- 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
…ently without a rabbi. The distance between the synagogues represented a 10- or 15-minute car ride. An “engagement” for one year was arranged during which Shabbat services were held in alternate buildings. Beth El-Keser Israel easily contained both groups for the High Holidays. The Orange group really wanted a synagogue in their own backyard and contemplated ultimate sale of the BEKI building and new construction in Orange. The “marriage” never oc…
…a lot during the course of this past year. I would like to thank Rabbi Jon-Jay Tilsen for always being nurturing and encouraging. Thank you to Jeffrey Kern who helped me learn how to read my parasha and to Marsha and Sarah Beller who helped me learn how to lead the services. Thank you to two of my favorite teachers, Rabbi Daniel Greer from the Gan School and Rabbi Yehuda Brecher from Hebrew Academy. Thank you to all my friends who are the greates…
…g different, too. Things we’re rightly proud of and grateful for. Aleinu le-shabeah la-adon hakol… shelo asanu ke-goyei ha’aratzot… We praise the Lord of all, who did not make us like the other nations of the world. To the cynic who (parodied British historian Arnold Toynbee and) said, “How odd of God to choose the Jews,” we respond, (in the spirit of Maurice Samuel,) “It’s not so odd: the Jews chose God.” Listen to what Mark Twain wrote at the ve…
…ally believe in. The recent UJA offer to “double” direct funding of Masorti-Conservative and Progressive-Reform institutions is not serious because that almost amounts to twice nothing. If the Israeli Government is able to spend $700 million on non-Conservative religious institutions that seek to disenfranchise us and in many cases promote explicitly anti-Zionist messages, then we have to question to what extent the Government needs our money to p…
…one tale, for example, the Besht goes out of his way traveling to meet face-to-face with a doctor who had sworn to shoot him.7 In the story about the priest noted above, the Besht takes the initiative, and is careful to confront the problem, and not the person per se. But the dangers of using confrontational tactics for purposes other than reconciliation are suggested in a case in which a decree of martyrdom had been issued in heaven against a cer…
…raud or the “selling” of rabbinic authority. And, contrary to what the anti-Semites love to point out, these rules are not supposed to be a tax on non-Jews. They are not supposed to be a mechanism for a vast subsidy by Conservative Jews of non-Conservative rabbinic organizations. They are not supposed to be the battleground for various factions to prove who is more “strict” or to delegitimize others. Rather, the rules are intended to help make us…
…edent for acceptance? It is clear to me that the broader issues require far-reaching development of Jewish law, and I hope that it will happen. The current papers of the CJLS each — including Rabbi Joel Roth’s essay — suggest paths that could be explored. In the meantime, Gay and Lesbian people and their families directly suffer, and our community is weakened, from the fact that their relationships are not normalized in Jewish law. And the Conserv…
…fairs. For large map see “http://www.passia.org/ palestine_facts/MAPS/ 1923-1948-british-mandate.html”. Notes 1 Abraham Granott, The Land System in Palestine — History and Structure, translated by M. Simon, (London) 1952, p. 87. 2 Granott, 1952, p. 88. 3 Granott, 1952, p. 87. 4 Granott, 1952, p. 90. 5 Granott, 1952, p. 88. Apparently Granott means the dominant form of productive land. 6 Robert H. Eisenman, Islamic Law in Palestine and Israel: A…
…-haven-synagogue/ http://www.nhregister.com/general-news/20170102/police-id-2-killed-in-crash-after-chase-carjacking-in-new-haven http://wtnh.com/2017/01/02/2-dead-in-new-haven-after-carjacking-ends-in-crash/ http://www.wfsb.com/story/34164686/names-of-2-men-killed-in-stolen-suv-synagogue-crash-released http://www.courant.com/breaking-news/hc-new-haven-carjacking-crash-20170102-story.html WTIC (Fox 61). Courant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNj9…
…all who need to may say it, then it is enough to say it once early in the service in case someone leaves early, and once late in the service in case someone comes late. For the last six years at BEKI, we have practiced the earlier custom of saying only one qaddish, one of the radical reforms introduced by Rabbi Tilsen. This, then, is a classic case of a practice persisting even when the original reason for the custom no longer exists. The custom…
