Fall 2015 Issue of CJ: Voices of Conservative/Masorti Judaism

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Voices of Conservative/Masorti Judaism fall 2015/5776 Volume 9 / No. 1

www.cjvoices.org

SISTER ACT

&

No longer just the kiddush ladies, today’s revitalized sisterhoods are making a difference

prison yiddishkeit this is your battle, too the new ushpizot the israel that is still to be camp, to last a lifetime

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Editors Andrea Glick Rhonda Jacobs Kahn art director Elizabeth Hovav Advertising Director David Kelsey book editor Lisa Silverman assistant editor Gila Drazen Publishing Consultant Siegel Marketing Group Editorial Board Renee Brezniak Glazier, Chair Michael Brassloff Michael Freilich Rosalind Judd Sue Press Rachel Pomerance Sandy Myers Elizabeth Pressman Marjorie Shuman Saulson Advisors Dr. Stephen Garfinkel Jewish Theological Seminary Rabbi Cheryl Peretz Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies CJ: Voices of Conservative/Masorti Judaism is a joint project of Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs Allan Gottesman, President Rabbi Charles E. Simon, Executive Director United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism Margo Gold​, President Rabbi Steven C. Wernick, CEO Women’s League for Conservative Judaism Carol S. Simon, President Sarrae G. Crane, Executive Director The opinions expressed in this magazine are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the publishing organizations. Advertising in CJ does not imply editorial endorsement, nor does the magazine guarantee the kashrut of advertised products.

Members of FJMC, United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism congregations, and Women’s League for Conservative Judaism receive the magazine as a benefit of membership. Subscriptions are $20 per year.

Please direct all correspondence or changes of address to CJ: Voices of Conservative/Masorti Judaism at Rapaport House, 820 Second Ave., 10th Floor, New York, NY 10017-4504. 212.533.7800 Email: gdrazen@uscj.org or rkahn@wlcj.org. To advertise, email david@kelseymedia.com CJ: Voices of Conservative/Masorti Judaism is published three times a year by United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, 820 Second Ave., 10th Floor, New York, NY 10017-4504. Canadian Copies: Return Canadian undeliverables to 2835 Kew Dr., Windsor, ON N8T 3B7 PM 41706013.

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in every issue

fall 2015/5776 Volume 9 / No. 1 www.cjvoices.org

This magazine is a joint project of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, Women’s League for Conservative Judaism and the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs.

contents

Editors’ Note 5 CJ Shorts 6 Q&A with Rabbi Stephanie Ruskay 10 THE LAST LAUGH by Joel Chasnoff 26 JEWISH MILLENNIALS Blockbuster Synagogues by Rabbi Jeremy Fine 38 the bookshelf 44 The Last Word Reflections on 30 Years of Conservative Women Rabbis by Rabbi Debra Cantor 56

features Sister Act

12

Traditional sisterhoods are reinventing themselves in very creative ways to stay relevant to today's women.

BY LAURIE KAMENS

Prison Yiddishkeit

18

Having left religion behind, an inmate finds solace and strength by reconnecting with the Jewish community in prison.

12

From Challah and Chulent to Chutney and Chipati

20

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Through its Passport to Peoplehood curriculum, Camp Be'chol Lashon helps children see that being Jewish is more than skin-deep.

BY MARCELLA WHITE CAMPBELL BRANDES

focus:

JEWISH RESPONSE TO RACISM IN AMERICA

An Open Letter to the Jewish Community

22

A rabbi in one of Baltimore's historic neighborhoods tells what really happened in that city after the shooting of Freddie Gray.

BY RABBI DANIEL COTZIN BURG

This is Your Battle, Too

24

A United Synagogue Youth assistant director, who is both black and Jewish, asks that we all become involved to promote true equality, so that everyone in America can feel safe.

BY Yehudah Webster

On The Cover: Design by Elizabeth Hovav

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CJ ,ukue

contents fall 2015/5776 Volume 9 / No. 1

departments

THE JEWISH YEAR The New Ushpizot: Planting a Vineyard 28 Expand on the ancient tradition of inviting only men as Ushpizin into your sukkah.

BY LISA KOGEN

KEHILLA People of the Prayer Book

42

Even when their camp days are long behind them, Reshet Ramah engages the alumni of the various Ramah camps in building Jewish communities.

BY RABBI ABIGAIL TREU

34

The leadership of a New York City congregation utilizes Conservative Judaism: Today and Tomorrow, by JTS Chancellor Arnold Eisen, to help inspire and direct its work. by rABBI RACHEL AIN

ISRAEL The Israel That Is Still To Be

40

The Conservative Movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards follows a long tradition of helping Jews observe Jewish law.

BY RABBI ELLIOT N. DORFF

Camp, to Last a Lifetime 32

There are great expectations for Siddur Lev Shalem, a new prayer book for the Conservative movement, due out this fall.

BY RABBI CAROL LEVITHAN

For the Sake of Heaven

Conservative Judaism How We Decide Jewish Law

36

A Zionism of love is about making the fullest and most creative expression of Jewish values and ideals possible. by rabbi GORDON TUCKER

OUR ORGANIZATIONS Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs As I See It

46

Young people are finding support in men's groups.

BY RABBI CHARLES SIMON

New Publications from FJMC

47

United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism Getting to Yes

49

The new president wants to find ways to navigate through disruptive times to shape the future of Conservative Judaism.

BY MARGO GOLD

Women's League for Conservative Judaism Taking Stock in a Changing World: Personally and Institutionally

advertise online!

Contact David Kelsey, Ad Director david@kelseymedia.com or 917.673.9503

50

Women’s League continues to expand its role, placing members at the top of its service pyramid.

BY CAROL S. SIMON

The Newest Generation of Religious Leadership for Our Movement 52

42

4 CJ – Voices of conservative /masorti judaism Fall 2015

The graduates of the Conservative movement's rabbinical schools will continue to motivate and inspire as they step into their new roles throughout the Jewish world.

BY DEBBI KANER GOLDICH

editors’ note

A Place of Their Own On the web site of The Forward, a Jewish newspaper in New York, there’s a regular blog called “The Sisterhood,” which describes itself as a “digital incarnation of the traditional place women came together to share, debate, learn and lead.” It’s a clever name, “The Sisterhood,” appropriating a word that smacks of old-time Judaism and, with a wink of irony, reclaiming it to signal a contemporary point of view.

But what about real sisterhoods – the kind found at traditional synagogues? Are these mainstays of synagogue life still healthy? Are their members predominantly from a different generation? And what role do they play in a world where Jewish women can both be counted in the minyan and hold any synagogue leadership role they’d like?

We asked writer Laurie Kamens to explore what’s happening with women’s groups in today’s Conservative synagogues (“Sister Act,” page 12). Inevitably, the answers aren’t black and white. But in “Sister Act” we see how some sisterhoods are reinventing themselves for a new era and why many women still find meaning in having a Jewish place of their own.

While we’ve made great strides in moving away from male-dominated synagogues, as a community we are still getting accustomed to the fact that Jews can come in many skin shades and ethnic backgrounds. That’s what is so heartening about Camp B’chol Lashon. Run by an organization of the same name, the camp shows children who don’t fit the stereotypical Jewish look or background (along with some who do) that when it comes to culture, food, practice, and geography, Jewish communities are as varied as the world itself (“From Challah and Chulent, to Chutney and Chapati,” page 20).

Still, as Yehudah Webster explains in “This Is Your Battle, Too” (page 24), people like him, who are Jewish and black, not only still struggle with racism in the larger world but sometimes find it in the Jewish community, as well. Devastated by the recent killings of black men by police, Yehudah asks only this: that we see our fellow Jews and non-Jews the way Judaism asks us to see them, as individuals created in the image of God. And isn’t that a fitting topic for reflection as we sit in shul this new year?

Shanah tovah, a sweet year, to you and yours.

Andrea Glick, Editor

Rhonda Jacobs Kahn, Editor

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cj shorts arts & culture

Changemaker to Work with Jewish Teens Matthew Fieldman, an advertising agency CEO who’s won several awards and honors for his work as a social entrepreneur, has been named the 2015 USY Danny Siegel Changemaker-inResidence by United Synagogue Youth.

Over the course of the year, Fieldman will serve as a teacher, mentor and role model for Jewish teens, inspiring them to make a commitment to social action and social justice. This summer, Fieldman toured the country, visiting USY summer trips to engage with USYers in hands-on service projects.

The Changemaker program, in its second year, is funded by a generous gift from Dianne and Martin Newman of Providence, Rhode Island, in memory of their parents, Sylvia and Leonard Zimet and Lillian and Morris Newman.

New Web Site Offers Update to Traditional Yahrtzeit Plaques

The Contemporary Jewish Museum’s exhibit Designing Home: Jews and Midcentury Modernism, exploring the ways that Jewish designers and artists influenced Modernism, opened at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City this spring. The exhibit features furniture and home furnishings, Judaica, and architecture.

Yiddish Literature for English Readers

A digital anthology of Yiddish works newly translated into English was released by the Yiddish Book Center. The Center’s third annual Pakn Treger (book peddler), Translation Issue is available online and in e-book form. Many of the works, which include poetry, memoir, short stories, and excerpts from longer works of fiction, will be new even to those familiar with Yiddish literature.

Founded in 1980, the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts, works to tell the whole Jewish story by rescuing, translating, and disseminating Yiddish books and presenting innovative educational programs. The Center is a recipient of the National Medal for Museum and Library Service, the highest honor conferred on museums and libraries for service to the community.

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Bringing a longtime Jewish tradition into the 21st century, United Synagogue recently launched Blessed Memory, a virtual memorial board giving individuals and congregations an opportunity to memorialize loved ones in an always accessible way online. Those who don’t belong to a synagogue or live far from the synagogue where their loved ones are honored with a traditional memorial plaque will find it particularly helpful.

Blessed Memory is underwritten by Mildred Werber to pay tribute to the members of her family who died in the Holocaust who have no permanent memorial or marked graves. To further perpetuate Jewish education in their memory, funds raised through Blessed Memory will support the Conservative Yeshiva and the Fuchsberg Center in Jerusalem. Visit the Blessed Memory website at www.blessedmemory.org.

Results of the Zionist Congress Elections in the United States MERCAZ USA, the Zionist arm of the Conservative movement, won 25 seats in the recent American Zionist Movement Zionist Congress elections, making its delegation the second largest from the United States. We want to thank all of our supporters, voters and activists for bringing about this impressive achievement.

Though the number of delegates dropped from the 33 MERCAZ had in the last Congress, we faced many new challenges this year, including new competitors and exorbitant amounts of money spent by other parties. Thus, we view these results with great satisfaction. We are also watching MERCAZ chapters around the world holding their own local elections and agreements.

Now as we prepare for the start of the 37th World Zionist Congress, which will take place in mid-October, we look forward to building a coalition with other Zionist parties from Israel and the Diaspora whose ideological platforms are a good fit with ours to promote the values of Conservative Judaism within the World Zionist Organization and to represent in the best way possible Conservative/Masorti Jews around the world in the coming five years.

New Programs for Jews in Latin America The Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano (the Marshall T. Meyer Latin American Rabbinical Seminary), which has been training Conservative Jewish leaders in Buenos Aires since 1962, recently rolled out new educational programs. In São Paulo, Brazil, the Seminario is bringing in a summer’s worth of guest speakers and teachers, creating TALI schools (after the model of the Masorti-affiliated schools in Israel), and beginning to train rabbinical and cantorial students. And in partnership with the University of Connecticut and the American Institute for Foreign Studies, they are introducing the first studyabroad Jewish Studies program in Latin America. Students will study at the Seminario and the University of Belgrano in Buenos Aires, and also participate in field trips and experiential education, including an extended trip to the Pampas.

Israeli Camp Widens Its Embrace This past summer, the Jack Roth Camp Netaim-Ramah NOAM included 100 children and youth with disabilities in the overall Ramah NOAM camp in Israel. Campers were recruited from the Masorti youth movement, NOAM, which has 20 locations all over Israel. Though each participant had different abilities, all had the chance to experience camp as equals. Through the initiative, children as young as eight found themselves mentoring a child with disabilities – learning to tie one’s shoelaces from a peer can be much easier than it is from a counselor or aide – and the sense of achievement was immeasurable for both.

The program was made possible through the generosity of Jack Roth’s family and the Columbus, Ohio, community.

New Deans at Rabbinical Schools Rabbi Ephraim Pelcovits, assistant dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles, was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2010. While at JTS, Rabbi Pelcovits served as the student rabbi of Congregation B’nai Shalom, in Williamsville, New York, completed two units of Clinical Pastoral Education at Bellevue Hospital, served as a commissioned lieutenant and chaplain candidate in the United States Navy Reserve, and as AIPAC’s first Rabbinic Intern. Rabbi Pelcovits has been engaged in interfaith and interdenominational work and continues to advocate for Israel and for peace.

Rabbi Stephanie (Fingeroth) Ruskay is the new associate dean of the Rabbinical School at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

Previously, Rabbi Ruskay served as director of Alumni and Community Engagement and national director of Education a n d Tra i n i n g a t AVO D A H : The Jewish Service Corps. She recently served as clergy organizer at JOIN for Justice (see Q and A, page 10). Rabbi Ruskay also teaches at JTS’s JustCity Leadership Institute, a precollege program, and serves on the Social Justice Commission of the Rabbinical Assembly, as well as on the Advisory Council of Tivnu.

Rabbi Avi Novis-Deutsch has been named the new dean of the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary in Jerusalem. An alumnus of Schechter, he his extensive experience as a rabbi, teacher, lecturer, and congregational leader. He will develop the Beit Midrash’s programs directed at training the next generation of Masorti religious leaders in Israel and around the world.

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cj shorts Goats Clear Land for Synagogue... Really!

Thirty hungry goats munched their way through several acres of English ivy and underbrush, and the members of Ahavath Achim Synagogue, in Atlanta, Georgia, couldn’t have been more pleased. Goats are an environmentally friendly way to clear brush and overgrown land. They thrive on the type of vegetation that ordinarily requires heavy machinery or toxic chemicals to manage, and they leave behind natural fertilizer. Using goats to clear their land was a perfect complement to Ahavath Achim’s strong commitment to being environmentally conscious. Said Executive Director Manuel Mesa, “This is, by far, the cleanest, safest, most efficient and most cost-effective method for clearing overgrown spaces.”

Jews in Kilts Kilts and plaid kippot? Not your everyday attire at a synagogue fundraiser, but it was a popular choice at the Robbie Burnstein Dinner in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. No, there really wasn’t a Scottish Jew named Robbie Burnstein (that we know of). But the dinner itself, held at Beth Tzedec Congregation, was quite real – a takeoff on traditional Burns Night suppers honoring the 18th century Scottish national poet Robert Burns.

The Burnstein dinner is increasingly popular, with this year’s $250-a-plate event attracting 370 people, including members of the local Scottish community and friends from Edmonton’s Beth Shalom Synagogue. Besides hearing the requisite bagpipes, guests enjoyed a Scottish-inspired kosher dinner, Highland dancing, Scotch tasting, poetry readings, and cigars. Plus, the dinner netted a generous contribution to Beth Tzedec’s education and outreach programs and to the Woodridge PREP Centre, an organization dedicated to the inclusion of youth with Down Syndrome in the community at large. Oh, and Beth Tzedec’s rabbi, Shaul Osadchey, made the kosher haggis.

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Q& A INTERVIEW BY Andrea Glick

In Our Interest Until a few months ago, when she was named the new associate dean of the Rabbinical School of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Rabbi Stephanie Ruskay was splitting her time between AVODAH: the Jewish Service Corps and JOIN for Justice (the Jewish Organizing Institute and Network). At AVODAH, which trains Jewish leaders for anti-poverty work, she focused on creating networks and developing skills among alumni of the AVODAH service corps and fellowship. At JOIN, she worked on training clergy in congregation-based community organizing.

In November, at USCJ’s 2015 Convention, JOIN will launch an initiative to train clergy and synagogue lay leaders jointly in community organizing skills.

Ruskay thinks this approach, which emphasizes building relationships, will strengthen both congregations and Conservative Judaism as a whole.

A rabbi explains how community organizing can help synagogues deepen relationships, cultivate leaders, and create a better future for all.

CJ: For a lot of synagogues the challenge is finding new leaders and volunteers. Is congregation-based community organizing a way to help with that?

Rabbi Stephanie Ruskay: Yes, because it’s all about developing and cultivating leaders and helping them act on the things that are most important to them in partnership with other congregants.

CJ: What’s different about this approach?

What makes it effective?

SR: Sometimes in the Jewish community we’re afraid to talk about power or about self-interest. Community organizing involves a willingness to think about and discuss self-interest. It’s the idea that people really will work on something for a long time if they see it as in their selfinterest and can articulate why. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

CJ: Can you explain that a bit more? sR: Often with leadership opportunities at congregations, a person might think there’s a lot that needs to be done, so they’re going to go look for someone to help do it. And if you’re persuasive you

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can convince people to do things. But you can’t necessarily convince them to do things for a long time and in an effective way. With community organizing, it’s not about convincing people to do things you want them to do, it’s about understanding who they are, and what they care about, and how working together you can craft something that will help them act on the values they care about in the world.

CJ: What’s the process?

SR: It’s relational organizing, which means that relationships are at the center.

So you need to get to know people. People set up one-to-one meetings, or house meetings with small groups, and at those meetings you get to know what moves people and what motivates them. You see what they might have energy to work on.

Also, you come to know who some of the leaders in a community really are, which doesn’t necessarily mean the people who are already the leaders.

CJ: Why are these leaders not known? sR: In shul, we might see people frequently, but we don’t know what’s actually going on

“

...once you

uncover people’s concerns, you have a model for working with other organizations, which is really powerful.”

for them, what they care about and what the challenges in their lives are. When you take the time to do that, people feel heard, and if they know you’re going to work with them, that you’re invested in their leadership and success, then they’re going to show up for you, especially when you’re working on something that’s of prime importance to them.

CJ: How were you introduced to community organizing? sR: When I was in rabbinical school, Jewish Funds for Justice was doing community organizing training for rabbinical students. It was one of the most important set of skills I learned in terms of thinking about my own leadership and helping me dream about what the Conservative movement could be in the next 25 years. [The Seminary Leadership Project was later taken over by JOIN for Justice; Jewish Funds for Justice is now called Bend the Arc.] CJ: JOIN is starting a new initiative with United Synagogue and the Rabbinical Assembly. What will it involve? sR: In 2013, we trained 44 Conservative

rabbis. We found that even if people had training in rabbinical school, that doesn’t mean they have the expertise to work in a community, where the stakes are very high. Also, we know that those clergy need partners. So for this initiative, which will start at the USCJ Convention in November, clergy members who did our training will join with lay leaders to learn together, and everyone involved will have the benefit of being part of a network.

CJ: What’s different about the community organizing approach and traditional synagogue social justice work? sR: Traditional social justice work is often focused on helping the “other.” However, selfinterest is really at the heart of the organizing model. When you ask a group of 10 people from your shul, “What keeps you up at night?” you might see that a lot of them are worried about health insurance or home care for their aging parents. Social justice committees often discuss international issues, racism, or other

challenges facing us today – community organizing is not a substitute for working on those issues. However, part of what’s great about it is that once you uncover people’s concerns, you have a model for working with other organizations, which is really powerful. The shul can’t solve the problem of health insurance on its own, but if all the religious institutions say this is a problem, they can work on the solutions together.

Organizing is also a helpful, transformative model for communities, and I believe it will transform our synagogue cultures, making them more relational and making our movement as a whole more relational. CJ

Note: If you’re interested in participating in JOIN’s new online organizing class, go to www.joinforjustice.org and click on “Don’t Kvetch, Organize!”

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sister act In a world where women can be rabbis, cantors and synagogue presidents, traditional sisterhoods are re-inventing themselves and tweaking tradition to stay relevant in women’s lives.

By Laurie Kamens

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W

e’re not your grandmother’s sisterhood,” Temple Aliyah’s women’s organization proclaimed boldly two years ago. The new slogan was part of the Woodland Hills, California, sisterhood’s rebranding campaign, initiated in response to a feeling among women in the congregation that s isterhood was no longer meeting their needs.

“People felt sisterhood was old ladies in the kitchen,” said President Julie Davine. “So we decided to make some changes because otherwise we weren’t going to exist anymore.”

The sense that sisterhood is a group of older women whose primary purpose it is to cater, cook and serve kiddush, whether accurate or not, seems pervasive in many Conservative synagogues.

The specter of the “kiddush ladies” has grown to such proportions that at times it can hang over the organization like a dark shadow, keeping younger members away.

To escape this negative association, Davine and her fellow leaders decided the word “sisterhood” would have to go. The group renamed itself Women of Aliyah, and introduced a slew of new programming that included trendy exercise classes, topical discussions and fun social outings.

“We’re trying to change the way we do things to be more current,” said Davine. “My dream is for women to look at sisterhood as an organization that helps them socially, emotionally, educationally… and is relevant for them in today’s synagogue life.”

T

hough outdated, the notion of sisterhood members as the “kiddush ladies” has roots in both historical and societal circumstances.

Founded in 1918 by prominent, well-educated rabbis’ wives, education was the primary purpose of what would become Women’s League for Conservative Judaism (the umbrella organization for Conservative sisterhoods). Catering to the influx of non-English speaking, uneducated immigrants coming to the United States in the early 1900s, it was conceived as a vehicle to teach Jewish women about Jewish holidays, Torah, and other forms of cultural literacy.

“The principal tenet was to nurture and increase Jewish women’s commitment to Judaism through their knowledge and understanding of it,” said Lisa Kogen, Education/Program Director of Women’s League.

Women’s League distributed English publications explaining basic Jewish principles, taught women how to read and daven in Hebrew (in Eastern Europe, siddurim for women were written in Yiddish), and created holistic educational program outlines for local chapters.

Yet, even armed with greater Jewish and Hebraic knowledge, women’s roles in synagogue life were restricted. Relegated to the edges and background of religious life, women were not allowed to lead services, receive an aliyah, wear tallit or tefillin, or hold any clerical positions.

However there was one area in which women were allowed to contribute to synagogue life – the kiddush. “That became an important component of what sisterhood did because Laurie Kamens women’s roles in the synagogue were an extenis a senior writer sion of their roles at home,” Kogen said. and social media Cooking and serving food after services, manager for along with holding fundraisers for the shul USC J and Hebrew school, became the primary

selling gifts, educating jews When the earliest sisterhoods began, everything associated with them was designed as an educational tool – even the gift shop. “They would put in items that would reflect the aspirations of a good Jewish household,” said Lisa Kogen of Women’s League for Conservative Judaism. A mezuzah or seder plate was more than just a purchase, it taught women the significance of each object and its meaning and value in Jewish ceremonies.

The governance of gift shops positioned women as highly visible, knowledgeable advisors in the realm of ritual. When sisterhoods gave a bar mitzvah child a kiddush cup, “what they were saying was that the continuation of Jewish life is important,” Kogen explained. Not surprisingly, the gift shops also served an important financial function, bringing in a steady stream of revenue, which many synagogues still depend on today.

Mother and daughter, Jan Weiner (left) and Becca Weiner (right) enjoy some intergenerational bonding at Temple Israel Sisterhood’s Paid-Up Opening Member/Torah Fund Luncheon.

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“

We’ve moved from behind the aprons to learned women. We are very connected and have a voice. We’ve come a long way”

functions of sisterhoods. But these narrow roles began to seem anachronistic as women gained more opportunities for synagogue leadership and ritual involvement.

“Today we’re so much for than the kiddush ladies,” said Sarrae Crane, executive director of Women’s League. “We see ourselves as integral parts of the synagogue… not relegated to any one role.”

“We’ve moved from behind the aprons to learned women,” agreed Hilary Rosenbaum, co-president of Temple Israel sisterhood in Charlotte, North Carolina. “We are very connected and have a voice. We’ve come a long way.”

S

i nce Women’s League’s founding, the role of women in both society and the synagogue has radically changed. Feminism has brought women political standing, increased gender equality and prominence in the professional world, while egalitarianism in the synagogue has afforded them opportunities in leadership and ritual life that the founders didn't even dream of.

At the same time, these opportunities fundamentally reshaped the landscape of women’s daily lives. Now, with women balancing careers, child rearing, social obligations, and more, it has become increasingly hard for them to find time for sisterhood activities.

To engage women today, say sisterhood leaders, the groups must be willing to adapt and to provide something of value in a world full of options. One of the ways sisterhoods address this is through new kinds of programming.

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A

s sisterhoods evolved, they became important social outlets. They were clubs where women gathered for luncheons, mah jongg, fashion shows, and recipe swapping. Though these programs have not disappeared, and are still valued by many, sisterhoods today are looking to grow beyond this model.

“Women want programs that are more engaging, intellectual and inspiring,” said Kogen.

Davine, for instance, and the Women of Aliyah are “trying to do things that are more diverse, dynamic, and a little bit edgier.”

This has included activities like poker (a stereotypically male game), wine and cheese nights, and educational programs centered around current topics such as how women deal with challenges like the death of a spouse, motherhood, and new careers.

“Not everything will appeal to everybody, but you engage on your own level,” said Denise Abadi, the other president of Temple Israel Sisterhood, which started a Zumba program, a Passover “Harosets Around the World” tasting, and discussions about how to deal with bullying, ADHD, and raising a special needs child.

Programs such as these infuse vibrancy into sisterhood, adding new sensibilities to the organization and engaging women in dialogue around contemporary issues. Referring to the move away from the old model, Sheryl Kalis, president of Temple Emanuel’s sisterhood in Newton, Massachusetts, said, “It’s part of our history and who we are, but we’re more than that now. We’re moving with the times.” There’s still a place for fashion shows and mah jongg, but Temple Emanuel also has introduced weekend retreats, Jewish murder-mystery events, and a yoga minyan.

Engaging actively with today’s world seems to be the key to ensuring sisterhood’s continued survival. “People join communities for a sense of purpose and meaning, not for a sense of history or to be part of an institution,” said Rabbi Deborah Silver of Adat Ari El in Valley Village, California, and a keynote speaker at the 2012 Women’s League convention. Silver encourages women to tackle this issue by asking themselves, “What do women do in the synagogue? What does it mean to be a woman who is working as part of a community? What does it mean to be a member of this community? And, finally, what is this community for?”

Women’s League has begun addressing these questions through looking to one of its founding principles. Since its inception, a primary function of sisterhoods has been fundraising, both for philanthropic causes and the synagogue itself. Early on sisterhoods helped fund various charities, most often connected to Israel or Zionist causes. However in recent years the organization has begun to look closer to home, and beyond the Jewish community, to lend a helping hand. At each international convention since 2006, Women’s League has participated in a large scale social action project to directly benefit its host city. “It’s only been a few years, but we understand that we are part of the world we live in,” said Kogen. “That’s a major cultural shift within Women’s League that has come about within the last decade.”

in the kitchen – if we want Though some sisterhoods are moving away from old models of programming, they are not rejecting their history. Several women are looking back to the traditions that sustained them for so long, finding ways to breathe new life into them.

With Bubby’s Secrets, Temple Emanuel in Newton, Massachusetts, is reclaiming recipe swapping and putting a new twist on it. The sisterhood encourages older women to share their recipes with younger relations and members of the congregation, creating an intergenerational bond, celebrating tradition, and using food as a record of memory, rather than a segregating force.

“It’s history,” said Hilary Rosenbaum of Temple Israel in Charlotte, North Carolina. “Food connects people…back to their roots.” In her synagogue, Rosenbaum is reintroducing the Kiddush Bakers Club,which encourages entire families (men and women alike) to come into the synagogue kitchen and bake for their simchas in order to build community.

Meanwhile, the women of B’nai Torah Congregation in Boca Raton, Florida, are reclaiming the kitchen from a place of gender isolation to a serious stream of revenue. Women’s League will only set foot in the synagogue kitchen for two reasons, to raise money and to save money, in order to give more away, according to president Shelly Gross. Each year they recruit about 75 volunteers to bake hundreds of hamantaschen for a fundraiser that typically brings in close to $10,000.

PHOTO LEFT: Temple Emanuel Sisterhood volunteers at the Greater Boston Food Bank.

PHOTO RIGHT: Temple Israel Sisterhood shows off their finished shalach manot at the Purim Basket Fundraiser set-up.

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A member of Women’s League of B’nai Torah Congregation shows off her outfit at a fashion show, while in the background women peruse donated purses for a fundraiser where all proceeds benefitted the religious school.

S

everal sisterhoods also have made increased efforts to give back to their local communities. Every program at Women’s League of B’nai Torah Congregation in Boca Raton, Florida, has a community service element – even the group’s mah jongg games are accompanied by a charitable collection. The women participate in hands-on projects, serving holiday dinners at a residence for adults with special needs, lighting Hanukkah candles at a senior center, volunteering at a halfway house for homeless families, and crafting for people in need. “Being able to combine our work with the greater community has given us a different reputation,” said Shelly Gross, president, who’s seen this type of involvement bring attention and new members.

Sandi Schwartz, the community service vice president, said that “adding community service has been important to me because at first I felt that sisterhood was just there to raise money for the synagogue and I wanted to go beyond that.”

At the same time, raising money for synagogues is one of the most practical and vital roles that sisterhoods play. Through member dues, gift shops and social events, sisterhoods raise thousands of dollars each year.

Historically, sisterhood has long been an important contributing arm of the synagogue. “I often joke with my own sisterhood that sometimes they’re the synagogue’s ATM,” said Rabbi Silver.

“Synagogues came to rely on those budget lines from their

16 CJ – Voices of conservative /masorti judaism Fall 2015

sisterhood because women were very adept at raising money,” said Kogen, “yet all the while not giving women any kind of say about how that money would be spent.”

In sharp contrast, today’s sisterhoods help determine where their monies go, and several appropriate it to branches of the synagogue that are relevant to their membership, such as youth programs, scholarships, and the religious school.

However, raising money cannot be the sole answer to, “What is the sisterhood community for?” What women are looking for above all is, as Rabbi Silver put it, “purpose and meaning,” and that they find in the bonds and connections they forge with each other.

“I think women need a place to meet and people are always looking for connections,” said Davine. “Sisterhood is just one more way for synagogues to foster that.”

“We send our kids to Ramah and USY because we want them to connect, so why don’t we do the same things for ourselves?” asked Women’s League President Carol Simon. “Sisterhood is a place for women to come together to learn, study, socialize, and build a community in the synagogue,” she said. “It’s a safe place for women to grow and explore their Jewish lives, surrounded by women who only want them to succeed.”

Creating a space for women has proven benefits. Kogen points out that statistics show women who attend same sex schools often emerge later as leaders in their field. “There’s a

“

lot of emotional benefit that comes from women being surrounded by women,” she said. “Sometimes women need to be together in order to thrive in ways they don’t anywhere else.”

Gross, of B’nai Torah, sees this embodied in her group’s Sisterhood Shabbat, an annual service where the women are responsible for leading prayers, reading Torah, delivering the d’var Torah, and so on. Promoting female involvement in larger synagogue life, “reminds me of when I would take my daughter to a female doctor so that she knew that everything was an opportunity,” she said.

“That is what I do in helping to lead services. Our young women are seeing that everything is open to them.”

A community filled with opportunities and support is one of the greatest things sisterhood has to offer women, according to several leaders, and today’s sisterhoods serve as rich breeding grounds for encouraging female success and engagement in Jewish life. In a certain way, by fostering female talent the groups have come full circle. Sisterhood, “created socially acceptable, religious, and social environments where women could flourish,” said Kogen. Today it is simply finding new ways to fulfill that mission.

“I love the energy, compassion, and strength of the women of sisterhood,” said Kalis. “I love the range of ages and the variety of experience that we represent. I love that we care about each other and use our collective strength to engage sisterhood, the synagogue, and our greater community with each passing year.”

There’s a lot of emotional benefit that comes from women being surrounded by women.

Sometimes women need to be together in order to thrive in ways they don’t anywhere else.”

A

s for what the passing years will ultimately hold for sisterhood and Women’s League, Rabbi Silver urges women to look toward the bigger picture. “I don’t think that we can lay down hard and fast what sisterhood’s future is going to look like, because we can’t lay down hard and fast what our community’s future is going to look like,” she said. “Liberal Judaism in North America is in the process of significant change and upheaval, but the best thing we can do is be open to adapting and that means getting out of the kitchen.” CJ

www.cjvoices.org 17

PRISON

YIDDISHKEIT After drifting away from Judaism as an adult, a Jewish inmate finds strength, solace and community by reconnecting with his faith.

The Jews in our prisons are often a forgotten population, part of our collective denial about Jews who do not fit our image of the community. But there are Jews in all levels of the prison system, many of them creating study groups and Friday night prayer groups with limited rabbinic support. One of our rabbis asked a congregant in the federal prison system to write an account of his experience building community and creating his own Jewish life.

The inmate asked that his name not be used.

I

sit on a grey, plastic chair in my 7-by-12 foot prison cell. Ron, my celly, breathes heavily on the bottom bunk. I scoot up to the small desk to get my notebook and pen and glance at the wall above my grey-metal floor locker. Per Bureau of Prison policy, it’s the only space where I can display my family photos, a monthly calendar, and a few inspirational quotes. One picture catches my eye: it’s of my brother wearing a maroon-knitted kippah, standing at the Shabbat dinner table; challah, wine glasses and candlesticks adorn the white tablecloth. Around it, all smiles and nicely dressed, sit his two daughters, wife, and our parents. I’m not in the picture, of course; I’m in prison. I’m taken back in my mind to a time when I was there, when I was an integral part of my family’s Jewish life.

18 CJ – Voices of conservative /masorti judaism Fall 2015

I

was immersed in Jewish culture from the moment I was born; I even went to a Jewish day school until the 8th grade. As I became an adult and lived on my own, I drifted from the values and traditions I was so close to as a child.

Secularity became my norm.

My gaze moves to the bible that sits on top of my locker.

Its black cover and compact size made it easy for me to inconspicuously carry when I was transported by armored van back and forth to court and the Boston county jail.

That fateful morning of my arrest – the 6:00 am banging on the door, the fear, the tears – was three long years ago.

A

fter my arrest, I was quick to turn to God and Judaism to cope and make sense of my situation. In the jail where I was held during my pre-trial phase, there was no Jewish community. But because I had been largely detached from any Jewish community I didn’t miss it. Ironically, for the first time in my life – and this is a theme that continues through my whole prison experience – I bonded with men of other faiths in spiritually meaningful ways. The small group of men in Block E welcomed me with open arms to their daily bible studies, and they included me in the humbling experience of their prayer circles. (I dealt with mentions of Jesus and the Trinity with cordial smiles; after all, I was accepted wholeheartedly for

who I was as a Jew. The least I could do, as my mother would say, was to “take the best and leave the rest.”)

M

y day school foundation made it easy to rest my precarious head on Judaism’s reassuring shoulder. For the first time, I was motivated and had the time to delve into the significance of God and what it meant to be a Jewish man.

Any doubts and fears that lingered were addressed by people in the Jewish community – a community of which I didn’t even know I was a part. The rabbi of my family’s Conservative synagogue has come to visit me, inspire me, and empower me. In fact, this article is thanks to him. A volunteer rabbi also came to visit and brought me much comfort.

Family and friends extended their love and spiritual guidance. My belief and respect for Judaism was strengthened by this outpouring of kindness.

I began to read the Torah along with other Jewish texts, and did what I could to celebrate holidays (like the paper menorah I made for Hanukkah with orange paper flames; real flames are not allowed).

And I prayed. I prayed from the heart for the first time in my life. I found strength and wisdom in these pursuits, not only to deal with my difficult circumstances and the personal issues that brought me to prison, but also to begin a life-long journey of repentance and self-improvement.

More importantly, I developed an understanding and relationship with God. But as for a Jewish community in prison, there was none... and for the first time in my life I found myself missing it.

U

nder the picture of my family’s Shabbat is another photograph of me and a 70-year-old named Al, in our prison khakis on a sunny afternoon. I was introduced to Al during lunch in our

I want so badly to continue my Jewish ways when I get out of prison, and I have no doubt that I will. My uncertainty comes from whether I will be at it alone. crowded chow-hall by a mutual acquaintance: “Hey, Al. Here’s the Jew I was telling you about!”

During the 13 months after my arrest, I never met another Jew. After I was sentenced and transferred to a prison of 1,600 inmates, scared and bewildered, I questioned whether I would ever find a community of Jews. Inmates with swastika tattoos on their shaved heads roamed around every corner; anti-Semitic jokes were casual talk in the dining hall; and exclusively Christian literature was strewn on counter tops and tables. However, the faith and pride I had in being Jewish provided me with the courage to not hide my faith, and soon after my arrival I was introduced to the prison’s small Jewish community.

Al invited me to the regular Friday night service in the prison chapel. I couldn’t remember when I had ever chosen to attend a Friday night service. Around two tables sat 12 men of all ages and sizes. Introductions were made, a kippah and siddur were placed in my hands, and prayers began. Hebrew words filled

the sterile room; familiar tunes, like the Shema and Aleinu, danced in my heart.

I was filled with an overwhelming feeling – a feeling that felt like home. To this day, I still choose to go every week. But I found myself wondering why I had never felt this way before while standing in the large sanctuary back home. It is true: you don’t realize what you have until it is taken from you.

Have I found a Jewish community at this prison? There is a group of men who share a common heritage. But it’s more complicated than that.

First, I would be hard pressed to find two of us who share a common background or level of observance. Three of us are Orthodox/Chabad, one grew up Jewish while two found Judaism in prison.

There is a man who grew up surrounded

by Orthodoxy yet he practices as a Reform Jew, and I am Conservative. There is a Noahide, a Messianic, and others who have a purely academic interest in Judaism. Temporary visitors come and go as they survey the best faith for them. There are other Jews at the prison who choose never to show their faces.

Moreover, like any synagogue, our small community has its struggles, arguments, and even fights. With so many backgrounds and view points, our group sometimes factures. Chaplains have been yelled at, new members verbally harassed, and at times, almost no one feels welcome.

Fortunately, things are changing, and we have evolved in my two years here into a more understanding and supportive group.

As I do every Wednesday afternoon, I make my way to the prison library to meet Al and two others. We gather each week to discuss various topics: plans for the upcoming holidays, suggestions for new books to order, where we should continues on page 54

www.cjvoices.org 19

From Challah and Chulent to Chutney and Chipati Through the food, history and culture of Jews around the world, a summer camp helps kids broaden their understanding of Jewish identity – and see that being Jewish is more than skin-deep.

By Marcella White Campbell Brandes

I

’m a food-first person – I start thinking about dinner while I’m eating breakfast. So in the early days of my journey to Judaism, as soon as I began to plan my week around Shabbat, I planned my Shabbat around the meal itself. Back then, I believed I’d only really be Jewish once I was indistinguishable from other Jews. I assumed the majority of my predominantly Ashkenazi community ate challah and chicken soup on Shabbat, so I did, too. Cooking the “right” things, I thought, meant being really Jewish, something I ardently desired.

As I grew into my faith, however, I began to see things a little differently. After all, our family isn’t quite like everyone else’s. My husband’s ancestors come from Russia and M a r c e l l a W h i t e Romania on his mother’s side, while on Campbell Brandes his father’s side he can trace his ancesis managing editor tors back to medieval France. Meanof Be’chol Lashon, while, my ancestors hail from Arkansas an organization that and Louisiana, while their ancestors works around issues were taken from mysterious locales in of racial, ethnic and Western Africa. I could bake as much cultural diversity in challah as I liked, but we’d never be the Jewish community indistinguishable from the rest of our through curriculum, community. It felt like I was fighting workshops about a losing battle, both in and outside race and identity, my kitchen. Then one day, I hapt r i p s a n d c a m p. pened upon a book that would change GlobalJews.org everything. Predictably, it was a cookbook.

20 CJ – Voices of conservative /masorti judaism Fall 2015

C

laudia Roden’s Book of Jewish Food opened my eyes to a world beyond my rigid Shabbat menu. Through the foods and histories of Jewish communities throughout the world, I began to broaden my definition of what it meant to cook like everyone else – and to question whether it was necessary to be exactly like everyone else. With Roden as my guide, I began to expand my repertoire. If indeed cholent and chutney could both be called Jewish foods, perhaps it was no less extraordinary for my own family – brought together by America’s diversity – to make a Jewish home. I couldn’t point to generations of observance on my side of the family, but exploring the Jewish world at the Shabbat table was a personal tradition that I could pass on.

While I was happily cooking my way toward accepting my own difference, I wasn’t so certain about my two children. My oldest daughter was approaching her teenage years, and my son was close behind. They were happy to eat my elaborate Friday dinners, but I was increasingly aware that I couldn’t literally feed them their own Jewish identities. They would have to find their own way, and they would, not at the Shabbat table, but at camp.

M

y children spend every summer at Camp Be’chol Lashon. In some ways, it’s like any other summer camp.

They swim in the lake, hike the Northern California foothills, and trade friendship bracelets. Unlike other summer camps, however, at Camp Be’chol Lashon, my children travel the Jewish world.

The author's family at Maia's bat mitzvah.

Each day, using Be’chol Lashon’s Passport to Peoplehood curriculum, campers explore the sounds and tastes of a new country, and its historic and contemporary Jewish heritage.

Passports in hand, they “travel” the world in the footsteps of our ancestors, visiting places as far off as Colombia, Russia and Uganda. At each stop, they move one step closer to understanding their own place in the Jewish diaspora.

Every summer, campers learn about the Abayudaya Jewish community of Uganda. Until recently, the Abayudaya celebrated Shabbat with chapati, a traditional Ugandan flatbread that smells as delicious frying on a griddle as my challah smells browning in the oven. (Today, many Abayudaya include challah, too.) With every mouthful of warm chapati, campers learn it’s possible to embrace the new without losing sight of tradition. That lesson underlies the history of the Abayudaya.

O

riginally founded in 1919, this community spent the 1970s oppressed by Idi Amin. Since the fall of the regime, their community has blossomed, synthesizing new, egalitarian ideas with traditional Ugandan ones. They’re led in this effort by Rabbi Gershom Sizomu. Ordained by the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in 2008, Sizomu is the first native-born black rabbi in sub-Saharan Africa. For campers,

Rabbi Sizomu adds a personal dimension to this story of change, serving as a living example of Jewish diversity.

Passport to Peoplehood encourages campers to make connections between individual Jewish role models and their own personal experiences. At the same time, it educates them about the diversity of modern Judaism, linking them to contemporary Jewish communities around the world. Thus, once they travel from Uganda to Colombia, they’ll be introduced to another role model, Rabbi Juan Meija.

Born and raised in Colombia, Rabbi Mejía discovered that he was the descendant of anusim, forced converts from the Inquisition. His desire to learn more about his ancestors led him from Bogotà to the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he was ultimately ordained. Rabbi Mejía has focused his rabbinate on teaching Torah to Spanish-speaking Jews, helping those who want to understand Judaism learn and connect, whatever their historical heritage. Through the camp’s parent organization (also called Be’chol Lashon) Rabbi Mejía works with Jews throughout Latin America and helps organize travel so American Jews can experience Jewish peoplehood first hand. Learning about Rabbi Mejía’s story and work, campers begin to see that diversity is an essential part of the contemporary Jewish world.

Passport to Peoplehood is a hands-on, experiential curriculum. Campers don’t just sit and listen; they physically engage with history and culture. So while “visiting” Colombia, they dance and listen to the rhythms of cumbia, then prepare and eat fried plantains. Exciting all their senses fully immerses them in a global Judaism that continues to broaden and deepen their growing Jewish identities.

Over the course of the summer, campers draw parallels between past and present Jewish communities. As they stamp their passports, moving on to China or Iran or India, discovering and tasting new worlds feels more and more natural. At camp, they explore the ways in which Jewish communities are both alike and different. Once they’re back home, they’re not surprised to see that same diversity in their own communities. Meanwhile, they see their own differences in the context of a greater Jewish history of tolerance, resilience and change.

W

hen my children return from camp, they’ll uncover and bless loaves of challah at our Shabbat table, just like most other members of our community. These days, however, that experience is enriched by the knowledge that they don’t have to be like everyone else. They know we could choose to say motzi over chapati or Ethiopian injera, and they know that they can be Jewish while still honoring their ancestors from Russia, and France and West Africa. Paradoxically, by learning to celebrate difference, they see what they and other Jews really have in common. With that in mind, I think our dinner is even more delicious now, whatever the menu. CJ

www.cjvoices.org 21

Focus:

Jewish Response to racism in America

An Open Letter to the Jewish Community

Rabbi Burg and clergy in Baltimore.

A Baltimore rabbi offers the real story behind events following the police shooting of Freddie Gray.

By Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg

I

live and work in a once-Jewish neighborhood of Baltimore.

These days our community is diverse, both racially and socio-economically, in a city still largely segregated, one that carries the deep wounds inflicted from generations of slavery and Jim Crow. Baltimore has a sordid history of anti-Semitism as well. Relations between the African-American and Jewish communities have been typical of many American cities. At times, during the Civil Rights Movement of course, but also in decades since, associations and collaborations have been strong. But over the years there has also been tension, ranging from disaffection and modest distrust to overt racism and anti-Semitism.

For the past five years, it has been my honor to serve as rabbi of Beth Am Synagogue in the historic Reservoir Hill neighborhood.

Here at Beth Am, we have worked to advance community engagement, deepening bonds between our members and our majority non-Jewish, African-American neighbors. These efforts have led us down an exciting and meaningful Rabbi Daniel Cotzin path, but at the heart of our work is the Burg (ravdaniel@ forging and deepening of relationships. bethambaltimore. Beth Am strives to be not just in and for, org) is the spiritual but increasingly of, our neighborhood. leader of Beth Am Our work is driven by our Jewish values Synagogue, Balti- and texts but also by honoring Resermore, Maryland. This voir Hill’s historically Jewish identity. article is adapted Here, we engage not just in tikkun olam, from a piece that repairing the world, but also in tikkun originally appeared shechunah, repairing our neighborhood, i n t h e B a l t i m o re softening boundaries and strengthening Jewish Times. bonds broken or strained decades ago.

22 CJ – Voices of conservative /masorti judaism Fall 2015

This past spring, as attention turned from Ferguson, Missouri, and New York City to Baltimore, many people were largely concerned about violence, vandalism and looting. There was what to be concerned about, but riots were only a very small part of the story. Much has been written in the aftermath of Freddie Gray’s death. But almost all of these stories presented a caricature of Baltimore: the city of The Wire, urban decay incarnate. I’d like to share another perspective from here in West Baltimore, reflections on this city not as a construct, but as an actual place. My adopted home.

F

irst, while it’s deeply unfortunate that nearly 400 businesses were vandalized and tens of millions of dollars in revenue lost, it’s important to remember that those rioting on Monday, April 27th were dwarfed in number by thousands the following day who worked to clean up the damage. My wife and I, along with our two children, played hooky, spending several hours lending a hand. We wandered throughout Freddie Gray’s neighborhood with a diverse crowd. At no time did we feel unsafe. So many voices that week excoriated Baltimoreans for “destroying their own neighborhoods.” Believe me when I say how many more have, in fact, been working to build their neighborhoods over years and decades.

It’s also important to recognize that West Baltimore is hardly monolithic. Surely there are areas of concentrated blight where residents struggle with near universal poverty and food insecurity, but there are also large areas of the city that are thriving or have experienced significant improvements. To my knowledge, there were no broken windows or any significant damage in Reservoir Hill that Monday. Our neighborhood, despite being less

than one mile from where the riots began, was quiet and calm. Neighbors here supported and cared for one another. And while dozens of recalcitrant Baltimore citizens squaring off with rows of riot police and national guardsmen may have monopolized news broadcasts, the other 620,000 of us under curfew were in our homes, frustrated that we could not go out to enjoy the city, visit with families and friends or simply go about our business as free citizens.

Some of you may think I am offering only apologetics, excusing criminal acts of vandalism and theft or downplaying violence against police. Nothing could be further from the truth. Examining root causes of objectionable behavior does not justify those acts. Violence is a reality in our city. There were more murders in Baltimore last May than in any month since 1972, but this only points toward how dysfunctional the relationship is between the Baltimore police department and communities and individuals of color. Police, due to fear, resentment and distrust, are having trouble doing their jobs, so gangs and drug dealers prevail. And while Baltimore’s history, geography and extensive poverty exacerbate racial tensions, we are hardly unique. Our story is this country’s urban story.

The term worth discussing is structural racism. For many Americans, Ferguson was easier to understand. White cops and a white police commander. White mayor.

White judge, white prosecutor, and so on.

But in Baltimore we have a black police commander and many black cops. The mayor is African-American as is our States Attorney. To understand how racism persists in such a milieu, we must be willing to look deeper. After we condemn them, we need to examine the nature of riots.

We must understand that body cameras are a tool, but no substitute for better police recruitment, training, oversight and accountability. We need a national conversation about mass incarceration and its consequences for society. And there’s our struggling education system, food insecurity, the scourge of addiction

or toxicities ranging from gang violence to lead paint. To get to the root causes of racism takes vigilance, patience and introspection.

Where to begin? Problems, like relationships, are only fixed by first seeking to understand them. And our quest

for understanding leads inexorably to a fundamental Jewish truth: that we are all created in God’s image; that each person, whatever his/her appearance or background, shares our humanity. We all have the same capacity for love, hate, anger, continues on page 55

www.cjvoices.org 23

Focus:

Jewish Response to racism in America

PHOTO: Ethan Weg

This Is Your Battle, Too For a young man who’s both Jewish and black, the killings of black men by police resonate too powerfully to be ignored.

By Yehudah Webster

I

grew up deeply involved in the Conservative movement, attending Hebrew school, going to lots of USY events, staffing the Ramah Day Camp in Nyack, New York – the list goes on. Yes, I was the only black kid among my white Jewish friends, but that didn’t seem important.

As a kid, I rejected the narrative of racism that my parents portrayed – the narrative that racism still very much exists at both the personal and systemic levels, that only its manifestation has changed. My parents warned me to never talk back to cops, to always make sure that cops could see my hands if I was dealing with them. But I didn’t want to believe it. “I have so many white friends, and times have changed,” I said. “Black people don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

But as I got older and bigger, and grew into my full stature as a black man, my experiences also began to change. I suddenly fit the “thug” profile – tall, black, dark, and dangerous. I began to notice women clutching their purses more tightly as I walked by. As I interacted with my white Jewish peers, I began to hear questions and labels that seemed insensitive at best, but ultimately racist and deeply hurtful. “What’s your favorite food – fried chicken?” they’d ask. “Want some more grape soda?” “Can I touch your hair?” “You’re different,” they said, “not like other black people.” Oreo. Nigger. Goy. Sadly, I’ve been called them all.

I could no longer ignore the truth: some in the Jewish community, whose values I identified with the most, knowingly or inadvertently perpetuate the racism that still plagues our society.

My parents, it seemed, were right.

24 CJ – Voices of conservative /masorti judaism Fall 2015

Yehudah Webster addresses the USY International Convention in December 2014.

O

n December 23, 2014 at USY’s 65th International Convention, I delivered a speech to the teens and staff concerning the #BlackLivesMatters campaign. Since the most recent spate of killings of African Americans by police, and the absence of justice for the victims, I have felt more than ever the pervasive racism in our society. I believe this racism creates the attitudes that allow the brutal treatment of black and brown citizens. I asked to address the USY convention because one of its main themes was civil rights, and the teens were taking advantage of the convention location, Atlanta, to see and learn firsthand about the people who led the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s.

Yehudah Webster I began by reminding the delegates is assistant regional and staff that civil rights is not some youth director for far-off history, that racism is not gone, the METNY region and that we do not yet live in a postof USY. racial society. I wanted to overcome the

apathy that can take hold when it seems like injustice is happening elsewhere, not in our own community.

Most of all, I wanted the teens to see that this was not happening to someone else. It was happening to people just like me, and since I and many other black and brown people are Jewish, it’s happening to our community, too.

Eric Garner died on July 17, 2014, after New York City police officers went to arrest him and put him in a chokehold.

Though he screamed 11 times “I can’t breathe” while officers restrained him, the police never relaxed their grip. Garner died seven minutes later. Those sworn to protect us are not supposed to kill us.

I don’t know how we can see this as anything but injustice.

But Eric Garner’s death is not an isolated incident. Sadly there have been numerous young black men and women who’ve died the same way, including Tamir Rice, Rekia Boyd, Shelley Frey, Michael Brown, and Freddie Gray, to name a few. I believe their deaths at the hands of police are not coincidences. I believe that they are the product of systemic racism, individual racism, and deep-seeded hatred. Maybe some people can view these incidents as just another societal problem. I don’t have that luxury.

For me, it’s personal.

“ I wanted the teens to see that this was not happening to someone else.

It was happening to people just like me.”

W

hen you finish reading this, I ask you to engage. Reach out to organizations and campaigns in your community to learn how you can help promote equality.

In December, four prominent rabbis were among those arrested in a protest in Manhattan organized in part by Jews for Racial and Economic Justice.

Other Jewish leaders and organizations, including the Jewish Community Relations Council in some cities, have been involved, as well.

I hope you’ll consider joining protests in your area. Make noise on social media.

Use your leadership in the Jewish community. Hold awareness events, meaningful actions. Be the light and spread it around in your community. Do all you can to remove the chokehold that I and so many others feel, so that everyone in America feels like they can breathe. CJ

S

tanding up against injustice is deeply embedded in the Jewish tradition. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, the renowned theologian and civil rights leader who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at Selma, said, “Racism is man’s greatest threat to man – the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.” We, the Jewish community, admire Heschel. We learn about the movement he helped lead and the hard choices and sacrifices he had to make in the face of the “greatest threat to man.”

Though it was hardly popular at the time, Heschel led the Jewish people in the right moral action – bringing the light of Judaism to the darkness of his time.

www.cjvoices.org 25

the last laugh By Joel Chasnoff Joel Chasnoff is a stand-up comedian and author.

His family are members of the Pelham Jewish Center, Pelham Manor, NY.

What’s Funny?

It All Depends I

n the previous issue of CJ Magazine I shared a joke about an Israeli boy and his grandfather as they stroll through Tel Aviv. Walking along, the grandfather points out the tree he planted, the skyscraper he helped build, the restaurant where he bussed tables, all as a young man. To which his grandson replies, “Saba, when you were young, were you an Arab?”

Several readers wrote to say they enjoyed the joke and what it says about the complexities of modern Israel.

A few found the joke offensive, either to Arabs, or to contemporary Israelis. (But, strangely, never to both.)

Some readers missed the point entirely.

“This is a terrible joke which distorts the truth significantly,” one wrote. “Jews built Israel with blood, sweat and tears, and this joke shifts the focus to create the misperception that it was built basically with the labor of Arabs.”

To me, this was the point of the joke: that Israel’s pioneer spirit, so fundamental to the state’s founding, is no longer the same.

I share these reader comments not to call anyone out, but to demonstrate that jokes are both powerful and subjective, to the point where a good joke can say as much about the listener as it does about the teller and subject matter.

On that note, I share a joke first told to me by my late grandfather: A priest walks into a barbershop and gets a haircut. When he’s finished the priest reaches for his wallet to pay, but the barber says, “No, no. You’re a man of God. It’s on the house.” The priest thanks him, and that afternoon he returns with a crucifix as a gift.

The next day a minister goes to the same barbershop and gets a haircut.

When he tries to pay the barber says, “No, you’re a man of God. It’s free.” The minister thanks him and returns that afternoon with an Old Testament.

The next day a rabbi comes in and gets a haircut. When he reaches for his wallet the barber says, “No, no, you’re a man of God. It’s on the house.” The rabbi thanks him, and that afternoon he returns with another rabbi.

When I lecture on Jewish humor I make sure to include this barber joke, as a way to gauge the audience’s reaction. The joke always gets a laugh. But when I ask people what they think about the joke, the response is mixed.

Some find it uplifting: the joke demonstrates that Jews are clever, that we see deeply into an otherwise straightforward situation. The joke says something about Jewish optimism and our instinct for survival.

Others find the joke nothing but a regurgitation of the tired Jews-lovemoney stereotype: the minister and priest express gratitude but the Jew wants only a bargain.

Which view is correct?

It depends, on who’s telling, who’s listening, and even who’s nearby.

Told by your rabbi to the congregation, you’re likely to find the joke harmless.

Told by your co-worker who’s not Jewish, chances are you’ll be taken aback.

And if you’re in a group that includes people who aren’t Jewish, it might not matter who’s telling the joke, you might cringe at the possible message the nonJews will take away.

26 CJ – Voices of conservative /masorti judaism Fall 2015

I find this idea fascinating: that the same exact words can mean incredibly different things, depending on who’s standing next to you.

It’s like that old expression, "You had to be there.” Except it also matters who you were there with.

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s a comedian who performs onstage, I’m acutely aware of the subjectivity of jokes and what they say about the listener. In fact, I can learn more about a congregation and its quirks (and challenges) during a onehour stand-up comedy performance than from a three-hour pre-show meeting with the congregation president. (Believe me, they’ve tried.)

For example: more than once it’s happened that I mentioned the word “cantor” during my act, only to discern a palpable change in mood throughout the room. It could be that they just fired the cantor… or decided not to renew his or her contract…or that, unbelievable as it sounds, the rabbi and cantor don’t get along.

Like any comedian worth his salt, I respond to this with a series of jokes about cantors, for what better way to confront the tension than head-on? I wouldn’t have dared try this earlier in my career, but I’ve since learned that people are grateful for the chance to laugh. (Especially the cantors…if they’re still there.)

For our next issue, I’d like you to send me a Jewish joke that you feel says something about you, and what you think your response to this joke implies about who you are.

Write me at joel@joelchasnoff.com.

I look forward to laughing with you. CJ

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the jewish year

The New Ushpizot: Planting a Vineyard An ancient Sukkot tradition is expanded thanks to the creativity and determination of a new generation of women.

by Lisa Kogen

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ne of the many blessings that have resulted from the rise of Jewish feminism is the development of meaningful and creative women’s rituals. Shabbat morning bat mitzvah services, naming ceremonies for baby girls, rosh chodesh prayer groups, and women’s seders are just a few rituals that have been created in the past 40 years or so and have become so culturally entrenched that we tend to forget their newness. And each year, women make Jewish holiday observances and rites of passage more meaningful to highlight their voices and experiences.

Sukkot, one of the principal holidays on the Jewish calendar, is a case in point.

Many of the Sukkot mitzvot are observed equally by men and women, such as waving a lulav and etrog and gathering and eating in the sukkah. Recently, Sukkot’s unique tradition of inviting Ushpizin (imagined guests) into the sukkah has also been subjected to scrutiny and interpretation.

Ushpizin, first mentioned in the Zohar (Emor 103b-104a) and later by Isaac Luria in 16th century Safed, are seven biblical personaliL i s a K o g e n i s ties: Abraham, Isaac, EducationDirector Jacob, Moses, Aaron, of Women’s League Joseph, and David. for Conservative According to kabbalJudaism. istic thought, on each

night of the holiday one of these ancient figures was selected to bring to the sukkah a particular gift associated with the mystical qualities of God (sefirot).

Ushpizot: Inviting the Women In Modern Jewish thinkers have re-imagined this custom to include inviting women, together with the men, as honored guests. There are different opinions about which women to include. One of the earliest actually was suggested by the 17th century kabbalist Menachem Azariah da Fano, who suggested adding the seven women listed in the Talmud as prophetesses: Sarah, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Abigail, Huldah, and Esther.

The Rabbinical Assembly’s 2003 siddur includes a slightly different list: Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, Rachel, Miriam, Deborah, and Ruth.

Ushpizot 2015-2016: Planters At this time of year, Women’s League and Torah Fund are ushering in a new programmatic theme, taken from Eishet Chayil: Nat’ah karem – She plants a vineyard. In honor of the theme, we have created a new selection of Ushpizot, focusing on accomplished women whose work not only benefitted their contemporaries, but will certainly impact generations to come.

These “planters” come from many walks of life – politics, scholarship, science, and

28 CJ – Voices of conservative /masorti judaism Fall 2015

the arts – but the common theme is the endurance of their contributions. How better to acknowledge the pivotal roles of Women’s League and Torah Fund in our institutional histories than to celebrate women of vision and accomplishment, inviting them as honored guests into our sukkot?

Golda Meir World Leader Self-defined as a Jew, a Zionist and an Israeli, Is ra e l’s p r i m e m i n i s t e r f ro m 1969-1974 dedicated her adult life to defending and preserving the security of Israel. She was a complicated mix of compassion and toughness. Early in her career, Meir occupied many influential cabinet positions, helping to shape the young state’s far-reaching foreign and domestic policies. She was prime minister when Israel was attacked on Yom Kippur, 1973. The army suffered a large number of casualties, a devastating blow for families and military alike, and until her death, Meir regretted heeding the advice of her military command not to mobilize the reserves earlier. Also while prime

minister, Meir authorized teams of covert operatives to hunt down and execute the masterminds of the 1972 Olympic massacre in Munich. While her gender was often an impediment to acceptance and promotion, Golda Meir never focused on what we might call “women’s issues.”

hallmark of Hyman’s scholarly contribution is her recovery of women’s voices and experiences, lending richness and completeness to our understanding of the Jewish past. As a founding member

of Ezrat Nashim, in 1972 she and her colleagues petitioned the Rabbinical Assembly for women’s full equality and participation in synagogue life. Her academic career began at JTS where she

Judith Resnick Astronaut Daughter of Ukrainian immigrants, Resnick was devoted to science, engineering and eventually to the United States space program. After she was awarded a doctorate in electrical engineering, she joined the Laboratory of Neurophysiology at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a biomedical engineer. Later, from a pool of 8,000 applicants, she was one of 35 accepted by NASA, only six of whom were women. Resnick’s first successful space mission was on the orbiter Discovery, but she later died in the 1986 Challenger explosion. In addition to Resnick’s numerous scientific contributions, she has served as a hero to young girls, modeling and advocating for female participation in the sciences.

Paula Hyman Historian While the uncovering of women’s place in history is part of contemporary feminist consciousness, it was unheard of when Paula Hyman wrote her doctoral dissertation on French Jewry in 1975. Today, the

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the jewish year

was appointed the first female dean of the Seminary College of Jewish Studies; in 1986 Hyman moved to Yale where she served as Lucy G. Moses Professor of Modern Jewish History until her death in 2011. Paula Hyman’s work and spirit remain an enduring legacy to our more complete understanding of women’s roles in history, in Jewish ritual practice and Jewish identity.

Debbie Friedman, Jewish Song Writer Mi s h e b e i ra c h avoteinu…Mi shebeirach imoteinu – Bless those in need of healing with refuah shleimah the renewal of body, the renewal of spirit and let us say “Amen” Starting out as a song leader in Jewish summer camps, Debbie Friedman’s music transformed prayer in synagogues throughout the world, drawing people together no matter their affiliation.

Friedman’s songs blend lush melodies and biblical passages. A charismatic performer, she played to sell out audiences, including at Carnegie Hall. At one time, she served as a cantor and was appointed to the faculty of Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion’s School of Sacred Music in New York where she remained until her untimely death in 2011, when the school was renamed in her honor. So familiar and entrenched is Friedman’s music that many no longer recall what came before it. In other words, for many it has become traditional.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Supreme Court Justice As the second woman to be appointed to the United States Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg has championed liberal causes throughout her career, including

racial and gender equality. Upon graduation from Columbia Law School, because of gender bias i n N e w Yo r k law firms in the 1950s, the gifted young graduate did not receive a single job offer. Later, while teaching at Rutgers Law School, she was forced to conceal her pregnancy or risk losing her position. So throughout a legal career spanning more than half a century, Ginsburg’s consistent voice and rulings against gender discrimination in the work place have helped transform the American legal system. Women owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to her vigilance in such matters as prohibitions against sexual harassment, unfair employment practices and unequal employee benefits.

Judith Hauptman Talmudist Judith Hauptman, the E. Bill Ivry Professor of Ta l m u d a n d Rabbinic Culture at the Jewish Theological Seminary and a noted author, has taught thousands of students – graduate and undergraduate alike, rabbis, cantors and budding Jewish scholars. The first female to be awarded a Ph.D. in Talmud at JTS (or any seminary or institution of higher learning throughout the world), she challenged that male-centric bastion of Jewish learning by entering – and excelling – in the exclusive male domain of Talmudic scholarship. Decades after receiving her Ph.D., Hauptman was ordained as a rabbi and in 2004 founded Ohel Ayalah, a free,

30 CJ – Voices of conservative /masorti judaism Fall 2015

walk-in High Holy Day service aimed at unaffiliated Jews in their 20s and 30s. To her fellow graduate students in the early 1970s Judith Hauptman was an oddity; for subsequent generations of rabbis and scholars, she is an institution.

Judy Blume Author, Children’s Literature Bullying, teen sex, divorce, sibling rivalry, social ostracism, first love – these are but a few of the taboo topics that had never been addressed in children’s literature until Judy Blume began to write books for young readers. Her groundbreaking work, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, was threatened with censorship, as were later works deemed unsuitable for young sensibilities. Nevertheless, Blume understood the need for the frank, sensitive treatment of subjects that bewildered her young readers. Her books are translated into dozens of languages and sales have reached beyond one hundred million copies. In 2004, she was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Few will disagree that Judy Blume’s books help create future generations of thinking, caring adults.

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o what to do with this new class of Ushpizot? Invite them into your sukkot this year. Celebrate these guests, celebrate their work – the planting of new ideas, methodologies and forms of knowledge. We are blessed with their contributions, which continue to guide and enrich us. Nat’ah karem.

Planting, for the present or for the future – whether grapes or ideas, is an act of creativity, industry and often courage. CJ

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kehilla

People of the Prayer Book Taking a page from Lev Shalem, the popular High Holiday machzor, a new Shabbat and festival siddur offers an updated translation, layout and commentary designed to enliven the experience of prayer for contemporary Jews.

By Rabbi Carol Levithan

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here is growing excitement about the publication of Siddur Lev Shalem for Shabbat and Festivals, now in the final stages of editing, with publication anticipated later this fall. Why a new siddur? The answer: Mahzor Lev Shalem, which has gone through five printings and sold over 320,000 copies since its publication in 2009. The four-column format, with historical and explanatory material in the first column next to the Hebrew, along with poetry and inspirational readings in the fourth column next to the English, has transformed the experience of being in synagogue for the High Holidays.

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hile the immediate success of the mahzor quickly led to establishing the Siddur Lev Shalem committee, Rabbi Ed Feld, chair of both committees, observes there were also compelling reasons to create a new Conservative siddur. “You can’t describe God as ‘awesome’ anymore,” is his persuasive way of illustrating how language changes and why “each generation needs its own translation,” as reflected in the carefully crafted literal translations in both the mahzor and siddur that allow the reader to choose how to relate to the text.

Commentary elucidating Rabbi Carol the text has also become an integral feature Levithan i s in prayer books, even in siddurim published C o n s u l t a n t in Israel for native Hebrew speakers. for Special Projects at The iddur Lev Shalem represents the essence Rabbinical of Conservative Judaism, combining historical wisdom with spiritual searching.

Assembly.

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32 CJ – Voices of conservative /masorti judaism Fall 2015

As one rabbi put it, “Lev Shalem stretches us in two directions: both toward the tradition and toward the contemporary.” It includes all the prayers and psalms familiar from previous Conservative siddurim yet makes them more accessible, with clear instructions and explanations as well as extensive transliteration. It is more literal and poetic. What’s more, the siddur serves as an anthology, offering a wide array of readings such as alternative versions of prayers from the Italian rite, which dates back to the first millennium in the land of Israel. The full range of Jewish historical and cultural experience is on these pages, inviting daveners to see themselves as links in an unbreakable chain of North African, Italian, Sephardic, Middle Eastern, and Ashkenazi Jews whose prayers are included, some for the first time in centuries.

The siddur is also a book for our time. An expanded collection of mi sheberakhim includes wording appropriate for gay couples who are marking life-cycle occasions celebrated in the synagogue – naming a baby girl, adoption, becoming grandparents, marking a birthday or anniversary, or traveling to Israel.

There is a prayer to be recited by mourners or those observing a yahrzeit when no minyan is present that includes a communal response, acknowledging the need for support when Kaddish cannot be said. Since the opening of the ark historically has been a time for personal prayer, the siddur includes additional meditations and private prayers. The siddur’s unique fourth column offers poems and an extraordinary array of other material that can be read, sung or recited responsively. These are drawn from the vast

FOR THE NEW SIDDUR

treasury of Jewish writing ranging from the Bible, Talmud and rabbinic midrash to the Rambam, Rav Nahman, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Mordecai Kaplan, Ismar Schorsch and modern poets such as Zelda, Marge Piercy, Marcia Falk, Yehuda Amichai, and many more.

The ancient practice of reciting the Song of Songs (still observed in Sefardi synagogues) offers an alternative for beginning the Friday evening service and, with other poetry, provides opportunities to teach and sing exquisite melodies from our rich musical tradition. For each festival there is a reading from or related to the megillah for that holiday, poems that speak to the unique quality of remembering loved ones in that season and a meditation “In Memory of a Parent Who Was Hurtful” that will resonate deeply for those unable to recite the traditional Yizkor prayer for a parent.

In 2014, the Rabbincal Aseembly distributed several thousand copies of First Fruits, the preliminary edition of Siddur Lev Shalem, to all rabbis, cantors and community leaders and to 10 test congregations around the country. These responses are from rabbis in those congregations:

artful and yet challenging endeavor of prayer to penetrate and transcend language, place and time. A contemporary translation paired with commentaries ancient, medieval and modern, Lev Shalem will provide my congregants with the powerful tool they need to have a meaningful and inspiring prayer experience."

Rabbi Daniel Pressman says members of Congregation Beth David in Saratoga, California, were quite receptive to First Fruits because they had enjoyed using Mahzor Lev Shalem. They were drawn especially to the spiritually focused fourth-column readings, which he used extensively during the High Holidays. Members were also happy with the “profusion of transliteration” and the sensitive gender neutral language.

Rabbi Ellen Wolintz-Fields of Congregation B’nai Israel, Tom’s River, New Jersey, has used First Fruits as a teaching tool for congregants “not so interested in prayer who find that it reads like a book.” She notes among its “fantastic innovations” the prayer for mourners when there is no minyan and describes a snowy Friday evening this past winter when members trudged to shul to say Kaddish, discovered there was no minyan and “were blown away by still being able to do Rabbi Jacob Herber of Congregation Beth Israel something to mark that occasion in their lives.”

Ner Tamid in Glendale, Wisconsin, reports that And there’s a post-bat mitzvah teen who keeps the new siddur “enables one engaged in the a copy in her tallit bag!

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o inspire and support greater home observance, Siddur Lev Shalem begins with a text on preparing for Shabbat followed by an expanded section for candle lighting with poetry, new meditations and readings as well as traditional blessings. Shabbat BaBayit (Shabbat at home) includes all home rituals, table songs (transliterated), Havdalah, and explanations of Shabbat rituals.

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iddur Lev Shalem is a book for shul and home, certain to nurture the tradition of owning prayer books and passing them on to the next generation. CJ

The Siddur Lev Shalem for Shabbat and Festivals Committee includes: Rabbi Edward Feld, Senior Editor; Rabbi Jan Uhrbach, Associate Editor; Rabbi David Ackerman, Cantor Joanna Dulkin, Rabbi Amy Wallk Katz, Rabbi Cantor Lilly Kaufman, Rabbi Alan Lettofsky, and Rabbi Rob Scheinberg.

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kehilla

For the Sake of Heaven With the help of a new book, even routine synagogue board meetings gain sparks of meaning.

By Rabbi Rachel Ain

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n Pirke Avot, Ethics of our Ancestors, 3:3, Rabbi Hananiah Ben Tradyon teaches that when two persons meet and do not exchange words of Torah, they are regarded as a company of scoffers, but if two people meet and do exchange words of Torah, the Shekhinah, the divine presence, hovers over them.

This teaching is a perfect explanation as to why we begin our executive committee meetings at Sutton Place Synagogue, in New York City, with words of Torah. The content of the teaching, and the meetings themselves, vary from month to month, but the goal remains the same: the work the lay and professional leadership is engaging in is sacred. Starting with words of Torah sets the stage for a meeting that is done l’shem shamayim, for the sake of heaven, even when discussing earthly and sometimes difficult matters.

Over the past year we have Rachel Ain is the rabbi of been studying the recently Sutton Place Synagogue in compiled book of essays, New York City. For the last year, Conservative Judaism: Today Sutton Place has been one of and Tomorrow, by Chancelmore than a dozen kehillot lor Arnold Eisen of the Jewish piloting a set of resources Theological Seminary. The goal to guide them in studying is to help us understand not Conservative Judaism Today only the major issues in the and Tomorrow. To purchase Jewish world of the 21st cencopies of the book (Kindle tury but how Judaism’s timeebook or hard copy) and access less ideas and wisdom can help the resources that JTS has direct very specific conversacreated to guide your studies, tions about what it means to visit jtsa.edu/today. lead a Conservative synagogue.

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Three essays in particular had enormous impact on our leadership. In the essay about community, Chancellor Eisen says, “Only strong face-to-face community has the power to persuade Jews to remain Jews and to sustain the conviction that our beliefs and values really matter to the world.” That led to a conversation about what Jewish values our congregation embodies. While not surprising, it was wonderful to have the participants enumerate the values of our community, from hospitality to learning, from prayer to tzedakah, respectful relationship, and more.

The chancellor’s comments allowed the leaders to understand not only what the synagogue does, but why.

The essay on covenant was also crucial when thinking about the role of leaders. In quoting Abraham Joshua Heschel, Chancellor Eisen shared, “Judaism provides a life-giving answer to what he called the vital personal question which every human being is called upon to answer, day in, day out. What shall I do with my mind, my wealth, my power?” This kind of question is crucial for leaders of any synagogue. They need to understand that they are there to think not only about themselves but about the people they serve. To start a meeting with this framework elevates the conversation to where it should be.

Finally, during the week of Israel’s Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day) and Yom HaAtzmaut (Independence Day) we framed our meeting with the “Peoplehood and Israel” essay. “It is also no coincidence that the Conservative Movement, with its stress upon Klal Yisrael, Hebrew, and Jewish history, has placed unique emphasis since its inception (and still does) upon connection to the People, Land, and State of Israel. Conservative Jews’ enthusiasm for Zionism and Israel is bound up in our guiding, fundamental conviction that the Torah is meant to be lived fully by the Jewish people in the radically new circumstances of modernity.” In reading these words, the congregation’s leaders saw themselves as part of a greater whole, a key value of Conservative Judaism. By connecting to Israel – both as a place and a people – we reminded ourselves of the global Jewish community in which we live.

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orah comes in all forms. There is the Torah of Moses, the Torah of the Rabbis, and Torah over the ages, that is, the Torah of people of all backgrounds and experiences

who mold it to provide answers, or at least meaningful questions, to those on life’s journey. The ability to study “with” Chancellor Eisen at our meetings has sharpened our conversations and focused our energies, and for this, we are grateful. CJ

From the essay, “Community,” in Conservative Judaism Today and Tomorrow.

by Chancellor Arnold Eisen

But the most important source of community among Jews is the Covenant to which we are summoned. A Conservative Jew has a front-row seat at Sinai, so to speak – and a seat at the tables of Jewish learning and action, where we do our best to figure out how Torah should be lived and taught here and now – in ways that have never before been imagined. Every one of us is needed for that work, not just rabbis or scholars. Physicians and scientists are needed, artists and investors, parents of children and children to aging parents. The experience of undertaking the task as part of a community enables us to understand why Torah has long been a “tree of life to those who hold fast to it.” Held fast by community, we chant those words with special fervor and hope that our dance around the Torah will never end.

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israel An insistence on the supremacy of ultra-Orthodoxy means that the Zionist vision of a hundred Jewish flowers blooming is still unfulfilled.

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anging over the entrance to Temple Israel Center, in White Plains, New York, is a banner proclaiming, “Wherever We Stand, We Stand With Israel.”

It was meant as an expression, in our local community, of a profound unity that underlies a healthy pluralism. Synagogues of four different movements subscribed to this slogan. We all worship differently. We all study Torah differently. We provide Jewish education for our children with different emphases. We interpret Jewish texts and Jewish history differently. And still, we are able to recognize that we shared a deep commitment to, and love for, the State of Israel. For all of the challenges that American Jewry faces today it is one of the glories of the American Jewish community that such things can happen.

But what the banner is about goes further than just a shared concern for a place that we love to visit, and in which so many of us have family. After all, we could also have a banner that says “Wherever We Stand, We Stand Against Anti-Semitism.”

But such a banner would say little more about Judaism and our relationship to it than that we have common enemies whom we will resist together.

The Israel That Is Still T To Be

By Rabbi Gordon Tucker

Gordon Tucker is the rabbi of Temple Israel Center in White Plains, New York Last spring, he, along with Susan and William Yarmuth, of Louisville, Kentucky, and Yizhar Hess, Masorti’s CEO in Israel, were honored by the Masorti Foundation for Conservative Judaism in Israel at a gala dinner. This essay is adapted from Rabbi Tucker’s speech.

36 CJ – Voices of conservative /masorti judaism Fall 2015

here is, in fact, a Zionism of fear. And it is not at all illegitimate. Let me emphasize that unequivocally. It is not at all illegitimate because it is about Israel’s role as a provider of safety for Jewish people in a world in which it is still not always safe to be a Jew. Zionism of fear is really a minimalist Zionism that does not say much about the positive things that a Jewish state could do for the furtherance and the flowering of Jewish culture. It is about safety. And a Zionism of fear – please note – need not be only about physical dangers.

Do you remember that ill-conceived and (thankfully) short lived advertising campaign fashioned in Israel almost four years ago, which aimed to convince Israeli ex-pats in the U.S. that their children would soon have no connection to Judaism? It was just another example of a Zionism of fear. And while something like this is not the motivation of every North American family that makes aliyah, it surely is for many. “My kids will be Jewish.” Or, “I will be able to practice Judaism as I wish to, without always being a minority.” It is not an illegitimate sentiment. But it is hardly sufficient.

What our banner represents is something far deeper than a Zionism of fear. It is about a Zionism of love. Because all who

are represented by that banner understand that Zionism is, at its core, about this: making it possible for Jews to give the fullest and most creative expression to the Jewish values and ideals that animate them. In other words, it is precisely because the Jewishness we share in our Westchester, New York, shtetl is enriched by its diversity, and by the respect we maintain for one another, that we stand with Israel. Because Israel is the place, and Zionism is the ideology, in which that diversification and flowering of Judaism can most fully take place. We share a love of that kind of Zionism, which means that we share a Zionism of love. And that is also why there are supporters of Masorti in the modern Orthodox community of our town as well.

Now, if it is one of the glories of American Judaism that such things can happen, it is also one of the most pressing aspirations for Israel that it become a routine and unexceptional reality there, as well.

Why pressing? Because of the obvious fact that a severe insistence on the preemptive supremacy of centuries-old religious laws and customs will not speak to the spiritual urgings and longings of most modern Israeli Jews. And I immediately add, as we should, that acknowledging this plain fact takes nothing away from the legitimacy of the private practice of ultra-Orthodox Judaism. It simply maintains that the continued dominance of that form of Jewish practice in publicly endorsed and enforced expressions of Judaism in Israel has long put us onto twin roads: one, losing many Israeli Jews to Judaism, and two, seeing Judaism’s own growth potential stifled by a state-sanctioned freezing of Jewish development.

And it is pressing on our shores as well.

For the estrangement of young, and not so young, Jewish Americans from Israel is badly exacerbated by the fact that the Zionist vision of a hundred Jewish flowers blooming is still unfulfilled. Let me put this in somewhat more universal terms.

You have all loved. And so you know that love always desires to be requited,not for

what we can do for the one we love, but for what and who we are.

I

love Israel. And I want it to love me back, not for what I can do for it.

Israel has always been pretty good at that kind of love. But for what and who

I am. As I love Israel, I believe – and as a rabbi, I preach – that we all should. But we should not have to feel that our love is heroic, offered in the face of unrequited feelings. It should be natural and joyful.

And one more thing about why this continues on page 39

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Jewish millennials By Rabbi Jeremy Fine

The Blockbuster Synagogue Synagogues beware: Don’t follow the video chain’s example by not adapting to today’s realities.

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n a bad day or in a search for tranquility, many people go to a spot that soothes the mind. For some this is the place they grew up, for others it’s a spiritual home, but for me (assuming I could not drive to Camp Ramah in Conover, Wisconsin) it was a Blockbuster video store. Among the sea of movie cases I would find myself looking for something to lighten my mood or to just lose myself in the endless gallery of Hollywood. Sadly, Blockbuster is gone. I, for one, miss the video store immensely.

I loved stumbling upon a film that I had never seen or one that reminded me of my youth. Finding it on Netflix or On Demand is just not the same. My daughters will never know from the physical video or DVD case or browsing for the perfect movie on a date. They will have it all instantly available on their television or cell phone.

Blockbuster died from the same two problems synagogues face when engaging millennials: laziness and an inability to adapt.

People are lazy. We are unwilling to get off the couch to look for a movie. We want our entertainment and information now, and the movie store down the street is just too far. I notice that many millennials struggle with the dilemma: If it is not in my neighborhood, then it’s not for me.

Millennials will forgo the show or experience for the simplicity of the couch.

This brings me to the second problem: our inability to adapt.

Blockbuster should have seen RedBox coming. Blockbuster should have understood the potential of Netflix. Because it

I urge rabbis and congregations to allow millennials to find the “new” and “hip” ways to become engaged, resulting in their becoming proactive leaders in the community. did not adapt it no longer exists. Movies did not die, nor did the desire to experience those films decrease. People are not bored with films; they just want to experience them differently. Synagogues do not have to die. But if synagogues cannot

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Jeremy Fine is associate rabbi at Temple of Aaron in St. Paul, Minnesota.

In 2014, the Jewish Daily Forward named him one of America’s most inspiring rabbis.

adapt to the changing needs of their users, they will cease to exist. We must approach the future with a knowledge of the past and the reality of the present.

“New” does not mean our approach should be hokey or masked by serving alcohol. It just means we need to listen and learn from the resources we have.

I spoke at the USCJ Centennial in 2013 about Temple of Aaron’s successful 20s and 30s group known as TAXY (Temple of Aaron Generation X and Y). The audience asked how to solve the problem of engaging young professionals. My response was if you are asking the question, you are not the one who will solve the problem. I urge rabbis and congregations to allow millennials to find the “new” and “hip” ways to become engaged, resulting in their becoming proactive leaders in the community. Synagogues need to follow the leads of RedBox and Netflix.

Lead the change and constantly evolve, rather than sitting on the principles of a Blockbuster.

We know Blockbuster was stubborn. By the time its leaders realized that survival meant adaptation, it was too late. Many of us have been stubborn, as well, but I know it is not too late. I encourage all synagogues to create a team to look for what is new in the community. Find new voices to help you locate the next big thing that is going to lure in members, expand participation, and ignite excitement. Attack these issues head on. Support your rabbi and leadership team’s decisions even if that means diverging from the norms of the past 50 years. Don’t become the Blockbuster synagogue. CJ

israel continued from page 37

is pressing: The estrangement of young Jewish Americans from Judaism is not at all unrelated to that estrangement from Israel. Because as Israel inexorably becomes home to the majority of the world’s Jews – perhaps in as little as ten years – Israel will not only be a definer of Zionism. Israeli Judaism will be a definer of Judaism itself. And that is something whose implications we must all seriously consider, and bring to the attention of everyone we know.

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s I said from the outset, I came to this, and have devoted time, money, and effort to it, out of the same motives that I think we all must. Out of deep love for Israel. Out of a Zionism of love. Out of a Zionism of hope. Out of a Zionism that wishes to contribute to Israel, and thus is willing to work for exactly those

conditions that will allow us to contribute.

I know none of you will ever ignore the significant dangers that face Israel both from other nations and from sub-state actors in its very harsh neighborhood.

But while it is true that Jewish law always taught that piku’ah nefesh – danger to life – must set aside other considerations, it never made the obviously false and selfdefeating assertion that when there is one danger to life, other critical factors that are also vital for sustaining life somehow become unimportant. And so, threats from Iran have not made the high-tech economy in Israel any less important.

Threats from Hamas have never made Israeli medical research that benefits the entire world less important. So how could anyone believe that the existence of those threats allows us to play dangerously with one of the very cornerstones of Zionism – the creation of conditions for

the flowering of Jewish expression, and thus for the fully requited love of all Jews?

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epublicans and Democrats alike, Likudniks and Laborites alike, as much as they express their patriotism differently, all depend on the same air. And so, the effort to keep a Zionism of love alive, the effort to prevent the suffocation of the Jewish diversity we have yearned to see rooted in its own soil for 2,000 years – these efforts must proceed simultaneously with all the things we conscientiously do to guard the physical security of the State. On this, we can and should all agree. We must agree. Because there is no other way to fulfill Zionism’s great vision, a vision in which I deeply believe. I exhort you to take as a life-long mission, Z’khor, al tishkah. Remember.

Do not forget this call to work for an even truer love, for the Israel that is still to be. CJ

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conservative judaism

How We Decide Jewish Law

In Conservative Judaism the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards is the body that decides if, when, and how Jewish law should change.

By Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff

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PHOTO: Todd Cheney

cting in accordance with the mitzvot has always been key to what it means to be a Jew, and Conservative Judaism has always required the observance of the laws of classical Judaism. That is why we are called the “Conservative”movement, or, in Hebrew, Masorti (traditional): we intend to conserve the tradition by studying it and practicing it. Consequently, the movement invests as much talent and energy as possible in Jewish education on all levels: schools, youth groups, camps, conventions, trips to Israel and other Jewish communities, adult programs, and publications such as this. The emphasis is not on how we can or should change Jewish law; it is rather on motivating and helping Jews observe Jewish law.

Historically, there have been times when the law had to change so it could more effectively tie people to the Jewish tradition and guide their lives. Deciding when such additions or modifications are necessary, and how they should be made, requires considerable judgment and risk, and consequently Conservative Judaism has made the decision a communal matter for both rabbis and laypeople. The movement uses the same three mechanisms to decide matters of law as Jews have always used: decisions of the local rabbi, decisions of a communal body, and custom.

Rabbi Elliot Dorff is chair of the Conservative movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, Rector and Distingished Service Professor of Philosophy at the American Jewish University, and Visiting Professor at UCLA School of Law. He is the author of Conservative Judaism: Our Ancestors to Our Descendants; The Unfolding Tradition: Philosophies of Jewish Law; and For the Love of God and People: A Philosophy of Jewish Law.

40 CJ – Voices of conservative /masorti judaism Fall 2015

The local rabbi. In most cases when a question is raised it is answered by the mara d’atra, the teacher of the place. The rabbi gains the right to make such decisions by virtue of his or her education and election as the rabbi of the congregation, school, youth group, or camp. Most such questions and answers were communicated orally, and that remains true to this day.

Communities without a rabbi would have written to one, who would sometimes consult with another rabbi with expertise in that specific area. The second rabbi would then write an answer.

That kind of consultation among rabbis goes on to this very day, usually over the telephone or by e-mail. In the end, though, it is the local rabbi who still makes the decision.

The communal body. In Jewish history there have been times when there was a central agency that made decisions for a region or community, such as the Sanhedrin (from as early as 450 BCE until 361 CE), the Geonim in Babylonia (650-1050 CE), or the meetings of rabbis at commercial fairs in Europe from the 11th-17th centuries. Even today, the [Orthodox] Chief Rabbinate in England, France and Israel officially determines Jewish law for those communities. However, due to freedom of religion in those countries, the Conservative and Reform movements are attempting to provide non-Orthodox options.

In line with these precedents, the Conservative Movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS or the “Law Committee”) determines Jewish law for its members. When a rabbi thinks that a question should be addressed on a movement-wide basis, or when a Conservative organization must make a decision of halakhic policy, an authorized representative may send the question to the CJLS. The committee determines which questions it will address and a member of the Rabbinical Assembly is invited to write a ruling on the question.

The CJLS consists of 25 members of the Rabbinical Assembly, 15 chosen by the president of the RA, five recommended by the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, and another five by the president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. There are also five lay members appointed by the president of USCJ who may even team up with a rabbi to write a teshuvah (responsum, ruling) but who do not vote. Finally, there is a non-voting representative of the Cantors Assembly. An effort is made to ensure that the committee includes women and men and a variety of different age groups, geographical locations (including Israel), ideological positions, and areas of expertise so that it can represent the movement fairly.

If a given teshuvah gets six or more votes, it becomes a valid option for

Conservative Jews. This means, of course, that there may be more than one valid option on a given issue, and there are indeed some matters about which two or more options have been approved. The CJLS deliberately allows for this pluralism so that the spectrum of communal practices can be expressed. When there are two or more approved teshuvot, the local rabbi chooses the one that best fits his or her own understanding of Jewish law and the needs of the community. In most cases, though, there is only one option, and that reflects the other side of the coin, namely, that there is much

There may be more than one valid option on a given issue... The CJLS deliberately allows for this pluralism so that the spectrum of communal practices can be expressed. in common in the practice of Conservative Jews.

In a few cases, a matter is considered so important that a teshuvah is introduced as a Standard of Religious Practice for the movement. Until now these have been situations in which Reform Judaism’s practice has varied from the tradition, and the Conservative movement has wanted to reaffirm its commitment to traditional practice in a very definitive way. To become a standard of the movement, a teshuvah must be approved by four-fifths of the Law Committee and by a majority of those voting at the next Rabbinical Assembly convention. A rabbi or a synagogue that violates a standard is subject to dismissal from the movement.

So far there are three such standards: 1. A Conservative rabbi or cantor may not officiate or attend the marriage of a Jew to a non-Jew, even if the ceremony is a purely civil ceremony, and Conservative synagogues may not be used for such weddings. (1972) 2. Jews who have been divorced in state law must give (in the case of a man) or receive (in the case of a woman) a Jewish writ of divorce (a get) before being allowed to remarry (unless one of the partners has died or the original marriage is annulled by the movement’s rabbinic court). (1975) 3. Jewish identity is defined by being born to a Jewish woman or being halakhically converted to Judaism, including both a significant educational process and the required rituals. (1986) There are obviously many Jewish laws that the Conservative movement shares but that have not been made standards.

No Conservative synagogue, for example, will have a non-kosher kitchen, and no Conservative synagogue will sponsor activities that involve writing or the exchange of money on Shabbat. Conservative prayer services will be primarily in Hebrew, every Conservative synagogue will make provision for the ongoing education of Jews of all ages, and every Conservative institution will see the moral imperatives of our tradition as binding and will strive in some way to improve the world (tikkun olam). This broad group of shared commitments – and there are many more – need not be put into standards because they have not been challenged. Individual Jews, of course, live up to these laws to greater or lesser degrees, but they join the Conservative movement knowing that it stands for this broadly shared set of practices, and, in many cases, they join because they want to affiliate with people and institutions who understand and practice Judaism as the Conservative movement does.

Three points ought to be emphasized about our approach to interpreting Jewish continues on page 54

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conservative judaism

Camp, to Last a Lifetime Reshet Ramah, Camp Ramah’s alumni and community engagement network, is poised to expand the role that camp plays in building Jewish community.

By Rabbi Abigail Treu

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hen Gabe Scott­ Dicker, 30, lost his mother last year, he found himself wondering where he was going to say Kaddish.

Like most in his generation, he does not belong to a synagogue. Raised i n We s t Ca l d we l l , New Jersey, and now living in Manhattan, he visited many and felt welcomed by all.

But none of them felt quite right. “What I really wanted was that feeling you get at camp,” he realized. “I wanted that Friday night Camp Ramah experience again.” Out of that realization was born the Ramah Minyan, started by Gabe and fellow Camp Ramah in New England alumni Jenna Silverman and Allison Moser. They reached out to friends hailing from all the Ramah camps, and held their first service last February in a space provided by Park Avenue Synagogue. That Shabbat, 165 young adults in their 20s and 30s attended; on weeks when dinner is served, more than 200 come. While a core of regulars is emerging, the number of newcomers continues to climb as the Ramah Minyan meets every other Friday night.

42 CJ – Voices of conservative /masorti judaism Fall 2015

Ramah alumni celebrate Purim 5775 with other young adults from several Manhattan synagogues.

Rabbi Abigail Treu is Director of Community Outreach and Young Adult Engagement at the National Ramah Commission. She previously served as a Rabbinic Fellow and National Director of the Women’s League Torah Fund Campaign at The Jewish Theological Seminary.

“What’s amazing is that many of these are not people you’d ever see going to Shabbat services otherwise,” said Rabbi Ed Gelb, director of Camp Ramah in New England, looking at the list of his former campers on the Ramah Minyan roster.

Me a n w h i l e, 2 3 -­ year ­old Talia Spitzer moved to Dallas for a new job. She knew no one, but soon discovered that as she met new people, the ones she felt the most immediate connection to all had one thing in common: Ramah. An alumna of Camp Ramah in California, she organized an after work evening at a lounge for young adult Ramah alumni and their friends. “I hope that Ramah alumni know that now there is a community for them in Dallas,” she said. “And that if you ever end up in a city in which you have never stepped foot, as I did, chances are there will be a Ramah network there to support you.”

That is Reshet Ramah’s mission: to use the power and passion of the existing Ramah alumni

PHOTOGRAPHY FOR THIS ARTICLE: Travis W Keyes©

network to increase adult Jewish engagement and create stronger, more vibrant Jewish communities. (Reshet in Hebrew means “network.”) Funded by a grant from The AVI CHAI Foundation and the Maimonides Fund, with additional support from the Jim Joseph Foundation and a number of local funders in various cities, it is a grand experiment, one that stands to make a real impact on the fabric of the Conservative movement and the North American Jewish community as a whole.

It is a bold step for the 68­-year-old Ramah system. Ramah, the camping arm of Conservative Judaism, boasts eight overnight camps, five day camps, the Tichon Ramah Yerushalayim (TRY) high school semester in Israel, the Ramah Seminar summer experience in Israel, and the Ramah Israel Institute travel program for schools, synagogues and family groups. Last summer more than 10,500 individuals (counting both campers and staff) participated in Ramah programs. This number is on the upswing: Camp Ramah in New England recently added two new bunks to accommodate increased demand, Camp Ramah in California will add a new edah (age division) next summer, Camp Ramah in the Rockies has grown to full capacity after only five years of operation, and the newest Ramah overnight camp is set to open next summer in northern California.

Clearly Ramah knows how to run great camps. But what does that have to do with stepping into the current trend of Jewish engagement work?

We estimate that there are approximately 250,000 “Ramahniks,” as alumni like to call themselves. When the 2013 Pew Survey of Jewish Americans was published and quantified what every rabbi and Jewish educator could have told you – that affiliation rates are plummeting, that millennials don’t want to belong to institutions built by previous generations, that only 33 percent of American

The Reshet Ramah mission is to use the power and passion of the existing Ramah alumni network to increase adult Jewish engagement and create stronger, more vibrant Jewish communities.

Jews between the ages of 18 to 29 state that being Jewish is “very important” to them – the time seemed ripe for Ramah to leverage the positive emotional impact of its brand and augment the good work being done by synagogues and so many in the community.

To be sure, Reshet Ramah is still in the entrepreneurial, experimental stage, and its mission is not limited solely to millennials. As Joel Einleger, Director of Strategy, Camp Programs, at The AVI CHAI Foundation observed when the project was announced, “Reshet Ramah will seize the opportunity to build a stronger movement from the huge numbers of alumni of the Ramah camps across North America…that will in effect extend the

More than 270 alumni of Ramah, USY, JTS, and Schechter students filled a New York nightclub to celebrate Chanukkah last December.

experience begun in a Ramah camp years or even decades earlier.” In other words, the bonds built at camp really do last a lifetime, and the hope is that through Reshet Ramah those bonds will be nurtured at various stages of life beyond the camper years.

The initial start-up phase was about building infrastructure, such as the creation of the Find Alumni Directory, and the Reshet Ramah website, www. reshetramah.org with stories of alumni marriages, reflections, accounts from olim, and news of upcoming events. The camps needed time to think through the impact of a national-level alumni initiative and how their own individual alumni associations would connect to that. And then there were people to galvanize, a board to establish, and programs to begin to imagine and build. Two years into the endeavor, we feel that Reshet Ramah is starting to see real traction.

What we are finding is that there is nothing cookie-cutter about this work.

As we seed garinim, councils of alumni in cities across North America and Israel, each group is empowered to create its own programs with its own ideas. In San Francisco, the garin has leaned toward “boutique” events: Shabbat dinner at an continues on page 55

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the bookshelf

By Lisa Silverman Lisa Silverman is director of the Sinai Temple Blumenthal Library, Los Angeles.

Paper Love: Searching for the Girl My Grandfather Left Behind Sarah Wildman Riverhead Books, 2014; 400 pages

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hen journalists decide to explore their family roots, it often makes for absorbing reading. From Daniel Mendelsohn’s Lost and Lucette Lagnado’s The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit to Roger Cohen’s recent

A Reunion of Ghosts Judith Claire Mitchell Harper, 2015; 400 pages he title of this absorbing and darkly comic novel refers to a group of ghosts, and it is a very fitting title. Three smart and sardonic sisters, Jewish New Yorkers with a devastating family history, make a decision to kill themselves on the last day of the 20th century. The novel is the treatise they write as a collective suicide note – something their ghostly ancestors (who all died by their own hands) never had the courtesy to leave to them.

for their German scientist great-grandfather’s invention of poison gas – the killing machine of World War I and the precursor to Zyklon B. (The character is based on the controversial Fritz Haber – chemist, Jewish-born Lutheran, and friend of Einstein who fled from the Nazis before his sinister chemical concoctions could kill him.) The details of the difficult Alter family legacy give the reader insight into their motivations and we are put in the position of oddly empathizing with their macabre desire while hoping they will find a way out of doing the final deed.

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ate has dealt the middle-aged Alter sisters an unlucky hand. The novel moves back and forth in time between their individual lives and devastating losses to the story of their great-grandfather, Lorenz Otto Alter, whose horrifying sins caused the family curse they believe they have inherited. “The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children to the 3rd & 4th generations” is the biblical quote tattooed on the calf of Delph, the youngest sister, and the one who most strongly believes in her family’s twisted fate. “Genius and monster,” they write of their ancestor, “he was the scientist who doomed us all.” Delph lives with her older sisters, Lady and Vee, and they describe themselves as a “partnerless, childless and petless sorority.” They intend to end it all in cosmic atonement

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e like the sisters and root for them.

It’s true that they are depressed and haunted by the past, but they find droll humor in the darkness. Lady’s first suicide attempt reads like a scene from Curb Your Enthusiasm. Of course, knowing she did not succeed helps, but even she says from her hospital bed: “Someday this will be funny.” And there are laughs throughout the book, from the 19th century portrait of Otto Von Bismarck hanging over the toilet to the offhand inclusion of the travails of Nim Chimpsky, the chimp who knows sign language. The themes of fate, coincidence, family ties and family curses, and the power of genetics are all bound up in the sisters’ smart and acerbic observations. This is what keeps us reading and on edge with hope for their redemption.

The Girl from Human Street, readers willingly follow these dedicated and talented researchers in their quests. But in this captivating book, author Sarah Wildman attempts to reconstruct the life of a rather peripheral member of her family, her grandfather’s ill-fated lover whom he left behind when he escaped Vienna in 1938.

Her name has never been mentioned by any of Wildman’s own family members.

After her beloved grandfather’s death,

Wildman found a cache of love letters hidden away in some old files. He was a doctor who had graduated from the University of Vienna and escaped with his immediate family six months after Hitler annexed Austria. His girlfriend’s family did not make the same fortuitous choice.

Wildman had never heard this story and her search to find out what happened to Valy Sheftel became a personal obsession. Thanks to some clever detective work, and a few lucky breaks,

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44 CJ – Voices of conservative /masorti judaism Fall 2015

Wildman recreates three years in the life of this one woman with such precision that the reader feels the day to day restrictions and deportations, and the pathos as Valy pleads for help with emigration. Her letters are interspersed with descriptions of historical events.

Wildman’s own pregnancy impacts the narrative, as well, as she shares tales of odd roommates in Berlin and Vienna and finds herself uncomfortable while following possibly fruitless leads.

It’s a wonder she didn’t quit.

Wildman’s “you-are-there” brand of storytelling follows the sickening course of events with palpable tension as the vise is being closed around the Jewish population of Vienna. It is a true account, backed by actual letters and Germany’s own efficient paper trail, which she has painstakingly reconstructed, learning about herself and her grandfather in the process. It’s Wildman’s obsession, but it is a righteous obsession and a significant addition to our understanding of the Holocaust.

NOTE: The paperbook edition of Paper Love will be out in October.

Electric City Elizabeth Rosner Counterpoint, 2014; 304 pages

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lizabeth Rosner has a rare mix of talents. Both a poet and a novelist, she blends these two skills with such ease that her novels flow with a lyrical beauty that transcends the plotline and provides us with many moments to stop and simply treasure her remarkable way with words.

Electric City, her most recent novel, moves back and forth in time between the early 20th century fascination with all things electric (in Schenectady, New York, General Electric’s “company town”), and the changing America of the 1960s and ’70s reflected in the city’s decline.

The mathematician Char les Proteus Steinmetz, a German immigrant and colleague/rival of Thomas Edison, figures prominently in the novel. Also prominent are the descendants of those Steinmetz adopted, keeping his vow never to father children of his own.

Steinmetz and his experiments with electric current serve as the backdrop to the love triangle between Sophie Levine, a Jewish teenager, Henry Van Curler, the son of the town’s wealthiest family, and Martin Longboat, a Mohawk whose roots extend back farther than the town itself. Sophie’s scientist father and her mother were drawn to what was known as “Electric City” after the Holocaust, and they spent their lives working for GE. When the teenage Sophie finds herself in the company of these particular boys, in the summer of 1968, they create lasting friendships that overcome the slow dying of their town due to pollution, discrimination, and the inevitable march of history. At 16, Sophie’s life changes. We are touched by the intimacy of first love, the enormity of the American immigrant experience, the legacy of indigenous people, and the last gasps of a dying town.

Safekeeping Jessamyn Hope Fig Tree Books, 2015; 371 pages

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t’s the summer of 1994 on Kibbutz Sadot Hadar near the city of Haifa, a small but proud agricultural community in the process of profound change. Israeli society as a whole appears to be on the brink of change, as well.

Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat are about to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, but municipal buses are being bombed regularly.

Three strangers arrive as kibbutz volunteers: Ulya, a licentious beauty from the former Soviet Union with big dreams; Adam, a Jewish New Yorker and recovering drug addict on a mission;

and Claudette, a mentally disturbed young Catholic from Quebec with an agonizing past.

Each is searching for redemption although none can imagine how the summer will change them forever.

Ziva, the kibbutz matriarch who arrived from Vienna before the Holocaust, founded the kibbutz with her future husband, became a widow in the War of Independence, and is living out her days, suffering from a variety of conditions, but never once taking a day off from work. But times are changing. The kibbutz can no longer sustain itself without both Arab laborers and outside volunteers, and no one even thinks of raising kids in the children’s house anymore.

A vote is looming – should people be paid differential wages for different work? To Ziva, it is the beginning of the end of what she devoted her life to achieving. To the other three, whose lives intersect with hers, it is a way out of their sea of troubles.

Adam is a depressive who self-medicates with alcohol and drugs. He steals and sells a fabulous medieval jeweled brooch from his grandfather to pay off drug dealers, then commits another crime in his desperation to get it back and give it to the one he believes is its rightful owner. Claudette is affected by a serious case of OCD, and Ulya has lied about everything, including her Jewish background, in order to escape her dismal prospects back home. These women are unlikely and unlikable roommates on a collision course with Adam and perhaps Ziva as well. Can these characters make the decisions that will save their futures? The writing of the final scenes of redemption is emotionally charged and beautifully done. Although the characters may not be people you would want to spend one moment of your time with, they are realistic, flawed people who are transformed by the novel’s end. CJ

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federation of jewish men’s clubs

As I See It Even teens are interested in learning from one another in same sex groups.

by Rabbi Charles Simon

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few weeks ago I witnessed a teen Shabbat in the congregation where I am a member. It was a wonderful experience. ApproxiRabbi Charles mately 100 young Simon is executive men and women director of the came together Federation of Jewish and led the ShabMen's Clubs. bat morning service, but not in a traditional way.

Rather than have a group of them or a small cadre lead the prayers, the service was divided into a series of divrei Torah (short explanations) focusing on different prayers and how the speakers struggled to find meaning in their words. I was fascinated listening to these young people share their insights into the prayers that so many of us take for granted and recite in a rote-like manner.

The highlight of the service for me was a brief presentation made by a collegebound senior who explained that the one experience he found most valuable during his high school years and that he thought he might not be able to replicate at the university was his men’s group.

That’s right, a men’s group.

Part of the synagogue’s youth programming included separate men’s and women’s groups with each group meeting

once a month. The combined group also met on a regular basis. The presenter indicated the group was valuable because in addition to pizza parties and sporting events, it provided him with the forum to share his concerns and fears about being accepted into college, or his feelings of inadequacy and fears of rejection prior to asking a young woman out for a date.

I would like to think that the young men who participated in this group developed the confidence and the ability to share their feelings as a result of their experiences. I would hope that the same would go for the women.

Even though we live during a time when glass ceilings are finally crumbling, and the young women of today don’t even comprehend the struggles that the generations that preceded them had in order for them to be able to reach as far and as high as they desire, a need still exists for men and women to listen and learn from one another. Our young people are under such pressure these days and let’s face it, it doesn’t get much easier. Perhaps that is one of the reasons the Hearing Men’s Voices Initiative is successful. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why men’s groups are becoming more active in their congregations even though membership in general is in decline. Perhaps congregations should rethink a youth group model which hasn’t been significantly altered in 50 years so that the women and men who participate are able to grow into more comfortable mature adults. CJ

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Announcing New President Allan Gottesman was recently installed as president of the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs.

Born in Toronto, Canada, his family moved to Cooper City, Florida, 33 years ago. His father, a Holocaust survivor, spent most of the war in Auschwitz. Gottesman is a member of a large family that was active in synagogues in Toronto and Cooper City. His goals as president are to strengthen regions and clubs, to make each member feel that he is part of the FJMC, to foster movement collaboration, and to focus on Israel.

Building Shabbat Community Written by Robert Braitman and Norm Kurtz, with support from the Cantors Assembly and the Jewish Educators Assembly, with a preface

by JTS Chancellor Dr. Arnold Eisen, this book contains curricula for both a model learners service and for an interpretive service. Both were field tested this past year in a number of congregations.

About the Interpretive Minyan Twenty-forty people attended Beth Israel Congregation’s three sessions of the interpretive minyan in the fall of 2014.

Participants were a mix of regulars, tired of the normal service, and those who came to adult learning programs. We sat in a circle and made it clear that questions were encouraged and conversation was welcome. The final 20-30 minutes were devoted to a text study focusing on the importance of community, personal growth and blessings in our lives.

We really enjoyed the intimate setting and have received plenty of lovely feedback and requests to continue the program more regularly. (Rabbi Rachel Blatt, Michael Freilich, Beth Israel Congregation, Owings Mills, MD) Jews love and cherish what has been handed down to us by our tradition, yet much of what we now cherish as traditional began as innovation. When times have changed, Judaism has changed with them, in sometimes surprising and novel ways. And when the familiar no longer registers as sacred, that very familiarity diminishes our capacity for transcendence. The psalmist urges us to new expressions of our faith, to interpret our yearning for sacred connection in new ways and in communal settings.

Our interpretive service has created connections among our members that would otherwise never have occurred, including long-time members who had not come on Shabbat. The participants learn in the context of a low-key group of friends. It is wonderful addition. (Rabbi Jeff Pivo, Congregation Beth Judea, Long Grove, IL) And Don’t Forget the Learner’s Service The FJMC’s Learners Minyan curriculum has met with great success at Temple Emanu-El. Participants Included past congregation presidents, current officers and board members, as well as Shabbat morning regulars, and participants in our past and current conversion classes. All appreciated the step-by-step approach examining the various segments of the service.

The intimate environment of the synagogue’s library was conducive to learning and davening. The topics in the study guide stimulated enthusiastic inquiry and prompted people to ask questions that they had wondered about for years. Thank you for developing the program and for inviting us to serve as one of the pilot congregations. Congregants have already begun asking when we will continue these services! (Rabbi Wayne Franklin, Temple Emanu-El, Providence, RI) CJ

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SAVE THE DATE!

federation of jewish men’s clubs

Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs

National Israel Mission Led by Rabbi Charles Simon May 26, 2016 – June 5, 2016

Come See the Start-Up Nation!

Women’s League for Conservative Judaism announces its new membership initiative

JOIN AS AN INDIVIDUAL! As a member, you can: connect with Jewish women of all ages and all walks of life gain a voice in local, regional, national, and international Jewish issues access Jewish educational materials and traditional (and not-so-traditional) resources Join alone, join with your sister, join with a friend, and become part of our network of 75,000 women worldwide.

Go to www.wlcj.org to join or for additional information

Annual membership: $36 48 CJ – Voices of conservative /masorti judaism Fall 2015

new book releases FJMC is proud to announce the availability of these new publications, which are available at www.fjmc.org and Amazon.com.

BIBLICAL LEADERSHIP AFTER MOSES This book was written in honor of Dr. Burton ("Captain Ruach") Fischman upon his receiving a lifetime achievement award from the FJMC. The essays and stories were selected both to educate about a period in biblical history and to raise questions about leadership from the biblical authors’ points of view.

MY CHILD IS ABOUT TO...

This is a facilitator’s guide based on the most current research about intermarriage.

Designed for either a lay person or social worker/psychologist to use to lead a group, it provides questions and important information to help parents and potential parents to understand intermarriage and work with their children.

MINYAN OF COMFORT This is an impactful three-hour course designed to teach congregants about the ritual and social needs of leading a shiva minyan. A joint educational effort between FJMC and the Cantors Association, Women's League is also participating in its implementation.

united synagogue of conservative judaism

Getting to Yes On navigating through disruptive times and shaping our collective future

by Margo Gold

PHOTO: Chris Savas

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s the new International President of United Synagogue, I am excited to help lead USCJ on its continuing course to be the responsive, innovative and visionary organization needed to support our congregations in what are so often referred to as disruptive times.

To me, disruptive times can be the impetus to explore innovation, Margo Gold is embrace change and follow paths international that lead in crucial new directions. president of To that end, our USCJ officers, board United Synagogue members and senior staff took part in of Conservative a massive open online course (otherJudaism. wise known as a MOOC), taught by Dr. Otto Scharmer of MIT, devoted to a concept he calls Theory U, a framework for how to sense and lead from an emerging future. It is all about leading in disruptive times.

We took this class in order to explore how best to position USCJ to meet the needs not only of its kehillot, but the changing religious landscape that surrounds them. Though many speak of change, it is hard to know how to achieve it, let alone bring others along with you.

In his work, Dr. Scharmer and his colleagues present a path to help institutions, individuals and groups navigate toward a vision of the future that is not necessarily a direct line from the present. What does one need to let go of, they ask, in order to let other things emerge? For the Jewish community, this includes challenges such as engaging millennials who don’t necessarily see themselves within the institutional structures that currently exist. It is about dwindling resources, financial health, and most of all, embracing change while being true to the connection to Torah, to Israel, to one another and to living a life of value, rooted in mitzvot that are the hallmark of Conservative Judaism.

Everyone likes to get to an answer of “yes.” When we apply for a job, when we propose marriage. Getting to “yes” is the goal for USCJ. Do we create learning communities that bring together like-sized congregations to explore timely needs with each other and with expert consultants? Yes. Do we have action communities that help congregations become more inclusive in meaningful ways to those with disabilities?

To explore the means to synagogue financial sustainability?

To be prepared for and to navigate a congregational strategic planning process? Yes, yes and yes. Do we have an intensive program that helps kehillot engage and deepen relationships with and among emerging congregational leaders?

Yes. Do we recognize the Shechinah, the divine presence, within everyone in our community and provide an opportunity for young adults with autism to spend a gap year in Israel on our Nativ program? Yes, we do.

The list could go on, but you get the idea. It is our commitment and responsibility to listen, to respond and to be a resource of excellence for service, innovation and vision for our kehillot, for the Conservative movement and for the Jewish world. We seek to get to “yes.”

And speaking of yes, will you join me in November at the USCJ 2015 Convention in Schaumberg, Illinois, outside Chicago? Our Centennial celebration two years ago began the conversation and this convention will dig even deeper.

You and your kehilla team are invited to help us shape the center, with emphasis on the action verb “shape.”

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s part of our work on Theory U, the officers and staff spent a morning shaping two sculptures. One represented what USCJ looks like today, and the other depicted our ideal vision. It was ultimately a powerful and inspiring exercise. Come to convention, bring your perspective (I know you have one) and be part of collectively shaping the sculpture that is our emerging future.

Please say “yes.”CJ

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Women’s League for Conservative Judaism Visit us at www.wlcj.org.

Taking Stock in a Changing World: Personally and Institutionally Since its inception in 1918, Women’s League has sought to expand the role of Jewish women beyond the home and synagogue.

by Carol S. Simon

PHOTO: Rob Harris

D

o you recall your first portable phone, that huge brick that really wasn’t very portable? I recall my 92-year-old father-in-law, of blessed memory, who didn’t encounter electricity until he was 13, complaining about how slow his computer was. Or have you tried explaining to a grandchild that you watched what was on TV when it was shown and not when you wanted to watch it on a recording Carol S. Simon device? All of these experiences, plus is international so many more, make us realize how president of quickly the world is changing.

Women’s League The sisterhoods that make up the for Conservative backbone of Women’s League for ConJudaism. servative Judaism know they need to adjust their programs and structures to impact their members. They are only too aware of the need to remain vibrant, relevant and innovative to build and maintain a strong network of Conservative/Masorti women in our synagogues.

With the High Holidays upon us, it is time for each of us, as individuals, to evaluate where we need to go in the year to come. But organizations can’t wait for the holidays to reconsider where they are going and what they are doing. Throughout this past year, the leadership of Women’s League has been taking stock. Our goals have been defined and examined as we continually asked ourselves if we are addressing our goals the

50 CJ – Voices of conservative /masorti judaism Fall 2015

best that we can. Most importantly, throughout this process we have given ourselves permission to change.

We understand that our regions and sisterhoods are challenged to find volunteers willing to take on the responsibilities of previous generations. Yet, regardless of how busy we are with careers and family, we do find time for the things that we want to do. We also know that it is more fun to do things with friends. The work is still there, but now it’s being done in teams of friends (even if the friendship just began) working together to accomplish so much more.

Women’s League’s new structure encompasses nine working teams, from services to regions and sisterhoods, to communications, programming, Israel, social action, and Torah Fund. We are encouraging our regions and sisterhoods to evaluate their structures and create the teams that they need to accomplish their specific goals. We support collaboration between the teams and opportunities for leadership development within our regions.

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ur goals remain the same – effective relationships between sisterhoods, regions and Women’s League, focusing on service to our members. We realize that through this assessment of needs and restructuring, sisterhoods and regions might each look different. We no longer ask what “must we have?” but rather “what are our needs?”

Our members are at the top of our service pyramid, supported by sisterhoods and regions, with the goal of connecting them to Women’s League. Women’s League Reads: our on line book club, Distance Workshops once a month, an increased

presence on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and listserves for sharing ideas are all ways we are reaching out to our membership. You can share in any of these programs at www.wlcj. org. This year we plan to add a Rosh Chodesh group, YouTubes addressing sisterhood challenges and introducing new educational materials, updated region websites, and an all new Women’s League app.

Innovative, relevant and committed! We are proud of how our members and regions have embraced this process. We know that we have the flexibility and vision to change with the times.

May this new year bring you sweetness, health, happiness and the ability to take some time to connect with a sisterhood or region in your community. We may not be your mother’s sisterhood any more, but we are your network, the network for all Conservative Jewish women.

From our family to yours, l’shana tova tikatevu. CJ

Bar/Bat Mitzvah Program for Children with Special Needs

For decades, the members of Women’s League for Conservative Judaism have been staunch supporters of the Masorti Bar/Bat Mitzvah Program for Children with Special Needs in Israel, and many have attended these incredibly moving ceremonies. At every international convention and regional conference, tzedakah has been collected to support this innovative and unique program that provides the most severely disabled children the opportunity to participate in joining the adult Jewish community.

We hope that you will help us in supporting this program, especially as it faces challenges from some in the ultra-Orthodox community in Israel.

WOMEN’S LEAGUE FOR CONSERVATIVE JUDAISM 2015-2016 Calendar Diary 5776 5776 Calendar Diary features: • Shabbat and holiday listings • Candle lighting times in cities in the United States, Canada and Israel • Ample room for notes • Prayers and berakhot • Locations of sisterhoods in North America and congregations in Israel Special for 5776 This year’s calendar is designed to inspire users with thoughtful words and motivational suggestions taken from an array of Women’s League materials and programs.

To order: Online at www.wlcj.org or send coupon with check or money order to: WOMEN’S LEAGUE FOR CONSERVATIVE JUDAISM 475 Riverside Drive, Suite 820 New York, New York 10115 212.870.1260/FAX 212.870.1261 For one copy: US$10.00 Includes postage and handling Quantity Discounts (including postage & handling) 11-25 US$9.25 each 26-50 US$8.50 each 51 or more US$8.00 each Note: Returns accepted up to 30 days.

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Women’s League for Conservative Judaism

The Newest Generation of Religious Leadership for Our Movement Our rabbinical schools are graduating new rabbis who are striving to create a dynamic future.

by Debbi Kaner Goldich

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hen I was a child in the 1950s and ’60s, rabbis were all middle aged men. My beloved childhood rabbi, Jerome Weistrop, and those I met traveling to a USY kinnus each weekend in different shuls in the Boston area all looked the same to me. But I never realized this fact until I started to participate in the Torah Fund Campaign of Women’s League for Conservative Judaism more than 25 years ago.

As our movement began to include

Debbi Kaner Goldich is a vice president of Women’s League for Conservative Judaism and chair of the Torah Fund Campaign.

Everyone joined in the celebrations at the JTS ordination.

women in religious roles, so did the pictures of the seminary students in The Torah Fund Guide that I received as sisterhood Torah Fund chair. As the seminaries’ student populations started to include older, second career students who also needed to support their families, so did the Torah Fund materials giving us new reasons to donate. And, as Women’s League reached the two million plus dollar donation mark each year, we showed our collective ability by sponsoring projects that supported both the students and the institutions of higher learning of the Conservative movement.

Just before Shavuot, Women’s League President Carol Simon, Torah Fund Executive Director Rabbi Lilly Kaufman and I attended ordination ceremonies for 24 new rabbis and two cantors at the Ziegler

52 CJ – Voices of conservative /masorti judaism Fall 2015

School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles and the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. The leadership and administration of both schools paid tribute to Women’s League and Torah Fund for its more than 93 million dollars donated over the last 72 years.

Experiencing these ceremonies up close renewed my pride at being part of the Conservative movement. Diverse in the way they looked, their ages, and how they choose to practice their new roles, the graduates were united in their desire to serve the Conservative movement.

They will become directors of campus Hillels, pastors in facilities for older congregants, researchers and educators, as well as pulpit rabbis and cantors. Watching the love they had for each other, for their teachers and for Judaism was, for

donations are accepted If you would like to donate to Torah Fund please make checks payable to TORAH FUND and mail to:

3080 Broadway, New York, 10027, or find us online at www.jtsa.edu/ Support_JTS/Torah_Fund

me, a spiritually uplifting experience.

Particularly moving was seeing several rabbis sponsor and bless their own sons and daughters as the next generation of rabbis.

It has always been the students who motivate and inspire me to continue the work we do together. Every year, thousands of sisterhood members donate to Torah Fund to ensure scholarships, programming and special projects for students at the Jewish Theological Seminary, Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, Schechter Institute, and Seminario Rabinico Latinoamericano.

The Torah Fund Campaign of Women’s League for Conservative Judaism is one of the oldest continuous funds for the benefit of Jewish education. Please consider supporting Torah Fund. If you gave before, it is time to give again. If you never gave, it is time to start giving. The institutions of higher learning of the Conservative movement need your support now more than ever so that we can ensure that these new clergy, and the students who follow, will be prepared to serve our communities. As we support the diversity of our clergy, we also support the diversity of our movement.

Torah teaches us that we are created b’tzelem Elohim, in God’s image, however diverse that image may be. CJ

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prison yiddishkeit continued from page 19

send our next charity donation, resolutions to conflicts between community members or with the chaplains. Today, we are discussing ways to organize our newly created choir. Pesach is coming soon, and we want our renditions of Dayenu and Chad Gadya to have some semblance of real singing.

Wednesday “business meetings,” as we call them, are new. One positive outcome from this process is that others see the Jewish community as a united front. We are no longer infiltrated by imposters who are interested in getting free grape juice or taking advantage of other inmates who don’t know any better. Because we have learned to communicate better amongst ourselves, the chaplains respect and listen to us more readily. All voices are heard, and all matters are addressed as a group. Through this process of gathering together and being open-minded, we have become one. Never before would we have delivered to each other Mishloach Manot and celebrated a rousing rendition of Megillat Esther as we did this Purim without this unity. Nor would we have had the influence and networking ability to ask Jews who normally do not participate to help create a minyan for to say kaddish.

Fortunately, all Jewish prisoners have advocacy as well as spiritual and academic guidance from outside sources. For the past two years, the Aleph Institute has sent me a calendar with Jewish artwork and holiday reminders; their monthly magazine, “The Liberator,”comes in the mail full of insightful articles, parashah commentaries, holiday information, Judaic course offerings, legal advisories, and more. Several times a year rabbinical students or a local rabbi come to visit and talk and pray with us, all arranged with Aleph’s leadership. Reaching Out, another Jewish-prisoner support organization, sends similar monthly newsletters They also provide ardent advocacy for issues we experience with prison administration. And, L’Asurim, an affiliate of Aleph,

mails free Judaic literature and, for each major holiday, a dozen blank cards I can send to family and friends. These organizations are run by rabbis I know, rabbis I can call and e-mail for support and advice any time I want. I am grateful for these organizations that make it their mission to support and guide Jews across the country to a more spiritual and comfortable life despite being in prison.

Equally important, these groups support the health and vitality of our expanded Jewish community. They ensure we have what we need: siddurs, menorahs for Hanukkah, and kosher food for Passover, for example. Their efforts and energy are boundless.

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hile this support and extended community is a blessing and greatly appreciated, a question comes to mind: what kind of assistance will Jews like myself have afforded to them upon their release from the prison walls and into the “real world?” I know Christian friends who are looking forward to comfort and guidance at their church’s half-way house; I see bulletins posted in the prison chapel of ministries extending housing, food, and clothing to their newly released brethren. If this hospitality exists for Jews, I am unaware. I want so badly to

54 CJ – Voices of conservative /masorti judaism Fall 2015

CJVoices.org Visit us online for more information and bonus features including: How to Grow Your Daily Minyan: Two Creative Approaches Write to us!

Send a letter to our editors at rkahn@wlcj.org and gdrazen@uscj.org.

Or write to: CJ Magazine 820 Second Ave., 10th Floor, New York, NY 10017-4504

continue my Jewish ways when I get out of prison, and I have no doubt that I will.

My uncertainty comes from whether I will be at it alone, as was the case when I first entered the prison system. My family will always be there, but will I be accepted as an ex-convict at the local shul or turned away at the synagogue’s front door?

Where is the congregation that will open up its arms and help me get on my feet?

To these questions, I have no answers. CJ

JEWISH LAW continued from page 41

law for our day. First, we do not introduce change in Jewish law just to make life easy; we do so to make Judaism live in the modern world. Sometimes that requires adding new laws, and sometimes that requires dropping or modifying traditional ones. Second, introducing changes is not a departure from the tradition. On the contrary, not to do so is to abandon the tradition! And finally, the overwhelming need is to teach Jewish ideas together with an appreciation for the differences of opinion and practice that have always characterized Judaism.

Custom. Local custom always has played a major role in the practice and development of Jewish law. Probably the most pervasive example is the role of women in Jewish life. Conservative schools educated boys and girls and then men and women together, using the same curriculum, and men and women have sat together for prayer from the very beginnings of the movement, both without any confirmation by the CJLS until decades after these customs had taken root.

T

hus the Conservative movement uses all three of the traditional ways of deciding Jewish practice – decisions of the local rabbi, a centralized institution, and local custom. Through these mechanisms, we seek to make Jewish law the relevant and enriching source of meaning for us now that it has been for our ancestors. CJ

An open letter continued from page 23

empathy, knowledge, ignorance, debilitating fear, and transcendent hope. In Baltimore, here at Beth Am and beyond, we don’t have the answers. But we are seeking them.

Won’t you join us? CJ

reshet ramah continued from page 43

art gallery, a kosher wine tour. In Washington, DC, the kick-off was a Chanukah party at someone’s home. In New York, the garin has created a mix of social and religious programming. For example, last Purim, 120 people attended a Reshet Ramah megillah reading and open mic night at a stand-up comedy club, and the following Saturday night 240 turned out for a Purim-themed costume party at a club downtown.

Other initiatives, like the launch last spring of RamahDate in partnership with JDate, Reshet Ramah trips to Poland for adults or the Israel Bike Ride and Hiking Trip to support special needs programs at Ramah, are staff-driven and marketed to the Ramah alumni community. Partnerships are crucial, especially with synagogues and other community organizations also involved in this work. Since its launch, Reshet Ramah has sponsored more than 70 events in 30 cities involving nearly 2,000 unique individuals.

“One of the real gems of the Conservative movement is our camps,” said Sheldon Disenhouse, president of the National Ramah Commission and a member of the Reshet Ramah board.

“Ramah is well-poised to harness the Jewish joy and connection that comes from camp and can bring it back to people well after the camp years.”

“If we are successful,” added Rabbi Mitchell Cohen, National Ramah Director, “we will have changed the fabric of the community, offering another layer of options for Jews, young and old, looking for meaningful Jewish connection at various stages of their lives.” CJ

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the last word

Women’s Rabbinical Ordination 30 Years On…

By Rabbi Debra S. Cantor

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hat do you think will be the impact of to be accepted as genuine members of that club. Of course, all the women have stories about those early women rabbis? How will you change the years: about the ways in which we were held to more rabbinate?” the reporter asked me. I was in the old Unterberg Auditorium at JTS; it was Sepexacting standards than our male colleagues, how we tember of 1984 and we were registering for our fall had to constantly prove ourselves, how we worried semester courses. “Um, I’m not sure,” I answered. “I about issues of self-presentation (e.g., what am I going haven’t been to my first class yet.” to wear?), and about trying to carve out time for our Back then, of course, it was too early to tell what personal lives even as we were building our careers. effect women might have on the rabbinate. Despite I kept thinking back to the question repeatedly the fact that the Reform movement had ordained its Rabbi posed to us by reporters when we entered rabbinical school: How will women impact the rabbinate? I had first female rabbi in 1972, followed by the ReconstrucDebra Cantor imagined I would be able to respond to that question tionists in 1974, female rabbis were still a relative is the spiritual novelty in the Jewish community. leader of Congrega- within a few years of ordination. But 10 years after my I had long been active in the effort to ordain women tion B’nai Tikvoh- friend Amy Eilberg was the first woman ordained, I in the Conservative movement. In the late ’70s, I was Sholom in Bloom- was no closer to an answer. The movement was still a graduate student in the Department of Talmud and field, Connecticut. ambivalent about women rabbis. The conference Rabbinics at JTS and most of classes were in the rabA member of the marking the tenth anniversary was not particularly binical school. Often, I was the only woman in a class. first JTS Rabbini- celebratory; in fact, equal time was allotted to speakers The women all knew one another and knew, as well, cal School class to who were opposed to women’s ordination! that most of us passionately wished to become rabbis. include women, Fast forward to April 2015, as the Rabbinical AssemDuring that period, a group of our male allies – rab- Rabbi Cantor was bly celebrated the 30th anniversary of women in the binical students and Conservative rabbis – started a ordained in 1988. Conservative rabbinate. This was a celebration indeed! grass-roots organization called GROW (Group for the It was exhilarating to hear about the accomplishments Rabbinic Ordination of Women). GROW organized rallies and of female colleagues, to honor the varied career trajectories press conferences, sent letters and arranged for speakers to go of the pioneers, and to hear about the exciting initiatives and out to congregations. I agreed to head GROW’s Speakers Bureau, years of devoted service by female rabbis of every generation. a thankless job as I could seldom get anyone else to schlep out Women rabbis are no longer a novelty; we are long past strugto a synagogue early on a Sunday morning or return late on a gling to be recognized as valued and authentic.

In fact, these days, I embrace the notion that I am a “woman weekday evening. So most of the time, I was the speaker, and often, the audiences were not particularly supportive. rabbi.” I know that my being a woman is inseparable from who I remember returning from one of these programs at a syna- I am; I know that I would be a different person, and a different gogue located near the very end of a subway line. Maybe it was rabbi, if I were not a woman. I’m just fine with that. the many hours I had spent on the subway, or maybe it was So, what has been our impact? Honestly, it’s still a hard questhe sheer repetition of my canned speech, or maybe I was just tion. So much has changed in the Jewish community, and the plain tired. But I thought to myself: “This is not what I wanted world, in the last three decades. And 30 years is but the blink to do with my life.” I was sick of trying to convince people that of an eye in terms of Jewish history. It’s far too soon to assess women should be allowed to become Conservative rabbis; I the influence and contributions of women rabbis. But I can just wanted to be a rabbi already! A regular rabbi. say this for certain: It has been an enormous blessing to have That’s how most of us felt. We wanted to be accepted as had the door to the rabbinate open for me when it did, and to plain, everyday rabbis, not forced into the special category of serve the Jewish people as a rabbi in a variety of ways. I hope “women rabbis.” We realized we were going to be joining an to be granted the health and energy to do so for many years to old boys’ club (a really old one!) and our primary desire was come. Despite all the challenges, what an amazing privilege! CJ

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Voices of Conservative /Masorti Judaism 820 Second Avenue • 11th Floor • New York, NY 10017