Judaism – Page 56

Charleston’s southern charm

The Orthodox synagogue Brith Sholom Beth Israel. (photo from jsilverman.weebly.com/synagogues-in-charleston.html)

Charleston, S.C., is one of the most popular travel destinations in the United States. With its perfectly preserved old mansions, Charleston has charm and grace, in addition to genuine human warmth. Just walk along any of its streets and the first person you meet will surely give you a friendly hello.

Jews have resided in Charleston since 1695, attracted by economic opportunities and its proclamation of religious liberty for all. In 1749, there were enough Jewish pioneers in town to organize a congregation, Beth Elohim, the second-oldest synagogue in the country (now Reform) and the oldest in continuous use. Its imposing colonnaded neo-classical structure on Hasell Street was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1980.

The congregation’s small museum features the historic 1790 letter that George Washington wrote in response to the synagogue’s good wishes upon his becoming president: “May the same temporal and eternal blessing which you implore for me rest upon your congregation.”

This letter is emblematic of the spirit of friendship between the gentile establishment and Jews – and the acceptance, even early on, of Jews into the American mainstream, especially in the South. (More than 20 Jews from Charleston fought in the American Revolution and one, Francis Salvador, was a delegate to several Provisional Congresses. This may explain the friendly link between George Washington and the Charleston Jewish community. And, besides, Washington was known as a decent and courtly man.)

During the first decade of the 1800s, Charleston, with its 500 Jews, almost all of them Sephardi, was considered the largest, most cultured and wealthiest Jewish community in America. But, because of the destruction of the city during the Civil War, the city and its Jews became impoverished, and the waves of Jewish immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries passed it by. However, after the Second World War, the city prospered, as did its Jews. Today, the nearly 2,000 Jews in the city are in the professions, trade and business, teaching, politics and the arts. In the 1920s through the early 1950s, the city’s main street, King Street, was virtually shut down on Saturday. Walk along King Street today and you will still see many Jewish names on the shops.

photo - Congregation Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim (now Reform) — Congregation Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim (now Reform). *(photo from charlestonsmuseummile.org)*

In addition to three synagogues, one each from the major branches of American Jewry, there are a number of Jewish philanthropic and communal organizations, a Jewish community centre and a well-established day school.

The College of Charleston, the oldest municipal college in the United States, also has a broad-ranging and ever-growing Jewish studies program under the devoted and imaginative direction of Prof. Martin Perlmutter – now with its own building, thanks to the generosity of Henry and Sylvia Yaschik. The 800 Jewish students make up a significant minority of the college population. In addition to an active Hillel, the array of courses includes Hebrew language, Jewish culture and history and Israel- and Holocaust-related courses.

What makes Charleston especially attractive is its visible Jewish history, coupled with the world-class arts festival Spoleto USA, which runs for about two-and-a-half weeks every year, from the end of May to early June. The festival is an all-encompassing cultural experience: opera, dance, theatre, jazz and classical music, popular music, even acrobatics. The twice-daily chamber concerts, at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., hosted with humour and panache by first violinist of the St. Lawrence Quartet, Geoff Nuttall, are considered the musical anchor of the festival.

But there is more. The Piccolo Spoleto Festival, sponsored by the City of Charleston, which runs during the same two-and-a-half weeks, offers a dizzying array of classical music, plays, cabaret and comedy acts, jazz cruises and much, much more. The College of Charleston’s Jewish studies unit also sponsors several events during the festival, including A World of Jewish Culture.

This year, the Orthodox synagogue Brith Sholom Beth Israel, on Rutledge Avenue, hosted four evenings of chamber music, featuring Jewish composers like Kurt Weill, George Gershwin, Paul Ben-Haim, Ernest Bloch and Eric Korngold, and non-Jewish composers who wrote Jewish music, like Ravel’s “Kaddish” and Max Bruch’s “Kol Nidrei.”

In Charleston, too, lived the people who inspired Porgy and Bess, by George and Ira Gershwin. The Gershwins resided temporarily on James Island, just outside the city, while writing their opera. They purposely came to Charleston to get a feel of the city, its ambience and its people. One of the great tunes in Porgy, of course, is “Summertime,” with its Yiddish-sounding melody in a minor key.

Charleston also has a Conservative congregation, and the three Charleston congregations – Reform, Conservative and Orthodox – are unique in that their rabbis cooperate for the greater good of the community and even meet once a month for lunch and a study session. Another fascinating crossover is that many Jews in the community belong to more than one shul – a kind of anti to the old joke about the Jew on the desert island who builds two shuls. When asked why, he responds, “That one, I daven in; the other, I wouldn’t be seen dead in.”

One longtime Jewish resident, a spry and active octogenarian agnostic proudly and only half-facetiously remarked, “I belong to all three shuls, thank God, but you won’t catch me praying in any of them.” And when he was indeed caught one Sabbath morning davening in the Orthodox shul, one of his pals came up to him and joked, “What are you doing here? Today’s not Yom Kippur.” In response, the 80-year-old quipped in his slight Carolina drawl, “Well, then I hope God forgives me for coming today.”

At the College of Charleston during the academic year, there is a kosher dairy cafeteria, Marty’s Place. And Chabad has pre-packaged prepared meat meals that are available at the famous Hyman’s Fish Market on King Street. For delicious vegetarian meals at reasonable prices, go to Jon York’s Gnome Cafe, at 109 President St.

Be sure to also take a horse-and-buggy ride in the historic district. The knowledgeable guides will take you through the residential part of town, focusing on the homes and the history of their occupants. Then stroll along the quiet streets, in the famous covered market, and tour the nearby plantations.

Two useful telephone numbers are those of the Charleston Visitors Bureau, 1-800-774-0006, and Spoleto’s, 1-843-579-3100 or spoletousa.org.

Curt Leviant’s most recent books are the critically acclaimed novels King of Yiddish and Kafka’s Son.

Trying to be gracious of spirit

My family recently came back from a trip to Alberta. My husband (a professor) helped run a conference at the University of Calgary. We took our twins and went on vacation, too. I won’t lie. I felt intimidated about managing a strange city on my own with two active 6-year-olds, but I planned like crazy. Due to some lucky breaks, it went well.

More than once, I was reassured by a comforting sense of community. The first day, we took the fancy mini-van (an unexpected rental car upgrade) and it began to ding. A tire was low. I worried. I warned my kids that we might have to stop – if I could find a gas station – and check the air on the tire. Before I’d managed that, we’d arrived at Heritage Park.

We were surprised to find the Montefiore Institute (original 1916 prairie synagogue) had been moved there. The living-history interpreter sang Yiddish folk songs to us. She’d been raised in Winnipeg, where I now live. However, the most comforting thing? The man next to me as we watched our children on the kiddy rides. He said the new car sensors were overly sensitive and that if I checked the tires, I might find nothing wrong. (We did. He was right.)

On the way out, I mistakenly turned down an (empty) one-way street. A woman yelled, “Wrong way! Wrong way!” and frightened us terribly. I apologized to her. I figured out the problem and turned around. She, too, was looking out for me.

Next day, we were at the zoo – enjoying the eclipse and how it made crescent-shaped shadows on the pavement – with my friend and her baby. We commiserated about how scary it is to be raising kids. We want to help them be strong in what is suddenly a more threatening environment for minorities. She also waited, smiling, while my kids and I recited a brachah (blessing) I’d found online over the wonder of seeing the eclipse. My friend is Muslim. Her parents were born in Jerusalem.

In Drumheller, at the Royal Tyrrell Museum, my kids had a blast until exhaustion hit. It was very hot. We dragged them out in mid-tantrum. In the parking lot, my husband handed the expensive tickets to another family to use. We ended up at a restaurant. Everything was better after eating in air conditioning. On the way out, I apologized to the senior citizens near us if we had disrupted their meal. They smiled graciously. One mentioned that everyone had been a kid once.

On our day trip to Banff, we wandered into a theatre. We were the only people attending a magnificent children’s show, filled with dancing animals and an amazing set done by artist Jason Carter. The performers said, “Be our guest!” It turned out we saw an $80 show for free.

Why am I telling you this? In recent issues of the Jewish Post & News, some have commented on a child who happened to go up on the bimah (pulpit) of a congregation during services. Some bemoaned how children are poorly behaved in “adult” restaurants and theatres, as well.

While I would be the first to ask children to try to behave and to suggest that synagogues develop good Jewish programming options for them, the thing is, a synagogue isn’t a theatre or a restaurant. A shul is a house of learning, community and prayer. Who should learn to pray in a loving community? Kids.

During my trip, I encountered embarrassing learning moments (“Wrong way!”) and moments of gracious compassion. (“We were all kids.”) I also consistently had my kids in public, in theatres and restaurants, where I worked awfully hard to make sure they behaved – and those around me were big enough to understand the challenges of the task.

I wasn’t sure what to write for this column. Late last night, I lay awake, near an open window. Noise kept me up. Adults were laughing and shouting on a nearby patio of an upscale restaurant as they drank. In warm weather, this happens several times a week. I was tempted to march out in my pajamas to tell them to be quiet so I could sleep but, instead, I tried to be more understanding. I didn’t call the cops.

To those who would say that this child disrupted them during services, I suggest to perhaps be a little more generous of spirit. Synagogue is about community. That means it’s not just about “me” and what I should get out of the experience. It’s about what we can offer each other – as we learn, pray and support each other. Sometimes, it’s challenging, embarrassing, hard or sad and, you know, that’s life. It’s not a fancy dinner with cocktails, or an expensive concert.

Rosh Hashanah is upon us. It’s time to evaluate how we can aim higher and do better next year. There are plenty of things for which I can atone, things I haven’t done well and want to do better. Meanwhile, I just heard from old friends (who went to Cornell University as undergrads with me) who live in Houston. They are OK. Their house is OK. But, in their brief email, they relayed such horrible stories about flooding and drowning all around them. They mentioned that they were trying to help those nearby who were less fortunate.

We’re so very lucky, I thought. That random community of helpers is so important, whether in Houston or Calgary or Winnipeg. It helped me through a big first vacation on my own in an unfamiliar city with kids. Those people lifted me up and helped me do it, despite the challenges. My friends survived a major hurricane, and they were going to help gut a friend’s flooded house. Upon reflection, I’d say, we can all be that “better person” and help out.

Next time a kid acts out? Smile. Meet the family. Ask if you can chase her down the aisle to give the parents a five-minute break. Heaven knows they need it.

Wishing you a sweet, happy, productive, meaningful 5778.

Joanne Seiff, a regular columnist for Winnipeg’s Jewish Post and News, is the author of a new book, From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016. This collection of essays is available for digital download, or as a paperback from Amazon. See more about her on joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Atheism has a long history

The title of a book review in Biblical Archaeology Review caught my eye, “Ancient atheism.” I read, “A common assumption is that atheism – a lack of belief in gods and the supernatural – is a recent phenomenon, brought on by the advent of science during the Enlightenment.” I ordered the book immediately: Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World by Tim Whitmarsh (Alfred A. Knopf, 2015).

Bumbling, staggering, veering and lurching: these are the words that come to mind when I think of my path towards a Jewish identity. As the product of a secular household, my only contact with Judaism was my brother’s bar mitzvah and a yearly Passover seder at a family friend’s home. I was born in 1939, the beginning of the Second World War, yet the word “Holocaust” was never mentioned during my childhood or adolescence. The topic of God was not broached. The exception to the rule was that my brother and I were sent for seven summers to a Jewish camp in the Adirondacks, in New York state. There, we became familiar with Friday night services, which included singing Jewish songs and a few prayers in Hebrew.

Fast forward to 1970, after 12 years of marriage, the birth of four sons and a sincere attempt at keeping a kosher home (it lasted three years), creating Passover seders and Chanukah parties and the decision to prepare our sons for bar mitzvahs, my husband and I divorced.

I enrolled immediately in courses at Concordia University. English and French literature introduced me to the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. This led to a bachelor’s in French literature, which was followed by many courses in a master’s program called The History and Philosophy of Religion.

My search was on. I was determined to find out what religiosity and devotion to God entailed. I studied Judaism (modern and medieval), Jewish mysticism, Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism. I wrote scholarly papers on these subjects. Later, I would take up the study of Modern Hebrew at McGill University. Upon moving to Vancouver, I studied Biblical Hebrew for three years and enrolled in the Judaic studies program at the University of British Columbia. Jewish law, Jewish ethics, Proto-Hebrew, I loved it all; but I was no closer to feeling comfortable during the High Holiday services at any synagogue.

I tried Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist and Jewish Renewal congregations. I could not make that leap of faith required to pray to God. The secular humanist group had replaced Hebrew with Yiddish. I wanted my Hebrew! The result is that, every year, during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I felt uneasy, out-of-step and different.

I continued studying Modern Hebrew. I became editor of Jewish Seniors Alliance’s magazine, Senior Line. Studying, writing, volunteering and participating in the Jewish community were rewarding and gratifying activities, yet I felt like a second-class Jew. Was there something wrong with me?

Then along came Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World. As the May/June 2017 Biblical Archaeology Review notes, “In clear prose, Whitmarsh explores the history of atheism from its beginnings in ancient Greece in the eighth century BCE through the fourth century CE, when Christianity was adopted as the state religion of the Roman Empire. Whitmarsh says up-front that he is not interested in proselytizing atheism – but rather in studying its first thousand years. He argues that the history of atheism is an issue of human rights because denying the history of a tradition helps to delegitimize it and paint it as ‘faddish.’”

In reading this book, I came to understand, as Stephen Greenblatt is quoted on the back cover as saying, that “atheism is as old as belief. Skepticism did not slowly emerge from a fog of piety and credulity. It was there, fully formed and spoiling for a fight, in the bracing, combative air of ancient Athens.” And I agree with Susan Jacoby’s comments – also cited on the back cover – that it “is a pure delight to be introduced to people who questioned the supernatural long before modern science provided physical evidence to support the greatest insights of human reason.”

I devoured Battling the Gods, relishing the research and the historical insights. Homer’s epic poems of human striving, journeying and passion were ancient Greece’s only “sacred texts,” but no ancient Greek thought twice about questioning or mocking his stories of the gods. Whitmarsh states that “this book thus represents a kind of archaeology of religious skepticism.…This loss of consciousness of that classical heritage [the long history of atheism] is what has allowed the ‘modernist mythology’ to take root. It is only through profound ignorance of classical tradition that anyone ever believed that 18th-century Europeans were the first to battle the gods.”

Whitmarsh writes, “The Christianization of the Roman Empire put an end to serious philosophical atheism for over a millennium. The word itself, indeed, acquired an additional meaning, which was wholly negative: rather than the rational critique of theism as a whole, it came to mean simply the absence of belief in the Christian god.”

With Whitmarsh’s sentence, “The conclusion seems inevitable that the violent ‘othering’ as atheists of those who hold different religious views was overwhelmingly a Judeo-Christian creation,” my self-respect was restored. I now understand that I come from a longstanding tradition of atheists. My beliefs have history and credulity behind them. I will continue to study Hebrew, write, volunteer and participate in the Jewish community. In accepting my skepticism, I join the minds and hearts of the ancient Greek and Roman skeptics and atheists who came before me.

Dolores Luber, a retired psychotherapist and psychology teacher, is editor of Jewish Seniors Alliance’s Senior Line magazine and website (jsalliance.org). She blogs for yossilinks.com and writes movie reviews for the Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library website.

Thrilled by community

Rabbi Philip Gibbs is the new spiritual leader of Congregation Har El. (photo from Rabbi Philip Gibbs)

Rabbi Philip Gibbs, who took up the pulpit at Congregation Har El / North Shore Jewish Community Centre in July, had an unusually straight path to Judaism in many ways, at least for someone living outside the Orthodox world.

“Judaism was always part of my life,” Gibbs told the Independent.

Growing up in Marietta, Ga., he attended a Reform synagogue, went to Hebrew school and lived in a home life structured by Judaism. He found Judaism both comforting and intellectually engaging. He loved the thorny moral questions of Jewish tradition and studying Torah stories for guidance about how to live in the world. By the time he finished high school, he was on the regional board of the Reform Jewish Youth Movement (NFTY).

Being a leader in NFTY helped Gibbs see what it meant to bring others to and through the experience of Judaism – and the seed of a rabbinic calling was planted.

Gibbs went to college at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., and graduated in 2012 with a double major in Hebrew and the humanities. He also attended summer programs for intensive Talmud study and, as he settled into “that place of serious learning about Judaism,” he felt at home. He was enamoured by how the Jewish community supported each other in times of crisis and celebration, giving a wider sense of meaning to even happy moments.

Gibbs attended the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), attracted “by its academic emphasis and its acknowledgment of the evolution of Judaism.” It also fit his personal level of observance.

He focused on Talmud and halachah (Jewish law) at the seminary and became the secretary of the committee on Jewish law and standards. He became passionate in his interest in halachah, both theoretically and as a “road to values.” He enjoyed taking ritual practice and explaining “the goal and meaning of it from a place of depth.”

Gibbs graduated with a master of arts in Talmud and received his rabbinic ordination earlier this year.

As a rabbinical student, he was engaged with global social justice and human rights issues, and became a member of Rabbis Without Borders. In his second year, after touring Hebron with T’ruah, a rabbinic human rights organization, he was featured in an article in the Forward about younger rabbis willing to grapple fully with the moral complexity of life in Israel.

Gibbs connected to Congregation Har El, which has been without a permanent spiritual leader for just over a year, through the JTS matching process for new rabbis. He had been to Vancouver before and looked forward to flying out for the interview.

“B.C.’s wilderness and outdoors activities are a big draw for me,” said Gibbs, who led the Jewish Outdoor Leadership Institute camp Ramah in the Rockies and is looking forward to the hiking and skiing opportunities available in the Vancouver area. “I grew up doing a lot of hiking in the southeast and led backpacking trips with Conservative movement summer camps. When I got here, I was also thrilled to find a community of very nice and caring people, a place that wanted depth in what they were doing.”

Gibbs said his main priority right now is getting to know the community before he begins putting together any new ideas. He is also getting to know Vancouver.

“It’s great,” he said. “One of the first things I did was get a bike – it’s a city very easy to get around in. My first view was before the forest fire smoke came in, and it was absolutely beautiful.”

Matthew Gindin is a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He writes regularly for the Forward and All That Is Interesting, and has been published in Religion Dispatches, Situate Magazine, Tikkun and elsewhere. He can be found on Medium and Twitter.

Tzedakah not charity

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin will be in Vancouver for FEDtalks on Sept. 13. (photo from HarperCollins)

A group of elderly retired men routinely gather in a Tel Aviv coffee shop and talk about current events. Given the world situation, their chats tend to be very downbeat. One day, one of the men in the group declares, “I am an optimist.”

His friends look at him in puzzlement and one of them asks, “You’re an optimist? So why do you look so worried?” And the man replies, “You think it’s easy to be an optimist?”

This is a joke Rabbi Joseph Telushkin tells when he speaks about Jewish humour – a topic on which he literally wrote the book. It also sums up his response to a question posed by the Jewish Independent in a recent telephone interview.

Telushkin is the author of more than a dozen books, including the two-volume A Code of Jewish Ethics, Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People and Its History and The Book of Jewish Values: A Day-by-Day Guide to Ethical Living. He is routinely cited as one of North America’s most engaging thinkers and writers on Jewish topics and he has devoted his life to Jewish education.

“I am by nature an optimist,” he said, explaining that his study of Jewish history inspires pessimism, but Judaism’s promise of messianic redemption makes him an optimist. “Hence, I end up as an optimist with a worried look on my face,” he said.

Telushkin is one of five leading thinkers – originally there were four scheduled – who will speak at FEDtalks, the kickoff of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual campaign next month.

Telushkin’s lifetime devoted to Jewish education was motivated in part by his concern that Jewish religious devotion tended to emphasize ritual observances “as if ethics were necessary, but sort of an extracurricular activity.”

Judaism, he said, has important and uplifting rituals, such as Shabbat and the observance of the holidays. “But there are these incredible insights in Judaism that apply to us in every day of our lives.” That is why he wrote The Book of Jewish Values, which is an exploration of ideas and lessons that can be applied day after day.

Exploring these ideas, he said, can ameliorate some of the challenges facing the Jewish people, such as assimilation and intermarriage.

“If two percent of Jews were intermarrying, you could make a big fight and just do everything in your power to stop intermarriage,” said the rabbi. “Once you’re dealing with intermarriage rates approaching 50%, you can either write off the future of the Jewish people … or you can say, guess what, Judaism has things to teach Jews and non-Jews. If Judaism has something to offer people, it can offer it to non-Jews as well. That’s the role that Jewish education can play. We can model values that people can look at and feel enriched by.”

If Jewishness plays a central role in one’s life, Telushkin said, a person should want to share that with a spouse and model Judaism “in a way that would also make them want to share in Judaism.”

With Dennis Prager, Telushkin wrote the book Why the Jews?: The Reason for Antisemitism. The provocative thesis suggests that something particular about Jews inspires Jew-hatred; that Jews bring it upon themselves.

“Antisemitism, we argue, is ultimately a reaction to Judaism and its values,” Telushkin said, “to the Jewish concept of God, which denied the gods of the others, to the Jewish concept of law.”

The centrality of education in the Jewish tradition has led to personal and collective successes that, in turn, have inspired jealousy, he continued. This jealousy leads to antisemitism and it is indeed, Telushkin said, something inherent in Judaism that provokes this response.

“The reason Jews have succeeded, often much more than their neighbours, is because Judaism entered the world with a demand that no other religion had made: that everyone has to be educated – and you shall teach it to your children – and that focus on education led to greater success.”

Antisemitism, he added, is also inspired by the unique theological relationship between God and the Jewish people.

“There is no other religion that fuses religion and peoplehood the same way,” he said. “When Ruth converts to Judaism in the Bible, she says, amech ami, your people shall be my people, Elohayich Elohai, your God shall be my God.”

This connection between religion and peoplehood also defined antisemitism and the way it morphed during the Age of Nationalism. Until around 1800, when the world in which Jews lived was primarily a religious one, antisemitism focused on the God of the Jews and the rejections of the prophets of Christianity and Islam.

“When nationalism emerged, antisemitism was increasingly focused on the people who were Jews,” Telushkin said. Conversion to another religion would no longer erase Jewish national identity, and membership in a peoplehood, a nation, became the focus of antisemitism. “Hence, the greatest antisemitism in the world today is anti-Zionism.”

The most catastrophic forms of tyranny in recent history, Telushkin added, were direct refutations of Jewish values.

“What was Nazism if not a rejection of all the values that Judaism was trying to bring into the world? What was Soviet communism if not a rejection of all the values the Jews bring into the world?” he said. “Nazism and communism were both radical repudiations of the Jewish notion of God. They held that the state had the highest value. That’s why Soviet dissidents used to chant the song ‘I Fear No One Except God,’ because, in a totalitarian society, people who fear God think that there is something higher than the government, higher than the party. Today, of course, there is the danger of Islamists, people who claim to believe in God but who certainly don’t believe in a God whose primary demand of humans is ethical behaviour.”

At FEDtalks, Telushkin will speak on the topic, Tzedakah is Not Charity. The word charity, he said, suggests something done voluntarily, out of love. “While the word tzedakah derives from the word justice, which suggests that it’s not only a voluntary thing to give tzedakah, it’s an act of justice, which means not doing so becomes an act of injustice,” he explained. “What I want to emphasize is that Judaism is rooted in the notion of not just volunteerism but also obligation.”

By example, he suggested comparing two types of diets. People go on diets, he said, usually for one of two reasons – to be physically more attractive or healthier – but few are able to maintain a strict diet for a month or longer without breaking it.

“Because, in the final analysis, it’s voluntary,” he said. “Everyone knows people who keep kosher, who can go for years without eating foods that are forbidden because they feel commanded … when we do something out of a sense of commandment, we do so with a greater sense of consistency.”

Charities often suffer during tough economic times, he added, because people see charity as voluntary. But, even during tough economic times, people pay their taxes because they are afraid of the consequences of not doing so.

“So the notion of mitzvah in

Judaism is a notion of commandment, something is obligatory,” he said. “I emphasize that point because people consider mitzvah a good deed, but it’s really a commandment.”

FEDtalks takes place at the Chan Centre on Sept. 13. For tickets and more information, visit jewishvancouver.com/fedtalks2017. The Independent has invited all of the speakers to be featured in advance of the event. Last week: Ruth Wasserman Lande. Next week: Rabbi Jay Henry Moses.

Beth Tikvah’s rabbi

Rabbi Adam Rubin, wife Judith and their children. (photo from Rabbi Adam Rubin)

When Rabbi Adam Rubin and his family visited Congregation Beth Tikvah in February of this year, they fell in love. “They seemed to like us, too, I guess, because I got the job,” the rabbi told the Jewish Independent.

Rubin was born in Santa Monica, Calif., and grew up in Tustin, a small community outside of Los Angeles. He went to a public high school, which had only a few Jews, and first found a connection to Jewish community when he went to Jewish summer camp in northern California.

Rubin worked as a counselor in his college years, then furthered his journey into Jewish culture with a trip to Israel. He had a remarkable experience there, staying with a working-class Israeli family and wandering around Jerusalem for hours every day, fascinated. After a friend handed him a brochure for Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, he was intrigued and made plans to study there.

After graduating from University of California, Berkeley, with a degree in American and European history, Rubin spent two years at Pardes. Despite the traditional yeshivah curriculum, there is no expectation of Orthodox observance. Free to experiment and find his own relationship with Judaism, Rubin became observant.

He studied Israeli politics and history and went on to do his doctorate at University of California, Los Angeles, in Jewish history, focusing on the Hebrew culture of the Yishuv in the 1920s and 1930s, in the era of Hayim Nahman Bialik. He was interested in people who came to Palestine to refashion Jewish life, as Ahad Ha-am (Asher Ginsberg) and the followers of cultural Zionism did. Cultural Zionism was more focused on the renewal of Jewish culture than the political renewal of a Zionist state.

Rubin settled into an academic life in Los Angeles, teaching rabbinical students at Hebrew Union College (HUC) as well as students at University of Southern California (across the street). After several years in academia, though, he was less than happy.

“The core thing in an academic life is research and writing,” he said. “I can do that, but I’m a people person, very social. I love to be with people, and my favourite part of the job was the faculty connection to the broader community, which HUC required of its teachers.” Also, over time, “the love of history faded and was replaced with the love of Torah.”

By that time, Rubin had become “egalitarian observant,” was involved in an independent minyan and had enjoyed a study chavruta (group, literally friendship) for years. He was “living a meaningful, wonderful Jewish life,” he said, “and didn’t feel like I needed to be a rabbi to do that.”

As he increasingly wanted to serve the Jewish community more directly and to be with people, he turned to the rabbinical path. After his ordination at Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, he became assistant rabbi at Beth Shalom, a Conservative synagogue in Seattle.

“I wouldn’t have been able to make this major transition without the support of my wife Judith,” said Rubin, noting that he needed to take a significant loss of income and become a student again to become a rabbi. His wife, an experienced elementary school teacher, will be teaching secular studies at Richmond Jewish Day School.

Although Rubin had a “great experience” at Beth Shalom, he wanted his own pulpit. “I used to joke that I was the oldest assistant rabbi in the U.S.,” he said.

The Rubins have two children: Elior, 7, who will be going to RJDS, and Na’amah, 3, who will be going to a francophone preschool.

The rabbi is looking forward to taking up the spiritual helm at Beth Tikvah.

“I love that Beth Tikvah congregation has a do-it-yourself spirit – a great deal of the religious life of the shul is done by the congregants themselves. I love how deeply committed our members are to the flourishing of the community, and how much they love and support one another.”

When asked what he hoped to bring to Beth Tikvah, Rubin replied, “My passion for exploring the spiritual riches of the Jewish tradition and sharing the sacred experience of living a life of mitzvot, combined with a commitment to the intellectual rigour and seriousness of deep Torah study.”

Encourage menschlichkeit

The Bayit in Richmond has launched a new youth initiative, called Marc’s Mensches. Starting in September, the program aims to encourage youth in the community by rewarding them for good deeds.

The basic layout of the Marc’s Mensches program is as follows. If you witness a youth from the community (grades 5-10) doing a good deed – within either the Jewish or non-Jewish communities – enter them to be a Marc’s Mensches winner. Each month, a panel will review all the candidates and the impact their good deed has had, and they will decide a mensch for each month. The winner will be awarded a certificate of appreciation, as well as a $25 gift card to Amazon. The same candidate cannot win two months in a row.

At the end of the 10-month school year, each monthly winner will automatically be entered for the final prize. The panel will look at the each one of Marc’s Mensches and determine who has had the largest impact – that mensch will be awarded a $1,000 scholarship for Jewish education.

This program is made possible by the donations of Donald and Bonnie Dwares on behalf of their son Marc Dwares, Marshall and Sally Cramer, and Jeffrey Sachs. The Bayit is asking the entire Jewish community to participate and to give as many youth as possible the chance to be recognized for their contributions.

To submit a nominee, contact Matti Feigelstock at 604-771-8897 or visit thebayit.ca/mensches.

Teach it to your children

You’re reading the weekly congregational email. Something radical seems to have happened. Within a week, everything has changed. Well, maybe the format seems the same, ready to lull you into “services this week, events, make a donation …” but then it hits you. It’s like a revolution happened. Instead of the regular schedule, where the adult service is happening at 8 p.m. Friday night, and davening starts at 9:30 Saturday morning, it’s all changed. Imagine this:

Come for our weekly great Kabbalat Shabbat service at 4:45! Join us for prayers, story time, snack, dancing and singing. The service ends by 5:45, followed by an Oneg Shabbat with fruit, veggies, cheese cubes, challah and grape juice.

Want to stay up later? Join us in the sanctuary for a summer camp-style sing-along of Shabbat music and study the Torah portion with the rabbi and your friends.

On Saturday morning, daven with us! Services begin at 8:45, with morning prayers, movement activities, another great story (with a picture book!) and three dances to help us learn new psalms. We’ll learn the Torah portion of the week, act out some of it, and end with a rousing Adon Olam. Let’s march around and pretend we’re playing in a band.

Services end by 10:30. We’ll provide a healthy Kiddush snack, including whole grain crackers, juice and water, lots of fruits and veggies, and more. (It’s a nut-free environment, but feel free to bring along dairy or pareve snacks to share.)

If the weather’s good, after snack, let’s play outside at the shul playground. If not, we’ll run in the shul gym so you can get tired before going home to have a big Shabbat lunch and nap.

In the evening, join us for Havdalah at the shul at 5! We’ll be serving pizza and salad, with cookies for dessert. (Click here for costs, to register and for the Jewish movie of the week.) After dinner, we’ll be showing a G or PG movie in the gym for families who want to stay out late.

Also there’s a Saturday evening study session. This week: Jewish advice for managing our busy modern family life, at 6:30 in the library. (Free.)

Note: If doing the rabbi’s Saturday evening study session, please be sure one parent or friend is in the gym to supervise your offspring and enjoy the movie together.

Reminders: On Sunday morning, the shul opens bright and early as usual for religious school, yoga for parents, coffee klatch and the usual lecture series after the morning minyan.

Our congregational soup kitchen, visit to the local Jewish seniors centre, nursing facilities and once-a-month cemetery clean-up all meet on Sunday afternoons. (Cemetery group, next week is our hike at the lake, so bring your boots and bathing suit and we’ll see you on the bus – we might let others attend if there is room! Click here to register.)

See you then!

* * *

OK, as you read this, you’re thinking, this is all well and good for those few young families out there. I mean, maybe my children or grandchildren might go sometimes? But, for me, well, I feel left out. This doesn’t seem like what I’m used to.

But consider the model some congregations still use: Join us for a family Shabbat dinner! (It happens only once or twice a year.) Services start by 5:30. Food is offered, one course at a time, starting after 7. There’s no finger food or even challah on the table. The kids’ food comes after the salad course. Parents who don’t want to create a scene take their children home long before dessert is served to avoid a train wreck…. And nobody wants to come back.

Should Jewish life be all about young families? Well, no. We shouldn’t give up traditional services or customs, but the V’ahavta says “we should teach it [Judaism] to our children.” How do you do that better, so there will be Jews a generation from now? Should your congregation include positive experiences for younger people? Does that create a plan for the future?

Based on a random sampling of kids’ events in my Jewish community (Winnipeg) over the last six years, here’s a generic sampling of what I’ve seen.

If a shul schedules a Tot Shabbat irregularly – although kids thrive on routine – it happens during kid dinnertime or even at bedtime. If your preschooler eats dinner at 5:30 and is in bed at 7:30, how does that service at 6:15 work for you? Hear any angry screaming in that sanctuary?

How about the big kid events scheduled for 1-3 p.m.? Many kids are grouchy creatures around then. We love naps. If we’re skipping them, well, the activity had better be fabulous … and tolerant of crying, hitting and screaming.

Many congregations do a great job of integrating families into their activities and planning. Instead of having kids’ events as an afterthought once a year, most events are designed with whole families in mind … and preschool activities meet the needs of families with babies and small kids.

Teenagers and adults have relevant events. People of all ages have good family programming, too. Sometimes, this is all the same service. Can kids have roles in the service, like saying the Shema or leading a song? Can kids’ restless behaviour be tolerated at the same level as we tolerate adults’ conversation and restless behaviour?

How about making registration accessible and online? Include active learning as part of all events, so Judaism remains relevant?

The kicker – somebody always says: It can’t be done. This isn’t the way we do it here. It’ll be expensive. It’s not possible.

I say: dream bigger.

The future of Jewish learning

A picture from Smart Money, a study intended to help the Jewish community navigate the high-tech world. (photo by Lewis Kassel courtesy of Moishe House)

By day, Liora Brosbe is the family engagement officer for the Jewish Federation of the East Bay in Berkeley, Calif., where she reaches out to the community with a menu of opportunities for “connecting to Jewish life and each other.” But when she’s not at work, Brosbe’s main job is raising three kids, ages 2, 6 and 8. Their home? A laboratory for Jewish learning strategies.

“Yes, they’re little Petri dishes,” their mom, who is also a psychotherapist, said with a laugh. “Like most families, screen time is a huge issue at our house, both for time and content, but I tell families it’s also an amazing opportunity for low-barrier Jewish engagement.”

With the avalanche of new technologies – many of them being tapped for Jewish learning – educators, funders and parents are often befuddled about where to invest their money and their kids’ or students’ time. A recent report on the implications of the wave of educational technology and digital engagement is designed to guide the Jewish community through this complex space.

Sponsored by the Jim Joseph Foundation and the William Davidson Foundation, Smart Money: Recommendations for an Educational Technology and Digital Engagement Investment Strategy examines many of these innovations and provides suggestions for navigating the high-tech world. The study’s recommendations include using virtual and augmented reality (a user could, for example, experience the splitting of the Red Sea); creating games based on alternative scenarios for “Jewish futures,” such as rebuilding Jewish life after the Roman destruction of the Second Temple; offering opportunities for students to learn coding and other technological skills, which can foster connectedness among Jewish youths and introduce them to Israeli high-tech companies; and increasingly using video, music, podcasting and other platforms.

The report is garnering far more attention than expected, according to the sponsors.

“We did not originally intend for this to be a public report,” said Barry Finestone, president and chief executive officer of the Jim Joseph Foundation, “but the substance of the findings and recommendations really challenge us, as funders, to think strategically, creatively and collaboratively about how we can utilize educational technology and digital engagement to advance our Jewish educational missions.”

For the report, Lewis J. Bernstein and Associates interviewed 50 experts, investors and educators from both the Jewish and non-Jewish worlds to create the recommendations.

“It’s a huge media marketplace out there and most Jews are exposed to the same information as the rest of the world,” said Lewis J. Bernstein, a former producer of Sesame Street and the report’s lead researcher. “Parents and educators have difficult choices to make, and Jewish learning and wisdom compete with the secular world.”

An accidental journey

Salvador Litvak was in Vancouver for a Shabbaton at the Kollel last month. (photo from Salvador Litvak)

At a Kollel Shabbaton last month featuring Accidental Talmudist and filmmaker Salvador Litvak, no one was asking that age-old Jewish question, “When do we eat?” In fact, on the night of June 23, during the first of three sessions with Litvak, more than 100 attendees sat spellbound as he shared the love story of his Hungarian grandmother Magda, who survived the Holocaust in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

Litvak, who was born in Chile and now lives in Los Angeles, recalled his grandparents’ story and how Magda’s death led to an epiphany that jump-started his spiritual journey. According to Litvak, witnessing his grandmother passing to the next world, where she was welcomed by his grandfather Imre (who was murdered in the Holocaust), was one of the seminal experiences of his life and it eventually resulted in his becoming an “accidental Talmudist,” with many detours along the way.

Litvak revealed his story in stages over the next two days at the Kollel, which brought him to Vancouver as part of its “focus on creating and promoting exciting and meaningful, social, cultural and educational programs that invite people to experience Judaism … in an inclusive, comfortable, joyful and nonjudgmental environment,” said Kollel director Rabbi Shmuel Yeshayahu.

Over the course of the weekend, Litvak shared a drash about the Torah portion, led an interactive workshop on Sunday about discovering one’s life’s mission and traced the stages in his life that led him to create the Accidental Talmudist blog, which attracts more than one million readers (Jews and non-Jews). He also spoke about how he came to embrace his Jewish and Hispanic roots.

Litvak’s journey has been an unconventional one. In fact, during the Sunday workshop, he jokingly claimed that “smoking pot got him into Harvard” because, after the incident, his father forced him to become a runner, which led to his becoming a champion cyclist. These extracurricular activities, said Litvak, helped him get into Harvard, where he took pre-med courses but ended up at New York University Law School. When he wasn’t in the classroom, he spent time in Greenwich Village. “I was a law student by day and a poet warrior by night,” he said.

Going back to his childhood, he said, “I was born in Santiago, Chile, that’s how I ended up with such a crazy name as Salvador Litvak, which is very similar to Jesus Goldberg.”

Like most kids, he was concerned about fitting in, despite several disadvantages. “I already had foreign parents, I was too tall, my hair was bright red, unruly, a mop, and there was no way I was going to fit in,” he said. So, while he agreed with his parents’ plan for him to go to Harvard to become a doctor, he made a decision in Grade 3 to use his middle name Alex instead of Salvador because “it made him feel more American.” It wasn’t until attending a Latino Students Association annual black tie gala at NYU that he would reclaim his Latino heritage.

Litvak had not attended any of the organization’s prior events because he had only felt nominally Hispanic. He attended this one with his girlfriend on a lark because he could wear his tux and get a free meal. When he found out, to his horror, that he would have to make a speech at the gala, he thought of leaving, but then realized that “all of the events of my life had actually coalesced into this moment for a reason.”

He seized the moment and shared with the audience how he’d been passing for 17 years as a white-bread American, and vowed to use his Spanish name, Salvador, from that day forward. Even though he wasn’t plugged into Judaism during his NYU days, this reclamation would be the first step for him to also reclaim his Jewish identity. “I let that moment be a key moment in my life,” he said, “because I knew that G-d was speaking to me and was saying to me, be who you are; you can’t do anything in this world if you aren’t who you really are.”

Litvak graduated, and practised corporate law for a short time before abandoning that career (much to the chagrin of his father) to become a filmmaker. This led to another milestone in his Jewish journey – producing and directing what is now a holiday comedy classic, the story of a Passover seder gone awry entitled When Do We Eat?, starring the late Jack Klugman in his final film role, as well as Lesley Ann Warren, Max Greenfield and Ben Feldman.

By his own admission, When Do We Eat? – which was realized with the help of his wife Nina and his Vancouver cousin Horatio – is a “very irreverent and raucous movie.” Even though the movie, which is about the “fastest seder in the West,” had a deep Jewish message based on sparks of kabbalah and Chassidut, it was panned by major media like the New York Times and Roger Ebert as being anti-Jewish. Nonetheless, word-of-mouth led to the film becoming a cult classic and a Passover tradition for many Jews around the world.

While Litvak had a bar mitzvah, he wasn’t particularly connected to his Jewish roots until the day he walked into a bookstore called 613 – The Mitzvah Store in the Pico Robertson district of Los Angeles and picked up a book called Berachos. It led him on the next leg of the spiritual journey that had begun with the passing of his grandmother.

He learned from the clerk at the bookstore that he had picked up the first book of the Talmud on a special day. The Talmud is read by many Jews all over the world as part of a worldwide program called Daf Yomi (literally, “Page of the Day”). It takes seven-and-a-half years to read the whole Talmud and Litvak had bought Book One on Day One of the program. He decided that this was not a coincidence and embarked on a seven-and-a-half-year talmudic journey, which led to one of his most memorable spiritual experiences: participating in a siyum (or concluding ceremony) at MetLife Stadium in New York with 93,000 Jews.

So, picking up that book of Talmud “accidentally” at a bookstore in Los Angeles set Litvak on a journey that inspired him to establish the Accidental Talmudist blog, which features Jewish wisdom and humour, and music from Jewish artists like Matisyahu, Peter Himmelman and the Moshav Band, as well as a live weekly show that is seen in more than 70 countries. Aside from connecting Jewish souls, the blog has introduced new fans to When Do We Eat? and there are plans for an Accidental Talmudist book and movie.

As we continue to ask that vital question, “When do we eat?”, Litvak will continue to connect Jewish souls one matzah ball and one page at a time.

For more information about the Accidental Talmudist, visit accidentaltalmudist.org. For information on the new Daf Yomi class at the Kollel, led by Asaf Cohen daily, at 8 p.m., visit thekollel.com.

David J. Litvak is a prairie refugee from the North End of Winnipeg who is a freelance writer, former Voice of Peace and Co-op Radio broadcaster and an “accidental publicist.” His articles have been published in the Forward, Globe and Mail and Seattle Post Intelligencer. His website is cascadiapublicity.com. He is not related to Salvador Litvak.