Cinti’s glaserworks Melton Adult New community mikveh opens soon to take part in NYC’s Mini-School Sukkah City project
By Nicole Simon Assistant Editor Sometime in late October, Amberley Village will welcome the newest member of the local Jewish community — The Cincinnati Community Mikveh. An apt name, as it will be a community mikveh and open to all. It has been three years since local organizations such as the Jewish Foundation awarded $1.2 million toward the new and improved mikveh, which will replace the Beth Tevilla Society’s original mikveh in Roselawn. Currently, the new facility is less than two months from opening and will allow both women and men to partake in its religious and spiritual offerings. The mikveh has been a labor of love for Beth Tevilla Society’s president, Haviva Randolph, who, with the Beth Tevilla board, “has been diligently working to build bridges with the community and getting the mikveh on strong financial ground, so that it can continue to sustain our community,”
By Elijah Plymesser Assistant Editor This upcoming Sukkot New Yorkers will have the privilege of witnessing one of Judaism’s most iconic and recognizable holidays in Union Square. The Sukkah City project, headed by Joshua Foer (the younger brother of author Jonathan Safran Foer), aims to bring innovative and artistic designs to the Jewish ritual structure. Architectural and design firms from around the world sub-
MIKVEH on page 19
returns to the JCC
mitted designs for the project, including Cincinnati’s own glaserworks: Architecture and
CINCINNATI — Between 1990 – 2002, the JCC ran classes for the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School, known as the largest pluralistic (non-denominational) adult Jewish education network in the world. Nearly a decade later, this well-known program will return to the JCC this fall. The Melton School offers a formal, written curriculum of Jewish literacy developed by a team of scholars and educators at the Melton Centre for Jewish Education of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It is based upon the study of major Jewish texts in English translation. Students weave together previous learning with an adult understanding. On Tuesday, Sept. 14 at 10 a.m. or Wednesday, Sept. 15 at 7 p.m., adults across the community will have the opportunity to experience a “Taste of Melton Mini-School” for free during the JCC’s special “free try it” week, which runs Sept. 12 – 17.
SUKKAH on page 21
JCC on page 22
The creative process on the drawing board at glaserworks’ office.
Will the real Imam Rauf please stand up?
Survey indicates Jewish singing spurs Jewish engagement
By Sue Fishkoff and Ami Eden Jewish Telegraphic Agency
By Sue Fishkoff Jewish Telegraphic Agency
SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) — Who is Feisel Abdul Rauf? Initially the controversy over building a $100-million Muslim community center and mosque two blocks from Ground Zero was about location, location, location. Increasingly, however, attention has turned to the 61-year-old Sufi imam behind the project. Depending on who you ask, Rauf —currently in the Middle East as part of a U.S.funded outreach program to the Muslim world — is a dedicated interfaith activist, a stealth apologist for Islamist terrorism, or something else. Those looking to defend Rauf in Jewish circles have a new card to play: It turns out
Supporters and detractors are debating whether Imam Feisel Abdul Rauf is a dedicated interfaith activist, a stealth apologist for Islamist terrorism, or something else.
RAUF on page 20
SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) — In 2006, Lara Torgovnik, 21, started college at New York University as a vocal performance major. She had little Jewish background — at age 8, she chose music school over Hebrew school with permission from her “very secular” parents — but on a whim one day during her freshman year, something prompted her to Google the phrase “Jew choir.” That’s the way Torgovnik discovered the Zamir Chorale, a prestigious, New Yorkbased Jewish choir that is celebrating its 50th anniversary this fall. She auditioned, won acceptance, and on her first day of rehearsal, felt overwhelmed by what she said was a “mind-boggling realization that music can be
a means of expressing spirituality, and spirituality can lend a deeper level to my music.” Now, Torgovnik works in the Zamir office in New York and conducts HaZamir: The International Jewish High School Choir, the organization’s youth choir in Westchester — one of two dozen chapters of HaZamir in North American cities. After starting to sing in the Jewish choir, Torgovnik added Jewish studies to her program. Her experience — intensifying her Jewish engagement while getting involved in Jewish singing — is not unusual, a new survey of Jewish choral singers suggests. The survey, conducted online in May and June on behalf of the Zamir Choral Foundation, shows that Jewish choral singers are more Jewishly involved than the average American Jew. SURVEY on page 22
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2010 23 ELUL, 5770 CINCINNATI, OHIO SHABBOS BEGINS 7:49 SHABBOS ENDS 8:46 VOL. 157 • NO. 6 $2.00
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