NEWS FEATURE:“The Fonz,“propelled by Jewish faith, campaigns for children

c. 1997 Religion News Service ATLANTA _ Henry Winkler is best known for his role as”the Fonz,”the 50s-style anti-hero and gentle delinquent on the 1970s hit sitcom”Happy Days.” Today, Winkler is a different kind of hero. At 51, the successful actor, producer and director has shed the leather jacket for designer suits and wants to […]

c. 1997 Religion News Service

ATLANTA _ Henry Winkler is best known for his role as”the Fonz,”the 50s-style anti-hero and gentle delinquent on the 1970s hit sitcom”Happy Days.” Today, Winkler is a different kind of hero. At 51, the successful actor, producer and director has shed the leather jacket for designer suits and wants to be remembered for his role as a children’s advocate, a role he says he finds rooted in his Jewish faith.”Being Jewish and not reaching out (to others) is a contradiction in terms,”Winkler said in a recent speech in Atlanta.”We as Jews need to concentrate our energies outside of ourselves into our families, our work and our communities to achieve some kind of peace of mind and only then will we achieve a peace on earth,”he added.

For Winkler, reaching out means children.”Children are treated with such disrespect because they don’t vote and so they don’t count,”said Winkler, who is working to make their voices heard.


The list of children’s causes Winkler and his wife Stacey support is nearly as long as his acting and directing credits. Had he not succeeded as an actor, he said, he would have become a child psychologist because of his love for children.

Winkler is a founding member of the Children’s Action Network and a recipient of the United Nations’ Peace Prize. He works with many charities including teen substance abuse programs and programs to combat teen violence.”Today, instant communication is a bullet,”he says of violence.”Every day, 135,000 kids take a gun to school. Every 36 minutes in (America) a child is killed by a gun.” At the same time, Winkler says that being a parent is the most demanding and important job of all. “In order to be a parent you have to be a life guide, a teacher, a student, a chef, a disciplinarian, a storyteller, a historian, a chauffeur, a psychologist, Darth Vader, a social planner and a banker,”said Winkler, a father of three.

No one is more surprised at his success than Winkler.

As a child, he was such an underachiever that his parents sent him to a psychiatrist to see what was wrong. On a college-entrance exam, Winkler claims he made just 134 points over the 200 points they give for signing your name.

Yet, through sheer perseverance, he graduated from Emerson College and went on to attend the Yale School of Drama, where he was awarded a Master of Fine Arts.

His Judaism, Winkler said, provides stories and lessons from the past _ some of them personal _ that give hope and courage to future generations.”It is a very serious business this business of being a Jew and passing on the legacy,”he said.

Winkler’s father fled Nazi Germany with little more than a candy box tucked under his arm. Inside the box was the family jewelry enrobed in chocolate. After arriving in New York, he melted the chocolate and pawned some of the jewelry for food and a place to stay.”On my bar mitzvah, I was given my great-grandfather’s pocketwatch that came out of Germany encased in chocolate,”Winkler said.”Last October I gave it to … (my youngest son) at his bar mitzvah.” Winkler is far removed from the difficulties of his father’s life, but he warns against the complacency that sometimes comes amid personal success.”It is more difficult to perpetuate our Jewishness when times are easy,”he said.”(Jews) must be the light of the earth, an example of tolerance, caring and mutual respect not only when it is easy, but especially when it is hard.” MJP END PATTERSON

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