IN THIS ISSUE:

• IMPJ TENDING TO POST-WAR NEEDS OF NORTHERN CONGREGATIONS

• PROGRESSIVE RABBI HELPS LEAD IDF FUNERAL

• NEW ZEALAND CONGREGATION APPOINTS NEW RABBI

• UPCOMING EVENTS

IMPJ TENDING TO POST-WAR NEEDS OF NORTHERN CONGREGATIONS

The Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism is undertaking recovery efforts for congregations in areas directly affected by the recent fighting with Hezbollah. The “Community Recovery and Recovery through Community" initiative focuses on seven IMPJ-affiliated kehillot: Or Hadash and Ohel Avraham (Haifa), Emet V’Shalom (Nahariya), Yedid Nefesh (Karmiel), Har Halutz (central Galilee), Ma’alot Tivon (Kiryat Tivon), and Sulam Ya’acov (Zichron Ya'acov). While none of the congregations suffered physical damage, many of their members are in need of services after a month spent living in bomb shelters or as refugees.

According to IMPJ executive director Iri Kassel, a quick mapping of needs identified the following priorities:

• Professional counseling, support groups and special activities for congregation members and their families;

• Support for small businesses and the self-employed, including assistance with bureaucratic procedures such as insurance forms;

• Assistance in congregational management, including a pool of rabbinical students to help provide spiritual services.

    An additional focus lies in finding suitable venues for some of the northern kehillot, including those in Nahariya and Kiryat Tivon, whose members had been meeting in bomb shelters. Says Kassel, "After such a difficult period, no one wants to meet in a bomb shelter.”

Other efforts include the provision of community assistance and counseling for soldiers and their families, as well as spiritual support for bereaved families and the relatives of wounded soldiers. New immigrants will also receive support in order to help them overcome the double trauma of being new to Israel and experiencing war.

“The Community Recovery and Recovery through Community initiative will require a broad mobilization of resources,” says Kassel, who adds that the IMPJ has been in close contact with Reform and Progressive movements abroad. If you would like to help one of the congregations in Israel through the World Union, please click here. To contribute to the Union for Reform Judaism’s North American general Israel Emergency Fund, please click here.

Children at Haifa’s Congregation Or Hadash expressed their feelings on the war through art.

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PROGRESSIVE RABBI HELPS LEAD IDF FUNERAL

In an unprecedented move, Rabbi Maya Leibovic of Congregation Mevasseret Tzion near Jerusalem helped conduct the military funeral of Sgt. Uri Grossman z"l, a local resident and one of the last soldiers to fall in the recent fighting. Grossman was the son of renowned Israeli novelist David Grossman, and together with his family was a member of the Progressive congregation. Says Leibovic, “Uri would come to the synagogue, often with his family in tow” after his older brother had discovered the congregation in his own quest for spirituality.

With the news of Grossman's death, Leibovic hurried to the family home and discussed ways to incorporate into the burial service some of the prayers and passages he loved. Since military funerals in Israel are strictly Orthodox, Leibovic and the Grossman family had to work hard to get the Israel Defense Forces to allow her to help lead the service. Says a movement member who was privy to the process, “Every word and every comma had to be approved by the IDF chaplaincy, all the way to the head of the Adjutant General’s branch.”

Partly due to the high profile of Grossman’s father – who just days before had garnered widespread attention by issuing a public call for a cease-fire – there were hundreds at the funeral, which took place at the country’s main military cemetery on Jerusalem’s Mt. Herzl with wide media coverage. There, says Leibovic, the Orthodox military chaplain “shattered a glass ceiling” by publicly introducing her as Rabbi Maya Leibovic. “Had the circumstances not been so tragic,” she says, “I would have jumped for joy.”

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NEW ZEALAND CONGREGATION APPOINTS NEW RABBI

Rabbi Johanna Hershenson has assumed the pulpit at Temple Sinai in Wellington, New Zealand, making her the country's sole resident Progressive rabbi. (There are two Progressive congregations in New Zealand.)

Born in Washington, D.C., and a graduate of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, Hershenson has been a rabbi for 11 years and has served Reform congregations in California and Alaska. She says she looks upon the rabbinate as an "opportunity to serve the Jewish people in celebration as well as times of need," and considers it "a privilege to offer the lessons and gifts of Jewish tradition to the greater community and to serve the interests of interfaith and multicultural relations." Leaders from Temple Sinai said they are "thrilled" about her arrival and "look forward to her continuing support and guidance."

Rabbi Joel Oseran, World Union vice president for international development, expressed delight at Rabbi Hershenson's appointment and wished her and the congregation much success and satisfaction as they begin their new association.

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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. 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 Dresden, 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.

• Installation of Rabbi Burt Schuman as spiritual leader of Beit Warszawa, Poland’s first post-war Progressive community, by World Union president Rabbi Uri Regev in Warsaw, October 20, 2006. Details soon.

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

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