July 16, 2021 | 7 Av 5781
Candlelighting 8:30 p.m. | Havdalah 9:36 p.m. | Vol. 64, No. 29 | pittsburghjewishchronicle.org
Rally against antisemitism draws thousands in show of unity at US Capitol
NOTEWORTHY LOCAL Keeping connected in college
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Rabbi Daniel Fellman begins Temple Sinai tenure By David Rullo | Staff Writer
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whether Jews are facing violence in Los Angeles or Brooklyn or Paris or Tel Aviv. It won’t be silent whether Jews are being attacked in our synagogues, on our streets, on our campuses or on the floor of the House of Representatives.” Rabbi Jeffrey Myers of Tree of Life Congregation was one of the featured speakers. He described saying the viduy, the Jewish prayer before death, as an antisemite murdered 11 Shabbat worshipers in the Tree of Life building on Oct. 27, 2018. “‘We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are all endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,’” Myers said, quoting the Declaration of Independence. “To be an antisemite means you do not accept that pact of being an American.” “My dream,” Myers told the crowd, “is that one day we don’t have to hold these
he rabbinate almost lost out to politics. Temple Sinai’s new senior rabbi Daniel Fellman graduated from Colorado College with a degree in political science. He was a speechwriter for the governor of Nebraska and even interned at the White House. He decided to put his political ambitions on hold, though, when he realized he “needed more,” he said. “I needed the substance of Judaism.” Fellman, an Omaha, Nebraska native, who founded Colorado College’s Hillel in 1994, discovered he loved working for the Jewish community. “It didn’t feel like work for me,” he told the Chronicle. “I thought to myself, if I can find something that doesn’t feel like work, that’s golden. I’m really lucky.” After graduating from Colorado College in 1996, Fellman went on to get his master’s in Hebrew Letters and was ordained as a rabbi at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati in 2005. He replaces Interim Rabbi Darryl Crystal, who has served Temple Sinai since the retirement of the congregation’s longtime spiritual leader, Rabbi Jamie Gibson, in July 2020. Fellman, 48, is new to Pittsburgh but not the rabbinate. He spent the last 12 years as the senior rabbi at Temple Concord in Syracuse, New York, and previously served as the assistant and associate rabbi at Anshe Emeth Memorial Temple in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He left his Reform congregation in Syracuse not because he was unhappy in New York, he said, but because of what he saw at Temple Sinai. “It was about this synagogue,” Fellman said. “It was about the history of Temple Sinai. It was about a synagogue that is inclusive, openly inclusive, aggressively inclusive — that says everybody’s equal, that says, ‘We want to hear everybody’s voice.’ It was
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Please see Rabbi, page 14
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From left: Rodney Fink, Rabbi Jeffrey Myers and Julie Paris
Photo courtesy of Julie Paris
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ore than 2,000 people from across the country gathered near the U.S. Capitol on Sunday to stand in solidarity against the rising tide of antisemitism across the United States. “No Fear: A Rally in Solidarity With the Jewish People” was organized by more than 100 Jewish and interfaith organizations from across the political and religious spectrum, under the leadership of business executive Elisha Wiesel, son of Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel. “Looking out at all of you today, it becomes clear that instead of dividing us, the enemies of the Jewish people — whether from the right or the left, at home or abroad — have instead united us,” Wiesel told the crowd. “Here we stand, a coalition of Jews and our allies from all backgrounds, all political beliefs and all religious affiliations, who have come together to stand up to antisemitism,” he said. “This coalition will not be silenced
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