Rabbi is driving force in efforts to introduce golf to Newark kids

by Ron Kaplan
NJJN Staff Writer

The only golf courses I’ve ever played have had little windmills on them,” said Rabbi Clifford M. Kulwin of Temple B’nai Abraham in Livingston.

Which makes his efforts to introduce the game to young people in Newark all the more surprising.

The rabbi became involved with Newark Now, a program founded in 2002 by then city councilman, now mayor, Cory Booker; many of TBA’s members have participated in the program over the past few years, Kulwin said.

About 18 months ago, Kulwin and Modia Butler, president of Newark Now, were bouncing around ideas for projects in which the synagogue might participate. Kulwin “half-jokingly” mentioned that “everybody in this congregation except me plays golf. It’s a shame there isn’t some worthwhile program related to golf.”

Butler informed his friend about Newark Youth Golf, a nonprofit that teaches the game to disadvantaged kids in the greater Essex County area. A shidduch was made.

Kulwin put out a call for donations in 2005, collecting 400 clubs — including some complete sets — along with balls, tees, and other equipment. Some members even bought new sets of clubs to donate to the cause, he said.

This year, Kulwin upped the ante. In June, he importuned his congregation’s members to serve as volunteers in the program. So far, about 40 people have signed up, “a significant number given that we’re talking about during the day, during the week. I was really quite stunned.”

About 500 inner-city kids participate in the day camp held at the Weequahic Golf Course, “right in the middle of the old Jewish neighborhood,” Kulwin pointed out. “The ties in all of this are really quite exceptional.” The original TBA was founded in Newark in 1853.

“The idea is one I never would have thought of, but it’s fantastic,” Kulwin said. “There are all sorts of wonderful things that come from learning the sport. It’s a wonderful skill to have as a young person grows up, goes to school, goes out into the job market, because in the real business and professional world, golf is a useful thing to know how to do.”

For his support in bringing the game to inner-city kids, Newark Youth Golf cited Kulwin with the Hole in One Award for Community Service at its second annual Golf4Kids Day, held July 26.

“All my friends are just howling over this,” Kulwin said, howling at the image of himself running around the greens in a pair of plaid knickers. “If there was anybody who was a non-golf person — the irony in all this is overwhelming.”