human Relations Commission to working with an organization that teaches English as a second language to new immigrants.

“It all relates back to Hanukkah in terms of discrimination and injustice,” said the 64-year-old Front. “There have always been oppressors in every generation and we must fight with words and ideas to conquer prejudice in every walk of life. Unless every person is free, regardless of their race, creed or color, no man can be free.”

In the late 1980s, a swastika was painted on the wall of her congregation’s temple, the Temple Beth David in Westminster. About the same time, a cross was burned on the lawn of a black family in the same city. The community, including the Front family, united to paint over graffiti and educate the area’s youth about racism.

“I want people of diverse backgrounds to have the experience of knowing each other and yet be able to keep their traditions and heritage,” she said.

Her husband, who died in 1989, was also devoted to the same causes. Rabbi Henri E. Front, a respected Jewish community leader, was the chairman of the Human Relations Commission, the organizer of religious forums and head of Temple Beth David.

Since his death, Front has stepped up her volunteer efforts, a move that has been therapeutic in many ways.

“I’m trying to continue some of the work that he felt was important,” Front said. “If you’re interested in other people, you can’t be so concerned about yourself. You still go home alone, but you’ve helped other people along the way.”

She now serves on the board of the adult education program at Temple Beth David, where she has helped launch a series of lectures on Judaism as part of a scholar-in-residence program named for her husband. She also is on the board of Heritage Pointe, the only Jewish retirement home in Orange County.

She is on the board of St. Anselm’s Refugee Center, affiliated with an Episcopal church in Garden Grove. Crossing religious or cultural lines has never bothered her. She received her teaching certificate a Catholic university.

The volunteer organizations “represent a cross-section of life itself,” she said. “As a Jew, I need to support my Jewish organizations and I need to support the secular organizations as well.”

Reggie Front, 64

Occupation: Marriage and family therapist

Organizations: Temple Beth David and Orange County Human Relations Commission.

Address: Rabbi Henri E. Front Scholar-in-Residence Program, Temple Beth David, 100 Hefley St., Westminster, Calif. 92683. (714) 892-6623.