IN THIS ISSUE:

• AS THE WAR CONTINUES, SO DO THE MOVEMENT'S EFFORTS TO ASSIST VICTIMS

• WORLDWIDE PROGRESSIVE COMMUNITY RALLIES SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL

• WORLD UNION ISSUES STATEMENT ON HAMAS TO U.N. COMMITTEE

• HOUSTON CANTOR LEADS LITURGICAL SEMINARS IN FSU

• ITALY’S OFFICIAL JEWISH UMBRELLA GROUP REACHES OUT TO PROGRESSIVE JEWS

• UPCOMING EVENTS

AS THE WAR CONTINUES, SO DO THE MOVEMENT'S EFFORTS TO ASSIST VICTIMS

The Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism and its affiliates continue to provide services to residents of the country's north, which in recent days has come under some of the heaviest bombardments since hostilities broke out on July 12. Haifa, Israel's third largest city, has been particularly hard hit in terms of both damage and casualties. Yet its three Progressive facilities remain open.

At the Leo Baeck Education Center, the director of development, Aharon Pulver, says LBEC "continues its work, continues to maintain services, continues to reach out to those most in need in the community, and will do so no matter what. In an act of brilliant financial acrobatics, [it] has succeeding in paying salaries to over 600 employees."

Congregation Ohel Avraham, which is located on the LBEC campus, recently installed Rabbi Gregory Kotlyar as its new spiritual leader. Kotlyar wrote the following to colleagues in the former Soviet Union, where until recently he served as the World Union’s resident rabbi in Moscow: “I never thought I would be writing to you from a war zone. But here I am. I expected to send you a letter informing you of the move, a bit about the kehilah, and outlining my goals for the coming year. Instead, I join my new colleagues in finding shelter during air raid warnings.” Kotlyar also relates the experience of his first official meeting, on Tisha B’Av, with the congregation. “Many of them have left Haifa to be with family and friends in the south, but still, 10 congregants joined me in reading the Megillat Eicha (Book of Lamentations). We found too many parallels between the worst days of the Jewish people and the events of today.”

Across town at Congregation Or Hadash, Rabbi Edgar Nof reports that pre-school attendance has dropped to about 20 percent, with many families either leaving or sending their children to stay with relatives. "The general mood has reached a new low," he says. "I try to always maintain my sense of humor and to be optimistic, but it is difficult to find comfort during times like this." He also writes about a recent trip to Jerusalem for a wedding. “Being [there] was like moving to a different world. There were no sirens, and people went to work. That made it much harder to return to Haifa. The feeling of freedom was priceless. As soon as we arrived [back] at Or Hadash a siren went off, and we once again returned to the bomb shelter (we didn’t even have a chance to park our car properly). After not being here for two days, it felt horrible. But in many ways we were happy and relieved to return to our home, even during this surreal situation.”

Elsewhere, the IMPJ continues to assist victims of the hostilities. Earlier this week it moved more than 200 residents of the north to the guest house at Kibbutz Almog, near the Dead Sea, after having provided them with temporary housing at a youth village near Ashkelon, and then at a hostel in the Negev town of Mitzpe Ramon. According to the IMPJ staff, a lack of extended vacancies at large facilities has forced the moves. “Our main concern,” says Ofer Shemer, director of the IMPJ's Communities Department, “is that we are now entering the fourth week of this conflict. Unfortunately, we are getting many, many calls from people asking if they can come and stay, and we are simply unable to accommodate them because of our limited funds. It just breaks our hearts to hear a mother who is so worried about her children, and you just can’t help her.”

On numerous occasions since the outbreak of hostilities, the wartime services provided by the IMPJ and its affiliates have been widely reported in the Israeli media – apparently to the chagrin of the country's ultra-Orthodox. Yated Ne’eman, an ultra-Orthodox daily newspaper, recently charged the movement with “exploiting the suffering of residents of the north in order to introduce atheism into their homes." It specifically charged the IMPJ and the Conservative movement with using a joint hotline to "establish contact with families in distress in order to spread heresies under the guise of 'emotional, community and social support.'" To read more about the real wartime efforts of the Israeli Progressive movement, see WUPJnews #'s 220, 221, 222 and 223.

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WORLDWIDE PROGRESSIVE COMMUNITY RALLIES SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL

Progressive movements throughout the world have undertaken numerous activities to assist Israelis in this time of need:

• The Reform and Liberal movements in the United Kingdom, as well as the Friends of Progressive Judaism in Israel, have initiated emergency fundraising campaigns, while their members have helped organize community rallies for Israel.

• The movement in Germany has raised money to assist residents of Safed, while individual German congregations have been organizing solidarity rallies.

• Congregations in Australia have raised funds to help underwrite IMPJ efforts to provide lodging in the center of the country and other services for residents of the north.

• Participants at a recent TAMAR conference for Progressive young adults in Latin America are supporting efforts in their home communities to benefit the IMPJ relief efforts.

• Rabbis working with the Argentine Progressive movement's Fundación Judaica social action program are now in Israel as part of a solidarity mission.

• In Brazil, a message of solidarity with Israel, written by Rabbi Sergio Marguiles from the ARI Progressive Congregation in Rio de Janeiro, was read in the House of Representatives of the State of Rio de Janeiro and will be published in the state’s official gazette.

• The Union for Reform Judaism, representing the North American movement, has provided major funding for a special day camp deep in an underground parking garage at Haifa's Leo Baeck Education Center (see photo below).

To find out how you can help, click here.

Children enjoy an underground day camp at Haifa's Leo Baeck Education Center

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WORLD UNION ISSUES STATEMENT ON HAMAS TO U.N. COMMITTEE

Although Israel's war with Hezbollah in the north has been in the spotlight, the World Union is also focusing on the situation in Gaza. Last month, David G. Littman, who represents the World Union before various United Nations committees in Geneva, issued a joint statement on Hamas along with the Association for World Education during a special session of the U.N.’s Human Rights Commission.

“We support wholeheartedly the serious efforts of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, [Palestinian] President Mahmoud Abbas and like-minded national leaders to find an acceptable two-state solution of peaceful coexistence between two peoples in that small region, with human dignity for all on both sides,” the statement said. It warned, however, that in order to understand what is taking place in the Gaza Strip, “there is an urgent need to consider the full implications of the 1988 Charter of Hamas,” which is the “legally elected Government of the Palestinian Authority.”

The statement went on to cite the Charter’s numerous racist references to Jews and Judaism, and especially its call for jihad (holy war) as the only solution to the conflict with Israel. “With the Hamas Charter now binding the Palestinian leadership,” the statement warned, “this call for the destruction of a Member State of the United Nations is in contravention to Article 2 (4) of the 1945 UN Charter.”

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HOUSTON CANTOR LEADS LITURGICAL SEMINARS IN FSU

Some 50 lay leaders of Progressive communities in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus recently participated in a series of music seminars led by Cantor Vadim Tunitsky of Houston's Congregation Emanu El. The seminars were designed to increase their understanding of Progressive liturgy, with a focus on prayers and melodies for the High Holy Days, and on the structure of holiday services.

"This was indeed a treat," says Alexander Kagan, the World Union's director for the former Soviet Union, "as creating and printing new music for synagogue liturgy is an especially rare event in the FSU." According to Kagan, Tunitsky noted that FSU music leaders have "great creative potential," and that being professional musicians (70 percent had received an education in music) is a "recipe for success." Kagan adds that the seminar participants offered several of their own suggestions. "Cantor Tunitsky,” he says, “noted that he liked many of the original ideas and planned to use them in his own congregation."

The Ukraine-born Tunitsky graduated from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion's School of Sacred Music in 1993, and has been at Emanu El in Houston since 1995. The congregation underwrote his trip to the FSU, as well as much of the cost of the seminars, an undertaking spearheaded by congregant Dolores Wilkenfeld, a senior World Union leader.

While in the FSU, Tunitsky also gave cantorial concerts in Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as in his native town of Kharkiv, Ukraine. Says the city's Progressive rabbi Mikhail Kapustin, "[Tunitsky's] professionalism and energy on the stage made the audience enjoy a real holiday of Jewish music. Many appreciated the fact that he did not forget his native town, but came here to share his talent. Such concerts mean a lot for Ukrainian Jewry," continues Kapustin. "It shows that the Ukrainian Progressive community is not on its own, and that Congregation Emanu El is not indifferent to Jewish spiritual needs across the sea."

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ITALY’S OFFICIAL JEWISH UMBRELLA GROUP REACHES OUT TO PROGRESSIVE JEWS

For the first time, representatives of Italy's growing Progressive movement attended the conference of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities (UCEI), held in Rome July 2-4. The UCEI is the government-sanctioned representative of the country's Jewish community and meets every four years to set policy.

Although the Progressive representatives attended the conference solely as observers, their presence was still a "major victory," according to David Ross, president of Milan's Progressive Congregation Beth Shalom. "It came about after months of behind-the-scenes dialogue with the UCEI leadership, as well as a formal letter from the World Union's vice president for international development, Rabbi Joel Oseran, who asked that we be allowed to attend. Without his letter, our request would never have been considered."

According to Ross, the conference "received wide TV and press coverage and was officially opened by the Italian prime minister, Romano Prodi." He adds that the conference moved to establish a commission that will study possible ways to integrate the Progressive movement into the country's larger, mostly Orthodox, Jewish community.

"The terms of the commission and whether our representatives will be invited to participate are unclear," Ross says. "But our mere presence at this conference and the appointment of the commission is a startling development – a de facto recognition of our movement's growth in the Italian Jewish community."

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UPCOMING EVENTS

• Join us in Jerusalem, March 15-20, 2007, for Connections 2007 – the 33rd International Convention of the World Union for Progressive Judaism. Further details soon.

• World Union’s International Humanitarian Awards Dinner honoring Betty B. Golomb and Rabbi Jonathan A. Stein in New York City, September 10, 2006

• Rabbinical ordination at Abraham Geiger College in Potsdam, Germany, September 14, 2006 – the first ordination of liberal rabbis on German soil since 1942

• Shared Destiny –  the World Union’s International Humanitarian Awards Celebration honoring Rabbi Roberto D. Graetz, Lorry Lokey and Joanne Harrington in San Mateo, California, October 8, 2006

• Special World Union Mission to South America, November 9-20. (Adobe Reader required for this download)

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