conservative Archives – Jewish Journal

A pioneering minyan celebrates double chai birthday

Amy Klein November 2, 2007

Pressman and the group did create another entity, what has become known as \”The Library Minyan,\” named for the downstairs library where the 15 families began to meet weekly to pray. Members organized and participated in all parts of the service (especially the weekly sermon), discussed all aspects of Judaism and debated the increasingly complex issues of the changing times.Thirty-six years later, the Library Minyan, with its opportunities for engagement and intellectual rigor is seen as having helped to start a revolution — empowering lay leaders in the essential structure of spiritual leadership. It has become a model for many Conservative and Reform congregations seeking to create alternatives both within and outside the fold of conventional synagogue structure, and has allowed individual congregations to morph it into new and ever-changing incarnations.This weekend, the Library Minyan will celebrate its double-chai anniversary (two times \”life\”) with a Shabbaton Nov. 2-4 that will remember the past but also look toward the future.

Jewish bond doesn’t draw all to Holiday observances

Tom Tugend September 21, 2006

Statistically, 39 percent of all American Jews, and 44 percent of all Jewish college students, do not attend religious services, according to the 2000-2001 National Jewish Population Survey.

A congregation grows in Whittier — Hispanic outreach blooms

Roberto Loiederman September 21, 2006

As the jewish population in the area east of Los Angeles has dwindled — and as the Conservative congregation has aged — Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak has reached out to the Spanish-speaking community in the area.

Closing the Gap on Believers

Jack Miles November 4, 2004

Is religion more prominent or less today in American life? Is it fading away or roaring ahead? Articles about the conservative Christian influence in the Bush administration point — often fearfully — in one direction.

Music Makes the Service Go ‘Round

Andrea Adelson May 6, 2004

Since distributing a CD of hymns to members of Tustin\’s Congregation B\’nai Israel, the Conservative synagogue\’s cantor, Marcia Tilchin, and congregant Carl Cedar, a veteran musician, no longer sing alone in the sparsely filled sanctuary on Friday night.