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SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2011 • ELUL 5771/TISHREI 5772
Recharging While in Flight: An Interview With Roly SUSAN REIMER-TORN
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Today, right now, is the next big turning point. We have been able to reacquire our old building on 89th Street. ... Now we need to grow into it with the fullness of our essence, our values and our unique approach to Jewish community and Jewish life.”
In an interview for the occasion of his 25th anniversary at BJ, Rabbi J. Rolando Matalon offered a delightful retrospective of his own coming of age, his mentorship with Marshall, crucial turning points in the communal past, and his urgent concerns for the present. Roly once said that every life is an answer to a question that must be discovered. In that spirit, I have omitted my questions, allowing more space for the richness of Roly’s responses, thus inviting each of us to intuit the questions that hover invisible in all of our lives. — SRT Part One: Portrait of the Rabbi as a Young Man The Seeds Were Planted My grandfather was a very important figure in my life. He started out a poor immigrant, but he and his brothers became very wealthy. He was not a learned man, but he was very generous; he helped a lot of people in secret. He also became a leader of the Sephardic Jewish community in Buenos Aires. In general the religious leadership in those days in Argentina was obscurantist and rigid; the rabbis were not at all attractive to the generation of my parents. I loved my grandfather very much, and it was he who took me to the synagogue. Even as a young child, the prayers and the music already resonated with me. So, in that way, the seeds were planted early on. Then my grandparents became some of the early supporters of a young rabbi who had just arrived from the States. The rabbi’s name was Marshall Meyer. I was 6 years old when I met him.
PHOTO: BJ ARCHIVES
Roly and David Lieberman, 1996 or 1997. Read more about David, who will be honored as Hatan Bereshit on Simhat Torah, on pages 11 and 14.
I Searched From A to Z (Twice!) In the early 70’s the University of Buenos Aires was open to all and free of charge, and I just needed to choose a course of study. I examined the catalog from A to Z, and I just could not decide what career to study for. So, I went through it again, from Archeology to Zoology, and I couldn’t figure out what to do. Not having any better idea, I registered in the schools of Chemistry and Sociology. But in those days there was great political turmoil in Argentina. Because of all kinds of factional unrest and faculty purges, I never got to experience a single sociology course. The university was even shut down for several months, and it was getting harder to concentrate on studies. One Day I Just Had to Go Meanwhile I was studying with Marshall at the seminary and leading a kind of double life. I was observing Shabbat and keeping kosher, and this was not my parents’ lifestyle. They had been traumatized by the Old World rabbis, so my attraction to observance had them a little spooked. I (continued on page 4)
Social Action/Social Justice . . . . . . . . . . . .2 Board of Trustees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 A Closing and a New Beginning . . . . . . . . .3 Roly’s 25th Anniversary at BJ . . . . . . . .4-11 Doorposts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 Youth & Family Education . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 Member Spotlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12 Bikkur Holim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13 Simhat Torah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 Rabbinic Fellows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 Reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16-17 Shabbat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18 Announcements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 Contacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20
inside: Roly’s 25th Anniversary Special Issue Roly: Our Yedid Nefesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Perversion and Holiness Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Lunch and Learn With Roly and the Talmudic Rabbis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Roly: Song of the Life Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 Two Teen Tales. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 Roly Was “The Bomb” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .11
SYNAGOGUE: 257 W. 88th St. • OFFICE: 2109 Broadway (Ansonia), Suite 203, New York, NY 10023 • TEL : 212.787.7600 • FAX : 212.496.7600 • WEBSITE : www.bj.org
new voIce • KOL HADASH .
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2011
SOCIAL ACTION/SOCIAL JUSTICE
A Panim el Panim Chat with Jamie and Judith By Ariel Schneider In the midst of our spring Community Café project I took some time, of course face to face, with Jamie Emhoff and Judith Trachtenberg, longtime leaders of Panim el Panim.
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Jamie: I love high and low culture, for example I am huge fan of the New York City Ballet, and I love pop culture and reality television. I also really enjoy cooking and trying out new recipes.
Why did you first become involved in Panim el Panim?
Jamie: I was invited to a house meeting focused on affordable housing in 2007 as part of the Panim el Panim listening campaign and was particularly interested in attending because of my work with the BJ shelter. I was impressed with the meeting’s format and facilitators and decided to attend more meetings. I was an active member of the Affordable Housing team until I switched over to the Marriage Equality Hevra because of a personal commitment to the issue and I was inspired to be more involved. Judith: Before I was even a member of BJ, I was invited to a Panim voter registration event during the 2005 presidential election. The idea that a synagogue was doing this type of work had me completely hooked and my partner Renie and I joined BJ shortly after. My interest in social justice was embedded in me as a social worker and the daughter of a social justice-oriented Rabbi. Q: Which Panim el Panim effort have you been most proud to be part of since you have been involved? Jamie: I am most proud of the Social Justice Shabbaton that Panim hosted last year. The Panim Task Force did all of the planning and executing of the programming and it was really fulfilling to work together as a team to pull off a really successful event. Judith: I am incredibly proud of the work of the Employers for Justice group in passing the Domestic Workers Bill or Rights in New York State. We worked with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFRJ) and Domestic Workers United (DWU) for 2 years and were an instrumental part of the passage of the legislation last fall.
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Q: What are some of your hobbies/past times/interests?
Judith: I love traveling! If you offered me a ticket, I would be on a plane in the next hour going anywhere. Tibet was my favorite place to travel because it was really amazing to meet people who live their lives in a place PHOTO: ARIEL SCHNEIDER where they struggle to maintain Jamie Emhoff and Judith Trachtenberg autonomy. I also enjoy theater, movies, and photography. Q: How do you see Panim el Panim growing and changing in the future? Q: What do you find most rewarding in being a leader in the BJ community? Jamie: I see us going deeper into certain issues. The exciting part of finishing up our Jamie: I am part of an extensive support current listening campaign is learning network made up of other interesting and about what issues members really care passionate members. I’ve had the about and finding new people to be involved. opportunity to really get to know and work Specifically, I see us addressing the seniors closely with other people, which helps me in our community and I would love Panim to feel more connected to BJ as a whole. This be involved in creating some kind of senior is particularly important to me as I was resource center when we move into the new looking for a way to be part of this building. community separate from my son. Judith: I think we have a lot of room to grow Judith: As a lay leader I have gotten to know in how to best engage new people. A lot of so many wonderful people through so many people in the congregation know the name different avenues. Meeting new people “Panim” but I’m not sure the name is opens me to learn new things about myself. connected to our process and philosophy, of I have continued growing despite my age— congregation–based community organizing. BJ has made that possible. Q: What do you do outside of your Q: As leaders of congregation-based volunteer work at BJ? community organizing, you hold many oneto-one relational meetings to get to know Jamie: I am a personal fashion consultant people—how are these experiences for for the Worth collection and a busy mother you? of a teenager and Eddie the wonder dog! Judith: I’m lucky: I have a lot of interests and I’m a teacher that hasn’t been laid off yet! I am a professor of Social Work at Hunter College and Columbia University and additionally I advise social work students.
Jamie: I don’t do them often enough! I find them to be very interesting and surprising because I always learn things about people that I did not already know. Most times at a (continued on page 3)
SYNAGOGUE: 257 W. 88th St. • OFFICE: 2109 Broadway (Ansonia), Suite 203, New York, NY 10023 • TEL : 212.787.7600 • FAX : 212.496.7600 • WEBSITE : www.bj.org
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BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Meet BJ’s Newest Board Members By Belinda Lasky
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t the BJ Annual Meeting in June, the BJ community unanimously voted Jeannie Blaustein in as President of the Board of Trustees. Jeannie will serve a three-year term and will bring her many passions to the role of representing the community. Many thanks to outgoing Board President Jonathan Adelsberg as well as retiring Board members Andrea Newman, Rochelle Friedlich, Benjamin Ross, and Debbie Lerner for their dedicated and creative service to B’nai Jeshurun! The breadth and depth of their work have enriched the community. Additionally, two new members of the Board of Trustees were nominated and unanimously elected by the membership to serve their terms. Let’s learn about them. Irvin Rosenthal Irvin Rosenthal and his family have been BJ members since 1990. Irv is co-chair of BJ’s Building Committee and co-chair of the Morning Minyan (he leads the minyan on Monday mornings). He previously served as a BJ Board member from 2001 to 2007 and co-chaired the renovation of the 88th Street building in 1995-96. Irv is the chief financial officer of UJA-Federation of New York. He was a founder of Plaza Jewish Community Chapel and is a board member and treasurer there. He also was a founder of the JCC in Manhattan and co-chaired its building
Panim el Panim
committee until 2000. Irv and his wife, Ruth Jarmul, are the parents of three daughters who grew up at BJ and led Shabbat and holiday children’s programs: Rebecca, a rabbi and the Director of Children and Family Education at Ikar in Los Angeles; Rachel, a student in the Scholars Circle program at the Drisha Institute; and Sarah, a graduating senior at Brown University. Jack Stern Jack Stern and his wife, Judy, joined BJ five years ago. He is the senior partner at Brain & Spine Surgeons of New York and on the clinical faculty of the Yale School of Medicine’s Department of Neurosurgery. Jack is an editor of SpineLine, a professional publication of the North American Spine Society; he is also finishing a book on spine care. He recently stepped down from the Board of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, has been a long time DOROT weekly visitor, and is President of the Alumni Board of Governors of the Einstein College of Medicine. Once a month, Jack is a sleepover volunteer at the BJ/SPSA homeless shelter. He and Judy find that coming to BJ on Shabbat morning gives them the opportunity to be together in a spiritual space surrounded by a community that reveres the principals of social justice and social action. Please congratulate everyone on their honors and thank them for their dedication to our community. n
A Closing and A New Beginning A large community shall return here. (Jeremiah 31:8) BJ has come home! We are again the proud owners of our former community house at 270 W. 89th Street. The closing took place on June 23. We celebrate this amazing achievement with the entire BJ PHOTO: MAX ORENSTEIN community and express our deepest appreciation to all who participated in making the dream a reality. We are also pleased to announce that we have selected the firm of Mitchell Giurgola Architects (after an intensive evaluation of high-quality proposals from six firms) to work with BJ to develop the space program and master plan for our new Community House and its integration with the 88th Street sanctuary building for the BJ of the future. It is so exciting to be making these plans and we hope you will all participate in the upcoming efforts to solicit your input. We are gratified and humbled by the faith you have placed in us and in the future of this exceptional community. — Roly, Marcelo, Felicia, and Ari
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relational meeting I’ve gotten tearful with people because we talk about things that are heartfelt and personal. Judith: I find them quite wonderful. It’s a way that I’ve met many people in the BJ community as well as within Manhattan
Together (a multi-religious, multi-ethnic community organizing network of which BJ is a member). Specifically in the MT context, it’s a way that I’ve gotten to know people that are very different from me. In a world where not all leaders in MT stand behind marriage equality, the more one-on-ones
I’ve had the more I’ve been able to overcome many stereotypes and barriers and connect with people who have realized that I am just a person. Relational meetings get beyond politics and focus on a basic human connection that I have found to be critical in my work with Panim. n
SYNAGOGUE: 257 W. 88th St. • OFFICE: 2109 Broadway (Ansonia), Suite 203, New York, NY 10023 • TEL : 212.787.7600 • FAX : 212.496.7600 • WEBSITE : www.bj.org
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new voIce • KOL HADASH .
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2011
ROLY’S 25TH ANNIVERSARY AT BJ
An Interview With Roly was 17 years old and I had to go out in the world and find my own way. Since I didn’t yet know much English, I decided to go to Montreal where I could study in French, which I spoke fluently. Montreal in the mid-70’s was a fantastic experience. There I had access to the most eclectic Jewish influences; I was so hungry, I gobbled it all up—Reconstructionism, Chabad, North African synagogues. I had long hair and wore clogs and went to every rock concert, and meanwhile I couldn’t get enough Torah, Jewish thought, and Tanya (the central text of Chabad Hasidism). I Couldn’t Completely Let Go Still I didn’t know whether I wanted to become a rabbi. The truth is I was confused, trying to define myself, still holding on to chemistry even though I knew that was not my real passion. I often referred to Mordecai Kaplan for a rational explanation as to why Judaism was still relevant to modern lives. I needed that sort of justification vis-à-vis my family and friends. But I was also very drawn to mysticism, and the pull between the rational and the mystical remains a core tension to this day. That’s of course what I love about Heschel: One can live in that tension without having to resolve it. But it took a while for me to figure out who I was. Even when I went to Israel in 1978, I started a Masters degree in Chemistry but never finished it. I couldn’t resist the amazing Jewish Studies courses at the Hebrew University. Are You Crazy? After a two-and-a-half-year period in Argentina studying at Marshall’s seminary, living in fear during the military junta days, and marrying Talia, we came to New York in January 1982 and I became a student at JTS. Marshall came to New York in August 1985. At BJ, they barely had a minyan. But in the course of that year I began to get involved. One weekend, Marshall went off to be a scholar in residence, and he asked me to be in charge of the services. I was petrified but I did it. I think people liked it. When I was about to be ordained in 1986, I needed to find a job and asked Marshall for advice. He said, “Are you crazy, you‘re supposed to stay here and work with me.” But I thought he was
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SUSAN REIMER-TORN continued from page 1 crazy as the congregation could hardly support one rabbi, let alone two. Still he ran his idea by the board, explaining that I could do various jobs in a half-time position—read Torah, teach Bar Mitzvah kids, etc. I went to interview with Judith Peck who was BJ’s President then, and I gave her my résumé in a sealed envelope. Soon after she called to tell me that I was hired.
One year and a half after Marshall died, Marcelo, who was a lifelong best friend as well as a student and friend of Marshall's, came, and I was tremendously relieved. I didn’t want an assistant; I wanted a full partner with whom I could continue to build a vision and to grow. I am so grateful that the leadership of BJ went along with this unusual request. It took us a while, but together we slowly built the infrastructure.
Part Two: Walking Through the Door He Was Larger Than Life First Marshall gave me the keys, then he walked me though the door. There is nothing like an apprenticeship with a mentor like I had. Marshall was driven, very driven, full of fresh ideas, on fire about social justice and human rights. He was learned, he was passionate, he was hugely intelligent, and in every way he was larger than life. And he was so generous. Besides love and friendship, he really brought me in, took me everywhere, exposed me to everything. He was an insider who had spent 25 years living outside, so he was of both worlds but always his own person. He loved music and Heschel and he had this nonstop creative energy. It was very difficult in those years, we worked long hours, but we built something meaningful with that pioneering spirit. Where Did He End and I Begin? When Marshall died in 1993, I was bereaved and I was very scared. It took me a few years to sort it all out. He had given me a great gift. But he was gone. Where did he end and where did I begin? I was terrified but deep down I knew that he had given me the skills, I knew I had the resources to carry on in my own way. Make Room for Chaos People really wanted to carry on Marshall’s legacy; they brought a lot of willingness and creative energy. But we didn’t have the infrastructure to channel all that energy usefully. So, we had a choice: We could either kill the energy or we could learn to live with chaos. Ari and I were moved Shabbat after Shabbat by the powerful spiritual yearning that people brought to services.
PHOTO: CYNDI SHATTUCK PHOTOGRAPHY
Some people objected. BJ was a spiritual volcano, not an institution. But we managed to get an executive director, to raise funds, to set policy; we couldn’t be a startup forever, we had to become adults. We started the rabbinic fellowship in Marshall's memory, and after a few years we invited Felicia, a fellow from 1999-2001, to join our team. It Became Much More Difficult So, in the post-Marshall decade we experienced exponential growth at BJ and big shifts in the world—we went from the fall of the Berlin Wall and talking about the peace dividend and the hope of Oslo, to the second intifada, 9/11, and the Iraq War. And (continued on page 5)
SYNAGOGUE: 257 W. 88th St. • OFFICE: 2109 Broadway (Ansonia), Suite 203, New York, NY 10023 • TEL : 212.787.7600 • FAX : 212.496.7600 • WEBSITE : www.bj.org
ELUL 5771/TISHREI 5772
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How do we hold on to our values? Is it worth surviving at the cost of our values? If we give up our ethos and our core it would be a kind of spiritual suicide. So the challenge is to engage in the dialectic.”
Heartfelt messages to Roly have poured in for the book in his honor. Here, and on pages 7, 8, and 9, we share a few with the community. ——————————————————————————
“It’s been over 21 years since I first set foot into the sanctuary at 88th Street and was drawn into the most spiritually resonant service I have ever experienced. The combination of your voice, coupled with Marshall's and Ari’s, was the initial layer of glue that has kept me bonded with BJ all of these years. This ever-evolving journey is one that, for me, ebbs and flows like the sea. Always pulling me back in, providing much-needed nourishment that I am truly grateful for. We have all been blessed with your presence and your leadership. I sincerely hope this journey continues for a long, long time.” —BJ member
PHOTO: BJ ARCHIVES
as the world became more polarized, so did our congregation. It became much more difficult, really hard, to hold on to our values. We had to dig deeper all the time. A Mirror of Today Today, right now, is the next big turning point. We have been able to reacquire our old building on 89th Street through a massive communal effort and thanks to the love and commitment of so many. Now we need to grow into it with the fullness of our essence, our values, and our unique approach to Jewish community and Jewish life. This Is Our Essence When I talk about our essence or our core values, I am talking about the vision as articulated by A.J. Heschel. It’s the spiritual activism that calls for justice, righteousness, and expanding and extending dignity and freedom to all. But we are faced with a terrible dilemma, because the world is a complicated place, hatred is real, threats are
real. How do we hold on to our values? Is it worth surviving at the cost of our values? If we give up our ethos and our core it would be a kind of spiritual suicide. So, the challenge is to engage in the dialectic. It takes a kind of refined awareness to walk this line. I keep saying “give me reality, don’t give me paranoia.” The Other Voice The strongest voices in the Jewish establishment are those that call for safety and security. That voice is important. I welcome it. But it is important that we sound the other voice too. Otherwise we are left with nothing but our fears. Do we want survival for the sake of survival? I believe we can do better than that. At least we have to keep these two voices in conversation with one another. And it is of course most difficult today where Israel is concerned. But you know, BJ is about the willingness to question and to challenge the assumptions. We are not fully part of the establishment, but we are not anti-establishment. We are always walking this wavering line. We need to sound the counterpoint to the mainstream, to keep taking calculated risks. Sometimes I Crave The work of the rabbis at BJ calls for involvement in many areas: some spiritual
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envisioning, some scholarship and teaching, some activism, some pastoral care, some of a lot of things. We are generalists. Sometimes I crave time to really go deep into just one thing, which I just don’t have. But I try to use this tension creatively. I have learned how to stay present with what’s happening and to do like those planes that recharge while in flight. When I teach and when I lead prayers I am putting out energy but I am also replenishing, learning with and from others. At the end of services my colleagues and I are often exhausted, but we feel also energized by the text, the music, the message, the community. What Matters Most Now … … is that we stay deeply connected to the Torah and to asking ourselves what it is that God expects of us. Also, we need to be relevant, to be able to respond meaningfully to a fast-changing world. Then we have to make sure that BJ remains strong and viable as an institution and that there is the necessary continuity of leadership to take this community always to both higher and deeper places. I have no idea where I or BJ will be 10 years from now. But I know that right now we can’t fall asleep; together we have lots more work we can do. I feel so privileged to be part of this spiritual adventure that is BJ, full of challenges and surprises and gifts. I am so blessed and grateful to do this in the company of my partners Marcelo, Felicia, and Ari, as well as BJ’s remarkable leadership. This community has given me the opportunity to grow and to learn, and I pray I will continue to do so. —————————————————————————————————
Marshall gave him the keys and, to the great enrichment of all our personal and Jewish lives, Roly has walked through the door over and over again. With the new building, he will usher us across many new thresholds. Roly ended our talk emphasizing the importance of leadership and this reminds me of another story that he shared. Not long ago, Judith Peck returned the sealed envelope with Roly’s résumé. Roly noticed that she had never opened it. Somehow she knew she didn’t have to … n Susan Reimer-Torn is an author and executive coach. She blogs on her travels with Roly in Talmud land and other things at susanrtorn.wordpress.com.
SYNAGOGUE: 257 W. 88th St. • OFFICE: 2109 Broadway (Ansonia), Suite 203, New York, NY 10023 • TEL : 212.787.7600 • FAX : 212.496.7600 • WEBSITE : www.bj.org
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SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2011
ROLY’S 25TH ANNIVERSARY AT BJ
Roly: Our Yedid Nefesh
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t was a number of years ago when we were working on defining the spiritual foundations for social justice that Roly brought the following quote from Isaiah:
“. . . I heard the voice of my God saying, Whom shall I send? Who will go for us? And I said, Hineni: Here I am; send me. And God said, Go.” — Isaiah 6:8-9 Aside from it becoming part of the document that we created as a result of that work, to us this quote is one that has always stuck with us as a telling message of who Roly is as a rabbi, a teacher, and a beloved friend and spiritual partner. For 25 years Roly has served this community as a response to a deep calling from God with a vision of what the world, Jewish life, and BJ can be. He has felt called and he has responded by saying, “Hineni, Here I am; send me,” from the early days of the reinvigorated BJ, when he helped rebuild this community with every fiber of his being, acting as the ba’al kriah, the Torah reader, being the Purim Shpiel creator, to guiding the establishment of the St. Luke’s AIDS Brunch, the first community retreat and trip to Israel, to inviting Ari in 1989, to countless other activities and experiences as a partner to Rabbi Marshall Meyer, z”l, to guiding the community following Marshall’s death, serving as the rabbi and glue of this community even as he went through his own profound mourning process, to knowing he wanted to continue the notion of spiritual partnership and inviting Marcelo to join him in 1995 and then together inviting Felicia into that partnership in 2001. In these years, Roly has visited countless BJ members when they’ve been ill, married hundreds of couples, been by the side of families at funerals and shiva minyanim, given blessings to numerous children and counseled innumerable students. He has led with his prayers, his songs, his teachings, his moral compass, and his humanity. And, as he has provided spiritual leadership and vision, he has always been on his own search, questioning and prodding and never settling. We have been blessed for our years of spiritual partnership and friendship with Roly by knowing that we have a yedid nefesh, a soul mate, who has a commitment to us, to the rabbinate, and to this community that comes from a place of deep love. His desire for perfection continually challenges us to strive for the holy, and he does this all with a profound sense of humility. Since 1986, he has day after day, year after year, said, “Here I am; send me.” And because of him, we know we, and BJ, will be never be the same. Words could never express our gratitude and love to Roly, and we only hope and pray that the next 25 years will be as much of an adventure as the last 25. God said, Go! — Marcelo, Ari, and Felicia PHOTOS: BJ ARCHIVES
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SYNAGOGUE: 257 W. 88th St. • OFFICE: 2109 Broadway (Ansonia), Suite 203, New York, NY 10023 • TEL : 212.787.7600 • FAX : 212.496.7600 • WEBSITE : www.bj.org
ELUL 5771/TISHREI 5772
Perversion and Holiness Class By Susan Reimer-Torn
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erversion and Holiness, Stories of the Talmudic Rabbis … it's a catchy course title to be sure. We are reading cryptic vignettes, curated for his Lunch and Learn class by Rabbi Roly. The stories highlight the human foibles of the most esteemed spiritual leaders. We are introduced to a revered rabbinic teacher who has an innocent man arrested and then, to prove his non-guilt, cuts off his own flesh to see if it will rot in the sun. He declares the lack of rot to be proof of his vindication in the nasty affair. Then there's
One rabbi cannot bear the pressure of a clever student plying him with too many questions; another follows a man and a woman as they stroll off together, certain he will catch them in impropriety—when the unmarried couple remains chaste the spying rabbi has to face his own difficulty in resisting temptation. A great teacher insults a fiercely beloved student and then in an escalating quarrel they mortally wound one another with angry words. In times of drought, rabbis despair of a formula to bring rain: One declares a communal fast only to break it when hunger gnaws. Week after week we read disturbing stories wherein vanity, jealousy, rage, arrogance, and cowardice mar the prestige of esteemed rabbinic leaders. Finally Roly answers the unspoken but compelling question. What is it that draws him—Rabbi Roly, our refined, measured, dedicated teacher, a man loved for his kindness, his humility, and extraordinary sensitivity to others—to the seamy side? Roly explains, “I teach this material to keep my own tendencies in check. I sit in a position in power but I don't want it to go to my head. As rabbis we inspire, motivate, and guide so it's important to stay in touch with our own failings.” But why share it with us? “We have to take this beyond being exclusively about rabbis,” he tells us. “We all have to remember our human failings so we do not lose touch with what's real.” He urges us “to turn inward and ask ourselves tough questions,” and in this we know Roly is serving as our guide.
an exceptionally handsome rebbe who preens like a peacock in front of women emerging from their post-menstrual visit to the mikveh. The preener's intention? That he will arouse the women’s desire, that they will then have sexual relations with their husbands while thinking of him, and that this will cause them to conceive beautiful children. After that some rabbis indulge in a bragging contest about the size of their sex organs, but they must have been exceptionally bored that day.
Making sure that Judaism is relevant to reality is another of Roly's recurrent themes. We encounter stories about rabbis who go off to study for years at a stretch, leaving their wives and families behind. Rabbi Roly refers to the “ongoing tension between study and taking action in the world.” He is clearly no admirer of those “who use their studies as an excuse for not engaging in the real problems of life,” criticizing the absent scholars for “completely missing the point.”
We, Roly's students, are never bored at Lunch and Learn. For those gathered here, Thursdays at 12:30 is an inviolable time-out from the other concerns of our lives.
When we read a section about rabbis who scrupulously avoid contact with those afflicted with a plague, Roly seizes the
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“You have been here for 25 years and for 24 of those years, your honesty and courage, your insistence on keeping it real, your sweet soul and sweet voice have made sure that our family had its spiritual home. We are forever grateful for that gift and look forward to many more wonderful years to come.” —BJ member
moment to bring in the counter-example of Marshall Meyer who in the early days of AIDS insisted that the ill be fully integrated in the community. Roly shows us the full spectrum. “We have seen rabbis who were unpleasant and deviant. But we also see truly pious risk-takers.” He recalls, “In the dark days, Marshall could extract the real message, he would even put his life on the line for the sanctity of all life.” One week we read a particularly painful story of a rabbi who wishes an early death upon both of his children, a son who outshines him in piety and a daughter who disturbs him with her beauty. When I suggest that we have compassion for such a dysfunctional spirit, Roly strongly disagrees. “We can't let them off the hook so easily.” But then, I wonder, does the type of study in which these men engage really help them evolve? With that, says Roly, “We have arrived at the heart of the matter. Judaism has to be a path to personal evolution; we have to hold it up in that mirror. Otherwise it's irrelevant.” Another week we read a tale of a rabbi called Honi the Circle-Drawer who revisits his hometown 70 years after his death. As he approaches the study house he hears people referring to his teaching, expressing the wish that Honi was still alive. But when Honi insists, “I am he,” no one recognizes this unbidden stranger. Roly confides that he is very moved by Honi's plight: how unthinkable to be forgotten—if not as a teacher, then as a person—by those with whom you've shared so much. Roly? Forgotten? As a person or a teacher? Unthinkable to any of us, in word or in deed. n
SYNAGOGUE: 257 W. 88th St. • OFFICE: 2109 Broadway (Ansonia), Suite 203, New York, NY 10023 • TEL : 212.787.7600 • FAX : 212.496.7600 • WEBSITE : www.bj.org
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ROLY’S 25TH ANNIVERSARY AT BJ
Lunch and Learn With Roly and the Talmudic Rabbis By Myriam Abramowicz
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he hustle and bustle of Times Square.
Its neon lights, tourists, and Shubert Alley alive and well with lunchtime take-out from Starbucks and nearby delis. This is the setting we all encounter coming and going to and from the Lunch and Learn with Roly. Soon that setting will be replaced with another time capsule. In an office building’s conference room shared with us by a BJ member, we gather to be ushered by Roly into the world of Rabbi Akiva, or R. Johanan ben Zakkai, or the Schools of Hillel and Shammai by way of the teachings they left behind. Our yerusha. Our inheritance. As we anticipate Roly’s arrival, sitting around the table, we know he will guide us through what at first appears as an undecipherable anecdote yet pregnant with meaning and wisdom. He doesn’t disappoint.
parenthesis, a pause in time. And, although the “lunch and learn” is but an hour, it remains as a reference long after. Traces of those images are chiseled and then transformed into the ordinary steps of our day-to-day experience. When we exit the class and step back into the scurry of Broadway, the text of the rabbis is tucked deep in our pockets. Hurrying for the 104 Bus or the Number 1 Subway the hum of the sages’ voices compete with the clamor of mid-town traffic. A true embarrassment of riches. n Myriam Abramowicz is a documentary film maker, an activist, and a long-time member of BJ. She has been studying with Roly for many years, is a Gabbai for the Yamim Noarim, initiated and continues to organize the annual Yom Ha'Shoah commemoration, and has inspired or undertaken numerous projects for BJ over the years.
The neon lights are replaced with the sparks showering upon us from the Babylonian Exile. This contrast, this tug, going back in time is what is most striking. The hour is a
“We are grateful to know you and count you as our friend and teacher, and we send our love and blessings on this incredible milestone. You embody all of the many roles a rabbi serves—teacher, preacher, pastor, priest, spiritual guide, not to mention oud player, skiier, and supporter of the spinning obsession. We celebrate the last 25 years of your wild and precious rabbinate at BJ and wish you continued strength, vision, courage, and humor for whatever comes next!” —BJ member
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SYNAGOGUE: 257 W. 88th St. • OFFICE: 2109 Broadway (Ansonia), Suite 203, New York, NY 10023 • TEL : 212.787.7600 • FAX : 212.496.7600 • WEBSITE : www.bj.org
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“Congratulations on your 25th anniversary at BJ!! I am so very grateful for all your gifts of leadership, learning, music, and guidance in all things spiritual. I've learned, and continue to learn, so much from you. Many years ago you even taught me how to spin a dreidel upside down—which is a skill I'm still quite proud of! It's been an amazing journey, and I am excited to see where the next 25 years will take us. Meanwhile, I wish you and your family continued good health and much happiness always. Yasher koach, and many thanks for always being there for us!!“ —BJ member
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Doorposts By Denise Waxman There is so much excitement and anticipation around the acquisition of the 89th Street building, that the question arose: How can we keep everyone informed, exchange insights, inspirations, and (since we are Jewish) even our anxieties about this giant communal step forward?
PHOTO: MAX ORENSTEIN
To many of us a blog seemed to offer the perfect forum, and BJ member Susan Reimer-Torn came up with the perfect name: Doorposts. After all, we are stepping over many new thresholds into a shared space, and we all have much to say about how we will dwell in it. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house—literally, spiritually, and now also in the cyber meaning of the term. And so Doorposts, a vital and interactive space for dialog about the BJ of the future in the context of the acquisition and development of the 89th Street building, was born. How will we move forward and expand into a new space while still maintaining our core values? We need everyone to engage with the conversation that evolves. The forum is open to all. Visit, find out what’s new, ask questions, contribute ideas, make suggestions about the blog, share feelings and concerns, kvell, and reflect on the new doorposts of our house.
PHOTOS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: MAX ORENSTEIN, BJ ARCHIVES, CHANNA CAMINS, BJ ARCHIVES, NIGUN HALEV.
You can easily access Doorposts at doorposts.bj.org. We are looking forward to the exchange. n
SYNAGOGUE: 257 W. 88th St. • OFFICE: 2109 Broadway (Ansonia), Suite 203, New York, NY 10023 • TEL : 212.787.7600 • FAX : 212.496.7600 • WEBSITE : www.bj.org
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SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2011
ROLY’S 25TH ANNIVERSARY AT BJ
Roly: Song of the Life Cycle By Susan Bodnar t is a chorus, really, all the memories of the congregation, the story of Roly’s presence when it most mattered. Sometimes when the soft Shabbat morning light drifts into the quiet of the Amidah, you can hear whispered one song in many voices:
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As there are seasons to a year, Roly has guided me through the seasons of my adult life. “Give it a try,” he said. He listened, helped me find my wife, told me to give that guy a chance, laughed at what happened, married us. Roly told me, “Sometimes you wonder why you keep hitting your head against the wall over and over and over. But you do it and you keep doing it because one time you will find the door and you will walk through to the other side.” It was right after the Iraq War and he gave the most depressing wedding blessing but it so captured the side by side of life—the good and the bad. When he sang the sheva brakhot, his voice, so tender and gentle, everyone cried. When we were under the huppah with him he reminded us to always find the laughter in our love, the darkness and the light, the good and the bad. He understood that we couldn’t stay together. When my partner and I came to the Torah, I was for the first time ever myself, a Jew and gay. We told him we were pregnant right after services. We told him we were pregnant right after services. We told him we were pregnant right after services. The first thing I did after services was to tell him the news: our baby was arriving, they found a baby for us, we were leaving to go welcome our baby. His little daughters used to come up to the bimah and sit on his lap during Adon Olam. We came to BJ by mistake and never left, Talia was pregnant and she and Roly invited us to share a Shabbat meal, and then we brought our son when he came back from graduate school. He kissed my baby, picked up our baby and looked right into his eyes, supported me having this child, came and said a blessing and the next day she had turned the corner, was there right after the surgery, welcomed me as a mother. He found us a doctor who reassured us our baby would be okay. “This is the prayer,” he told us, “the Jewish way to think about it.” He named our daughters. At the brit he made us laugh. We laughed. As soon as our baby came out of surgery he was there.
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He called me as soon as our baby could eat again, came to the hospital right after my mother’s transplant, flew all the way here to be with us. He smiled, joked with me after my hip replacement, you know, he was always very funny, remembered my birthday, our anniversary, the yahrzeit. When we mounted that one little step and stood next to our daughter in front of the Torah, he looked up at us with that big smile and in the most private, intimate, and heartfelt voice said, “I married you, named your daughters and now the bat mitzvah.” My son was having a really hard time, if it wasn’t for Roly . . . If it wasn’t for Roly my kid wouldn’t have had a bar mitzvah, If it wasn’t for Roly my entire family would have walked out, my special-needs kid couldn’t have had a bar mitzvah PHOTO: NIGUN HALEV if it wasn’t for Roly. My child considers Roly a close personal friend, still comes back from college to see him. “Don’t be afraid,” he said, when I found out I had cancer, when we lost the baby, after the accident, after the towers fell, “don’t be afraid,” he said, “but it’s okay to feel afraid.” He buried my parent. He buried my spouse, and brought me sliced and peeled green apples on a plate. He buried my child. “Don’t be afraid.” “Find the Torah you need.” “One day that person will be so much a part of you that you will be one.” Shema Israel. Twenty-five years is a long time. The congregation grows and changes, always with a Jewish rhythm and a humanistic melody. We have learned how families can practice a Judaism that renders our simple lives—as great grandparents, grandparents, parents, kids—an ongoing opportunity to reach that better, more hopeful, more optimistic world, for which the youngest and the oldest hearts beat as one. n Written by Susan Bodnar, on behalf of many BJ members. She is the wife and mother of David, Ronen, and Binah Schatsky, and has been a member of BJ for over 20 years. Susan is a clinical psychologist and writer.
SYNAGOGUE: 257 W. 88th St. • OFFICE: 2109 Broadway (Ansonia), Suite 203, New York, NY 10023 • TEL : 212.787.7600 • FAX : 212.496.7600 • WEBSITE : www.bj.org
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YOUTH & FAMILY EDUCATION
Two Teen Tales About Roly Getting Attention oly came on our service learning trip to New Orleans and led all of the services. During one morning prayer he was talking about how the universe is constantly replenishing and renewing itself, and we were all half-asleep. Suddenly he said, "And when people ask you kids what's new, you always say not much. Well, that's bull! Everything is new! Everything is constantly changing!" At this point everybody in the room was awake. Roly is a person who can tell when people are starting to lose their focus and grab it back — Gabe Fields from them. n
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Kanoodling he whole trip [to New Orleans] Roly and I had a running joke that I was a secret service agent for the Russians spying for the U.S. on this trip. It began at the airport in New Orleans, going
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Roly Was “The Bomb” By David Lieberman y family arrived at BJ in 1987, shortly after Roly. My earliest memory of BJ was of a congregation different from the large one I had left in the suburbs of Boston. Although B'nai Jeshurun had at that point fewer than 100 members, the davening was more spirited; the music was lively and congregants were so joyous
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through security, Roly kept on texting me, pretending that he was a CIA agent coming to arrest me unless I went to the airport entrance. When I texted the “CIA agent” I wasn’t going, the real Roly acted like I had lost my boarding pass and said he “would try to kanoodle me through security, but he had no guarantees.” I stood by his side as he secretively showed security my boarding pass. The PHOTO: EMILY WALSH TSA officer gave me a little On the 2011 New Orleans trip, from left: Rabbi Jason Fruithandler, nudge, joining in on the joke. Emily Walsh, Roly, Ariel Vegosen, Daniel Roth, and Ariel Schneider. Roly eventually gave me the pass, along with a hair tousle and a big hug. Gabe Fields and Noah Wartels both attended I think that is when I realized what a great BJHS, became b'nai mitzvah at BJ, and are person he really is. During the trip there active Ozrim (teen assistants at BJHS). They were times I thought the joke was slightly both participated in New Orleans teen service overplayed, but when Roly unleashed his trip in January 2011 and will enter 9th grade in voracious laugh, his good humor kindled my the fall. — Noah Wartels own. n
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At the first BJ teen retreat, when we were still a small group, Roly stayed up late with us, demanding that we teach him our ‘wack’ ‘90s slang. ”
that services were often interrupted by spontaneous dancing in the aisles. While there were very few children, Roly always made me feel welcome. Greeting me after services, he radiated warmth and kindness and was approachable in way that Marshall, who also commanded my great respect and admiration but who seemed somehow larger than life, was not. When I was in second grade at the Heschel School, the other BJ kid in my class, Jonah Belkin, and I used to imitate Roly during t'filot each morning at school. We would test out Argentinean accents, lower our voices and force out a vibrato at the end of each phrase. Our teacher, Kathy, told us sternly that one day our voices might sound like that, but until then we should refrain from faking it.
Tefillin workshop with Roly.
PHOTO: EMILY WALSH
When I decided that for my 8th birthday I wanted to read an aliyah at shul, Roly was enthusiastic and encouraged me. He made me tapes, bought me a tikkun that I use to
this day, and most gratifyingly, he, Marshall, and Ari asked me to read again. At the first BJ teen retreat, when we were still a small group, Roly stayed up late with us, demanding that we teach him our "wack" ‘90s slang. He cracked jokes from the bimah and wore the most outrageous Purim costumes. It became clear to me, and my BJ fellow teens, that Roly was cool; or, in the parlance of the day, Roly was "The Bomb.” Over the last 24 years, BJ has grown and changed. But the warmth, joy, intelligence, musicality, and passion that Roly has always embodied for me has only deepened. It is these qualities that keep me here and inspire me in my work as a b'nai mitzvah tutor and teen educator at BJ. n David Lieberman is a longtime member of BJ. Read about his history and many roles at BJ in the article “Our Simhat Torah Honorees” on page 14.
SYNAGOGUE: 257 W. 88th St. • OFFICE: 2109 Broadway (Ansonia), Suite 203, New York, NY 10023 • TEL : 212.787.7600 • FAX : 212.496.7600 • WEBSITE : www.bj.org
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MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
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The Force Behind Tze’irim By Jon Wood hair of the 20s and 30s Tze’irim group here at BJ, Wendy Leiser is serving in that role for her second year. Now we find out how Wendy connected with Tze’irim and what motivated her to take the reins in leading this vibrant and dynamic community of young adults.
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...With over 800 people [in Tze’irim], there’s always a new face and a new friend just around the corner. If you keep coming back, you’ll start to see familiar faces, and that’s when it starts to feel more like a community.”
What else are you involved with, within BJ and outside of BJ?
How did you connect to BJ? When I first moved to New York, my sister, Nicki Greninger, was in her last year of Rabbinical school at HUC. At the time, my brother, sister, and I would get together regularly for Shabbat dinner. But it never occurred to me to join a synagogue. After she graduated and moved away, I didn’t have many Jewish friends and I decided it was time to join a community. One of my sister’s classmates in school was Esther Lederman, who was BJ’s Marshall T. Meyer Fellow at that time. So, I figured, I may not have known any members, but at least I knew a rabbi! Pretty quickly after joining the synagogue, I got involved in Tze’irim. What led you to Tze’irim? BJ is a big place; it’s important to find your niche, something you can grab onto and feel a part of. For me, that was Tze’irim. It’s a community of 20s and 30s, singles and couples, students and professionals. It’s big, but many of us share similar interests, similar goals. We’re all looking for a community to call our own. I was very fortunate to find a place that felt so comfortable shortly after joining BJ.
I sit on the New Members Committee at BJ, and as head of Tze’irim, I am fortunate to attend the Board of Trustees meetings as well. Outside of BJ, I do programming and run a book club for my alma mater, Emory University. Oh, and I have a day job.
PHOTO: CHANNA CAMINS
What would you say to someone who wants to get involved but isn’t sure? It doesn’t have to be all-or-nothing. Come to a program or service that sounds appealing and see what you think. Another thing— don’t be shy; there’s this misconception that all of Tze’irim knows each other and you will walk in feeling like the only outsider. But with over 800 people, there’s always a new face and a new friend just around the corner. If you keep coming back, you’ll start to see familiar faces, and that’s when it starts to feel more like a community. Do you have a favorite Tze’irim event?
What motivated you to consider a leadership position? I’ve never been the type of person to sit back and relax. I find programming much more fun and exciting from the perspective of the planner than the participant. Within six months of joining BJ, I was planning events, and six months after that, I was running Tze’irim.
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I didn’t know it was Tze’irim at the time, but shortly after joining BJ, I volunteered to cook dinner as part of the Rosh Hashanah homehosted meals. To this day, I am still friends with all the people who came over and shared dinner at my apartment.
What Tze’irim events are you looking forward to in the upcoming year?
I love the ebb and flow of our community. As the leadership changes, so does the programming. So, I’m just as excited as you to see what this next year will bring! How will Tze’irim look in the future? Older? Just kidding. As with most 20s and 30s in New York City, we’re a transient community. People in our demographic are constantly moving around, so it’s hard to pinpoint in what direction we, as a community, will move. I think we have many more couples involved in Tze’irim than we did a few years ago, but I’m sure if we planned a singles or dating event, the numbers would prove me wrong. Interviewing Wendy only added to my excitement as the new staff liaison to Tze’irim. This group has tremendous potential, and we’re building on a base of solid leadership. We are aiming high as we begin this year’s programming. n
SYNAGOGUE: 257 W. 88th St. • OFFICE: 2109 Broadway (Ansonia), Suite 203, New York, NY 10023 • TEL : 212.787.7600 • FAX : 212.496.7600 • WEBSITE : www.bj.org
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A Chain of Caring By Connie Gruber fter major cervical spine surgery, I was nearly incapacitated. Doctor’s orders were to take a walk every day… but with little balance or strength, I couldn’t do it alone. I needed help! Gratefully, I knew where to find it.
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BJ’s Bikkur Holim volunteers responded to my need. Several people took me out for walks that lasted about 45 minutes. They held my hand, walked slowly and patiently, and offered encouragement. These walks were also a chance to enjoy their company. Some even brought tasty treats like homecooked inventive veggie dishes, stews, and sweets. I progressed to where I could walk alone. These walks were so helpful, on both a physical and emotional level, to my recovery, and I was (and am) so appreciative.
know that BJ is praying for them and also to provide information and support How We Do It All committee members participate in education and training to assure that they are able to provide meaningful and compassionate assistance in a strictly confidential manner. Only the volunteer and the recruiter know anything about the situation, and they are committed to maintaining users’ privacy.
My experience is just one of many. BJ’s Bikkur Holim Committee does an amazing job fulfilling the mitzvah of providing comfort to those who are ill, whether they suffer the pains of the body or spirit. We like to say that we are “a chain of caring” or “community helping community,” and we respond swiftly when our members are in need, our core function. We want BJ members to know about the services we provide and to call on us if the need arises. What We Do For those undergoing or recovering from illness or incapacity as well as for the frail elderly, people with chronic, long-term illness, and those with special needs, we offer compassionate person-to-person assistance with patient needs such as: home visits, bringing food, errands, transportation to and from doctors, weekly Shabbat phone calls, and more. Often a Bikkur Holim member who had a similar illness can share his or her own experience and feelings. For family members and caregivers who have added a name to the Mi Sheberakh list, we make a personal phone call to let them
Asking for Help It’s easy to let embarrassment, fear, or pride get in the way of asking for help, but we encourage members to reach out to Bikkur Holim if you are in need. We’ll work with you and find a way to help that works for you. Of course, you can always say “No, thank you” if it doesn’t work out. Volunteering to Help Many people who have helped others say how rewarding the experience was for them. Likewise, many of our congregants who have received help, often later ask us ”How can I give back?”
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BJ’s Bikkur Holim Committee does an amazing job fulfilling the mitzvah of providing comfort to those who are ill, whether they suffer the pains of the body or spirit.”
I joined Bikkur Holim when I was a new BJ member seven years ago and was impressed by the commitment of members of the group to helping our fellow congregants. Through Bikkur Holim I met and became friends with really terrific people. I’ve also had the chance to get to know the many people I have personally helped. It has been a wonderful way of getting integrated into the BJ community. To get involved with the person-to-person volunteer roles mentioned here contact one of the following teams; the Visiting Team led by Connie Gruber and Barbara Schwimmer; the Shabbat Connections Team, led by Amy Korn and Bernice Todres; the Mi Sheberakh Team, led by Amy Korn and Nancy Greenblatt, or write directly to AmyKorn@hotmail.com or bbschwim@gmail.com according to your interest. In addition to the various personto-person roles described in this article we also need people with good organizational skills to coordinate support teams, outreach, and event planning. Be aware that direct assistance to BJ members is only one of the things that Bikkur Holim does. Read about our other efforts in a future KH. Connie Gruber has been a BJ member for seven years and a member of Panim’s Environmental Hevra and Bikkur Holim. She has recently begun participating in the new Aging in NYC Exploratory Team. n
Glad you asked. Bikkur Holim is always looking for wonderful, energetic new volunteers!
SYNAGOGUE: 257 W. 88th St. • OFFICE: 2109 Broadway (Ansonia), Suite 203, New York, NY 10023 • TEL : 212.787.7600 • FAX : 212.496.7600 • WEBSITE : www.bj.org
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SIMHAT TORAH
Our Simhat Torah Honorees By Belinda Lasky and Emily Walsh ach year, the blessings of Simhat Torah Kallah (bride) and Hatan (groom) are bestowed upon two extraordinary members of the BJ community. The Kallat Torah (or Hatan Torah, if a man is receiving the honor) has the honor of reading the last chapter of the Torah on Simhat Torah morning, while the Hatan (or Kallat) Bereshit reads the first chapter as we start the cycle again. This year, we are privileged to celebrate two members who represent very different generations of BJ: Vivian Yale, Kallat Torah and David Lieberman, Hatan Bereshit.
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At 89 years young, Vivian Yale is one of the most vibrant members of BJ. People lucky enough to spend time with her know they are hard-pressed to find a warmer, more intriguing personality. Her story at BJ began 20 years ago while working on crossword puzzles when she realized she was unable to answer many biblical questions and needed to do something about it. She began to look for classes and found BJ. After her first conversation with Roly she knew she’d found a new spiritual and educational home. She’d grown up in Brownsville, Brooklyn, where her family was involved in union activities through the Labor Lyceum, and that social justice background made B’nai Jeshurun a perfect fit. Through the years Vivian has bonded with the rabbis through services and classes and attends the Women’s Retreat annually. She is a dedicated member of Bikkur Holim, for which she makes Shabbat Connections phone calls, as well as Hevra Kadisha and the former Ledor Vador committee. Vivian’s greatest love is Havurah Ma Tovu, which has been meeting for more than 17 years. This group is like a family, and she talks proudly about its years of studying Pirke Avot together. Vivian says she finds it fascinating how BJ constantly experiments with ways of structuring community. She appreciates how BJ is alive and evolving all the time. It is a
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At 89 years young, Vivian Yale is one of the most vibrant members of BJ.“
community that creates meaningful opportunities for individuals, and Vivian embodies that ideal. At age 8, with no Children’s Services or Junior Congregation to engage him, David Lieberman often found himself getting bored and antsy during Shabbat services. Known as “Yeled Tov,” (good boy) he was one of few children in the BJ community at the time. Fascinated by Rabbis Marshall T. Meyer and Roly Matalon (describing Meyer as “brilliant and imposing,” and Matalon as “sweet and approachable”), he asked them if he could learn to read Torah. Roly taught him to read, and Marshall taught him to teach. He recalls Marshall saying, “These are the greatest stories ever written, you have to be sure you’re really telling these stories when you read them.” There, on a wooden box for extra height, stood the 8-
Any given week, you can find David tutoring b’nai mitzvah students, or reading Torah in Junior Congregation. If you’re under 6, you probably remember him from High Holy Day Children’s Services, and the teens know him as a leader for “The Brotherhood,” a program for middle-school boys, and last year’s service learning program to the Dominican Republic. He touches the lives of all our young congregants, helping them connect to Judaism in deep and meaningful ways.
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David Lieberman in 2005 with Rabbi Shmuel Miller, Sofer, adding a letter to the BJ 180th Anniversary Torah.
year-old, reading Torah for the congregation. Today, the 28-year-old stands in classrooms and on the bimah at Junior Congregation teaching today’s students to read, understand, and live the stories of the Torah.
PHOTO: BELINDA LASKY
Vivian Yale
There, on a wooden box for extra height, stood the 8-year-old, reading Torah for the congregation.”
David views his role as an educator as a gift. “We get to see things that their parents never get to see... and to tell their parents how amazing their kids are.” He describes them as kind, generous, and as possessing “inner strength. “They are the people their parents want them to be.” He has never forgotten what Marshall told him. He “really tells the stories” and so brings Torah to life. He also lives the stories and is an incredible gift to our community.
Be sure to join us on Simhat Torah on Friday, October 21 to hear Vivian and David represent the generations as they escort us through the end and beginning cycles of the Torah. n
SYNAGOGUE: 257 W. 88th St. • OFFICE: 2109 Broadway (Ansonia), Suite 203, New York, NY 10023 • TEL : 212.787.7600 • FAX : 212.496.7600 • WEBSITE : www.bj.org
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RABBINIC FELLOWS
Adam and Jonah: BJ’s New Rabbinic Fellows By Joanne Palmer our two incoming rabbinical fellows, Adam Roffman and Jonah Geffen, are both second-year students at JTS, and both want to be pulpit rabbis. Their backgrounds and paths led them to the same place, but in very different ways, and each took a major detour along the way.
Disillusioned, he went to work for a hedge fund while doing theater at night. There he noticed a colleague who went out between 2:00 and 2:30 every day and realized that he was going to mincha. “He was living a secular life but at the same time taking his religious obligations seriously. I started to feel jealous of him.
Adam, 31, grew up in Baltimore as an active member of Chizuk Amuno Congregation, attended a Solomon Schechter day school,
“On a whim, I went to the three-week program at the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem,” Adam continued. (The yeshiva is an egalitarian school that does not ordain rabbis but instead works on the principle of Torah lishmah—the study of Torah for its own sake.) “I fell in love with the conversation I had been waiting my whole life for—about the interaction between Judaism and modern life.” He went on to a yearlong course at the yeshiva and then entered JTS. “What I was looking for in the theater exists in the thing I was born into. Judaism is about community.”
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What I was looking for in the theater exists in the thing I was born into. Judaism is about community.”
Jonah, 34, grew up immersed in the Jewish world. His parents, Peter Geffen and Susie Kessler, are longtime BJ members and helped found the Heschel School, from which he graduated. He has also spent a great deal of time in Israel. “I managed to get myself there at least once a year for my whole life,” he said.
PHOTO: DENISE WAXMAN
Adam Roffman
and spent Shabbat at junior congregation, ultimately leading it when he aged out as a participant. In high school he became a theater kid, and “it was the focus for my life for 10 years.” At Amherst College he moved to directing and then came to New York, where he went to school at the Circle in the Square. “I had some success at first. But I was a passionate optimistic wide-eyed kid. I thought I’d go into theater and find colleagues who agreed with me about theater as community building. But I found out that theater in New York is the opposite. The bottom line is that it’s all about entertainment.”
Jonah’s decision to go to rabbinical school was gradual. “When I was studying for my master’s in conflict analysis and resolution, my main mentor at George Mason was Rabbi Mark Gopin. I focused my studies on religion and interpersonal and group conflict, and as I studied I realized that although I was an involved Jew I wasn’t observant or very knowledgeable. I realized that I wouldn’t really ever be able to truly understand religion and work with religious people living in conflict zones if I didn’t engage that part of my tradition.” He became more observant and came to understand “what I had been looking for in my life, and to consider ways that I could dedicate myself to Jewish learning.”
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My models for what rabbis should be are our rabbis and Marshall.”
Jonah Geffen
past high school and you don’t want to go to Israel you have to go to rabbinical school.” So he did. There was one other factor in Jonah’s decision, a genetic predisposition. His grandfather was a rabbi, as were his great grandfather and his great great grandfather; his brother, Daniel, is also a rabbinical student, at HUC. Jonah’s wife, Julia Mannes, is a yoga instructor and doula, and they have a 20month-old daughter, Bina. He is thrilled to be back at BJ. “My models for what rabbis should be are our rabbis and Marshall,” he said. “There is an important place for the voice of rabbis in society. I hope to bring out the part of the Torah that speaks of conflict and peacemaking. I think it’s a neglected part of the Torah and an important piece of our tradition.” n Joanne Palmer is the editor of CJ: Voices of Conservative/Masorti Judaism. As always, this is in loving memory of Shira Palmer-Sherman, z”l.
“The reality of liberal Jewish communities is that if you want to engage in Torah learning
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REFLECTIONS
Surrendering Secrets By Robert Pollack
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e read in Nitzavim, Devarim 29, line 28
“Ha-Nistarot LaHaShem Eloheinu, v’HaNiglot, L’anu ul’Vaneinu ad-olam la’asot et-kol-divrei haTorah haZot.” ”Concealed acts concern the Lord our God; but with overt acts it is for us and our children to apply all the provisions of this Teaching.” This is of course a very clever and subtle obligation: On reflection, it is saying that concealed acts also require us to apply the provisions of “this Teaching/Torah,” but for concealed acts, the provision is precisely that we are to admit them before HaShem so that they are no longer concealed. And that is what Kol Nidre is about: Full repentance requires the full surrendering of secrets. I wish to share with you all a story of a decision to let go of a secret, and its unexpected consequences. The story begins with an excerpt from a talk I gave on winning an award from a synagogue about five years ago: “… A little history: My mother's parents came to New York from Vinnitsa in Ukraine, not far from the birthplace of the Baal Shem Tov. They were more pious than learned, with a tendency toward superstition; I clearly remember the red thread tied around my brother's neck when he had a bad case of appendicitis. My father's parents came from Ciechanowiec near Bialystok in Poland. They were smallbusinesspeople, neither learned nor pious, but serious about their Jewishness; one of my grandfather's brothers left Poland for an illegal immigration to Palestine in 1936, under Jabotinsky's wing. “My parents both shunned the synagogue, choosing instead to raise my brother and me in the ideals of a totally secular vision of eventual Redemption through political action. That meant that though I learned Yiddish—the language
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of the Jewish working-class—I was carefully kept from Hebrew, and my Bar Mitzvah, such as it was, would not have been an event any of us would want to revisit. Neither of my parents was able to attend high school, dropping out in their early teens to work, and then being trapped in the great economic Depression of the 1930s. Though their political convictions kept me from shul, they had no hesitation about seeing that I went to school. When I entered Columbia College in the fall of 1957, I was traveling not that much less of a distance from my parents as their parents had traveled when they crossed the ocean 50 years before. When I met Amy and we married in 1961, it was a union of two secretly pious but very uninformed Jews.”
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The Russian is of course a KGB agent. He recruits the father, and the father attempts to get the son to obtain secrets from his school laboratory, for the Russian.”
All this was true, but it was not the whole truth. I had kept the missing part secret for half a century. I was able to state it in public only a few years ago, when I was asked to present a question to Rabbi Steinsaltz, before an audience of hundreds of observant Jews who had gathered together to honor him. As part of such evenings’ festivities, the rabbi intends to teach, and toward that end I was given the honor to sit on the stage with him and pose a question. I took it as the chance at last to repent from my secret, by telling this story, in the form of a question to the rabbi: “… here is a simple family problem for you: What is the right thing to do in terms
of honoring one’s parents, when one or both of one's parents are dishonorable? How does one balance the obligation to honor them with the obligation to honor one's country, one's fellow Jews, and one's own family? “Take a person who has had some reasonable success in life. Imagine his life some 40 or 50 years ago. He is an American boy with two Jewish parents, themselves born of immigrants from Poland and Ukraine. Both parents have been open members of the U.S. Communist Party from before the war, through the worst periods of McCarthyism. Now the boy is in college, and he meets one of the first Soviet visitors to an American university and introduces him to his parents. “The Russian is of course a KGB agent. He recruits the father, and the father attempts to get the son to obtain secrets from his school laboratory, for the Russian. The son declines, chooses to keep silent rather than turning in his father, marries, and goes to Israel as a scientist, supported with grants from the American government to carry out cancer research in Israel. There the father visits and tries to get the son to obtain secrets from Israeli military research establishments. The son again declines and chooses to keep the father’s behavior a secret. “The father and mother die, unrepentant; the son remains burdened with this story, which he feels he must continue to keep secret. Now, what is your advice to the son: How was he to honor his parents while they were alive; how is he to honor them now? “I'm really curious, as this is of course my own story.” The rabbi’s answer was clear. He referred to the commandment that can be read as saying, “Honor your parents; I am your God.”
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I had lived for four decades in silence, certain until then that the secret of my father’s requests could not be spoken without the direst consequences to me and everyone around me.”
the Gestapo to a death camp. His father had told him to stand by him on line; until then this man was, as a boy, absolutely enthralled by his father, and he had never disobeyed him. At that moment though, he did disobey, and went to another line, with younger men and boys. Of course his father was on the line that led directly to death by suffocation, and his corpse was burnt to ashes while the boy was left to live. Only that night after I spoke, he told me, was he able at last to tell anyone this story; he too had kept it a secret for even longer, afraid that if he told it, he would be severely punished for having disobeyed, and thereby having lived while his father died. Like me, he said, he had kept alive a fear for decades past the time when anyone could, or would, punish him for any reason attached to his own behavior at an impossible moment. We embraced, he left, and I went to tell the rabbi what had happened. The rabbi’s response was immediate:
AMY POLLACK
He said that, according to Jewish law and tradition, to honor one’s parents need not be to obey them; rather, one honors them by following the laws given by God to Moses at Sinai, regardless of whether or not one’s parents approve. His answer was of course not so schematic; rather, it was a set of stories in turn. In one I remember, from Talmud, he said that when a judge receives testimony concerning his father’s role in a criminal act, the son may pass any judgment on the father short of the death penalty, which he may not exact; in another, Talmud says that a father may not escape punishment from the court for abusing his child on grounds that a child is
his property; he is to be punished as if he had abused a total stranger. The rest of the evening went on as if I were in a dream. I had lived for four decades in silence, certain until then that the secret of my father’s requests could not be spoken without the direst consequences to me and everyone around me. But the Soviet Union had fallen, I was a Zakayn myself, and people were crying with me, not yelling at me.
“That’s why you were here tonight; not for me, not for yourself, but for him.” Let us all take this precious time to offer them up in silence to heaven, in the full understanding that we cannot know their real meaning, but that until we do this, our repentance cannot be complete, no matter what we say in prayer. n Robert Pollack and his wife Amy have been members of BJ since 1994. He's a Professor at Columbia University, and the Director of the Center for the Study of Science and Religion. She's an artist, and a long-standing member of the BJ Lunch Program. They are presently collaborating on an illustrated book on evolution for college students. This article is dedicated to the memory of Bob and Esther Broner.
As the evening wound down an old—really old—man came up to me to tell me the following story in turn: Almost 60 years earlier he and his father had been taken by
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SHABBAT
Hiddur Mitzvah: Making a Palace in Time By Siân Gibby “This is my G-d, and I will glorify Him.” — Exodus 15:2
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iddur mitzvah (the beautification of a mitzvah) contributes to the observance of Shabbat and holidays. The treatment of etrog and lulav provides a good example: The mitzvah is to obtain the four species and rejoice with them during Sukkot, but hiddur mitzvah means taking care to select a particularly pleasing etrog and a lulav that’s straight and well-shaped. It means to go beyond what’s required and to embrace instead what brings about delight. As in the case of holidays, observing Shabbat in our tradition involves many activities: things we do especially for Shabbat, and things we deliberately cease doing on that day. We focus on transforming everyday consciousness into Shabbat consciousness. We help bring about this holy mindset when we don’t do workaday things (like using the computer or writing or cooking or fabricating things or altering the environment). And when we engage in hiddur mitzvah on Shabbat, we contribute to this transformation. Examples of beautifying Shabbat include cleaning the house in advance of the day, selecting and preparing special food, setting a lovely table with a white cloth and candlesticks, putting out fresh flowers, dressing oneself carefully and beautifully— cultivating an atmosphere of happiness and joy, of peace and affection. We are encouraged to create for Shabbat a different kind of space, inside ourselves and in our environment. For just these 25 hours we remove ourselves from the gerbil-wheel of our thought processes and the routine of hurly-burly physical actions we habitually spend our lives in and step instead into what
KOL HADASH
Abraham Joshua Heschel famously described as a palace in time. We turn from facing ourselves to face instead the holy. The norms of behavior we embrace and expect on Shabbat and on holidays center directly on this sanctification. Using cellphones, writing implements, or handheld computers on Shabbat disturbs and violates the specialness of the day. All the more so is this true inside the synagogue itself, which is after all a sanctuary, a safe place apart
PHOTO: DAVID KATZENSTEIN
from weekday ordinariness on Shabbat. For example, photography on these special days, including at bar and bat mitzvahs inside the shul, detracts from the celebrations themselves. To create, even a photograph, is to step outside G-d’s space and go back to our everyday efforts to control and to make. On Shabbat we can relinquish that compulsion and simply rest and enjoy. Donning a tallit before prayer, every morning including Shabbat, fulfills the mitzvah of wearing tzitziot (fringes on a four-cornered garment)—but having a clean, elegant tallit adds to the mitzvah, bringing to life the poetic imagery in Psalm 36: “[T]he children of men take refuge in the shadow of Thy wings. … [I]n Thy light do we
see light.” Wearing a kipah is not a mitzvah but rather a sign of one’s humility in prayer or in participation in the community. It’s the custom for men to wear kipot when eating, studying, or praying. To cover the head communicates to G-d that one dedicates these activities to something bigger than himself. In an egalitarian community, women can feel comfortable choosing to employ any of the traditional signs that men do, including putting on tallit and kipah (and tefillin on weekdays). Everything we do on hagim and on Shabbat should be indicative of our deliberate and happy turning toward something hallowed and special on those days. As the week wanes and Friday night approaches, we begin shifting our minds and hearts to the uniqueness of Shabbat. Probably every one of us has had the experience of enjoying a particularly perfect Shabbat where, when it draws to a close, we feel sad, bereft. We feel we’ve been on a mini-vacation, and now we have to go back to the “work” of living our normal New York City lives: the bustle, the noise, the dirt, the hassle, the anxiety. Shabbat offers us a break from all that, every week. Our loving enhancement of Shabbat flows from our desire to fully celebrate it and to contribute to the beauty of a day set aside for beauty, for loving community, for praise, and for peace. n Siân Gibby is copy editor for ProPublica and Tablet Magazine. She has been a BJ member for six years.
new voIce • September/October 2011
The Kol Hadash is published every other month. We would love to print your stories and articles about BJ! For submission guidelines, contact communications@bj.org. All material is the property of B’nai Jeshurun and cannot be reprinted without permission.
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We are encouraged to create for Shabbat a different kind of space, inside ourselves and in our environment. ”
The Kol Hadash is printed using soy-based inks on 50% recycled paper by an online, eco-friendly printer at a substantial cost saving compared to traditional printing methods. Designer: Harriet R. Goren
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ANNOUNCEMENTS
Mazal Tov To the following members and their families (through July 29):
Adee and Daniel Harrison on the naming of their daughters, Mia Lauren and Anna Isabel.
Condolences (through July 29) The community of B’nai Jeshurun mourns the death of our beloved member Esther Broner and extends sincere condolences to her daughter Nahama Broner, granddaughter Alexandra Broner and son-in-law Stacy Lamon, and her entire family.
Sarah Silverman and Jeffrey Blaugrund on their wedding. Marshall T. Meyer Rabbinic Fellow Rabbi Ezra Weinberg and Olivia Joly on the birth of their son, Benjamin Joly Weinberg. Carmen Keels and Michael Becker on the naming of their daughter, Ella Rose. Kerrith Solomon and Derek Rosenbaum on the birth of their son, Micah Tamir. Rabbi Michelle Dardashti, who completed her two-year Marshall T. Meyer Fellowship and has joined the team at Temple Beth El of Stamford,CT as the Director of Community Engagement. Sofia Hubscher and Adam Wallach and Dena and Stephen Hubscher on the naming of their daughters and granddaughters, Margalit Carly and Rina Susanna Wallach.
The community of B’nai Jeshurun mourns the death of our beloved member Rose Alpert, and we extend our sincere condolences to her entire family. The community of B’nai Jeshurun mourns the death of our beloved member Sam Mentle, and we extend our sincere condolences to his wife Phyllis Mentle and his son Alan Mantel, Lauren, Rebecca, and Joshua Mantel, Jessica Feder and their entire family. The community of B’nai Jeshurun extends sincere condolences to the following members and their families: Judith, Martin, Lauren, and Lily Weinberg on the death of Judith's beloved brother, Ephraim Karpel. Marcia Kaplan on the death of her beloved father, Walter Kaplan. Ronda Small, Ira Wolfman, Evan Levine, and Perry Wolfman on the death of Ronda's beloved mother, Molly Small.
Sarah Goodis and Max Orenstein on their wedding. Stephen Altman on the death of his beloved mother, Joyce Altman. Lisa Goldberg and Theo Kisch on their wedding. Jacques and Karen Capelluto on the marriage of their daughter, Katherine, to Scott Prime. Eve Birnbaum and Lawrence Goldberg on the marriage of their daughter, Rebekah, to Shlomi Pe'er.
Marjorie Vandow, Richard, Gabriel, and Rebecca Fields on the death of Marjorie's beloved sister, Ellen Klein. Judy and Jack Stern on the death of Judy's beloved mother, Esther Cohen. James, Tess and Adam Wagman, and Anne Landsman on the death of James' father, Howard Wagman.
Margot Brooke and Rotem Cohen on their engagement. MTM Fellow Lauren Holtzblatt, Ari and Noa Holtzblatt on the birth of their son and brother, Elijah Caleb Mikhael. Margie, Robert, Julia, and Jordana Imershein on the birth of their grandson and nephew, Dovid. Joanna Slater, Joel Lee and Leo Slater Lee on the birth of their son and brother, Boaz Samuel. Jack David Marcus on the birth of his grandson, Ian Joseph Gallagher. MTM Fellow Esther Lederman and Scott Gant on the birth of their son, Ari Solomon Gant. Martha and Edna Ginsberg on Martha's engagement to Dan Rosenfeld.
Debbie Leiderman on the death of her beloved father, Eugene Leiderman. Bernice and Nadia Todres on the death of their aunt, Renee Raskin. Eve Birnbaum, Lawrence, Rebekah, Solomon, and Zoe Goldberg on the death of Eve's beloved mother, Rhoda Birnbaum. Caron Brown on the death of her beloved mother, Arlene Brown. Israel and Joan Brenner on the death of Israel's beloved sister, Fran Brenner. Howard, Nancy, Benjamin, and Gillian Feinglass on the death of Howard's mother, Chickie (Elaine) Feinglass. Marla Chafetz and Melanie and Alexandra Sherman on the death of Marla's beloved father, Warren Chafetz.
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KOL HADASH new voIce • . SYNAGOGUE: 257 West 88th Street OFFICES: 2109 Broadway (Ansonia), #203 Main Telephone Number 212-787-7600 Fax Number (2109 Broadway) 212-496-7600 Website www.bj.org
Rabbis: J. Rolando Matalon Marcelo R. Bronstein Felicia L. Sol Hazzan and Music Director: Ari Priven
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SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2011
Committees & Services: Accounts Payable.......................227 Accounts Receivable ..................237 Adult Education Information .....233 Bar/Bat Mitzvah .........................223 Bekef ..........................................255 Bikkur Holim..............................233 BJ Reads ....................................391 Communications........................275 Community Programs ...............255 Conversion .................................264 Daily Minyan...............................232 Development & Donation Information ........228
Director of Events: Guy Felixbrodt, x255 Interim Director of Development: Arlene Swartz, x228 Director of Communications: Denise Waxman, x275
BJ Rabbinic Fellows: Jonah Geffen, x261 Adam Roffman, x264
Director of Administration & Finance: Ron Seitenbach, x226
Cantorial Intern and Teen Educator: Shoshi Rosenbaum, x242
Director of Facilities: Roma Serdtse, x258
Executive Director: Harold Goldman, x248
Assistant to Rabbi Matalon: Marcia Moosnick, x234
Assistant Executive Director: Belinda Lasky, x224
Assistant to Rabbi Bronstein and Hazzan Priven: Naomi Goodhart, x240
Director of Education for Youth and Family: Ivy Schreiber, x225
Assistant to Rabbi Sol: Sarah Guthartz, x233
Director of Social Action/ Social Justice: Channa Camins, x259
Assistant to Executive Director Harold Goldman: Jacob Shemkovitz, x256
Shanah Tovah!
88th Street Rental......................223 Family Activities: Hotline ...........318 Hakhnasat Orhim.......................255 Havurot.......................................255 Hevra Kadisha ...........................233 Homeless Shelter .....212-339-4250 Interfaith Committee ............... 379 Kiddush Scheduling ...................255 Kol Jeshurun...............................275 Kol Hadash .................................275 Life Cycles..................................233 Lunch Program ..........................338
Membership Information...........224 Ralph Bunche School Partnership ...........................301 Social Action ..............................259 Teen Programming ....................253 Torah/Haftarah Reading ............232 Tze’irim ......................................264 Ushering ....................................305 Visiting Groups...........................234 Volunteer Information................255 Youth & Family Education ..........225
Board of Trustees: Jeannie Blausteinº President
Beth Kern Henry Meer Bernie Plum Irv Rosenthal Jack Stern Emily Weiss Michael Yoeli
Jonathan Adelsbergº Chair Sally Gottesmanº Vice President Joel Kazisº Vice President Stephen Stulmanº Vice President Debra Fineº Treasurer Andrew Littº Secretary Katie Boyar Robert Buxbaum Gene Carr Anne Ebersman Christina Gantcher Barbara Glassman Sofia Hubscher
Honorary Trustees Virginia Bayer* Ted Becker* Frederic Goldstein Marcy Grau* David Hirsch* Richard Janvey* Robert Kanter Joan Kaplan Susan Kippur* Sara Moore Litt* Naomi Meyer Judith Stern Peck* General Counsel Richard Kalikow º Executive Committee Member * Past President