Issue #393

Issue #393 – 21 September 2010 / 13 Tishre 5771

IN THIS ISSUE:

AMSTERDAM CONGREGATION DEDICATES NEW BUILDING

ACC GROUP TO SING AT VATICAN, MEET WITH POPE

NEW HEBREW WEB SITE SHOWS PLURALISTIC WAY TO HOLIDAY CELEBRATIONS

GERMAN PRESIDENT TO ATTEND UPCOMING GEIGER ORDINATION

UPCOMING EVENTS


AMSTERDAM CONGREGATION DEDICATES NEW BUILDING

Leaders and members of Liberaal Joodse Gemeente (LJG) Amsterdam inaugurated their new synagogue building on August 29 with a ceremony led by their spiritual leader, Rabbi Menno ten Brink, and attended by local Jewish and political leaders, as well as by members of the Dutch royal family.

The building, designed by Dutch architect Bjarne Mastenbroek, has two sanctuaries, as well as classrooms and a youth room. It also houses a center for interfaith dialogue as well as the offices of the Union for Progressive Judaism in the Netherlands. It is located on a small island some 300 yards from where the congregation’s previous building stood.

The old structure, built in the mid-1960s and lately outgrown – LJG, with its 920 families, is the largest of the Netherlands’s nine Progressive congregations – was razed to make way for a municipal concert hall as part of a major city renovation project (see WUPJnews #286). Until the new building was completed, LJG was housed in a former Baptist church that some of the Progressive congregation’s members used as a wartime hiding place after the German invasion, at a time when Anne Frank and her family were on the roster.

Construction of the new building took about two years and cost some $16 million, of which $1.4 million came from a state-administered restitution fund based on property lost by Dutch Jews deported during the Holocaust.

Representing the World Union at the dedication ceremony were its senior vice chairman, Michael Grabiner, and Rabbi Andrew Goldstein, president of the European Union for Progressive Judaism. The Amsterdam congregation will host the EUPJ for its next biennial conference, to be held March 15-18, 2012.


LJG Amsterdam’s new building.


The sanctuary


The library (Building photos: Iwan Baan)


The dedication ceremony. Rabbi Menno ten Brink (left) and, blowing the shofar, Aaron Rodrigues Pereira.


On the bima, bringing the Torahs to the new ark. Left to right: Cantor Gilad Nezer, congregational chairman Ron van der Wieken, Rabbi Emeritus David Lilienthal, Rabbi Menno ten Brink, building committee chair Luc Stranders, and ritual committee chair Rob Wurms.


Honored guests. Left to right: Honorary board secretary Ellen Schrijver, Crown Prince Willem Alexander, congregational chairman Ron van der Wieken, and Israeli ambassador Harry Kney-Tal. (Ceremony photos: Renee Kater and Jacques Samshuijzen)


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ACC GROUP TO SING AT VATICAN, MEET WITH POPE

The American Conference of Cantors is sending 20 of its members to perform in a special concert of Jewish liturgy and music for Pope Benedict XVI and other Church leaders on November 16 at the Vatican’s Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri.

The program, being organized by Cantor Claire Franco of the Community Synagogue of Port Washington, New York, and by Cantor Roz Barak of Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco, will be part of the second conference on Catholic-Jewish Relations, to take place in Rome November 14-18. ACC president Susan Caro will be accompanying the group.

The cantors will be given an audience with Benedict XVI, and a documentary film will be made of the concert.


The Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri. (Photo: Peter Watts)


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NEW HEBREW WEB SITE SHOWS PLURALISTIC WAY TO HOLIDAY CELEBRATIONS

The Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism this past year inaugurated a new Web site (www.hagim.org.il) with information on how to celebrate the country’s religious holidays in a pluralistic fashion.

Most recently set up for the holidays of the Hebrew month of Tishre, the Hebrew-language site provides explanations and articles about each holiday and ways to celebrate them. There is also information on where they can be celebrated with an IMPJ congregation, a section for Russian speakers, and a page for individual questions that can be sent directly to IMPJ staff.


A screenshot of the Hagim Web site.


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GERMAN PRESIDENT TO ATTEND UPCOMING GEIGER ORDINATION

German President Christian Wulff will participate in the next ordination of rabbis at Abraham Geiger College, to be held November 4 at the Pestalozzistrasse Synagogue in Berlin.

Three new rabbis will be ordained at the November ceremony. All will assume pulpits in Germany. The ordination ceremony is part of the yearlong celebrations marking the 200th anniversary of the establishment of Reform Judaism.


German President Christian Wulff


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UPCOMING EVENTS

October 3, 2010 – World Union’s International Humanitarian Awards brunch, New York City

November 4, 2010 – Rabbinic ordination, Abraham Geiger College, Berlin

November 25-28, 2010 – Biennial conference of the Union for Progressive Judaism in Australia, Asia and New Zealand, Canberra

November 24-25, 2010 – Progressive rabbinic kallah, Sao Paulo

November 26-28, 2010 – Leadership meetings of the World Union’s Latin American region, Sao Paulo

January 13-19, 2011 – Annual conference of Netzer Olami, Jerusalem

February 7-13, 2011 – Connections 2011, San Francisco

March 15-18, 2012 – Biennial Conference of the European Union for Progressive Judaism, Amsterdam



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