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July 30, 2021 | 21 Av 5781 Candlelighting 8:19 p.m. | Havdalah 9:21 p.m. | Vol. 64, No. 31 | pittsburghjewishchronicle.org $1.50
NOTEWORTHY
LOCAL Israel: 2022
Federation plans largest mission ever
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LIFE & CULTURE ‘Cyril’
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New fi lm features famed Jewish coroner
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Its building is for sale, but Beth Israel Synagogue takes it ‘Shabbos by Shabbos’
Beth Israel Synagogue’s building has been on the market since July, 2020. Photo by David Rullo
By David Rullo | Sta Writer
Is a congregation still a congregation if it no longer employs a rabbi, is selling its building and isn’t offering High Holiday services?
For Marilyn Posner, the answer is a wholehearted “yes.”
Beth Israel Synagogue’s longtime rabbi, David Novitsky, no longer helms the bimah at the Conservative shul; the congregation’s building is on the market; and the board recently decided to not host High Holiday services this year for its approximately 30 family-unit members.
Posner, a four-time past president, current secretary of the board and chairperson of the legacy committee at Beth Israel in Washington, Pennsylvania, is certain that the congregation is viable and will continue to perform valuable functions for its members.
“Yes, we still have services,” she told the Chronicle. “We still remind people of their yahrzeits. We still pray for the ill. Those are the basic things a congregation does. We still help each other and are still here for each other.”
And yet, Posner, a member since 1972, isn’t pollyannish. She understands that Beth Israel, like so many other small shuls that have recently closed in surrounding areas — like Canonsburg, Monessen, Charleroi and Donora — is facing difficult decisions.
Posner serves on the advisory committee for the Jewish Community Legacy Project, an Atlanta-based nonprofit that works nationally with small congregations, helping to facilitate planning based on a congregation’s stage of life.
“For some, like Uniontown or Monessen or Oil City or New Castle or Latrobe, it’s ‘We know we’re going to close, what do we do?” said JCLP’s senior vice president, Noah Levine. “For others, like Washington, which is on the cusp, or Greensburg, they know they’re not going to close but they have issues dealing with sustainability.”
Please see Beth Israel, page 14
PA anti-BDS law could be triggered by Ben & Jerry’s Israel boycott
By Toby Tabachnick | Editor
There are 35 states with laws or executive orders designed to hobble the boycott movement against Israel. Pennsylvania is one of them.
When Ben & Jerry’s announced last week it would stop selling ice cream in portions of Israel — the areas the company referred to as “Occupied Palestinian Territory” — officials in several states started looking into whether their anti-boycott laws had been triggered. Officials in Florida, Texas, New York, New Jersey and Illinois are reviewing whether the move will require divestment from Ben & Jerry’s parent company Unilever.
Pennsylvania Rep. Aaron Kaufer (R-Luzerne), the only Jewish Republican in the commonwealth’s legislature, is convinced Pennsylvania’s Act 163 of 2016, which prohibits state agencies or affiliates from contracting with companies engaged in a boycott of Israel, has been triggered by Ben & Jerry’s actions, and has taken the lead in seeing that it is enforced.
Act 163 had wide-bipartisan support when it was passed in 2016. The House approved the bill 181-9, and the Senate 47-1.
Last week, Kaufer sent letters to Gov. Tom Wolf, Attorney General Josh Shapiro and state Treasurer Stacy Garrity urging them to enforce Act 163.
“Somebody, in my opinion, needed to call this out and say, ‘This has gone too far. I’m taking a stand,’” Kaufer told the Chronicle. “This cannot be condoned, and if I stay silent, I’m condoning what’s going on. I don’t want to see further businesses go down this pathway.”
Anti-Israel decisions of the sort made by Ben & Jerry’s, and implemented by its parent company Unilever (which owns dozens of other brands, including Breyers, Lipton and Hellmann’s), are “prejudiced and antisemitic,” Kaufer continued. “This type of act is stoking
Please see Act 163, page 14
