CJ: Summer 2012 Issue

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SUMMER 2012 / 5772

VOL. 5 NO. 4

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TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S

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SUMMER 2012 / 5772

VOLUME 5 NUMBER 4

This magazine is a joint project of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, Women’s League for Conservative Judaism, and FJMC

LETTERS

Women’s League’s S A R R A E G . C R A N E offers some Reflections on the Kiddush Ladies FJMC’s R A B B I C H A R L E S S I M O N has some suggestions For Fathers of Adult Children R I C H A R D S K O L N I K introduces Tomorrow’s Visionary Leaders from Nativ, United Synagogue’s program for post-high school students in Israel R A B B I N E I L G I L L M A N discusses books on Jewish life In the Bookshelf

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A PERSONAL MIRACLE THE FIRST MASORTI RABBI IN UKRAINE

RAMAH FOSTERS COMMUNITY

RABBI TZVI GRAETZ

introduces a young man whose journey is inspiring

30 JEWS IN GEORGIA

A photo essay

For R A B B I E D W A R D F E L D , kashrut must interweave ritual rules and regulations with modern challenges

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42 M A K I N G I T M AT T E R

After USY, Ramah, and Koach, our committed young Jews often look elsewhere for meaning in their lives, worries R I C H A R D S . M O L I N E

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W H Y A R E Y O U W E A R I N G T H AT C A M E L AROUND YOUR NECK ...

A R U A C H FA M I LY S E R V I C E

There are many ways to introduce the weekly Torah reading. J O A N N E P A L M E R describes one of them

W H AT W E E AT Looking at Kashrut Through a Conservative Lens

National Ramah Director R A B B I M I T C H E L L C O H E N is proud that Ramah accomplishes so much without sacrificing Jewish content

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Sensing a void in her synagogue’s programming, P A M E L A K I R S C H N E R W E I N F E L D and friends created a service for school-aged children and their parents

46 TRANSFORMING TEFILLAH

describes how congregations offer new ways to experience Shabbat

. . . A N D W H AT ’ S T H AT O N Y O U R H E A D ?

B O N N I E R I VA R A S

His collection of kippot reflects B E R T S T R A T T O N ’ S 23 years playing clarinet at weddings and bar mitzvah parties

48 SKYPING T H E M I N YA N

CJ REVIEWS NEW KOSHER COOKBOOKS FRAN GINSBURG

finds value beyond the recipes in cookbooks – and also shares some recipes

A friend saying kaddish in the Hague joins R A B B I D A V I D L E R N E R ’ S minyan in Massachusetts

J E W I S H T R AV E L

50 WOMEN SPEAK B AT M I T Z VA H : TA K E T W O

19 W H AT ’ S J E W I S H A B O U T C A M P I N G ?

Even though M A X I N E S E G A L H A N D E L M A N did not grow up camping, she now spends a Shabbat each summer with 60 friends and family in one of Wisconsin’s beautiful state parks

21 A JEWISH MUSUEM IN SAINT JOHN? SHIRLEY MOSKOW

invites you to enjoy the Jewish sites in Canada’s oldest city

23 ON A MISSION TO ISRAEL

On a recent trip to Israel, R A B B I R O B E R T S L O S B E R G was exhilarated by the thriving Masorti movement but discouraged by some of its challenges

26 ISRAEL FOR KIDS

There is a lot to do in Israel for children of all ages, from petting zoos to scavenger hunts in Jerusalem, according to A V I T A L C O H E N

28 FA C T S Y O U M I G H T NOT KNOW ABOUT MASORTI

There is a great deal to know about our movement in Israel, according to R A B B I A L A N S I L V E R S T E I N

JEWISH SUMMER CAMPS

Describing one bat mitzvah with two celebrations 50 years apart, L I S A K O G E N illustrates the trajectory of this now common coming of age ritual

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YAY F O R J E W I S H S U M M E R C A M P S

Camp doctor S H A R O N S I L V E R M A N P O L L O C K can’t rave enough about the benefits of sending kids to a Jewish summer camp

WORDS OF THE WEEK

It’s easy to grow your Hebrew vocabulary using a new program devised by FJMC and D A V I D P. S I N G E R

37 56 IN MEMORY OF A FRIEND

His experiences at Camp Ramah help A D I N Y E H O S H U A M E I R mourn the death of his closest friend

U N I T E D S Y N A G O G U E ’ S N E W B Y L AW S

reviews the changes that will make United Synagogue more agile and responsive to the needs of its member kehillot

J O A N N E PA L M E R

38 57 CAMP FOSTERS COMMUNITY

asks what we can do to get more Conservative kids to Jewish camps

REBECCA KAHN

HEARING MEN’S VOICES A S I G N AT U R E P R O G R A M O F F J M C A R T S P A R edits a discussion among some FJMC mentschen

ABOUT THE COVER

The Hesed House Social Club, in Rustavi, Georgia. Photo by Amir Halevy, who participated in the Jdocu journey to photograph Jewish communities worldwide.

See more photographs beginning on page 30.

Cover design: Josef Tocker CJ — S U M M E R 2 0 1 2

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EDITORS

Rhonda Jacobs Kahn Joanne Palmer ADVERTISING DIRECTOR

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Letters

Bonnie Riva Ras DESIGNER

Josef Tocker P U B L I S H I N G C O N S U LT A N T

Doug Steinberg EDITORIAL BOARD

Dr. Robert Braitman, Chair Bernice Balter Michael Brassloff Renée Brezniak Glazier Shelly Goldin Rosalind Judd Dr. Bruce Littman Rachel Pomerance Elizabeth Pressman Evan Rumack Marjorie Shuman Saulson Allan M. Wegman 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 F E D E R AT I O N O F J E W I S H M E N ’ S C L U B S

Michael Mills, President Rabbi Charles E. Simon, Executive Director UNITED SYNAGOGUE OF C O N S E R VAT I V E J U D A I S M

Richard Skolnik, President Rabbi Steven C. Wernick, Executive Vice President WOMEN’S LEAGUE FOR C O N S E R VAT I V E J U D A I S M

Rita Wertlieb, 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 affiliates, United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism congregations, and Women’s League for Conservative Judaism affiliates receive this magazine as a benefit of membership. Subscriptions per year: $20.

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 100174504. 917-668-6809. Email: palmer@uscj.org or rkahn@wlcj.org. To advertise, email ras@uscj.org or call 917-668-6809.

CJ: VOICES OF CONSERVATIVE/MASORTI JUDAISM is published quarterly 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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CHANGING CULTURES

WOMEN RABBIS

I have just finished reading Michael Mill’s article, “Cultures Can Be Changed” (Spring 2012).

I endorse every word about men being part of the whole rather than loners. What puzzles and intrigues me, however, is what I don’t read.

Unless my eyeglasses need changing, the word “woman” doesn’t appear once in the entire text. As a result, the article sounds exactly like what appeared n the monthly newsletter put out by the Conservative synagogue my family attended in Chicago 75 to 80 years ago.

Yes, my father was active in the men’s club, but my mother predated him by almost half a decade with her membership in the sisterhood. In those prehistoric times, women were virtually shut out for membership on the board of directors. Incidentally, I don’t find the word sisterhood – a term often denigrated in the 21st century as a relic of bygone eons – anywhere in the article. Am I missing something?

What fractures me most of all is the Grand Canyon-size chasm between the article and the cover of the same issue of CJ, an overt plug for women’s participation in synagogue hierarchy. Shouldn’t you be functioning on the same wavelength?

In D. Korenstein's letter to the editor in the Spring 2012 issue, the author writes the his synagogue “hired a senior woman rabbi. Within a few years a significant portion of the membership was gone.” I object to the automatic assumption that the cause of the declining membership was attributable to the hiring of a woman rabbi.

Many synagogues are experiencing shrinking membership numbers.

The causes are demographic, philosophical, financial, religious, etc. Many are con(continued on page 53)

DAVID R. MOSS Los Angeles, California

ADD YOUR VOICE! Conservative Judaism is made up of a plethora of voices. Our movement is wide-ranging. Members of our kehillot, sisterhoods, and men’s clubs share core beliefs and practices and at the same time have singular or even unique takes on our philosophy, theology, and customs.

CJ runs stories that illustrate both our similarities and our differences. Often we run more than one take on the same subject.

We want to hear more of those voices. We want to hear from you – your reactions to our stories, and your suggestions for stories developing in your communities. And if you speak better through the lens of a camera, please send us photographs that focus on the issues we discuss: Jewish life here and abroad, Israel, halachah, and Jewish traditions and learning.

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REFLECTIONS ON THE KIDDUSH LADIES

BY SARRAE G. CRANE

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HERE IT WAS AMONG the weekly Shabbat announcements: Kiddush is provided by the sisterhood. If it happened to be sponsored by a bar mitzvah family, it was assumed that the sisterhood ladies had set it up. The kiddush ladies were the members of the sisterhood. And for most people that was the basic equation. Sisterhoods had meetings and then their members set up kiddush and the ongei Shabbat. They also might have helped decorate the sukkah, adding their touches to those of the children of the religious school.

But a look around any synagogue should have revealed much more. Who ran the Judaica shop? The sisterhood ladies. Who was in charge of ordering the kippot for the b’nai and b’not mitzvah? The sisterhood ladies. Who made shalach manot baskets for Purim? Who sponsored the flowers for Shavuot? Who promoted the gift honey for Rosh Hashanah? Who sent Chanukah care packages to the congregation’s college students? Who were the key participants in the PTA and the Youth Commission? Again, the sisterhood ladies. Which arm of the congregation could always be counted on for a significant contribution? Of course, sisterhood.

The sisterhood ladies were far more than a coffee klatch enabling Shabbat attendees to enjoy a little wine and sponge cake. They were – and continue to be – at the core of any synagogue’s life. Without the dedication of kiddush ladies our congregations

Sarrae Crane is executive director of Women’s League for Conservative Judaism.

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would be a shadow of themselves. They did what women do so well, creating a warm, welcoming community by making people feel at home. They studied and learned more about Judaism, created Jewish homes, incorporated Jewish values personally and into their families’ lives. The bonds that were created in the sisterhood strengthened Judaism for many generations.

If we turn the clock back nearly a century, to the early years of Women’s League, the organization of Conservative sisterhoods, we discover that Women’s League and sisterhoods had a much larger agenda than worrying about what to put out for kiddush. One of Women’s League’s earliest projects was the creation of an offcampus space for Jewish students in the vicinity of Columbia University, Barnard College, and the Jewish Theological Seminary. That concern continued to be expressed through its Torah Fund campaign, which saw the need and underwrote the creation of the Mathilde Schechter dormitory at the seminary. It was renewed last year when Women’s League adopted the Koach kallah, a Shabbat retreat for college students across North America, as a project. (We are delighted that through our efforts and support, Koach almost doubled the number of attendees from last year!) We are committed to the perpetuation of Conservative/Masorti Judaism and are proud that our board has voted to continue our support of the Koach kallah.

But Women’s League has not only looked outward. We have looked inward as well.

For decades Women’s League has produced publications to enrich the lives of Jewish women, running from The Jewish Home Beautiful in 1941, to our most recent

Women’s League Hiddur Mitzvah Project. We have fashioned material and developed training programs that enable our women to deepen their knowledge of Judaism and intensify their liturgical skills.

In recent years more of us have entered the work force, many in time-consuming professional positions. Those of us working nine to five plus often have neither the time nor the energy left to fulfill the traditional roles of the sisterhood ladies. Yet we still expect kiddush to be there on Shabbat morning. And we still are women who actively identify as Jews, seek to enrich our Jewish education and observance, and want to be part of a network of women who share the values of Conservative Judaism. The mission of Women’s League is as relevant today as it was when we were created by Mathilde Schechter in 1918. To expand that network, we have embarked on a systemic and strategic look at our future.

And for future reflection . . . . On the recent Conference of Presidents Mission to Israel, we journeyed to Amman for a day.

In addition to meeting with King Abdullah, we were hosted for lunch by Israel’s ambassador to Jordan, Danny Naveh, who had cooked for us and was in the kitchen preparing fabulous desserts. It is clear that the kitchen is no longer only the province of women. Perhaps in the future it can be the kiddush men and women who provide this essential element of synagogue life as we re-imagine the ways both men and women contribute to our congregations.

We are proud to be the next generation of kiddush ladies and so much more. We know that it is the day-to-day things that we do that secure the structures that enrich our lives as Jews. CJ

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FOR FATHERS OF ADULT CHILDREN

BY RABBI CHARLES SIMON

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In the past my responses have always VERY PARENT STRUGGLES to balance making been “Don’t obsess with what you could decisions for our children have done. There is so much that you can with empowering them to do!” My responses to fathers have become be independent. It’s rarely even stronger as a result of what I have been easy. As our children become learning about fathers.

We know a great deal about mothers and adults all too many of us believe that our how they influence their children. We know ability to influence their decisions is inversely related to their level of independence. Fathers that in a majority of situations the deciwho feel their influence lessening are often sion-maker regarding a family’s religious conflicted. We are proud of our children and commitment and practice is almost always the woman. It doesn’t their emerging indematter if she is Jewish pendence, but we still or not. If she decides have to live with the We are beginning to the family will be Jewdecisions that these understand more about a ish, the children will be young adults make. father’s ability to influence Jewish. In addition We acknowledge the many sociologists possibility of failure his children. believe on the basis of and feel somewhat frustrated because we can’t assure success. the data collected over the past 30 years Indeed, we know that even if we could “fix that her children will identify as Jews and it” that could hinder the maturation of our seek to live, in some manner, Jewish lives.

We are beginning to understand more sons and daughters. about a father’s ability to influence his chilUnfortunately, too many parents, and specifically fathers, fail to understand that dren, even adult children who are no longer even after our children have made deci- living at home. Last year, at an FJMC weeksions with which we are not comfortable end retreat, I piloted a lesson plan to fathers we still retain the ability to influence their whose adult children no longer live with decisions. I can’t tell you how many times them. I asked the group how many of them fathers have approached me and expressed texted or emailed or called (I know that their pain and upset because one of their sounds archaic) their children regularly children has chosen to marry or partner to wish them a Shabbat shalom. The with someone who was not Jewish. “But response was mostly negative: “I never did what could I do?” they ask. “What can it before.” “They will wonder why I’m doing it.” “My children are in their late I do?”

30s.”

I encouraged it and was pleased the following morning to see a group of men with Rabbi Charles Simon is the director of FJMC and author of Building a Successful Vol- smiles on their faces because their chilunteer Culture: Finding Meaning in Ser- dren had texted them back. They were beginvice in the Jewish Community, Jewish Lights ning to realize their actions could still (continued on page 25) Publishing: Woodstock, Vermont.

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TOMORROW’S VISIONARY LEADERS FROM NATIV

BY RICHARD SKOLNIK

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AVING RECENTLY celebrated the festival of Shavuot, which commemorates matan Torah – the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people – I know that it is a gift to be handed inspiration that extends the afterglow of this beautiful festival.

For me, inspiration arrived in the form of feedback about the stellar achievements of our Nativ program in Israel (www.nativ.org), which has been creating a cadre of college leaders for the past 31 years.

This program, which has trained more than 1,000 remarkable young people, garnered the highest ratings from a recent independent Jewish Agency-sponsored evaluation aimed at examining all long-term Masa-funded study/volunteer programs in Israel. (Masa is an organization that connects young Jews with programs in Israel.)

Nativ’s impressive graduates provide our movement with the human resources necessary for charting a bold new course for the new millennium.

The latest crop of Bogrei Nativ – Nativ graduates – have hit the ground running, charged with the formidable challenge of reinvigorating our kehillot in North America and reinventing the Conservative movement for a new generation. Visionary and cutting edge, their influence is critical to the vitality of our movement.

Meet some of our recent Bogrei Nativ.

Richard Skolnik is the international president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.

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Rabbi David Goldberg Russo, Nativ 23 David, from Hamilton, Ontario, was an active member of ECRUSY, and in 2003 he was USY’s international president.

Ordained at JTS this spring, David has taken a position as rabbi at Anshe Emet Synagogue in Chicago.

He met his wife, Rebecca Russo, when they both were international USY officers, and she also was on Nativ 23. Rebecca is the director of engagement at Hillel of Northwestern University.

“Nativ provided me with the unique opportunity to explore Israel, study at an incredibly high level, develop critical leadership skills, all in the context of a fun, social experience.

Many of the relationships that I developed on Nativ are still ones that I rely on today, both personally and professionally. My experiences studying in the Conservative Yeshiva and the opportunities that I had to explore my Jewish identity certainly helped me on my path toward becoming a rabbi.”

Aliza Sebert, Nativ 27 Aliza is from New York City, where her father is the rabbi of the Town and Village Synagogue in lower Manhattan. In her last year at Brandeis University, she is president of Hillel’s theater group and executive musical director of Ba’note, the Jewish women’s a cappella group. For the last two summers she has been a division head at Camp Ramah in the Berkshires.

“Nativ was an experience that I will never forget. It is an amazing program that allowed me to grow, learn about myself, and gain independence before going off to college. It gave me a greater level of appreciation and love for the land of Israel, and allowed me to create friendships that have already strengthened and will stay with me for the rest of my life.”

Maya Dolgin, Nativ 25 Maya, from Huntington, New York, was a student at Solomon Schechter High School of Long Island. After Nativ, she graduated from Wellesley College, where she was president of Hillel. She has worked at Camp Ramah in Nyack for the last seven summers, and this summer she will be division head and coordinator of the Israeli staff.

Maya was on the staff for the Nativ 30 kibbutz group. Last year she made aliyah, and now lives in Jerusalem, where she is Nativ’s assistant director.

“My year on Nativ 25 set me on a path that has been immensely fulfilling. It helped to strengthen the skills and values that I learned during my years studying at Solomon Schechter and working at Ramah Day Camp in Nyack.

On Nativ I strengthened my love for Israel and Judaism, and learned how to translate this passion into something accessible to others, which led me to return to Israel in 2010 as a madricha – counselor – for Nativ 30. My year of staffing Nativ allowed me to gain yet another perspective on Israel. I was able to see the country through the eyes of a group of young Jewish leaders who were living in Israel for the first time and wrestling with (continued on page 33)

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BY RABBI NEIL GILLMAN

Democratizing Judaism by Jack J. Cohen, Academic Studies Press, 2010 Rabbi Cohen, longtime spokesperson for the Reconstructionist movement, has served, among other positions, as Hillel director at the Hebrew University and member of the faculty at both the Jewish Theological Seminary and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical School. This volume is a summary of his more than 70-year association with Reconstructionism, his personal relationship with the movement’s founder, Mordecai M. Kaplan, and the wide-ranging moral and religious issues that he has encountered in his decadeslong work in Israel and that have engaged him in a very personal way. Cohen is endlessly engaging. His biographical notes on Kaplan’s life and teaching, his detailed and largely evenhanded discussion of the many criticisms leveled against his teacher, and his attempt to apply his personal thinking to the issues that rage within the state of Israel today are compelling. The snippets from Kaplan’s personal diary that illuminate his feelings and thinking are particularly fascinating.

The Bible and American Culture: A Sourcebook by Claudia Setzer and David A. Shefferman. Routledge, 2011 This is indeed a sourcebook, as the editors claim. (Setzer is professor and Shefferman is assistant professor of religious studies, both at Manhattan College.) It should be used as a sourcebook rather than read cover-tocover, but – and this is barely an exaggeration – it should be shared with all Americans, of all ages, who are involved in searching for particular biblical references, Jewish and Christian, that appear in American life and Rabbi Neil Gillman is the Aaron Rabinowitz and Simon H. Rifkind emeritus professor of Jewish philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

culture. Topics include the uses of biblical texts in the debates on slavery. Homosexuality, feminism and civil rights, and biblical sources that appear in art, fiction, music and poetry are all here. Lincoln’s biblical references in his second inaugural, Martin Luther King Jr.’s last speech before his assassination, and a poem by Emily Dickenson are included as well. A rich index facilitates the volume’s use. It belongs on the bookshelves of all knowledgeable Americans.

Today I Am a Woman: Stories of Bat Mitzvah Around the World, edited by Barbara Vinick and Shulamit Reinharz. Indiana University Press, 2012 The editors, both affiliated with the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, where Reinharz is the director as well as a professor of sociology, have assembled a substantial anthology of personal testimonies about how young women from around the world reflect on their bat mitzvah experiences. The testimonies come from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, the former Soviet Union, and Latin America, as well as from more familiar places, just around the corner from where we North American Jews live. The narratives may center around the bat mitzvah itself, but in the process we learn about Jewish life in widely different Jewish communities around the world, about what it means to become an adult woman, and most important, about the power of a ritual that far too many American Jewish families understand as simply an opportunity to have a party. The photos scattered throughout are endearing.

rience. The selection, translation, and commentary on each text are by Fishbane, who teaches Jewish philosophy, mysticism, and chasidism at JTS. Readers who are familiar with Abraham Joshua Heschel’s classic work on the Sabbath should benefit from Fishbane’s anthology. He has selected texts from throughout chasidic literature, his commentaries generally clarify texts that frequently are elusive, and his notes suggest further readings. But what is important is that these texts are not designed for study, or only for study.

Rather they are in the form of meditations that should be absorbed slowly and with care and be allowed to permeate our own awareness as we too experience the Sabbath day. (continued on page 28)

The Sabbath Soul: Mystical Reflections on the Transformative Power of Holy Time by Eitan Fishbane. Jewish Lights, 2012 The core of this book is a series of texts drawn from the writings of chasidic masters on the various dimensions of the Sabbath expeCJ — S U M M E R 2 0 1 2

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WHAT WE EAT Looking at Kashrut Through a Conservative Lens

BY RABBI EDWARD FELD

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HAT IS THE CONSERVATIVE movement’s approach to kashrut?

It is the observance of traditional food laws as seen through the lens of a set of values that is central to our contemporary understanding of Judaism.

The hallmark of Conservative Judaism is its appreciation of both tradition and modernity. It is a Judaism that lives within contemporary society and culture. In North America, it embraces the promise of the new world, the blessings of freedom, democracy, and equal opportunity. At the same time, its commitment to Jewish religious life creates community, develops Jews whose values include a sense of responsibility to others, upholds the sacredness of life, and informs a personal spiritual practice that allows an ongoing relationship with God. To navigate the Jewish heritage within this North American matrix, Conservative Judaism turns to the tradition in all its fullness – to the minority opinion as well as the majority, to roads taken and not taken.

Talmudic texts, medieval philosophic formulations, mystical understandings, folk stories, and more all are grist for this mill.

Conservative Judaism has an approach to religious practice that is deeply informed by history, the knowledge of change, and the multiplicity of opinions and perspectives,

Rabbi Edward Feld is the senior editor of the new Conservative machzor, Lev Shalem, and is now at work on a siddur for Shabbat and holidays.

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along with a sense of purpose derived from our contemporary situation.

This formula ought to be played out in our observance of kashrut. We need an American Jewish approach to our traditional food laws that also takes into account the circumstances of Jews in an open democratic society. We engage with society at large over drinks, at dinner, at parties, in restaurants, and at home. We Conservative Jews need not separate ourselves from life by eating only in establishments under rabbinic supervision. Rather, we can participate in the larger culture while maintaining our distinctive Jewish consciousness. Thus, entering a restaurant and checking which items conform to kashrut – what we may order within a broad reading of the law – is a way of integrating into society while maintaining our particular religious consciousness.

It is not accidental that the Talmud includes many of its food laws in the tractate Avodah Zorah, the volume dealing with relations with the surrounding pagan culture. Food laws in the Talmud are a way of constructing a barrier between Jews and the larger society. Roman and Persian cultures were perceived as threatening. Restricting diet minimized the contact between Jews and non-Jews.

We now live with a different relationship to the society around us, so the regulations governing what and how we may eat must be adjusted to reflect that reality. This is not a matter of changing our relation to the mitzvot spelled out in the Torah but of recognizing that many rabbinic laws are

responsive to specific social conditions. Many rabbinic rules are meant to regulate a person’s relationship to society, so it is reasonable to assume that as conditions change these regulations must change to reflect the new reality.

In the tractate Hulin, which deals directly with laws of kashrut, the Talmud adopts a more liberal position than the one enunciated in Avodah Zorah. There, a taste test is set as the standard of kashrut: Food cooked in a pot that had been used to cook nonkosher meat is considered to be kosher if no taste of the non-kosher food remains. This standard can be applied easily to eating in a restaurant that uses the same pots and pans to cook non-kosher meat and vegetarian offerings. It demands care and still permits openness.

But the way Conservative Jews keep kosher is not simply a matter of finding leniencies. There is no “Conservative kashrut.” Kashrut is kashrut, at least as it relates to shechita – ritual slaughter. But for Conservative Jews, it is also much more.

One of the hallmarks of the Conservative approach to Jewish law is its sensitivity to ethical issues. The recent creation of Magen Tzedek, a certification that kosher meat has

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been processed in a way that is both halachic and not abusive to the labor force, is an important example. Judaism’s strong opposition to cruelty to animals underlays many aspects of kashrut. The Rabbinical Assembly has passed resolutions condemning hoisting and shackling animals as a means of kosher slaughter, so it should be relatively easy for Conservative synagogues to insist that their caterers not use meat slaughtered in this way. Indeed, if Conservative synagogues brought the full weight of their collective purchasing power to bear they could effect a major change in the industry.

On the same ethical grounds, we can insure that the proper treatment of animals becomes a standard for personal practice.

Families should buy eggs laid by free-range chickens. We should oppose farming practices that turn chickens into factories, housing them in tight cages, with fluorescent lights shining on them 24 hours a day, so that they will produce the maximum number of eggs with the smallest possible amount of human labor. Similarly, as much as we can we should buy the meat of free-range chickens. It is one thing to feel that eating meat is necessary, but quite another to deprive animals of their natural life. We need not consume food produced through cruelty. Interestingly, Empire Kosher, the largest commercial producer of kosher chickens, proudly announces that its chickens are all free roaming.

For the same reasons, we should buy grassfed beef. American cattle growers often use feed that cows never would eat in nature.

Sometimes the feed contains ground up blood and animal products, though cows are vegetarian by nature.

A congregant of mine who had thought about keeping kosher, but worried about how difficult his life would become were he to try, once saw my wife and me eating in a Chinese restaurant. It inspired him. “I didn’t realize that it was so easy to keep kosher,” he said, and went on to adopt kashrut as a standard for his own life.

For Conservative Jews, keeping kosher is both easy and demanding. It is an exciting and responsible way to live in the modern world Jewishly and to live a life that is holy. CJ CJ — S U M M E R 2 0 1 2

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NEW KOSHER COOKBOOKS

CJReviews

BY FRAN GINSBURG

A

Any cookbook of value today is more than just a compendium of recipes or instructions. It has an overriding message or theme.

Fran Ginsburg presents cheese classes and tasting events through her company, The Dairy Man’s Daughter. She is also a development consultant for Jewish communal organizations and a member of Congregation Beth Sholom in Teaneck, New Jersey.

connect with our past, provide meaningful work for kosher butchers, and serve delicious variety to our families.

For all who enjoy meat and poultry this book is a winning addition to your cookbook collection.

The Kosher Revolution by Geila Hocherman and Arthur Boehm, published by Kyle Books, is a beautifully illustrated volume that will be enjoyed particularly by those itching to try flavors and combinations that have been forbidden until now. The authors take full advantage of the expanded availability of kosher foods, using nut milks as thickening agents, Asian condiments, and the like. Kosher cooking always has reflected the cuisine, culture, and ingredients of the lands in which we live. Jews have been adapting recipes and substituting ingredients to comply with the requirements of kashrut for as long as we have been cooking. The real revolution is in the availability of new certified kosher products. The Kosher Revolution uses these ingredients and displays a world of new possibilities, introducing the kosher cook to prosciutto made from cured duck breast or crab cakes made from surimi and Old Bay seasoning.

NY COOKBOOK OF value today is more than just a compendium of recipes or instructions. It has an overriding message or theme.

Recipes are easy to come by.

How often have I gone to the internet because I want to use a particular ingredient or have decided to make lamb stew? Click. Dozens of recipes are at my fingertips. Looking for the technique to make homemade ricotta?

There’s an app for that.

Each of these new kosher cookbooks has a message beyond measures and ingredients lists. Each provides a context for your cooking, and like kashrut itself, each gives meaning to our foods beyond flavor or sustenance.

I liked all these books, but my favorite is June Hersh’s The Kosher Carnivore, published by St. Martin’s Press. June burst onto the kosher cooking scene with her brilliantly presented anthology/cookbook Recipes Remembered. She writes with an enthusiasm that makes me want to rush into the kitchen and cook. Her style is personal and warm, generously sharing knowledge and advice as if with a younger sister. No doubt, to June food is a celebration. Cooking is fun. And

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with humor and wit, she graciously invites us all to participate.

Most of the well-composed recipes are approachable even by a novice cook. With helpful hints and technique descriptions peppered liberally throughout, nothing seems too daunting. The different cuts of meat are explained and creative uses for leftovers are provided. While the focus is squarely on meats and poultry, a well-edited repertoire of vegetables, starches, and soups compliment any meal.

While she provides recipes for some classics, this book is not at all the same-old sameold. The Kosher Carnivore reaches liberally into the cuisines of different cultures to make the book fresh, creative, and enticing.

Throughout, June encourages cooks to speak with the butcher to get the best and special cuts, something most of us don’t bother to do. With June’s encouragement we can reverse a trend toward uniformity,

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Each of the recipes indicates whether it is dairy, meat, or parve, with helpful substitutions offered to change things up.

Recipes are written clearly, often with a personal and helpful introduction. Once your pantry is complete most of these recipes are quite manageable, though a few might be more complicated than an everyday cook might enjoy. The book includes a generous list of meatless mains (potentially making those nine days in summer a culinary highlight), sides, and sweets. The book includes a helpful list of websites where you can buy some of the harder-to-find ingredients and a useful ingredient exchange, so that the adventurous cook can create new recipes with confidence.

Keeping kosher requires thoughtfulness and contemplation. It does not limit us to a particular cuisine, method, or set of flavors. Borrowing from a range of cuisines, this book helps us feel that we can have it all! Bored with your repertoire? This book is for you.

Taking a more scholarly approach, Gil Marks, in Olive Trees and Honey, from Wiley Publishing, presents a comprehensive selection of vegetarian recipes from Jewish communities around the world. Well known to those curious about Jewish culinary history or trends, Marks understands Jewish life through the context of food. Vegetarians (and all cooks) looking for inspiration will find it in this expertly researched and well-written volume.

This hefty textbook includes a brief history of Jewish food traditions from all corners of the globe, a descriptive section on

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seasonings and spices, and lists of holiday foods from communities as far away as Calcutta and as familiar as Italy. Ever a teacher, Rabbi Marks liberally includes biblical references, information about the ancient spice routes, and maps illustrating the differences in omelets and dumplings around the world.

Each of the sections, on soups, grains, pastries, and so on, is preceded by abundant information about cultural norms, food availability, history, and migratory patterns.

Recognized by the James Beard Foundation with its prestigious award, the hundreds of recipes are clearly written, and when similarities exist among several cuisines, they are noted as variations. Rather than discourage a cook looking for a recipe, the skillfully organized index and glossary make the book useful and important on many levels. Can there really be so many variations of Sabbath stews? Or so many uses for chickpeas? Have you ever pined for a new way to cook eggplant? You need look no further.

Olive Trees and Honey is more than a cookbook. It gives us a means to hold on to elements of our culture that otherwise might be forgotten as Jews continue to leave the lands of their parents, and as we all move toward more universal, simple, uniform, or factory-made preparations.

I can’t wait to read Gil Marks’ new Encyclopedia of Jewish Food. I trust that like this book, it will go far beyond just recipes that are delicious and exciting to include social and cultural history and help each of us become a participant in the timeline of Jewish life.

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SIMPLER BEER-BASTED CHICKEN From The Kosher Carnivore Basting is a great way to ensure a juicy chicken, but every time you open the oven you let precious heat escape. A better method is to baste the chicken from the inside out. There’s no delicate way to explain this process. Take a can of beer, be sure to pop the top, and then push the can into the cavity of the chicken so that the bird is perched upright with the can of beer in its tush. The beer infuses the cavity with constant moisture, and the metal can helps conduct the heat consistently from the inside out. The result is an incredibly moist chicken that roasts very quickly. If your chicken is on the wagon, try filling the can with chicken stock, herbs, and freshly squeezed lemon juice or any flavorful liquid such as cola or ginger ale.

1 (3 1/2 - to 4-pound) chicken 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 1 teaspoon garlic powder 1 teaspoon sweet Hungarian paprika 1 teaspoon freshly chopped rosemary leaves or 1/3 teaspoon chopped dried rosemary 1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 open can of beer 2 bay leaves and fresh herbs, optional 1 large onion, quartered 6 unpeeled garlic cloves, optional 1 to 1 1/2 cups chicken stock Pat the chicken dry inside and out, and remove any packaging hidden in the cavity.

If time allows, place the chicken on a paper towel-lined plate and let it hang out in the fridge for an hour. When ready to roast, preheat the oven to 450 degrees and lower your oven rack to its lowest position. Take the chicken out of the fridge.

Combine the seasonings in a small bowl (this helps prevent cross-contaminating your seasonings while working with the chicken).

Take a pinch of seasoning and rub it inside the cavity. Drizzle the oil over the entire bird and then sprinkle the outside with the seasonings. Pop the top of the beer can (toss in some fresh herbs or bays leaves if you like for added flavor) and carefully place the chicken upright on the can. Jiggle the legs in position so the chicken appears to be

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sitting and does not topple over. Place the bird, upright, in a shallow roasting pan and scatter the bay leaves, onions, and garlic, if using, and add 1/2 cup of the stock. Place in oven. Lower the oven temperature to 425 degrees. After 30 minutes, add 1/2 cup more stock and continue roasting, until an instantread thermometer registers 160 to 165 degrees when it is inserted in the thigh, about 30 minutes more. Transfer the chicken to a carving board and cover with a piece of aluminum foil; the internal temperature will rise 5 to 10 degrees while the chicken rests and the juices will redistribute throughout the bird. Do not handle the can – it will be very hot!

Place the roasting pan directly on the stove, skim off some of the fat, and add more stock if necessary to create the gravy. If you roasted the garlic cloves, squeeze them to extract the roasted garlic and mash it into the sauce. Discard the skins. Let the gravy simmer until heated through. If you prefer a thicker gravy, make a slurry by mixing 1 teaspoon of cornstarch with 2 teaspoons of cold water, stir back into the pan, bring to a boil, and repeat if necessary. When ready to carve, use an oven mitt carefully to remove the beer can from the chicken. Carve the chicken and serve with the gravy drizzled on top.

Serves 4

SEPHARDIC CHEESE-STUFFED EGGPLANT (Berengena Rellenas de Queso) From Olive Trees and Honey The first time I made stuffed eggplant, following a different recipe from this one, I was enormously disappointed in the results, as the vegetable tasted insipid and too firm, even after baking for an extended period. Then, an informative Sephardic grandmother advised to parboil the eggplant to give it a creamy texture. Other cooks panfry the eggplant rather than parboiling it, but I find the frying requires more effort and adds extra calories. There are numerous versions of stuffed eggplant, adapted to whatever ingredients are available in the pantry. This cheese-filled version makes a savory entrée for a light meal or a delicious side dish.

2 eggplants (about 1 pound each), halved lengthwise 4 tablespoons olive oil or vegetable oil 1 onion, chopped 2 to 3 cloves garlic, minced 2 tablespoons fresh parsley 1 cup fine fresh bread crumbs 1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives or 1 teaspoon dried oregano and 1/2 teaspoon dried basil About 1/2 teaspoon table salt or 1 teaspoon kosher salt Ground black pepper to taste 1 cup (5 ounces) crumbled feta, 1 cup (4 ounces) shredded Cheddar or Nuenster cheese, or 1 cup (8 ounces) ricotta cheese 1 large egg, lightly beaten 1/4 cup toasted pine nuts, 1/4 cup coarsely chopped capers, 1/2 cup chopped pitted black olives, or any combination (optional) 1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil for drizzling Scoop out the cores of the eggplant (a melon baller or grapefruit knife works well) leaving a 1/2-inch-thick shell and reserving the pulp. In a large pot of salted boiling water, cook the shells until tender, but not soft, about 3 minutes. Drain.

Coarsely chop the reserved eggplant pulp.

(It might appear like a lot, but it will cook down.) In a large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of the oil over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and sauté until soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons oil, then the eggplant pulp and parsley and sauté until softened, about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the bread crumbs, chives, salt, and pepper. Add the cheese, egg, and, if using, the pine nuts.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Oil a large baking pan.

Lightly salt the insides of the eggplant shells and stuff with the pulp mixture.

Arrange in the baking pan and drizzle with a little oil. Cover and bake for 20 minutes.

Uncover and bake until golden, about 10 minutes.

Serve warm.

Serves 4

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PIGNOLI COOKIES From Kosher Revolution Years ago I had a date with a boy who brought me a box of pignoli cookies from Little Italy. The cookies were an instant hit (alas, he wasn’t) and became a great favorite of mine. They’re simple to make, pareve, and perfect for Passover. The nuts give the cookies a buttery richness even though they’re nondairy. Just what you want from a pareve cookie as addictive as these.

8 ounces almond paste 1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar 1/2 cup sugar 1 large egg white 1 teaspoon almond extract 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 cup pine nuts Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

In a food processor, combine the almond paste and sugars and process until the mixture reaches the consistency of sand. Transfer to the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or a medium bowl, and add the egg white, vanilla and almond extracts. Beat on medium speed or by hand for 4 minutes.

Place the pine nuts in a small bowl. Next to it place a small bowl of water for wetting your hands. Wet your hands and form 1 1/2- to 2-inch balls with the paste mixture, making 5 at a time. Drop them into the bowl of nuts and press down gently so the nuts adhere to the bottom of the dough.

Transfer to a cookie sheet nut side up.

Repeat, filling each prepared cookie sheet with about 15 balls. Bake until puffed and beginning to color, 15 to 18 minutes.

Remove from the oven, and cool on the parchment paper on a countertop. When completely cool, peel the cookies off the paper and serve.

30 cookies CJ Since its earliest days, sisterhoods throughout the Women’s League network have been publishing cookbooks as fundraisers as well as simply to share their members’ favorite and most delicious recipes. To find out more, go to www.wlcj.org/shopping and resource center.

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WHAT’S JEWISH ABOUT CAMPING?

BY MAXINE SEGAL HANDELMAN

I

DIDN’T GROW UP CAMPING, but my husband did. 0000 Every summer his family would spend several weeks at Devil’s Lake State Park in Wisconsin. After college he decided to go up to Devil’s Lake with some friends. It started with maybe a dozen single twentysomething friends, for a long summer weekend. They hiked, canoed, swam, and celebrated Shabbat. Each year they returned to Devil’s Lake, even as the group grew.

The journey from single to married to families never slowed us down. In 2001 four pregnant women were part of the tent-building crew. I sat at the fire with one hand on my swollen belly, the other hand on my friend Ann’s even larger belly, and as both babies kicked in utero, I rejoiced in our children’s first playdate. In 2002 four babies, ranging from 6 weeks to 11 months old, crawled about the campsite. Our standards for clean babies went out the window. It took a really long time to break down camp that year.

Everyone took part in a meal crew, making one meal and relaxing for the rest, a system that serves us well now that the group exceeds 60 people, with kids ranging from toddlers to teenagers. We are a Jewishly diverse group, ranging from modern Orthodox to non-observant. The food is kosher and nut-free, with gluten-free and vegetarian options at every meal. We take care of the earth as we strive to live off it. (Well, not entirely. This is car camping, after all.)

Maxine Segal Handelman is United Synagogue's early childhood education consultant. She has been camping her entire married life, and her daughters each went on her first camping trip in utero.

Scenes from Devil’s Lake

Most families have acquired a set of camping dishes to use at every meal. Some families have two sets of camping dishes, to be washed in the meat or milk three-bin washing systems (soapy water, plain water, and bleach water for disinfecting).

Every year we have to promise the park rangers that the fishing wire we are stringing through the trees around our entire campsite will be gone by the time we leave on Sunday. We don’t even try to explain to them why we need this eruv to make carrying items around our campsite permissible on Shabbat.

Shabbat at Devil’s Lake is a palace in time.

(Except of course for the one year that it started raining as we made kiddush Friday night and didn’t stop until Saturday

night as the sun set, but we try not to think about that year.) We set up picnic tables in a big circle around the fire, built up so it will last long into Shabbat. One of the several rabbis leads the group in Kabbalat Shabbat, paced to hold the interest of all the kids and the adults, peppered with singing and a good story or two. Tea lights are lit on the tables, grape juice and wine passed around, homemade challah blessed and shared. Dinner is a feast – sometimes tincan stew (made in 10 gallon cans collected for weeks before the trip) or chicken fajitas – and the singing around the fire pit can go late into the night. Stars shine brightly at Devil’s Lake, especially compared to the city streets of Chicago where I usually do my gazing. Friday night is the perfect time CJ — S U M M E R 2 0 1 2

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to bring a blanket to a nearby field and watch for shooting stars.

Hiking and swimming are all within walking distance of our camp site. Shabbat is a day to explore nature or kick back with a good book (or both – Shabbat is long in the summer). At first, we new parents climbed the bluffs with children riding in backpacks. When she was 2, our younger daughter made the climb by herself to the top of the bluff, about half a mile up, and then she climbed into a backpack and slept the rest of the hike.

Now, having grown up at Devil’s Lake, the children are master hikers, taking on more challenging boulder fields every year, helping their friends along. Kids of all ages run in packs, watching out for each other and creating their own experience.

One year, we grown-ups were treated to a variety show with skits and dance numbers performed by all the kids. Another year, among the cords of wood we bought for the fire were some odd bits left over from some building project. That year, the boys spent hours creating cities and superhero worlds with those wood pieces.

Havdalah at the campsite is a sublime moment. As a new fire grows in the fire pit, we gather around, 60 or more of us, singing and swaying, smelling spices often created from plants and flowers collected near the site. And as the last notes of “shavuah tov” fade away, the kids scramble to pop marshmallows onto the sticks they have foraged and do what they have been waiting for all of Shabbat – make s’mores! The guitars come out, and the songbooks, and we sing folksongs and Indigo Girls late into the night.

I didn’t grow up camping. But my kids will. They can put up a tent and break one down. They can shlep water without too much kvetching, pick up a daddy longlegs spider by the leg to get it out of the tent (oh, wait, that’s me, they still don’t do that), row a canoe, pee in the woods, and take pleasure climbing a boulder field with their friends. They thrive in this camping community that now includes friends from all over the Midwest. I just hope they let me come back and join them when they start a camping group of their own. CJ

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A JEWISH MUSEUM IN SAINT JOHN?

BY SHIRLEY MOSKOW

W

HATEVER WERE they thinking when they named the only Jewish museum in Atlantic Canada the Saint John Jewish

Historical Museum?

Yes, it is located in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada’s oldest city, but to give a Jewish institution the name of a Catholic saint is unusual. Since the museum is unique in the province, it could have been called the New Brunswick Jewish Historical Museum, or simply the Jewish Historical Museum. The name gives a hint that this is no ordinary museum and that Saint John is no ordinary city.

Founded in 1986, Saint John Jewish Historical Museum was created and is maintained by the dwindling congregation of Shaarei Zedek Synagogue as a loving tribute to the heritage of the Jewish community and to the city that befriended it.

The museum occupies an impressive stone building at 91 Leinster Street. When it was built in 1897 by a ship owner as a wedding gift for his bride, it was reputed to be the best home in the city. It is prominently featured on the self-guided Victorian Stroll, which includes such noteworthy edi-

Shirley Moskow, a former newspaper editor, is a Boston-based freelance writer with specialties in the arts and travel. She has published two books and contributes to such magazines as AmericanStyle, Caribbean Travel & Life, and Antiques and Fine Art.

fices as the elaborate Second Empire house at 167 King Street East and the massive Italianate row houses on Orange Street.

In the heart of the city, the museum is popular with travelers from all over the world, especially passengers on the cruise ships that dock at Market Square. It is many people’s first contact with Jewish culture, and the high school student guides answer questions about Jewish ritual and the lifecycle events portrayed in the galleries – a

table set for the Passover seder, a video of a woman making bagels, a marriage ketubah.

Visitors often are curious about the theater seats in the sanctuary. Hollywood producer Louis B. Mayer, who was born in the Ukraine, grew up in Saint John and celebrated his bar mitzvah at the synagogue.

His mother, Sarah, was known as the first lady of Shaarei Zedek. After Mayer established himself in the movie business, he shared his good fortune with friends. Con-

EUROPE Explore Venice, Florence, and Rome or learn about the rich Jewish history in Toledo, Granada or Prague. Discover Berlin or Vilna. Tour Cracow, Warsaw and Lublin and visit the concentration camps in Poland. Learn about the past, present, and future of these unique Jewish communities on a one-of-a-kind kosher tour with meaningful Shabbat experiences.

ISRAEL Tour from North to South with an itinerary to meet your synagogue’s needs. You will explore our people’s rich history while learning and experiencing the modern State of Israel and our dreams for the future.

The staff at the Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center has more than 35 years experience planning trips for Conservative groups to Europe and Israel. Contact us so we can plan your synagogue’s next meaningful excursion overseas together.

Website: www.uscj.org.il E-mail: david@uscj.org

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gregants became film distributors and owners of theater chains. One donated the sanctuary seats.

The Jewish community contributed to Saint John’s cultural life in many ways. A poster in the corridor commemorates life at Millie and Ben Guss’ home, which was a hub for music lovers. Everyone in the family sang and played an instrument. During the many years that Ben was president of the community concert series, guest artists often practiced in their living room. Daughter Faith recalled that “when Glenn Gould practiced on our piano we sat on the steps to the second floor landing … like quiet little mice with huge ears.” Son Jonathan remembered that “Yitzchak Pearlman spent the afternoon at the house before a concert.

He played chess with me at the dining room table…. He was very good.” These are the intimate memories that the heimisch museum aims to preserve.

Brushing aside old memories, 90-yearold Isadore Davis, who celebrated his bar mitzvah in the synagogue, proudly declared that today Shaarei Zedek is “Conservative

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and egalitarian.” But the first Jews in the port city were Orthodox. Solomon and Alice Hart, who emigrated from England and came to Saint John in 1858 by way of New York, are considered the first permanent Jewish settlers there. The Harts prospered from Solomon’s tobacco business, and as more British Jews followed, the city became a cigar manufacturing center. For a while, the Harts held religious services in their home. When they lost a young daughter in 1873, they dedicated land for a Jewish cemetery.

In 1881, there were 15 Jewish families in Saint John. Using contributions from people of all faiths, they built the city’s first synagogue, aptly named Ahavith Achim (brotherly love). Alice opened a nursery and taught in the Hebrew school. The following year, she organized Daughters of Israel “to help the needy and nurture the sick.” In 1882, their daughter Elizabeth married her English cousin Louis Green in Saint John’s first Jewish wedding.

By 1891, there were 43 Jewish families in the city. A decade later, the census shows

nearly 300. The influx of Ashkenazim, fleeing Eastern Europe and the pogroms of the Russian empire, introduced an exotic flavor to the city. They practiced customs the locals did not understand. They spoke little or no English, only Yiddish. The men, who were mostly peddlers, dressed in black and had long beards; the women covered their heads with kerchiefs and dressed in the peasant clothes of the shtetl. Nevertheless, they found a comfortable home in Saint John, and in 1906 they founded the Hazen Avenue Synagogue. Although both congregations were Orthodox, they had little to do with one another. They reflected different cultures; their customs were different; there were class differences; they spoke different languages. Their services were different and each had its own rabbi.

Both congregations thrived and outgrew their buildings. When the city’s handsome neo-Gothic Presbyterian church became available in 1919, they managed to set aside their differences to merge, launching a golden era. The combined congregation, comprised of about 200 male members, chose the new name Shaarei Zedek.

Jews participated in the vibrant life of Saint John. They founded successful businesses. In 1977, the city elected Samuel Davis as its first Jewish mayor. (His father, Harry, a cabinetmaker, crafted the ark and reading table in the museum.) Benjamin R. Guss became the first Jewish judge and Erminie Cohen the first Jewish senator.

In the 1950s, however, younger people began drifting away. To be more modern, Shaarei Zedek affiliated with the Conservative movement. But the pull of opportunity in the big cities was strong.

Membership declined to about 40. There has been no rabbi since 1982. In 2008, the congregation sold the church building, its home for almost 100 years.

Shaarei Zedeck has functioned for years under the able administration of Dan Elman, a lay reader, who organizes services, sends out yahrzeit reminders, leads classes to teach adults how to conduct services, and fills in as the Hebrew school teacher.

The museum’s success has ushered in a new optimism. Marcia Koven, a descendant (continued on page 33)

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Masorti Leadership Mission participants in the Knesset synagogue where they held an historic egalitarian minyan.United States Ambassador Dan Shapiro and Emily Levy-Shochat, chair of Masorti in Israel, are in the photo at right.

ON A MISSION TO ISRAEL

BY RABBI ROBERT SLOSBERG

T

HE WHIRLWIND four-day Masorti leadership mission to Israel in January 2012 was a real eye-opener. I was one of a group of 21 Conservative rabbis and lay leaders from around North America who had come expecting to see recent developments in our nearly 65 Masorti kehillot. But we also were there to express solidarity with Israelis committed to pluralism and to challenge government officials over policies that favor minority Orthodox extremists over the majority’s democratic values.

On the one hand, the mission was exactly what I had anticipated. Still, I was unprepared for just how overwhelmed I would be by everything we encountered. I was particularly moved by young Israelis’ excitement over the Masorti movement, and their embrace of the democratic, pluralistic, open practice of Judaism that we offer. Israelis are connecting to Masorti through the educational, religious, and social programs and community service opportunities available in our kehillot; through the Noam youth movement and the network of Marom chapters for college-age and young adults; Rabbi Robert Slosberg is the spiritual leader of Congregation Adath Jeshurun in Louisville, Kentucky.

and through the political activism the movement organizes to protest discrimination against women and against non-Orthodox streams in Israel.

The personal stories of Masorti congregants deeply moved me. For many, the Masorti kehilla is their first exposure to a way of Jewish life that encourages the equal participation of the entire family. My Israeli rabbinic colleagues, who despite financial sacrifices serve our movement with distinction, are dynamic teachers and spiritual leaders. It isn’t easy to impress a roomful of Conservative rabbis, but we were dazzled by text study with several rising young stars.

Nathalie Lastreger, the new spiritual leader of Kehillat Sinai in Tel Aviv, who will be ordained soon, mesmerized us with the tale of her personal journey, from marriage to an ultra-Orthodox rabbi to the impassioned Masorti professional and human rights activist she is today.

Rabbi Hanna Klebansky, an olah from the former Soviet Union, is defying the unequal treatment of women in Israel in a most unorthodox way. Late into the night, after putting her five children to bed, Rabbi Klebansky sits at her desk in a tiny corner of her living room writing a Torah scroll. It was a thrill to hold and pass around one of the 64 panels she will eventually complete.

We heard from Masorti rabbis, kehilla leaders, and local officials about the posi-

Rabbi Robert Slosberg

tive impact Masorti is having on life everywhere, from large cities to small towns and villages, from relatively affluent communities to those facing significant poverty and other disadvantages.

The gan (kindergarten) at Kehillat Eshel Avraham in Beersheva, one of Masorti’s larger communities, has a waiting list nearly as large as its enrollment of 230 youngsters. At the large plot of land that the city is interested in providing the kehilla for a second gan, we learned about the congregation’s long-range vision for an elementary school as well.

Elsewhere in the Negev, at Kehillat Netzach Yisrael in Ashkelon, we lunched with Rabbi Gustavo Surzski, lay leaders, and graduates of Masorti’s Noam youth movement.

These young Israelis, undoubtedly the next generation of Masorti leadership, are living CJ — S U M M E R 2 0 1 2

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and working at an absorption center for Ethiopian olim as part of Noam’s Shin-Shin community service program in the year before army enlistment. Listening to the director of the absorption center praise these bright young men and women, I realized that the future of our movement is in great hands.

We heard from enthusiastic leaders of several new kehillot in Tzur Yitzchak, Petach Tikvah, Holon, and Pardes Hanna about how they are building their communities.

In Karmiel, Rabbi Mijael Even David and

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Rabbi Hanna Klebansky showed the group the megilla scroll she inscribed.

kehilla leaders showed off the new addition to their building and shared their plans for continued growth.

In Kfar Vradim, just south of the Lebanese border, we were moved by the persistence of Mayor Sivan Yechieli in helping the kehilla realize its dream for a new home. For nearly 10 years that dream was on hold, as government ministries under the control of ultra-Orthodox parties blocked efforts to construct a facility. Even though Sivan is not observant, he could see the importance of the Masorti kehilla to the Kfar Vradim community, and he was determined to make the building happen.

Pluralism has made its way onto the radar of many of Israel’s leading political figures. At our opening dinner, Tzipi Livni, who then was the head of the Kadima party, offered some very forceful words in support of democratic values. Her appearance, given the timing in a critical primary season, was testament to her view of Masorti’s growing stature. We met, too, with Meir Dagan, the former head of Mossad, and with Rabbi Uri Regev, the head of Hiddush, a Jerusalembased organization promoting religious freedom and diversity. And one of my proudest moments was meeting U.S. Ambassador Dan Shapiro at the American embassy. He and his family are regular and active members of our Masorti kehilla in Kfar Saba.

Finally, during our visit to the Knesset we held the first egalitarian prayer service to be held in the synagogue there since the building’s dedication in 1966. The service was lead by Rabbi Jennifer Gorman, a Conservative rabbi. It followed a morning of meetings with government ministers and Knesset members, where we made the point that religious pluralism and democracy are matters of major concern to diaspora Jewry,

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and that Israel’s political landscape must change if Israel is to redefine the increasingly anti-democratic relationship between religion and the state.

We talked to Dan Meridor of Likud, who is deputy prime minister and also minister of intelligence and atomic energy, and to Uzi Landau of Israel Beiteinu, minister of energy and water. We also talked to MKs Yohanan Plesner and Orit Zuaretz of Kadima and Isaac Herzog of Labor. We were delighted to discover that they, too, were familiar with Masorti’s contributions to Israeli life.

I flew home awed and inspired by the growth and depth of Masorti in Israel, yet frustrated knowing that the movement’s amazing work is being accomplished on a shoestring budget. For a number of kehillot, the biggest challenge is finding funding to hire a rabbi or rabbinic intern. The government provides less than $50,000 to all Masorti programs and services, compared to the more than $450 million it provides to Orthodox institutions. It pays the salaries of about 3,000 Orthodox rabbis and not one Masorti rabbi.

In truth, the budget of the entire Masorti movement is less than that of some individual congregations in North America.

And as I flew home I also considered this appalling fact: Conservative/Masorti converts to Judaism meet the traditional requirements of Jewish law, but because their conversions are not accepted by Israel’s official rabbis they cannot get married in the Jewish state. The hoops that even those of my congregants who were born to Jewish parents must jump through if they wish to marry in Israel are daunting. It is hard for me to fathom that I have fewer religious rights in my Jewish homeland than I do in the Commonwealth of Kentucky! The continuing lack of pluralism in Israel and discrimination against non-ultra-Orthodox Jewry is simply unacceptable. It is critical that we support Masorti in Israel and express the need for change.

So I flew home from Israel feeling exhilarated, depressed, and determined. Exhilarated by the possibilities of Jewish life there, depressed by the challenges other Jews put in our way, and determined to be part of the solution that will make Israel the home it should be for all Jews. CJ

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Charles Simon (continued from page 9)

influence their children. Late afternoon we met as a group and I asked how they were going to respond to their adult children when they were asked why, all of a sudden, they wished them a Shabbat shalom.

“Because it is important to me,” they decided to reply. Six months later, they are still doing it. Hopefully, it will be passed on to their grandchildren.

A world of information is becoming available to help men learn to become more effective fathers. It’s one piece of FJMC’s Hearing Men’s Voices Initiative. Hearing Men's Voices provides the venue for men to talk about the issues that affect their daily lives, including their roles as fathers. As they engage in these conversations they both mentor and learn from others at the same time. Many of these issues are also explored on Mentschen.org, the online address for conversation for Jewish men. CJ

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Young bee keepers pet some of the animals at Devorat Hatavor.

ISRAEL FOR KIDS

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ISITING ISRAEL WITH your kids is fun, exciting, and educational. It is an adventure that you and your children will remember forever. There’s so much to do and see that it’s important to plan ahead to make the most of your trip.

If you’re wondering about how you’ll manage with language issues and safety, don’t worry. There are many activities geared toward English speakers. Most Israeli guides are fluent in English. Israel’s safety regulations are on par with those in other developed countries, so all you need to think about is how much fun you and your kids will have.

Here is just a sampling of ideas to inspire you. Your little ones can enjoy fun gyms, petting zoos, arts and crafts, puppet plays, donkey rides, or bee farms (yes, bee farms!).

For slightly older kids with lots of energy, think Action Park, ATV/jeep rides, kayaking, rock climbing, and horseback riding.

There are plenty of educational experiences available as well: museums, tours of factories, learning the art of ancient spices, silk, and honey, and scavenger hunts exploring the various neighborhoods of Jerusalem.

Avital Cohen, MSW, is the founder of Israel Kids, a new website for activities, local events, and services in Israel, for kids and families.

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B Y AV I TA L C O H E N For fun in the sun don’t miss out on glassbottom boat rides, the dolphin reef, and Israel’s national parks.

For direct access to these sites, go to www.uscj.org, scroll to the bottom, and click on the cover of this magazine. From there, you can click on this article. You also can go to Israelkids.co.il.

Central • Pe’alton Gymboree has locations throughout Israel (Toddlers) http://www. pealton.co.il • Beedvash in Kfar Chabad is a petting zoo (Ages 3+) http://beedvash.co.il

• Diaspora Museum, Beit Hatfutzot, on the Tel Aviv University campus, to learn about the ongoing story of the Jewish people (Age 6+) http://www.bh.org.il • Tnuva factory visitor center in Rehovot demonstrates how milk gets from the cow to your fridge (Ages 6+) http://www.visittnuva.co.il • Tel Aviv’s Sportek Climbing Wall offers rock-climbing lessons (Ages 9+) http://israelkids.co.il Jerusalem • Train Theatre offers puppet plays, story telling and more. (Ages 2+) http://

Outside the Diaspora Museum, Beit Hatfutzot in Tel Aviv.

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www.traintheater.co.il/english • Bowling Center is a great way to spend a rainy day (Ages 6+) http:// israelkids.co.il • Jerusalem Scavenger Hunt (Ages 9+) http://www.jerusalemscavengerhunts.com • Ammunition Hill Museum to learn about the liberation and reunification of Jerusalem (Ages 9+) http://israelkids.co.il • Keyad Hadimyon, outside Modiin, not far from Jerusalem, for arts and crafts (Ages 3+) http://www.hadimyon.co.il South • Philip Farm in the northern Negev for donkey rides and other fun activities (All ages) http://www.philipfarm.co.il • Eilat’s Yisrael-Yam (glass bottom boat ride) for a relaxing ride along the Red Sea (All ages) http://israelkids.co.il • Dolphin Reef (Eilat) to watch dolphins in their natural habitat (All ages) http://www.dolphinreef.co.il • Kiryat Gat’s Action Park offers thrilling rides, games and more (Ages 6+) http:// www.action-park.co.il • Eilat’s Camel Ranch for adventurous horseback riding (Ages 6+) http:// www.camel-ranch.co.il North • Devorat Hatavor in Moshav Shadmot Devora, for a bee farm and petting zoo (Ages 3+) http://www.dvorat-hatavor.co.il • 101 Kilometer, south of Paran, home to the largest reptile farm in the Middle East, for ATV/jeep rides (All ages) http:// israelkids.co.il • The Galilee’s Etz Habakbukim (Bottle Tree) to learn to make ancient spices (Ages 6+) http://www.ein-tzurim.org.il • Achziv Beach National Park, north of Nahariya, has stunning views and natural and artificial seawater pools (All ages) http://www.parks.org.il • Hagosherim kayaks, in Hagoshrim, offers an adventurous kayak ride down the Jordan River (Ages 3+)http://www.kayak. co.il Go to Israelkids.co.il to get a full list of fun activities for children as well as discount coupons for many of these attractions. CJ

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FACTS YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT MASORTI B Y R A B B I A L A N S I LV E R S T E I N

• Masorti is the name of the Conservative movement in Israel.

It stands for religious pluralism and democratic values in an egalitarian Judaism.

• Masorti is dominated at its grassroots by sabras as well as by olim – immigrants – from Latin America, the former Soviet Union, and Muslim lands, unified via the Hebrew language.

• Masorti of 2012 is young and getting younger all the time.

Its kehillot abound with kindergartens and nurseries filled to capacity, with 600 bnai mitzvah ceremonies annually, with almost 2,000 members of Noam, the nationwide youth movement, and with 500 summer campers at Ramah/Noam.

• Over the last few years, Masorti has grown from less than 50 to 63 kehillot, springing to life in such towns as Tzur Yitzhak, Holon, and Petach Tikvah.

• Israelis are becoming increasingly aware of Masorti. An Avi Chai/Guttman Institute survey released in January shows that 30 percent of Israelis have attended services at a Conservative or Reform congregation. Yizhar Hess, the movement’s chief executive, frequently is invited to write op-eds in the Israeli press and is interviewed on radio and television. The movement and its leaders are gaining influence within the Knesset, as well.

• The rabbis in Masorti communities are dynamos. Veterans such as Mauricio Balter and Roberto Arbib have been joined by a new generation of young and passionate colleagues including Elisha Wolfin, Tamar Elad-Appelbaum, Chaya Rowen Baker, Gustavo Surazki, Yoav Ende, Dubi Hayun, and Jeff Cymet.

• Once you leave Jerusalem, openness to Masorti increases dramatically. For example, in Kfar Vradim, a new building for our Masorti kehilla came into being because of strong support from the secular mayor and his colleagues. In Beer-

Rabbi Alan Silverstein, PhD, is the chair of the board of the Masorti Foundation for Conservative Judaism in Israel and the spiritual leader of Congregation Agudath Israel in Caldwell, New Jersey.

The Bookshelf (continued from page 11)

Mortality and Morality: A Search for the God after Auschwitz by Hans Jonas, edited by Lawrence Vogel. Northwestern University Press, 1996 This generous selection of papers by one of the most influential Jewish thinkers of

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sheva, the municipality has designated land for a second Masorti kindergarten in a developing part of the city.

• Masorti’s kehillot include thousands of dues-paying members. Under rabbinic guidance, the members of these kehillot reach out to the community at large through nurseries and kindergartens, Noam, life-cycle ceremonies, absorption of olim, assistance to those below the poverty line, advocacy of ecological concerns, outreach to Israeli Arab communities, and the provision of special needs bar/bat mitzvah training and ceremonies.

Masorti touches more than 75,000 Israelis annually. Impressively, the Avi Chai/Guttman Institute survey reveals that nearly 500,000 Israelis self-identify as Masorti or Reform.

• Vaani T’fillati, the Masorti Shabbat and weekday siddur, which is published by Israel’s largest publishing house, has been a best-seller. A Masorti machzor is being prepared. These egalitarian liturgical reflections of Israeli life offer prayers for Yom Ha’Atzmaut, Yom HaZikaron, entering the IDF, and other life-cycle events.

• Masorti is central to the spectrum of Israeli Judaism, offering the only regular egalitarian Shabbat morning minyanim.

Masorti also offers a halachic approach that is both flexible and traditional, addressing issues such as the religious permissibility of visiting the Temple Mount, of trading land for peace, of women serving in the IDF, and so on.

• The Israeli public is ever more receptive to our message.

In the most recent poll, 63 percent support official recognition for both Masorti and Reform. A growing number of secular Israelis indicate that they are “open to” encountering aspects of the Jewish tradition within their lives in a “noncoercive” manner. These are code words for Masorti, Reform, and the liberal elements of modern Orthodoxy.

As the evaluators of the Avi Chai/Guttman Institute poll conclude: “The results of the survey are evidence that Israeli Jews are committed to two significant values: preserving Jewish tradition on the one hand, and upholding individual freedom of choice on the other.” In sum, the fact is that Masorti Judaism is emerging as part of a broad Israeli-Jewish consensus.

the 20th century deals with moral, religious, and ethical issues in the wake of the Holocaust. Jonas, a German Jew who studied with and was a friend of philosophers Martin Heidegger, Rudolph Bultmann, and Hanah Arendt, was himself exiled by the Nazis, fought in World War II and the Israeli War of Independence, and ended up on the

faculty of the New School for Social Research in New York. The essays are suffused with his major concerns: the moral impulse, the meaning of a human life, and the possibility of faith in God after the Holocaust.

These essays do not make for easy reading, but they are all rewarding and they open new vistas of thinking. CJ

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A PERSONAL MIRACLE The First Masorti Rabbi in Ukraine

BY RABBI TZVI GRAETZ

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EWISH LIFE IN UKRAINE has changed and grown tremendously since the end of the Soviet era. One of the biggest changes was inaugurated in March 2012, when the first Conservative/Masorti rabbi took up a permanent post in Kiev.

The story of Rabbi Reuven Stamov (his first name originally was Roma) and his long journey back to Ukraine is nothing short of miraculous. Reuven was born in Simferopol in Crimea – a region of Ukraine – in 1974.

His family was Jewish but entirely secular. He was teased at school for being a Jew, but during his childhood he never really had the opportunity to explore what that meant. As the Soviet period came to an end, many Ukrainian Jewish families left, relocating to Israel or other places. The Stamovs decided to stay in Ukraine, however, and at 18 Reuven became involved for the first time in Jewish educational activities. He began to understand the purpose and rituals of the festivals, gained a rudimentary understanding of Hebrew, and developed a passion for Masorti Judaism.

Throughout the 1990s, Reuven’s commitment to Judaism, the Jewish community, and Jewish and Zionist education grew as he became involved in the Ramah summer camp in Ukraine operated by Midreshet Yerushalayim. A division of the Schechter Institute for Jewish Studies, Midreshet Yerushalayim focuses on Russian-speaking Jews in Israel and parts of the former Soviet Union. Camp Ramah-Yachad gave

Rabbi Tzvi Graetz is a graduate of the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary in Jerusalem and the executive director of Masorti Olami and Mercaz Olami.

Reuven a religious home, a place where he could grow as a Jewish communal leader, teaching campers about Masorti Judaism and developing his own knowledge and practice at the same time.

Reuven says that he began to want a more spiritual, meaningful, and observant Jewish life from his very first Camp Ramah experience. This eventually led him to move to Israel in 2003, and shortly afterward he came to the logical conclusion that his destiny was to become a Masorti rabbi. That would allow him to share with others his love and understanding of a Judaism that was traditional and modern, spiritual and intellectual, and committed to both Israel

and the diaspora.

Reuven studied at the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary in Jerusalem for nearly seven years, receiving support from Masorti Olami, the worldwide Masorti movement, via the Schorsch Fellowship, which supports rabbinical students committed to working in developing Masorti communities in Europe. During his studies he continued to work with Midreshet Yerushalayim in partnership with Masorti Olami. He traveled to Ukraine several times each year to run seminars, summer camp, and a successful conversion program, as well as many other projects that created the foundation (continued on page 53)

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Jews in Georgia JDocu is a group of amateur photographers, friends who know each other from Israel’s thriving high-tech world. They have set themselves the task of documenting Jewish communities around the world. These pictures are from the photographers’ journey to Georgia, in the former Soviet Union, to document what is left of the Jewish community there after the exodus of Jews from the region that began in the 1970s.

The photographs were first exhibited at Beit Hatfutsot: The Museum of the Jewish People, in Tel Aviv, in March 2012, with support from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Funders Network.

See more of the group’s art at jdocu.com.

An empty container for a Torah Scroll stands in the old synagogue in Oni. Tali Idan

Just before Shavuot, girls in Rustavi get ready for a festive portrait. Yossi Beinart

A bagel stand on the main road from Tbilisi. Atalla Katz 30

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Dr. Shalva Buziashvilli, the last Jewish doctor in Rustavi, and his wife.

Tali Idan

Books are illuminated by light from the window in a deserted synagogue in Kutaisi. Eli Atias

A tzedakah box in a closed synagogue. Tali Idan

The abandoned synagogue in Kutaisi.

Amir Halevy

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A women in the Jewish club in Rustavi. Yossi Beinart

A scene from the synagogue that no one visits anymore.

Yossi Beinart

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Richard Skolnik

Saint John

(continued from page 10)

(continued from page 22)

the same issues that face Israelis and diaspora Jews on a regular basis. I hope that I continued facilitating this growth in others this year as the Nativ assistant director. I will forever be grateful for all that I have learned over the years of my involvement with Nativ, most importantly the understanding that all Jewish journeys are intertwined and neverending.”

of an early 20th century immigrant, established the museum and was its first curator.

She began by hiring Katherine Biggs-Craft, a college classmate who is not Jewish and by her own admission “knew virtually nothing about Judaism.” It was a fortuitous choice nonetheless, and when Koven retired, BiggsCraft became curator. The museum archives now attract scholars from all over the world.

The American Association for State and Local Libraries, the Church and Synagogue Library Association, and the province of New Brunswick all have honored it with awards. CJ

Aaron Sherman, Nativ 26 Aaron is from Santa Rosa, California. While he was on Nativ he was in the Hebrew University – Yerucham track, and afterward he went to the University of California at Davis.

There, Aaron was involved with the Israel student group, and he spent a semester interning for Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in Washington, DC. Aaron has spent every summer since Nativ staffing USY Eastern Europe/Israel Pilgrimage, first as a counselor and then as a group leader. After graduating from UC-Davis, he staffed Nativ 30’s Yerucham group, and now he is the communications/speechwriting intern at Obama for America’s headquarters in Chicago.

“Nativ not only gave me experiences of a lifetime, but it taught me how to live my life. From what I love about davening to my thankfulness for Shabbat each week, almost everything about how I live a Jewish life I either learned, built upon, or discovered while on Nativ. Without Nativ, I wouldn’t be the educated, passionate, committed Jewish young adult I am today.”

A wholehearted yashir koach goes to Nativ’s director, Yossi Garr, and his incredible staff, who work tirelessly throughout the year to educate our students in such an outstanding manner. Nativ graduates are our bridge to the future, our inspiration, and our most precious resource. CJ

TO ADVERTISE CALL

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WHY ARE YOU WEARING THAT CAMEL AROUND YOUR NECK?

S

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Pho tos by

O WEARING THE TIE that’s an overall matzah print on Pesach makes perfect sense.

The tie with the big whale for the afternoon of Yom Kippur, when the haftarah is the story of Jonah, yeah, that’s pretty obvious too, once you think about it. (Rosh Hashanah morning and Kol Nidrei, on the other hand, call for a simple white tie to match the kittel.)

These ties are a very basic introduction to the very many ties of Frederic S. Goldstein, gabbai and third-generation face of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun on New York City’s Upper West Side, familiarly referred to as BJ. The one with hearts on it? That’s for Parashat Va-era, when Pharoah’s heart was hardened. (Va-era often is read in February, but no, it’s not for Valentine’s Day.) The game quickly gets harder. What about the tie with the Cat in the Hat? There are no cats mentioned in the Torah, and certainly there is nothing about top hats. It’s because the Cat in the Hat is a creation of Dr. Seuss, and in Parashat Beshallach, when the people sing the Song of the Sea, we are told that they are celebrating God’s having hurled horse and driver into the sea.

Horse and driver? Suess vrachvo. Oh! Got it!

Freddy, who is an Excel guru in civilian life, started teaching about computers at Baruch College in 1970, back when computers and he both were young, and he teaches there still. He is the grandson of the Reverend Jacob Schwartz, who was BJ’s cantor from 1914 to 1953. (BJ was a founding member of United Synagogue, which was chartered in 1913, just a year earlier.)

He traces his interest in parashah neckwear to his grandfather.

And rew She rma n

BY JOANNE PALMER

“My mom” – Bobbye S. Goldstein – “would dress me in a suit when I was a little boy when we’d go to shul,” he said. “It was a time when everyone was dressed more formally. I would sit up in the balcony.

My grandfather would sit on the bimah and look up at me and he’d rub his tie, and I would rub my tie. I would be sitting in the middle of 1,000 people, but it was as if I could hear him saying ‘Hello, Freddy,” and I was yelling back to him ‘Hello, Grandpa Jack.’ I like to believe that’s how my tie thing started.”

Freddy has always worn a tie, even when he was an undergraduate in the 1960s, when they were not at all in vogue.

“I can’t remember when I first started with the parashah themes, but among the first idiosyncratic ties I had was one with watermelons,” he recalled. It’s from Parashat Beha’lotekha, where the Israelites, who for a change are complaining, say that they used to have melons back in Egypt. The word for melons in biblical Hebrew, avatichem, is the word modern Israelis use for watermelons. Et voila!

Some of Freddy’s ties are literal – animals for Parashat Pinchas, which describes sacrifices in what might be too much detail. At least one day of Sukkot calls for a tie with a citron on it, and Shemini Atzeret – the eighth and last day of the festival – demands a tie with pool balls, one of them sporting a great big number 8. He has a rainbow tie for Parashat Noach, and one with stars for Lech Lecha, where God promises Abram that he will have as many descendants as there are stars in the sky.

Sometimes Freddy gets ties as gifts – like the one showing Moshe coming down Mount Sinai with the tablets in his hand, which clearly appeals to a very niche market. Others he buys himself. He went to the M&M store in Times Square for its iconic M&M tie. He wears it when two parshiyot, Mattot and Massei, are read in the same week. The habit might get expensive, but there are ways to cope. “You can buy a regular tie starting at $30 and going way up, and you can get tourist ties for a few dollars,” he said. The tourist ties, needless to say, tend toward the garish.

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AND WHAT’S THAT ON YOUR HEAD? B Y B E R T S T R AT T O N AYBE A COLLAGE artist could do something with my assortment of yarmulkes, which I’ve collected during the 23 years I’ve spent playing klezmer clarinet at weddings and bar mitzvahs in Cleveland.

My Guatemalan yarmulkes – crocheted

by Mayan Indians – come from hipster weddings. These multi-colored Mayan kippot are especially big hits with female rabbi brides. That’s a niche.

My most heimisch lids are bubbie-knit.

For one party, a grandma knit 150 yarmulkes. I took about five leftovers.

Skull cap. Those are harsh words. I have some blue suede yarmulkes, distributed

by A1 Skull Cap Co. out of Brooklyn. The yarmulkes don’t breathe. I like a yarmulke that breathes, crocheted or knitted.

Camouflage kippot. I have a few. My band

Bert Stratton plays clarinet in the klezmer band Yiddishe Cup and is the author of the blog Klezmer Guy: Real Music & Real Estate.

He is a member of Park Synagogue in Cleveland. www.klezmerguy.com.

played a bar mitzvah where the theme was Zahal (that’s the Israel Defense Forces). The bar mitzvah boy’s father wore combat boots and a full Israeli army uniform. The band wore IDF T-shirts, except our trombone player, who is a pacifist.

Sports-themed lids happen too. One time we had to wear basketball jerseys and kippot at a bar mitzvah party. There even was a cheerleader squad. The girls did gymnastics formations while cheering “Mazal tov, let’s shout hurray. It’s Jeremy and Sam’s bar mitzvah day.” Another cheer was “I say ‘oy,’ you say ‘vey,’ Jeremy and Sam are men today.”

My band’s keyboard player often starts gigs by asking, “Is this a yarmulke gig or not?” He’s a gentile. I have explained that some are half-and-half: yarmulke for the ceremony, no yarmulke for the party.

My Conservative rabbi wears a “throwaway” yarmulke, the black satin number used by funeral homes and synagogues. My rabbi doesn’t want to look different from his congregants, I guess. I don’t have the guts to ask him why.

My white satin yarmulke from December 9, 2007 is imprinted with the groom’s

name, Ananth Uggirala. His parents, from India, were Anjaneyulu and Manorama Uggirala. I had to announce them. Memorable.

You need the right kind of yarmulke clips if you’re a musician because you move around a lot. Bobby pins are the worst. They take your hair out. Duck bill clips – also bad. The best are the little surfboard barrettes.

If you don’t have good clips, you’re in trouble, particularly at outdoor gigs.

I remember one Israeli guy marching with the chuppah outdoors, while smoking and balancing a drink. His yarmulke blew off. He scooped it up, put it back on, and took a drink. Secular Israelis, they’re funny.

I wore a yarmulke for a week when I hitchhiked out west. This was decades ago. I had just seen a photo of Bob Dylan wearing a yarmulke at the Kotel. None of the drivers who picked me up commented. My hat was just a hat – to them. To me, it was a religion. CJ

Occasionally his ties have a more personal meaning. His father,Gabriel F. Goldstein, was a chemist, a pioneer in plastics, and Freddy honors him at his yarzheit by wearing a tie with some of the signs of his discipline, chemical symbols or a balance scale.

Freddy points out that as much fun as his hobby is, and as creative as it allows him to be, at its core it is serious. His life

has connected him to the rhythms and assumptions of the Jewish world in profound ways. Not only was his grandfather a cantor, for many decades his grandmother, Lottie G. Schwartz, was the president of the sisterhood (yes, B’nai Jeshurun also had an early connection to Women’s League for Conservative Judaism). Freddy’s other grandfather, Herbert S. Goldstein, was the rabbi of the West Side Institutional Synagogue,

and his other grandmother, Rebecca Fischel Goldstein, was the president of that kehilla’s sisterhood. “I’ve been in shuls all my life,” Freddy said. So the game is a logical one for him. To do it properly it is necessary to study the parashah thoroughly. The idea of such study, week after week, comes naturally. Putting the tie together with the parashah is a puzzle, far more art than (continued on page 52)

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YAY FOR JEWISH SUMMER CAMPS!

BY DR. SHARON S I LV E R M A N P O L L O C K S A PEDIATRICIAN AND specialist in adolescent behavior and emotional development, I want to encourage parents to send their kids to Jewish summer camps. I can’t rave enough about the invaluable meaning, depth of connection, and enduring worth that immersion in a Jewish summer camp experience offers.

Not only is camp a great place to form lifelong friendships, I believe that it is an inoculation against teenage angst and deleterious risk taking and a remedy for teen disillusion.

Twenty-first century teens need a place where they can learn to tolerate inactivity and distress safely, and to experience social life as real human interactions, not screen facsimiles.

Camp is that place.

My office is in the San Fernando Valley.

Beyond earthquake fault lines, there is much more trouble rumbling through my community. In the past few months there have been three teen suicides, one heroin death, three alcohol poisoning deaths, and many lucky survivors of extreme party nights. Why? Some were related to grades and perfectionism, others to intolerance of breakups and emotional despair, and some were just experimentation gone wrong. Many of the victims were Jewish. While parents who read about Wendy Mogel’s blessings of wounded knees and bad grades and Amy Chua’s battle hymn of tiger moms who are worried about how their kids will get into the right colleges, too many teenagers are looking

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Sharon Silverman Pollock, M.D., is a pediatrician with a practice in psychopharmacology. She is a doctor at Camp Ramah in Ojai, California.

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to check out in some way.

According to Monitoring the Future, a yearly survey of teens across the country, 6.6 percent of high school seniors – that’s 1 in 15 – use marijuana daily. How can we prevent that? Jewish summer camp. According to adolescent specialist Ken Ginsberg, M.D., social growth and connections provide the attributes that will help kids develop the resilience they need as they become teenagers. Those resilience attributes are competence through experience, confidence rooted in competence, fostering close connections, building character, feeling a significant contribution to a community, and learning both coping and control. If we can help kids find social success and forestall the more distressing benchmarks of teen risk taking, they will gain more experience at establishing their personalities in the larger world.

Kids do risky things for many reasons.

One is that somehow it makes them feel good despite all the harm it creates. Kids can quote you line and verse about the negative consequences of substance abuse. But they still use alcohol and drugs and cut themselves. They are depressed, and they commit suicide. We need to create places and opportunities where kids can benefit from positive experiences.

If we empower young people and still allow them to take risks, they will grow strong in their concept of themselves. The risk taking built into summer camp includes leaving the safety and comfort of home and

interacting socially with more kids. Summer camp experiences are designed to create resilient adolescents. Camp helps develop self-confidence and social competence by growing interpersonal and core mindfulness skills, as well as some mastery in regulating emotion and tolerating distress.

I won’t say that it’s something only Jewish summer camp does. The Jewish community offers it in kehilla and community affiliations, USY and Kadima, and schools that instill values of tzedakah and community service. Parents should be invested in connecting their kids to these communities. Kids are taught morality and the difference between right and wrong in environments that are centered in Jewish values. Camp does this through educational programs, music, sports, drama, daily routines, arts, and food. Parents also should model these behaviors.

At camp, everyone is understood to be created betzelem elohim, in God’s image.

Still, the same painful parts of puberty are packed into campers’ duffle bags – girl stuff, boy struggles, fitting in, and body image struggles. At camp, though, campers learn to meet distress and to cope.

Yay Jewish summer camp! That is why I am a camp doctor and my kids have been raised in camps and have become great mensches. That is why I train the counselors in adolescent behavior and how to include different kids, recognizing behavior as issues of self-expression. I love and support the Jewish camping movement. CJ

All photos courtesy of the National Ramah Commission.

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IN MEMORY OF A FRIEND

BY ADIN YEHOSHUA MEIR

Adin and Eric

AM A FORMER RAMAH camper and staff member stricken with grief at the sudden death of my lifelong friend and fellow Ramah camper and staff member, Eric Steinthal, z”l. In the wake of his death, I feel compelled to tell the story of how Camp Ramah in the Berkshires has transformed and shaped my life, and the lives of our group of friends.

I first met Eric as a 10-year-old at Ramah in the Berkshires. We were in the same bunk – A-16 – and have been close friends ever since. Over the next few years, our group of camp friends grew to 10. We didn’t just hang out together in camp; sleepovers and shuttling between each other’s houses were the norm all year. Our backgrounds were varied, and represented all facets of Conservative Judaism, from kids like me who attended day schools and were immersed in Jewish learning and culture, to kids who did not observe kashrut or Shabbat. Yet when we gathered in Ramah every summer we were all equal. We all observed Shabbat. We all kept kosher. We all went to tefillot every day, and wore a tallit and tefillin every morning. We all said the motzi before we ate, and we benched after every meal. And Shabbat...

Shabbat in camp is magical. The day-to-day

I

Adin Yehoshua Meir, an energy engineer, lives in Hoboken, New Jersey, with his wife, Jordana.

The 10 friends

routine is replaced by something more spiritual, more kadosh, more holy. Even as young kids we understood that Shabbat is very different from any other day of the week, and it was camp that taught us that lesson.

For us, camp did not end with the summer. Kids who did not eat kosher at home told their parents that they wanted to start keeping kosher, observing Shabbat, and even leave public school for Jewish day school, as Eric did.

Our group grew tighter as the years passed, and many of us attended Solomon Schechter high schools, deepening our bonds. As we entered college, many of us continued to work in camp, but eventually we had to enter the real world and get jobs. But we still held onto our friendships, which culminated every year with the Ramah Berkshires Labor Day alumni weekend reunion. This was the most important weekend of the year. I refused to schedule my wedding over Labor Day because I did not want to miss it! Many of us met our wives and significant others during that weekend, and indeed it is where I met my wife, Jordana, almost six years ago.

My Ramah friendships shaped and defined my life. It is easy to take for granted that nine other people will be there for you whenever you need them, but I can never take that for granted again.

Our friend, Eric Jay Steinthal, who died suddenly on Saturday, March 17, was the center of our circle. It was Eric and his fiancée Jodi Siskind who hosted all of our

poker games and get-togethers. Their apartment was our home base. Eric embodied the concept of menschlichkeit, and his quiet and unassuming demeanor and self-confidence made him extremely popular throughout the Ramah community. He was even the commissioner of the Ramah Alumni Basketball Association, and a member of the Berkshires Alumni Hanhallah – its board.

After hearing the terrible news, four of Eric’s friends, all from Ramah, rushed to the hospital to try to give his family support and comfort. The next day, more than 15 of us gathered at my parents’ house. We spent the day and night telling funny stories, trying to get through the nightmare. Eric’s funeral was the hardest day of my life. It was filled with memories, love, and most of all, Camp Ramah. Eric’s life revolved around camp, and to a certain respect the camp alumni community revolved around Eric.

We are all trying to make sense of a tragedy that no parents, no siblings, no partners, and no friends should ever have to endure.

But we have comfort. We have our bonds, forged together at Camp Ramah. They can never be broken. I cannot imagine having to endure this terrible pain without them.

Even in the face of overwhelming tragedy, we find support, love, and hope that will enable us to continue without our friend.

For all of us, that is what Camp Ramah stands for.

May Eric’s memory be for a blessing. CJ CJ — S U M M E R 2 0 1 2

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Camp Fosters Community

BY REBECCA KAHN

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VER THE PAST FEW months, it seems that every time I open my inbox I see an announcement from the National Ramah Commission about a new grant it has

Rebecca Kahn graduated from Tufts University in 2003 and has an M.A. in public administration and nonprofit management from the NYU Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service.

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received.

This is no accident. For more than 60 years, the Ramah camps have been leaders in Jewish camping. They have pushed the field to bring the best in Jewish education into camp, in both professional development and programming. The eight

Ramah camps have set the standard for ongoing leadership development of its staff and campers. This year, the Ramah camps have been awarded two important grants.

One of them is a $1.8 million grant from the Avi Chai Foundation and the Maimonides Foundation that will fund an alumni program called Reshet Ramah.

Another grant from Avi Chai, this time of $144,000, is to fund training opportunities for camp specialists at Ramah camps as well as the camps run by the Union for Reform Judaism.

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I went to Camp Ramah in the Berkshires munal professionals. I think Ramah is the for nine summers, and I credit my experi- best but it is not for everyone. It might sound ence as a camper, staff member, and exec- heretical, but not all Conservative Jews want utive leader on the alumni association board their children praying daily, engaging in to my being where I am today, both per- Jewish text-based study, or being immersed sonally and professionally. My commitment in a religious setting during summer vacaand involvement in Jewish life and the Con- tion. And whether we agree or disagree, isn’t it our collective responservative movement is sibility to make sure that a direct byproduct of these families find an Ramah, Solomon appropriate Jewish comSchechter day school, We all should rise to the munity for their chiland my family. I have challenge of helping create dren over the summer? spent the past eight more community for more As a community we years as a Jewish proof our children. have to grow Ramah fessional, working to engage children and young adults in Jewish participation – but we also can’t give up life through Israel programs and Jewish sum- on the other children of our movement.

Is it possible to develop summer expemer camp.

This March my extended camp family, riences that meet Conservative Jews where and I had to grapple with the sudden death they are in their observance, not where we of our friend, Eric Steinthal. I looked around think they ought to be? A place where they the room at his funeral and was struck by can explore their Judaism? Is there room for the power of my Ramah community – we a different brand of Conservative camps that grieved together, celebrated his life together, would reach more of our constituents? There and I hope provided some comfort to his are plenty of excellent Jewish mission-driven family, his fiancée, and his inner circle of camps that meet the standards of the ConRamah friends. It was strange and com- servative movement’s membership; do we forting to be surrounded by this amazing have an obligation to promote these camps extended camp family grieving and cry- to our families alongside Ramah to make ing instead of laughing and dancing, which sure that every child has a rich Jewish sumwe do each year at Camp Ramah’s Labor mer experience?

By neglecting to engage in a larger conDay Alumni Weekend.

According to the National Ramah Com- versation about Jewish overnight camps and mission, fewer than 10 percent of eligible other Jewish summer opportunities, are we Conservative movement-affiliated children simply giving up on the majority of famigo to a Ramah camp. If camp creates com- lies who send their children to secular munity, then we all should rise to the chal- overnight camps (which generally tend to lenge of helping create more community for attract lots of Jewish kids) and missing an more of our children. We know that when important opportunity to engage these famchildren go to camps whose values and phi- ilies in a meaningful way? To ensure the losophy are deeply rooted in Jewish life, the future of this vitally important movement, odds that those children will become adults to which I am proud to belong, we need who participate in the Jewish world and more than 10 percent of our children going identify with it are greatly increased. That to Jewish camps each summer, whether those is why we need to grow the number of camps are Ramah, another Conservative children enrolling in this transformative movement camp, or other Jewish missiondriven camps. experience.

We need more opportunities to engage Ramah is an extraordinary place. It nurtures leaders for the Conservative move- all Jewish children in Jewish camping. Every family should have a strong community ment.

We also know that not every family can so they too can celebrate joy and share loss imagine or will want its children to grow up together. Jewish summer camp is a great way to become rabbis, teachers, or Jewish com- to develop our community. CJ CJ — S U M M E R 2 0 1 2

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RAMAH FOSTERS COMMUNITY

BY RABBI MITCHELL COHEN

REBECCA KAHN’S article on the need for all of us to encourage more children of Conservativeaffiliated families to attend Camp Ramah and other Jewish summer camps is to be applauded.

Indeed, Rebecca echoes the sentiments of so many who praise our growth in recent decades and advocate for even more aggressive expansion.

We are proud of the last 20 years, when, in the face of declining demographics in the Conservative movement, Ramah has attracted and retained 30 percent more campers, so that we now host more than

R

Rabbi Mitchell Cohen is director of the National Ramah Commission of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

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9,000 children, teens, and young adults each summer. We have built new overnight camps (Ramah Darom in Georgia in 1997 and Ramah Outdoor Adventure in Colorado in 2010), opened new day camps (in Philadelphia and Chicago), and added capacity to our existing camps to make room for more children who come from a wide variety of educational and religious backgrounds.

What makes us most proud, however, is that we have accomplished all this without compromising our commitment to the highest standards of intensive Jewish experiential education. This, I believe, is the source of the cohesive lifelong friendships and Jewish commitment that thousands of alumni cite as the legacy of Ramah, credited by so many as the source of the most positive and joyful Jewish experiences of their lives.

Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, recently wrote: “As Conservative leaders, it is hard to remember how to dream because our Jewish religious vision symbolizes something that the community knows is necessary but fears is unachievable. Miraculously, advocates and skeptics agree about Ramah. Let’s take yes for an answer. If we get behind an effort to dramatically grow the Ramah system, we will be surprised by who comes along with us.”

So my response is yes! Let’s all work together to radically increase the number of Conservative families attending Ramah and other camps that have strong programs of Jewish identity-building. And yes, let us continue to develop new and cutting-edge methods of teaching Jewish content, with the understanding that our families represent the broadest spectrum of Jewish prac-

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tice and various levels of education.

But we can accomplish all this without sacrificing Jewish content. Ramah has shown that with the proper guidance from young role models, constant innovation, and tremendous care and sensitivity, we can indeed attract children from all levels of family observance and bring them, on their own path, to greater commitment to Judaism.

The Conservative movement does not need any more attempts to attract more adherents by lowering expectations. Ramah is one of the movement’s success stories because we stand for something. We must be open to change, and our camps are centers of experimentation and innovation. The real challenge is to continue to grow and innovate, and to bring the Ramah experience to a wider percentage of North American Jewish families. Our professional and lay leaders strive to accomplish this every day. But we cannot do this alone. We call upon all our Conservative partners to heed Rebecca’s call for growth, but within a Ramah system that has proven itself over 65 years, is willing to answer the call for modernization and innovation, has attracted the

support of the top foundations of Jewish life, and has maintained, not compromised, Jewish standards.

In his keynote speech at the 60th anniversary celebration of the Ramah camping movement in 2007, JTS Chancellor Arnold Eisen said: “We need more Ramah, more camps, more campers, more leaders, more mitzvot, and more prayer that’s enlivened by the wholeness of self that comes about only in a camp setting.... I want to have more and more human beings at Ramah who understand the gift that they have been given, the ability to develop answers for themselves to the eternal questions of why the Jews, why Judaism, how to live Torah, how to partner with God. And to do all of this inside of the Jewish time and space, of wholeness and of joy that are not easily available elsewhere.”

Ramah looks forward to decades of growth, to bringing into our camps more families with an even wider spectrum of practice, and to our alumni continuing to strengthen our synagogues and schools, to help build a stronger Conservative movement and a brighter Jewish future. CJ CJ — S U M M E R 2 0 1 2

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MAKING IT MATTER

BY RICHARD S. MOLINE

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N FEBRUARY I HAD THE privilege of teaching at the Koach Kallah, the annual gathering of college students sponsored by United Synagogue’s college outreach department, under the superb direction of Rabbi Elyse Winick. The weekend, which included tremendously spirited singing and davening, serious study, and wonderful social activities, brought together some 150 students from more than 55 colleges and universities across North America. The kallah was held at Boston University and made possible primarily by the generous support of Women’s League for Conservative Judaism.

That’s the commercial (and a good one it is). Now to the tachlis – the real content.

It’s no secret that our movement is under siege, whether it’s from the press, some of our affiliates, or any number of other outside sources. Yet if you were to have walked into the room during any part of the weekend, you would wonder what the problem might be, or even if there was one.

Granted, 150 college students is hardly a major sample, but the fervor and commitment they show for Conservative Judaism are nothing short of inspirational. So if things are so good, why are they so bad?

I taught a session Friday night called “What Makes Us Conservative Jews and Does It Really Matter?” We talked about ideology, relevance, and the facts on the ground. The session was packed, and while I hope it was instructive for the students, I know it was incredibly valuable to me.

We do a great job providing our young people with topnotch experiential Jewish education, whether in Kadima or USY, Camp Ramah, or other Jewish youth groups or camps. Many of our teens carry these experiences with them to the college campus, primarily at Hillel but also through informal gatherings with friends. Deeply moved by what they’ve experienced, they Richard S. Moline is United Synagogue’s chief outreach officer.

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are primed to lead full Jewish lives.

And then they come home.

In fairness, it is difficult to replicate intense peer experiences outside camp, a youth group, or a college campus. On the other hand, when you have been part of a strong Shabbat community and suddenly find yourself in a place where no such community exists, especially on a peer level, it is extraordinarily frustrating. It can send a wrong message, which no one means to send.

It can tell young people that the Shabbat that they have valued, the Shabbat experiences they have treasured throughout their time in USY, Ramah or on campus – forget it. The meaning they’ve been encouraged to give Shabbat – let it go. You’re out in the real world, we tell them, and the real world does not have time for Shabbat.

The result of this mixed message often is that people who have come to value a Shabbat community do find one, no matter what its ideology. The power and support of community often trump belief and practice (and such communities are not limited to right, center, or left).

I know people in their 20s who grew up in the Conservative movement but now go to modern Orthodox synagogues. I recently asked one of them why. Her answer was not a surprise. “It’s simple,” she said.

“I went to the local Conservative synagogue twice. Both times, there were a lot of people in the sanctuary. Nobody took the time to talk to me and I left as I came – anonymously. The first time I went to the local Orthodox synagogue, I had an invitation to Shabbat lunch before we even got to Musaf.”

Quite a few of the students at the Koach kallah spoke about the disconnect between clergy and laity, between ideology and practice. “In my experience,” one student told me, “the rabbi is the only person who seems to care about what we stand for. Everybody else picks and chooses.”

What struck me most about these comments is that so many of these students feel a desperate need for validation. They want to be part of the movement, and I am convinced they are not alone. They are seeking a traditional egalitarian Judaism, where people are fully engaged in all aspects of Jewish life. Many find it in the scores

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of independent minyanim or chavurot that have emerged in recent years. Others create their own opportunities in neighborhoods across North America. Some of these enterprises are quite informal; they have no clergy and meet perhaps once a month on a Friday night. Others meet every Shabbat morning and include study and social service projects during the week.

Some people look at these enterprises as threats. One colleague has suggested that the proliferation of independent groups could mean the decline of the synagogue.

Rather than view these creative and vibrant groups negatively, I would suggest we embrace them. Even though many of them don’t want to be labeled in this way, they represent one of the greatest successes of the Conservative movement in modern times.

Our support does not mean that we diminish our existing kehillot; rather, it is the natural extension of Solomon Schechter’s notion of klal Yisrael, the community of Israel.

Of course, we have to work on making our own communities more welcoming (many do a wonderful job already), but we also must be realistic. Many kehillot simply don’t have the critical mass (do we say critical minyan?) to nurture and sustain a peer community for people in their 20s. But when we encourage the kehillot that do incubate young communities, we are laying the groundwork for revitalization, creativity, and spiritual growth. In doing so, we must understand that many of these groups will not want to carry a denominational label of any type.

That, too, can be viewed as an opportunity; to see it as a threat is myopic at best.

The role and definition of the synagogue are changing. We must identify and support the communities of caring, committed, and passionate young Jews who will redefine our purpose and develop a traditional egalitarian Judaism that will bring meaning to their lives and the lives of the generations that will follow.

The college students who gathered in Boston for the Koach kallah, thanks to Women’s League, sent us a strong message.

They are committed to our future, but they are not sure whether we are committed to them. We have to listen to them carefully or we will be left behind in the dust. CJ CJ — S U M M E R 2 0 1 2

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A Ruach Family Service

BY DR. PAMELA KIRSCHNER WEINFELD

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N MAY 2010, RABBI MICHELLE Robinson held a meeting at Temple Emanuel in Newton, Massachusetts, to find out why so few school-aged children showed up at Shabbat morning youth services.

Although there was a thriving pre-school service, there never seemed to be more than a handful of school-aged kids at the service for them. Was the town’s amazing Saturday morning soccer program an insurmountable obstacle to a successful youth service?

The outcome of that meeting – a monthly lay-led family service – rejuvenated the youth services, brought the parents closer together, and strengthened their connection to Temple Emanuel. We even added to the synagogue’s membership roster! We hope our story will inspire you to imagine what might be possible at your own synagogue.

The idea for the Ruach Family Service took shape at that May meeting. A few parents, beginning with the understanding that working parents are away from their kids all week, said that they would like a family service so they could be together on Shabbat morning. Advocates of the family service described their vision – the room would have to be full. People had to know they would see their friends there. The service should be real. There would have to be a true a sense of kavannah – intention. It

Dr. Pamela Kirschner Weinfeld, a dermatologist, lives in Newton, Massachusetts, with her husband, Dr. Mark Weinfeld, and their children, second- and third-generation members of Temple Emanuel. You can reach her at pweinfeld@gmail.com.

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should be monthly and the families should participate. It would have to be special. If it were, families would make an effort to attend.

I had shown up at the meeting desperate for a service that my 8-year-old son could relate to. He did not like singing with the guitar in the youth service. The excitement in the room about a family service was palpable, and we knew we had to build on the momentum. I volunteered to lead the first family service and insisted that we have it right away – in July! Because there were no other kids’ services offered in the summer, it seemed simple enough to try it.

Given the emphasis placed on the importance of a full room, my main focus was to assign as many parts leading prayers as possible, so that families would commit to showing up. To make leading prayers exciting, we made illustrated laminated cards for each prayer – we call them honor cards. We added leadership cards, which the kids fill with star stickers for each prayer they lead. To entice the kids to attend, we advertised heavily, focusing on the makeyour-own ice cream sundaes with fun toppings that we’d have at the kiddush after the service. I also planned a question and answer session about the parashah, with candy for anyone who tried to answer a question.

We sent out a lot of emails and sent up a lot of prayers.

We picked a small classroom because our expectations were low, but 30 people came and the room overflowed. The kids did a

great job leading the prayers (with a little assistance) and they liked the questions (and the candy!). David Goldstone, one of the original proponents of the service, offered an important suggestion: “You need something for the parents. You need a d’var Torah,” and he agreed to give it himself each month. He also agreed to co-chair the family service and helped recruit more families for the next one. David mailed me highlighted copies of sections from Rabbi Elie Kaunfer’s book, Empowered Judaism, stressing constant innovation as key to a successful community endeavor.

Because the classroom had been so full for that first service, we moved our next service to a social hall. “Shock and awe” is a perfect description of how we felt when 80 people showed up – in mid August! That’s when we knew the July service really had been a hit.

David gave an engaging parashah summary and d’var Torah, and then I led a lively Q & A session and gave out Twizzlers. Both parents and kids loved it. During the prayer portion of the service, I handed out the honor cards while helping the kids lead the service, but soon we learned that leading and organizing the service at the same time was just too hectic. We needed more help.

Fortunately, more parents volunteered.

Increasing parental involvement turned out to be key to our continued success. Par-

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ents who became more involved in organizing the service became committed to attending, growing the service while also preventing burn-out on the part of the original organizers. The many roles allowed people with various skills to participate in different ways.

David continued to give his Torah summaries and divrai Torah each month, and I kept my role as chazzanit and leader of the Q & A. Anthony Lehv sent out humorous (and serious) email announcements.

Jenny McKee-Heinstein and Nicole Gann recruited kids to lead the kids’ parts. Julie Chivo premade name tags from lists of members and their school-aged children and greeted all who attended with a warm smile, so that everyone felt welcome. Michael Robinson read Torah so we could add a short Torah reading. Ana Volpi ushered the service – that is, she lined the kids up to minimize the time we spent waiting for each child to lead the next prayer. Marc Stober coordinated Torah readers, and Cheryl Stober created a Facebook page. Once we had more volunteers, we avoided duplication of efforts using a shared Google document, so that the organizers could enter each assigned part and everyone else could see it.

We innovated constantly. We chose a new room with a carpeted floor to limit the distracting noise of the wooden floor in the social hall. In addition to nametags, we started having each family introduce itself before Adon Olam to make sure that the service stayed warm and inviting. The synagogue staff and leadership were extremely supportive, not only of the service but also of the changes and new ideas.

The biggest stumbling block proved to be finding the right siddur. It was important to us to have a genuine service, with prayers in Hebrew and no musical instruments, which we felt made kids’ services too concert-like. When two parents separately confessed that they were struggling with the prayers, we realized that we needed a simpler siddur with a full transliteration. Rabbi

Robinson suggested that we make our own.

Marc Stober volunteered to be editor-inchief. To create artwork, we organized an art brunch on a Sunday morning at the synagogue. We provided paper, markers, and stencils. The parents ate bagels and chatted while the kids made magic.

The kids love seeing their own artwork in the siddur! In addition to making sure that there was a full transliteration and translation for every spoken prayer, Marc added such features as bold type for the parts the congregation sings together. Thanks to our siddur, the parents who needed transliter-

ations have become regular attendees, and we have attracted many families with different levels of knowledge. In fact, one parent later confided to me that the reason she feels so comfortable with our allHebrew service is that because the kids are learning, she is not embarrassed that she is learning, too.

We are amazed to see how much everyone has learned. It truly has been incredible to see the kids, even the shy ones, coming forward to lead a prayer, with the whole room rooting for them, and to see their faces (continued on page 47)

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TRANSFORMING TEFILLAH

BY BONNIE RIVA RAS

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NE SIZE DOESN’T always fit all, particularly when you are talking about people’s spiritual needs. The traditional Conservative prayer service doesn’t always work for everyone.

Kol Emeth in Palo Alto, California, is a kehilla that is looking for creative ways to experience tefillah in a new way. “We are experimenting with multiple minyanim,” Rabbi David Booth, one of the three rabbis at Kol Emeth, said. Choices for its Saturday morning program, which is called Kol Shabbat, include a study group using the Mitzvah Initiative curriculum from the Jewish Theological Seminary, a coffee and schmoozing room for parents of children in a Shabbat school program, and a new Hebrew class that is a gateway into the service. The programs are of varying lengths; when they are over participants often go into the sanctuary and join the service there. A community Shabbat lunch follows services every week.

When Kol Shabbat is in session, it generally draws about 200 adults and 100 children from its 613 family members. “Shabbat attendance has gone up,” Booth said. “We are appealing to parents who want to be in the synagogue but may not want to come into the main sanctuary. We want families to be here together for a whole Shabbat experience.”

Around 2005, Shabbat synagogue attendance was declining at Temple Emunah, a 535-member kehilla in Lexington, Massachusetts, so a committee was formed to grapple with ways to turn it around. The

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next year, the committee decided to adopt the Synaplex model for Shabbat because “people experience Shabbat and tefillah in different ways,” Rabbi David Lerner said.

Lerner is the head rabbi of Temple Emunah.

Synaplex, which ran from 2003 to 2010, was part of STAR (Synagogues, Transformation and Renewal). “The model allowed congregations to rethink the way they did Shabbat and to find multiple entry ways into the synagogue,” its founder, Rabbi Hayim Herring, said. “The model gave congregations a way to invite people into the synagogue to be part of a Shabbat community.”

Participating kehillot made their own choices and found the things that worked best for them. About 90 Conservative kehillot took part in Synaplex officially but many more have adopted a similar style of multiple minyanim. The program is over but the number of kehillot using its framework is growing.

Temple Emunah began a more-or-less monthly program called Choose Your Own Shabbat Adventure, which begins with breakfast and then offers several options, including meditation, yoga, or a traditional Pesukei D’Zimra. It began in 2006 and still is going strong today. The Torah service selections include a traditional Torah reading, text study, and bibliodrama. There are up to 20 different options but the congregation always ends up together as one community. Shabbat morning attendance went up from 100 people to around 450 on those special Shabbatot.

Friday evenings are just as innovative. “We wanted to bring in people who celebrate

Shabbat in different ways and combine it with something social,” Lerner said. This includes three summer Friday evenings, when the proceedings begin with a barbeque, outdoor Kabbalat Shabbat with musical instruments, candle lighting, Maariv (held outdoors whenever possible), and a community Shabbat dinner, ending with traditional singing. Scattered throughout the year there are also creative Minchah, Maariv, and Havdalah services that end with social events.

Some kehillot hold multiple minyanim every week. Shirat HaYam of the North Shore in Swampscott, Massachusetts, is one of them. It offers roughly 10 different options for adults on Shabbat morning, beginning with breakfast and including alternative tefillot with Rabbi Baruch HaLevi in the chapel and a traditional Shacharit led by the cantors in the sanctuary. There is also Limmud School (sort of a hybrid Synaplex/Hebrew school) for children on Shabbat mornings. And there is a Shabbat café where people can nosh and schmooze. The minyanim join in the sanctuary for a healing service and a d’var Torah, text study, or bibliodrama, and the children come into the sanctuary for a spirited and musical ruach rally. Then there is Shabbat kiddush lunch for the community. “My philosophy is that there is no one way to speak to God,” HaLevi said. He estimates that around 250 to 300 people attend. This is up from around 40 on a pre-Synaplex Shabbat.

Smaller kehillot can create innovative worship experiences too. “We have different themes during the year to provide different types of tefillah experiences in the main

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service on either Friday or Saturday,” Rabbi Daniel Schweber said. He is rabbi of Shaare Tikvah, a 175-family kehillah in Scarsdale, New York. “The congregation offers early morning yoga or a slower, more musical Pesukei D’Zimra, aptly called Stop and Smell the Psalms,” he said. On some Shabbat mornings the service will focus on Torah, and bibliodrama is added after the main service. Creative Shabbat services are held once a month.

A few times a year, Shaare Tikvah holds a themed Friday evening service that includes a dinner. During daylight savings time, when Shabbat starts late, the kehilla holds a musical service with instruments. Service attendance goes up on the Fridays when there is a special service and dinner.

Themed services do not have to be limited to Shabbat. The leaders of daily minyanim also use innovative planning to attract more participants. “Temple Emunah is the only shul in the area that still holds a daily minyan, and we are always looking

for new ideas to strengthen them,” Lerner said. Last year, two minyan leaders, past president Fred Ezekiel and Cathy McDonald, came up with a friends and peers model.

In that model, groups of people who work together, are alumni of the same university, or share interests or background in some other way, are invited to the Minchah/Maariv minyan, which also includes a food and schmooze element.

Themed minyanim are held on evenings when it can be difficult to gather a quorum.

Themes have included MIT alumni, CUNY alumni, the men’s club softball team, cycling enthusiasts, and Israel advocates. The list keeps growing.

Each month, the synagogue bulletin carries an article about the minyan. People who are 10 for 10 – who attend ten minyanim – are recognized in the bulletin. “The minyan isn’t full but the themed minyans have helped,” Lerner said. “This model can be used by other communities to build and strengthen minyanim.” CJ

Ruach Family Service

grade-led Discovery Service inspired by it.

This new service is attracting 20 or 30 kids each month, an attendance level that would have been unthinkable two years ago. In addition, several non-affiliated families who heard about our service from friends and started attending have gone on to join our synagogue.

Founding the Temple Emanuel Ruach Family Service has enriched our lives as Jews, as families, and as a community and congregation. Now it’s your turn! Use our story as your blueprint. It’s an endeavor worth the effort. All you need is a minimum of three or four committed families, someone who can help lead the service, and someone who can talk about the Torah parashah. If you have someone who can chant a brief Torah excerpt, that’s a plus. Don’t forget the Twizzlers and ice cream, of course. Go ahead and try it.You are welcome to adapt our prayer book!

You can read more about ruach Shabbat family services and see the siddur at Temple Emanuel’s website. Go to temple emanuel.com/ruach-shabbat-family-services. CJ

(continued from page 45)

(and their parents’ faces) afterward, shining with delight. The kids have all become more confident with experience, and we now have several who can belt out multiple prayers.

To celebrate these accomplishments and the service’s first anniversary, we gave out personalized trophies with Jewish stars to all the kids. Now they have a concrete symbol that their effort at services is just as important as their effort on the soccer field.

They also have enduring memories of fun, lively, beautiful Shabbat mornings spent at synagogue with family and friends.

After a few months working together, my husband and I invited the Goldstones over for Shabbat dinner. We realized that evening that creating our service also was about building community. We started extending more invitations, and the friendships that are developing have strengthened everyone’s ties to each other, to our service, and to Temple Emanuel.

The year after the founding of our service, the synagogue launched a monthly sixth-

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HALACHAH IN THE MODERN WORLD

SKYPING THE MINYAN

BY RABBI DAVID LERNER

P

EOPLE WERE GIVING me strange looks.00000000 I guess it was to be expected – I had come into the minyan and opened up my laptop, which now was making strange noises. People were curious about why the rabbi would be disturbing the sanctity of the daily minyan by playing with his email.

At the end of services, the mourners observing yahrzeit got up to recite the Mourner’s Kaddish. At that point I turned to the laptop and looked in, and a woman on the screen stood up to recite the Kaddish with them.

I explained to the minyannaires that we had a new participant in the Temple Emunah daily minyan. Her name is Maxine Marcus, though everyone calls her Max. She lives in Amsterdam and works in the Hague, where she serves as a war crimes prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

The story behind the story: My wife, Sharon Levin, and Max have been close friends since they participated in USY’s Poland Seminar/Israel Pilgrimage 25 years ago. Theirs was among the first USY groups to visit Poland to see the instruments of the Nazi death camps. Both Max and Sharon were profoundly moved and transformed by that experience.

Max’s parents were survivors of the Holo-

Rabbi David Lerner is the spiritual leader of Temple Emunah in Lexington, Massachusetts. He is president of the New England Rabbinical Assembly and co-chairs the RA’s Commission on Keruv, Conversion and Jewish Peoplehood.

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caust. Her mother was deported from the Hague in 1942 at age 12 and was imprisoned in more than 10 concentration camps.

She spent her 14th birthday in Auschwitz and endured unspeakable horrors, tortured by the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele. Growing up in the 1970s and ’80s, Max heard these stories and internalized a profound commitment to Judaism and a deep sense of justice.

During her college years, Max spent her summers volunteering at a Bosnian Muslim refugee camp helping the victims of war crimes, often Muslim women. My wife also was a volunteer during the Yugoslavian war in the early 1990s. After law school, Max worked for human rights in Africa and eventually wound up in the Hague.

In recent years, Max had been dealing with her parents’ aging and the cancer that

Max Marcus and her mother, Stella Marcus, z’l.

eventually took her mother’s life. She discovered that it is not easy to say Kaddish in Amsterdam. She and I realized that she could participate in our daily minyan through the free internet video calling service known as Skype.

But would it be kosher? Interestingly enough, 10 years ago Rabbi Avram Reisner wrote a teshuvah, a religious responsum for the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly, explaining that should such technology arise (Skype had not yet been created), it would be permissible for someone to join in a minyan, although not to count in the quorum of 10, and to recite the Kaddish. While it also

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would be allowed through the phone, it is much better to have a real-time audiovisual link.

After examining dozens of sources and precedents from thousands of years of Jewish history, Rabbi Reisner concluded that a minyan may not be constituted over the Internet, an audio- or video-conference, or any other medium of long distance communication. Only physical proximity, that is being in the same room with the shaliah tzibbur (the prayer leader), allows a quorum to be constituted.

Once a quorum has been duly constituted, however, anyone hearing the prayers in that minyan may respond and fulfill his or her obligations, even over long-distance communications of any sort. A real-time audio connection is required. Two-way connections to the whole minyan are preferable, though connection to the shaliach tzibbur alone or a one-way connection linking the minyan to the mourner is sufficient.

Email and chat rooms or other typewritten connections do not suffice. Video connections are not necessary, but video without audio also would not suffice.

Rabbi Reisner defines a hierarchy of preference. It is best to attend a minyan for the full social and communal effect. A real-time two-way audio-video connection, where the mourner is able to converse with the members of the minyan and see and be seen by them, is less desirable. Only in exigent circumstances should you fulfill your obligation by attaching yourself to a minyan through a one-way audio medium, which essentially is just overhearing the service.

As long as someone who is physically present in the minyan recites the Mourner’s Kaddish, a participant at another location may recite it as well; this is not considered a superfluous blessing.

As you can see, Skyping into the minyan is permissible according to Rabbi Reisner’s teshuvah. It has been a powerful experience, as members of the minyan got to know Max, schmoozing with her for a minute or two over Skype after minyan. This has been a great blessing. It is a reminder that our minyan is not just a gift to each participant – allowing us to experience the power of God, prayer, and community –

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but it also reaches out to include all who participate, even those on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

Last summer, Max visited Temple Emunah in person. For the first time, our members, who had never been in the same room with her but felt close to her through her Skyped recitation of the Mourner’s Kaddish, were able to meet Max. Today, we occasionally Skype in members who are ill as well as members of other shuls who have heard of our Skype minyan.

It is our hope that many shuls will add this option to their daily minyans.

Kol Yisrael areivin zeh ba’zeh – all Israel is responsible for one another – whether in person or through the internet.

You can see the full text of Wired to the Kadosh Barukh Hu: Minyan via Internet, at rabbinicalassembly.org/teshuvot/docs/ 19912000/reisner_internetminyan.pdf See also the RA Spotlight http://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/story/skyping-minyan?tp= 323. CJ

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W O

N THE EVENING OF Friday, June 5, 1959, 13-yearold Roberta Hirshfield celebrated her bat mitzvah at the Astoria Center of Israel in Queens, New York.

A bat mitzvah still was a relatively rare occurrence. Roberta, however, had attended Hebrew school and weekly Shabbat services for many years, so it seemed a logical progression. For her bat mitzvah, she and another girl in her Hebrew school class shared the berakhot (blessings) for the haftarah and then the haftarah itself. Roberta’s partner led Aleinu and Roberta led Yigdal.

The families then went on to the social hall, where the guests were treated to a catered oneg Shabbat. The next morning, of course, the members of the Astoria Center of Israel heard a repeat of the haftarah that Roberta chanted the night before – but this second reading was the one that counted as the synagogue’s official haftarah recitation.

Nevertheless young Roberta was thrilled with this milestone. It did not occur to her at the time to compare her own accomplishment to that of her brother Stuart, who was 4 1/2 years older. Stuart’s bar mitzvah was marked by his aliyah to the Torah on Shabbat morning and celebrated with a splendid kiddush, and again that night with an even more opulent party, complete with a live band and a multicourse sit-down meal.

Also unlike Stuart’s religious rite of passage, there was no hefty photo album, just a few snapshots of a proud young girl in a

Lisa Kogen is education director of Women’s League for Conservative Judaism.

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omenSpeak Bat Mitzvah: Take Two

BY LISA KOGEN fancy white dress. But most significant of all, Roberta never again was called upon by the Astoria Center of Israel to demonstrate those skills that she so ardently had acquired over more than 8 years of Hebrew school.

It was now 50 years later. Roberta Hirshfield Schreiber – wife, mother, and grandmother – had watched as several generations of women participated in the no longer exceptional bat mitzvah ceremony when girls are called to the Torah by their Hebrew names on Shabbat morning, wearing their own tallitot. They recite the blessings, read from the Torah, and lead services, full and equal participants in the congregation’s ritual life. It was time, Roberta decided, that she too should become an active participant rather than a mere spectator.

After consultation with Rabbi Gary Parras of Temple Israel in Orlando, Florida, where she has lived for many years, Roberta again honed her Hebrew reading skills, this time to include the Torah trope. On a Shabbat morning in June, close to her original bat mitzvah date, Roberta Schreiber was called to the Torah by her Hebrew name, Raza Tova bat Zev veChannah. She recited the blessing, read from the Torah, and later made kiddush with the kiddush cup that was presented to her at her first bat mitzvah. This time Roberta wore a tallit, beautifully decorated with images of the matriarchs. The following day she invited her guests to a party, complete with a live band and a multicourse sit-down meal.

But more significantly, Roberta subsequently became a regular in the rotation of the Yad Squad at Temple Israel, the synagogue’s cadre of lay Torah and haftarah readers.

In her dvar Torah Roberta spoke about

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Samson’s mother, the subject of her haftarah, who had no identity of her own beyond being Manoach’s wife and her son’s mother. Roberta spoke about her own journey from her first to her second bat mitzvah as a spiritual quest, and as a reflection of women’s progress.

Roberta’s two bat mitzvah celebrations are more than just a human interest story.

Rather, they give a face to the trajectory of modern Jewish feminism over the past 50 years.

This year, 2012, the bat mitzvah celebration is the topic of much discussion.

This March marked the 90th anniversary of Judith Kaplan’s bat mitzvah, the first one celebrated in the United States. It was a momentous event – extraordinary really – and no doubt partially attributable to the fact that Judith was the musically gifted and Hebraically knowledgeable daughter of Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism. But despite Kaplan’s progressive vision, which profoundly influenced Conservative Judaism, bat mitzvah celebrations remained relatively rare until after the Second World War. By the 1960s, the Friday night bat mitzvah had become a regular rite of passage in most Conservative synagogues. Like the bar mitzvah, the bat mitzvah served as a public coming of age. But like the 1959 bat mitzvah of Roberta Hirshfield, the ceremony was a construct. Except for leading a few permissible prayers, non-liturgical readings often were picked because they were about women (Deborah, Ruth and Hannah were very popular) or were taken from the week’s haftarah. Unfortunately, a young girl’s bat mitzvah generally marked the end of her inclusion in the religious life of the synagogue, not the beginning.

Once the bat mitzvah became established, other issues arose. What about the status of a girl after celebrating her bat mitzvah?

Was this to be a one-time event, where she acquired skills that would never be used again? While formal approval to extend aliyot to women came in 1955 in a minority opinion from the Rabbinical Assembly’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, most congregations followed the majority opinion, which did not sanction the practice.

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It was not until the early 1970s, with the grassroots pressure from women for full parity in religious ritual and then the 1973 CJLS takkanah (rabbinic enactment) allowing women to be counted in the minyan, that the pace of egalitarianism accelerated.

In short order the bat mitzvah was integrated into the Shabbat morning service and became the equivalent of the bar mitzvah. The process, beginning with Judith Kaplan in 1922, had reached its logical manifestation by becoming commonplace.

But this change did not affect only young women. As bnot mitzvah became equal partners in the religious lives of their congregations, their mothers, aunts, and grandmothers began to seek entrée as well. With egalitarianism the rule rather than the exception, women – many of whom had grown up with little or no Jewish education – embarked upon ambitious programs of acquiring Hebrew literacy and studying classical Jewish texts. Women’s entry into what was once the exclusive domain of men led to the development of new Jewish women’s rituals, including the adult bat mitzvah.

Over the past several decades, hundreds of synagogues across North America have offered a wide variety of adult bat mitzvah classes and learning opportunities for women. The benefits accrue not only to the women who derive personal satisfaction from the acquisition of the skills required to daven and read Torah, but to congregational life as well. As more and more congregations rely on laity to read Torah and lead services, the inclusion of women has increased the ranks of learned and actively engaged communities.

For nearly a century, Women’s League for Conservative Judaism has been devoted to providing a wide variety of educational initiatives to its members. Mirroring developments in synagogues, thousands of Women’s League members have participated in adult bat mitzvah programs. The phenomenon was so popular and the demand so great that in 2002 Women’s League commissioned a bat mitzvah curriculum, Etz Hayim He, for Conservative congregations. Educators have hailed the two-year course of study, written by Dr.

Lisa Grant, who received her PhD from the Jewish Theological Seminary, as a model of adult learning. In addition, starting in the early 1990s Women’s League created Kolot Bik’dushah, a society of qualified Torah readers and prayer leaders. To date, nearly a thousand women and post-bat mitzvah girls (Banot Bik’dushah) have been admitted to the ranks of this elite society.

When a Jewish child is born, whether male or female, the parents entreat the Creator that they might raise him or her to “a life of Torah, chuppah (marriage) and ma’asim tovim (good behavior/good deeds).” It wasn’t so long ago – barely a generation – that the opportunity for women to be raised to a life of Torah was pragmatic and bound to domestic obligations – keeping a kosher home, raising Jewish children, and observing private mitzvot. Today a woman’s life of Torah can include all areas of Jewish living, both private and public – and the bat mitzvah has become, finally, a celebration of beginning. CJ CJ — S U M M E R 2 0 1 2

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WORDS OF THE WEEK B Y D A V I D P. S I N G E R

I

N THE 1970S THE FEDERATION of Jewish Men’s Clubs developed the first broadly based adult education Hebrew reading program in the Conservative movement.

FJMC’s Hebrew literacy program was based on the concept of laypeople teaching one another using two traditional texts, Shalom Aleichem and Ayn Keloheynu. More than 200,000 people throughout North America have learned to read Hebrew and to participate more meaningfully in our prayer services thanks to this program.

Last year, the Temple Israel Men’s Club of Natick, Massachusetts, a member of FJMC’s New England region, and I added a new element to the program. Not long ago I passed my 20-year mark at Temple Israel and I realized that if I had learned an average of just one Hebrew word a week during Shabbat services, I’d now know more than 1,000 Hebrew words. Using the approach that if we learn a little bit at a time we can acquire a substantial vocabulary, FJMC and I have created the Divrei HaShavua – Words of the Week initiative. If we look at learning Hebrew as a lifelong process rather than a one-time class, the challenge of learning a new language becomes surmountable.

Each week, the program’s website offers five Hebrew words from the Torah portion with their English translations and transliterations. Synagogues insert the words into their Shabbat flyers and weekly emails. The words are selected by volunteers from Temple Israel of Natick and by men’s club members from California to Toronto to Florida whom I met at the 2011 FJMC international convention. A sample of the table of words for parashat Noach is shown below: David P. Singer, a founder of his men’s club, is a vice president of FJMC’s New England region.

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To participate simply copy the weekly table from the website into a Shabbat flyer.

My feeling is that no one should leave the Shabbat morning service after reading the story of Noah without knowing the Hebrew word for flood (kucn) or the story of Joseph without knowing the word for dream (oukj).

Divrei HaShavua has the potential to stimulate interest in the parashah for everyone, including those who often don’t feel

ch:verse

Hebrew

a connection with the Torah service. This is one small step to help make services more accessible to current and potential synagogue members. It might even inspire some people to participate in the FJMC’s Hebrew literacy program or in another Hebrew class.

For more information about Divrei HaShavua, go to www.fjmc.org and click on Activities and then Hebrew Literacy or email words@nerfjmc.org. CJ

transliteration

English

6:9

tsadik

righteous

6:14

teva

ark

7:6

mabul

flood

9:12

berit

covenant

10:8

gibor

strong, mighty

Words provided by Marty Levine of Bet Breira Samu-El Or Olom in Miami, FL

Camel Around Your Neck (continued from page 35)

science; the more you know about the parashah’s details, the more nuanced the connection between the tie and the reading can be.

It’s educational for the rest of the kehilla as well. People look at his tie and try to figure the connection out. “In most shuls, people ask what the rabbi said,” Freddy said.

“At BJ, they ask what the rabbi said, and then they ask what tie the gabbai wore.”

Freddy still has one tie on his wish list.

He would like one with a big red letter C – that’s Beshallach again, for the crossing.

Camels, olives, pieces of silver, Mickey Mouse – an entire world of Torah hangs around one man’s neck. CJ

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Letters

LOST SYNAGOGUES

Rabbi Prouser.

(continued from page 6)

solidating, closing, or otherwise changing.

My own is considering a wonderful rabbi who happens to be female. The Reform temple has doubled in membership during the current term of their rabbi, a woman whom everyone there loves.

Look at the true issues that drive membership, especially the relevancy of the synagogue in peoples’ lives. The argument that it has much to do with gender is underresearched at best.

HARRIS SHILAKOWSKY Brockton, Massachusetts LIGHT UNTO THE NATIONS

I heartily agree with Rabbi Joseph H. Prouser’s proposal (“Acknowledging American Exceptionalism,” Spring 2012). I have long felt that the United States was given the mission to be a light unto the nations. Despite its struggles with various human failings, it has to some extent already achieved that goal. There is hope that as time passes, it will move further in that direction. It would be well to adopt the Harachaman prayer suggested by

A Personal Miracle (continued from page 29)

for a vibrant Masorti movement in Ukraine.

Reuven met his wife, Lena, in 2004 on one of those trips. The couple now has two daughters, Miriam and Alisia.

Reuven’s path to the rabbinate was not an easy one. His studies were intensive, demanding, and all in Hebrew – most of his colleagues in rabbinical school were native Hebrew speakers. He combined the usual academic disciplines of Jewish history, Talmud, halachah, and Mishnah with his regular visits to Ukraine.

Reuven feels that completing rabbinical school and achieving his goal of becoming the spiritual and community leader he dreamed of being is a personal miracle, driven by his own connection with God. Reuven is charismatic, approachable, and lovable. He is bright, warm, and charming, and clearly he understands the challenges

DR. STANLEY SCHEINDLIN Philadelphia, Pennsylvania MORE ABOUT THAT COVER

I read with great interest the letters to the editor stemming from the cover photo of the Winter 2011/2012 issue. The photo prompted a fascinating colloquy between me and my rabbi, which served to uncover some false preconceptions (I presumed – wrongly – that it was a picture of two men holding hands) and led to some solid learning that touched on the custom and practice of wearing tefillin, current gender issues within the Conservative rabbinate, and more. I suggest that the photo itself has enduring didactic value, one I would certainly like to put into play in my shul’s School of Jewish Studies. I think showing it to children within our movement and asking them what they see in it will lead to many fruitful conversations about important issues of Conservative Jewish thought and practice.

Having been a member of the Laurelton Jewish Center for more than 50 years, until its closing several years ago, I resent that Ellen Levitt (Spring 2012) made Bernie Madoff seem to be its only claim to fame. There was much more to our history than Madoff. Rabbis Saul Teplitz and Howard Singer were our religious leaders. Dr. Morton Siegel, who became director of education at United Synagogue, was principal of our huge Hebrew school. Other former Laureltonians who have contributed positively to our society should have been cited, rather than that one disgrace of a man. While there is not a Laurelton Jewish Center any longer, just look around the Jewish United States and Israel and you will find former LJC students in leadership positions. I am an example. Having been a vice president at LJC I am now a vice president at Congregation B’nai Sholom Beth David, one of the most vibrant Conservative synagogues in the New York area.

And by the way I still live in Laurelton.

JOEL F. BROWN Past President, Am Yisrael Conservative Congregation Northfield, Illinois

ALICE PURUS Laurelton, New York

of developing Jewish life in his home country. Throughout his studies he never forgot that his purpose was to share his passion for Judaism with other Ukrainian Jews.

In a moving address at his ordination ceremony in February, Reuven told the assembled guests – faculty, staff, family, and friends – that the week’s Torah reading, Beshallach, recounted the miracle of the parting of the Red Sea. He drew a parallel between this

miracle and the miracle in his own life. In his view, both the Israelites crossing the Red Sea and his developing an entirely new Jewish identity required support and cooperation from many people, a belief and commitment to God, and of course God’s involvement to complete the action. Reuven is one of only a handful of Ukrainian Jews, beginning with little or no understanding (continued on page 58)

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JW MARRIOTT SPA & RESORT

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WOMEN’S LEAGUE CONVENTION Every two years, members of Women’s League for Conservative Judaism gather for four days of outstanding speakers and leading scholars, inspiring services, valuable workshops, in-depth training and leadership development, region meetings and parties.

This year’s convention, in exciting Las Vegas, promises to be better than ever! While what happens in Vegas might stay in Vegas for some people, our delegates will leave ready to greet the new dawn of Women’s League with a focus on personal growth, creating healthy sisterhoods, and celebrating Conservative/Masorti Judaism.

Plans include: • Being a Conservative Jew: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, by Rabbi Elliot Dorff • An Evening of A & E: Fun (and some learning) celebrating the arts, both high and popular • A Night on the Town! Take advantage of the pleasures our host city has to offer • The unveiling of the new Women’s League Strategic Plan that will usher the organization into the 21st century as a vital, integral network for all Conservative Jewish women

Register online at www.wlcj.org

• Jewel in the Crown Awards to sisterhoods that demonstrate their commitment, excellence and creativity in programming. Last year over 100 sisterhoods won. You don’t want to be left out in 2012!

• Celebration of 70 years of Torah Fund

DELEGATE FEES (Rates for commuters and

• Tribute to Honorary Convention Chair Blanche Meisel

hotel guests are the same. Hotel registration is separate.)

• Tikkun olam project supporting veterans, with featured speaker Rabbi Bonnie Koppell

FULL-TIME DELEGATES (Includes meals from Sunday dinner through Wednesday lunch)

• Specialized programming for sisterhood presidents

Early Bird Special (through September 28)

• Installation of officers and board $935

• Great shopping in the exhibit hall for Judaica, toys, books, jewelry, and more

First Time Delegate Special (through September 28)

$835

Enjoy discounts for first-time and early-bird registrants

After September 28

$1000

• Innovative workshops for personal fulfillment • Authors corner

FEATURED SPEAKERS PART-TIME DELEGATES (Includes any 3 or 6 consecutive meals) 3 consecutive meals

$340

6 consecutive meals

$680

HOTEL REGISTRATION: Hotel registration is not included in the convention registration fees and must be done directly through the hotel. The special rate for Women’s League delegates is $200 for all three nights, double occupancy.

Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies Rabbi Elliot Dorff, Rector, Sol & Anne Dorff Distinguished Service Professor in Philosophy at the American Jewish University

Dr. Arnold Eisen, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary Rabbi Bonnie Koppell, Associate Rabbi of Temple Chai in Phoenix, Arizona, and Command Chaplain of the 807th Medical Command (Deployment Support) in the U.S. Army Reserve, where she holds the rank of colonel.

Rabbi Gail Labovitz, associate professor of Rabbinic Literature at the American Jewish University CJ — S U M M E R 2 0 1 2

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UNITED SYNAGOGUE'S NEW BYLAWS

BY JOANNE PALMER

O

N MARCH 18, THE United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism’s board of trustees voted to accept new bylaws. This was the second reading for those bylaws, and the second time they passed. Both times, the vote in favor was overwhelming, much higher than the already formidable-sounding two-thirds majority that was required.

With that second vote the bylaws were accepted, along with new standard operating procedures to support them. United Synagogue now will begin its second century in 2013 as a revitalized, reshaped, and reenergized organization.

The bylaws are a direct result of the strategic plan that the board accepted last March.

It took courage for many of the board members to vote yes, and that they did so anyway was a testament to their commitment to United Synagogue. One of the changes the bylaws now mandate is that the board will be smaller, and another is that board members are expected to give United Synagogue not only time and energy but also to see it as a philanthropic opportunity, and an opportunity, moreover, that they can share with their friends. Many board members, some of whom had been with us for years, or even decades, had to vote themselves off the board. That was pure self-sacrifice, and we honor them for it.

The new bylaws will make United Synagogue’s governance more agile and responsive, not only by reducing the size of the board and the number of committees the board oversees, but also by redefining the partnership between the executive committee, the board, other lay leaders, and United Synagogue’s staff. The committees will oversee the areas that the strategic plan recognized as core to the organization’s mission – kehilla strengthening and transformation, education, young adult engagement, and assisting new and emerging kehillot. (A kehilla, or

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sacred community, is the term the framers of the strategic plan have chosen to describe the various communities that make up United Synagogue, feeling that the change in wording reflects the change in orientation.) The new bylaws will increase the organization’s accountability to the member kehillot. That accountability will be institutionalized in the relationship between the General Asssembly, which will be composed of a member from each kehilla. There are many mechanisms that will speed and oversee that process, demand a new focus on priorities, measure whether those priorities have been achieved, and empower staff to implement the changes.

United Synagogue also will engage with lay leaders who are not on the board in a different way. We will recruit them to offer their services as kehilla ambassadors or expert volunteers, sharing their expertise, teaching, and training.

Leadership training is one of the areas where our member kehillot most want help. Leaders would like help in making themselves more effective at the positions to which they have been elected. They would like to be able to grow not only managerially but spiritually, and they would like their kehillot to become places where people come for spiritually and emotionally transformative experiences, to learn more about their people and themselves. They also would like help in identifying and training the next generation of kehilla leaders. In response to that need, we have expanded and reimagined Sulam.

That program used to train new and prospective synagogue leaders; now, it has become a three-part enterprise that includes Sulam for Current Leaders, Sulam for Presidents, and Sulam for Emerging Leaders. The goal – we would call it a dream but it is achievable – is to train 5,000 leaders in the next five years. Think what that will do for Conservative Judaism!

Another change that has resulted directly from the strategic plan and the new bylaws

is the system of kehilla relationship managers.

Our KRMs are our grassroots support system.

United Synagogue and Conservative Judaism represent and embody Jewish life as the product of eternal truth, millennia of history and tradition, and openness to the world as it is now. It is the vital center of North American Jewish life, the place where tensions are negotiated and challenges are faced.

The new bylaws, with their new understanding of the relationship between the central organization and the kehillot, are a necessary tool, a way to help us balance on the high wire.

“I am very proud of the collaboration between our professional staff and our lay leadership in crafting these new bylaws,” international president Richard Skolnik said. “The endgame is to provide a refocused energy that truly has an impact on the services that we provide to our more than 600 kehillot.”

“The vote is a major achievement in United Synagogue’s reorganization,” CEO Rabbi Steven Wernick said. “It aligns new strategies with governance, staff, and structures.

Our leaders affirmed the wisdom of our mission, vision, and strategic plan, our commitment to excellence, and the value we add both to our affiliated kehillot and to the larger Jewish world. “‘The person who occupies himself with the needs of the community – it is as though he occupies himself with Torah,’ the Talmud tells us. United Synagogue’s leaders listened to the needs of its community of kehillot, and it acted on them. This courageous vote will lay the foundation for our next 100 years.”

The new bylaws are the next step in the path that has taken us from the creation of the coalition of Conservative leaders that hammered out the strategic plan to now. We look forward to the strengthening and revitalization of United Synagogue and of Conservative Judaism. We will achieve that work together. CJ

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HEARING MEN’S VOICES A Signature Program of FJMC EDITED BY ART SPAR

The 2011 Rosh Hashanah issue of CJ included the article “A Mentsch is Born,” about FJMC’s Hearing Men’s Voices program. Since that time HMV programs have proliferated across the continent. Eight mentschen gathered for a (virtual) conversation in early December.

Moderator Paul Davidson (Temple Israel, Sharon, Massachusetts): Each of us is a Hearing Men’s Voices leader. Our goal tonight is to share our best practices with each other. Who’d like to begin?

Mark Givarz (Congregation B’nai Amoona, St. Louis, Missouri): Our HMV theme this year is spirituality. On Rosh Hashanah we did a Hearing Men’s Voices program as an alternative to the Musaf service on the second day. (We modified the rules to allow women to join in.) The topic was seeking God. We formed two circles of about 14 people each to discuss the questions: Do you ever seek God? If so, have you found God? The groups talked for about 90 minutes, and we could have gone on for hours.

The big discovery was that people can find spirituality in alternative ways to prayer.

Neal Fineman (Temple Israel, Sharon, Massachusetts): Our guys are passionate about their participation. We average about 16 guys; there’s usually a lot of laughing; the guys enjoy it. It’s really catching on. We don’t have to make phone calls anymore. They just come.

Bob Braitman (Temple Shaare Tefilah, Norwood, Massachusetts): Men who come to HMV aren’t necessarily involved in other synagogue activities. I went to one program and I didn’t recognize any of the faces. Since I go to services regularly, I realized that

the HMV guys were completely different.

By introducing HMV into synagogue life, we’ve created a completely new on-ramp to the Jewish community. In his article in this issue of CJ, Rabbi Charles Simon’ writes about guys who aren’t turned on by traditional prayer.

ence that lay people, not professionals, have run the best sessions. The most important criteria for group leadership are to be a good listener, to be empathetic and show caring.

It’s about being heard. It’s not about a professional providing wisdom. The leader should come across as, “I’m a guy like you, let’s talk.”

Mark Travis (Temple Beth Judea, Buffalo Grove, Illinois): Our HMV group has been attracting about 15 to 20 people per session.

How do we get people involved? We conducted a survey among young guys in their 30s and 40s. They told us that they don’t need any more formal religion. They get enough from their wives and synagogue.

They wanted time with other men to socialize and discuss issues men have in common.

The one topic all the men share is children. How should we talk to our children?

Like Paul said, the most important recruitment tool is being asked by another man to participate. Our slogan is “I hear voices, voices at home, at work, at play, voices in the synagogue, from my family, but…who hears my voice?”

Gary Smith (Adath Israel Congregation, Cincinnati, Ohio): At our last HMV session, we asked each of the participants to discuss the most important lesson or statement that their father or grandfather taught them that most changed their life; in other words, a life lesson. There were multiple generations in the room, and the men were blown away by the similarities and differences shared by men of different ages. But what was most effective was that we only knew each other for years as a name and a face. Who knew what they were like inside?

Now we know each other. We can interact and have a more man-to-man conversation. Now we don’t just say hello. We stop and talk, ask questions, share something about ourselves. We truly involved Jewish men in Jewish life.

Bruce Gordon (Congregation Olam Tikvah, Fairfax, Virginia): I’m just getting started, but HMV has perceptions that need to be overcome. Should the leader be a trained psychologist? Can we do this without years of experience? I’m helping get groups started in Fairfax, Rockville, Potomac, Gaithersburg, and in the Tidewater region. What advice can you offer me?

Bob: One of the greatest misconceptions about HMV is directly related to Bruce’s concerns about not being a health care professional. He’s asking himself whether he’s qualified to run a session. It’s my experi-

Bob: I’ve attended several gatherings where men have been brought to tears. I was shocked the first time. Have any of you had that experience?

Neal: I was brought to tears a few times.

It happened to me in an HMV session at the FJMC international convention. I was among strangers. I was just thinking about my relationship with my father and I lost it.

I didn’t know these people, and I didn’t know how they would react because a lot of them were new to HMV, but that’s what I needed to do. But I was brought to tears, and it was CJ — S U M M E R 2 0 1 2

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a wonderful release. It was good for me, and I wanted to share with them that you can do this kind of thing.

Paul: I’ve been in numerous sessions hysterically laughing and crying, and every place in between. There are too few places where men can speak in a safe manner. I’ve seen guys linger after an HMV session not wanting to part with each other because they’ve formed bonds. Now I see guys hug when they see each other in shul. Sometimes when I see an HMV buddy, we give each other a knowing glance because we’ve shared something very deep.

Art Spar (New York, New York): HMV doesn’t create emotion. The emotions are already there. We’re creating an environment to release them or experience them.

These emotions are residing there all the time and we create something that allows them to come to the surface.

My HMV experience in Manhattan has been interesting. We’ve brought together an eclectic mix of guys from rabbis to non-shulgoers. We meet over dinner. Our first meeting was in a kosher Indian restaurant. The next time it was pizza and salad at my house with a bottle of scotch and some wine on the side. We’re not part of any synagogue or men’s club but we use FJMC materials. We’ve gotten to know each other, our roots and our dreams; and we plan on continuing as long as we enjoy it. We’re just a bunch of Jewish men involving ourselves in Jewish life.

A Personal Miracle (continued from page 53)

of Judaism, who have been inspired to educate others about Judaism. In his ordination address, he also explained that Beshallach is in the book of Shemot, the book that we call Exodus but whose name literally translates to Names. The list of names of those people who have helped him academically, spiritually, and even financially is incredibly long, but he could not have reached his goal without each of them.

Reuven acknowledges that now that he

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Paul: Is it better to meet at a synagogue or at home?

Art: I’ve been to both. The informality of a home setting allows guys to connect in ways that a synagogue does not.

Bob: Very few synagogues have comfortable spaces. I remember a meeting in a library sitting around a conference table. It was not intimate in the way it would have been in a living room. The big problem with the synagogue is the formality of the setting. It’s not the fact that there’s a Torah down the hall, it’s actually the space itself. And temple classrooms are worse with the little chairs!

It’s too bad but most synagogues are not warm spaces.

Paul: Why are you so passionate about Hearing Men’s Voices?

I remember running a session about the high holy days. It forced me to think about what the Days of Awe meant to me. I discovered that it wasn’t only the religious aspect of the day that draws my focus. It’s the memories of being at my father’s side, holding his hand, that opened a floodgate of feelings that are always there but rarely experienced.

Paul: In the Jewish world, there’s nothing else like Hearing Men’s Voices.

Art: There’s nothing more important than human contact. We have lots of mixed sex settings, but men are unique, our experiences are different than women’s. There’s something about a men-only session that allows that uniqueness to shine, to flower.

The camaraderie is special. I enjoy it, I need it.

Bob: Many men today don’t know how to form relationships. We get most of our relationships through our wives as couples. We’ve lost the art of conversation, and we’ve lost the art of community. I want a place where men can come together, in a forum that isn’t threatening, to talk about things that are sitting in our hearts and minds, in plain sight, or that we’re completely unaware of. HMV is an extraordinary resource – there’s no other venue like it. The dividend is it will strengthen our synagogues, our clubs, and our communities, but the real value is that it makes our lives richer.

Neal: It’s powerful. It’s a place to find your passion. I’ve never been to a session I didn’t value. You see your own life in the expression of others. There’s common ground we all share. Hearing it from others adds a powerful perspective to our own lives.

has completed one challenge, another has opened up as he tries to bring Masorti Judaism to the estimated 100,000 Jews who live in Ukraine. For the last 20 years, Midreshet Yerushalayim and Masorti Olami have worked to create a base of supporters and a core of Masorti communities in Kiev, Chernovitz, Donetsk, Kharkov, and other cities around the country. The work of developing committed, passionate, and stable kehillot with ongoing Jewish lifecycle and calendar programming still is to come. We are sure that his determination, along with a little help from God, will enable Reuven to meet these challenges.

Should you visit Kiev or other cities in Ukraine, we invite you to spend Shabbat or a festival with a Masorti community and see just how well things are going. CJ

Paul: It’s a non-competitive experience with no performance expectations. You don’t have to know Hebrew. There are no skills required. CJ

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