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Issue #315 – 5 June 2008 / 2 Sivan 5768
The leadership and staff of the World Union for Progressive Judaism wish the readers of WUPJnews and their families a healthy and happy Shavuot holiday.
IN THIS ISSUE:
IMPJ HOLDS BIENNIAL, MARKS ISRAEL’S 60TH BIRTHDAY
WORLD UNION HOSTS SEMINAR FOR FSU CONGREGATIONAL LEADERS
AUSTRALIA’S RABBI MORGAN LEADS FASCINATING TOUR OF INDIA
IMPJ HOLDS BIENNIAL, MARKS ISRAEL’S 60TH BIRTHDAY
More than 1,000 people attended the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism’s 18th biennial conference May 23-24 at Kibbutz Shefayim, north of Tel Aviv. The theme of the conference was “Israel at 60” and according to Iri Kassel, executive director of the IMPJ, the weekend was one of “togetherness and joy, of learning and determining our mutual path, of faith and mission, of strength and determination.”
The biennial received wide coverage in the Israeli media. IMPJ associate director Gusti Yehoshua-Braverman was quoted in the Jerusalem Post as saying: “In the past, the Reform Movement was perceived by Israelis as an import from America. But looking around the conference, it was clear that our movement is striking deep roots in Israeli society."
Two Israeli cabinet ministers, who are good friends of the Progressive movement, made featured appearances: Yitzchak Herzog, minister of welfare and Diaspora relations, who spoke at the gala opening session held outdoors at Kibbutz Shfaim; and Yuli Tamir, minister of education, who took part in the conference’s final plenary session. Tamir helped introduce movement-developed curricula into the country’s secular school system, while Herzog, during a previous turn as minister of construction and housing, granted the movement the first synagogue structure provided by the government to a non-Orthodox stream (see WUPJnews #312).
Marking, as it did, Israel’s 60th birthday, the biennial also featured lectures by two of the country’s leading thinkers: author A.B. Yehoshua and law professor Ruth Gavison. Yehoshua spoke about past, current and future trends in Zionism and Israeli/Jewish nationhood. Gavison, a member of the panel that examined the political and military conduct of the 2006 war against Hezbollah and who now leads a think-tank dedicated to charting Israel’s future, outlined her views on ways to tackle some of the Jewish state’s numerous political and social issues.
There were also study groups, Shabbat prayer services, an oneg Shabbat that featured joyous singing and dancing led by legendary songstress Sarahleh Sharon and emotional testimony from new immigrants. The IMPJ bestowed special honors on Haifa’s Leo Baeck Education Center, which is celebrating 70 years since its establishment; Kibbutz Yahel and Kibbutz Lotan, now marking 30 and 25 years, respectively, since their founding; and Keren B’Kavod, the Israeli Progressive movement’s growing social action project.
In addition, there was a salute to the towns, kibbutzim and moshavim near the border with the Gaza Strip. These communities have been under almost constant rocket and mortar fire from Islamic militants, and during the past year the IMPJ has been providing them with economic and social assistance, as well as movement-oriented programming. Alon Schuster, head of the Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council, which includes much of the area under bombardment, was an honored guest at the biennial.
Prior to the biennial, Professor Gidon Kudna of Tel Aviv University led a seminar for movement and congregational leaders that addressed theories of organizational culture. Kudna, says Dr. Jesse Lachter, vice chairperson of the IMPJ’s National Council, “brought us together to consider the culture of the IMPJ: In what ways are we focused in our vision, our strategy and our implementation? How can we examine ourselves and improve ourselves to meet our goals as a religious and ideological movement? With incisive humor, Kudna helped our leadership focus on management and becoming more successful and goal-oriented.”
Yossi Koren, a leading advertising executive who has been working with the IMPJ for the past three years, led a session on branding. “The process of branding - of our membership learning to define itself and our shared goals - has been a powerful process,” says Lachter. “The key issues of whether we are a religious movement, a Zionist movement, and what our short- and long-term goals and challenges are, continue to divide our rank and file, but we are going through self-definitions which are critical to our setting and achieving goals together as a movement.”
Participants at the IMPJ’s recent biennial conference celebrate Israel’s 60th birthday and the growth of the country’s Progressive movement.
Law professor Ruth Gavison discusses some of Israel’s political and social issues at the IMPJ biennial.
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WORLD UNION HOSTS SEMINAR FOR FSU CONGREGATIONAL LEADERS
In the first program of its kind, the World Union brought 17 congregational chairpersons from Ukraine and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union to Israel for a leadership seminar during the first week of May. The timing of the trip allowed the participants to take part in ceremonies marking both Yom Hashoah and Memorial Day for Israel’s fallen, as well as the festivities marking the country’s 60th Independence Day.
“We held this seminar,” says Alex Kagan, FSU director for the World Union, in order “to express our appreciation to our congregation chairs, who for years have worked on a volunteer basis to develop and strengthen their respective communities and the Reform movement in the FSU as a whole, and in order to strengthen their ties to Israel.” Kagan called it a “unique visit” also in that “the participants’ ages ranged from 35 to 55, an age group in which most Jewish organizations do not invest as much effort, since they focus primarily on the younger generation.”
For Yom Hashoah, they joined in a moving commemoration led by Rabbi Yelena Rubenstein, director of immigrant absorption for the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism. Afterwards they toured Jerusalem and its Old City, the Dead Sea area and as far north as the Golan Heights. They marked Kabbalat Shabbat with Rabbi Maya Leibovic and her congregation in Mevasseret Zion, outside Jerusalem. Leibovic had traveled to the FSU many times in the past to lead the pre-holiday seminars that helped form the backbone of Progressive programming and, ultimately, three strong movements in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. While at Mevasseret Zion, Rabbi Leibovic and her congregation warmly welcomed the leaders, and praised them effusively for all of their hard work.
During the final three days of their stay in Israel, the chairpersons formed the Progressive contingent at “Bama,” an international conference organized by the Jewish Agency to mark Israel’s 60th birthday as well as four decades since Jews in what was then the Soviet Union began their struggle for religious freedom and the right to leave. On the last day of their stay, they dispersed to celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut with family and friends throughout the country.
Kagan says that during the feedback session, the chairpersons expressed “warm thanks” to the World Union for what they called “a meaningful, emotional and unforgettable visit,” saying it was clear to them that their many years of hard work have not gone unappreciated. “They feel they are chalutzim (pioneers),” Kagan adds, “and they hope that other congregation chairpersons will have the chance to make similar trips in the future.”
The seminar was an integral part of a larger pilot leadership development program now being conducted in Ukraine with the generous support of the Dutch Humanitarian Fund and the Martin and Michele Cohen Family Foundation.
Some of the FSU congregational chairpersons pose during their recent World Union seminar in Israel.
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AUSTRALIA’S RABBI MORGAN LEADS FASCINATING TOUR OF INDIA
Rabbi Fred Morgan, senior rabbi of Temple Beth Israel in Melbourne, Australia, recently led a group of 38 on a three-week tour highlighting the religious side of India. “Shalom India: Seeing India through Jewish Eyes,” focused on the members and holy sites of the country’s many and varied religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and Islam. It also included time at the most significant sites of Jewish interest in Mumbai and Cochin. The World Union helped to promote the tour.
Participants from Temple Beth Israel and elsewhere in Australia were joined by others from New Zealand and the United Kingdom. They spent one Kabbalat Shabbat with members of Mumbai’s Congregation Rodef Shalom, a World Union affiliate.
“The synagogue welcomed their…counterparts for a Kabbalat Shabbat, with a mix of the familiar and exotic,” reported the Australian Jewish News, which quoted Morgan as saying, “The melodies are very much like our own, but the prayers are printed in a transliteration of Marathi, a local dialect that uses Sanskritic letters.”
Dot Nathan, a member of the tour group, told the paper that they were “fascinated” by the Shabbat blessings at Rodef Shalom. “First there is ha’gafen [wine], but then they make two other brachot – ha’aitz [for trees], then ha’adamah, which we make at the seder [for fruits of the earth], after which they eat dates and bananas. At the very end they make ha’motzi [the brachah for bread].”
Prior to joining the rabbinate, Morgan was a lecturer on the religions of India at the University of Bristol in England. He traveled extensively in the northern part of India and lived for several months in the Hindu center of Varanasi.
To read the account of the tour appearing in the Australian Jewish News, click here.
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UPCOMING EVENTS
June 13-15, 2008 – Biennial conference of the South African Union for Progressive Judaism (SAUPJ) in Cape Town
July 4-6, 2008 – Biennial conference of the British Movement for Reform Judaism in Leicester, UK
July 10-13, 2008 – Biennial conference of the World Union’s Latin America Region in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
July 10-13, 2008 – Annual conference of the Union of Progressive Judaism in Berlin, Germany (information currently in German only)
October 30-November 2, 2008 – Biennial conference of the Union for Progressive Judaism (UPJ) for Australia, Asia and New Zealand in Melbourne, Australia
March 17-23, 2009 – CONNECTIONS 2009 – The 34th international convention of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv
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