Volume XXII, Issue X | www.thejewishvoice.org Serving Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts
HAPPY SPRING
5 Iyar 5776 | May 13, 2016
PHOTO | BARBARA GOLDSTEIN
Elizabeth and M. Charles Bakst at the Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem.
Rabbi Jonah Pesner speaks to the crowd at the Interfaith Poverty Conference.
TIME TRAVEL IN ISRAEL
Repairing Rhode Island
PHOTO | FRAN OSTENDORF
A story 56 years in the making BY M. CHARLES BAKST On a recent trip to Israel, I knew where I wanted to go fi rst: 56 years into my past. At age 16, on a Young Judaea summer tour, I attended the Aug. 3, 1960, dedication of the Hadassah Medical Center in the Ein Kerem area of southwest Jerusalem. I was in distinguished company. The speakers included Prime Minister David BenGurion and U.S. Ambassador Ogden Reid, and the scene was awash in color. Did I mention that Golda Meir and Abba Eban also were there? I wanted to revisit the hospital because I wanted to see how large the campus had grown. I wanted to see the famous
Chagall windows, which were planned then, but not installed until 1962. I wanted to see the names of two of my mother’s friends inscribed on a wall of recognition. And most of all, I wanted to get a more complete understanding of exactly how that 1960 ceremony unfolded. I needed to read more about it and go back and let it wash over me. The dedication took place on a clear, hot day, a landmark day in the history of Israel, which the clunky language of my teenage journal only began to capture: “At first, while people were congregating, it looked as though it was one giant national TRAVEL | 14
BY FRAN OSTENDORF This year, the eighth annual Interfaith Poverty Conference on May 11 focused on inspiring tikkun olam. Sponsored by the Rhode Island Interfaith Coalition to Reduce Poverty, the conference opened with an inspirational call to action by Rabbi Jonah Pesner, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in
Washington, D.C. Pesner, a powerful speaker, directed the more than 250 attendees from religious communities and advocacy groups, to focus on coming together to build a powerful alliance in the fight against poverty. “The only people who can really do this,” he told the crowd at Rhode Island College’s Donovan Dining Center, “is the or-
ganized faith community. That is our job.” Following his speech, each table of attendees had an opportunity to talk and reflect on several question facilitated by Rabbi Alan Flam of the Helen Hudson Foundation for Homeless America. Workshops followed the table talk. FRAN OSTENDORF is editor of The Jewish Voice.
6 ways Israel counts its blessings
BY BEN SALES
TEL AVIV (JTA) – When Israel entered its 1948 War of Independence, the coastal city of Rishon Lezion was a hardscrabble farming settlement with fewer than 20,000 inhabitants.
As waves of immigrants inundated Israel in its founding years, many were settled in temporary camps on Rishon Lezion’s sandy outskirts. The arrivals braved rainy winters in tents and subsisted on the national food rationing pro-
gram, which limited Israeli consumption of eggs and meat. Not seven decades later, Rishon Lezion is Israel’s fourth largest city, a bustling hub of nearly 250,000 freckled with malls. ISRAEL | 10
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