Print This Page
Email this pageIssue # 365
Issue #365 – 3 September 2009 / 14 Elul 5769
IN THIS ISSUE:
SOLOIST HOLDS FUNDRAISERS FOR CONGREGATIONS
EASTERN EUROPEAN YOUTH TRAVEL TO KUTZ CAMP
ARZA APPOINTS NEW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
IN MEMORIAM
UPCOMING EVENTS
SOLOIST HOLDS FUNDRAISERS FOR CONGREGATIONS
Shani Ben Or, cantorial soloist for the United Jewish Congregation (UJC), the World Union affiliate in Hong Kong, held concerts this summer to raise funds for UJC as well as her home congregation, Jerusalem’s Kol Haneshama.
“This year was a hard year for my congregation back home,” says Ben Or. “The financial crisis affected the community greatly. In Israel, Reform congregations do not receive government funding of any sort. The congregation relies on its members and donations.”
Ben Or grew up in Kol Haneshama. She attended its pre-school and kindergarten, and, together with many of her friends, was active in its Noar Telem youth group, the Israeli version of Netzer Olami, throughout elementary and high school.
“It was and still is a second home for all of us,” she says of the congregation.
Before she became a soldier, Ben Or attended the Mechina, the year-long pre-army prep course run by the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism (see WUPJnews #333), and when she finished her required service, she was offered the opportunity to serve as the cantorial soloist for the UJC, where she held the first of the two fundraising concerts.
“I feel a huge obligation to give something in return to Kol Haneshama,” said Ben Or, “especially in this time of need.”
The programs took place in Hong Kong on June 10 and in Jerusalem on June 27, and featured Jewish spiritual music from all eras, including old Chasidic tunes and niggunim (chanted melodies) made popular by the “singing rabbi,” Shlomo Carlebach, as well as original music composed by Ben Or and friends. A total of over 220 people turned out, with the equivalent of $3,300 being raised for Kol Haneshama, and HKD 4,700 being raised for the UJC.
Left: Shani Ben Or during the Hong Kong recital in June. Right: An invitation.
Back to In This Issue
EASTERN EUROPEAN YOUTH TRAVEL TO KUTZ CAMP
This summer, Kutz Camp, the Union for Reform Judaism’s summer camp and retreat center in Warwick, New York, hosted four teenage campers (Zoe Hegedus, Daniel Fekte, Julia Fedoszov and Zsofia Kozma) from Budapest, and a fifth (Magdalena Sawicka) from Warsaw. All are members of developing congregations affiliated with the World Union.
“The teens are having an incredible time,” wrote Lisa David, the URJ’s associate director of camping, in a report that reached the World Union while Kutz Camp was in session. “They have been fully integrated into the camp community and have enjoyed time bonding socially with their peers from North America, participating in the various leadership training opportunities available to them and sharing their own experiences from their home countries.”
In a report compiled following the session, camp director Melissa Frey Goldman wrote: “We had a WUPJ evening program where we invited all of our foreign participants and staff to share pieces of Progressive Judaism from their home countries. In addition to Hungary and Poland, Israel, Canada, South Africa and England were represented as well. The teens soaked up knowledge as they moved through each day and were never shy to talk about the differences between this camp experience and their experiences and lifestyles from home.”
Goldman added that the camp’s formal activities, such as classes and programs, provided “an ideal setting for the creation of meaningful relationships between Reform youth from around the world.” But it was the informal activities that provided “even richer opportunities” to develop lifelong bonds.
“The everyday moments in a camp day become the basis for connections that span continents,” she said. “In the two weeks since the camp session ended, we have already seen numerous exchanges between North American, Israeli and European participants on social media such as Facebook and Twitter.”
But developing relationships and widening horizons are a two-way street, and the local campers, members of the North American Federation of Temple Youth (NFTY), benefited as well.
“Just as Kutz gives NFTYites the ‘bigger picture’ of NFTY on the North American level, having participants here from around the world shows that NFTY is part of something bigger, too,“ explained NFTY membership and communications vice president Alyssa Kress. “NFTYites then take that understanding of the ‘bigger picture’ back to their [chapters] and regions, and it becomes part of NFTY as a whole.”
The camp experience for the five eastern European teens had its genesis in a mission to Budapest and Warsaw last summer during which members of the URJ board established a scholarship fund to help underwrite such activities. The mission was led by Rabbi Lennard R. Thal, the URJ’s senior vice president emeritus, and by Paul Liptz of the World Union’s Anita Saltz International Education Center.
“There is no higher value for us than to help train our leaders for the future, and this camp project is truly a huge step forward toward realizing that goal,” said Rabbi Joel Oseran, the World Union’s vice president for international development. “I want to thank the URJ leaders who saw in this kind of project a meaningful opportunity to assist our World Union communities in Europe, and Rabbi Lenny Thal and Paul Liptz, whose inspired leadership of the mission helped fashion the project.”
The effort to expose Progressive Jewish youth from eastern European countries to their peers in the US and around the world already seems to have borne fruit. While at camp, Warsaw’s Magda Sawicka wrote the following:
“After Kutz Camp, I’ll have many ideas about what I'm going to do in Poland. I want to help my temple as much as possible. Because my major [area of study at camp] was song leading, I hope I'm going to bring to my community new melodies for the prayers. I want to thank all the people who did everything to send me here. I'm really grateful for that. I'm so happy to be here. It’s one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. I hope that in the coming years more, European children will come to Kutz Camp. It's worth it.”
The five European teens at Kutz Camp (l-r): Zoe Hegedus, Daniel Fekte, Julia Fedoszov, Magdalena Sawicka and Zsofia Kozma.
Back to In This Issue
ARZA APPOINTS NEW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Rabbi Scott Sperling has been selected to serve as executive director of ARZA, the Association of Reform Zionists of America, for the coming year.
For the past eight years, Sperling served as director of the Union for Reform Judaism’s Mid-Atlantic Council, where his responsibilities included consulting congregations on the use of communication technologies. Prior to that he was associate rabbi at Temple De Hirsch Sinai in Seattle, Washington. He also served congregations in New York and Los Angeles.
Sperling is a graduate of UCLA and was ordained at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion’s New York campus in 1976. He and his wife Laura live in Takoma Park, Maryland. Their daughter Margit lives in Madrid, and their son Eli is a graduate student at Tel Aviv University.
“I am thrilled that Scott will be leading us as we work to connect Reform Jews to Israel through engagement, membership, advocacy and travel,” said ARZA president Rabbi Robert J. Orkand, “and I know that all of us will give him our full support.”
Rabbi Scott Sperling, the new executive director of ARZA.
Back to In This Issue
IN MEMORIAM
The World Union mourns the passing of Rabbi André Zaoui z”l. The longtime spiritual leader of the Rue Copernic Synagogue in Paris and later of Kehilat Har-El in Jerusalem, Rabbi Zaoui was one of the leading figures guiding the rebirth of French Jewry in the years following World War II, and the growth of liberal Judaism in France during that difficult period.
Rabbi Zaoui served as a chaplain in the anti-Nazi French Expeditionary Force during the war. In the post-war years, his writings and leadership of the journal Revue de la Pensée Juive helped to lay the intellectual basis for French Liberal Judaism. He made aliya in 1968 and became spiritual leader of Kehilat Har-El, the Israeli Progressive movement’s first congregation, similarly guiding it through a period of significant growth. Throughout his life, he was a leading spokesman for interfaith understanding and coexistence.
Rabbi Zaoui passed away on Wednesday, August 26, 6 Elul 5769, and was laid to eternal rest in Jerusalem. He is survived by his wife Bianca and their sons Daniel, Michael and Ariel. Yehi zichro baruch – may his memory be a blessing to all of us.
Back to In This Issue
UPCOMING EVENTS
October 9-11, 2009 – Dedication of Moscow Center for Progressive Judaism
October 16, 2009 – Dedication of Shaarei Shalom synagogue-center, St. Petersburg, Russia
November 4-8, 2009 – Biennial of the Union for Reform Judaism, Toronto, Canada
January 28-31, 2010 – Union of Jewish Communities in Latin America Biennial, Panama
January 28-February 7, 2010 – Beutel Seminar for Progressive Jewish Leaders, Jerusalem
March 4-7, 2010 – European Region Biennial Conference, Paris, France
April 16-18, 2010 – Liberal Judaism Biennial Weekend, England
May 28-29, 2010 – Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism Biennial, Israel
November 27-30, 2010 – Biennial conference of the Union for Progressive Judaism in Australia, Asia and New Zealand, Canberra, Australia
February 7-13, 2011 – CONNECTIONS 2011, USA
Back to In This Issue
