Issue # 358

Issue # 358 - 14 May 2009 / 20 Iyyar 5769


IN THIS ISSUE:


WORLD UNION MAKES ITSELF FELT AT DURBAN II

PESACH CELEBRATED IN CRIMEA WITH HELP FROM THE WORLD UNION

IMPJ CONGREGATION MARKS IMPORTANT STAGE IN CONSTRUCTION

LBC HELPS POLISH TOWN RECOGNIZE LEO BAECK

CONDOLENCES

UPCOMING EVENTS





WORLD UNION MAKES ITSELF FELT AT DURBAN II

The World Union for Progressive Judaism, together with the Association for World Education, issued a statement at the Durban Review Conference, held April 20–24 in Geneva, on the parley’s apparent unwillingness to say anything that might offend Arabs or Muslims. Dubbed Durban II, the gathering was a follow-up to the highly controversial UN-sponsored conference on racism held in Durban, South Africa, in 2001, which quickly degenerated into an anti-Israel and even anti-Semitic hate fest.

The joint oral statement was delivered on the last day of the Geneva conference by David G. Littman, spokesman for the World Union and AWE at UN bodies based in the Swiss city. It referred to several problematic sections of the conference's final declaration. They included a condemnation clearly aimed at “neo-Nazi, neo-Fascist and other violent national ideologies,” but not at what Littman referred to as “violent religious ideologies,” and another that focused solely on the “transatlantic slave trade,” and not at what he called “the equally infamous Arab slave trade in black Africans for over a millennium that continues today in some countries.”

Littman also took to task the conference’s call on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to help combat hatred and incitement, citing UNESCO’s ties with an Islamic group that had allowed anti-Semitic literature to be distributed at a conference as recently as December. "We await firm action by UNESCO – and by all UN bodies – denouncing all such UN-related publications that can increase xenophobia, racial and religious hatred and tensions,” he said of a public complaint that had been filed on the matter three months previously. “Here is the time to begin. If not now when?"

To view a letter sent to UNESCO, click here.



A YouTube video clip of David G. Littman speaking before the UN Human Rights Council on March 6, 2009, during which he was ruled out of order by Canadian Ambassador Marius Grinius, the HRC vice president, as he took the council and other UN organizations to task for their ties to blatantly anti-Semitic bodies. Click anywhere on the photo to view the clip, which was supplied by Eye on the UN.


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PESACH CELEBRATED IN CRIMEA WITH HELP FROM THE WORLD UNION

Over 200 people attended Pesach sedarim conducted last month by Progressive congregations in the Crimean cities of Simferopol, Feodosia and Yevpatoria. For some, according to Mikhail Kapustin, the World Union's Crimean-based rabbi, it was the first seder they ever attended.

The sedarim and other holiday activities were led by Kapustin with the assistance of Brent Guttmann and Jill Abramowitz, two of 16 students from the Jerusalem campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion who traveled to the former Soviet Union as part of the annual Pesach Project, a joint World Union/HUC-JIR program designed to enrich the Pesach holiday experience for thousands of Jews in the FSU, reinforce the six resident Progressive rabbis at holiday time, and provide the students with hands-on experience (see WUPJnews #356). (This year's Pesach Project was actually the seventh, and not the sixth, as we reported in that issue.)

The first seder took place in Simferopol, Kapustin's base of operations, on the first night of Pesach. "Eighty people preferred to attend the Reform seder," he said, "while there were two other options, as both Chabad and the traditional congregation run seders, too. In spite of the fact that each participant had to buy a ticket to our festival – while the Orthodox seders were free – the Reform seder was the best attended in town."

Next, Kapustin, Guttmann and Abramowitz traveled to Feodosia, where, before leading a seder meal on Friday evening for 40 appreciative congregants, they viewed local programs run by the Progressive congregation together with Hesed, a center for the elderly backed by the Joint Distribution Committee; toured a local Holocaust memorial, where they recited the Kaddish prayer; and took part in a local Tatar festival, where they introduced themselves and, according to Kapustin, were “very warmly welcomed” by the participants. On Shabbat, the three traveled to Yevpatoria to lead a seder for 60 participants.

"To conclude, I think this year's program was very meaningful for both the communities and the students," says Kapustin. "It was a wonderful experience for all of us. I would like to express my gratitude to the students who came to our congregations, and to all those responsible for the project for a very well-organized program."


The best attended in town: Eighty people crowd around two long tables at the Progressive seder in Simferopol, Ukraine.


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IMPJ CONGREGATION MARKS IMPORTANT STAGE IN CONSTRUCTION

Congregation Darchei Noam of Ramat Hasharon, north of Tel Aviv, recently attained an important milestone in its building project – the completion of the structure's shell with the installation of a floor. To mark the event, the congregation gathered in the unfinished sanctuary for a moving ceremony together with guests from CONNECTIONS 2009, the World Union's recent biennial international convention, held in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv (see WUPJnews #354).

Following a tour of the impressive new building that was guided by Rabbi Stacey Blank, the congregation's recently-installed spiritual leader, the crowd was addressed by several leaders of Reform and Progressive Jewry from around the world. They included Rabbi Uri Regev, outgoing president of the World Union (and in Blank's words a "longtime friend of the congregation"); Rabbi Gilad Kariv, newly appointed executive director of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism; Rabbi Stanley Davids, former president of ARZA (Association of Reform Zionists of America); and Les Rothschild, chair of ARZA Canada and a member of Solel Congregation of Mississauga, Darchei Noam's sister congregation in Ontario.

Following a song by the Israeli congregation's talented lay cantor, Smadar Bilik, who was accompanied on the accordion by her father Hezi, Rabbi Yehoram Mazor, who was Darchei Noam's spiritual leader for a quarter of a century until retiring last year, "stole the show when he decided that the best way to dedicate a new floor is by dancing on it," says board member Reuven Levi. With Hezi accompanying on accordion, Mazor performed an impromptu waltz with Blank – "a moment which will surely be remembered for a long time by all those present!"

"Now that we have a floor," says chairperson Ilana Dothan, "we ardently hope that we will soon raise the funds necessary to move on to the next stage of construction, which will be to install windows and the infrastructure necessary to begin using the building."

Due to political pressure from Israel's Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox parties, the state has long refused to recognize or provide funds for non-Orthodox congregations. As such, Darchei Noam has had to pay for its building by itself, with the help of generous benefactors. If you'd like to help the congregation complete its building, go to http://d-noam.org/en/pages/building. Rabbi Blank adds that naming opportunities are still available. You can also become an overseas member of the congregation. To learn more, contact her by clicking here, or by contacting the World Union’s Jerusalem office, by clicking here. 



Rabbi Stacey Blank (gesturing) talks about her congregation’s building project with a group of participants from CONNECTIONS 2009.


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LBC HELPS POLISH TOWN RECOGNIZE LEO BAECK

Leo Baeck College, an affiliate of the World Union, recently came to the assistance of Beata Maliszkiewicz, a Catholic resident of Opole, Poland, who sought to celebrate the life of Leo Baeck, a former rabbi of the community who went on to help mold Reform and Progressive Judaism into the spiritual force it is today almost everywhere around the globe.

In Baeck’s time (1897-1907), the Silesian town was called Oppeln and was part of Prussia and the German Empire. Following World War II, during which time the town’s Jewish population was deported and almost entirely exterminated by the Nazis, it became part of Poland and reverted to its original Slavic name, Opole.

Maliszkiewicz heads the town’s Society for Alternative Education, which, among other cultural and educational activities, operates a high school. On discovering that Baeck had lived on the same street as the school, she arranged a festival to bring this “rabbi from Opole” to the attention of the town’s current residents and sought material from institutions bearing his name. LBC offered the assistance of Prof. Ludwik Finkelstein, a research fellow specializing in the history of Jews in Polish lands with a native command of the Polish language. It also provided photographic material from the college library and helped produce exhibition material in Polish.

Aside from its namesake, LBC had an additional reason – a personal one – to sign on to the project, for Oppeln/Opole was the hometown of the family of its current vice principal, Rabbi Dr. Michael Shire.

“[As] a consequence of its history and name,” Shire said, LBC had “a duty to preserve and continue the religious legacy of German Jewry. The destruction of this splendid heritage in its land of origin was not only a tragedy for the Jewish people, but a cultural loss for Europe. All in the college concerned with this project feel a great sense of joy that the influence of the man whose name we proudly bear has again been felt in the land in which he once worked.”



A young Rabbi Leo Baeck when he served the Jewish community of Oppeln.


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CONDOLENCES

The leadership and staff of the World Union mourn the passing of Colette Kessler, who died on May 3. She had been in charge of Talmud Torah for Union Libérale Israélite de France (ULIF), and then in the Mouvement Juif Libéral de France (MJLF), of which she was a co-founder. When the World Union’s international convention was held in Paris in 1995, she was honored as one of the main figures responsible for the revival of liberal Judaism in France after the war.

Kessler was also active in interfaith dialogue, and her teachings helped Christians understand what Judaism is. When she published an anthology of her speeches and articles related to Judaism and to the links between Judaism and Christianity, she was the recipient of the “Écrivains Croyants” (Believing Writers) prize.

May her memory be for a blessing.


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UPCOMING EVENTS

June 18, 2009 – Abraham Geiger College – Rabbinic ordination and 10th anniversary celebration in Berlin, Germany

July 9-12, 2009 – 15th Annual Conference of the Union of Progressive Jews of Germany, Berlin/Spandau, Germany

July 9-19, October 15-25 and December 3-13, 2009 – Dreams and Realities: The People, the Land and the Torah of Israel - A Reform Jewish Study Seminar, Saltz International Education Center, Jerusalem

November 4-8, 2009 – Biennial of the Union for Reform Judaism, Toronto, Canada

January 28-31, 2010 – Union of Jewish Communities in Latin America Biennial, Panama

March 4-7, 2010 – European Region Biennial Conference, Paris, France

April 16-18, 2010 – Liberal Judaism Biennial Weekend, England

May 28-29, 2010 – Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism Biennial, Israel

February 7-13, 2011 – CONNECTIONS 2011, USA



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