October 27, 2009

A newly restructured and slimmed down Union for Reform Judaism will focus on interfaith relations and the rights of Israeli Arabs at its biennial convention Nov. 4-8 in Toronto.

Addresses by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Jordan’s King Abdullah II, both urging greater interfaith dialogue as a condition for Middle East peace, will bookend a packed five days expected to draw 5,000 attendees from Reform congregations worldwide.

King Abdullah’s pre-taped video address from Amman on Nov. 8 during the convention’s closing session marks a biennial focused strongly on Israeli politics and current events, as will Blair’s live video conversation Nov. 5 with Rabbi David Saperstein of the movement’s Religious Action Center.

This is in contrast to the more inward focused, reflective nature of the past two biennials, where topics such as making Shabbat meaningful, urging conversion of non-Jewish spouses and introducing the movement’s new Hebrew-friendly prayer book took center stage.

Avishai Braverman, Israel’s minister of minority affairs and a longtime proponent of full rights and duties for the country’s non-Jewish citizens, will speak during the opening session Nov. 4 about the ongoing challenges facing Israeli Arabs.

Braverman, the former president of Ben-Gurion University, was instrumental in bringing Bedouin students, particularly women, to his campus.

At a New Israel Fund gala last month in San Francisco, he outlined a proposal to bring American Jewish youth to Israel to work on social justice projects together with their Israeli Arab and Jewish peers, a theme that he is expected to touch upon in Toronto.

“The union has long held that Israel should live up to its Jewish values and its democratic values for all citizens,” said Rabbi Elliott Kleinman, director of Advancing Reform Judaism, a position created this summer to coordinate Union for Reform Judaism activities worldwide.

Kleinman noted that one of the resolutions under consideration during the biennial urges Israel to improve conditions for its Arab minorities.

“This focus could not come at a better time,” he said.

Israel’s ambassadors to the United States and Canada will address the convention, discussing foreign policy issues, particularly the nuclear threat posed by Iran.

“We’re trying to articulate a very pro-Israel, pro-peace position,” said Rabbi Dan Freelander, the union’s senior vice president.

This is the first time in 30 years that the Union for Reform Judaism, the synagogue arm of the largest Jewish stream in North America, representing 1.5 million Jews in 920 congregations, is holding its biennial in Canada.

Taking advantage of the setting, a health care roundtable session will contrast the health care system in the United States with the Canadian model. The Religious Action Center is a strong advocate of health care reform and has been urging passage of the health care reform bill making its way through the U.S. Congress.

Despite the outward focus of much of the biennial, a strong undercurrent still will be devoted to Jewish ritual, a personal interest of Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the president of the URJ.

In 2007, during his biennial sermon, traditionally delivered during Saturday’s Shabbat services, Yoffie called upon Reform Jews to wrest control of their synagogue services back from the b’nai mitzvah crowd. Two years earlier, he had urged “talking gently” to non-Jewish spouses about conversion.

This year’s sermon, kept under wraps until its delivery, “will include comments on food issues, what we eat and how we eat, along with new technology, Israel and other issues of concern to Reform Jews,” Kleinman said.

Kashrut, broadly conceived as an approach to food production and consumption based on Jewish values, has been garnering increased attention in Reform circles the past few years.

The conversation gained urgency with last year’s immigration raid and arrests at the Agriprocessors kosher slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa. The Union for Reform Judaism quickly signed on to the Conservative movement’s Hekhsher Tzedek food justice initiative when its initial guidelines were released in August 2008.

Reform Jews interested in adopting some form of traditional kashrut often clash, however, with proponents of a more classical Reform attitude, with its traditional hostility toward ritual observance.

The Society for Classical Reform Judaism, a small 2-year-old coalition of congregations dedicated to the universalist goals of the early Reform movement, including its rejection of certain Jewish rituals, will host several sessions at this year’s biennial, urging continued respect for their viewpoint.

Attendees will have the chance to meet staff in charge of the four new North American districts, consolidated from the former 14 regions.

While current financial woes were the immediate impetus for the reorganization, Freelander said, the changes themselves had been under discussion for more than five years.

“The motivation was how do we best serve our congregations, not how do we best sustain a bureaucratic system that has been in place for 50 years,” he said. “We’re just a few months into it, and some kinks still need working out.”

The relative calm that annually settles in over the Jewish nonprofit world during the High Holidays season ended with a bang this week, as the Jewish communal world landed two big gets.

President Obama agreed to speak next month at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America to be held in Washington—his first speech as president to a Jewish audience. And one of the country’s richest men, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, made his first major charitable gift to a Jewish organization.

Both developments provide a boost to a Jewish philanthropic world facing tough times.

Brin, the 36-year old programming whiz who is worth $15.3 billion according to the recently released Forbes 400 list, announced Sunday that he would give $1 million to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, one of the aid groups that helped his family when they emigrated from the Soviet Union to the United States 30 years ago.

The announcement, made on the 30th anniversary of the Brin family’s arrival in America, came as a welcome surprise to a Jewish nonprofit world that has been speculating for years on whether or not the Google co-founder would become engaged philanthropically in the Jewish world as he ramps up his giving.

For the Jewish Federations, which recently changed its name from United Jewish Communities, landing Obama could provide a boost to a North American charitable network coping with sagging fund-raising campaigns and other significant challenges.

Federation officials had been trying for nearly a year to convince the president to deliver an address at the G.A. But as of early October, when the Jewish Federations announced that Vice President Joe Biden would speak, it appeared as though he had declined to address the meeting of several thousand leaders of the billion-dollar network of local Jewish charitable federations.

Apparently, however, federation lay leaders would not take no for an answer.

Officials at the Jewish Federations would not comment, but according to other insiders, major federation donors who are close with Obama from his days in Chicago helped put on the full-court press to bring him to the G.A., which will be held Nov. 8-10 at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel.

Speculation centered on two longtime Obama allies: Penny Pritzker, the chair of Classic Residence by Hyatt and the national finance chair of Obama’s presidential campaign, and Alan Solow, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

“You have to have your biggest people, who are also their biggest people, make the call,” said one communal and political insider, discussing how an organization ends up securing an appearance by the president. “If you don’t have one or the other or both, it has to happen on merit. And it doesn’t happen on merit very often.”

Nonetheless, it seems like a good move for the president, some communal insiders said, noting that Obama will be speaking to an audience of Jewish activists who care deeply not only about Israel but also domestic issues.

The backstory of Brin’s decision to donate to HIAS dates back further but is clearer.

His father, Michael, was a mathematician and professor in Moscow before deciding to move the family from behind the Iron Curtain after attending a conference in Warsaw and coming into contact with Western academics for the first time. The family was granted an exit visa in 1978 and moved to Western Europe, where they lived for several months before Michael found a job teaching at the University of Maryland in suburban Washington.

As the anniversary of the Brin family’s Oct. 25, 1979 arrival in the United States approached, the young billionaire asked his mother, Eugenia, about some of the organizations that helped the family as they transitioned into their new life. Among others, she mentioned HIAS.

“For a while, Sergey was asking us which organizations do we owe our thanks for helping us come to the United States,” Eugenia Brin told JTA in a telephone interview Sunday. “It just happens that the timing was right for him.

“HIAS was the only organization that was totally responsible for our immigration. They met us in Vienna, processed all of our documents. At that time the Jewish immigrants were deciding between Israel and the U.S. We, after a prolonged decision, chose the States. HIAS purchased our ticket and got us in touch with local Jewish organizations in the places we intended to go in Maryland.”

Eugenia Brin also noted that the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington gave the family an interest-free $2,000 loan that she and her husband used to buy their first car—a green, used 1973 Ford Maverick.

Though she is now involved with that federation, it is still unclear whether her son will become a major benefactor of inherently Jewish causes.

Asked if her son would invest in Jewish causes, Eugenia Brin said, “It’s a difficult question for me to answer. I’m not sure about his plans. I for one will be involved with Jewish organizations, HIAS and the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington. I expect Sergey to be as well.

She and her husband were preparing for a small party for about 20 friends in their home Sunday in honor of their immigration anniversary.

“It is a big discussion. It is an ongoing discussion,” she said of her son’s philanthropy. “It is a concern for us, for Sergey and his wife separately, and for all of us together. It is a consideration, but he is waiting to mature.”