The bulk of the upswing in support has come from synagogues, where lay leaders have taken an active role in engaging with legislators, and rabbis increasingly use their pulpits to educate congregants on how to support the Jewish state short of living there
A new group of Orthodox day school principals and pulpit rabbis on Los Angeles\’ Westside began meeting a few months ago to work through issues that overlap the classroom and the synagogue.
It is too easy to label Korah evil and dismiss his claims. There is nothing in the pshat, the simple reading of the biblical text, to castigate Korah as the embodiment of evil. In fact, it is suspicious how ready everyone is to get rid of him. What are we covering up? What truth does Korah know?
Rabbi Deborah Bravo of Temple B\’nai Jeshurun in Short Hills, N.J., went through plenty of placement interviews after her 1998 ordination as a Reform rabbi. Everywhere, she got the same question: not about her attitude toward homosexuality, not whether she wore a kippah and tallit, but whether she would officiate at an intermarriage. \”It has become the litmus test for placement,\” Bravo said in San Diego at last month\’s annual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), the Reform movement\’s rabbinical association.
The first time the word \”rebbetzin\” appeared in The New York Times was in 1931, in a review of a book about Yiddish theater. The term stood untranslated; the reviewer and his editors assumed that readers would understand the meaning.
Ten years ago, the American Jewish Congress (AJCongress) sued the city of Beverly Hills to block the local Chabad house from erecting a 27-foot menorah in a public park near City Hall.
When Mark Firestone was searching for a shul to join, he didn\’t look for a shul that had a nursery school or Hebrew school attached. Nor did he fret about the services he\’d be getting for his membership fee. Instead, he wanted a shul that was quiet.
\”I wanted it to be very quiet, so you can hear yourself daven, and hopefully Hashem can hear it,\” said Firestone, a Pico-Robertson life insurance salesman who belongs to Aish HaTorah. \”I have been to other shuls where you can barely hear the Torah reading, because people are talking so much. Aish has zero tolerance for people talking in shul.\”
For many Jews, the High Holidays is a time when they consider joining or renewing their synagogue memberships. However, what attracts them to synagogues, and what rabbis feel is important when choosing a synagogue, is not always the vast array of services that synagogues and temples provide.
Many members and rabbis feel that it is the intangibles — the atmosphere in the shul or the feeling of community that really attracts people, not the Hebrew school, youth program or adult education that is offered.
There\’s been a Jewish community in Muskogee, Okla., since 1867, when furrier Joseph Sonderheim opened his import-export business.
In 1916 the first synagogue was dedicated, Congregation Beth Ahaba, a lay-led Reform congregation that served a tight-knit Jewish community of merchants and professionals.
\”As Oklahoma grew and prospered through the 1920s, so did our congregation,\” said Nancy Stolper, 77, who moved to Muskogee 50 years ago.
Beth Ahaba reached its height of 75 families in 1929 but dwindled to 40 families during the Depression, as stores shut down and people moved away to find work.
Since then, Beth Ahaba\’s fortunes have declined steadily. Its young people, including the Stolpers\’ four children, grew up and moved away.
Its last student rabbi left 15 years ago.
\”We\’re now just a group of frail senior citizens,\” said Stolper, noting that only eight to 10 members are still able to get to synagogue.
Three months ago they gave up their monthly Friday night services, and this High Holiday season, she fears, will be their last.
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