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Email this pageIssue # 342
Issue #342 – 1 January 2009 / 5 Tevet 5769
IN THIS ISSUE:
STATEMENT ON THE EVENTS IN GAZA
BRITISH CONGREGATION OPENS DOOR FOR ISRAELI SYNAGOGUE
FORMER DEFENSE MINISTER’S PERSONAL CONNECTIONS WITH IMPJ’S MECHINA
YOUNG EUROPEAN PROGRESSIVE JEWS MEET AND LEARN IN BERLIN
CONNECTIONS 2009 DRAWING DELEGATES FROM NEAR AND FAR
STATEMENT ON THE EVENTS IN GAZA
Progressive Jews around the world are watching events unfolding in Gaza and Israel with great concern. Click here to read the World Union for Progressive Judaism’s statement.
Earlier this week, the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism (IMPJ), working with the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC) and its humanitarian project, Keren B’kavod, contacted all consitutent communities to identify those that would be able to open their homes to host individuals and families, particularly those with special needs, who wish to evacuate from areas in southern Israel that have been targeted by rocket fire from Gaza.
Efforts are also currently underway to arrange for volunteers to head south to provide supplies and assistance to populations that have been under Hamas attack.
If you would like to help support these efforts of the IMPJ, please click here and indicate in the Purpose box that your donation is for the IMPJ in response to the Gaza crisis.
You can also join a discussion of the situation online at the blog of North America’s Union for Reform Judaism. Click here to visit that site.
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BRITISH CONGREGATION OPENS DOOR FOR ISRAELI SYNAGOGUE
Northwood & Pinner Liberal Synagogue in London has undertaken a fund-raising campaign to enable a Progressive congregation in Israel to complete the bureaucratic process necessary for moving into its new building. Congregation Sulam Ya’akov of Zichron Ya’akov needs about $4,500 in fees before local authorities will allow it to occupy the 1,500 square-foot pre-fabricated structure it received as part of a precedent-setting move by Israel’s Housing Ministry (see WUPJnews #330).
Unlike Orthodox synagogues, which are entirely funded by the state, the Progressive congregation in Zichron Ya’akov, halfway between Tel Aviv and Haifa, had to turn to its members to fund everything from infrastructure to furnishings. Said its president, Gideon Gerzon, “We already paid more than [$40,000] and we do not have a penny left!”
The donation was facilitated by Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor, the World Union’s vice president for philanthropy, and by personal ties between members of the two congregations. Northwood & Pinner launched the appeal to assist the Zichron Ya’akov community as part of a recent Human Rights Shabbat, commemorating 60 years since the U.N. General Assembly’s Declaration of Human Rights, by seeking £30 donations from 100 members, the equivalent of the sum needed.
“We wanted to counter the recent depictions of Judaism at Hebron with a Progressive Jewish community switching on the lights of its state-funded synagogue,” says Rabbi Aaron Goldstein, NPLS’s senior rabbi, who said it would represent “a true rededication to the Jewish principles that we believe are vital to Israel's future.” (Goldstein recently assumed the pulpit held by his father, Rabbi Dr. Andrew Goldstein, president of the World Union’s European Region.)
“We are very thankful to Rabbi Goldstein for taking the challenge and committing to help us move in,” says Gerzon, who adds that even once this takes place, “we still are short of funds [for] minimal amenities.”
Sulam Ya’akov is the home congregation of Professor Avraham Melamed, the current chairman of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism. Gerzon hopes that all fees and permits will be paid in time to allow the mezuzah to be affixed by the end of January.
A section of Sulam Ya’akov’s pre-fabricated building as it was delivered to the site several months ago.
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FORMER DEFENSE MINISTER’S PERSONAL CONNECTIONS WITH IMPJ’S MECHINA
Members of this year’s Mechina, the military preparatory course run for high school graduates by the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, recently hosted the country’s former defense minister, Moshe Arens, who has a grandchild in the program. He spoke with participants about Israel’s security challenges, his own political views and his contribution to the country’s military industry. Arens is an aeronautical engineer, and besides having been a professor at the Technion, he was a top executive with Israel Aerospace Industries both before and after serving in politics.
According to the director of the Mechina, Rabbi Aharon Fox, Arens was eager to learn about the program, its curriculum and activities, as well as its graduates, many of whom have gone on to top combat units and even become officers. (Fox says the class of 2006 has already produced three.) The Mechina prepares youths for the rigors of army life by focusing on leadership capabilities, as well as on Jewish education and social responsibility.
In Jaffa, the mixed Jewish-Arab section of southern Tel Aviv where they share several apartments, the Mechina participants are in the second year of operating a learning center at a small library. The center assists local youngsters with homework and helps them prepare for their matriculation exams. Close to 50 youths are currently using the service.
Another focus of the Mechina is love of the land. For the past three years, participants have been hiking portions of the Israel National Trail, which extends 950 kilometers from Dan in the north to the border with Egypt in the south near Eilat. This year, two teams of three to four Mechina members regularly hike a 30-kilometer section over two days, carrying all their equipment, including food, sleeping bags and clothing (as well as a Bible and poetry book of their choice), and using a trail guide, map and compass.
“It is uplifting to hear them during the day, [to] talk to them upon their return, and [to] realize how big the potential is for personal growth in two days of hiking in Eretz Israel,” says Fox.
Left: Members of this year’s IMPJ Mechina program hike the Israel National Trail and learn about the land. Right: former defense minister Moshe Arens.
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YOUNG EUROPEAN PROGRESSIVE JEWS MEET AND LEARN IN BERLIN
Some 60 Progressive young adults from over a dozen countries gathered in Berlin for a seminar in early November to celebrate Jewish learning, identity and community. The weekend coincided with the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the 1938 pogroms in Germany and Austria that signaled a new phase in the systematic extermination of Jewish life in Europe.
Titled “Lech Lecha – Jewish Journeys,” the seminar represented a collaboration by Jung und Jüdisch Germany, “Tent” of Great Britain and TaMaR Olami, and provided an opportunity for participants and educators to meet, learn and pray with Reform and Liberal Jews from all over Europe, as well as Israel and the U.S.
“This [was] an important step in bringing together young Progressive adults from Europe, learning from each other and strengthening each other,” says Lea Mühlstein, coordinator of TaMaR Europe. “The wonderful feedback we received shows that there is a deep need within Europe for these meetings, and we will certainly do what we can to ensure meetings of this kind for the future.”
Jewish professionals from Abraham Geiger College, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Leo Baeck College, the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, the World Union’s European Region, its Anita Saltz International Education Center, as well as TaMaR directors from Jerusalem – Maoz Haviv and Yuval Nemirosvki – joined together to provide high quality educational workshops. Discussion topics ranged from the state of both Israel and Judaism to the ethics of globalization, text studies and Jewish meditation. Participants enjoyed not only being involved in Jewish learning, but also having the chance to speak with rabbis and Jewish professionals at an informal level – something many of them lack in their home communities.
One of the many highlights of the seminar was the performance of a London comedy ensemble called “Conflict Relief,” whose members are Arab, Israeli, Muslim and Jew. After their brilliant program - “The Arab, the Jew and the Chicken” - the actors stayed on and answered questions from the audience.
After spending Sunday visiting the various Jewish sites of Berlin, the seminar concluded with a service at Berlin’s Jewish Museum commemorating the victims of Kristallnacht and all victims of the Holocaust.
The seminar was supported by the Hagshama Department of the World Zionist Organization, TaMaR Olami and Jung und Jüdisch, which contributed nearly 50 percent of its annual budget. Equal gratitude went out to the other sponsors – Berlin’s Abraham Geiger College, London’s Leo Baeck College, the General Rabbinic Assembly of Germany, the Union of Progressive Jews in Germany and Britain’s Liberal movement. Their financial support ensured that no participant was turned away due to an inability to pay.
Young adult Progressive Jewish leaders at the Kristallnacht commemoration during their international meeting in Berlin.
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CONNECTIONS 2009 DRAWING DELEGATES FROM NEAR AND FAR
Nothing – not even the global economic crisis – can keep the World Union’s dedicated leaders and constituents away from the organization’s 34th biennial convention in Israel next March.
Registration for CONNECTIONS 2009 is actually outpacing the December 2006 rates for the last convention, and delegates have already signed up from all corners of the earth: Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States and, of course, Israel.
CONNECTIONS 2009 is a rare opportunity to meet and share your passion for progressive Jewish living with your peers. Some are from places you know, others from places you’ve never been, and perhaps others from places your ancestors called home. In Israel next March, all of us will come together to learn, travel, worship and celebrate both our diversity and our unity.
If you haven’t already visited our CONNECTIONS 2009 Web site, why not do so now? It’s filled with comprehensive convention and travel information, and you can register online right while you’re there (or download and fax back a paper registration form.)
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UPCOMING EVENTS
March 15-17, 2009 – Golfing FORE! Reform – Second annual IMPJ amateur fund-raising golf tournament in Caesarea
March 18-23, 2009 – CONNECTIONS 2009 – The 34th international convention of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv
March 29-April 2, 2009 – Riding4Reform – Sixth annual IMPJ countrywide bicycle fund-raising tour
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