- 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
…eople, or their children, perhaps forever. So when a child is raised in a halachically-committed Jewish household; when a child is educated at a synagogue nursery school and a Jewish day school or Hebrew school; when a child feels herself to have a Jewish soul and knows herself to be Jewish – and all this is true of my granddaughters – should we tell this child “No, not good enough! You aren’t really Jewish!”? With all the people born to Jewish mo…
…xpertise. This means that, for legal purposes, Moshe should only have to deal with a small portion of the population, that is, those with legal problems too complex or important for the lower courts. In a schematic sense, picture a circle of courts, with the litigants on the outside. Most of the judging for cases among the people would be dealt with by the outer layer of judges; if there were broader ramifications of the decision made in a particu…
…lebrations. Ze me-ze, from one another. A new book by Mark Oppenheimer, a Yale alum who is current editor in chief of the [New Haven] Advocate, is about to be published. The book is called Thirteen and a Day, and it’s a look at contemporary American Judaism through the institution of the bar- and bat-mitzva. Mark visited a lot of synagogues to see how they handle their benei mitzva preparations and celebrations, and he happened to come to BEKI on…
…cision to purchase this new siddur. We were also intrigued by the unequivocal value on the importance of remembering we were once slaves in Egypt and to therefore release those that are beholden to us, to give them what they need to succeed, and to torture them if they should choose bondage over freedom. We have a heightened consciousness as women — and particularly as women who for various reasons did not have the opportunity to become learned in…
…u the Lord will arise, and His glory shall be seen upon you. And nations shall walk in your light, and kings at the brightness of your rising. Your sons come afar, and your daughters are borne on the side. Violence shall no more be heard in your land, desolation nor destruction within your borders; But you will call your walls Salvation and your gates Paradise. Your sun shall no more go down, neither shall your moon withdraw itself; For the Lord s…
…cale of that Arab expulsion of Palestinian Arabs from Kuwait is more than half the number of Palestinian Arabs who fled or were expelled from Israel in 1947-49. The “Jenin Massacre” (2002) turned out to be a hoax; while it was reported that hundreds or thousands had been massacred, the reality was that about 55 Arabs (including 5 or 10 civilians) died, along with 22 Israeli soldiers. The headline story in mid-August (2009) of the Swedish daily Aft…
…tend that one is not doing so. One must face facts, despite fear and communal disapproval. Maybe you’ve seen the t-shirt that reads: I’m not gay but my boyfriend is. I’m not a lesbian but my girlfriend is. They’re meant tongue in cheek, but have a grain of truth. There are many, many people who, for fear of repercussion, from internalizing what we hear on the news every day (this week’s attempt to create a Federal Marriage Amendment being a prime…
…reproduction of a lithograph by the Greek-Israeli artist Rafael Avraham Shalem, recalling a Greek Sephardic family preparing for Shabbat. We found women in the contemporary print by Deborah Joy of an egalitarian congregation. Women dance in a mid-century print by Sol Schreibman. Only one work, a print by the Israeli artist Simcha Nornberg, depicts a woman with a Torah. This is the only work of someone holding a Torah that is not entitled “Rabbi.”…
