north fork reform synagogue gazette€¦ · comedy, and reform movement policy-setting that took...
TRANSCRIPT
1
www.northforkreformsynagogue.org
North Fork Reform Synagogue
Gazette Member of the Union for Reform Judaism
January – February 2020 Tevet-Shevat-Adar 5780
What’s Inside
On the Calendar
From Our Rabbi
From Our President
Board Notes
Programs & Events
Birthdays & Anniversaries
Jewish Holidays
Hebrew School
Our Members
Book Club Corner
Chef’s Corner
In The News
My Two Cents
Jerry’s Reflections
www.northforkreformsynagogue.org
On the Calendar
Friday Night Shabbat Worship Services 8 PM
Jan 3 Oneg Host: Ellen Zimmerman Rabbi Host: Irwin & Kay Freeman
17 Oneg Host: Beverly Price; Rabbi Host: Margo & Andy Lowry Feb 7 Tu B’Shevat. Oneg Host: Barbara Sheryll; Rabbi Host: The Armine/Kleins 21 Oneg Host: Jerry Levin & Sara Zarem; Rabbi Host: Michael & Miriam Lastoria
Adult Ed at 4:00 PM at the homes of:
Jan 4 Kay and Irwin Freeman 18 Margo and Andy Lowry Feb 8 Community Room at Synagogue 22 Michael & Miriam Lastoria
Book Club
Jan 18 Enemies, A Love Story by Isaac Bashevis Singer, at the home of Fred Cohen, 405 Wendy Drive, Laurel. This is the story of Herman Broder who escapes death in the Holocaust by hiding for 2 years in a hay-loft in Poland. Now living in Coney Island with his second wife – and involved with another woman – Herman’s life is further complicated when he learns that his first wife has survived the Holocaust and in now in America.
2
www.northforkreformsynagogue.org
Synagogue Officers
Paul Gilman President
Margo Lowry Vice President
Kay Freeman VP, Treasurer
Ellen Love Secretary
Stephen Bloom Trustee
Irwin Freeman Trustee
Barbara Sheryll Trustee
Ellen Zimmerman Trustee
Steve Hill Past President
******************
Mission Statement
The North Fork Reform Syna-
gogue is a small, inclusive con-
gregation meeting spiritual, ed-
ucational, social, and
cultural enrichment needs of
our members in the Reform
Jewish tradition. We embrace
families and individuals, Jews
by birth or “by choice,” non-
Jews and Jews regardless of
ethnic or racial background,
sexual orientation, or gender
identity. We support the local
community through outreach
programs with special empha-
sis on social justice issues.
*********************
Editors
Carol Brown, Editor-in-Chief
Kay Freeman
Joyce Friedland
Margo Lowry
Ellen Zimmerman
From Our Rabbi
Reform Movement Biennial Conference By Rabbi Danielle Weisbrot
First, I’d like to extend a hearty mazel tov to the Armine-Klein family in honor of Ruby becoming a bat mitzvah on December 7. Those of us who were able to attend the service – as well as those offering their support from afar – are all very proud!
I’d also like to share a recap of the Reform Movement’s Biennial conference which I recently attended in Chicago. Biennial brings Reform leaders – laypeople and Jewish professionals – to-gether to study, meet new people, and set the priorities of the Reform Movement (specifically in the US & Canada) for the coming years. As a 3-time attendee, I can tell you it’s an amazing, educational, and energiz-ing experience. Per the URJ’s website, this year’s “5,000+ participants from 525 congregations hail from 54 states and provinces, and 75 international congregations.” The hallways of the convention center featured large billboards with the names of each con-gregation in the Movement, and North Fork Reform Synagogue was no exception! .
Some overarching themes of this Biennial were: celebrating the role of women clergy and lay leaders while also acknowledging the challenges many of us still face; discussing ways that congregations can be more welcoming to youth/millennials, interfaith families, LGBTQ Jews, and Jews of color; full and consistent inclusion of people with disabilities; and the Reform Movement’s support of the State of Israel, even when we disagree with the government’s policies. If, like me, you would like liberal Judaism to have a bigger voice and more funding in Israel, you can opt in and vote Reform in the World Zionist Congress elections, beginning January 21 at https://arza.org/who-we-are/world-zionist-congress-elections/.
Biennial allows congregational delegates to vote on policy statements or initiatives that have been proposed and discussed over the last two years. The Reform Move-ment has a long and proud tradition of doing what it believes is required to work towards tzedek (justice) and tikkun olam (repairing the world). At this 2019 conven-tion, three resolutions were approved: 1. a resolution calling for federal and state governments to phase out private prisons; 2. a resolution encouraging education on the opioid crisis and support for individuals and the families of those living with substance use disorder; 3. a resolution advocating “for the creation of a federal com-mission to study and develop proposals for reparations” – which can range from a formal apology to monetary payments – to redress the historic and continuing ef-fects of slavery on Black Americans. Each resolution also asks for Reform congre-gations and organizations to support these efforts. .
I look forward to continuing the conversation about the learning, music, prayer, comedy, and Reform Movement policy-setting that took place at Biennial – not to mention the “Jewish Geography” that had me run into THREE former student rabbis of the North Fork Reform Synagogue. Wishing you all a happy and healthy New Year, and a “fruitful” Tu BiShvat; see you at the Seder on February 7!
L’shalom, Student Rabbi Danielle Weisbrot
3
www.northforkreformsynagogue.org
Acknowledge a Simcha, or a Loss; a birth, bar/bat
mitzvah, graduation, en-
gagement, marriage, or
other event in the lives of
family or friends with a
hand-inscribed tribute card
from NFRS.
By giving tzedakah, you
support the synagogue while of-
fering your congratulations or
condolences. We suggest a
minimum donation of $18
(chai).
Contact Kay Freeman to send
a card: 631-722-5712
Mail your check, payable to
North Fork Reform
Synagogue,
Tribute Fund
PO Box 1625
Southold, NY 11971
Include recipient’s name, mail-
ing address, occasion,
donor’s name, address, phone
and the amount of the contri-
bution if you wish it included.
From Our President
By Paul Gilman
I hope everyone is cozy and warm, and the holidays exceeded everyone's expectations. A special Mazel Tov to Ruby Armine-Klein on her December 7 Bat Mitzvah.
On November 6 I watched, via webinar, the HUC Dr. Fritz Bam-
berger Memorial Lecture, Freakonomics & American Judaism: Economic Incentives That Help Shape American Jewish Traditions by Carmel U. Chiswick, Ph.D., Profes-sor of Economics, George Washington University. I would like to share a few “take-aways” from the lecture and its introduction by HUC President Andrew Rehfeld, still available on the HUC website. President Rehfeld described the journey of modern Judaism from “ritual to reason” which he explained in his October 27, 2019 inaugural address, “In my view, religiously progressive, Re-form Judaism is committed to the primacy of reason; the moral autonomy of the individual; and particularistic-universalism that drives our engagement with Torah, Avodah, and Yisrael—our texts, our ritual, and our People; in order to secure the Good, the Holy, the Right, and the Just.” Prof. Chiswick discussed how all Jews have certain commonalities such as To-rah, Shabbat, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Pesach and Shavuot. Eco-nomically, time can be considered a component of wealth and, as a group be-comes wealthier, it has less time to devote to activities such as Temple partici-pation. The accessibility of Israel has led to a resurgence of Jewish lifestyles in American Reform Judaism such as kashrut which was previously relaxed. Combat the winter doldrums by attending our Shabbat services and many sched-uled activities. Please consider volunteering and donating to help continue our outstanding achievements as an intrinsic segment of the North Fork.
Paul
Board Notes
Nov 11 Board Meeting by Ellen Love
* The new security arrangement is working well * The Oneg scheduled is updated and distributed. Susan Bloom is joining the Oneg Committee. * Paul Gilman will speak with the Church Pastor to resolve issues
regarding the renewal of our lease which expires June 2020. * Kay Freeman reported on Finances and briefed us on the increased interest in purchasing space on the Memorial Plaques. * Ellen Zimmerman reported on the positive response to the cellist on Yom Kippur. * Margo Lowry noted that Rabbi Karol’s lecture on the perspectives of the af-terlife in Jewish literature was well attended. * Susan Bloom offered several ideas for programs: multi-media presentation by
4
www.northforkreformsynagogue.org
Birthdays
&
Anniversaries
Happy birthday to: Jan. 23 Andrew Auerbach
24 Ruth Eilenberg
26 Vincent Ciappetta
27 Zachary Armine-Klein
30 Charles Levine
31 Sandy Spitz
Margo Lowry
Feb. 9 Sheila Scharfman
11 Howard Eilenberg
15 Sandy Hanauer
Anniversary wishes to:
January:
February: 17 Susan & Paul Wachter
Laura Guthrie (Woody’s daughter); Government and Religion (perhaps secur-ing a speaker from the ADL). Barbara Sheryll suggested a program by Police Dept addressing the ‘active shooter.’ * Kay announced our Cinematic Series and film suggestions were discussed.
The next Board Meeting: January 19, 9:30 AM at Ellen Love’s.
Simchas S
Congratulations to Sylvia Pafenyk for her
continuing work with young poets in our
community with the 13th Annual Poetry
For Peace at the Mattituck-Laurel Library
Sunday, Nov. 24. Thanks to awards donor
Fred Cohen.
Mazel tov to Rabbi Barbara and Marc Sheryll on son Greg's graduation from the University of Rochester. Greg is now an Ensign in the Navy and transfers to the Naval Base in Pensacola in January to begin flight school. His dream since 9th grade is to be a pilot which he will be after the Navy’s 2-year program. Greg's grandfather, a retired 1st Lieutenant, commissioned him into service. Congrats to the Sheryll family.
Programs & Events12th Annual Foodie Tour
Poetry for Peace 2019 by Sylvia Pafenyk
For the 13th year, NFRS and Congregation Tifereth Israel in Greenport co-sponsored Poetry for Peace at the Mattituck-Laurel Library. Awards of $25 each were earned by 11 young poets. The event includes sponsorship by both Fred Cohen in memory of his late wife, Linda Rie-Cohen, and Joan Prager of Tifereth Israel.
Submissions from local school children were judged by published poets Billy Hands, Jerry Ma-tovcik, and LB Thompson. In a year of strife in our schools and the world, this event was most appro-priate and very well attended. Parents and grandparents of the young poets were proud of their achievements and encourage us to repeat the event next year.
5
www.northforkreformsynagogue.org
How Can I support NFRS? NFRS is grateful for member-
ship dues and additional contri-
butions that help pay for our
Rabbi and Cantor, Cutchogue
Presbyterian Church rent, and
the expenses of running a con-
gregation. Here are ways you
can support NFRS and help
guarantee our future. Several
members already chose one (or
more!) of these ways to give to
the synagogue.
Gift of Stock: a gift of publicly
traded stock (long term) that
appreciated in value allows you
to take an income tax deduc-
tion for the full market value
while avoiding capital gains
taxes.
Gift from your IRA: Gifts directly
from your IRA to NFRS (up to a
certain amount) provide you an
income tax deduction and avoid-
ance of ordinary income tax on
an IRA distribution.
Bequest in your Will: A bequest
is a way to ensure that our syna-
gogue continues, while costing
nothing now. And if your circum-
stances change, you can always
modify your will.
By selecting one or more of
these options, you can impact
the future of NFRS. Contact Kay
631-722-5712
Hebrew School
Ruby Armine-Klein Bat Mitzvah, Saturday December 7
Ruby spent the past 2 1/2 years studying to become a Bat Mitzvah with the North Fork Reform Synagogue. Prior to that, she attended religious education at her synagogue in Brook-lyn Heights. Ruby both helped lead the service and did an excellent job chanting Torah and educating family and friends about her Torah portion.
Ruby spent her free time over the past 4 months caring for the cats at the Town of Southold Animal Shelter as part of her Bat Mitzvah project. She collected donations of food and blankets and is very grateful for the donors’ generosity. We wish a hearty Mazel Tov to Ruby and her family and look forward to seeing her continue her education to Confirmation.
Rabbi Barbara
Wanted: Person to Establish an NFRS Fund for Education
NFRS is in need of a generous member (or friend) who would be willing to establish an Education Fund. This fund would help to meet the educational needs of our NFRS students, including Hebrew and Judaica/Religious Studies.* Please contact Kay Freeman at 631-722-5712 or [email protected] to discuss this further. *This fund could be established with a tax-deductible donation of check, stock, or gift of your IRA
6
www.northforkreformsynagogue.org
More ways to
support NFRS
Why not support NFRS when
you shop amazon.com? Every
eligible purchase equals a do-
nation to us!
Visit AmazonSmile
(https://smile.amazon.com)
and type in North Fork Reform
Synagogue. That’s it! Every
time you order, go to the
smile.amazon.com. The site re-
members your selection and a
donation will come to NFRS.
Typically, the AmazonSmile
Foundation donates 0.5% of
the purchase price of eligible
purchases.
Questions?
Contact Margo Lowry;
She can walk you through the
process.
.
Chef’s Corner
Mom’s Chicken Pot Pie with Biscuit Crust
Leftover chicken or rotisserie chicken from Costco helps makes this an easy, comfort dinner. Fresh vegetables give this a very good flavor. Serve with a green salad.
¼ c butter
1 small onion, chopped
3 celery ribs, chopped
3 carrots, chopped
2/3 c frozen peas
3 TB fresh parsley (1 TB dried)
¼ tsp dried thyme
¼ c all-purpose flour
2 c low sodium chicken broth
2/3 c half and half or light cream
salt and ground pepper to taste
3 c cooked chicken, cut into bite-size pieces
1 16.3 oz can refrigerated flaky biscuits
1 egg yolk, beaten
1 T water
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, rack in middle.
2. Melt butter in skillet over medium-low heat. Cook onion, celery and carrots till tender (approx. 15 min) stirring occasionally. 3. Stir in peas, parsley, thyme, and flour. Cook, stirring constantly, till flour coats vegetables and begins to fry, about 5 min. 4. Whisk in chicken broth and cream, cook till sauce is thick and bubbling. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Mix in chicken meat.. 5. Transfer chicken, vegetables and sauce into 2-quart baking dish. Arrange bis-cuits on top of the filling.. 6. In a small bowl, beat egg yolk with water. Brush egg yolk on biscuits. 7. Bake in pre-heated oven until the biscuits are golden brown and the pie fill-ing is bubbling, 20-25 minutes. Let rest 10 minutes before serving.
7
www.northforkreformsynagogue.org
Please Support our
Advertisers!
*****************
Jewish Holidays
Chanukah Lighting
Members of the congregation brought their favorite Menorahs to light up the Synagogue at our traditional Chanu-kah Shabbat Service on December 20th. Although it was still a day or two before Chanukah actually started, the night was filled with the burning can-dles commemorating the miracle of Chanukah…that a small draft of oil, meant to last one day, lasted eight days, until holy oil could be properly prepared. Thanks to Hebrew School teacher Renee for the students’ participation. And thanks to Ellen Love for making the delicious, crispy latkes, complete with apple sauce and sour cream and to Steve Bloom for the Oneg chocolate cream pie!
8
www.northforkreformsynagogue.org
Newsletter
Sponsorship
Consider sponsoring a NFRS
Newsletter.
Send a check for $100 paya-
ble to the North Fork Reform
Synagogue with the following
information:
Your Name
Address
Reason for sponsorship
If memory for a loved one,
please name.
If for another special occasion,
please describe.
Mail to:
North Fork Reform Synagogue
PO Box 1625
Southold, NY 11971
******************
Business
Sponsorships Another way to support NFRS
and to get your business
known is to advertise your
business in the Newsletter.
Annual Fee, 6 issues
Business Card size $100
Double Business Card $200
Contact Kay
****************
Our Members Memorialize your Departed Loved Ones
Several years ago, we dedicated our second bronze Memorial Plaque, underwrit-ten by the generosity of our members, Arlene and Ed Fox. This plaque, hanging next to our first memorial plaque in the vestibule as you enter the front door of the sanctuary, offers our members the opportunity to memorialize their loved ones. The tablet accommodates 30 individual nameplates; each 2” x l0” nameplate features a light lit both on the Yarhtzeit of the deceased as well as on Yom Kip-pur. are featured in our Book of Remembrance on Yom Kippur. The member may choose to have the English name of the deceased on the plaque or both the English and the Hebrew names. The donation is $500 for each plaque. Contact Irwin Freeman ([email protected] or 631-722-5712) for an order form or for further information.
In The News…
Merkel Tours Auschwitz With 'Sense Of Shame' And
Warns Of Resurgent Anti-Semitism by Colin Dwyer, NPR 12/6/19
German Chancellor Angela Merkel walks toward the main railway entrance to Birkenau, largest of the camps that made up the Auschwitz complex in Poland. It was her first visit to the former Nazi death camp, since taking office 14 years ago. J MacDougal
Bogdan Bartnikowski recalls occasionally asking older inmates, out of innocence or desperation, when he would be released from Auschwitz. He recalls, too, the answer that inevitably came back. "You want to be free?" they would tell Bartnikowski, who was 12 at the time. After a mirthless laugh, they would point to the chimneys. "This is how you get out. There is no other way out."
Bartnikowski, now 87, recounted his story Friday during German Chancellor Angela Merkel's visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex in Poland. The visit, Merkel's first official tour of the notorious Nazi concentration camp since she took office 14 years ago, marks just the third time a German leader has visited to the standing symbol of the Holocaust — and the first in about 25 years.
During her visit, Merkel announced that Germany is giving 60 million euros (about $66 million) to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, which marked its
9
www.northforkreformsynagogue.org
Join us for the next
NFRS
Book Club
January 18
11 AM
Enemies, A Love Story
by Isaac Bashevis Singer
This is the story of Herman Broder who escapes death in the Holo-caust by hiding for 2 years in a hay-loft in Poland. Now living in Co-ney Island with his second wife – and involved with another woman – Herman’s life is further compli-cated when he learns that his first wife has survived the Holocaust and in now in America.
At the Home of
Fred Cohen 405 Wendy Lane
Laurel
10th anniversary on Friday. The gift doubles what Germany, already the foun-dation's biggest financial supporter, had previously donated.
Addressing the media after Bartnikowski and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who both accompanied her on a tour of the complex, Merkel ex-plained why it is no mere happenstance that Germany has offered so much fi-nancial support. "To stand here and speak to you today as Germany's chancellor is anything but easy for me," she said Friday. "I feel a deep sense of shame for the barbaric crimes that were here committed by Germans — crimes that are unfathomable."
More than 1.1 million people — mostly Jews, but also Poles, Roma and prison-ers of war — were murdered at Auschwitz from its founding in 1940 to its lib-eration by Soviet soldiers in 1945. Most were killed and burned on the premises on an industrial scale, using a series of gas chambers and crematoria — the same chimneys the older inmates pointed out to Bartnikowski. "Nothing can reverse the unprecedented crimes committed here," Merkel added. "These crimes are and will remain part of German history, and this history must be told over and over again."
Though Friday represented Merkel's first official visit to Auschwitz, the chan-cellor has visited other major Holocaust remembrance sites during her time in office. Together with President Barack Obama and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, she toured the Buchenwald concentration camp in 2009, and she has made several visits to Yad Vashem, the world Holocaust remembrance center in Israel. In 2014 she received that country's highest civilian honor, "for her unwa-vering commitment to Israel's security and the fight against antisemitism and racism in particular through education." During her address Friday, she drew a clear line from Auschwitz to the present political situation in Germany, which has recently seen an alarming rise in anti-Semitic violence. Hate crimes targeting Jews last year leaped by nearly 20% over the year before, according to German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer. "I've seen people spitting out in front of me because I was wearing a kippa. People shouting at me, 'Jew,' in the middle of the streets, in the center of the city," a young Jewish LGBTQ activist told NPR's Daniel Estrin earlier this year. "And if I tell people about things I experience, they say, 'What? This happened to you? I didn't even know that there is anti-Semitism today in Germany.' " Merkel noted that she was well aware of the distressing shift in Germany.
"We are witnessing and experiencing an attack on the fundamental values of liberal democracy and a very dangerous historical revisionism that serves a hos-tility that is directed at specific groups," she said. "We are focusing our attention especially on anti-Semitism, which poses a threat to Jewish life in Germany, Eu-rope and beyond."
"Because," Merkel added, referring to the great Italian Jewish writer and Ausch-witz survivor, "it is as Primo Levi once said: 'It happened, therefore it can hap-pen again.' "
10
www.northforkreformsynagogue.org
Working to Answer Tough Questions About Lib-
eral Zionism Today By Rabbi Stanley M. Davids 11/26/19
Jewish tradition is filled with questions. Scouring the Garden of Eden, God called out to the primeval Earthling: “Where are you?” Abraham brazenly chal-lenged God: “But if there are 50 righteous people, will You still destroy Sodom and Gomorrah?”
In Isaiah’s transcendent vision of a prophet’s being summoned to Divine service, God demands: “Who will go for us?” .
Hillel forces an immediacy to his moral imperatives by saying: “And if not now, then when?” And in the Haggadah, the troubled child asks: “But what does all of this have to do with me?” .
This is the eighth and final blog post dealing with essays contained in the forthcoming publication, Deepening the Dialogue: Jewish Americans and Israelis envision the Jewish-Democratic State (Rabbi Stanley M. Davids and Rabbi John Rosove (ed), CCAR Press, New York 2020).
Through these essays, readers have been introduced to the thinking of some of the most significant proponents of a powerful new “Social Justice Zionism” as they each consid-ered the core values of classical Zionism as contained within Israel’s M’gillat HaAtzmaut, its Declaration of Independence, and asked the most daunting Zionist question of our day: Has Israel in 2019 fulfilled the dream that the Third Jewish Commonwealth would become both a Jewish and a democratic state? Rabbi Rachel Adler, Hadeel Azzam-Jala-jel, Dr. Ruth Calderon, Dr. Ruth Gavison, Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Rabbi Levi Kelman, Tzachi Mezuman, Rabbi Uri Regev, Rabbi John Rosove, Rabbi Noa Sattath, Rabbi Judith Schindler, Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz, Rabbi Eric Yoffie and today, Rabbi Rick Jacobs and Rabbi Gilad Kariv, have not only been our teachers and analysts; they all are skilled activists who want to move liberal Zionism into a new era of Israel engagement. They want to make a difference in the current troubling situation – now, and not just later. .
At times sharply differing with each other, our authors still share some powerful and transformative language. They speak of partnership – full and equal partnership – be-tween Israelis and American Jews. They draw upon the image of a two-way bridge being constructed between the world’s two greatest Jewish communities, a bridge over which ideas could easily flow, a bridge that permits liberal Zionists in both communities to leave their comfort zones and encounter their future partners; a bridge that proclaims that both communities must find ways to become better educated about the other. In other words, a bridge whose very pilings are constructed from an unshakeable commit-ment to a united and thriving global Jewish future. .
Can a state ever truly be faithful to both its Jewish and democratic origins at the same time? Can Israel expect to remain a Jewish state if and when the coercive power of the official rabbinic bureaucracy is severed from its connection to and feeding upon the political apparatus of the state? Can a state ever be legitimate in its self-description as Jewish and democratic if racism, gender discrimination, and massive economic dispari-ties are permitted to demonize, delegitimize, and isolate targeted sections of the popu-lation? Can a state ever be legitimate in its self-description as democratic if 20 percent of its citizenry considers themselves as not possessing the rights of the other 80 %?.
In his essay, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, answers perhaps the most significant question of all: How did we get here?
It is hardly a mystery how we got to a moment calling for a book such as this: an illiberal
11
www.northforkreformsynagogue.org
Israeli government in power for more than a decade tolerated and emboldened the il-liberal segment of Israeli society. Intolerance, whether in the civic or religious sphere, violates the core values and principles of most American Jews. .
Proudly pointing to the ever-increasing efforts of the Union for Reform Judaism to deepen its ties with Israel, Jacobs nevertheless underscores his conviction that very little can be done to build a bridge of mutual understanding between American and Israeli Jews as long as the Israeli occupation of the West Bank continues. Of course, Israel’s security needs take the very highest priority. Of course, the responsibility for the current impasse rests heavily upon the Palestinian leadership – heavily, but far from solely. And that impasse is toxic; it poisons the waters of reconciliation between Israeli and Dias-pora Jews; it dulls the Zionist commitments of millennials; it muddies the understanding about what benefits a liberal Social Justice Zionism can bring to our people and to our world. For Jacobs, the newly emerging form of liberal Zionism must be marked by lovingkindness (chesed), justice (tzedek), and equality (shivyon). .
Gilad Kariv, CEO of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism (IMPJ), helps us see the powerful achievements and the startling potential of a strong, healthy Reform Movement in Israel. If you will, the IMPJ is the “boots on the ground” for a Jewish and democratic state. More and more Israeli Reform rabbis are being or-dained. More and more Reform institutions are being organized. .
The advent of a large Israeli public that sees in Reform Judaism a leading expression of their Jewish identity and the natural address for transformative Jewish experiences cre-ates a real opportunity for a Zionism and Jewish Peoplehood based on interpersonal connections and relations. Indeed, there are so many questions. This landmark volume will provide not only thoughtful responses, but also action plans that will help us launch Social Justice Zionism: the legitimate and potent expression of how liberal Jews today can actively partner with Israelis to build a brilliant Jewish future.
Thanks to Steve Hill for URJ and other pertinent articles.
My Two Cents 75th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz by Margo Lowry
January 27, 2020 marks 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz, the largest Nazi extermination center which has since become a symbol of Holocaust and Final Solution, and is best known for its infamous description on the main gate, Arbeit Macht Frei.
The camp was liberated by the Red Army in January 1945. After opening the gates, soldiers found only about 7,500 barely alive prisoners and 600 corpses of prisoners who had been shot by the withdrawing SS. In days before the libera-tion, SS forced the evacuation of another 60,000 prisoners to march west. In what came to be called “Death March,” they were forced to march long dis-tances in bitter cold, with little or no food, water, or rest. Those who could not keep up were shot. About one in four died on the way.
Those who survived had stories to tell. (Source: Yad Vashem)
They said we were going to march on foot, no one knew what it meant. We walked from village
to village, from city to city. We walked 25 kilometers a day. It rained, it snowed. We didn’t all have shoes. We had wooden clogs. Every step in the snow was hard labor. We were ex-hausted. We were weaker and weaker. Every day I felt that death was getting closer.. I was with my sister. I did not want to leave her. I was going to die with her …. You couldn’t stop
12
www.northforkreformsynagogue.org
for a minute or step out of line. Whoever stepped out of line got a bullet in the back. If a woman sat down because she had no strength left, they did not waste bullet on her, they hit her with a rifle butt. They pushed her aside into the snow where she would freeze. I asked a German who passed by me, “tell me where are we going,” he said, “we have no destination, our purpose is for all of you to drop dead on the way.”
All in all, an estimated one million prisoners perished at Auschwitz. Among them, Esthera Rosenberg Horenstein. She died at 20 years old, on May 1, 1944. She was my mother’s younger sister.
Book Club Last Hope Island by Lynn Olson by Jerry Levin
The NFRS Book Club met on November 2nd at the Levin's to discuss Last Hope Island. An account of England as a refuge for governments in exile during WWII, and more broadly of the resistance to the Nazis in occupied Eu-rope, the group uniformly reported having enjoyed reading it. They were awed by the depth and quality of Olson's research and captivated by the lucidity, force, and accessibility of her prose. Perhaps, more significantly, they learned much they had-n't known about the war years, including the heroic role played by women in the resistance both as sources of information, i.e. as effective spies, and as rescuers of downed allied airmen.
However, the group was not blind to the flaws in Olson's account, especially her barely mentioning Jews and their fate. For example, she gives a full account of the Warsaw rebellion by the Poles at the end of the war, but doesn't even mention the uprising of the Warsaw ghetto. And her criticism of the British, Churchill, and es-pecially Roosevelt, while not untrue, so lacks balance that the reader wonders how the allies won the war.
Jerry’s Reflections
Those Russians by Jerry Levin
Given the Russians’ abysmal failure in matters political--witness one murderous Tsar after another, the horrors of the gulag, and now the tyranny of Putin--it's cultural achievements defy belief. In the nine-teenth century, a backward, mostly illiterate society locked in a per-petual struggle between a violent revolutionary underground and a
viciously repressive secret police produced some of the most profound works in world literature. And this is not to mention the gross inequalities of serfdom that continued after emancipation; the endemic, often state sponsored, anti-Semitism, and wide spread corruption on the politically disastrous side standing in contrast to producing some of the most loved musical works in the Western Canon, mag-nificent art not as well known outside of Russia, scientific breakthroughs of the first rank such as the periodic table, as well as the ground breaking work of the Moscow Art Theater and the Ballet Russe on the cultural side. I can't explain this paradox; but I would like to comment on the seemingly unending stream of mas-terpieces by Russian writers from the second half of the nineteenth century through the twentieth. They did so in spite of a censorship so strict that musical
13
www.northforkreformsynagogue.org
compositions were scrutinized for revolutionary messages conveyed by a secret code expressed by the notes. And such "liberal," "reform" Tsars as Peter the Great who built St. Petersburg at the cost of ten thousand peasant lives, later had his son tortured to death; while Catherine the Great created the Pale of Settlement evicting Jews from lands they had lived on for centuries and forcing them into that Pale. Both Peter and Catherine were on the side of the Westernizers (those who wanted to modernize Russia) in the century long bitter cultural-political struggle between Westernizers and Slavophiles who believed that a mystical destiny anti-thetical to values of the enlightenment was incarnated in the Russian people, yet they perpetuated archaic Russian barbarism. Nicholas the II, the last of the Tsars, supported his Cossacks mowing down peaceful supplicants outside the Winter Palace and his secret police fomenting pogroms. .
Repressive nineteenth century Russia produced the greatest modern epic writer in Tolstoi, the greatest expositor of the inner life in Dostoevsky and the most inno-vative playwright in Chekov. Equally repressive twentieth century Russia contin-ued the parade of literary masterpieces, including "And Quiet Flows the Don" by Nobel Prize winner Mikhail Sholokhov; Isaac Babel's hysterically funny tales of Yiddish speaking gangsters in Odessa and of the horrors of the war Russia fought and lost with Poland in the twenties (Stalin had Babel murdered); Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago, and Solzhenitsyn's “One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich."
Although he was considered their equal in their time Ivan Turgenev is less widely read today than his towering contemporaries Tolstoi and Dostoevsky. A liberal, gradualist reformer, he sided neither with the revolutionaries nor with Slavophiles and was excoriated by both. His best known novel "Fathers and Sons" is simply wonderful, while his now seldom produced play "A Month in the Country" is equally worthy of your attention. .
Born into the landed gentry, he grew up on a huge estate under the thumb of a sa-distic mother who beat her serfs and her son with equal enthusiasm. He spent most of his life in exile in Paris. He fell in love with Pauline Viardot, a married opera singer, an infatuation that lasted the rest of his life. Not surprisingly, Turge-nev became the poet par excellence of unrequited passion. He has Rakitin, a char-acter in "A Month in The Country," say "Every kind of love, whether happy or unhappy, is a real calamity if you surrender to it wholly." .
"Fathers and Sons" introduces a new kind of man, a nihilist Bazarov, who rejects all traditional values--everything inherited from the past, the whole realm of the aesthetic, and everything else that is not the product of scientific rationality. He wants to smash everything. He is one of those few literary characters who steps off the page and into life. Critics and readers have been arguing about the signifi-cance, meaning and value of this prototype of the angry young man since the novel appeared. Turgenev himself had conflicted feelings about his creation writ-ing both that he shared all of Bazarov's opinions excepting his rejection of art, and that Bazarov was a threat to civilization. .
When Bazarov dies, in what may have been a suicidal gesture, his aged parents--who don't understand yet adore him--are heartbroken. Turgenev's depiction of them weeping at his grave is one of the saddest scenes I have ever read.
