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IN
THIS ISSUE:
MAKE A
DIFFERENCE - VOTE THE REFORM/PROGRESSIVE WORLD ZIONIST SLATE
Rabbi Uri Regev, president of the World Union for Progressive
Judaism, urges eligible members of constituent organizations to register
and vote for the Reform/Progressive slate for delegates to the upcoming
World Zionist Congress. The congress will be held in Jerusalem this
June. The slate will represent Reform and Progressive Zionist interests
at the congress, which include full recognition for the Progressive
movement in Israel, and the growth and development of Reform and
Progressive communities worldwide. Those who are eligible to vote can
register by joining their local affiliate of ARZENU, the International
Federation of Reform and Progressive Religious Zionists. ARZENU
represents Reform and Progressive Zionists within the World Zionist
Organization and associated bodies, and is assisting its local partners
with voter registration. For details on eligibility, registration and
voting, including deadlines, contact Dalya Levy at
Dalya@arzenu.org.il.
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THINK GREEN ON TU B’SHEVAT!
Lotan, an Arava kibbutz affiliated with the Israel Movement for
Progressive Judaism, will soon be offering congregations and schools a
kit that can be downloaded from its Web site for teaching and
celebrating the upcoming Tu B’shevat holiday. Tu B’shevat is often
called the “Jewish Arbor Day.” The theme of the kit will be
eco-Zionism, a niche Lotan has carved out for itself by offering long-
and short-term courses at the kibbutz on everything from water
conservation to construction methods that use mostly recycled material.
The kit will include educational materials about Jewish ecological
issues and texts, with an emphasis on fundraising efforts for Lotan's
Center for Creative Ecology. There will also be programming ideas for
all ages. To download, go to
http://www.birdingisrael.com/KibbutzLotan/friendsLotan/ecoEducational.htm.
If you have
trouble finding or downloading the material, contact Lotan’s Eliza Mayo
at
lotan-news@lotan.ardom.co.il for a kit in Word document form.
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PROGRESSIVE RABBI FROM KYIV ADVANCES
INTERFAITH DIALOGUE
Alexander Dukhovny,
chief
rabbi of the Progressive Jewish congregations in Ukraine and spiritual
leader of Congregation Hatikva in Kyiv,
recently traveled to the US with other senior members of the Ukrainian
clergy as part of a State Department program aimed at promoting
religious tolerance. The mission consisted of meetings and discussions
on interfaith dialogue and the role it plays in a multi-ethnic,
democratic society. The participants traveled together to Washington,
DC, Chicago, Houston, San Diego and New York City to meet with religious
leaders, academics and interfaith advocates, and to attend briefings on
campuses and at think tanks. “My group consisted of five members of the
clergy,” says Dukhovny. “Three represented Christianity - the Ukrainian
Orthodox Church, the Greek Catholic Church and the Baptists. An imam
represented the Spiritual Council of Muslims of Ukraine. I represented
the Religious Union for Progressive Jewish Congregations of Ukraine. We
visited churches and mosques, Buddhist temples and synagogues. We met
even with Zoroastrians. The only thing not mentioned in the program is
that we started to laugh together. We started to trust each other. We
started to learn from each other. Dialogue starts here.” Dukhovny says
the interfaith group took part in a synagogue ceremony in New York City
in which a Torah placed on permanent loan by Congregation Emanu-El B’ne
Jeshurun in Milwaukee was handed over to him for transfer to the
Progressive congregation in Mikolayiv, Ukraine. He adds that the
overall experience of the mission has given rise to a dream in which he,
perhaps with the assistance of fellow mission participants, establishes
a center for pluralism and tolerance in Kyiv. [Further observations by
Dukhovny can be found below in the Addendum section - ed.]
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BRITISH RABBI STUDYING EXPERIENCES OF REFORM CONVERTS
Rabbi
Jackie Tabick, spiritual leader of North West Surrey Synagogue, an
affiliate of Britain’s Reform movement, has undertaken a survey of the
approximately 5,000 people the movement’s Beit Din has converted to
Judaism since 1949. The questionnaire was designed in conjunction with
City University. “We want to hear both the positive and negative
stories,” says Tabick. “This is the only way we will be able to learn
how to improve the conversion process in the future, and also how we can
make people feel more included in our communities after they have chosen
to become Jewish.” The survey will cover those still affiliated with
the Reform movement, as well as those who have left the movement or
Jewish communal life altogether. According to movement spokeswoman
Andrea Newman, “Listening to people and responding to their deepest
needs is a major plank of the Movement for Reform Judaism’s 2020 Vision
– [its] plan for the next 15 years.” Newman says that “hundreds of
responses are needed” if the survey is to be considered valid. Anyone
who converted through Britain’s Reform movement who wishes to take part
is asked to contact Rabbi Tabick at
jtabick@lineone.net.
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WORLD
UNION MOURNS ANDREA BRONFMAN
The World Union for
Progressive Judaism notes with sorrow the untimely death of Andrea
Bronfman, a giant in the world of Jewish philanthropy, a devoted
supporter of the Jewish ideals of pluralism and education both in Israel
and in the Diaspora, and a founder of Birthright Israel, the program
that has brought nearly 100,000 young Jews to Israel for free 10-day
trips. She was 60 years old when she was struck by a vehicle January 23
in Manhattan. We extend our deepest condolences to her entire family.
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ADDENDUM
DREAMS OF TOLERANCE
By
Rabbi Alexander Dukhovny
I am a dreamer.
Usually, one may say that a dreamer has his head in the clouds. This is
true until the moment he seeks to make the dream reality. At this
point, he must keep his feet on the ground.
I recall a
conversation with my mum when I was a teenager. She asked about my
dream at the time my documents had been rejected from the university,
only because it was written in my passport that I was Jewish. I said I
would like to live in America and be an American. I did not fulfill
that dream.
Frankly speaking, I
had - and I have - many dreams. Some were lost because I did not keep
my feet on the ground. Some I rejected. Others I put aside for the
future until I could find the ground. Some came true. I would like to
share with you my latest dream.
I used to have long
discussions with my late wife, Rabbi Erlene Wahlhaus-Dukhovny, about the
work I do in Ukraine. We would talk about the basis for building a
movement (meaning a synagogue building in Kyiv, a team of professionals
and volunteers, para-rabbis, lay leaders, etc.). We would talk about
the priorities of the movement (education, youth, etc.). We would dream
together about the ideas the Progressive Movement in Ukraine could offer
Ukrainian Jewry, as well as the Ukrainian people. I would tell Erlene
that I am a Ukrainian patriot (at which point she would smile: It was
difficult for her, a South African-born Jewess, to imagine a Jew being a
patriot in a country known for centuries as a center of anti-Semitism).
To that smile I would reply that I want Ukraine to prosper so that
Ukrainians, including its Jewish citizens and those from other national
minorities, could prosper. This could happen only in a rich country. I
meant not only material wealth, but spiritual wealth.
For me, it mattered
which way Ukraine might go with a new president. That is why during the
Orange Revolution a year ago, I was the only rabbi who openly stood
together with Christian and Muslim clergy leaders in the main square of
Kyiv, praying for unity for Ukraine, for spiritual wealth for its
citizens, and for wisdom and tolerance for its leaders. A month later,
at President Victor Yuschenko's inauguration, I met John E. Herbst, the
US Ambassador to Ukraine. We spoke about a new path – the path of
democracy that Ukrainians had chosen. I asked him about the possibility
of bringing Ukrainian religious leaders of different denominations to
the United States in order to learn about cooperation between different
faiths. Speaking with him, I kept in mind the prominent role the World
Union for Progressive Judaism has been playing in interfaith dialogue.
I thought of the rabbis - many of them my role models - who are at the
forefront of such dialogue, whose work has inspired me to offer my own
ideas for pluralism, tolerance and inclusiveness, as well as both inter-
and intra-faith dialogue to Ukrainian society. I needed firm ground.
Nine months later I
received an invitation to participate in a professional exchange
project, “Religious Tolerance: Encouraging Interfaith Dialogue,”
developed in the framework of the International Visitor Leadership
Program. The program consists of meetings and discussions on interfaith
dialogue and the role it plays in a multi-ethnic, democratic society.
My group consisted
of five members of the clergy. Three represented Christianity: the
Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the Greek Catholic Church and the Baptists.
An imam represented the Spiritual Council of Muslims of Ukraine. I
represented the Religious Union for Progressive Jewish Congregations of
Ukraine. (I was the only Jew in the group, although later it came out
that two of the priests had Jewish roots.)
During the trip we
visited churches and mosques, Buddhist temples and synagogues. We met
even with Zoroastrians. The only thing not mentioned in the program is
that we started to laugh together. We started to trust each other. We
started to learn from each other. Dialogue starts here.
There are a few
aspects of the “Jewish part” of the program that I would like to
mention.
It was very
important for me to introduce my fellow participants to the importance
of the role that North American Reform Judaism plays in daily Jewish
life. Until this trip, the other participants viewed Reform as being
only a marginal Jewish movement. This is not because the Reform
movement in Ukraine has only six synagogue buildings (although, I might
add, we do have 30 congregations, 13,000 followers and the most vibrant
Jewish youth groups), but because the semi-empty shuls of
Chabad-Lubavitch have gold and silver. Appearances mean a lot in my
part of the world.
Our first visit to
a Jewish organization was to the reform movement’s Religious Action
Centre in Washington, DC. Meeting with Associate Director Mark Pelavin,
I whispered, “Say more about the role of the Union of Reform Judaism in
interfaith dialogue, and say more about the significance and influence
of the Reform movement in North America.” I am sure this meeting was a
good introduction to Reform Judaism.
We also visited
synagogues and interfaith centers, and learned that at 70% of these
centers, the Jewish community plays a major role in sponsoring their
programs and activities.
My colleagues were
very impressed when we visited the Simon Wiesenthal New York Tolerance
Center in Manhattan, but the exclamation point came at the end of the
program, during a visit to the Central Synagogue. It so happened that a
Reform congregation in Milwaukee (Congregation Emanu-El B’ne Jeshurun)
had given a Torah scroll on permanent loan to the Progressive
congregation in the Black Sea port city of Mikolayiv, Ukraine. Mandy
Eisner, regional director of the World Union’s Pacific Southwest region,
organized its delivery to the New York City office, from where I was to
collect it in order to bring it back with me. Phoning the office, I
asked that the scroll be brought to the Central Synagogue, which the
group was to visit during Kabbalat Shabbat services. When I arrived at
the synagogue, I asked Senior Rabbi Peter Rubinstein to organize a
formal ceremony in which the Torah scroll would be handed over (an act
of improvisation that one can only call art). Imagine the five of us
(three priests dressed in black robes with heavy gold chains and
crosses, and the imam and myself) being called up to the bimah and
standing in front of 500 people who had come to the service. That was
dialogue in action!
I would like to
thank the American government, as well as Ambassador John E. Herbst, for
organizing such an important trip. I would like to thank my colleagues
at the World Union, who understood the importance of this trip and
supported my participation. Further, I wish to thank my colleagues in
Ukraine who continued doing great work in my absence.
I learned a lot
from the trip. And now I have another dream: to build a centre of
pluralism and tolerance in Kyiv, which would be a house for the Reform
movement as well as a center of inter- and intra-faith action. I am
looking for those with a similar dream, as well as those who can help me
keep my feet on the ground. I hope this dream comes true as well.
Alexander Dukhovny is Chief Rabbi of the Progressive Jewish
congregations in Ukraine and spiritual leader of Congregation Hatikva in
Kyiv
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