Reform Judaism Magazine Spring 2013

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A Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) Publication ReformJudaismmag.org Spring 2013/5773 $ 5 . 0 0

Rethinking Alzheimer’s:

DIVINITY OFDEMENTIA

Why Judaism Affi rmsBREAKINGTHE RULES

Smart Strategies ForSHUL

SAVINGS

History Reconsidered: WE WERE NOT

SLAVES IN EGYPT

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Welcome

R J I N S I D E R ’S J E W I S H

WORLD TRAVELWORLD TRAVELG U I D E

How to make friends with Reform Jews in 43 countries * Where to go, what to see, how to connect.

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reform judaism 1 spring 2013

IN THE BEGINNING2 Dear Reader: Engaging the “Nones” / Rick Jacobs4 Letters

RJ INSIDER’S GUIDE: WORLD JEWISH TRAVEL25–47 Defying Extinction / Paul Liptz 28 St Petersburg:

Treated Like a Queen / Gail Glezerman Sherman 29 You’re Never Alone When You Say You’re a Jew / Gary Bretton-Granatoor 32 Vienna: Searching for Roots, Finding My Mission / Cindy R. Kandel 35 Johannesburg: Culture & Community / Robert Jacobs 36 Top Nations with Jewish Populations & Their Reform Congregations 39 Singapore: Culture & Community / Lennard Thal 40 Global News 41 Budapest: Culture & Community / Erika Siegfried-Tompson 43 Moscow: Culture & Community / Leonid Bimbat 45 San Juan: Culture & Community / Harry A. and Barbara Tasch Ezratty 47 Rio de Janeiro: Culture & Community / Raul Cesar Gottlieb

FOCUS: GREATEST JEWISH MYTHS54 Were the Jews Moneylenders Out of Necessity?

/ Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein56 Were the Jews Slaves in Egypt? / S. David Sperling57 Torah Is Not History / David Wolpe58 Was Jesus’ Last Supper a Passover Seder?

/ Michael J. Cook60 Was Reform Judaism the Price of Political

Acceptance? / Michael A. Meyer

NEWS & VIEWS OF REFORM JEWS66 Feature Story: Smart Strategies for Facility

Savings—Greening, reconceptualizing usage, and sharing space can save $$$. / Julie Schwartz

Also65 Chairman’s Perspective:

Sandy Shows Our True Colors / Stephen M. Sacks

68 Noteworthy70 What Works: A Shiva Registry

for Mourning Families72 Debatable: Should Our Seminary Admit Students

with Non-Jewish Partners? / Daniel Kirzane, Brandon Bernstein

17 The Higher Authority Lies Withinby Daniel Reisel / Right from the beginning, even God agrees that to seek truth means to question authority. Quite literally, it means to break the rules.

20 Divinity of Dementiaby Cary Kozberg / Persons with dementia are “messengers from God,” helping us to reflect on what it means to be human.

JEWISH LIFE6 Judaica: Jewish Antiques Appraisal Show

/ Jonathan Greenstein8 Books: Does Judaism Sanction “Holy War”?

/ a conversation with Reuven Firestone12 Holidays: What Do You Know…

about Passover Music? / Rachel Wetstein49 Youth Engagement: Short Experience, Staggering

Impact / interview with Leonard Saxe50 Interfaith Interaction: Reimagining Muslim-

Jewish Relations / interview with Sarah Bassin52 Theology: How Reform Jews Picture God

/ Leah Hochman

A BENEFIT OF YOUR MEMBERSHIP IN A URJ CONGREGATION

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➢Your thoughts and ideas are welcomed. Contact Rabbi Jacobs: [email protected] and/or send a letter-to-the-editor: [email protected].

Rabbi Rick JacobsPresident, Union for Reform Judaism


Offi cial Publication of the Union for Reform Judaism

Serving Reform Congregations in North America

Spring 2013, Vol. 41, No. 3

E x e c u t i v e E d i t o rMark Pelavin

E d i t o rAron Hirt-Manheimer

M a n a g i n g E d i t o rJoy Weinberg

C o p y E d i t o rJudith Hirt-Manheimer

A s s i s t a n t t o t h e E d i t o r sAlison Kahler

A r t D i r e c t i o nBest & Co.

C o n t r i b u t i n g E d i t o r sDavid Aaron, Michael Cook, Josh Garroway,

Leah Hochman, David Ilan, Paul Liptz, Edythe Mencher, Aaron Panken, Rick Sarason,

Lance Sussman, Mark Washofsky, Wendy Zierler

A d v i s o r y B o a r dMilton Lieberman, Chair

Carol Kur, Honorary ChairPaul Uhlmann, Jr., Lifetime Chair Emeritus

Jim Ball, Shirlee Cohen, Isabel Dunst, Dan Freelander, Steve Friedman, Jay Geller,

Howard Geltzer, Marc Gertz, Deborah Goldberg, Shirley Gordon,

Richard Holtz, Robert M. Koppel, Bonnie Mitelman, Harriet Rosen,

Jean Rosensaft, Joseph Aaron Skloot, John Stern, Al Vorspan, Alan Zeichick

A d v e r t i s i n g O f f i c e sJoy Weinberg, Advertising Director

Keith Newman, Advertising Representative633 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

212-650-4244 (for advertising inquiries only)

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Reform Judaism (ISSN 0482-0819) is published quarter-ly (fall, winter, spring, summer) by the Union for Reform Judaism. Circulation Offi ces: 633 Third Ave, New York, NY 10017. © Copyright 2013 by the Union for Reform Juda-ism. Periodical postage paid at New York, New York and at additional mailing offi ces. Postmaster: Send address changes to Reform Juda ism, 633 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017. Members of Union congregations receive Reform Judaism as a service of the Union for Reform Judaism. Subscription rate: One year: $12 each; Canada $18 each; Foreign $24 each. Two years: $22 each; Canada $34 each; Foreign $46 each. Contact us for bulk pricing. The opinions of authors whose works are published in Reform Judaism are their own and do not necessarily refl ect the viewpoint of the Union. REFORM JUDAISM is a registered trademark of the Union for Reform Judaism.

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S t a t e m e n t o f P u r p o s eReform Judaism is the official voice of the Union for Reform Judaism, linking the institutions and af filiates of Reform Judaism with every Re form Jew. RJ covers devel-opments within our Move ment while interpreting world events and Jewish tradition from a Reform perspective. Shared by 305,000 member households, RJ conveys the creativity, diversity, and dynamism of Reform Judaism.

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There is no escaping the challenging fact that there are more Jews outside the walls of our syna-

gogues than inside. Social scientists such as Robert Putnam and Mark Chaves explain this as being part of a larger phenomenon in North America, where the most rapidly growing religious group is unaffiliated—the “nones.” While middle-aged and older individuals continue to embrace organized religion, exponentially increasing numbers of young people reject it.

Too often I hear Jewish leaders describing those who have no religious affiliation as people “who don’t know and don’t care.” I disagree. The 2012 Pew Forum on Religion survey, “‘Nones’ on the Rise,” disproves this notion, finding that many of these “nones” believe in God, seek spirituality, and pray regularly. They just do not relate to the world of organized religion. Seventy percent of “nones” reported that religious institutions are too focused on money and power, and reflect worldviews alien to their own.

That’s precisely why a major thrust of the new URJ is to “reach beyond the walls” of synagogues to engage those who have yet to join us inside of our congregations. Doing so effectively means discarding limiting assumptions such as, “they don’t know and they don’t care.”

In our new URJ Communities of Practice (see page 68), dozens of URJ congregations are experimenting with a variety of compelling ways to engage young adults and young families, who will learn from each other and from our of URJ Faculty of thought leaders and expert practitioners.

Over the past 40 years, while the ranks of the religiously unaffiliated have been on the rise, the Reform Movement has been the fastest growing theologically liberal religious tradition in America. We have become the largest stream in North American Jewish life. This is due in no small mea-sure to our openness to the full tapestry of Jews—gay Jews and straight Jews, intermarried Jews and in-married Jews, ritual Jews and cultural Jews.

The hallmarks of Reform Judaism—dynamism, openness, creativity—should make our Movement extraordinarily attractive to Jews worldwide who mistakenly view all organized religion as insular and out of touch.

I hope you will embrace the challenge of reaching beyond our synagogue walls to engage all those who are seeking a meaningful Jewish life. Let’s give them the opportunity to experience the beauty and power of our Reform Jewish community.

Engaging the “Nones”

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Dear Reform Jewish Community,

Revisiting the past 10 decades reminds us of the lasting legacy WRJ has created . From

a small group of sisterhood visionaries in 19 13 to the more than 65,000 women across

nearly 500 women’s groups around the world today--what a big difference we have

made together!

Building a dormitory on HUC’s campus, founding the Jewish Braille

Institute, creating NFTY, establishing the YES fund, writing a Torah

Commentary for women . . . the list goes on and on. We reach this

remarkable milestone as we continue to advocate for important social

causes, advance women’s spirituality and support Reform institutions

and programs everywhere. In short, happy birthday to us!

There are many ways to celebrate our Centennial . This coming year, we hope you will

observe our Centennial Shabbat, attend our Academic Symposium in New York City on

June 2nd, and join us for the 49 th Assembly and Gala in San Diego on December 1 1 th- 15 th.

Remember, your voice matters, but we are always stronger together.

- Women of Reform Judaism

www.wr j . o rg/centenn ia l

SUBJECT: 100 Years of WRJ Achievements

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l e t t e r s


The Real Shanda

I found the premise of Annette Powers’ article, “The Disgrace of a Nice Jew-

ish Girl” (Winter 2012), very disturbing. In recounting her disgrace—her ex-hus-band, who was not Jewish, was having an affair and wanted a divorce—the author concluded that she is now “searching again for a nice Jewish boy.”

The false implication is that this would not have happened had she married a Jewish man. But unfortunately, there are “nice Jewish boys” who are not at all “nice” and do have extramarital affairs. They should feel the disgrace—not the wife, who did nothing wrong.

Anonymous

When our daughter became engaged to our beloved son-in-law I was

surprised when some friends wondered how I would “deal” with his not being Jewish. My husband and I—and even my

80-year-old mother—were happy for both of them. The newly engaged couple attended an interfaith marriage class, committed to raising children in a Jewish home, and, most importantly, loved and respected each other and their families. Now they are active in Temple Shalom, Newton, MA, where their three-year-old attends Tot Shab-bat; and, just as important, they are productive citizens and kind people. To even imply that their marriage would be a shanda and bring disgrace to the Jewish faith is contrary to our beliefs and our congregation’s values.

While Annette Powers’ family mem-bers are entitled to their opinions, as she is to tell her personal story, I believe Reform Judaism magazine is not the correct forum to do so. Perhaps this is the real shanda of this story.

Marion Cooper PollockNewton, Massachusetts

Editors’ Note

In publishing this piece, the RJ maga-zine editors were not making a deroga-

tive comment about non-Jews or about intermarriage. The author herself express-es a nuanced point of view: “I want to believe that my divorce is not related in any way to the fact that my ex was not Jewish. And yet I can’t help but think sometimes, maybe things would have turned out differently….” The editors have long published a range of authors’ per-spectives on many subjects in the belief that the publication should ultimately be a wide-tent forum for respectful discussion and dialogue on the issues of today.

Shanda & Our Son

It was with surprise and relief that I read “My Marital Masquerade.” Our

son suffers from both psychological and addictive problems, and while we have encountered compassion and under-

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standing, when I have offered myself as a resource, the clergy has responded with a reluctance I attribute to a sense of profound helplessness and shame.

We need courage to face this diffi-cult problem. It cannot be ignored.

Anonymous

Cold Shoulder at Shul

In your “Forum for the Future” (Win-ter 2012), one of the interviewees says,

“How many times can a young person go to a synagogue alone and be ignored by the membership and leadership before he/she decides to give up?”

My answer is: Not many.When we moved, we joined the local

Reform shul. After three years of being shunned and ignored, we went to a Conservative shul, the only other nearby synagogue, where we were welcomed with open arms, honored as esteemed new members on our first Rosh Hasha-nah, and blessed with numerous aliyahsand other honors.

So, don’t waste your time. Move on to a synagogue that will appreciate your presence and welcome you as a member of their family. Your spirituality is at stake.

Anonymous

Rabbi Sacks’ Attacks

I was surprised to see Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ essay in your Winter 2012 edi-

tion. In the late 1990s Chief Rabbi Sacks wrote a letter to the then head of the Orthodox London Beth Din: “The leaders of Reform, Liberal, and Masorti movements know they have no enemy and opponent equal to the Chief Rabbi, who fights against them intelligently and defends the faith in our holy Torah in his writings, articles, and broadcasts...[and] does not accord them any gesture of recognition.” Rabbi Sacks has never repented or issued a formal retraction of these words.

In this light, the closing words of his essay—“...without community we can-not survive”—seem rather ironic.

Darren KleinbergPhoenix, Arizona

Send letters to: Reform Judaism, 633 Third Avenue, 7th fl oor, New York, NY 10017, reform judaismmag.org (click on “Submissions”).

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Appraisals by Jonathan Greenstein

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Jewish Antiques Appraisal Show

Dear Jonathan,This havdalah spice box,

which I’ve been told is made of German silver, has been handed down in my family. A wedding gift from Morris and Rose Dzi-alynski to Morris’ brother Phil-lip and Mary Dzialynski, who were married in Savannah, Georgia, it is inscribed “M.&R. D. to P.&M. D. April 23, 1865.”

My great, great grandfather Phillip came to America circa 1850 from Posen, Germany and in 1853 brought over the rest of his family, including his parents and several siblings, Morris among them. They settled in Florida, with a sojourn in Savannah during the war. Phillip took care of the

family while Morris was in the Confederate Army. Morris went on to serve several terms as mayor of Jacksonville and as a municipal court judge.

I would be interested to know the spice box’s value.

Richard B. Herzog, Jr.The Temple, Atlanta, Georgia

Dear Richard:It’s wonderful that this

spice tower is connected to Civil War-time American his-tory by usage and inscription; however, the style indicates it was made in Germany, prob-ably Berlin, c. 1840. I saw an

identical German piece in the London Jewish Museum catalog.

From its color, I can see it is made from 800 (80%) silver, typical of German craftsmanship then and now. Had the piece been created in America, it would have been coin (90%) silver or sterling (92.5%) silver and oxidized differently.

The spice box may have been ordered from overseas, as that was common practice for affluent Jews of the era, or brought to the States by a family member. Either way, it was a mass-produced ritual object. Value: $500.

Jonathan Greenstein, founderJ. Greenstein & Co., Inc.

Inquiries: [email protected]

Dear Jonathan,Thank you. We intend to continue

with tradition and keep the spice box in the family.

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Does Judaism Sanction “Holy War”?a conversation with Reuven Firestone

JEWISHLIFEBOOKS

Rabbi Reuven Firestone is profes-sor of Medieval Judaism and Islam at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles

and author of numerous books, most recently Holy War in Judaism: The Fall and Rise of a Controversial Idea(Oxford University Press, 2012), which explores how the concept of ‘’holy war’’ disappeared from Jewish thought for almost 2000 years, only to reemerge with renewed vigor in modern times.

Does the concept of “holy war” exist in the Bible?

There is no biblical term or even a traditional Hebrew word for holy war, but there are numerous instances in the Bible of violence against enemies believed to be sanctioned or com-manded by God; there are even wars divinely preordained to be victorious. In Numbers chapter 33, for example, God commands the Israelites to seize the Land of Canaan and “dispossess all the inhabitants of the land.” And in Deuteronomy 7:1–3, God com-mands the Israelites to wipe out all the Canaanites living in the Land of Israel: “You must doom them to com-plete destruction; grant them no terms and give them no quarter.” Often God ensures military success for the Isra-elites, as in the war against the giant-king Og: “‘Do not fear him, for I am delivering him and all his men and his country into your power’…So the Lord our God also delivered into our power King Og of Bashan, with all his men, and we dealt them such a blow that no survivor was left” (Deut. 3:2–3). Dozens of other cases can be found throughout the remainder of the Bible, from the Book of Joshua to Second Chronicles.

Was the Maccabean revolt against the Greek Syrian conquerors also considered a holy war?

That certainly seems to be the mes-sage in First and Second Maccabees, the books that furnish the most detail about the Jews’ wars against the Greeks. In First Maccabees, the hero Judah says, “It is easy for many to be delivered into the hands of few. Heaven sees no differ-ence in gaining victory through many or through a few, because victory in war does not lie in the weight of numbers, but rather strength comes from Heaven” (I Macc. 3:18–19). Second Maccabees contains stories of great acts of religious martyrdom that help move heaven to bring victory. In one tale (chapter 7), an anonymous woman and her seven sons suffer agonizing deaths during the war against the Greeks for Kiddush Hashem (meaning “sanctification of the Divine Name,” the traditional Jewish term for martyrdom); in another, the Jewish official Razis kills himself by plunging a sword into his stomach, jumping off a balcony, and finally tearing out his own entrails rather than submit to the rule of a Seleucid general (14:37–46). Such acts have exemplified holy war throughout the ages.

Some four or five centuries later, the rabbis of the Talmud, writing about Cha-nukah, offered only one statement acknowledging the Maccabean victory, which we find in traditional siddurim to this day: God “delivered the mighty into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few, the wicked into the hands of the righteous, the unclean into the hands of the pure, and the arrogant into the hands of those who were devoted to Your Torah.” Notably, the rabbis paid far greater attention to a different sort of divine intervention, repeatedly valorizing the miracle that enabled one small con-tainer of sanctified, “kosher” oil in the Temple menorah to last until a new batch of sanctified oil could be produced to keep the Eternal Light aflame. This remarkable fixation on a little clay jar of oil, with the concurrent near-exclusion of the extraordinary military victory, serves as an indication of the rabbis’ decision to abandon the message of holy war.

What caused the rabbis to rethink the practice of holy war?

The short answer is that they aban-doned holy war when it stopped work-ing. The Maccabean Revolt was the last successful holy war. The next two great wars—the Great Jewish Revolt against Roman rule (66 C.E.–70 C.E.) and the Bar Kokhba Rebellion (132–136)—were overwhelming catastrophes. The first resulted in the final destruction of the Temple and the end of Jewish political independence in the Land of Israel; the second added overwhelming exile and destruction. Together, millions were killed and enslaved, and perhaps as many died from disease and starvation in the midst of the conflagration. It took generations for the consensus to swing to a position of withdrawal from political activism with the larger world but even-tually, a few generations after the disas-trous Bar Kokhba Rebellion, the rabbis of the Talmud established safeguards

JL_Books_sp13_mm7_FINAL.indd 8 1/18/13 7:58 AM


that would prevent future zealots from declaring holy war. They never aban-doned holy war as a divinely sanctioned institution, but they established two powerful safeguards that made it virtu-ally impossible for holy war to be opera-tive in Judaism.

What were the rabbis’ safeguards against holy war?

The first safeguard restricted the many examples of divinely sanctioned warring to a simple and limited defini-tion called Commanded War (milchemet mitzvah). In a discussion about Deuter-onomy 20 concerning the exclusion of certain categories of people from fight-ing in an Israelite war, the Mishnah ends the discussion with: “To what (types of wars) do these deferments apply? To a Discretionary War (milchemet ha-reshut), but in a Commanded War (milchemet mitzvah) everyone must go forth, even a bridegroom from his chamber and a bride from her bridal pavilion” (Mish-nah Sotah 8:7). In this brief passage, the rabbis divided all biblical wars into two types—for one, certain deferments applied, but for the other there could be no deferments because the war was commanded by God. The passage was problematic, however, because it never defined which wars were discretionary and which commanded. Clarification first appears in the Gemara, the exten-sion of the Mishnah codified a few cen-turies later: Commanded War is identi-fied as “Joshua’s war” in the Palestinian Talmud (Sotah 8:1) and “Joshua’s wars of conquest” in the Babylonian Talmud (Sotah 44b). These authoritative state-ments were understood to mean that war commanded by God in which every individual is required to engage in battle was restricted to the period of the great conquest of the Land of Israel under Joshua. After that period, an Israelite king could declare war and muster an army, but did not have the same author-ity, and when the Israelites no longer had kings, the possibility of that type of war also ceased. The Palestinian Talmud, but not the Babylonian Talmud, the more authoritative version of the Talmud, had also added defense to the category of Commanded War for which deferments did not apply. From then on, self defense

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safeguards against militancy. Of course the secular Zionists did not need Rabbi Herzog’s imprimatur to develop the Haganah or a national army, but the many Orthodox Jewish immigrants from a devastated Europe and the Arab world, as well as the relatively few Orthodox Religious Zionists who viewed the State as their spiritual center, required a religious authority to allow them to fight. With independence achieved, the harsh privations facing the fledgling Jewish state rose to the forefront and the early messianic surge after liberation quickly subsided. It would take time for messianism to become truly ignited in modern Israel.

Did Israel’s occupation of the West Bank in 1967 infl uence Jewish atti-tudes on the question of holy war?

It wasn’t the occupation; it was the war. Israel as well as the rest of the Jew-ish world was terrified by the build-up to the war in 1967. The municipality of Tel Aviv dug mass graves in the city’s soccer stadium in anticipation of terrible destruction. But in a matter of hours the air forces of the surrounding Arab countries were destroyed, and in a mat-ter of days the war was over. It was miraculous. Some considered it truly a divine miracle. In the interim between 1948 and 1967 Israel had grown in population and strength, and especially after the horror of the Holocaust the Jewish people were ready for—and found—a redemptive victory in the “Six Day War.”

Some in the Religious Zionist com-munity saw the “miracle” as a divine sign of a messianic redemption just around the corner. After all, in 1967 almost all of the holiest sites from Isra-elite history had come under Israel’s control in biblical Judea and Samaria! In hindsight they interpreted the Balfour Declaration, the end of Ottoman rule over Palestine, the British Mandate, and even the Holocaust as signs of an immi-nent messiah. In short, they concluded that the “until it please” of the Song of Songs verse had arrived and the “Three Vows” were no longer in force. In this new age, the old biblical wars of con-quest—“holy war”—could be reinstated, and God would again work step by step

was the only possible legal category of organized Jewish fighting. In the mean-time, the rabbis taught that because of Israel’s sins, God had resolved that Jews must suffer exile and the loss of political and military independence. This senti-ment is found throughout rabbinic litera-ture. Life goes on, they explained, but it does so in a state of exile everywhere, even within the borders of the Land of Israel itself.

Such a state of exile is then presumed to be the normative situation for the Jew-ish people. This is clear from the lan-guage and logic of the second safeguard, based on an obscure phrase repeated several times in the Song of Songs, “I make you swear [often translated as ‘I adjure you’], O daughters of Jerusalem, by gazelles or by hinds of the field: do not wake or rouse love until it please!” (2:7, 3:5, 8:4). The rabbis concluded that the repeated phrase provided a divine message about life until the messianic redemption: the Jews (the “daughters of Jerusalem”) must not try to force the advent of the messiah (“do not wake or rouse love”) before God wills (“until it please”). God’s will was articulated in the form of vows (“I make you swear”), and since the phrase appeared three times, the rabbis called this “The Three Vows” and

determined that each occurrence defined a particular vow: 1) Jews must swear not to defy their exilic status by rebelling against Gentile powers; 2) Jews must swear not to immigrate as a group to the Land of Israel. In return, 3) God makes the Gentiles of the world swear that they will not persecute the Jewish people beyond their ability to endure. These vows would remain in force “…until it please,” until God decided that the time was right for the exile to end through a great messianic redemption.

Why would the rabbis of that time prohibit Jewish migration to Zion?

There were always Jews living in the Land of Israel, and the rabbis never pro-hibited migration there. Their concern was stirring up powerful mass emotions associated with the sanctity of the Land—something like the powerful feelings we sometimes experience when visiting Israel today. They didn’t want the emotional excess of a mass move-ment to convince hot-headed activists that the messiah was imminent, poten-tially unleashing a military rebellion against far more formidable powers and then causing another catastrophe, or per-haps even, heaven forbid, the destruction of the Jewish people.

How did the establishment of the State of Israel infl uence the traditionalJewish attitude toward holy war?

The Zionist Movement was an over-whelmingly secular national movement. Most Orthodox Jews either ignored or campaigned against it, at least until the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel. Of the few Orthodox Jews who did join the movement, many were primarily stirred by messianic feeling, but they publicly denied this messianic impulse, because admitting it would be considered heretical rebellion against the Three Vows and therefore against God.

Once the United Nations approved the establishment of a Jewish State and Israel faced the inevitable approaching wars of independence, Rabbi Isaac Halevy Herzog, an Orthodox rabbi who served as Israel’s first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, wrote religious rulings that allowed the development of a Jewish army in the face of the rabbis’ earlier



with his beloved Jewish people to settle all of the Land of Israel and thus bring messianic redemption.

Deeply influenced by the mystical thinking of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook and his son Rabbi Tzvi Yehudah, a small cadre of Jews successfully convinced most Religious Zionists as well as many other Israelis and Jews living outside of Israel that God had enabled the estab-lishment of the State as a sign of impending redemption. They founded a few settlements in the captured (or, as some would say, liberated) territories—not many, because the government want-ed to keep the land as a bargaining chip for a long-term peace treaty. For six years the activists and the government clashed, and then suddenly a surprise attack, launched on Yom Kippur, nearly overwhelmed the Israel Defense Forces. It was a major existential crisis for all of Israel. The religious activists saw it as a divine warning that Israel was not fol-lowing the will of God because the State had failed to settle the Land given by God to the people of Israel. In the wake of the Yom Kippur War, Gush Emunim and the Settler Movement were founded and increasingly more Jews became activists in the movement, warning of the devastation awaiting the Jewish peo-ple should they fail to seize upon the divine imperative by not clinging fully and faithfully to the unprecedented opportunity for redemption offered by God. To the zealots, failure to engage in militant, activist settlement would upset God and bring disaster. Therefore, if the Israeli government refused to retain all conquered biblical lands, then it was their responsibility to carry on the fight through forced settlement of occupied territories and the expulsion of its non-Jewish inhabitants.

By the 1980s, some rabbis in the Set-tler Movement wrote that all of Israel’s wars are holy wars by definition, includ-ing invasions of neighboring countries. The most radical advocated provoking an Armageddon that would require God’s intervention to save the Jewish people by destroying its enemies. The plot to blow up the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem in the ’80s—which was nearly carried out—emerged from this mentality.

continued on page 13

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Here are eight questions to engage you and your family in the eight days of Passover. To listen to the songs, please visit our website, reformjudaismmag.org.

1. The Song of the Sea—the biblical Passover song which the Israelites sang after safely crossing the Sea of Reeds and evading Pharaoh’s army—is unprecedented in the Bible because:

a. It is the first song to appear in the Bible

b. It is the first biblical song to praise God

c. It is the first biblical instance of using musi-cal instruments

d. All of the above

2. In the original Hebrew text of the song Echad Mi Yodea (Who Knows One?), the “who knows two” verse refers to the two tablets of

the law. In the Ladino version of the song, called Quien Supiense, to what/whom does “who knows two” refer?

a. Moses and Aaron

b. Two Shab-bat candles

c. Esther and Mordechai

d. The first and second Temples

3. The closing Passover seder song, Chad Gadya

(One Kid), tells the story of a baby goat, which was eaten by a cat, which in turn was bitten by a dog, etc., until the

“Holy One” arrives to put an end to the chain of events. The “one kid” has long been thought of

as a metaphor for what?

By Rachel Wetstein

What Do You Know…about Passover Music?

Rachel Wetstein is research librarian and editorial assistant of Transcontinental Music (a division of URJ Books and Music), the world’s leading publisher of Jewish choral music, with a catalog of 1000+ titles (transcontinentalmusic.com).

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a. The animals on Noah’s arkb. The Jewish peoplec. The first-born sons

of the Israelitesd. There is no metaphor

4. Which 19th-century classical com-poser created a famous oratorio about the Prophet Elijah?

a. Ludwig van Beethovenb. Giuseppe Verdic. Gustav Mahlerd. Felix Mendelssohn

5. Who composed the oratorio Israel in Egypt, which recounts the Passover story, complete with graphic descrip-tions of the plagues?

a. Johann Sebastian Bachb. Georg Frideric Handelc. Ludwig van Beethovend. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

6. Whereas in Ashkenazi homes the seder typically starts with the recitation of Kiddush (blessing over wine), in many Sephardi homes a song is sung before the Kiddush which lists the order

of the seder rituals to come. What is the name of that song?

a. Hodu Ladonaib. Kadeish Ur’chatzc. B’tzeit Yisraeild. Mah L’cha

7. Which American Jewish songwriter composed Miriam’s Song, celebrating Miriam the prophet and the women who joined her in song and dance after crossing the Red Sea?

a. Craig Taubmanb. Josh Nelsonc. Michelle Citrind. Debbie Friedman

8. Which cantor and star of the Yiddish theater composed his own show-stopping version of Chad Gadyo, in which the title words are repeated over and over while the soloist improvises?

a. Moishe Oysherb. Moshe Koussevitskyc. Yossele Rosenblattd. Leib Glantz

For the answers, turn to the next page.

Might this confl uence of Jewish nationalism and messianism spark a holy war?

We must take lessons from history. The Great Jewish Revolt and the Bar Kokhba Rebellion were efforts of a sub-jugated nation to rid itself of oppressive imperialist domination. The most fanati-cal Jewish factions, acting against the will of less extreme parties, instigated an armed showdown of the few against the many, perhaps in an attempt to force God’s hand in coming to their defense. But unlike the romantic victories of the gallant Maccabees portrayed in our sacred books, God did not intervene. These revolts ended in disaster for the Jewish people.

Today’s Jewish leaders need to make careful, rational decisions and avoid making incendiary statements. When people believe the messiah is around the corner, they are likely to fall under the spell of irrational, foolish thinking. The result could be catastrophic for Israel and the world.

Books...“Holy War”continued from page 11

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QUIZ ANSWERS

1. D. The Song of the Sea is the first song to appear in the Bible, the first to men-tion God, and the first to use musical instruments (which are mentioned twice before, but not in use).

2. A. The Ladino version of Echad Mi Yodea includes the phrase “dos Moxe y Aron” (“two: Moses and Aaron”), which rhymes with the previous line “tres muestros padres son” (“three are our Patriarchs”). The text features Moses and Aaron, the two main heroes of the Passover story, rather than the two tablets of the Law.

3. B. In Chad Gadya, the “one kid” has long been thought of as a metaphor for the Jewish people, and the other characters in the song as representing other nations besetting Israel during its long history.

4. D. Felix Mendelssohn (1809–47) created the oratorio Elijah, first performed in English in 1846 (a

German libretto followed soon thereafter). Although Mendelssohn’s distinguished grandfather Moses was a foremost Jewish philosopher in 18th-century Berlin, it is highly doubtful that Felix, a devout Chris-tian, drew inspiration from Judaism.

5. B. Handel’s oratorio Israel in Egypt, composed almost entirely of selec-tions from the Book of Exodus and the Psalms, premiered in London in April 1732.

6. B. Listing the 15 parts of the seder, the song Kadeish Ur’chatz (literally, “sanctify, wash,” meaning “sanctify the wine, wash the hands”) is often sung to the tune of an old Babylonian chant-like melody.

7. D. Debbie Friedman’s Miriam’s Song is frequently sung in schools, synagogues, and camps.

8. A. Moishe Oysher Chad Gadyo is a frequent encore selection of many cantors and Jewish choirs.

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Right from the beginning, even God agrees that to seek truth means to question authority. Quite literally, it means to break the rules.By Daniel Reisel

The Higher Authority Lies Within

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Several members of our medical team attempted to reason with her, but there was nothing we could do. Over the course of the next few days, we watched powerlessly as this young woman’s life slipped away.

♦ ♦ ♦

EV E RY W H E R E W E L O OK T H E R E A R E people who claim to know the mind of God and base their assertions directly on the Bible. This kind of literalist think-ing should be profoundly troubling to us as Jews, because our Torah actually contains the most radical challenge to a fundamentalist reading of Scripture in all of religious lit-erature. Somehow, this idea has gotten lost.

You might say that if Christianity begins with an act of immaculate conception, Judaism begins with an act of immaculate misconception—because revelation in Judaism is not what it seems.

♦ ♦ ♦

THE TORAH TELLS US THAT AFTER THE Children of Israel were freed from the slavery of Egypt, they arrived at Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Law of God. This was God’s own Law, divinely written on the tablets that Moses brought down from the mountain. Let’s imagine what Moses might have felt at this point. He has led the Children of Israel out of Egypt. They have all seen the signs and wonders. Moses now has in his hands the most valuable, most sacred, and most urgently needed object in the his-tory of humanity.

Imagine then his astonishment, when instead of finding the Israelites ready to accept the revealed mor-al code, he finds them dancing in reverence and awe around an idol—the Golden Calf—which they them-selves had created.

Now, what would you expect Moses to do at this point? After all, God’s first commandment explains

that if you worship other gods, you’re in trouble. And so, you might anticipate Moses appealing to God to smite the undeserving Israelites. Instead, Moses does some-thing extraordinary. He takes the tablets of the Law and smashes them on the ground.

What does this act signify? The story implies that revelation is not the answer to our circumstance. It sug-gests that Moses understands that if we had to live our lives based on revealed morality, it would infantilize us. Given the credulity of the human creature, divine law itself would become an idol, an excuse to relinquish what is most precious in us, our moral autonomy.

What we have here is not a story of revelation, but a story of the dangers of revelation. Moses understood that the weakness we have for dogmatic thinking and the longing for safe truths—the same flaws that had led the Israelites to the Golden Calf—would always hinder the flourishing of society.

By breaking the tablets, Moses showed the Israel-ites, and us, that nothing, not even revealed law, is so sacred it cannot be tested by human experience. What was needed was not to exchange the slavery of the body for a slavery of the mind, but instead to create a tradi-tion alive with questions and debate and glorious dif-ferences of opinion.

Following his audacious act, Moses ascends the mountain again. And after what must have been an awkward conversation, God tells Moses to write his own tablets. Notably, whereas the first tablets were “inscribed by the finger of God” (Exodus 31:18), God instructs Moses to carve out the second tablets him-self: “Write for yourself (ktav-lecha) these command-ments, for in accordance with these commandments I make a covenant with you and with Israel” (Exodus

30-year-old woman arr ived in the emergency room.She was bleeding internally from an infection in her abdomen and she need-ed surgery, immediately. As I, a junior physician, took her blood, she told me she was a Jehovah’s Witness and as such would not accept blood transfusions under any circumstances. She explained that the Bible was central to her life. I told her I felt the same way. However, we meant different things. For her, certain passages of the Bible—Genesis 9:4 and Leviticus 17:10, which prohibit the ingesting of blood—required of her the ultimate sacrifice. She

believed that every word of Scripture was God’s word, in accordance with the dogma of the Jehovah’s Witness community. I wanted to run home and bring her a volume of the Talmud to demonstrate how our sages interpret these lines of Torah in many different ways.

AThe Higher Authority Lies Within

Daniel Reisel, a junior physician based in London, holds a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Oxford.



34:27). These human-wrought tablets then become the law that forms the heart of the Hebrew Bible.

After Moses dies in the valley of Moab, the Peo-ple of Israel mourn his passing. In the final line of the Bible, we read: “No one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses per-formed in the sight of all Israel” (Deuteronomy 34:12). Which awesome deeds? The text does not say. How-ever, the medieval commentator Rashi, quoting earli-er sources, states: “This refers to the fact that Moses’ heart inspired him to break the tablets…and the Holy Blessed One concurred.”

Of all Moses’ achievements—releasing the Israel-ites from slavery, splitting the Red Sea, bringing them to Mount Sinai, and then leading them to the very edge of the Promised Land—the greatest was the breaking of the tablets.

This is of profound relevance in today’s world, because if the Law of God is not beyond questioning, then all the more so are man-made laws. Paradoxically, in Judaism, the moment of revelation coincides with something akin to enlightenment. Right from the beginning, even God agrees that to seek truth means to question authority. Quite literally, it means to break the rules.

To some people, however, the idea that morality is nothing more than a set of laws constructed by fallible

However, empathy is not merely genetic. The values we grow up with and the culture in which we live add cru-cial color to our emotions. On a larger level, society influ-ences who we feel empathic towards and in what way.

To understand how morality is simultaneously innate and learnt, consider language. People used to think of language as a completely cultural phenomenon. We now know that human beings have a specific linguistic ability. With minimal input, children are able to pick up language at astonishing speed.

In the same way, children intuitively understand moral questions. If you doubt this, try, as I have done, to renege on a promise you’ve made to a three-year-old. You will find that the mind of a three-year-old is not like a blank slate at all. It is more similar to a Swiss army knife, with fixed mental modules, predictable patterns of behavior, and a sharp sense of fairness. Honesty and deception, obedience and rebellion, fairness and injus-tice—these all fill a three-year-old’s day.

The role of parents and teachers, and, more broad-ly speaking, the role of culture, is to sustain that innate ability. The early years are crucial. As in the case of language, there may well be a window of opportunity after which mastering moral questions becomes like learning a foreign language.

What modern neuroscience suggests is that the Bible

had it right. We must cultivate moral maturity, without resorting to revelation. Blindly trusting in authority is a barrier to human freedom.

Where the Hebrew Bible ends is only the begin-ning of the story. The Talmud recounts that the Israelites carry the Ark of the Covenant with them throughout their wanderings. Later, when they rest it in the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Jerusalem, they place the broken divine law alongside the tab-lets of Moses. As humans, we carry with us both tab-lets, our fallible human laws and the fragments of our shared humanity.

In his greatest hour, Moses showed us we have nothing to fear. The tablets of God were broken, but we remain intact. Our task, too late for my patient but perhaps not too late for us, is to break the spell of Sinai. Only then, following Moses’ example, can we begin the real work of hammering out what constitutes a moral society.

humans seems insufficient, even dangerous. And yet, to such a worry, modern science, psychology, and espe-cially modern neuroscience have found some striking and potentially reassuring answers.

Neuroscience has shown that every mental state, every thought and feeling, has a physical representation in the brain. The mind is what the brain does. Further-more, the human brain is composed of numerous inter-connected circuits. Partly hard-wired, meaning geneti-cally encoded, and partly soft-wired, through learning and experience, these modular networks enable us to navigate our complex social world.

At the most basic level, human morality is grounded in our ability to feel empathy. The physical substrates of empathy reside deep within the emotional part of the brain, in a circuit of brain structures that includes the amygdala. Studies have shown that a person’s ability to empathize directly correlates with the level of amygdalar activity.

“By breaking the tablets, Moses showed the Israelites, and us, that nothing, not even revealed law, is so sacred, it cannot be tested by human experience.”


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Persons with dementia are “messengers from God,” daily delivering a standing invitation from the Creator

to reflect on what it means to be human.by Cary Kozberg

Divinity of

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o not cast me off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength fails me. (Psalm 71:9)

I often think of this verse whenever I look into the eyes of first-time visitors to our Jewish nursing home and see the fear of growing old, of becoming frail, of being in the “valley of the shadow of death” (Psalm 23:4). So stark is the “otherness” of this place, often the proverbial comfort of “Your rod and Your staff” eludes.

And no place here seems to broadcast the mes-sage more clearly than the dementia-designated floor. Language, rules for communication and socializa-tion, reference points of “reality” are utterly differ-ent in this alien world.

The outsiders view the inhabitants as pitifully less than human. Some even classify them as falling out-side the definition of “personhood,” and thereby no longer entitled to the moral and legal protection of being a full “person.” And, when they become virtu-ally inanimate, unable to do anything on their own,

they are defined by the word “vegetable”—depriv-ing them of any vestige of their humanity.

This is not a Jewish point of view. Judaism (as well as Christianity and Islam) affirms that every human being, no matter how capable or compromised, is created in the Divine image and therefore possesses infinite, unconditional worth. Indeed, our tradition teaches that even a goseis—a person who is in the process of dying—is still fully human and may not even be touched, lest death be hastened (Semachot1:1–3; Shabbat 151b). And we learn in Midrash Song of Songs Rabbah (5:16) that every person present at Sinai heard God’s Voice uniquely, perhaps because the Voice was heard not only by the mind, but also by the soul. For Jews to say the “v” word (“vegetable”) is not only politically incorrect, it is a sacrilege. A human being can never be less than “fully human,” much less a “vegetable.”

♦ ♦ ♦

In my role as a rabbi and a chaplain, I have spent count-less hours helping residents with advanced dementia stay spiritually and culturally connected to God, Torah, and the Jewish people. In playing to their strengths, to whatever capacities they still retain, I’ve come to realize that many cognitively impaired residents seem more spiritually attuned than other residents who are more cognitively intact.

One individual, whom I will call Joe, coped with advanced Alzheimer’s disease. As his cog-nitive abilities waned, he forgot the words to the blessing over the wine, and his responses didn’t always fit the question he was asked. But I could always count on him to help set the atmosphere for our weekly Kabbalat Shabbat (welcoming the Sab-

“Sometimes folks with dementia seem more fortu-nate spiritu-ally than we are. I’ve wit-nessed height-ened feelings of joy, sponta-neity, enthu-siasm, and gratitude.”

D

Rabbi Cary Kozberg is director of religious life at Wexner Heritage Village in Columbus, Ohio. This article was adapt-ed with permission from Broken Fragments: Jewish Experi-ences of Alzheimer’s Disease through Diagnosis, Adaptation, and Moving On, edited by Douglas J. Kohn (URJ Books and Music). For ordering information: urjbooksandmusic.com.


bath). He would greet me with a warm handshake, a smile, and a reminder: “Rabbi, it’s time to talk to the Boss!” Then he would pray and sing with joy-ful enthusiasm and heartfelt spontaneity. Despite loss of memory, executive function, and bowel and bladder control, he was one of the most spiritually attuned people I’ve ever met.

Interestingly, in Joe’s case and other instanc-es, Alzheimer’s disease can actually be a boon to someone’s “personhood,” precisely, and ironically, because it is a boon to his or her spirituality. I have witnessed heightened feelings of joy, spontaneity, enthusiasm, and gratitude in people with dementia, because these feelings no longer pass through the cognitive filter of the rational mind. Sometimes I marvel that folks like Joe seem more fortunate spiri-tually than those of us who have that filter. With the loss of cognition and memory, they no longer worry about the past or the future. And because they live only in the present, they are usually more at ease. When offered love, compassion, and physical con-tact, they tend to respond with more intuitive, pri-mal, and pure feelings of affection. Indeed, when they are no longer aware that they are no longer aware, but have not yet lost their operative capacity to speak and communicate cogently, they faithful-ly entrust their care to others, human or Divine—sometimes quite enthusiastically.

♦ ♦ ♦

In a curious way, I have come to view persons with advanced dementia as assuming the role of “angels.” As foreign as this may sound and contrary to what many of us may have been taught, Judaism has a long, rich tradition of angelology, which does not necessarily subscribe to the popular notion of angels as having wings, halos, and flowing robes. Jew-ish tradition teaches that angels are spiritual enti-ties created by God to perform a single task. Some serve God by conveying information to mortals (the Hebrew word for angel—mal’akh—means “mes-senger”); others may be assigned to protect, fight for, or rescue them.

Still other angels are given special assignments. For example, in Jewish tradition Satan is not “the devil,” but rather an angel assigned the task of tempt-ing human beings and then holding them account-able for their misdeeds. Other angels are created to perpetually sing God’s praises. We read of them in the traditional Shacharit (morning) service: “They (the Heavenly Beings) all perform with awe and rev-erence the will of their Creator; they all open their mouths with holiness and purity…with pure speech and sacred melody, they all exclaim in unison and with reverence: Holy, holy, holy is Adonai Tsevaot; the whole world is full of God’s glory.”

Yet, no matter their assignment, in Jewish tradi-tion angels do not have free will or free choice. Unlike human beings, they are “pre-programmed” to serve God through specific assigned tasks.

From my experience, when persons with demen-tia lose their ability to make choices, they become like angels. Their behavior is no longer a function of what they choose to say or do, but rather of cir-cumstances beyond their control. And, like many of their Heavenly counterparts, their task (whether they are aware of it or not) is now to sing praises to God.

Our Sages teach that, in the Shacharit service, when we recite the Kedushah prayer proclaiming God’s sanctity in the world—just as the seraphim (angels) did in Isaiah’s vision (Isaiah 6:2–3)—we create a “symmetry of sanctity” with these Heav-enly Beings: humans praising God on Earth just as the angelic singers do on high. However, while we—with our free will intact—may choose to sing, those with advanced dementia cannot help but sing. What comes out of their mouths may sound to us like gib-berish and nonsense, but in fact it may be a faithful replication of what is offered on high—with purity of the soul.

Persons with dementia are like angels in another important way. They are, albeit unwittingly, “mes-sengers from God,” daily delivering a standing invi-tation from the Creator to reflect on what it means to be human. They beckon us to be grateful for our God-given gifts and abilities, and also to know our limitations; to discern when we must take responsi-bility for our lives, and when we must “let go” and put our trust in another—whether that “other” is human or Divine.

“I pray that when we are in the pres-

ence of people with advanced dementia, we will come to

open ourselves, on a deeper level, to the

possibility of having angels in

our midst.”



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Progressive congregation existed in the entire Soviet Union and Russian-speaking Jews began emigrating West en masse, I was convinced: This is the end of East-ern European Jewry.

I was wrong. Today, there are hun-dreds of congregations throughout the FSU. In our own Movement, six energet-ic Progressive rabbis in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Minsk, Kiev, and Simferopol (Crimea), together with a few dozen graduates of the Movement’s Machon para-rabbinic program as well as Machon-trained community workers and leaders, are serving and sustaining 40 communities nationwide. Moreover,

each year some 1,000 Russian Jews attend our Movement’s adult, family, and youth camps, learning about Juda-ism for the first time in their lives.

♦ ♦ ♦

A similar Jewish renaissance is underway in the Czech Republic, spearheaded by Beit Simha, the liberal Jewish community in Prague. Local teachers as well as visiting rabbis and lecturers are teaching courses in Juda-ism, history, and Hebrew to groups of 30–50 Jews. Annual conferences, spon-sored by Beit Simha and held in Decin, Liberec, and Brno, among other places, attract participants of all ages.

Being Jewish here is very different than in North America. Only a handful of Czech-speaking people are knowl-edgeable enough to teach and conduct services. Also, the Czech Republic’s Progressive community has been struggling financially, despite the sup-port of generous American philanthro-pists. During the Communist era, the government was responsible for vast realms of life, and it is taking time for local communities to adjust to carry-ing the full financial burden them-

Travel abroad and you’ll witness, as I have, the wonders of Jewish rebirth and resilience in places where Judaism was once

on the edge of extinction—and now is on the ascent!

When I visited Poland in 1990 after the fall of the Communist regime, I found only a handful of elderly Jews struggling to survive in one functioning Warsaw synagogue. Today Poland’s Jewish community numbers approxi-mately 30,000—including enthusiastic participants of the Progressive commu-nities in Warsaw, Krakow, and smaller centers. In 2010, 600 people joined me in grappling with Jewish texts, history, and contemporary life at a Limmud Jewish study weekend in Warsaw. Every summer a nine-day Jewish culture festival in Krakow attracts hundreds of people and artists worldwide for concerts, exhibitions, plays, lectures, and workshops. Warsaw’s popular Yiddish theater features non-Jew-ish actors. And the Museum of the History of Polish Jews—supported by the Warsaw municipality and the Polish government—chronicling the impact of Jews on Polish history, will open in April 2013.

In the early 1990s, when only one

Paul Liptz, a social historian, is director of Education at the WUPJ’s Anita Saltz International Education Center, Jerusalem.

By Paul Liptz

Defying Extinction

RJ INSIDER’S GUIDE TOWORLD JEWISH TRAVEL

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In partnership with the World Union for Progressive Judaism, we are pleased to offer you this inaugural guide, which

reveals fascinating differences and similarities in Reform communities throughout the globe and gives you the inside track on connect-ing up with your Jewish family worldwide.

Note: Our Summer 2013 edition will feature the 3rd RJ Insider’s Guide to Israel Travel in collaboration with the Israel Ministry of Tourism and the Association of Reform Zionists of America.

Happy travels. –The Editors

In AcknowledgementThe Reform Judaism magazine editors express their gratitude to the

following donors, whose generous contributions made this “RJ Insider’s Guide to World Jewish Travel” possible: Jean and Jay Abarbanel, Steve and Ina Bauman, Stephen K. Breslauer, James and Linda Cherney, Sue and James Klau, The Golomb Family, Anne Molloy and Henry Posner III, Rosalyn G. Rosenthal, Rabbi Barton A. and Jane Shallat, Jerry Tanenbaum, and Dolores K. Wilkenfeld.

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and canto-rial stu-dents to serve in Germany and neigh-boring countries, ordained its inaugu-ral three rabbis—the first ordain-ees in the nation since

the Second World War. Afterward, Ger-man Chancellor Angela Merkel wrote that the event was “special because many did not believe that after the Holocaust Jewish life would flourish in Germany.”

Even with government sanction, Ger-many’s Progressive communities face the daunting challenge of meeting the needs of two distinct constituencies: new Rus-sian immigrants who do not speak Ger-man and have been deeply influenced by Soviet Communism (the majority of con-gregants), and German-speaking congre-gants who have grown up in the open West German democratic environment. Moreover, because there are more Pro-gressive communities than native rabbis, a small team of Progressive rabbis has to travel considerable distances to serve the 24 scattered congregations.

In many areas of Berlin, the local gentile population has memorialized former Jewish neighbors by installing sidewalk plaques near the buildings where they once resided. A plaque hon-oring Regina Jonas, who became the first German female rabbi in 1935, can be seen at her last residence, Krausnick-strasse 6 (Mitte). Though these memori-als are reminders of a terrible past, they also portend a better future for the Jews.

♦ ♦ ♦

Every time I visit Poland, the FSU, the Czech Republic, Germany, and else-where, my emotional involvement and commitment to our brethren in these emerging communities increases. I am convinced it will for you, too.

To be part of the unfolding, mirac-ulous journey of the Jewish people, read on….

selves. Another impeding factor is the Orthodox Movement’s control of the Czech Jewish community’s purse strings. After the Second World War the Liberal Movements slowly orga-nized themselves, and by that time the Orthodox groups had received official government recognition. There is hope, however, that within the year the Pro-gressive Movement will be recognized as a religious (rather than a cultural) organization and henceforth receive government assistance.

♦ ♦ ♦

The resurgence of Jewish life in Germany has been both miraculous and challenging.

In May 1945, the German Jewish community was totally devastated. Almost half the population had emigrat-ed before the Second World War, and most of those who remained were killed. Over the decades, immigrants began arriving, mainly from other parts of Europe and Israel, and a new Jewish community slowly emerged. Often the newcomers hid their Jewishness, fearful

of being tar-geted by neo-Nazi thugs.

Today, some 130,000 Jews live openly in Germany, and the Ger-man Jewish community has the fast-est growth rate in the world. The German govern-ment provides benefits specifically to Jewish immigrants and has helped fund the building of the Jewish Museum and the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin.

With some 24 congregations, the Pro-gressive Movement is growing steadily, bolstered by the German government, which recognizes and provides it with financial assistance. A major milestone was reached in 2006, when the Progres-sive Movement’s Abraham Geiger College of Judaism, which trains rabbinic

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By Gail Glezerman Sherman

ST PETERSBURG: Treated Like a Queen

Travel is my passion. I find nothing more exhilarating than visiting new places…but not for the reasons you may expect. Yes, I enjoy

visiting historical sites, seeing magnifi-cent art and architecture, and sampling delicious indigenous food. But my real joy comes from meeting people, especially when they are Jewish. I love to learn what it’s like to live as a Jew in another country…what is similar to the U.S. and what is different. Usually the similarities fascinate me most.

I’ve conversed with party-goers at a Sephardic bar mitzvah—on a Thursday evening—in Nice, France (except for the language, the party was like all the ones I’ve attended in America); learned about French Jewish Pesach traditions while buying Passover pastries at a kosher bakery in Paris; and conversed with a Jewish glass blower in Venice about a Murano glass kiddush cup that seemed like a major extravagance—but which I’ve regretted not buying ever since. And, this past summer, my hus-band Jay and I experienced the most personal Jewish encounter of all—attending Shabbat services as the guests of honor at Sha’arei Shalom, the Pro-

learned, was the ship that fired the shot that started the 1917 Bolshevik Revo-lution, and is now a museum). The taxi driver pointed and sped away. Without any signage, we had no idea what we were looking for. A man who seemed to be a security guard looked at the address—in Russian—and led us to a dismal yard surrounded by a chain link fence. This could not be right.

Retracing our steps back to “the Cruiser Aurora,” I called the temple, only to reach a Russian-speaking woman who didn’t understand me and hung up. Now it was raining hard, the wind upending our umbrella. Royalty, hmmm. I fumbled for the rabbi’s cell phone number, and to my relief she answered. Her secretary would soon meet us outside the building. At last, we saw someone gesturing broadly, “Come in, come in.” We had arrived at Sha’arei Shalom.

Rabbi Rubenstein, an elegant woman in her mid-50s, greeted us warmly. She immediately offered us tea and sweets, and then (as she was in the midst of a counseling session) put us in the hands of one of her English-speaking mem-bers: Alla, a beautiful young woman with an adorable two-year-old daughter.

Alla showed us around the first floor facilities: sanctuary—a very modern space reminiscent of American syna-gogues—offices, and a small social hall (religious school classrooms occupy the upstairs space). She apologized in advance for the small turnout expected at services—about 20 of 100 members—because of the rain and many members away on summer vacations.

When Rabbi Rubenstein rejoined us, she told us her life story—the twists and turns of how a young Jew who grew up without an understanding of Judaism in

Gail Glezerman Sherman is a member of Temple Beth Torah, Ventura, California.

gressive (Reform) synagogue in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Before the trip, I learned of and reached out to Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor, vice president for philan-thropy at the World Union for Progres-sive Judaism. He excitedly explained that St. Petersburg was one of only four

cities in all of Russia—the others being Mos-cow, Minsk and Kiev—that had a Progressive synagogue. Since our time in St. Petersburg included a Friday night, he suggested we attend

Shabbat services and put me in touch with Rabbi Helena Rubenstein—“who,” he said, “along with her congre-gation, will treat you like a queen!”

Rabbi Rubenstein wrote, in good English, that she’d be delighted to have us. She provided me with the address and directions—and her cell phone number.

♦ ♦ ♦

After our first day of exploring the city, I was still feeling jet lagged from the 11-hour time difference and regretting my commitment to attend services. Plus it was cold and rainy; a bowl of hot borscht and an early evening sounded very appealing.

But the rabbi was expecting us, so we hailed a taxi to what turned out to be a Soviet-era office building, across from “the Cruiser Aurora” (which, we later

RJ INSIDER’S GUIDE

RABBI HELENA RUBENSTEIN (R.) AND I AT THE

ENTRANCE TO SHA’AREI SHALOM’S SANCTUARY.

Greetings from The State Hermitage Museum

TravelGuide_StPetersburg_sp13_pg28_f.indd 28 1/17/13 8:24 AM


1960s and 70s Moscow—a time when the Soviets didn’t permit religious practice—became a Progressive rabbi. Today she is one of only six native Russian-speaking Progressive rabbis serving in the FSU.

♦ ♦ ♦

As predicted, the service attracted about 20 people—mostly young, with children, but also a few seniors. We were given a siddur in English and Hebrew, and the rabbi made sure we sat near Alla for the purpose of translation. Now I under-stood what Rabbi Bretton-Granatoor meant about being treated like royalty.

First, I was asked to come up to the bimah and light the Shabbat candles. I began singing what I assumed was the universal melody for the candle-lighting blessing—the one melody I’d heard in every synagogue I’d ever attended—but when the rabbi and congregation joined in, it was a completely different minor-keyed tune! It seemed best to mouth the brachahsilently. And when it was time for Aleinu, Rabbi Rubenstein asked Jay and me to come to the bimah to open the ark.

Notably, the order of the service was very familiar—much like what we do at Temple Beth Torah in Ventura, Cali-fornia. The prayers were the same. When I heard familiar melodies, like L’cha Dodi, I joined right in. The Sh’ma was chanted with a different melody, which surprised me too—of all our prayers, didn’t this one have a universal tune?

During the service, to keep us feeling included, the rabbi frequently gave expla-nations and page numbers in English. And, during the sermon—which of course was in Russian—the rabbi had arranged for another congregant, a young woman named Katya who teaches Eng-lish for a living, to sit next to me and translate. It was a little like the childhood game of “telephone.” Whispering into my ear so softly as to not disturb others, and in heavily accented English, Katya would say something that I could hardly comprehend, and I would whisper some-thing to Jay that made even less sense. Despite my lack of comprehension, I felt greatly appreciative of the special atten-tion. And it struck me: The experience we were having right now in St. Peters-burg was being repeated at Progressive/Reform synagogues all over the world.

You’re Never Alone When You Say You’re a Jew

by Gary Bretton-Granatoor

I n 43 countries around the world, there are people like you and me who strive

to create warm, welcoming, egalitarian, pluralistic Jewish communities. Rabbi Larry Milder’s popular NFTY song, “Wherever You Go,” beauti-fully expresses this truth:

Wherever you go, there’s always someone Jewish

You’re never alone when you say you’re a Jew

So when you’re not home and you’re somewhere kind of newish

The odds are don’t look far, ’cause they’re Jewish too….

In North America we are called Reform. In other parts of the world, we are known as Progressive or Lib-eral (in most of Europe, if you ask for a Reform congregation, you’ll be directed to a Protestant church). But we are all one family.

How do you find your larger Pro-gressive/Reform/Liberal family when travelling outside of North America? The process is different than what you find in North America, where syna-gogues generally have an “open-door” policy. Elsewhere, there is a pervasive security consciousness. Synagogues do not publish their street addresses, return phone calls or emails, or openly declare their presence. A random visitor, even one claiming affiliation with a Reform synagogue in the U.S. or Canada, is likely to be turned away

if visiting unannounced.The best way to connect is to have

the World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ), the institution that serves, nurtures, and supports 1,700+ Reform/Progressive/Liberal Jewish congregations worldwide, make the con-nection for you.

Several weeks in advance of

your vacation, go to the World Union for Progressive Judaism website, wupj.org. On the main page, use the dialogue box to search for WUPJ con-gregations by country and then city. Once you verify the presence of a congregation in the area you plan to visit, email or call me, Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor ([email protected] or 212–452–6531), at the WUPJ’s New York office. Provide your travel dates, where you plan to stay, when you would like to visit the congregation, the number of people in your party, and a way to contact you once you are there (to make sure you are advised of any last minute changes in the syna-gogue’s plans). If given sufficient time, we can arrange a personal visit.

Connecting with your “cousins” is a great way to experience a country and a Jewish community. You’ll get insight into the challenges and the tri-umphs of living as a Jew in that place—and, most of all, you will see that we are all a part of one extended family. “Wherever you go, there’s always someone Jewish. You’re never alone when you say you’re a Jew.”

Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor is the Vice President—Philanthropy at the World Union for Progressive Judaism.

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high cost of city living, these three young people reside in outlying areas and travel long distances to attend services every Friday night. And if they took time off from work to attend services they would risk losing their jobs, because religious practice is not a protected right in Russia.

♦ ♦ ♦

It was time to leave, and Vladimir kindly offered to drive us back to the hotel. We exchanged full names with congregants so we could become Face-book friends and keep in touch.

Even better, Katya asked if we had any free time when she could take us around St. Petersburg—of course!

That Monday, Katya met us at our hotel. We strolled several miles to the park behind the Yusopov Palace, where Grigory Rasputin, who had spell-bound Empress Alexandra, was murdered by his enemies. The weather had turned warm and sunny—unusual in St. Peters-burg, which gets about 50 sunny days a year—and the park was filled with peo-ple. Katya told us she was in the process of converting to Judaism, and feels con-

What a spiri-tual uplift, to be connected to a global community of fellow Jews.

As with any Jewish gathering, food has to be part. Indeed, for a small synagogue, the oneg Shabbat at Sha’arei Shalom was very elaborate. The rabbi’s secretary is an incredible baker, and challah is her specialty. It was sweet, cake-like, filled with either raisins or currants—and surely the most delicious I’ve ever eaten. And, to our delight, she had made two extra loaves for us to take back to our hotel!

We chatted more with Katya and another young married couple, Anastasia and Vladimir. All three of them, it turns out, are Jews by choice, and all believe they have some Jewish ancestry. None are from Russia—Katya hails from Lat-via and Anastasia and Vladimir from Lithuania. All are trying to obtain pass-ports from their ancestral countries to

travel outside of Russia—evidently, obtaining a visa to travel abroad is exceedingly difficult for citizens who hold

just a Russian passport.Being Jewish in Russia is still a diffi-

cult choice, and being a Progressive Jew even more so. Although the fall of the Soviet Union freed its citizens to practice religion, the vast majority are Russian Orthodox. Among Jews, most are Ortho-dox, and Chabad has a sizeable presence. Katya, Anastasia, and Vladimir have cho-sen the Progressive Movement for the same reasons I appreciate being a Reform Jew—individual religious autonomy and gender equality.

But in the U.S. it’s easy for me to be a Reform Jew—I live two miles from my congregation, and I have the legal right to take time off from work to celebrate the High Holy Days. In Russia, because of the

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♦ ♦ ♦

Since returning home, I have heard from both Katya and Anastasia on Facebook, and from Sha’arei Shalom by email, further cementing our bond with new friends in St. Petersburg. I’m thrilled to have made the connection.

My experience in St. Petersburg deep-ened my passion for travel and proved yet again that the wonder of going places is not about sites or restaurants or souve-nirs—it’s about people. It was thrilling to participate in Shabbat services in St. Petersburg—where, just 20 years ago, residents couldn’t acknowledge their Judaism. I am now set on seeking out Progressive Judaism synagogues in other parts of the world. Meeting, praying, and socializing with Jews who share my reli-gious perspectives and passions trans-forms a trip from a memorable vacation to an enduring experience of Jewish connectedness and spiritual renewal.

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I believe that we are each born with a higher purpose in life. Some discover their calling early; others take more time, until they hear that “still, small voice.”While I thought I had an awareness

of my purpose, a new one was revealed to me this past summer when my two daughters, Alexis, 28, and Shaina, 25, and I visited Vienna, the city where my father/their grandfather, of blessed memo-ry, was born and raised.

In advance of the trip, I asked Jewish Vienna Now (wien.info/

en/vienna-for/

jewish-vienna) for help in finding a bilingual guide to lead us on a tour of the places where my father had lived, and the cem-etery where my grandfather and both sets of great grand-parents were buried. They put me in touch with Barbara Timmerman of Vien-na Walks tours (viennawalks.com), which specializes in Jewish tours.

Prior to our arrival, Barbara located all my dad’s addresses, from his birthplace

In late July, Alexis, Shaina, and Iarrived in Vienna. The next morning, Barbara met us in our hotel lobby. We hopped into her car and drove to the city’s massive Central Cemetery (Zentrafriedhof). More than 3 million people have been buried in its different sections (Jewish, Christian, Protestant, Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, and Muslim) since 1874, and it is still in use.

First, Barbara guided us to my great grandfather’s grave. Because of the repair work, I was happy to see it was the best looking grave in the row! It was also an eerie feeling to later stand at my grandfa-ther’s grave—the very spot where I knew my dad as well as his mother, brother, and sister had once stood. The realization that we had traveled across the world to honor our ancestor on the 100th anniver-sary of his death added an aura of sanctity to the moment.

“Standing at the graves of my great grandfathers,” Shaina told me, “I under-stand that I am related to the bodies beneath the earth and tombstones, that I am alive because of them. I feel satisfied, and fulfilled, in pinpointing my lineage.”

After our cemetery visit, Barbara led us to the buildings where my father had lived. Some were prewar; others had been destroyed in the war and rebuilt in the ’50s and ’60s. In one instance, when the original edifice was not there, we entered a neighboring building that was architecturally similar to the one in which he had lived, taking in the beautiful craftsmanship of the woodwork around the doors and the detailed plasterwork on the walls and above each entrance.

Then we made our way to the City Temple (Stattemple), where my father had become a bar mitzvah in 1913, the year following his father’s death. Built in

to his last-known Vienna residence. Also, knowing that many graves in the older sections of the Central Cemetery of Vien-na are in ill repair and can be a major disappointment to family visitors, she traveled out to the cemetery in advance to

ascertain the status of the graves. Indeed, my great grandfather’s grave had been knocked over and complete-ly covered by brush. Through the groundskeeper, she obtained a quote for its repair, which I authorized before our journey.

I had known for a long time that my paternal grand-mother had died in Treblinka in 1942

and my father’s broth-er had per-ished in Ausch-

witz that same year. But thanks to Barbara, I also learned how my paternal grandfather died—a question I’d pondered throughout adulthood. She discovered an article in an archived newspaper from 1912 and translated it for me. My grandfather had suffered from incurable stomach ulcers. At the age of 49, unable to endure the pain and support his family, he took his own life.


By Cindy R. Kandel

VIENNA: Searching for Roots, Finding My Mission

Cindy R. Kandel is an active congregant and b’nai mitzvah instructor at Temple Israel in West Bloomfi eld, Michigan.

INTERIOR OF THE CITY TEMPLE,

WHERE MY FATHER BECAME

A BAR MITZVAH IN 1913. INSET

(FROM L. TO R.): MY DAUGHTERS

ALEXIS AND SHAINA, TOUR

GUIDE BARBARA, AND ME

STANDING OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE.

Greetings from Maria Theresa Square

TravelGuide_Vienna_sp13_f.indd 32 1/18/13 10:45 AM


1826, it was the only synagogue in Vien-na to survive the war, though it had been desecrated by the Nazis. After the war, with funding from the city of Vienna, the building was restored to its original beauty. Now it is open for twice daily tours on Mondays through Thursdays—but security is tight. We had to enter one at a time, present our passports to the guard, answer his questions, then pass through both a metal detector and bullet-proof glass sliding doors.

At last, we entered the sanctuary. It was sublime. The round space, accentu-ated by a repeating circular motif deco-rated in blues, golds, and dark wood-work, enveloped me. Above the golden ark stood two golden tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments, and the soft blue ceiling was covered with hun-dreds of small gold Stars of David that reminded me of God’s promise to Abra-ham. “It’s amazing,” Alexis told me, “to sit inside the same synagogue that my grandfather attended on Shabbat 100 years ago. Even though I never met him, by being here, I feel connected to him.”

The guide, a petite, well-spoken Viennese woman, narrated a history of the synagogue, Vienna, and the city’s Jews. Security at the City Temple has been tight, we learned, ever since a 1982 terrorist attack on the building.

As we were about to leave, at my daughters’ urging, I asked our guide, “Do records exist of those who celebrated their bar mitzvahs in the synagogue?”

“Why do you want to know?” she queried.

“My dad had his bar mitzvah here,” I explained.

“You must visit the archive room,” she said. “Wait here.”

She spoke to the guards, and soon we were ushered through a second set of bulletproof glass doors, up a flight of stairs, and into the archive room—a 10'x10' space with floor-to-ceiling shelves containing the birth, marriage, and death records of every Jew born in Vienna from 1826 through 1938.

The archive’s historian, Wolf-Erich Eckstein, asked me for my father’s name and birth date. After a few quick clicks on his keyboard, he pulled one of the ledgers off a shelf and carefully flipped through the pages until…there it was, my

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running the service paused for people to mention names for Kaddish, he looked directly at me first, naturally assuming that I had a name to share. I just smiled appreciatively and shook my head.

At my side, Alexis was feeling ecstatic. “Being in Vienna, singing the same songs, reciting the same prayers, I realized: We are one! We are Jews, no matter the sect, where we are from, or the size of the congregation. It’s so good to know that wherever I travel I can walk into a synagogue and feel at home! This is why my connection to Judaism is strong. Even though I live in Las Vegas, hundreds of miles away from the family, I am always connected to a united com-munity and family, the Jewish people.”

♦ ♦ ♦

It was after services, at the Kiddush, that my new life purpose revealed itself. Speaking with Giuliana Schnitzler, the congregation’s vice president, I learned that the government had just passed a law awarding the Orthodox Jewish com-munity sole power to determine which synagogues are legitimate and therefore eligible for government assistance. Since the Orthodox community does not recognize the Progressive Jewish Move-ment, Giuliana explained, Or Chadash was at risk of having to close.

As a Jew, an American, and the child of a Holocaust survivor, I found it unconscio-nable that in 2012 Vienna, Jews were still at risk of not being able to pray as they choose to. Leaving the synagogue that eve-ning, I vowed to join the struggle to save Or Chadash. So many people had been silent as Jewish freedoms were trampled in Europe, as my grandmother and uncle died in the Holocaust. I would not be silent now.

Or Chadash had made a strong ally.

♦ ♦ ♦

Since coming home, I have become an advocate for Or Chadash’s legitimacy in Vienna. I’ve written to the Federal Minister for Education, Arts, and Cul-ture in Vienna and to the U.S. ambassa-dor to Austria. I stay abreast of develop-ments and inform my rabbis, who are now determined to help, too.

I went to Vienna in search of my ancestors and came away with a sacred mission.

father’s name, along with his birth date, information about his parents and grand-parents, the delivering doctor’s name, and the date of my father’s circumci-sion—all written in beautiful script and filling nine columns across two pages. I was awestruck, speechless, and teary eyed. This, too, felt like sacred space.

♦ ♦ ♦

Wanting to worship with a community of Jews in this city of my family history, I decided to attend Shabbat services at Vienna’s only Progressive congregation, Or Chadash. I also felt the need to thank God for this incredible journey I was taking with my daughters.

It took us a while to locate the build-ing. When we finally reached the right street, we saw nothing resembling a syn-agogue. There was also no signage on any of the doors, all of which looked indistinguishable from one another. But then I noticed a man blocking the entry-way to one of the buildings. He wore street clothes, but his bearing said “secu-rity guard” to me. As we approached, I looked at him and inquired, “Or

Chadash?” He smiled, I wished him “Shabbat Shalom,” he returned the greet-ing—and then opened the door.

The sanctuary was a simple room filled with about 40 green, blue, and white plastic chairs split by a center aisle, and a dark wood ark at the far end of the room. Though sparse, the space was lovely and warm. After all I’d experi-enced in Vienna, it felt good to cradle a siddur (prayer book) in my hands. I lis-tened to familiar tunes and prayers and tried to join in, but my voice was muted by emotion. I kept thinking of my father and all that his family had endured during their lifetimes. I wondered if Dad some-how knew that his daughter and grand-daughters were in the city where he came of age as a Jew on the 100-year anniver-sary of his father’s death. My feelings were so apparent, when the gentleman

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72



Rabbi Robert Jacobs serves as rabbi of Bet David Congregation in Johannesburg, South Africa

What do tourists fi nd most interest-ing about your country and city?

Most tourists come for the wealth of animal life in national parks and private ani-mal preser-vation “game farms” dot-ted across South Africa. It is a land of great varia-tion of ter-rain, climate, flora, and fauna; the Western Cape is one of the world’s most diverse plant habitats.

Johannesburg offers many museums and monuments documenting our nation-al story from the Boer Wars (1890–1910), through Mahatma Ghandi’s devel-opment of passive resistance, into the Apartheid period and the current demo-cratic society. For example, the Cradle of Humankind exhibits some of the oldest and most extraordinary fossils of human ancestors to be excavated in the Sterkfon-tein and surrounding caves, one hour north of Johannesburg—and the excava-tion process is ongoing. The occasional, seasonal tours of the Sterkfontein Caves are fascinating. The Apartheid Museum offers the most complete history of Apartheid. At Constitution Hill, which encompasses Old Fort, Constitutional

Court, Women’s Jail, and Awaiting Trial Block Prison, highlights not to be missed are staircases from that dreaded prison and a fine collection of South African art and beaded work in the lobby. For a great day trip, visit a sanctuary to see ele-

phants, cheetahs, or other rare or endangered species.

What Jew-ish sites are most worth visiting?

Temple Israel in Hillbrow (1936), designed by the studio of the Jew-

ish architect Hermann Kallenbach, is one of many splendid art Deco struc-tures found throughout the older areas of Johannesburg. Kallenbach’s home on the Linksfield Ridge also served as Ghandi’s home during an early stay in Johannesburg.

There are three Progressive congre-gations in the city—Bet David, Beit Emanuel, and Temple Israel. Ours, Bet David, offers a garden setting and a warm English-speaking congrega tion graced by a splendid choir. In addition, if your travels take you to the adminis-trative capital of Pretoria (Tswhane), you can visit Bet Menorah; and Pro-gressive synagogues are also to be found in Cape Town, Green Point, Wynberg, West Coast/Milnerton, Dur-ban, East London, and Port Elisabeth.

What are the culinary delights?You name it; you can find it on the

menu! As South Africans especially enjoy meat dishes, exceptional and rea-sonable steak houses exist in many locales. Also prominent are spicier cur-ries and a variety of pan-African dishes. Several certified kosher restaurants offer varied menus. Boboties (curried meat casseroles) as well as typical East Euro-pean dairy dishes are frequently found along with butternut soup and beautiful-ly presented salads. Produce is varied, local, and splendid!

What are your top travel tips?Dress is almost universally informal.

Don’t be put off by the too frequent reports of violence, yet be cautious about walking in isolated areas. Hotels and tours provide excellent guidance about avoiding problems, safe storage of valuables (don’t leave valuables unattended or wear flashy, expensive jewelry), and general conduct issues that might differ in South Africa. Ser-vice in hotels and restaurants is incon-sistent, but well given when requested politely; and questioning receives a better response than demanding or criticism. Tipping for service often starts at 10% of a bill.

South Africa is a right-hand drive country, and not for the timid; although most roads are excellent, I would not necessarily say the same of the drivers! Public transit in town is not very usable, although the Gautrain (high speed train) to and from the airport is brilliant. Contacting the Progressive Jewish community in advance offers the opportunity to experience Jewish life in a personal way.


JOHANNESBURG: Culture & Community

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BET DAVID MEMBER KAREN TURIS LEADS A YOGA CLASS FOR

ORPHANS IN THE SYNAGOGUE GARDENS ON MANDELA DAY.

Interview with Robert Jacobs


Greetings from a springbok and blessboks in Lion Park

TravelGuide_Johannesburg_sp13_f.indd 35 1/18/13 10:40 AM


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The following is a compilation of the nations with Reform congregations, from the country with the largest total

Jewish population (Israel) to the smallest (El Salvador). All of these population figures are estimates (see the “Notes” on the next page for sources). Outside North America the name “Reform” is used less frequently, so the WUPJ has provided each community’s preferred self-description (Reform, Progressive, Liberal, Modern).

1 IsraelJewish Pop.: 5,413,800

Congregations: 35Locations: VariousDescription: Reform/Progressive

2 United StatesJewish Pop.: 5,275,000

Congregations: 839Locations: VariousDescription: Reform

3 FranceJewish Pop.: 483,500

Congregations: 13Locations: VariousDescription: Progressive

4 CanadaJewish Pop.:

375,000Congregations: 25Locations: VariousDescription: Reform

5 United KingdomJewish Pop.:

292,000Congregations: 82Locations: VariousDescription: Reform/Progressive/Liberal

6 RussiaJewish Pop.: 205,000

Congregations: 21Locations: VariousDescription: Modern

7 ArgentinaJewish Pop.: 182,300

Congregations: 3Locations: Buenos Aires,

Capital FederalDescription: Progressive

8 GermanyJewish Pop.: 119,000

Congregations: 24

Locations: VariousDescription: Progressive

9 AustraliaJewish Pop.: 107,500


10 BrazilJewish Pop.: 95,600


11 UkraineJewish Pop.: 71,500

Congregations: 27Locations: VariousDescription: Modern/Progressive

12 South AfricaJewish Pop.: 70,800


13 HungaryJewish Pop.: 48,600

Congregations: 2Locations: BudapestDescription: Progressive

14 BelgiumJewish Pop.:

30,300Congregations: 2Locations: BrusselsDescription: Progressive

15 NetherlandsJewish Pop.:

30,000Congregations: 10Locations: VariousDescription: Progressive

16 ItalyJewish Pop.: 28,400

Congregations: 3Locations: Florence, MilanDescription: Progressive

17 ChileJewish Pop.: 20,500

Congregations: 3Locations: Las Condes, ValparaisoDescription: Progressive

18 SwitzerlandJewish Pop.:

17,600Congregations: 2Locations: Geneva, ZurichDescription: Progressive

PERFORMANCE OF “STEP BY STEP - SAUWA SAUWA,” A MUSICAL PROJECT SPON-

SORED BY THE LEO BAECK EDUCATION CENTER AND THE EIN MAHEL SCHOOL IN

ISRAEL TO PROMOTE COOPERATION BETWEEN JEWISH AND ARAB YOUTH.

HILLEGUUS TIMNER, THEN CONGREGATION PRESIDENT, LIGHTS THE SHABBAT

CANDLES AT LIBERAAL JOODSE GEMEENTE DEN HAAG IN THE HAGUE.


The Top World Nations with Jewish Populations& Their Reform Congregations*

TravelGuide_Charts_sp13_f.indd 36 1/18/13 10:58 AM


19 BelarusJewish Pop.: 16,500


20 SwedenJewish Pop.:

15,000Congregations: 1Locations: StockholmDescription: Progressive

21 SpainJewish Pop.: 12,000

Congregations: 2Locations: BarcelonaDescription: Progressive

22 AustriaJewish Pop.: 9,000

Congregations: 1Locations: ViennaDescription: Progressive

23 PanamaJewish Pop.: 8,000

Congregations: 1Locations: Panama CityDescription: Progressive

24 New ZealandJewish Pop.: 7,500

Congregations: 3Locations: Dunedin, Epsom (Auckland suburb), WellingtonDescription: Progressive

25 DenmarkJewish Pop.: 6,400

Congregations: 1Locations: CopenhagenDescription: Progressive

26 Hong KongJewish Pop.: 5,000

Congregations: 1Locations: Hong Kong

Description: Progressive/Reform

27 IndiaJewish Pop.: 5,000

Congregations: 1Locations: MumbaiDescription: Reform

28 Czech RepublicJewish Pop.: 3,900

Congregations: 1Locations: PragueDescription: Progressive

29 PolandJewish Pop.: 3,200

Congregations: 3

Locations: Warsaw, KrakowDescription: Progressive

30 Costa RicaJewish Pop.:

2,500Congregations: 1Locations: SabanaDescription: Progressive

31 ChinaJewish Pop.:

1,500

Congregations: 2Locations: Beijing, ShanghaiDescription: Liberal

32 Puerto RicoJewish Pop.:

1,500Congregations: 1Locations: San JuanDescription: Reform

33 IrelandJewish Pop.:

1,200Congregations: 1Locations: DublinDescription: Progressive

34 LuxembourgJewish Pop.:

600Congregations: 1Locations: StrassenDescription: Progressive

35 CubaJewish Pop.:

500Congregations: 1Locations: HavanaDescription: Progressive

36 Virgin IslandsJewish Pop.: 500

Congregations: 1Locations: Amalie (St. Thomas)Description: Reform

37 CuraçaoJewish Pop.: 350

Congregations: 1Locations: CuracaoDescription: Progressive

38 BahamasJewish Pop.: 300

Congregations: 1Locations: NassauDescription: Reform

39 SingaporeJewish Pop.: 300

Congregations: 1Locations: SingaporeDescription: Progressive/Reform

40 JamaicaJewish Pop.: 200

Congregations: 1Locations: KingstonDescription: Reform

41 SurinameJewish Pop.: 200

Congregations: 1Locations: ParamariboDescription: Progressive

42 ArubaJewish Pop.: 200

Congregations: 1Locations: OranjestadDescription: Progressive

43 El SalvadorJewish Pop.: 100

Congregations: 1Locations: San BenitoDescription: Progressive

A PROCESSION OF 11 TORAH SCROLLS FROM 11 CONGREGATIONS IN CELEBRA-

TION OF THE DEDICATION OF THE WUPJ’S SANDY BRESLAUER BEIT SIMCHA

CENTER FOR PROGRESSIVE JUDAISM IN MINSK, BELARUS, 2010.

*Notes: All estimated world Jewish population fi gures are from “World Jewish Population 2010-North American Jewish Data Bank” by Israel demographer Sergio Della Pergola, except for Hong Kong (Hadassah Magazine, Oct. 2012), Bahamas (Jewish Virtual Library), and Aruba (Joshua Project In-Country Profi le). Demographic numbers vary widely depending on how being Jewish is defi ned (such as if the fi gures exclude Jews who have not registered with the offi cial community), when the fi gures were assembled, and other factors. “Congregations” refers to the number of Reform/Progressive/Liberal communities. “Various” indicates communities in four or more locations. For more information: wupj.org.

TravelGuide_Charts_sp13_f.indd 37 1/18/13 10:58 AM


What is the history of Johannes-burg’s Jewish community?

Jewish life is a more than a century old. The office of Chief Rabbi has exist-ed for some 75 years. Most Jews trace their origins to Lithuania: The discovery of gold here in the 19th century con-vinced many of their ancestors to escape Lithuania’s poverty, wars, and changing regimes—such as the in aftermath of Tsar Alexander II’s assassination in 1881—by immigrating to South Africa in hopes of a better life. Early arrivals established shops or became ’Smous (peddlers) until settling down in towns and villages throughout the country.

Now 80 years old, Progressive Juda-ism has a credible record here. It reached a seeming high point about mid-way along that timeline; the period since the violent Soweto student uprising in 1976 has seen a decline in both the overall number of Jews (from an estimated 120,000 to 70,000 today) and Progressive Jews (from an estimated 11,000 to 6,000 today). The vast majority of Jews here affiliate with Orthodoxy, and there’s been an increase in both right-wing, Orthodox groups and in disaffiliated Jews.

What is worship like at Bet David?Our worship is formal and tradition-

al; however, dress is informal, as is the congregation’s attitude to such decorum issues as on-time arrival and staying in place during the duration of the service. All South African Union for Progressive Judaism congregations use Mishkan T’filah World Union Edition. The local musical tradition is choral, with profes-sional quartets at Beit Emanuel and Bet David for formal services. A Bet David hallmark is our mixed voice choir sing-ing a cappella, which is controversial since the local Orthodox community has imposed a ban on women singing in public (which we are fighting). At Yom Hashoah and Yom HaAtzma’ut programs for the entire Jewish community, women are no longer allowed to raise their voices in song. But at Bet David, our tradition of mixed choir, featuring a splendid soprano as lead singer, continues.

Bet David is known for its special

blessings, including parents’ blessing for children prior to Kiddush, commu-nal prayers concluding with a prayer for pets, and end-of-calendar month birthday blessings. Here our blessed bread is known as kitke, apparently a Polish term referring to ornate plaster work, which is also braided and looks like a challah.

Are services in English?South Africa is a multi-lingual coun-

try, with 11 official languages—Afri-kaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa, and Zulu. Zulu is the most com-mon home language and English the language of commerce. Since the major-ity of congregants speak English (a minority are first-language speakers of Afrikaans, a local version of Flemish-Dutch), services mix Hebrew and Eng-lish, with sermons in English.

What are your congregants’ religious backgrounds?

We serve three distinctive groups: Jews whose parents or grandparents were among the early proponents of Progres-sive Judaism, Jews raised in Orthodoxy, and those who have chosen Judaism—many of whom are well integrated into the congregational leadership. South Africa’s transformation from a rigidly racially divided society is truly lived out through our congregational life. Especial-ly since 1994—South Africa’s first dem-ocratic election, which brought Nelson Mandela into the presidency—the num-ber of Jews-by-choice from multiple eth-nicities—among them Afrikaaners, Indi-ans, and descendants of black Yemenite Jews—has expanded, enriching the com-munity. As another example, South Africa has offered marriage under Civil Union since late 2006, and the South African Union for Progressive Judaism has accepted same-sex marriage under a chuppah since May 2007; we may be the only mainstream religious group in South Africa to do so. While the first aufruf for two grooms created a stir, the congregation has not looked back.

Do you have unique celebrations?Our Shavuot morning cheesecake

contest—many of the cheesecakes fla-

voured with passion fruit or other tropical fruits—attracts lots of tasters. We also have special community days, such as Mandela Day—near the first president’s birthday—when we welcome 100+ orphans from Alexander for fun and food.

As our community does not have access to the mikveh at Orthodox synagogues, new Jews-by-choice are immersed in a suitable, private swimming pool.

How has South African history infl uenced Jewish life here?

Much of the early history of Progres-sive Judaism is linked with the years of Apartheid. Jews were over-represented in the anti-Apartheid struggle, but also had members of the National Party that perpetuated Apartheid. For Bet David, a diverse suburban community, the crisis year was 1987, when Alexander Town-ship—just kilometers away—faced school closings as members of the black community engaged in struggle against the Apartheid regime. A few Sisterhood women started an emergency 12th-grade school, offering preparation for the country’s “matric” exams (a prereq-uisite before students can pursue higher education). Twenty-six years later, Mitz-vah School, on the Bet David campus, has produced hundreds of graduates, some of whom have become communtiy leaders—churchmen, physicians, bank managers, etc.—in the renewed South Africa. Nowadays Bet David’s Kehillah (formerly Sisterhood) also supplies foodstuffs for a primary school, an after-school haven, an orphanage, and a shel-ter for street orphans. Fulfilling the needs of the impoverished is a major component of our work.

In today’s diverse South Africa, where about 250 separate religious groups are recognized, religion is primarily a private matter. The Orthodox-dominated Jewish community attempts to fence off Jews from Progressive Judaism in a way that at times borders upon hostility. Mean-while, the non-Jewish community sees all of the Jewish community as one, and appreciates the Jews’ strong contribu-tions to South African politics, arts, busi-ness, and academia. For Jews, being pub-licly proud of one’s Jewishness remains a respected tradition.

Johannesburgcontinued from page 35

TravelGuide_Johannesburg_sp13_f.indd 38 1/18/13 10:40 AM


SINGAPORE: Culture & Community

Rabbi Lennard Thal, senior vice presi-dent emeritus of the Union for Reform Judaism, has served as visiting rabbi of United Hebrew Congregation in Singapore for the past 20 years.

What excites tourists about Singapore?

Singapore prides itself on offering both resi-dents and tourists the highest quality of life. That experi-ence starts even before you arrive.Singapore Airlines is rated number one in the world for first-rate ser-vice, safety, and on-time arrivals; indeed, in my 40+ flights to the city, I’ve never landed more than 10 minutes later than scheduled. Waterfalls and fresh orchids beautify Changi Airport, and all passengers have free computer access. This clean, “post-modern” city (as it is often described) has no homelessness, no unemployment, and practically no street crime, making it a remarkably pleasant, safe place to visit. Because it is a magnetic center for commerce—some people refer to the “national religion” as “capitalism”—Singapore is a locus of business for many North American companies. Per-manent residents can’t imagine living anywhere else. Once a taxi driver asked me where I was from, and when I said America, he responded, “What’s it like, living in a third-world country?”

Be sure to take a walk through the Botanical Gardens, featuring unusual M

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scroll is the most significant way to honor the memory of a deceased relative. And try to attend services at the Pro-gressive congregation, United Hebrew Congregation of Singapore, where you’ll be warmly welcomed. They’re only held once a month on Friday nights, so check the synagogue website (uhcsingapore.org) for the schedule.

What is the local cuisine?Singapore’s signature cuisine, called

Peranakan, combines Chinese, Malay, and other culinary influences, typically blending ingredients and wok-cooking techniques from the Chinese (who immigrated here before and after World War II) with spices popular in the Malay/Indonesian community (the indigenous population). Peranakans are descendants of marriages between Chinese immi-grants and local Malays.

A good place to sample any Asian cui-sine you wish—Peranakan, Malaysian, Chinese, you name it—is one of the city’s “hawker centers,” where typically 30 or 40 different vendors offer inexpensive and safe food—health guidelines are strictly controlled by the government. “Jewish foods” of all kinds can be found at the local “kosher store,” as everyone calls it, near the Maghein Aboth synagogue.

A caveat: As I like to quip, “Travel in Singapore can be a ‘broadening’ experience!”

Do you have other insider tips?The landing card distributed on all

flights into Singapore is very clear: Any-one trafficking in drugs is subject to the death penalty. Indeed, while much exag-geration is made of local laws against jaywalking and spitting, the government values protecting the quality of life

orchids and other stunning flora that flourish in Singapore’s tropical/equatorial climate. Tip: go early in the morning before it gets too hot! On a clear day you can view parts of Malaysia and Indone-sia as well as Singapore’s harbor from

the 57th floor of the iconic Marina Bay Sands Hotel—and chocolate lov-ers can choose from among the 57 sumptuous chocolate varieties at their famed nightly Chocolate Bar! Stop by the Raffles Hotel to enjoy handsome colonial architec-ture, doormen and bellmen in period

costume, and its Long Bar, renowned for the signature drink, the fruity-flavored Singapore Sling.

Singapore is a shopper’s paradise, with very high-end shops and antique stores stocking goods from around Asia. A good day’s activity is walking through Chinatown (see the Buddha’s Tooth Relic Temple), Little India (see the col-orful Hindu Temple), and Arab Street (see the Sultan Mosque), all within five to ten minutes’ drive of one another.

What are the best Jewish sites?I’d begin with the two Baghdadi syn-

agogues—Maghein Aboth on Waterloo Street, built in 1873, and Chesed El, on Oxley Rise, built in 1900, each of which has a large “walk-in” ark containing approximately two dozen Torah scrolls. Many descendants of Iraqi Jews here believe that commissioning a new Torah

MEMBERS OF UNITED HEBREW CONGREGATION OF

SINGAPORE JOIN IN CELEBRATING HANUKKAH, 2010.


Interview with Lennard Thal

Greetings from Marina Bay

TravelGuide_Sing-Bud-Mos-Puer-Rio_sp13_f.indd 39 1/18/13 11:01 AM


above individual liberties. As one UHC member explained to me upon my first visit, the difference in the attitude toward law-breaking between Singapore and the U.S. is simply this: “In the U.S., crime is against the law; in Singapore, it is simply not permitted.”

What synagogue options are there?Right now there are four or five con-

gregations. Two (Maghein Aboth and Chesed El) are led by Chabad rabbis and populated mostly by the descendants of the Baghdadi Jews who developed Jewish communities from Mumbai to Shanghai in the 19th century. The third is an Ashke-nazic Orthodox minyan. The fourth is a primarily French Ashkenazic Orthodox minyan, which began this year; it is too early to tell whether it will be sustainable. Fifth—and most important to the Reform community—is the congregation I’ve long served as visiting rabbi: the United Hebrew Congregation of Singapore.

What is synagogue life like at UHC?The minhag is best captured by the

oft-repeated refrain by the incumbent president each erev Rosh Hashanah: “As our first president once said, ‘Welcome to the Reform-Conservative-Reconstruc-tionist-Liberal-Progressive congregation of Singapore.’”

Our customs are primarily Reform, but Conservative, Reconstructionist, and other non-Orthodox Jews feel very com-fortable here, in part because the Jewish communal experience is similar to what they’re used to in North America. As the congregation overwhelmingly consists of expats from all over the world—especially from the U.S. and Canada—and since everyone speaks English—although for some it is their second, third, or, at least in one case, fourth lan-guage—we use Gates of Repentanceon the High Holy Days and Mishkan T’filah for Shabbat and other holidays. For the High Holy Days, American Conference of Cantors President Susan Caro serves as cantor, combining tradi-tional nusach and contemporary melo-dies (Debbie Friedman, Jeff Klepper, etc.). Participating with likeminded folk on these holidays is particularly mean-ingful to the vast majority of congre-gants—bankers, management consul-

tants, hedge fund analysts, lawyers, etc.—who are 10–12 time zones away from the place they consider “home.”

By the way, the one piece of liturgy that is a bit unsettling for this community is “the prayer for our nation,” as some members are “permanent residents” of Singapore, but the vast majority are not.

How ethnically diverse is UHC?Very. Of the 140 affiliated house-

holds, 15–20 members are ethnically Asian. One longstanding practice at our two communal seder celebrations is to ask the “Four Questions” in as many languages as are native to the various participants. This typically includes Mandarin, Cantonese, Indonesian, Thai, Korean, Japanese, Javanese, as well as Portuguese, Serbian, Russian, Swedish, Afrikaans, and Yiddish—great fun!

The community is also more stable than in years past. Whereas expats gen-erally used to stay in Singapore for three to five years, nowadays many stay on longer, and three families to whom we had bid farewell have since returned. Life is pretty easy here—in addition to the economic opportunities, there are good educational options and quality healthcare. As an active lay leader com-mented to me, “I’m leaving in two years, and I’ve been saying that for the last 15.”

Can life also be diffi cult for the Progressive community, given the government’s strong hand?

Twenty years ago, when five founding families created a non-Orthodox alterna-tive for themselves, a big challenge was Singaporean law, which does not include freedom of assembly in the way U.S. law does. The founders had to “fly below the radar screen” (essentially utilizing “word of mouth”) until 1995, when the government formally recognized UHC as a “society.” Since then the community has been able to advertise in various expat periodicals and other venues.

Are there any security concerns?For a few years, because of security

reasons, the American government placed Gurkhas (highly trained Nepalese soldiers who served in the British or Indian army)—sporting daggers on their


ChinaStarting Up in Shanghai:

In Spring 2012, 70 people in Shanghai, China joined together on the second night of Pesach to take part in the city’s first-ever liberal seder. Led by Cantor Diego Edel-berg of the United Jewish Congre-gation in Hong Kong and assisted by Hebrew Union College Student Rabbi Megan Brudney, the seder brought together and inspired Progressive Jews in Shanghai—who have since gone on to form a Liberal Jewish community.

~&~Germany

Synagogue to Storage Facil-

ity to Synagogue: For decades, a farmer in the German village of Bodenfelde stored his equip-ment in a small, half-timbered building hardly rec-ognizable for what it was—a 175-year-old synagogue built in 1825. In 1937 the congregation had sold the synagogue to the farmer, and a year later, on Kristallnacht, the farmer defend-ed his purchase against Nazi hooligans who wanted to torch it. Thus the building was spared the fate that befell hundreds of synagogues that night across Germany and Austria.

In 1990, a few hundred Jews from the Former Soviet Union settled in Göttingen, Germany. Its Jewish mayor, Artur Levi, a Holocaust survivor, and local educator Detlev Herbst, an expert on local Jewish history, supported the idea of moving the historic Bodenfelde synagogue to Gottin-gen, whose large synagogue had been destroyed 70 years earlier.

GLOBAL NEWS

continued on p.42

JÜDISCHE GEMEINDE GÖTTINGEN SYNAGOGUE



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Erika Siegfried-Tompson is a member of Bet Orim in Budapest and an activist in the Hungarian Reform Movement.

What excites tourists about Budapest?Budapest offers grandiosely beauti-

ful views. From the gentle curve of the Danube River, you see rising hills and lovely islands spanned by great bridges of various styles. The vista is spectacu-

lar at night. For a romantic evening, spend dusk to dark on the terrace of the Citadella Restaurant. You’ll never for-get the sight of the lights coming up, one by one, on our historic buildings and on the bridges over the Danube.

In Buda, the oldest part of the city, walk the little winding streets and you’ll discover many restored medieval build-ings. And visit the inner city of Pest, a busy commercial and shopping area.

Visitors are often impressed by Budapest’s Art Nouveau architecture, seen in many late 19th- and early 20th-century buildings. The unique style incorporates old Hungarian folk motifs and beautifully glazed pottery roof tiles.

What are the Jewish attractions?Tourists can revel in Hungary’s Jew-

ish cultural revival. The Judafest Street

Outside the capital, visit the splendid late 18th-century Baroque synagogue of Mad, located in a region renowned for its wines (and have a first-class wine tasting experience at Torok Pince). In the 1850s some 800 Jews lived here, many of them wine traders and kosher wine producers. The last Jew of Mad died in 1994, but the community’s synagogue, renovated in 2004 and awarded the pres-

tigious Europa Nostra Heri-tage Award, remains. It is now cared for by a non-Jewish couple. If you call them (00 36 47 348 043), they will show you the synagogue

and tell you many interesting stories.

Where can you fi nd the best Jewish cuisine?

I recommend Yiddische Mamma Mia, which offers a fusion of Jewish and Mediterranean cuisine; Fülemüle (Nightingale) Restaurant, presenting tra-ditional home-made recipes for goose, smoked meats, and cholent (a Hungari-an-Jewish specialty bean dish); and Rosenstein Restaurant, a “hidden trea-sure” (as it’s located in a not-so-nice area near the Eastern Railways station), where the goose and duck are prepared with an especially light touch.

Don’t miss out on the traditional Jew-ish dessert called flodni—a layered pas-try of ground walnut paste, poppy seeds, and apples. You’ll find the best flodni (with cherries instead of apple) in the

Festival, a free, joyous one-day Jewish music-performance-food festival, takes place each June. From late August to ear-ly September our Jewish Summer Festi-val features Jewish music, dance, fine art, books, and films. Also in early Septem-ber is the Day of Open Doors Street Par-ty, offering music, Hora dancing, arts and crafts, Krav Maga (Israeli martial arts) demonstrations, and more. Throughout

the year, exciting and buzzing Limmud days offer an array of Jewish community-building study sessions, many of them in English.

Budapest’s main Jewish attraction is the Dohany Synagogue, which seats 3,000 and is said to be the largest con-tinuously active synagogue in Europe, and the third largest in the world (after the Belz Great Synagogue in Jerusalem, seating 6,000, and the Satmar syna-gogue in Kyrias Joel, New York, said to seat 5,500—7,000). The adjoining Jew-ish Museum, built on the former site of the birthplace of Zionist visionary The-odor Herzl, houses Europe’s second largest Judaica collection (after Berlin’s Judisches Museum). Also worth seeing is the 14th-century medieval Syna-gogue of Buda, on what was formerly called “Jewish Street.”

FROM L. TO R.: BET ORIM MEMBERS CELEBRATE HANUKKAH, 2011; SIM SHALOM MEMBERS CELEBRATE SHAVUOT, 2012.


Interview with Erika Siegfried-Tompson

BUDAPEST: Culture & Community

Greetings from Chain Bridge and Fisherman’s Bastion



Holocaust Memorial Center’s coffee shop. Also try the Ruszwurm “kremes” (Cream Pastry), a mouth-watering sweet made of egg, vanilla and whipped cream, available at the Ruszwurm coffee shop, the oldest confectionery on the continent (since 1827), still run by the last active Hungarian confectionery dynasty.

How many Jews live in Hungary?The estimated number is 70,000—

100,000—a large variation because the vast majority of Jews are unaffiliated. Many hide their Jewishness and/or are not even aware of their Jewish origins, despite nearly 2000 years of Jewish pres-ence in the area. In the Second World War, Nazi Germans and Hungarians killed approximately 500,000 of 700,000 Hungarian Jews, all but extinguishing what had been the largest Jewish com-munity in Central Europe. Because of Nazi persecution, the subsequent Com-munist oppression of all religions, and continuing deep-rooted antisemitism, neither the Jewish community nor the general society has begun Vergangen-heitsbewaltigung, the proper processing

of the past. Nonetheless, since 1989, the end of the Communist era, all religious groups have experienced a revival.

What is synagogue life like?The Neolog community, a Conserva-

tive Jewish stream that was once great and is now declining, lists 17 Budapest synagogues on its website. Budapest also has a small, independent Orthodox community with four synagogues; a small but vocal Chabad Lubavicher community with two synagogues; and—in a revival of 19th-century Hungarian Reform Judaism—a Progressive com-munity with two congregations, Sim Shalom and Bet Orim.

Sim Shalom (“Give Peace”), found-ed as an association in 1994 and as a congregation in 2004, was the first Pro-gressive synagogue to be established in post-Communist Hungary. Like many post-war Hungarian Jews, its founding leader, Katalin Keleman, a language teacher by profession, only became aware of her Jewish roots as an adult. She began engaging with Judaism in the late 80s, when the regime slowly relaxed its opposition to religion. Even-tually she trained to become a rabbi and was ordained at the Leo Baeck College in London. Upon her return to Hungary, she slowly organized a community.

Today Sim Shalom has approximate-ly 60 paying members and as many occasional visitors. Services—using the community’s own siddur in Hebrew, transliteration, and Hungarian—are held on most Friday nights in a rented inner-city apartment. The atmosphere is joy-ful, with lots of singing, as Cantor Mik-los Budai plays guitar and a young member accompanies him on drums.

My congregation, Bet Orim (House of Light), with approximately 50 members and about 100 supporters, was founded in 2005 to educate Hungarian Jews about Jewish traditions, history, practices, and ethics—knowledge that had not been passed down to them from their parents and grandparents. We consider it our mission to make both members and drop-ins feel equally welcome. Shabbat ser-vices are led by Hungarian-born Rabbi Ferenc Raj (PhD, Rabbi Emeritus of Congregation Beth El in Berkeley, Cali-fornia) with humor, love, and a little extra

Jewish teaching that makes everybody feel that they’ve taken away more than they came in with. His erudite sermons reverberate long after he delivers them. There is no dress code; you wear whatev-er makes you feel comfortable. We read from our own siddur, in Hebrew, translit-eration, and Hungarian, with a smattering of English text and poems. After the ser-vice we encourage lively discussion.

For all festivals, services are in both Hungarian and English, which enables Bet Orim to reach out to Budapest’s English speaking Jews and attract many foreign visitors. On the High Holy Days, services occasionally feature the well-known Hungarian pianist/singer Zoltan Neumark, the Yiddish-Hebrew-Ladino singer Diana Samu-Pandzarisz (who belongs to the congregation), and the internationally renowned classical guitarist Sandor Mester. Their masterful “performances” draw big crowds.

Do you have unique communal celebrations?

On Sukkot, Sim Shalom builds a suk-kah in a public park, waving the lulav and etrog as passersby watch with interest.

On Simchat Torah, Rabbi Kelemen of Sim Shalom invites up to the bimah a few people who have had an especially happy or sad year to recite blessings, and thereby feel supported by the community. Later, everybody dances with the Torah to Cantor Budai’s music—the young children dancing with the community’s “children’s Torahs,” miniature scrolls. At Bet Orim, after dancing, the whole com-munity stands around the Torah as many worshipers participate in turning the scroll back to the beginning—a commu-nity-bonding ritual.

What challenges does your Pro-gressive Jewish community face?

In 2010 the new Hungarian govern-ment enacted hundreds of new laws, one of which abolished the religious status of hundreds of congregations, including Budapest’s two Progressive communi-ties. The financial consequences have been significant: Hungarian taxpayers are allowed to donate 1% of their income tax to a religious organization, but now that Bet Orim and Sim Shalom


Gottingen resident Brigitta Stam-mer oversaw the arranging of pri-vate donations—and arranged for the synagogue to be taken apart, wall-by-wall, stone-by-stone, piece-by-piece, moved 25 miles to the city, and reassembled.

The small synagogue was rededicated in November 2008. Today it is the house of prayer for some 160 members of the liberal Jüdische Gemeinde Göttingen.

~&~Israel

1st Arab Students Group

Hosted in Israel: In 2012, the Reform Movement’s Beit Shmuel (a cultural and educational mecca and housing complex that also serves as the WUPJ’s Jerusalem headquarters) hosted the first stu-dent group from the Arab world

GLOBAL NEWS from p.40

continued on p.44



MOSCOW: Culture & Community

Rabbi Leonid Bimbat is rabbi of Con-gregation Le-Dor va-Dor in Moscow.

What should travelers not miss in Moscow?

There is so much to see...Red Square, the Kremlin and its museums, our art galleries, the Bol-shoi Theater, ballet, opera…the city is alive with culture.

What Jewish sites are most worth visiting?

The most impor-tant Jewish site is the stunning 1906 Moscow Choral Synagogue, with its Moorish style interior and Arabesque moldings and murals. And be sure to visit the new Jewish Museum, which tells the story of Jews in Russia from Tsarist times through today. I would also recommend Shalom Theater, the first professional Jewish theater in Russia, where you can see musicals, drama, and comedy.

What is your top travel tip?If you travel in winter, take warm

clothes with you, as -30 Celsius (-22° Fahrenheit) is not an unusual tempera-ture for winter months.

When did Progressive Judaism take root in Moscow?

Because of the events of the last cen-tury—wars, the repressive Soviet sys-tem—it was not possible for Judaism to develop freely and naturally in Russia. The first Reform Jewish group was established only 25 years ago. In 1989, Kre

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Reform Judaism, which embraced the questioning of text. This spiritual journey led to my becoming a rabbi.

Much of my work at Congregation Le-Dor va-Dor centers on helping Moscow Jews who have little Jewish literacy become more knowledgeable and raise Jewish children. Many of our adult congregants have a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother, and are therefore not recognized as Jewish by the Orthodox and Lubavitchers. At Le-Dor va-Dor, these patrilineal fami-lies are accepted and get to meet oth-ers like them; on Sundays, when their children are in religious school, for example, we’ve created a separate space where they can share their expe-riences and concerns.

About 20% of our members have con-verted to Judaism via the FSU’s Reform Beth Din (rabbinical court). Most of these individuals are converting because they have no proof that their parents/grandparents were Jewish. In the Soviet period people’s ethnic origins were stated on their passports, and their parents’ ori-gins were recorded on their birth certifi-cates (nowadays ethnic origin does not appear on any official documents). Dur-ing WWII some families purposely dis-posed of their documents, and it is now impossible to trace their origins because many archives were destroyed during the war. Even for those congregants who were raised Jewish, if they do not have supporting documents, the only option to be acknowledged as a Jew by the Jewish community is by a Reform Beth Din con-version. The process takes at least one year, and many converts later become very active members. They also teach their parents and even their grandparents about their Jewish heritage.

Hineini was officially registered with the government as a congregation.

Now there are three Progressive con-gregations in Moscow: Hineini, Sever-naya (“Northern,” established in 2000), and our synagogue, Le-Dor va-Dor

(“From Generation to Generation,” established in 1999). Hineini and Severnaya serve hundreds of older people seeking a friendly Jewish environment in their neighbor-hood. Le-Dor va-Dor is primarily for families with young children—we took the name

after many families with small children decided to join. About 80% of our 200 members are under 40, and some fami-lies have 3 or even 4 children.

What else distinguishes your congregation?

Very few of our members were raised as Jews, at least with some degree of observance. Most discovered their Judaism as adults. My personal story is perhaps typical. Only at age 15, at the time of Perestroika in 1990, did I learn that my mother was Jewish. I started to learn Hebrew in my native Ekaterinburg, Rus-sia, and then began to bring my mother and maternal grandparents to Jewish events. Much later I became involved with Reform Judaism, but my very first step was choosing to be a Jew. Then came the choice of what kind of Jew to be—Orthodox, secular, Reform. As a student of literature, I felt most at home with

BAR MITZVAH AT LE-DOR VA-DOR.


Interview with Leonid Bimbat

Greetings from the Kremlin wall at sunrise.



What are worship services like?Services are led by one of two Rus-

sian-born rabbis (Rabbi Alexander Lys-kovoy and myself) or our Ukrainian can-tor (Cantor Dmitry Karpenko). Having been largely influenced by the Israeli Movement for Progressive Judaism, we (and other Moscow Reform congrega-tions) use the Israeli Reform prayer book Ha’avoda Shebalev, which has been translated into Russian, reciting most of the prayers in Hebrew and a few in Rus-sian. When a visitor from abroad joins us, we always provide an English translation.

Our liturgical music is a unique blend of American and Israeli melodies, Chasidic tunes, and some additional melodies with a Ukrainian flavor com-posed by our cantor. The style of our services varies. On Friday night we sing more “camp-style” melodies accompa-nied by guitar, and attract young Jews. On Saturday morning, services are more “classical,” sometimes using an electronic organ, and families with chil-dren are the main participants.

Which holidays are most popular?Most popular is Passover, which we

typically celebrate with communal seders intermixing traditional readings, music (jazz and other styles), and video presen-tations of haggadah illustrations. Seders are popular in the wider Jewish commu-nity as well. This is our time to celebrate freedom from Soviet oppression, recall-ing the period not so long ago when it was forbidden to observe our religion.

Next in importance to our commu-nity is Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kip-pur. Year by year, more of our members come to understand the importance of the High Holy Days as a time of spiritual renewal.

What are your most important Jewish lifecycle celebrations?

The most meaningful ones at Le-Dor va-Dor are baby naming, because we have many small children, and b’rit milah, because many adults who were not raised as Jews decide to be circumcised in private ceremonies at a local clinic.

Also, bar/bat mitzvah ceremonies are becoming increasingly common here. In the past, 13-year-olds had

birthday parties; now most have a meaningful Jewish rite of passage. Whereas five years ago parents did not expect their children to have formal learning, it is now understood that bar/bat mitzvah involves a learning period of up to one year.

What else is unique about Le-Dor va-Dor?

We are the first Progressive congre-gation in Russia to introduce member-ship fees. The amount is very small, and does not allow the congregation to be self-sufficient; it represents a “social” (symbolic) membership fee for all those who chose to identify as Reform Jews. It is very unlikely that our two other Moscow congregations will follow this practice, since their members are older Jews—pensioners coping with limited income and steep utility bills.

We hope you will come visit us. Le-Dor va-Dor is a friendly and lively community, with many members who speak English. You will be warmly welcomed here.

belts and machine guns at the ready—at the entrance of all American institu-tions in Singapore. This included the American Club, where UHC services are typically held, requiring all High Holy Day worshipers to pass by these austere looking, unsmiling figures before enter-ing “shul.” On the first such occasion I whispered to my wife, “Do we have to be worried if the Gurkha hears that my sermon was not especially good tonight?” Now, the Gurkhas are gone.

Fortunately, Singapore has no history of antisemitism. In a city where Buddhism and Christianity are thought to be the largest religious groupings, with signifi-cant Hindu and Muslim populations as well, the Jews seem well-respected and fit into the larger community with ease. Jews here have also held prominent government positions: David Marshall, an Iraqi Jew, served as Singapore’s first Chief Minister from 1955 to 1956, and later as Singapore’s ambassador to France, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland.

Come visit. You’ll enjoy Singapore.

Singaporecontinued from page 40

to visit and learn about Israel. Kivunim (“Directions”), a gap-year program in Israel based at Beit Shmuel, developed a rela-tionship with Moadon Mimouna, a group of Moroccan Muslim stu-dents who study the history and culture of Moroccan Jews and Judaism in order to better under-stand their own culture and histo-ry. Kivunim’s Executive Director Peter Geffen led a two-week experience that included a visit to Ramallah and meetings with high-ranking Palestinian officials. Participants left Israel with a new appreciation of the Jewish peo-ple’s accomplishments in the state and a strong desire to return: one dreams of becoming Morocco’s first ambassador to Israel; others are reviewing scholarship oppor-tunities for graduate studies.

Progressive Preschool: In the fall of 2011, the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, in coopera-tion with the Jerusalem munici-pality, opened the Nitzanim pre-school, Jerusalem’s only preschool program for children of refugees and foreign workers living in Israel. As a result, 20 pupils ages 3–6 from Eritrea, Sudan, the DRC (Congo), the Philippines, and Korea are improving their Hebrew lan-guage skills and being prepared for mainstream Israeli education on the HUC/Mercaz Shimshon-Beit Shmuel campus.

~&~Poland

Training Progressive Para-

Professionals: As there are no native Polish-speaking Progres-sive rabbis working in Poland yet, Beit Polska (the national association of Progressive Juda-ism in Poland) is running an intensive service-leader training


continued on p.46



Harry A. and Barbara Tasch Ezratty are both past presidents of Temple Beth Shalom. Harry is also author of 500 Years in the Jewish Caribbean; Barbara is a food writer and book publisher.

What excites tourists about Puerto Rico?

The island’s public beaches are popular desti-nations for snorkeling, scuba diving, boating, swimming, sunbathing, and kayaking. Fishing for Blue Marlin in the Atlantic Trench, at 28,000 feet the deepest part of the Atlantic, is a year-round sport that also attracts deep-sea fishermen world-wide for the fall’s big-game tournament. Big draws are professionally designed golf courses and hiking in El Yunque Rainforest, Puerto Rico’s highest moun-tain range (3,500 feet). Zip-lining—hur-tling above the tree-lines from a looped line stretched from one mountainside to another—has become a hot new sport, and the Caves of Camuy, one of the world’s three largest cave systems, are breathtakingly, expansively beautiful.

What are the cuisine options?Puerto Rico is known as “The Culi-

nary Capital of the Caribbean.” You can enjoy American, Asian, Brazilian, Caribbean, Cuban, French, Italian, Mex-ican, Middle Eastern, Peruvian, Puerto Rican, Spanish—and more. Tables

SAN JUAN: Culture & Community


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1⁄4 cup seedless green grapes1⁄2 tsp. curry powder1 Tbs. mayonnaiseSalt and pepper to taste

Bake the chicken until done. Cool. Cut the chicken into cubes. Add curry powder, salt, and pepper and mix well. Add pineapple chunks and grapes. Toss to mix. To make the dressing, combine the reserved pineapple juice and mayo. Mix well.

What are your top travel tips?The sun in Puerto Rico is seriously

stronger than stateside (being closer to the equator), so use lots of sunblock.

And because Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, Americans do not need to bring their passports.

What are the Jewish sites of interest?In San Juan, three synagogues serve

the population of approximately 2,000 Jews. The Conservative congregation has about 215 families, many of whom descend from Cuban immigrants in the early days of the Castro regime. The Chabad congregation is the smallest, with about 20 families. And the Reform congregation, Temple Beth Shalom (TBS), has about 60 families—some of them descendants of Jews who emigrat-ed from the States to the island in the 1950s and 60s and formed the congre-gation in 1967.

All three congregations join together for community events, such as the recent dedication of the Holocaust Memorial across from the Capital in Old San Juan; and the three cooperate with the Chabad movement’s “Jewish Welcome Center,” which opened in 2012 in Old San Juan and offers tours of Jewish interest.

Magazine: Puerto Rico’s Guide to Great Dining (tablespr.com) can help you navigate 700 of the plentiful options.

The basic island food derives from a combination of the old Caribbean Taino

Indian and Spanish influences. The indigenous Caribbean pineapples were on the island before Columbus and are still sweeter than those enjoyed by state-siders. Other basic foodstuffs, such as root vegetables, rice, and seafood, are available today in old-style and updated versions reflecting the influx of myriad cultures on the island’s cuisine.

Temple Beth Shalom has published its own Spanish-English cookbook, What’s Cooking/Que Se Cocina, which is still in print and available from the synagogue (tbspr.org). Here is a tropi-cal-tasting recipe by long-time member Edna Friedes, who died in October 2012 at age 105½:

Pineapple Chicken Salad3 chicken breast halves,

skinless and boneless1⁄2 cup pineapple chunks,

reserving 1⁄2 cup juice

TEMPLE BETH SHALOM SERVICE AT THE HISTORIC FORTRESS IN OLD SAN JUAN.

Interview with Harry A. and Barbara Tasch Ezratty

Greetings from El Yunque Rainforest



What are services like at Temple Beth Shalom?

We’re very proud of being a “singing” congregation. Without a full-time cantor, our congregants have learned both old and new melodies for weekly and holiday services from visiting vocalists. We par-ticipate not as “audience members” but fully—very vocally—in weekly services.

On Friday nights, services are mostly in English and Hebrew, using Gates of Prayer; on Saturday mornings, services are mainly in Spanish and Hebrew, uti-lizing a Spanish/Hebrew prayer book. This meets the whole congregation’s needs—the majority of whom are Eng-lish-speakers and approximately 30% for whom Spanish is their first language. Fifteen years ago, TBS was all English-speaking, but as trained locals began to replace stateside middle-management personnel in island jobs and the resident Puerto Ricans started exploring Juda-ism, a number of Spanish speakers con-verted and found their Jewish home here. Many of these new Jews-by-choice came from anusim, families who knew or suspected their forbearers

included secret Jews. To this day, visit-ing rabbis offer training to them, and we hope more anusim will join us.

The TBS attire is very casual (except no shorts or beach clothes are allowed). Although we began as an almost Classi-cal Reform congregation, like the rest of the Reform Movement, we have moved towards traditionalism in ritual obser-vance; today most men wear kippot, and prayer shawls are prevalent. Part-time visiting rabbis, who stay for one or more months during the winter season, repre-sent varying degrees of tradition on the bimah, all of which are welcomed.

Do you have unique celebrations?Taschlich services are held on the

Caribbean beach, two blocks from TBS—often surprising bathing-suit clad tourists.

We invite visitors to join us for weekly services. You’ll not only meet our friendly members, but people from other island congregations, cruise ship passengers, businesspeople staying at nearby hotels, and local university students—and become part of Reform Judaism’s family in sunny San Juan.

program in Warsaw called Shatz (short for Sh’lichei Tzibur, which in Hebrew means “service lead-ers”) for native first-year and second-year students. Once the students achieve the required level of competency, they will lead Shabbat services at small, emerging Jewish communities throughout the country

Milan Offers Torah to Krakow:

This past October, 10 members of Beth Shalom Progressive Congregation in Milan, founded in 2002, presented a Torah scroll to the even younger Beit Kra-kow con-gregation in Krakow. Starting at the Galicia Jewish Museum, the Torah was placed under a chup-pah and marched, amidst crowds singing and dancing, through Krakow’s old Jewish quarter, and to three synagogues before reaching the High Synagogue, where it was formally presented to Beit Krakow.

~&~Spain

Barcelona’s Beit Din: In June 2011, 30 people (24 adults and six children ages 4–12) were convert-ed or “welcomed back” to Juda-ism at a Shabbat morning service in Barcelona. When the news got out that Rosina Levy of Bet Sha-lom of Barcelona would be pre-senting its candidates to the WUPJ European Region Beit Din (rabbinic court), other Jewish communities throughout Spain asked to send their own candidates too—some traveling hundreds of kilometers to the only Beit Din that would help them achieve their dream of becoming Jewish.


continued on p.48

MARCHING WITH GIFTED TORAH TO BEIT KRAKOW.

Travels in American Jewish History A Study Mission to Historic Philadelphia, PA

May 1-5, 2013On May 1-5, 2013, the AJA will lead a group to Philadelphia,

PA to study its rich Jewish history. Participants will have the opportunity for interactive learning while touring sites such as the National Museum of American Jewish History, the Rosenbach Library plus the historic congregations of Philadelphia. Featured scholars include Dr. Jonathan D. Sarna, Dr. Lance J. Sussman and Dr. Gary P. Zola.

For more information, please contact Lisa Frankel, Director of Programs for the AJA, by e-mail: [email protected], phone: 513-487-3218 or visit our website: AmericanJewishArchives.org.

Reserve your place on the trip!

present

The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of theAMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES



Raul Cesar Gottlieb is vice president of WUPJ Latinamerica, board member of ARI—Associação Religiosa Israelita of Rio de Janeiro, and editor director of Devarim Magazine.

What excites tourists about Rio?Brazil is a very welcoming country.

Be ready to be sur-rounded by smil-ing people 24/7, to drink heavenly “caipir-inhas” (a strong alcoholic beverage made of lemon, sugar, and the sugar cane alcohol called “cachaça”), and to relax in the sun.

Rio’s south zone, nestled between the Serra do Mar mountains and the Atlantic Ocean, offers spectacular views, both from the mountaintop down and from the beach up.

A must is February’s Carnival parade, which is too exciting to be described in words; please YouTube it and come. And go to a soccer game; when you sit in the middle of the torcidas (team supporters), you’ll feel a part of our lively rituals.

What are some culinary delights?Rio is famous for all-you-can-eat

Churrascarias (barbeque restaurants), where dozens of different kinds of meat are served, along with a sumptuous assortment of side dishes, including all kind of salads, fish, and cheese.

RIO DE JANEIRO: Culture & Community


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Reform, our own 900-family Associação Religiosa Israelita (ARI). Founded by German Jews in 1942, it now attracts Jews of all kinds drawn to modernity, egalitarianism, and the balancing of spirituality and rationalism. The congre-gation is always bustling with religious, cultural, and social activities.

What are Shabbat services like?Before the service, almost every

worshiper joins in the festive meeting we call hora do cafezinho (“little coffee time”), talking about the week and enjoying the company of friends.

Now, imagine yourself in our main sanctuary, built in the shape of a desert tent, with two large stained glass lateral walls representing the openness of Juda-ism. Most Friday nights the space is filled with around 500 persons, members and non-members alike, attracted by the chal-lenging intellectual messages that ema-nate from our pulpit, by the beautiful music, and by a genuinely friendly ambi-ence. Our rabbis—Rabbi Sergio R. Mar-gulies, a Brazilian who belonged to ARI as a child, and Rabbi Dario E. Bialer of Argentina—follow a long tradition (that begun with Rabbi Henrique Lemle, our German founding rabbi) of bringing to the fore the main questions and concerns of contemporary Jews. And whenever Israel is threatened or celebrated, ARI serves as the center of activity for Brazil’s strongly Zionist Jewish community.

Religious services are almost all in Hebrew, with very little Portuguese. Because Brazil is the only Latin Amer-ican country where Portuguese and not Spanish is spoken, ARI uses a homemade siddur in Hebrew and Por-tuguese for Kabbalat Shabbat, and prayer books edited by the liberal

What are your top travel tips?Pick up my favorite guide, How to Be

a Carioca by Priscilla Goslin, a small, delightful book that captures the soul of Rio de Janeiro.

Also, be careful traveling. Avoid car-rying passports and valuables with you. Choose popular destinations such as Pão

de Açucar (Sugar Loaf cable car), Corco-vado (a mountain with a magnifi-cent view), Ipanema (a popular beach),

Copacabana (another popular beach), and Jardim Botânico (a botanical garden with a large collection of tropical plants). A stroll in the historic downtown on a weekend is also a good option.

What is Jewish life like in Rio?In Brazil, the Jews are a small minor-

ity—0.05% of 195 million people. With-in Rio, 30,000 Jews are well integrated among the 12 million “cariocas” (as those born in Rio de Janeiro call themselves). Our Jewish community is quite active and diverse. There are 20 synagogues: one Reform, one Conservative, and various streams of Orthodoxy. We also have three big Jewish day schools (two pluralist and one Orthodox) as well as welfare, cultural, burial, women’s, Zionist, and social orga-nizations—about 80 institutions in all!

In Rio, the biggest congregation is

KABBALAT SHABBAT AT ASSOCIAÇÃO RELIGIOSA ISRAELITA.

Interview with Raul Cesar Gottlieb

Greetings from Copacabana Beach



congregation of São Paulo for all other services.

Kippot (head coverings) and tallitim(prayer shawls) are mandatory for men—a custom dating back to our congregation’s German roots. In Euro-pean Reform Judaism, the wearing of talitot and kippot by men has always been compulsory; American congrega-tions began to abandon this practice in the 1890s. That said, as we are an egalitarian community, kippot and tal-litim may be worn by women as well. Women participate equally in all ways. Some years ago we had a female rabbi, Rabbi Sandra Kochman, the first woman to serve as a community rabbi in Brazil.

What is the worship music like?Our two full-time chazanim (can-

tors)—Oren Boljover of Argentina and Andre Nudelman, who has also been a member of the community since his youth—conduct the musical prayers, accompanied by an electronic organ.

The music includes many composi-tions by Louis Lewandowski and other 19th century German composers—a reflection of our founders’ origins—along with modern and participatory music, including a few pieces of jazz and just a touch of Brazilian and South American music.

What else is unique about ARI?ARI holds a daily minyan every eve-

ning, seven days a week, which provides a space for the community to recite Kaddish and to pray at the end of the business day.

On the High Holy Days, our services draw more than 3,000 Jews—a remark-able feat for a congregation of 900 and a Jewish community of 30,000. Other con-gregations are overflowing as well. This says a lot about how Brazilian Jews feel about being part of a religious communi-ty; even the least observant of them will be in a synagogue on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

What are ARI’s other priorities?On the cultural level, ARI publishes

Devarim, a high-standard magazine aimed to strengthen Reform awareness in Brazil, and to dispel the awkward notion that Reform congregations “are like

churches.” We print some 5,000 copies three times a year and distribute them for free all over Brazil.

We also emphasize social awareness and activism. Recognizing that persons with special needs are productive and creative human beings, we’ve created a space inside the synagogue building for them to use daily, mostly for crafts—instead of seeing them relegated to an almost invisble parallel world. Our youth movement, Chazit Hanoar, holds ongoing teaching and recreational pro-grams with children in Rio’s disadvan-taged communities, helping them to organize themselves as a youth move-ment, which raises their self-esteem. The Social Action committee collects needed goods (medicines, food, clothes, etc.); supports “Ballet Santa Teresa,” a ballet school for disadvantaged youth; and helps hire teachers for the supple-mentary education necessary to prepare students for acceptance into colleges, as the level of teaching in public schools is woefully inadequate.

Please come and see all we do at ARI! You will be very welcome.

have lost their “religious organization” label (becoming “associations”), a sub-stantial part of their income has been lost. To try to stay financially afloat, Bet Orim is conducting fund-raising events and has introduced membership fees, and Sim Shalom has increased dues. Both have applied for grants.

While it may not easy to be a Progres-sive Jew in Hungary, our community is heartened by our relationship with Jews worldwide. At Bet Orim, our rabbi, cantor, and quite a few members speak English, French, and German. We are happy to conduct multilingual services and very much enjoy talking to visitors from abroad.

So, the next time you are in Europe, I hope you will come and meet us! Please, if possible, contact Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor at the World Union for Pro-gressive Judaism in advance (see “You’re Never Alone When You Say You’re a Jew” on page 29 for instructions) so that we can offer you proper hospitality.

Budapestcontinued from page 42

Having studied with local teachers for at least a year, the participants demonstrated profi-ciency in Jewish history, cus-toms, religious festivals, and life-cycle events; the men also presented a certificate of circum-cision, as required by Jewish law and in accordance with European custom. Looking ahead, many of the newly initiated adult Jews-by-choice are already planning for their bar/bat mitzvahs.

“This conversion program not only propelled Bet Shalom onto the front lines of Progressive Judaism in Spain,” says Dr. Rifat Sonsino, who served as officiat-ing rabbi, “but is now a model for other small congregations, which have learned what can be accom-plished with enthusiasm, dedica-tion, and the support of the Euro-pean Region of the WUPJ. This made me really proud.”

~&~United Kingdom

Reform Jew Is the UK

Ambassador to Israel: Matthew Gould, who attends services at the Reform Move-ment’s West London Synagogue, became the UK’s ambassador to Israel in October 2010. He is the first Jew to hold the post.

First Trained Reform Cantor

in Britain: When London’s

Finchley Reform Synagogue (FRS) inducted Cantor Zöe Jacobs during Shab-bat services on November 14, 2009, she became the first fully-trained cantor to serve a Reform con-gregation in Britain. Jacobs grew up at FRS and was ordained at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York.


MATTHEW GOULD

ZÖE JACOBS



JEWISHLIFEYOUTH ENGAGEMENT

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Interview with Leonard Saxe

Short Experience, Staggering Impact

Q How do social scientists defi ne Jewish identity today?

The answer depends on what questions social scientists are trying to answer. If our goal is to count Jews, then anyone who identifies him or herself as a Jew is considered Jewish. But identity is complex, and often we try to understand the place of Jewish identity within the context of people’s lives and how they think about themselves. To understand the complexity, we need to under-stand how one’s Jewishness is reflected in behavior and how it has evolved over the course of a life.

Has the defi nition changed over the years?Decades ago, identity and behavior—particularly affiliation—were more closely connected. Thus, we might sim-ply have asked whether a person lit Shabbat candles or was a synagogue member. Today we need to know how a person thinks and feels about his or her Jewishness. Ritual practice is a part of Jewish identity, but not the only indica-tor. An increasing number of individuals identify as “just Jewish.” For some, “just Jewish” is a post-denominational label and a synthesis of practices and beliefs; for others, it signals identification with the Jewish people, not Judaism per se.

Changing attitudes to marriage between Jews and non-Jews illustrate the new complexity. Many Jews who have non-Jewish spouses retain strong Jewish identities, while many Jews who married

Leonard Saxe is Klutznick Professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies and direc-tor of the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies and the Steinhardt Social Research Institute at Brandeis University.

Jews do not. So, it is an oversimplifica-tion to measure Jewish identity or predict whether one’s children will be raised as Jews solely on the basis of who one chooses as a partner. Raising Jewish chil-dren is mostly a function of a person’s Jewish education. Particularly for Jewish women, the research shows that those who have had both formal and informal Jewish education as well as some experi-ence of celebrating Jewish holidays at home will raise their children as Jews.

We live in an era of choice and mul-tiple identities. Whether and how we choose to be Jewish is not simply a label or a set of practices; it is about how we prioritize Jewish identity. That, in turn, is a function of education and experi-ence. Many Jews, unfortunately, do not have enough knowledge of their tradi-tion to be able to engage meaningfully.

Is there a time-tested formula, a continuum of experiences that, when followed, leads to strong Jewish identity in adulthood?It is more complicated than that. The tra-jectory of Jewish identity does not follow a straight line or represent the sum total of hours of Jewish education, worship, or other activities clocked.

Life experiences are dis-rupted by inflection points—transformative moments that can have a powerful impact on the nature of emerging identi-ty. For example, whatever one’s Jewish educational back-ground, the experience of attending or being a counselor at a Jewish summer camp can have a particularly strong impact on Jewish identity. The intensity of relationships formed at camp, experienced in the context of living Jewish-ly, has a much larger influence on adult Jewish identity than might at first seem probable for a limited summer experience.

What makes the summer camp experience so impactful?Camp incorporates the three essential components of effective education, and it does so in a particularly Jewish way. It is a positive emotional experience—young people feel good about being part of a Jewish community; it has a cognitive component—young people learn about Jewish rituals and Jewish life; and, per-haps most importantly, it has a behavior-al aspect—campers experience living Jewishly in a communal setting.

Judaism is not simply a religion of faith, but an approach to life. We can’t effectively socialize young people with-out engaging their hearts, minds, and bodies. Camping is particularly effec-tive for those who later become counsel-ors-in-training and then counselors, because they gain an expanded and more sophisticated set of understand-ings about Jewish life. And, having had the opportunity to be Jewish role models and teachers, some counselors go on to become rabbis, cantors, educators, Jewish communal workers, and lay leaders in their Jewish communities.

KABBALAT SHABBAT AT URJ CAMP KALSMAN, ARLINGTON, WASHINGTON, 2011.


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Interview with Sarah Bassin

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Reimagining Muslim-Jewish Relations

Established in 2006, the L.A.-based organization NewGround is dedicated to transforming the ways Jews and Muslims interact through public programs, fellowships, consulting, and thought-leadership—and thus far has trained 80 young Muslim and Jewish men and women, and part-nered with more than 30 Muslim and Jewish organi-zations to bring transfor-mative programs to 2,400+ people. Executive Director Rabbi Sarah Bassin, 30, HUC-JIR class of 2011, recently received a $100,000 grant from the Joshua Venture Group’s 2012–2014 Dual Investment Program to take her Los Angeles model national. She was interviewed by the RJ magazine editors.

What inspired your involvement with Muslim-Jewish relations?

Having come from a mixed Jewish-Catholic background, I entered HUC wanting to make interfaith relations the core of my rabbinate. Though my initial interest was Jewish-Catholic dialogue, it soon shifted to Jewish-Muslim dialogue, a field that was largely in its infancy.

One tipping point for me happened in 2009 during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, when I was working at the Los Angeles Board of Rabbis. An anti-Israel protest was in force outside our Federa-tion building, and all of us were encour-aged to go downstairs and start a counter-protest in support of Israel. In the street, the Palestinian faction was well-orga-nized, chanting loudly into a megaphone, while the Jewish demonstrators were in total disarray. One Jewish man kept pac-ing back and forth, muttering to himself, “We have to get a bigger megaphone; if we don’t have a bigger megaphone, we’re going to lose.” That was my “aha!”

moment. I thought to myself, A bigger megaphone isn’t going to transform any-thing. All we’re doing is stopping traffic along Wilshire Boulevard and upsetting the larger community that wants nothing to do with this conversation.

A year later I took a job researching trends in U.S. Muslim-Jewish relations at the Center for Muslim-Jewish Engage-ment, a University of Southern California think tank under the direction of HUC-JIR professor Rabbi Reuven Firestone.

What trends did you discover?An increasing number of Americans

have broadened their view of the U.S. from a “Judeo-Christian nation” to one that encompasses all three Abrahamic faith groups. This changing perception has coincided with a demographic shift: the U.S. Muslim population has grown to approximately the same size as the American Jewish community. From these trends, it was clear that improving interfaith relations needed to become a priority for both Muslims and Jews.

Meanwhile, two other L.A. organiza-tions discovered, after a year-long study, that the most effective way to build Jew-ish-Muslim engagement was to cultivate young Jewish and Muslim professionals as partners in dialogue. Productive,

transformative conversa-tions were very difficult to achieve between estab-lished religious leaders, who, before entering into a relationship, tended to impose conditions on the other side, such as “I will only speak to you if you condemn suicide bomb-ings” or “I will only speak to you if you acknowledge that Israel’s occupation is unjust.” This approach fueled mistrust from the outset and led to quick breakdowns in communi-

cation. In contrast, young professionals were not beholden to stakeholders and were therefore less likely to be criticized for entering into such a relationship. Rep-resenting only themselves, they could communicate more honestly and openly. This approach fueled trust. And, the expectation is, in years to come, as these young professionals reach top-level posi-tions within their individual communi-ties, they will be able to lower the tension during times of conflict by calling upon people in the interfaith network of trust-ing relationships they’ve already built.

You’ve said that a 2010 Gallup poll revealed that Islamophobia and antisemitism are two sides of the same coin: “The strongest predic-tor of prejudice against Muslims is whether a person has similar feelings toward Jews.” How do you use this information to bring Muslims and Jews together?

One difficulty in bringing Muslims and Jews together is that when they think about the other, the first image that comes to mind is conflict; e.g., Israel-Palestine. It’s time to shift the focus to shared con-cerns and interests. As religious minori-ties in the U.S., both Muslims and Jews are concerned with protecting their reli-

JEWISHLIFEINTERFAITH INTERACTION

MEMBERS OF TEMPLE EMANUEL IN BEVERLY HILLS AND KING FAHAD MOSQUE

IN CULVER CITY, CA DISPLAY LOS ANGELES HUMAN RELATIONS COMMISSION

CERTIFICATES AT A SYNAGOGUE-MOSQUE FELLOWSHIP EVENT, 2012.

JL_sp13_Interfaith_mm5_FINAL.indd 50 1/18/13 10:35 AM


Could such bridge-building engage 20- and 30-something Jews beyond the synagogue walls?

Absolutely. Jewish-Muslim relation-ship-building taps into the value of uni-versalism shared by Millennials. They aren’t interested in separating themselves from the larger community; rather, they see being Jewish as a lens through which they approach the world. Jewish-Muslim relations work allows them to express their Jewishness in that broader context.

This is true of Jewish teens, too. Last year, two Jewish communal leaders told us independently that their teens were asking for encounters with the Muslim community. We helped them to estab-lish a high school leadership council that invites leaders from both a Muslim and a Jewish organization to talk about a major social issue, such as genocide, with high school students. This approach functions simultaneously on three levels: It engages student dialogue; it fosters communication between the two invited organizational leaders, who usually have never met before; and it opens dia-logue among the 14 Muslim and Jewish communal leaders on the Advisory Board—all of whom are invested in their students’ experiences.

A vital component of success in Mus-lim-Jewish relations, I believe, is ensur-ing that everything we do functions on multiple layers. How can we leverage a series of encounters to move beyond impacting the people sitting in the room to reach ever wider circles of people? That’s how to make a difference.

Has NewGround worked with Reform congregations?

Yes. As an example, leaders of Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills asked us to help expand their relationship with King Fahad Mosque beyond annual clergy-organized events to engage a larger number of people from both con-gregations. In response, we adapted our fellowship training to deepen the rela-tionship between a core group of temple and mosque lay leaders. In October2012 they held their first joint project: cultural tours of Jewish and Muslim Los Angeles. Meanwhile, a subgroup is working on developing an organization

Our approach is very different from a typical Muslim-Jewish exchange, in which both sides enter the conversation as if it were a contest, equipped with their own set of compelling facts, and both ulti-mately walk away unswayed, in the same place they started. We start conversations with personal stories and perspectives—what this conflict means to my family, my friends, and me. This way, one person’s facts can’t outdo or negate another’s, because what he or she has said is not sub-ject to debate; it’s true for that person.

In short, we stress communications, conflict resolution, and relationship-building. The issues themselves are a foundation upon which to build trust and connection as we work up to having a conversation about Israel and Palestine.

How do the fellows respond to discussing Israel-Palestine?

Because the fellows fear damaging the relationships they’ve worked so hard to build and know how toxic, uncivil, and derailing this subject can be, they are sometimes reluctant to have the conver-sation. They soon discover, however, that they do have the skill set to take this sub-ject on, and though the conversation may be tough, they are able to maintain a rela-tionship. Later, after the fellows have left NewGround to work within their com-munities, their first reaction when a con-flict breaks out will not be to blog about it to the public, but rather to call some-body they know from the other commu-nity and say, “How are you thinking about this?” This then frames their public response, and the real work proceeds quietly behind the scenes.

Does this real work usually take place in synagogues and mosques?

Actually, we don’t ask our 22–39-year-old fellows to focus on synagogues and mosques, because at this stage of their lives, these institutions are not their prima-ry points of affiliation. Rather, we encour-age them to utilize their NewGround training within their existing networks of interest. So, for example, some of our fel-lows in the entertainment industry went on to host a joint Muslim-Jewish film fes-tival that drew the wider Los Angeles community into exploring how these two communities understand themselves.

gious and civil rights, yet rarely have they joined forces. When, for example, anti-circumcision legislation initiatives were introduced in San Francisco and Santa Monica, the two communities did not fully capitalize on an opportunity for sig-nificant coordination. More broadly, both Jews and Muslims care about fighting homelessness, protecting the environ-ment, and pursuing social justice. The “elephant in the room”—the Israel-Pales-tine conflict—has prevented us from work-ing together more effectively in larger, interfaith-based coalitions on local issues that impact us all. This needs to change.

How do you get Muslims and Jews to see each other as potential political partners?

It’s a process. At first the participants of our six-month fellowship program walk into the room as either Muslims or Jews. All the Muslims sit on one side and all the Jews on the other. To change how people see each other, we ask everyone to stand in a circle and listen to a series of statements; if a particular statement applies to you, you step into the center of the circle. When people hear, “I have a refugee in the family,” usually about 80% of the group steps into the circle—Mus-lims and Jews. That starts to shift peo-ple’s consciousness: Oh, ours isn’t the only group that has refugees as part of our story. Another recognition is that we have multiple identities; being Muslim or Jewish is just one factor folding into our understanding of who we are.

Is looking at each other’s religious texts a good way to foster dialogue?

At NewGround, we will invite an imam or a rabbi to speak to the group about the essential values of their respec-tive sacred texts, but the texts themselves are not at the core of our work. After the speaker leaves, the conversation focuses on how the fellows in the room received that person. Rather than to teach “this is Judaism” or “this is Islam,” our objective is to help draw out people’s personal experiences of their religious tradition. Often participants will disagree with what the rabbi or the imam said and offer their own perspectives, which also helps in breaking down monolithic perceptions of the other’s religious community. continued on page 67

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By Leah Hochman

How Reform Jews Picture God

As a child visiting my grandmother, for a long time I saw a drawing taped to the refrigerator that my cousin

had made in elementary school. It included four sepa-rate images depicting the four things for which my cousin felt most grate-ful—my grandma (hence its position of honor), recess, candy, and God.

I stared at that drawing for years. Wanting to honor God but knowing that God had no image, my cousin had made an astonishing artistic decision: first, she drew a block androgynous figure with arms, legs, and a head—and then she erased it. Left behind was an obvi-ous physical impression of God created by her intentionally removing evidence of a divine form. In her own way, this eight-year-old had solved a theological conundrum: my cousin’s drawing sug-gested both the absence and presence of God. God was there but not there.

Curious about his congregants’ per-ceptions of God, Rabbi Mark Dov Sha-piro of Sinai Temple, Springfield, Mas-sachusetts surveyed his congregation in 2011, essentially asking members to do what my cousin had done: Draw a pic-ture of your idea of God within the boundaries of your belief in God. Reform Judaism magazine published Rabbi Shapiro’s analysis of “The God Survey” findings and then invited the entire Reform Movement to take “The God Survey” in the hopes of gauging the God beliefs of Reform Jews

Leah Hochman is director of the Louchheim School for Judaic Studies at University of Southern California and assistant professor of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

throughout North America.More than 4,300 people responded,

including Jews by birth, Jews by choice, men, women, teenagers, Gen Xers,

Baby Boomers, and people from the “Greatest Generation.” Respondents shared their thoughts and doubts about God, choosing from a range of divine attributes that might describe God and God’s actions, and indicating where and when they felt closest to—and most dis-tant from—God. They also considered when in their lives they needed or want-ed a God-figure to praise, to blame, or from whom to derive comfort.

God WonderingAn overwhelming majority of respon-dents—79.8%—responded “a lot” or “a little” to the question: “I wonder about God.” That so many contemplate God on a regular or semi-regular basis might not be overly surprising given their choice to complete a survey about God. Perhaps more striking is that many of them queried the question itself: “Is thinking about God ‘daily’ frequent enough to be considered ‘a lot?” “Does ‘wondering’ about God mean the same as ‘thinking,’ ‘believing in,’ ‘questioning,’ and/or ‘reflecting?’” Their uncertainties tell us that Reform Jews think deeply about the nature

of their intellectual and/or emotional relationships with God, and that they care about the vocabulary they use to describe those relationships. For Reform

Jews, who are grounded in an almost 200-year-old tradition of reflecting on God as the supreme creator of morality, justice, and ethical behavior, such care and attention to the language of faith may be as significant as the data itself.

God WrestlingContemporary Jews also wrestle with how to understand the divine. More than 67% of teenagers answered “frequently” when

asked how often they question God. The percentage dipped as Jews entered mid-life (52% of 40-year-olds answered “rarely” or “never” to the same ques-tion) and rose near the end of life (57% within the 90s+ bracket questioned God “frequently”). “The God Survey” results suggest that teenagers begin God-wrestling once they encounter God on their own terms, outside of the walls of the institutions of Jewish education. Older Jews, having largely decided on their conceptions of God, question God’s presence less. Yet the questioning of God begins again as seniors more advanced in age encounter illness or feel the loss of loved ones.

The God–Nature ConnectionNotably, an overwhelming majority of respondents across all age categories said that of all the life experiences they had (or at least those listed in the survey), they feel closest to the divine while experiencing “nature’s wonders.” For teens (75.5%) through Jews in their 50s (76.6%), 60s (74.5%), and 70s (63.9%), the great outdoors is where people most often encounter divinity;

JEWISHLIFETHEOLOGY

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Imitation vs AnthropomorphismAs a whole, Reform Jews consider their own acts as imitatio Dei—imitat-ing God—rather than employing anthropomorphisms to understand divinity. Men and women saw the act of feeding others (78.1%) and healing the sick (77.5%) as divine, and named both justice (73.4%) and mercy (73.8%) as “Godly.” Far fewer (together, fewer than 39%) defined God as “merciful” or “just.” There seems to be an unwilling-ness to think that God acts in human ways (in comparison to humans acting in Godly ways), and a concomitant desire to think of God as a transcendent partner. Reform Jews also appear to consider the adjectives describing God as less than adequate in capturing what God can—and should—be.

And when respondents do encounter what they think of as “God,” the survey shows they do so in “traditionally” Jewish ways and images. While the responses do not echo the explicit vocabulary describing God in the Torah (“king,”

sonification of God that makes it hard to answer the questions”). Along the same lines, many of the comments respond-ing to the statement “Sometimes inno-cent people suffer without any reason” (86.5% said yes) mentioned that the question does not allow the important qualification that God may not be to blame. The mixed nature of people’s responses—for every person who wrote about a personal loss, another men-tioned feeling close to God in moments of deep need and sadness—points both to a deep diversity of belief and to a healthy questioning that one could date back to Abraham’s argument with God over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Gender DifferencesWomen tend to view God more in terms of relationship and interdependence, whereas men conceive of God in a more abstract and autonomous way. Women were marginally more likely than men to say that God comforts, and men decidedly less willing to allow that God serves as a “presence in the universe supporting us to do our best.”

this connection tapers off only as people reach their 80s and 90s (47.7%). This shows that the majority of contemporary Jews do not need the four walls of a Jewish institution to facilitate a relation-ship with the divine. Appreciating God’s presence in all the workings of the larger ecosystem is compatible with the Jewish theological understanding that God works within and through nature; the Psalms are full of references to and praise of the glory of God in the natural world.

God Connections at ServicesInterestingly, in contrast to data that indicate the “Millennials” (ages 18–30) and Gen Xers (ages 32–47) have dis-tanced themselves from participation in institutional programs and services, “The God Survey” shows that both groups feel closer to God while attending Shabbat services (66.75% of Millennials and 67.4% Gen Xers) than do empty nest-ers—people in their 50s (66.1%) and 60s (56.9%). This finding may explain why Jews in their 50s and 60s whose children have become b’nai mitzvah and who do not feel close to God in the synagogue are finding fewer reasons to stay engaged with their congregational com-munities. Without specific synagogue obligations, many of these middle-aged Jews seek out individuals and communi-ties with shared interests that go beyond ethnic and religious identification.

Responsibility for Moral BehaviorThe majority of Reform Jews believe in human accountability for moral/immoral behavior, as indicated by the finding that 75% blame humans for the presence of evil in our world (“Evil is a human responsibility, not God’s”).

In response to the two questions related to the Holocaust (“Auschwitz tells us that God’s power is severely limited” and “God could have prevent-ed Auschwitz”), a number of respon-dents added comments rejecting the questions’ simplification of God’s power (“It’s not clear to me that God has any-thing to do with this”; “‘Distant’ isn’t the right word for me in thinking about the Holocaust; it’s more ‘why’”; “I think it is irrelevant to an understanding of God”; “I have a problem with the per-


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FOCUS: Greatest Jewish Myths

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Many commonly-held beliefs about Jewish history are based

on assumptions that fail to recognize perhaps the most significant develop-ment in the evolution of the Jewish people.

Take, for example, these questions: Why are so many Jews urban dwellers rather than farmers? Why are Jews primar-ily engaged in trade, commerce, finance, law, medicine, and scholarship? And why have the Jewish people experienced one of the longest and most scat-tered diasporas in history, along with a steep demographic decline? Here are the standard answers: “We are not farmers because our ancestors were pro-hibited from owning land in the Middle Ages.” “We became moneylenders, bankers, and financiers because during the medieval period Christians were banned from lending money at interest, so the Jews filled in that role.” “The Jewish population dis-persed worldwide and declined in num-bers as a result of endless massacres.”

But when one looks over the 15 cen-turies spanning from 70 C.E. to 1492, the oft-given answers seem at odds with the historical facts.

Another more powerful factor was at play.

The more historically accurate narra-tive begins with the profound and well-documented transformation of the Jew-ish religion after the destruction of the

Second Temple in 70 C.E. at the end of the first Jewish-Roman war. Judaism permanently lost one of its two pillars—the Temple in Jerusalem—and conse-quently the religious leadership shifted from the high priests, who were in charge of the Temple service, to the rab-bis and scholars, who had always consid-ered the study of the Torah—the other pillar of Judaism—the paramount duty of any Jew. The new religious leader-ship, the Tannaim and the Amoraim in the yeshivot of the Galilee, set Judaism

on a unique path, transforming it from a cult based on ritual sacrifices in the Temple (as many other religions were at that time) to a literate religion, which

required every Jewish man to read and study the Torah and every father to send his sons to a primary or synagogue school to learn to do the same. Jews who did not obey this religious norm were considered outcasts (ammei ha-aretz) within the Jewish community.

From an economic point of view, it was costly for Jewish farmers living in a subsistence agrarian society to invest a sig-nificant amount of their income on the rabbis’ imposed literacy requirement. A predominantly agrarian economy had little use for educated people. Conse-

quently, a proportion of Jewish farmers opted not to invest in their sons’ reli-gious education, and instead converted to other religions, such as Christianity, which did not impose this norm on its followers. And so, during this Talmudic period (3rd-6th centuries C.E.), just as the Jewish population became increas-ingly literate, it kept shrinking through conversions as well as war-related deaths and general population declines. This threatened the very existence of the large Jewish community in the Land of Israel and in other places where sizable Jewish communities had existed in antiquity, such as North Africa (mainly Egypt), Syria, Lebanon, Asia Minor, the Balkans, and western Europe.

By the seventh century, the demo-graphic and intellectual center of Jew-

The Jews did not choose professions in commerce and finance

because of restrictions, but because of proficiency.

b y M a r i s t e l l a B o t t i c i n i a n d Z v i E c k s t e i n

Were the Jews Moneylenders Out of Necessity?

Jewish bankers in 13th century Spain.

Maristella Botticini is professor of Economics at Università Bocconi in Milan, Italy and director and fellow of its Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research. Zvi Eckstein is dean of the School of Economics at The Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel and the Mario Henrique Simonson Chair in Labor Economics at the Eitan Berglas School of Eco-nomics of Tel Aviv University. This article was adapted with permission from The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History, 70–1492, Princeton University Press, 2012.

Focus1_sp13_Moneylenders_v6_FINAL.indd 54 1/23/13 5:36 AM


ish life had moved from the Land of Israel to Mesopotamia (and, to a lesser extent, Persia), where roughly 75 per-cent of world Jewry now lived. The economy was flourishing in Mesopota-mia, so the Jewish population decline caused by conversions had been coun-terbalanced by an influx of Jewish immigrants, especially from the Land of Israel and North Africa, where the economic prospects were worsening.

Like almost everywhere else in the world, Mesopotamia had an agricul-ture-based economy. The situation changed with the rise of Islam during the seventh century and the consequent Muslim conquests under the Umayyad, and later, Abbasid caliphs in the follow-ing two centuries. Their establishment of a vast empire stretching from the Iberian Peninsula to India led to a vast urbanization and the growth of manu-facture and trade in the Middle East; the development of new industries that produced a wide array of goods (e.g., ceramics, chemicals, clocks, glass, mosaics, pulp and paper, pharmaceuti-cals, shipbuilding, textiles, and weap-

ons); the expansion of local trade and long-distance commerce; and the growth of new cities and towns. These developments in Mesopotamia and Per-sia, and later in North Africa, Syria, the Iberian Peninsula, and Sicily, vastly increased the demand for literate and educated people—the very skills Jews had acquired as a spillover effect of their religious heritage of study.

Over the centuries, as the Jews became increasingly literate, they aban-doned farming and selected livelihoods as craftsmen, traders, money changers, moneylenders, physicians, and other skilled professionals. Between 750 and 900, almost all the Jews in Mesopota-mia and Persia—nearly 75 percent of world Jewry—left agriculture and moved to the cities and towns of the newly established Abbasid Empire to engage in myriad skilled occupations. Many also migrated to Yemen, Syria, Egypt, and the Maghreb; to, from, and within the Byzantine Empire; and later to Christian Europe in search of busi-ness opportunities. And once the Jews were engaged in these occupations, they

rarely converted to other religions (which is consistent with the evidence that the Jewish population grew slightly from the seventh to the twelfth century).

Wherever and whenever they lived among a population of mostly unschooled people, Jews had a comparative advan-tage. They could read and write contracts, business letters, and account books using a common alphabet (Hebrew) while learning the local languages of the different places in which they dwelled. These skills became very valuable in the urban and commercially oriented economy. Moreover, Judaism endowed the Jews with a uniform code of law (the Talmud), which contained myriad rabbinical dis-cussions, debates, and rulings on eco-nomic, social, communal, and religious issues; and a set of institutions (courts and the rabbinical Responsa) that fos-tered contract enforcement, networking, and arbitrage across distant locations. These institutions provided scattered Jewish communities with a common legal framework as well as advice and rulings on an endless array of secular,


Focus1_sp13_Moneylenders_v6_FINAL.indd 55 1/23/13 6:34 AM



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S. David Sperling is professor of Bible at HUC-JIR in New York. This article was adapt-ed with permission from The Original Torah: The Political Intent of the Bible’s Writers, published by New York University Press, 1998.

The Torah devotes more than four books to the proposition that the

Israelites came to Canaan after having been subjugated in Egypt for generations, and yet there is no archaeological evidence to support that they were ever in Egypt. A prolonged Egyptian stay should have left Egyptian elements in the material culture, such as the pottery found in the early Israelite settle-ments in Canaan, but there are none.

In short, the traditions of servitude in Egypt, the tales of the Israelites wander-ing in the desert, and the stories of the conquest of the promised land all appear to be fictitious.

♦ ♦ ♦

This means that the biblical traditions are allegories invented deliberately to obscure the fact that the Israelites were native to Canaan. But why should Israel-ite writers have invented traditions of foreignness when these would seem to undercut their claims to the land in which they lived? When were such tradi-tions invented, and by whom?

Whereas foreignness traditions appear in the text of the eighth-century

prophet Micah—“For I brought you up from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam”

(Micah 6:4)—and the prophet Amos—“Did I not bring Israel up from the land of Egypt and the Philistines from Caph-tor and the Arameans from Kir?” (Amos 9:7)—there is no mention of it in one of the earliest extant biblical texts—a long, premonarchic poem preserved in Deuteronomy 33 and set in the southern region of Israel in the period of the nation’s origins. Nor is it highlighted in the account of the eighth-century Judahite prophet Isaiah.

Biblical historian Robert Carroll has explained the discrepancy by pointing to a “northern tradition of the Exodus,” which was virtually unknown in the south. Between 920 and 720 B.C.E., the land of Israel was divided into two sepa-rate kingdoms, Judah in the south with its capital at Jerusalem, and Israel in the north with its capital at Samaria. With the fall of Samaria to the Assyrian rulers of Northern Iraq in 720 B.C.E., many northern Israelites found refuge in

Judah, bringing with them their native literature and traditions, among them the traditions of the Exodus, which depicted the Israelite people as foreigners invad-

ing from Egypt.Why, then, did

this tradition of foreignness arise in the north? Why does the Torah tell us that the priest-hood, the sacrifi-cial cult, the taber-nacle, the festivals, most of the cove-nant traditions to serve Yahweh exclusively, and

the laws governing most of life’s activi-ties originated outside the promised land? What explains this recounting in Leviticus 18:1–5: “Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: I am Yahweh your god. You shall not emulate the practices of the land of Egypt where you dwelled, nor shall you emulate the prac-tices of the land of Canaan where I am taking you. Not their statutes shall you follow but my norms you shall observe and you shall take care to follow my stat-utes. I am Yahweh, your god?”

The reason, I believe, was to enable the Israelites to assert their distinctiveness.

During this period, the Israelites were not unique in believing that a “fear of god” or what we now call “ethics” and “morals” was divinely commanded. The Ugaritians of ancient Syria, part of Canaanite culture, praised the legend-ary King Daniel for “getting justice for the widow, and adjudicating the case

The biblical tradition of slavery in Egypt

and the Israelite conquest of Canaan appear to be fictitious.

b y S . D av i d S p e r l i n g

Were the Jews Slaves in Egypt?

Edward Poynter’s Israel in Egypt depicts Israelite slaves at work.

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of the fatherless.”The Israelites were also not alone in

linking moral law and ritual law. About the same time that the prophet Amos condemned his people for trampling the heads of the poor into the dust (Amos 2:7) and equally for giving wine to the Nazirites (Amos 2:12), the author of the Babylonian work Shurpu cata-logued the Mesopotamian sins, which included cheating on weights and mea-sures, omitting the name of God from an incense offering, disarranging an altar, marking boundaries falsely, and eating the taboo food of a city.

Given so many commonalities, the Torah’s repeated denial of Israel’s Canaanite heritage and its assertion that Israel’s most important religious institu-tions had originated in the desert—the “no-man’s land” (Jer. 2:6) where Yahweh found the people (Deut 32:10)—strength-ens the claim of Israelite distinctiveness.

In other words, the biblical authors were attempting to foster Israelite reli-gious, social, and political solidarity. As long as the Israelites were conscious of their foreignness, they would be able to maintain their alleged religious and moral superiority. As foreigners with no roots in Canaan or Egypt, they would find it easier to heed the admonitions of the authors of the Torah to reject Canaanite and Egyptian practices.

♦ ♦ ♦

We must then ask: Why does the Bible make reference to the Israelites’ 430 years of servitude in Egypt (Exod 14:30)? The 430-year figure fits remarkably well with the chronology of the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty. The overthrow of the Hyksos by Ahmose (1570–1546) in about 1560 B.C.E. was followed by extensive Egyptian mili-tary campaigning in Syria-Palestine, and Ahmose’s successors continued his policy. After Thutmose III (1504–1450) won a decisive victory at the battle of Megiddo (in the north of present-day Israel), he established an administrative system in Canaan that survived until the end of the Late Bronze Age. Only with the invasions of the sea peoples did the old order begin to break down.

I believe the 430-year figure reflects the duration of Egypt’s empire in Asia

from a Canaanite perspective. The group that became first-millennium Israel had indeed been subjugated by the pharaohs, but in their native land, not in Egypt.

We can glean some of the truth from a report (called El Amarna letter 365) written by Biridiya, ruler of the

large Canaanite city of Megiddo, to the king of Egypt. It reads in part: “May the king, my lord, be apprised concerning his servant and concern-ing his city. Now, I alone am cultivat-ing in Shunem and I alone am bring-

Torah is Not HistoryKnowing the Exodus is not a literal historical account does not ultimately change our connection to our faith.

b y D av i d W o l p e

There is no reliable

evidence that the Exodus ever occurred—and it almost certainly did not happen the way the Bible recounts it. Archaeologists have not found a single shred of evidence in the Sinai that accounts for the Exodus (given variously as between 1500 and 1200 B.C.E.), though they have discovered evidence of other peoples in the area who predated the Israelites. It is improbable (albeit not impossible) that 600,000 men crossed the desert 2,500 years ago without leaving a single shard of pottery or Hebrew carving. And had a large influx of Israelites suddenly arrived after hundreds of years in Egypt, their cups and dishes would look very different than those of native Canaanites.

But it does not matter. Knowing the Exodus is not a literal historical account does not ultimately change our connection to our faith.

We need to separate faith from historical claims. It is not an histori-cal claim that God created us and cares for us. But that a certain number of people walked across a particular desert at a particular time in the past, after being enslaved and liberated, is

an historical claim, and one cannot then cry “unfair” when historians evalu-ate it.

I believe the Torah is not a book we turn to for historical accuracy, but for larger truth. Each year at the seder, I see in my mind’s eye

the Israelites marching out of Egypt, the miracles at the sea, the pillar of fire leading them through the fearful night—and I feel enormous gratitude toward God.

Though we cannot know exactly how God has saved our people, we have been saved. Despite unimaginable opposition, the Jewish people have seen nation after nation buried under the debris of history while our nation lives.

Truth should not frighten one whose faith is firm. And faith ought not to rest on splitting seas. At the seder we declare: “In each generation, each individual should see himself as if he (or she) went forth from Egypt.” This message does not depend upon whether three million individuals went forth—or only three.

Rabbi David Wolpe is the rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, California. This article was adapted with permission from a piece that fi rst appeared on belief.net.

Crossing the Red Sea.


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Michael J. Cook is the HUC-JIR Bronstein Professor of Judeo-Christian Studies and author of Modern Jews Engage the New Testament: Enhancing Jewish Well-Being in a Christian Environment (Jewish Lights Publishing, 3rd printing 2012).

Ask virtually anyone: “Was Jesus’ Last Supper a Passover seder?” and

the response is likely to be “Of course!”Yet, Jesus could not have known

what a “seder” was, let alone have modeled his Last Supper after one. The elements of even the primitive seder originateddecades after he died.

♦ ♦ ♦

The Gospels date Jesus’ ministry to the period of Pontius Pilate, Roman prefect of Judea from 26 C.E. to early 37 C.E. Jesus’ year of death is unknown; scholars settle on between 30 and 33 C.E.

At that time, the core element of Passover observance had been Jerusa-lem’s sacrificial cult, from 621 B.C.E. (when the biblical mandate first appeared) up until 70 C.E. (the destruc-tion of the Second Temple). Jewish families brought paschal (Passover) lambs for sacrifice on the Temple altar as biblically prescribed: “Thou shalt sacrifice the Passover offering…in the place which the Lord shall…cause His name to dwell [Jerusalem’s Temple]” (Deuteronomy 16:2, 5–6); and the prac-tice of King Josiah: “In the eighteenth year of King Josiah [621 B.C.E.] was

this Passover kept…in Jerusalem” (Sec-ond Kings 23:21–23). For the ceremony, the kohanim (priests) conducted the sacrificial rite. Then families retrieved

and consumed their meat as the main part of their Passover meal, which also included unleavened bread and bitter herbs (recalling the Hebrews’ enslave-ment in Egypt).

Passover meals Jesus experienced in his lifetime would have had to be along these Temple-centered lines.

Then, in 70 C.E., approximately 40 years after Jesus’ death, Rome destroyed the Second Jerusalem Temple, thus end-ing the required central component of Passover observance, as sacrifice of pas-chal lambs by the Temple priests was no longer possible.

Instead, the early rabbis eventually introduced an inchoate, rudimentary practice that over the ensuing decades evolved into a new way of observing Passover. This would become known as a “seder,” Hebrew for “order,” because the ceremony followed a set sequence of liturgical recitations and ritual foods narrating the Passover saga, ultimately to

be governed by an instructional guide called the haggadah. In our oldest refer-ence, the early third century rabbinic compendium, the Mishnah, we read that

Gamaliel II, the great-est rabbi of the post-destruction era (likely during the late 80s C.E.), customarily said: “Whoever does not mention [expatiate upon] these three things on Passover does not discharge one’s duty...: the Passover offering [lamb], unleav-ened bread, and bitter herbs” (Pesahim 10:5).

Thus the core Temple-centered obser-vance mutated from sacrificing lambs into drawing upon Passover motifs to retell the Hebrews’ escape from Egypt.

Centuries of further embellishment and refinement produced the full-fledged, mature seders we know today—the kind that many modern churches adopt and adapt in “reenacting” the Last Supper even though no such seder could have been practiced during Jesus’ day.

How the Confusion Began

If the Last Supper could not have been a seder, what led to modern-day associations of the two?

Early Christian theology contended that the primary purpose of the Jewish Bible (as yet Christians’ only scripture)was to signal Jesus’ coming. The Pass-over saga thereby became a major filter for heralding Jesus’ uniqueness. In the 50s C.E., Paul of Tarsus wrote of the “sacrifice” of Christ, “our paschal lamb,”

Jesus could not have known what a seder was,

let alone have modeled his Last Supper after one.

b y M i c h a e l J . C o o k

Was Jesus’ Last Supper a Passover Seder?

The Last Supper by Philippe de Champaigne, 1654.

Focus_sp13_LastSupper_mm8_Final.indd 58 1/18/13 11:08 AM


urging Christians to avoid the “leaven of malice and evil” in favor of “the unleav-ened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor-inthians 5:6ff.). In 71 C.E., in the wake of the Temple’s fall, Mark—followed by Matthew ca. 85 and Luke ca. 95—rei-magined Jesus’ Thursday night Last Sup-per (ca. 30 C.E.) as having been a Pass-over meal, most likely to correlate Passover, the festival of physical and political freedom for the Jews, with Jesus’ death, which Christians claimed brought spiritual freedom, indeed salva-tion, for humanity. John, meanwhile, pre-ferring to interpret Jesus himself as the paschal lamb, set that Passover meal on Friday night, 24 hours after Jesus’ Last Supper, so as to coincide Jesus’ death with that of the Passover lambs sacrificed shortly before that Friday evening’s Pass-over meal. Thus, the various Gospel writers embellished Last Supper narra-tions with their own preferred Passover motifs in service to Christian theology.

In time, Passover-Easter became themost dangerous season for Jews in Christian Europe. Medieval mythology came to cast Jews as kidnapping and killing Christian children for their blood (supposedly needed to bake Passover matzah), an accusation resulting in tor-ture, even death, for countless Jews charged with the (seasonal) reenactment of their ancestors’ alleged murder of Jesus. Some Jews were even accused of deriving and adapting their seder from the Lord’s Supper!

No wonder that, in recent times, Jews welcomed an astonishing pivot when Christians began to deem seders splen-did vehicles for experiencing a taste of what Jesus’ Jewish life had been genu-inely all about. Responding in kind, Jews were now thrilled to invite Chris-tians to local synagogues or Jewish homes to experience seders themselves.

Once the seder became imported into churches, however, the pendulum swung disturbingly too far. Passover was now transformed into an overtly Christian celebration—wherein Jewish haggadotwere photocopied and repackaged with insertions of a Christological nature bla-tantly contrary to original rabbinic intent. Such fanciful notions included the death of the firstborn foreshadowing the death of Jesus (God’s firstborn); the lamb’s

blood on wooden doorposts of Israelite homes in Egypt anticipating Jesus’ blood on the wooden cross; the passing through the Red Sea heralding the sac-rament of baptism—the Red Sea so named because of the saving blood of Jesus; the three pieces of matzah (cen-tered on the table) representing the Trin-ity; the breaking of the middle matzah recalling the breaking of the body of Jesus (second person of the Trinity); the stripes on the matzah reminiscent of the lash marks from Jesus’ whippings; and the matzah’s tiny perforations recalling the stigmata piercing Jesus’ hands, feet, and side.

Nowadays, these false notions contin-ue to be promulgated and accepted in certain Christian circles, primarily among conservative Evangelicals, who welcome seder demonstrations by “Jews-for-Jesus” and “Messianic Jews.” Fortu-

nately, certain major Christian denomi-nations—especially Roman Catholicism and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America—issued formal directives, even outright prohibitions, to their constituents against treading on Jewish sensitivities by staging misleading Passover celebrations.

♦ ♦ ♦

In short, Jesus never practiced the kind of Passover meal that many churches stage today to “reenact” the Last Supper. Nor could this meal (ca. 30 C.E.) have been a seder, because in Jesus’ time the festival was still observed as a Jerusalem Temple rite, without the set sequence of seder elements that became rudimentally defined in the decades after the Temple’s fall some 40 years later—not to mention the seder’s far more detailed embellish-ments in the centuries to come.

Two Remaining Questions

Most scholars routinely ignore two vital, remaining questions.

First, did the head rabbi, Gamaliel II, formulate his Passover directive (likely during the late 80s C.E.) not onlyto compensate for the loss of the Tem-ple but, secondarily, to delegiti-mize Mark’s casting of the Last Supper as a Passover meal? Notably, the por-trayal of the Last Supper in Mark (also Matthew, ca. 85) fails to make ref-erence to what Gamaliel now stipulated as mandatory to explain—the “Passover offering [lamb],” “unleavened bread,” and “bit-ter herbs.” Note, too, that Mark and Matthew do not link the meal with the Exodus from Egypt; and not only do they use the Greek word for regular leavened bread (artos) —rather than that for matzah (azyma)—but Paul, writing far earlier in the 50s, likewise terms the Last Supper “the night when [the Lord Jesus]…took [leavened] bread” (1 Corinthians 11:23).

As the main rabbi in his day, Gama-liel was chief architect of many new forms of Jewish observance, and rab-binic literature is likely reliable in cast-

ing him as marginalizing any groups he thought inimical to Judaism’s consoli-dation and perpetuation. If Gamaliel knew what these Last Supper depictions by Christians did not contain, might he

have framed his dictum specifically to invalidate them? Was his

demand that the mean-

ings of Passover symbols be cor-rectly explicated intended, in part, also to undermine Christian misappropria-tion of Passover altogether? If so, what irony: The modern church seder would then be the reenactment of a rite origi-nally formulated, in at least some mea-sure, as an anti-Christian move.

Second, what if Jesus’ Last Supper could not even have been a pre-70 C.E. type of Passover meal, because Jesus was arrested before Passover arrived?

For a fuller analysis of this second possibility, see the Web Exclusive, “A Paragraph That Changed History” on reformjudaismmag.org.

Gamaliel II stipulated as mandatory to explain the “Passover offering [lamb],”

“unleavened bread,” and “bitter herbs.”

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Was Reform Judaism the Price of Political Acceptance?

In explaining the reason for the emergence of Reform Judaism in

19th-century Germany, some scholars have argued, falsely, that abandoning traditional Judaism was the price Jews reluctantly paid for their political and social acceptance.

While it is true that nearly all German Jews sought polit-ical equality (except for a few ultra-Orthodox who feared that civic participation would induce religious neglect), reli-gious reform was not the way for Jews to gain full rights in German society. On the con-trary, German opponents of Jewish emancipation believed that Jews who differed least in their appearance and reli-gious practice were the great-est insidious threat to a state based on Christian principles. If a Ger-man Jew wanted to attain a position in government service or in the higher ranks of the military, the only promis-ing path was baptism. The vast majority of German Jews chose Judaism over a prestigious career. Whether they expressed their faith in traditional or

modern forms, they were making a statement of opposition: “We reject the pressure to convert; we will stick with our beliefs.”

Statements made by leading Ger-man Reformers demonstrate the depth of this feeling. Gabriel Riesser, whose periodical, Der Jude (The Jew), was dedicated to Jewish emancipation in Germany, and who also served as a member of the governing body of the (Reform) Hamburg temple, consistently opposed the notion that only those Jews who had abandoned “religious preju-dices” should be entitled to political equality. Another communally active liberal Jew, Carl Weil, wrote similarly in Der Jude in 1831 that religious reform must be made from within Juda-ism, and not for any ulterior motives.

“Reform must flow out of the hearts of its adherents,” he insisted, “if religious salvation is not to be huckstered away for worldly justice.”

Reform rabbis were even more vehement in their refus-al to pay a religious price for political emancipation. Samu-el Holdheim, rabbi of the Reform Congregation of Ber-lin, for example, firmly believed in the state’s right to take over functions that had previously been governed by Jewish law, such as divorce—not because of religious sub-mission, but because he believed in the separation of church and state. But in mat-ters of conscience, when the state demanded relinquishing any aspect of Judaism, including Orthodox beliefs

and practices, as a condition for equal-ity, he became as resistant to civil interference as any Orthodox Jew. Jew-ish emancipation could be gained, he argued, only when German states were established upon a “solid foundation of justice,” and not by religious conces-sions. In his view, Judaism had to pos-sess its own integrity if it were to fulfill its mission of spreading the message of Judaism—monotheism and univer-sal morality—among the nations. “Those commandments on account of which Jews were ready to become mar-tyrs have preserved Judaism in their midst,” he wrote. “When [despite anti-

The vast majority of German Jews chose Judaism over a prestigious career,

rejecting the pressure to convert.

b y M i c h a e l A . M e y e r

Rabbi Abraham Geiger (l.) and Gabriel Riesser, two leading Jewish reformers in 19th century Germany

Michael A. Meyer is Adolph S. Ochs ProfesorEmeritus of Jewish History on the Cincinnati campus of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Among his published writings is Response to Modernity: A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism (1988).

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semitic opposition] we pursue our reli-gious strivings with fervor and sacri-fice, we give testimony before God and the world that it is not earthly but divine considerations that drive us to our goal.”

Rabbi Abraham Geiger, the best known of the Jewish religious reform-ers in Germany and the ideological founder of Reform Judaism, likewise argued that the opposition to political equality which Jews faced was not a challenge to be overcome by changing their faith, but rather a crucial test of German political liberalism. Would Christian Germany be able to develop into a pluralistic society in which Jews could feel that they too had an equal share? German conservatives, who regarded Judaism as incompatible with Germanism, had rejected that vision repeatedly in German parliaments, while liberals had proven to be false to their own principles of equality on one issue: the German Jews. Like Holdheim and other Reform rabbis, Geiger was convinced that Jewish emancipation would come not when Judaism itself had changed, but when a victorious political liberalism would rise to a gen-uine acceptance of its own ideology.

Today, Jews enjoy political equality almost everywhere in the world, yet the canard that Reform Judaism is less than a genuine faith persists. And nowadays our detractors no longer accuse Reform Judaism of relinquishing religious faith for political gain, but of abandoning religious practice for the ease of social intercourse and a more secular lifestyle. While these factors may play some role in the choice of Reform over Orthodoxy, to claim that for Reform Jews religion matters less than the material goods of life is to engage in the reductionism that opponents of Reform Judaism have propagated since our Movement’s ori-gins in 19th-century Germany. One need but enter a Reform synagogue and there find a genuinely religious community devoted to its particular form of Judaism to refute the myth that today’s religious reform is a price reluctantly paid.

Reform Judaism, then and now, is a faith freely chosen for its own sake; it is an end in itself.

practical matters regarding the daily lives of the Jewish people—economic ones included.

In 10th- through 13th-century Europe, the revival of trade and growth of an urban, commercial economy paralleled the vast urbanization and trade growth within the Muslim caliphates, and increased the demand for literate and skilled people. Educated and skilled Jewish craftsmen, shopkeepers, traders, scholars, teachers, physicians, and money lenders voluntarily migrated to Europe (from the Byzantine Empire or North Africa) in search of business opportunities, thereby reaping personal returns on their investment in education. By the mid-12th century, the Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela discovered Jewish inhabitants almost everywhere he went, from Spain to Mesopotamia.

Then in 1219, the Mongols invaded northern Persia and Armenia. Their sub-sequent conquest of Persia and Mesopo-tamia over the next three decades deci-mated urban centers and destroyed trade routes. The final blow to the Abbasid Empire came in 1258, when the Mon-gols demolished Baghdad. The econo-mies of Mesopotamia and Persia col-lapsed and the population returned to subsistence farming. In the aftermath of the Mongol Conquest, the Jews in Meso-potamia, Persia, Syria, and Egypt found themselves no longer dwelling in the urban, commercially oriented econo-mies of the Muslim caliphates, in which their literacy and skills had been highly valued. Instead, like their ancestors, they were living in the agrarian economies of the first half of the first millennium, having to obey the many norms of Juda-ism, including the costly one requiring fathers to educate their sons. Similarly to what had happened centuries earlier, a proportion of Jews in the Middle East and North Africa converted out of Juda-ism (this time to Islam), which partly explains the Jewish population decline and the smaller size of the Jewish com-munities in these regions in the two-and-a-half centuries after the Mongol inva-sions. Those who remained Jews continued to be engaged in crafts, trade,

moneylending, and medicine.While Jews in the Middle East and

North Africa contended with the conse-quences of the Conquest, European Jews experienced episodes of persecutions, forced conversions, and then expulsions, which widely dispersed the Jewish peo-ple. Mass expulsions occurred from England (1290), France (1306, 1321–22, 1394), Spain (1492), Sicily (1492–93), and Portugal (1496–97).

Jews then brought their literacy and skills to their new locations. Jews for-merly living in England, France, Germa-ny, and northern and central Italy had become specialized in moneylending (unlike their co-religionists in the Iberi-an Peninsula, Sicily, and southern Italy, whose wide array of occupations includ-ed crafts, trade, money lending, and the medical profession). Contrary to com-monly held views, the Jews’ specialty in moneylending was not the outcome of usury bans imposed on Christians by the Church, or the exclusion of Jews from membership in crafts and merchant guilds. European Jews had become prominent in the moneylending business at least one or two centuries before both the Church began enforcing usury bans on Christians and the crafts and mer-chant guilds rose to power. Rather, the Jews specialized in this most skilled and profitable occupation at the time because they possessed the key assets to be suc-cessful players in credit markets: capital (accumulated through their earlier engagement in crafts and trade), literacy and education (the spillover effect of their unique religion), contract-enforce-ment institutions (Talmud, rabbinical courts, and Responsa), and networking abilities (giving them a comparative advantage in moneylending and later in banking and finance).

The rabbis and scholars who trans-formed Judaism into a literate religion certainly could not have foreseen the profound impact of their decision to make every Jewish man capable of read-ing and studying the Torah. However, an apparently odd choice of religious norm in the first millennium—the enforce-ment of literacy in a mostly illiterate, agrarian world—turned out to be the lever of the Jewish economic success and intellectual prominence to come.

Were the Jews Moneylenderscontinued from page 55

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right is called “Taglit,” which means “discovery.” Ten days seem sufficient to allow participants to discover and redis-cover their Jewish identities. They do not necessarily build a Jewish identity in 10 days, but they return home feeling a part of the Jewish people and being a mem-ber of a new social network of young Jews throughout the Diaspora and Israel.

Elie Wiesel once said, “Life is not made of years, but of moments.” My takeaway from 15 years of studying American Jews is that Jewishness is built from intense moments of engagement with others. Jewish education can take place with one’s family, at summer camp, or in Israel. To be educated Jewishly is to be immersed in a community where knowledge and feeling are married and where values are not simply espoused, but are lived.

If a college-aged Jew didn’t go to a camp, is it too late to have a life-altering Jewish experience?Although I would like to see summer camp become a universal experience, it is never too late. One of the Jewish commu-nity’s most successful educational initia-tives is Taglit-Birthright Israel, a 10-day experience in Israel for Jews 18-26. Many participants have not been well-educated Jewishly; they come to Israel wearing their Jewishness as an external identity, like a “shell.” The program fills the shell with some content, but its key function is to raise the salience of Jewish identity by igniting a “Jewish spark” within each participant’s soul. These Jews learn about their history while living Jewishly in an intensive experience that, like camping, engages heart, mind, and body.

Long-term studies demonstrate that the program serves as an accelerant that changes the trajectories of participants’ Jewish engagement. My colleagues and I at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University have been following thousands of young adults who applied to Birthright Israel between 2001 and 2006—some of whom partici-pated in the program and others who were similar but did not take part. Inter-viewing these individuals in 2012, we found that participants are nearly 50% more likely than nonparticipants to be married to a Jew, and over 40% more likely to report feeling “very much” con-nected to Israel. The vast majority of married participants had a Jewish partner and a Jewish wedding. Participants, par-ticularly those with children, were also much more likely than non-participants to be members of a congregation.

Still, it is hard to believe that a 10-day exposure to Israel can have such a powerful impact on Jewish identity.It is, perhaps, counterintuitive, but it shouldn’t be surprising. We have long known about the power of intensive, 24/7 experiences and have accumulated sub-stantial data about the impact of Israel experience programs, even for young Jews with little prior education and com-munal involvement. In Hebrew, Birth-

URJ CAMPING & BIRTHRIGHT ISRAEL OPPORTUNITIES

The URJ’s 13 summer camps throughout North America offer young people experiences infused with the spirit of Jewish living and learning. urjcamps.org

URJ Kesher is an official Taglit-Birthright Israel trip organizer that provides free 10-day trips to Israel for Jewish young adults aged 18–26 who have never been to Israel on a peer program. gokesher.org

These experiences are part of the Campaign for Youth Engage-ment’s strategy to engage the majority of Reform Jewish youth by 2020. urj.org/cye

URJ KESHER BIRTHRIGHT ISRAEL PARTICIPANT

RACHEL BAKER, GOLAN HEIGHTS, 2012.

Youth Engagement: Impactcontinued from page 49

I am aware that many people will be unconvinced by my likening persons with dementia to angels. While they may con-cede that these individuals are not “vege-tables,” some readers may consider them more “in between.” Even if this is so, all of us would do well to remember Martin Buber’s observation: It is the spaces “in between” where one encounters holiness.

Our perspective on persons with dementia ultimately depends on how we choose to see them. We can choose to hear the grunts, shrieks, and bleating as cacophonies of suffering and abandon-ment in seemingly “God-forsaken places.” Or we can choose to understand these human beings as unwitting messengers of God, their sounds the pure lyrics of this testimony. For if the whole world truly is full of God’s glory, then God does not forsake places where even helplessness and death seem to hold sway.

In Judaism, we experience the sacred not only with awe and reverence, but also with fear. Significantly, the Hebrew word yirah denotes both meanings—“fear” and “reverence”—simultaneously. As author and philosopher Sam Keen has observed, “In the life of the spirit, paradox is the rule…the opposites coincide, the diseased parts form a graceful whole….In consid-ering the whole and holiness of life, we must at once hold before our eyes visions of horror and wonder, cruelty and kind-ness….Both/and, not either/or” (Fire In the Belly: On Being a Man).

I pray that when we are in the pres-ence of people with advanced demen-tia, we will come to open ourselves, on a deeper level, to the possibility of having angels in our midst. And may we come to understand and accept the natural, abid-ing tension of “fear” and “reverence” in these scary but sacred moments.

Then, may we affirm anew that, how-ever broken our world may be, “the whole world is full of God’s glory.” For if we merit the ability to glue the broken frag-ments back together, we may ultimately redeem them.

Divinity of Dementiacontinued from page 23

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m a r k e t p l a c e : s e r v i c e s

ing mas-people [involuntary laborers]. But see! The city rulers who are with me do not do as I. They are not culti-vating in Shunem, and they are not bringing mas-people.”

In other words, the pharaoh required Biridiya to round up the inhabitants of Canaan to cultivate his fields in Shunem. If these people were cultivating royal land, they had good reasons for resent-ment, because they could not work their own fields, which would have required cultivation at the same time.

This was not the only highly unpop-ular institution of forced labor that ancient near eastern rulers demanded of the local populace. The royal governor Kibri-Dagan wrote in Syria in the 18th-century B.C.E.: “My lord ordered me to assemble male and female minors into the fortress….When I sent to the towns of the Jaminites, the sheik of Dumeti answered… ‘Let the enemy [that is, “you the governor, or the king himself”] come here and pull us out of our towns!’

At harvest time in the towns of the Jaminites, there is no one to help me.”

Thus, when Exodus 1:11 says, “So they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor,” the passage is not describing the subjugation of Israel-ites in Egypt, but subjugation of the larger populace—Israelites included—to serve the needs of outside rulers.

Why, then, was the slave tradition introduced? I believe it served an impor-tant theological purpose: If divine action could free the Israelites from slavery, then God was entitled to exclusive worshipby them. As is written in Exodus 20:2: “I the Eternal am your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from that slave barracks. You shall have no other gods besides me” (my translation).

In short, the biblical writers invented the idea that the Israelites lived in Egypt in order to impel them to main-tain their distinctiveness in Canaan. And the story of servitude in Egypt is an allegory of servitude to Egypt. Our ancestors, among others, did perform forced labor for Egyptian taskmasters, but they were never slaves in Egypt.

Were the Jews Slaves in Egypt?continued from page 57

“father,” “just,” “all powerful,” etc.), they nonetheless model divine behavior, thinking of God in terms of acts of loving-kindness and in the models of human action that help us to take care of our-selves and one another.

The Larger Picture“The God Survey” seems to suggest that contemporary Jews are still heavily invested in Jewish notions of God and God’s work. We see this link not only in their beliefs but also in their wondering, questioning, and doubting.

Fostering the complexity of God-talk is Jewish; the messiness of the Jewish relationship with God dates back thousands of years. And, similar-ly to my cousin’s drawing, these results indicate that contemporary Jews think of God as there—not as an image, but as an impression—different impressions that depend on our age, genders, and times of life. As the rabbis say: God is everywhere.

Reform Jews Picture Godcontinued from page 53

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NEWS&VIEWS


OF REFORM JEWS

PHOTOS: 1 Susan Levy 2 Phil Hoch 3 Isaac Nuell 4 Larry Broder 5 Laurie Osher 6 Mike Kung 7 Rabbi David Fine For more about these leaders read on….

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From time to time I am asked, “Why do we need a Union for Reform Judaism or a Reform Movement? Why not just have each congregation ‘go it alone’?” I usually answer these questions by quoting statistics, so when I decided to write this column about Hurricane Sandy, my inclination was to point out that the URJ’s Hurricane Relief Fund has collected and is distributing more than $750,000 to aid congregations and members who have been severely impacted by the storm.

But as I thought further, I realized that the reaction of the individual members and institutions to Hurricane Sandy—not statistics—is why it is critical to have a URJ and a Movement in which congregations and Reform Jews are bound together. For example, within a day after the hurricane struck, I received an email from Dan Sil-verman, a member of Congregation Gates of Prayer—Sha’arai Tefillah in Metarie, Louisiana. His congregation had suffered enormous damage in Hurricane Katrina and had received substantial support from the URJ and Reform congregations throughout North America. Dan offered to speak with congregational leaders who now faced a similar situation in the Northeast, to give them the benefit of hearing from someone whose congregation had coped with and survived such devastation. I put Dan in touch with Rabbi Daniel Freelander at the URJ, who arranged for Dan to speak with the leaders of West End Temple in Neponsit, New York, whose building and records were completely destroyed by Sandy. Within two days after the storm, Dan and the West End Temple leaders had begun a series of conversations in which Dan told the congregation what he and others had learned from their Katrina experi-ence. What resonated with me more than anything else was Dan’s message to West End Temple: Congregations and a Movement are not about buildings. They are about people and relationships. They are about helping each other. They are about coming together to pray and support each other. Dan’s advice was to focus on main-taining congregational relationships—rather than on what was lost.

In large part because of Dan’s personal involvement and the URJ’s disbursement of more than $50,000 to help the Queens congregation rebuild, members of the West End Temple know that they are not alone; that other members of their Movement are there for them; and that, just as there was a future for Gates of Prayer—Sha’arai Tefillah in Metarie after Katrina, so too will there be a future for the West End Temple after Sandy.

Whether it is Dan’s reaching out to West End Temple, or Temple Oheb Shalom in Baltimore, Maryland sending six trucks filled with food and other supplies to the affected areas, or Moses Montefiore Congregation in Bloomington, Illinois distributing food to Temple Am Echad in Lynbrook, New York, or countless other examples too numerous to mention within the space limits of this column, this is why we Reform Jews have a URJ and a Movement.

I am proud to be part of it—and hope you are as well.

Stephen M. Sacks, ChairmanUnion for Reform Judaism Board of Trustees

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

STEPHEN M. SACKS

Vessel of Discontent“A papier-maché cup is cen-tral to our family’s Shabbat.

To help set difficult things aside on Shabbat, every Fri-day night our family passes around a vessel of discon-tent—into which each partic-ipant is asked to ‘drop’ whatever is in the way of welcoming Shabbat. Ours is a papier-maché cup created for the purpose, but any-thing would do.

Some participants give the cup a perfunctory grasp. Some meditate a few moments. Occasionally some-one visibly struggles to shed a rough week or a personal issue. A few shrug or sneer. On more than one Friday night—especially at larger, multi-gen-erational tables—fidgeting or thoughtlessness during the cup’s first round has prompt-ed someone at the table to request a second pass. On the whole, the cup provides a way for us, individually and collec-tively, to recognize the many weights we carry and consid-er the value of setting them aside, if only for a day.

As my husband Cary says, ‘Vacations are once a year, if you’re lucky. But Shabbat is never far off.’”

—Virginia Avniel Spatz and her husband

Cary O’Brien on rj.org

CHAIRMAN’S PERSPECTIVE Sandy Shows Our True ColorsQUOTABLE The Blogs

65 ONLYNews&Views_sp13_REV.indd 65 1/23/13 5:32 AM

NEWS&VIEWSOF REFORM JEWS

ACTION


Smart Strategies for Facility Savings

morning, and some people attend both.Kol Yisrael is now engaged in a $3.5

million dollar capital campaign to reno-vate, expand, and “green” its facility, which will include adding a social hall

and a multi-purpose room for JCC activi-ties that can also be con-verted into a prayer space. Eventually, Levy says, “We anticipate that our facility will house both the Jewish Federation and Jewish Family

Services offices, and provide meeting space for organizations such as the Jew-ish War Veterans and Hadassah.”

Levy also takes pride in “the intan-gible benefits from bringing the com-munity together under one roof. We’re trying to create one Jewish community. Already, Kol Yisrael has hosted com-munity-wide celebrations for Chanu-kah, Purim, and Sukkot. There is an excitement around the facility—it is full of people and events, full of life.”

♦ ♦ ♦

In March 2012, 900-household Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel in South Orange, New Jersey (tsti.org) became the first Reform synagogue in the U.S. to achieve certification from Green-Faith, a national organization connect-ing religious communities to environ-mental leadership. Inspired by a URJ meeting about GreenFaith partner-ships, Phil and Sue Hoch of TSTI’s “Green Team” excitedly brought the program to Rabbi Dan Cohen, who embraced the idea, and then to TSTI’s Board, to commit to transforming the congregation into an environmentally conscious place to learn and worship.

The congregation had previously

In Newburgh, New York, Temple Beth Jacob (tbjnewburgh.org) was struggling to pay to repair a leaky roof and faulty heating system. Thinking practically and communally, TBJ leaders began talking with neighboring Jewish institu-tions. Soon, TBJ and the Newburgh Jew-ish Community Center decided to sell their buildings and move into the building owned by Congrega-tion Agudas Israel, which was now too large for the Conservative congregation’s declining membership. In January 2012, all three institutions formed the corporation “Kol Yisrael,” meaning both “voice of the Jewish people,” and “all of Israel.” The three will share one Jewish campus and pay rent to Kol Yisrael.”

“Before we created Kol Yisrael, each of the three entities paid for build-ing maintenance, utilities, phone ser-vice, and insurance; each employed its own support staff; and each spent funds on landscaping and snow-plow-ing,” says Kol Yisrael President Alan Seidman. “Now we will share our staff and split most of those costs three ways. Temple Beth Jacob has already realized about 30% savings on its over-all cost of operations, and we antici-pate increased savings as we continue to streamline operations.”

TBJ Immediate Past President Susan Levy (photo #1; see previous page) explains that “This is not a merger: each synagogue has its own rabbi, and its own services. Yet, we list all events and activities on a single calendar.” As there is only one large sanctuary, TBJ holds its Shabbat service on Friday nights, Agu-das Israel holds its service on Saturday

SANCTUARY, TEMPLE DE HIRSCH SINAI, SEATTLE.

Palestinian UN Move Endangers Peace“[We] resolve to condemn the Palestinian Authority for the unilateral decision to seek upgraded status at the United Nations as counterproductive to the cause of peace….”

—Joint URJ-CCAR statement issued in December 2012, after

the U.N. General Assembly voted 138–9 to recognize

Palestine as a “non-member observer state.” The two

organizations also called on Israel to halt plans for

expansion of settlements in the West Bank E1 area, stating

that it “makes progress toward peace far more challenging.”

Righting the NRA“The time has come for the National Rifle Association and its members to put our nation’s children and their ‘right to life and liberty’ ahead of the right they claim to own weapons that serve no purpose other than to maximize human casualties.”

—Central Conference of American Rabbis

statement, December 2012

Abracadabra Revealed“How many times have we heard the TV magicians and playing children use the famous incantation ‘ABRA-CADABRA’? But how many of us recognize its ancient Aramaic/Hebrew origins? The word contains both ‘Bara,’ meaning ‘to create,’ and ‘Dabar,’ meaning ‘to speak,’ literally translating as ‘I create through what I speak,’ or ‘May what I say come to be.’”

—Elliot Cohen, founder of a new Progressive Jewish medi-tation chavurah, Ohr Menorah,

in Manchester, England

B’rit Milah Alternatives“I am by no means advocat-ing the abolition of the ancient rite of circumcision. I continue to recommend b’rit milah, by a mohel or mohelet, on the eighth day….

QUOTABLE In Print

News&Views_sp13_f.indd 66 1/18/13 7:36 AM


Rabbi Cohen adds: “When the syna-gogue changes its practices, it has the potential to influence every member.”

TSTI is among four synagogues receiving sponsorship from the Union for Reform Judaism for its participation in the GreenFaith Certification Pro-gram. The pilot program began in 2010 with New Jersey synagogues and is now expanding to temples throughout the U.S. “GreenFaith certification results in increased building efficiency, but also encourages a broader conversation about the environment and good stew-ardship of the earth,” says Isaac Nuell (photo #3), manager of Congregational Social Action at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. “It’s the most achievable way to make the envi-ronment a priority.”

♦ ♦ ♦

Temple De Hirsch Sinai (tdhs-nw.

org), a 1,500-household congregation, has combined energy efficiency with innovative sharing arrangements. Its two separate campuses on both sides of Lake Washington—a 100,000-square-foot building that fills an entire block in Seattle and a 35,000-square-foot build-ing in Bellevue—give congregants the option to attend services or programs at either location. In addition to renting facilities to local Jewish organizations, civic groups, and members for events, De Hirsch Sinai further maximizes the buildings’ profitability by offering “shared use” leases. On weekdays the temple leases its Seattle building’s classrooms to a non-denominational independent middle school, and the third floor of its Bellevue facility to a Catholic elementary school, bringing in a combined rental income of nearly $600,000 per year.

“We have become adept in accom-modating the schools that share our space,” says Larry Broder (photo #4), De Hirsch Sinai’s executive director. “We know exactly how to transform from a Catholic elementary school to a Jewish religious school. Every Friday they take down the crosses and we put up

conducted an energy audit, but now, using reference materials on Green-Faith’s website, temple leaders began implementing a range of simple, low-cost measures that almost immediately reduced TSTI’s energy usage. “Replac-ing a 20-year-old refrigerator with an Energy Star appliance required an initial investment, but other steps, such as posting signs to conserve clean water—a scarce resource on the earth—were low-to-no cost, and just as effective,” says Phil Hoch (photo #2). TSTI lead-ers began adjusting programming times to concentrate energy usage, enabling the synagogue to “go dark” on Thurs-day evenings. In summer, when services are held in the smaller chapel, the build-ing housing TSTI’s large sanctuary is practically shut down, saving on air conditioning costs. In addition, the con-gregation installed true seven-day pro-grammable thermostats, which enable staffers to set back heat or air condition-ing in areas of TSTI’s three buildings whenever they’re not in use.

GreenFaith also inspired temple lead-ers to modernize TSTI’s lighting. “Rath-er than replace light fixtures, we decided to retrofit existing fixtures to accommo-date smaller fluorescent bulbs, reducing energy usage to a fraction of the cost,” Hoch says. “And, by adding motion sen-sors in bathrooms, lights remain off when not in use. Motion-activated water faucets and towel dispensers encourage reductions in water and paper use.”

So far, TSTI’s electrical usage has decreased by 14%. Combined with the congregation’s other energy-saving steps, temple leaders estimate savings of $15,000-$20,000 per year. And leaders are proud to have accomplished all of these changes solely by using a budget line earmarked for building maintenance.

“The impact on the congregation has been huge,” Hoch says, “but the effort doesn’t have to be. Thinking small may actually have a bigger result.” TSTI president Jay Rice says that “the [con-gregational] response has all been posi-tive—and believe me, when there’s a negative response, I hear about it. Every-one is glad we decided to do this. ” And continued on next page

from p. 66However, for some fami-

lies, a decision not to circum-cise will be made without our input—or in spite of it—as so many decisions are….[And] in a movement rooted in the value of ‘choice through knowledge,’ we need to find alternative rites for those families. The New Jewish Baby Book by Anita Diamant provides a weath of potential covenant rituals, among them being wrapped in a tallit, being held under a symbolic chuppah, touching a Torah scroll, and having one’s feet washed...which might also be used to provide a covenantal experience for a male child whose parents choose not to have him circumcised.”

—Rabbi Leah R. Berkowitz from The Reform Jewish

Quarterly, Fall 2012

QUOTABLE

for Muslims and Jews to respond jointly to major humanitarian crises, such as facilitating access to potable water.

How can temples best reach out to mosques?

First, don’t reach out to the other congregation with a one-off game plan: “Let’s do this one thing together and see what happens.” We encourage deemphasizing the event and instead formulating a thoughtful plan to build the relationships behind the programs. When participants truly come to care about the other—and not just the pro-gram—you know it’s working.

But bear in mind that this process doesn’t happen overnight, and it will have disagreements built in. Rabbinic school taught me a very important lesson: A healthy relationship is not devoid of conflict. What matters is that people commit to working through a problem, because their larger connec-tion is much more important.

Muslim-Jewish Relationscontinued from page 51




ACTION continued from page 67sanctuary foundation and 10% of the entry foundation; augment insulation of flat ceilings, air seal openings in the building envelope, exterior doors, and doors between heating zones; and pro-gram thermostats in each zone based upon anticipated usage. In addition, by replacing a burner in the existing boiler, the congregation was able to switch from expensive heating oil to low-cost natural gas, saving an additional 20% on heating costs. And, despite increased use of the synagogue as well as the addition of major appliances, new fans, and lighting, the temple’s electricity use has remained the same.

♦ ♦ ♦

In the winter of 2011 and the spring of 2012, Temple Beth-El in San Antonio (beth-elsa.org/index.aspx) had a water problem. In the midst of one of the harshest droughts in Texas history, the temple was paying for 90,000 gallons of water per month to keep its cemetery lawn from turning brown—without suc-cess. Facilities manager Mike Kung (photo #6) then decided to replace the St. Augustine grass, which grows best in wet climates, with drought-tolerant native plants and drought-resistant Ber-muda grass sourced from local farms. He also readjusted and began to regular-ly monitor the cemetery’s irrigation sys-tem to make sure the sprinkler heads were working and water was covering the correct areas. As a result, Beth-El has cut its water usage to 49,000 gallons/month, reducing its water bill by an average of $330 monthly. “Now,” Kung says, “we have a long-term, reliable sys-tem that, with a little timely attention, continues to save water and money.”

♦ ♦ ♦

Here are 10 expert tips to assist any congregation seeking a more efficient facility:

Take the time to thoroughly ana-

lyze your current building use. Rebec-ca Schenker, AIA, an architect who spe-cializes in the renovation of existing buildings, explains that “In conserving energy, there are four major areas to

Jewish stars. A little Velcro on the walls makes for a wonderful partnership.”

De Hirsch Sinai has also saved mon-ey by updating its lighting at both facili-ties. In Seattle, the temple spent $2,600 to replace incandescent and old fluores-cents with LED and new fluorescent bulbs; in Bellevue, local power compa-nies gave the congregation $3,000 worth of LED upgrades at no cost to reduce energy consumption. With the estimated combined energy savings of $6,000 per year ($3,000 per facility), the temple expects to enjoy a high return on its lighting investment for years to come.

♦ ♦ ♦

Leaders of Congregation Beth El (me002.urj.net), a 150-household tem-ple in Bangor, Maine, had thought they’d done enough to maximize their facility’s efficiency during the build-ing’s 2006 renovation. After all, they’d installed new double-paned windows, modernized the kitchen with Energy Star appliances, and covered the inside of the sanctuary’s cathedral ceiling with foam panels, resulting in a 30% drop in the consumption of heating fuel.

But then, Laurie Osher (photo #5) joined the congregation’s board of directors. A global change research scientist, she had just weatherized her own home, cutting the heating cost by half. She believed she could do the same for Beth El.

But when Osher first approached the temple board to ask for the needed funds, she met resistance. “We are a small congregation,” says Osher, “there was no building fund, and most mem-bers felt that after the recent renovation, they should not need to readdress building issues.” Yet, after an energy audit of the temple revealed that large amounts of outside air were coming in through gaps in walls and around doors and windows, the board agreed to her proposed Rosh Hashanah appeal to raise $25,000 to air-seal the facility. Soon, with a successful appeal, Beth El was able to insulate another 45% of the

URJ Launches Communities of Practice In January 2013 the Union for Reform Juda-ism launched four URJ Com-munities of Practice to enable congregations with shared concerns and inter-ests to work collaboratively, experiment, study, and advance current strategies while receiving peer support and guidance in these areas:

• Launching or signifi-cantly scaling-up 20s and 30s engagement efforts

• Involving families with young children in congrega-tions without early childhood centers/preschools

• Engaging young families in congregations that have early childhood centers

• Exploring new concepts of financial support grounded in a relational investment between the community and each member

The organizational world has seen the increasing use of “communities of practice” since the concept was coined by Jean Lave and Eti-enne Wenger in their 1991 book, Situated Learning, and expanded upon in Wenger’s 1998 book, Communities of Practice. Research demon-strates that this approach helps generate new ideas for products and services, cap-tures the community’s know-how, prevents “reinvention of the wheel,” and facilitates more rapid response to cus-tomer needs. The Union for Reform Judaism’s “commu-nities of practice” model—an adaptation of the concept—is a new way of working in partnership with member congregations to nurture growth and excellence.

New URJ communities of practice will follow. To learn more, contact Expanding our Reach co-directors Lisa Lieberman Barzilai, RJE ([email protected]) and Vicky Farhi ([email protected]).

NOTEWORTHY



heating/air conditioning loss without spending the large amounts of money it takes to replace windows and doors.”

Program your thermostats wisely.

“Seven-day programmable thermostats, at $50–$70 each, are a low cost item that can realize immediate, significant returns,” Kennealy says. “You can achieve substantial energy savings by turning down the temperature at night and when the building is not in use. Setting the thermostat down as low as 45º or as high as 85º will not endanger an organ or a Torah—the real concern is humidity.” Even if your facility is in a humid climate, Kennealy advises: “Don’t give up on setbacks. Figure out what works for your building and climate and use whatever setbacks you can, wher-ever you can—every degree counts.”

Concentrate on the sanctuary. “Look where you spend the most on energy consumption and you’ll likely find your best savings opportunities,” Schenker says. “In most synagogues, the largest, most impressive, and costly room to heat, cool, and light is the sanctuary. It should be in a separate heating zone, and when not in use, its temperature aggressively set back, with the doors closed and well-sealed.”

Maximize facility use. “Sharing building space or renting unused space for part of the week to outside groups can benefit the congregation monetarily, as well as increase its ties to the greater community,” says Rabbi David Fine (photo #7), the URJ’s rabbinic director of the Small Congregations Network and its resident expert on synagogue mergers and sharing arrangements. “Increasing facility efficiency in this way is a win-win proposition: it’s good politics, it’s good economics, and it’s good Judaism.”

Monitor water use. “When landscap-ing grounds or cemeteries, minimize water use by using plants that survive well in the native environment,” Schenker says. “Check timers and irrigation zones frequently for faulty irrigation. And utilize automatic sensors in sinks and low-flow toilets, both of which can result in savings.”

consider—the building envelope, HVAC, control systems, and lighting.”

Seize low-hanging fruit. “Start your efficiency project with low-cost steps that will yield the biggest return,” advis-es Stacey Kennealy of GreenFaith, an organization dedicated to inspiring peo-ple of diverse religions to engage in environmental leadership. “If you under-take a long, costly project first, congre-gants will quickly lose interest. Howev-er, if you take simple steps that result in immediate savings, you’ll gain support for longer, more costly efforts. Start a fund with the energy savings from your first project to pay for the next one. An incremental approach helps congregants understand that these projects are really paying for themselves, and will result in substantial savings long term.”

Upgrade your lighting. “By mov-ing from incandescent bulbs to compact fluorescents, and then, as finances per-mit, to LED fixtures, you’ll reduce your electric bills,” Schenker says. “LED fix-tures are not really light bulbs, but small computer circuits—a completely new technology that uses a small fraction of the wattage of incandescent bulbs, and lasts 20 to 25 years instead of the 3 to 5 years typical of incandescents. And LEDs will save congregations the hun-dreds or even thousands of dollars incurred every few years to erect scaf-folding or bring in lifts to replace hard-to-reach bulbs on domed sanctuaries. Replacing older T-12 fluorescents with smaller, more efficient T-5s is another inexpensive, cost-efficient interim step.”

Air-seal your building envelope,

and seal doors between heating or

cooling zones. “In most cases, actions which involve the lowest expense for the highest return involve air sealing the building envelope,” Osher says. “An energy audit will test the air flow and determine where heat and air are escap-ing. By applying insulation to the outside and foundation walls, blowing insulation into the attic above flat ceilings, install-ing gaskets and caulking to fill holes, and ensuring that doors between zones close automatically and form a tight seal, con-gregations can eliminate much of their

URJ To Open Science & Technology Camp In 2014 the Union for Reform Juda-ism will open its 14th camp—6 Points Science Academy—in Boston, to serve some 600 campers in grades 6–10 inter-ested in STEM (science, tech-nology, engineering, and mathematics). Campers will be immersed in hands-on sci-entific and technological exploration—learning from scientists, inventors, and technology entrepreneurs as they explore such topics as a scientific explanation for the 10 plagues and molecular gastronomy within Jewish cuisine. They’ll also be part of a vibrant Jewish community infused with Jewish values, ethics, and tradition.

For more information: urjcamps.org.

Teens Take Tikkun Olam Prize Two Reform young peo-ple—Joseph (Joe) Langerman of Congregation Beth Israel, San Diego and Celine Youse-fzadeh of Stephen S. Wise Temple, Los Angeles—are among 10 Jewish teens selected to receive the 2012 Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Award. Funded by the Helen Diller Family Foundation, the national award grants $36,000 to teens “whose vol-unteer services projects dem-onstrate a determined com-mitment to make the world a better place.”

Joe, who had been bullied at school, started “Voices Against Cruelty, Hatred and Intolerance” (VACHI). Devel-oping a survey that demon-strated the extent of bullying at the school, Joe used the results to promote increased solidarity among his class-mates, to integrate tolerance programming into the school curriculum, and to lobby the school board to adopt new policies, including creating a program to educate (not ignore or punish) first-time offenders. The campaign has

NOTEWORTHY from p.68





created an international following on Facebook, and Joe is now working to establish VACHI chapters in nearby high schools.

Celine’s brainchild, the student-run charity event “Fashion with Compassion,” has raised $20,000+ for dis-advantaged citizens of Israel, among them children in need of heart surgery. More than 100 students participate as planners, stylists, and models in the annual show, now sup-ported by high profile spon-sors. Celine is trying to expand the program to Jew-ish schools nationwide.

For more information: jewishfed.org/diller/teenawards.

Casey’s Gift of Life In 2011, when Indiana University (IU) student Casey Lenhart was

serving as a counselor at the URJ’s Goldman Union Camp Institute in Zionsville, Indiana, she heard anoth-er IU student tell the camp

staff how he had saved a per-son’s life by donating bone marrow. Captivated, Casey registered with the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation as a potential donor. One year lat-er, Gift of Life informed Casey that she was a match to give bone marrow to a 57-year-old woman with chronic leukemia, and the procedure ensued.

“Before the donation I was coasting through life,” Casey says, “just going to class, hanging out with friends, and getting through each day. Being able to save a life got me to rethink what life is real-ly about.” Now she plans to give other students the same opportunity by running a Gift of Life registration drive on the IU campus.

For more: [email protected].


CASEY LENHART

A Shiva Registry for Mourning Families

In 2009, right after learning that her beloved mother had died, Sharon Rosen, a member of Congregation B’nai Israel (CBI) in Boca Raton, Florida, felt the intense pain of loss. Knowing she needed to share information about the upcoming memorial service, she made calls to her family and close friends, and then turned to email as her most comfortable way to communicate. The phone, howev-er, kept ringing with well-intentioned callers asking about directions, prayer services, charitable donations, and food (“Is your family kosher?” “Is anyone sending dinner on Thursday?” “Which deli is nearby?” “Has anyone sent a fruit platter?”). The stress grew as an overabundance of food was delivered; some platters had to be tak-en back to delicatessens for overnight refrigeration and others donated to a local shelter. Exhausted and over-whelmed, Rosen thought, “There must be a better way!”

More than a year later, after much research, design, and programming, Rosen launched ShivaConnect.com, a comprehensive, complimentary website offering Jewish families assistance, coordination, and resourc-es throughout the bereavement period. A personal shiva registry page enables families to quickly share funeral and shiva information with relatives, friends, colleagues, and congregants (through email, texting, Facebook, and/or the search function on the homepage). Frequently asked ques-tions are anticipated and answered in advance, sparing the mourners the

stress of handling a myriad of phone calls.

On ShivaConnect.com, one can learn more information than is typically made available: not only funeral and shiva locations, times, and directions,

but also the shivafood others are sending each day, local delis that will deliver shiva plat-ters, and the fami-ly’s preferred charities for dona-tions (synagogues and Jewish chari-ties receive com-plimentary list-ings). Relatives and friends can also read eulogies

and send messages to mourners. Addi-tional site offerings include articles about Jewish bereavement customs, a checklist to prepare the shiva house, prayers, poems, healing songs, insights from rabbis, yizkor dates, and a yearly yarhzeit reminder email.

Rosen’s congregation is now utiliz-ing the online shiva registry system.

Rabbis Robert Silvers and Marci Bloch let mourning families know of the option, explaining that CBI will help enter their information on a pri-vate page (as the WRJ /Sisterhood representative, Rosen often does the posting). The synagogue then sends a lifecycle announcement to members with an explanation and link to the family page.

The congregation itself also used ShivaConnect.com when Linda Har-ris, CBI director of Early Childhood Education, suffered the loss of her beloved husband, Stan. More than 900 visitors learned about a special CBI Memorial Fund established in Stan’s memory and many sent condo-lence notes during the bereavement period. “ShivaConnect has helped our members do exactly what it is titled—

SHARON ROSEN

WHAT WORKS Ideas & Initiatives



Free Social Media Policy Workbook How can your congregation employ social media to great advantage? To help you think through how best to represent your-self online, Darim Online has created the Social Media Policy Workbook for Jewish Organizations as a free PDF download, thanks in part to the URJ. Topics include:

• Assigning responsibilities for social media roles;

• Determining which topics are appropriate, and which need to be authorized;

• Protecting, copyrighting, and attributing work;

• Navigating the often blurry boundaries between one’s personal and profes-sional lives on social media

To access: darimonline.org/smpw.

And, to learn from others who are working on their social media policy, join the Social Media Policy Face-book group: facebook.com/groups/socialmediapolicy.

Meet the Young Composer’s Award Winner The Guild of Temple Musicians awarded HUC-JIR rabbinic student

Michael Summa, 28, its 2013 Young Com-poser’s Award for his settings of “Psalms 95 and 96 for Kabbalat Shabbat.”

The pieces will premiere at the 2013 ACC/GTM Annual Convention in Minneapolis this summer, and Summa will receive a $2,500 cash prize. For the past 22 years, the Young Composer’s Award has encouraged emerging young Jewish composers 18–35 to write works for syn-agogue and concert, adding to the repertory of serious Jewish music.


MICHAEL SUMMA

‘connect,’” says Rabbi Bloch. “I remember one funeral where, weeks later, people were still reading the beautiful eulogies the family had posted and talking about the inspira-tion the person had been to our community.”

A member of Temple Beth El in Chappaqua, New York was out of the country, with limited phone access, when her mother passed away. With one call to ShivaConnect, the funeral and shiva information was posted, the temple Sisterhood added that they were sending a deli platter for 75 peo-ple after the service, and almost every-one else either selected a different day to send a platter or made a memorial donation to the synagogue or charities listed. “ShivaConnect took care of everything!” the mourner says. “Even

my rabbi couldn’t believe how amazing it was!”

All synagogues throughout the United States are welcomed to follow CBI’s example. ShivaConnect.com

will provide direct links to the syna-gogue donation page from its charity section. When a death occurs, it takes about five minutes for a volunteer, Sisterhood member, or administrative assistant to enter the mourner’s information onto the shiva registry (alternatively, the 800 number can be called). The congregation then sends the link to its members; mourners send it to relatives and friends.

“There is no time more difficult for a family than when they lose a loved one,” Rosen says. “We can’t ease their pain, but ShivaConnect is there to help.”

Consult with GreenFaith, the

URJ, and state IPLs. GreenFaith (greenfaith.org) provides worksheets and ideas for energy analyses of syna-gogue facilities. Its two-year certifica-tion program offers guidance, mentor-ing, and resources to help synagogues save energy costs and implement green initiatives, and the URJ offers sponsorships to member congrega-tions accepted into the program. To apply, please visit greenfaith.org/

programs/certification; to access resources created by the initial Green-ing Reform Judaism pilot congrega-tions, go to urj.org/green/programs/

greenfaith. Forty U.S. states now have Interfaith Power and Light (interfaithpowerandlight.org) affili-ates devoted to assisting faith commu-nities in reducing their energy use by furnishing information and speakers on facility efficiency and through clean energy advocacy. Government energy programs often offer tax deductions, and local power compa-nies may offer discounts or other incentives to “go green.” The URJ’s

Rabbi David Fine ([email protected]) and the Congregational Network team are available to consult on sharing arrangements and mergers.

Educate your congregation. “Members need to ‘buy in,’” says Rab-bi Fine, “so plan an initial program—show a film and/or have a rabbi or guest speaker address efficiency issues from a religious perspective. When members understand the importance of the goal, instead of resenting the extra few steps needed to make things work, they’ll be eager to participate.”

“People believe changes to the syna-gogue will make life unpleasant and are reluctant to spend on energy conserva-tion,” Osher says. “But when the work is done, it’s highly satisfying on many levels. Everyone is pleased to be saving money, feeling more comfortable, and helping the environment. No one ever says, ‘I wish we hadn’t done that.’”

—Julie Schwartz, a freelance writer, public speaker, New Orleans

tour guide, and president of the New Orleans Chapter of Hadassah

ACTION from page 69

Share your innovative volunteer initiative: [email protected]

Smart Strategies for Facility Savings



YES NOIn 1999, the Central Conference of

American Rabbis affirmed that the Reform Movement is “an inclusive community, opening doors to Jewish life to [all]…who strive to create a Jew-ish home.” Our Reform seminary, the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, should be the greatest exemplar of this ideal, yet it will not admit any applicant who is “engaged, married, or partnered/committed to a per-son not Jewish by birth or conversion.”

This policy is antithet-ical to our Movement’s essential focus on wel-coming and Outreach. The Union for Reform Judaism’s Outreach bro-chure opens with, “Intermarried? Reform Judaism wel-comes you” and explains: “The prophet Isaiah said: ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples’ (Isaiah 56:7). We know from the Torah that from the very earliest days, there have been individuals who lived with the Jewish community but who were not themselves Jew-ish.…You are welcome.”

Outreach is no longer about “turning the tide of inter-marriage,” as it was 35 years ago. Today it is about embracing both Jewish and non-Jewish members of Jewish families, affirming their positive contributions to our con-gregations and religious schools.

I am a child of one of these families, as are many of my classmates. My parents modeled how to build a Jewish fam-ily with non-Jewish members, and I have followed their example by building a home committed to the Jewish values of activism, spirituality, and prayer. But had I chosen to build this home with a non-Jewish partner, I would not have been allowed even to apply to be a rabbinical student at HUC-JIR.

I urge the Hebrew Union College to make good on the Reform Movement’s commitment to Outreach by changing its policy and opening its doors to all who strive to create a Jewish home and serve the Jewish people.

Daniel Kirzane is a rabbinical student at HUC-JIR in New York City. Last October he delivered a sermon at HUC-JIR entitled, “Open the Door: Our Reform Duty to Open HUC-JIR to Applicants and Students with Non-Jewish Partners.”

To what Jewish values should we hold our future clergy and educators account-able? Currently, applicants to HUC-JIR (the Reform Movement’s seminary) are not held to any standards of theological belief, ritual observance, or life choices, except for one: an agreement not to be “engaged, married, or partnered/commit-

ted to a person not Jewish by birth or conversion.” This policy is therefore crucial for its significant symbolic value—it is the one and only commitment to living a Jewish life expected by

HUC of future Reform rabbis, cantors, educators, and communal workers.

As professional Reform leaders “to be,” we have the freedom of

individual choice in our Jewish practice, but we also have a covenantal responsibility to God, Torah, and Israel that extends beyond the self. I do not think it is unreasonable to ask a future Jewish exemplar to choose a Jewish spouse or partner, for the sake of this covenant.

While it truly pains me to hear stories of those denied admission because of the current policy, I do not believe that the hardships they describe are sufficient to justify a change in HUC’s policy. Rather, I hope these anecdotes open the door to a Movement-wide conversation that positively articulates the Jewish values to which our leaders and congregations ought to strive. We need to have this difficult conversation before any policy change is considered.

The Babylonian Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 29b) tells of an instance when Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai convinced his col-leagues to blow the shofar on Shabbat (prohibited at the time). Afterward, the rabbis attempt to start a discussion as to whether this should be a regular occurrence, but Yochanan promptly quashes the conversation, stating: “The shofar has already been sounded…and we do not discuss after a precedent [has been set].” Do we truly wish to follow Yochanan’s example?

Let us not blow the shofar on this issue prematurely. Instead, let us join in conversation to articulate a common vision for a Jewish future that balances our personal choices with our covenantal obligations.

Brandon Bernstein, a rabbinical student at HUC-JIR in NY, is the Reform Rabbinic Fellow at Columbia/Barnard Hillel.

Brandon Bernstein

Future leaders need to be Jewish exemplars.

Daniel Kirzane

HUC-JIR policy is antithetical to Outreach.

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Reform Judaism Magazine Spring 2013

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Transcript of Reform Judaism Magazine Spring 2013