Rabbi Beans

About the Book

Though raised in Brooklyn, New York, Emiliano and Ema Beanes, baby boomers, are not typically east coast. It isn't simply that they are Sephardic, for this would not be uncommon, but they are also Mexican, carrying within them all of the strengths and challenges transmitted through their immigrant grandparents and "best generation" parents; ethnic and religious roots binding them as they maneuver through the maze of modern America.

We accompany them as they strive to carve out an identity for themselves, and find them in today's Los Angeles, as representatives of their religious tradition and advocates for their largely Catholic, Latino neighbors.

Emiliano, naturally shy and insecure, a potential lifetime victim until his mother drives him into a Catholic school where his course is altered by pragmatic Jesuits, commits to the rabbinical life and emerges as an unlikely champion of the downtrodden and despised. We see him inspired and nurtured by Moshe Diego, his mentor in the faith, Martin Luther King's disciples in Selma, by the woman he marries, Mabel Carpenter, founder of the Feminist Caucus at N.Y.U., Father Juan Sierra, the idealistic Chicano lawyer turned Catholic priest, and seasoned community organizers, so that he grows into a soft-spoken, and somewhat comedic, through a powerful agent for progress in the barrios.

Ema, adventurous, aloof, shrewd, yet an unflinching foe of tyrants, masters invisibility early, only to surrender it gradually, as her morals and talents are tested by the foolish, weak and needy, hungry for honesty, compassion and leadership. On the long road to re-unite with Emiliano for one final adventure, she is moved by the voices of elderly Sephardic shut-ins, Malcolm X, and the S.D.S., and shaped by her natural gift for business as both as entrepreneur and executive for a transnational corporation. Yet, shadowing her success and fulfillment is the secret of crime and blood she carries for a lifetime until the love of her life, a priest, helps her to defeat the tyranny of her own guilt.

People Organized for Worship, Empowerment, and Renewal or P.O.W.E.R. brings together men and women of multiple faiths, ethnicity, and generation, massaging us with their stories of hope, action and courage. At the middle of it all stand Emiliano and Ema.

Their story of friendship comes full circle within the context of neighbors joined together by faith and mutual need. It is a story about growing up and taking hold.

About the Author

Attorney and Professor Richard Avila, a graduate of Occidental College and U.C.L.A., is a student of history and politics, a one-time practitioner of community organizing, and a promoter of strategies to empower all underdogs.