- Congregation Beth El–Keser Israel
85 Harrison Street, New Haven, CT 06515-1724 | P: 203.389.2108 | office@beki.org
85 Harrison Street, New Haven, CT 06515-1724 | P: 203.389.2108 | office@beki.org
…hips of life in modern Israel. “Four weeks a year in the Army Reserves, sky-high taxes, rock-bottom salaries, meshuga drivers, terrorists, corrupt politicians, rampant sexism, poor postal service, rude and lazy bureaucrats — who can stand it?” “You’re right,” said the other, “it’s terrible. As soon as they open another Jewish State, I’m moving!” While we must recognize that there are certain aspects of Jewish culture and Synagogue culture that oug…
…uld we be? Sincere effort is made to be kind and respectful to extended non-Jewish family members at life-cycle events. Indeed, many non-Jewish people participate happily in most aspects of our synagogue community. Even more so at other Jewish institutions such as the Jewish Community Center or Jewish Family Service; everyone is most welcome. And more importantly, many non-Jewish people have achieved great success in raising Jewish children. It’s…
…ah with this language: “Ya`amod Ploni ben Ploni `im ishto – Come up, Mr. So-and- so with his wife.” The woman was called not as an equal but as an appendage. Joint aliya played a legitimate role in the progress toward equality for women. It got women up on the bima for the first time, overcoming what for some was a major psychological barrier to women’s participation in synagogue ritual. Now that era has passed. Now women count. A woman does not n…
…ts several specific mitsvot. Beyond the value of the animal’s life and well-being in and of itself, and as an independent being in God’s creation, we believe that the way we view and treat an animal affects the way we treat other people. Cruelty toward animals is often a precursor to cruelty toward people. In our panoply of values, we might in general rank our values as human species survival, human group survival, individual human life, then anim…
…he functions of the priests; that is to say, it deals with the tangible day-to-day reality of the Jewish religion while the Temple stood. The rest of the Torah has historical, philosophical, and legal interest to Jews of the Temple period, but VaYiqra, as a guidebook to sacrifice and the atonement of sin, contained an immediate, practical, concrete blueprint for how to get right with God. This was the owner’s manual of the Jewish way of being in t…
…Thus I am pleased to report to you that, though long overdue, the shul’s 40-year-old underground heating oil storage tanks were removed this past fall without incident. There had been no leaks. In this we were lucky since their life expectancies had long since expired. However, the tanks are just the beginning. Their removal sensitized us to the critical need to continue renovating our entire heating and cooling infrastructure. Our furnace is anci…
…on context – a Google search turned up coming out as Canadian, as a cancer-survivor, as a neo-con, as an atheist. So this is the meaning of the text: be honest with yourself in all that you do. Lying with a man as with a woman is a metaphor for lying to yourself, (perhaps the English resonance of lying is not coincidental!), for not facing the truth of your life and sharing it with others. If we are not honest with ourselves, we cannot be present…
…31 Jul Memorial for Shula Chernoff July 31, 2022 12:00 pm – 3:00 pm Events Home Page Shulamith “Shula” Chernoff, a beloved BEKI member who died last spring, will be remembered at a memorial celebration on Sunday, July 31 at noon at […] More Info…
…15 Jun Prayer and Liturgy at BEKI with Rabbi Carl Astor June 15, 2022 7:30 pm – 8:30 pm Home Page Interior Page The heart of the BEKI community is the worship service. It informs us, energizes us, and challenges us. Once a month we will gather on […] More Info…
…m immigrants from Arab countries, Africa and Europe. The fact that my great-great-great grandfather Dov ben Ze’ev lived in northern Israel does not give me a “first come” claim over people who subsequently lived there. But the notion that Arabs are somehow more “native” than Jews is an historical absurdity. Yet it is a notion that underlies much of the writing of the European and American press, and that is held dearly by some Palestinian Arab pro…
