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Learn About Clare Kinberg’s ‘Looking For Rose’ Series in the Washtenaw Jewish News

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A Photo of Clare Kinberg’s Aunt Rose

If you have not been following Clare Kinberg’s Looking For Rose series in the Washtenaw Jewish News you are missing out! Each month since December 2019 Clare has explored race, class, history, Judaism and more through the lens of her Aunt Rose’s life. It has been a joy to follow, to read the series, you can click on each issue of the Washtenaw Jewish News here. Learn more about the series in Clare’s own words below.

Clare Kinberg on the ‘Looking For Rose’ Series:

For forty years, beginning in 1975, I tried to find my father’s sister Rose, an aunt I’d
never met. I grew up in St. Louis, in an Ashkenazi Jewish family I had been raised to
believe was completely segregated from African American families. But the separation
was a lie.

I now know that sometime in the late 1930s my Aunt Rose moved to Chicago with her African American husband Zebedee Arnwine. Her young son from an earlier marriage, Joey, remained behind with her mother and siblings. On the day in 2016 when I found
Rose’s death certificate on the internet, I learned she had died at the age of 76 in a
hospital in South Bend, Indiana. Her last residential address was in Vandalia, Michigan,
about two hours directly west of my home in Ypsilanti where I live with my wife Patti and our two adopted African American daughters. Vandalia was founded by abolitionist
Quakers and several free Black families, some of whom had been manumitted prior to
the Civil War.

I found my Aunt Rose’s unmarked grave in a small church cemetery among some of
the oldest Black residents of Cass County. The first time I stood near Rose’s burial plot,
I resolved to write a book about her.

Now, after five years of research and prodding, I’ve met the descendants of her
friends and the people among whom she is buried. I’ve found the places in Texas and
Oklahoma where Mr. Arnwine lived when the area was still Indian Territory, learned how the Underground Railroad shaped southwest Michigan, and unearthed stories of Jewish communities in small town Michigan.

My wife Patti and I moved to Michigan looking for a decent place for an interracial
family to raise our daughters. Unbeknownst to me, my Aunt Rose had moved to
Michigan sixty years earlier. She settled on the shore of Paradise Lake in 1943 when
she was 35 years old. Looking at her decisions through the lens of my own life, I
suppose that Rose and Mr. Arnwine similarly were looking for a place where an
interracial couple could live safely. Patti and I spent so much time analyzing the
demographics of places where we might live, thinking about which Black and Jewish,
interracial and lesbian communities our family would come to call our own. This story is
shaped by the conversations I wish I could have had with Aunt Rose.

AARC Mitzvah Corps – an Essential Ingredient of a Caring Community

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By Anita Rubin-Meiller written for the Washtenaw Jewish News

“Mitzvah comes from the root word tzavta, which means connection. There are 613 mitzvot, and therefore, 613 ways to connect to G-d.”
– Rabbi Zushe Greenberg

I appreciate this definition of mitzvah, which goes beyond doing a good deed or following a commandment, and adds connection as an essential ingredient. When I became chair of the Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation (AARC) Mitzvah Corps several years ago, I knew that what we could offer to the larger community would best be generated by what we offered each other to build connection, support, and a sense of being known. Towards that end, we began having quarterly meetings, which moved to Zoom during shutdown and have been in person since the availability of the vaccine. The meetings begin with a personal sharing of a blessing and a challenge since we last met. In this way we have supported each other through health challenges, losses, changes in career or living situations, family stresses.  Through that feeling of being connected it is easy to feel moved to connect to others when they are in need. Connection is the heart and soul of our mission – “to mobilize support when needed” and our vision – “to create a non-judgmental community in which it is natural to ask for and receive help.”

Connection is the heart and soul of our mission – “to mobilize support when needed” and our vision – “to create a non-judgmental community in which it is natural to ask for and receive help.”

Early on the Pandemic showed us that support might have to arrive in ways that we were unaccustomed to. We were placed in lockdown in March, 2020 and a month later, a former beloved member of our congregation notified me that she had just lost her mother and was seeking support for one night of Shiva. She and her family had other resources for Shiva as well, but it was especially important to her during this time of “virtual only” contact to be with people who knew her, her family and may even have known her mother. She had been an active member of the congregation for many years and had celebrated the Bar and Bat Mitzvahs of her children with us. It was a certain joy to be able to connect her with Rabbi Ora Nitkin-Kaner and know that her needs in the midst of grief would be well tended to. The Mitzvah Corps notified  the congregation of the chance to offer support, and our first Zoom Shiva was manifested. While a Zoom Shiva could never substitute for the in-person hugs, warm personal exchanges, and provision of food that happen in person, for this woman, seeing familiar faces, in a religious context that meant a lot to her, “felt like home”.

Another request prompted by the societal circumstances we found ourselves in was from a long time AARC member with chronic health issues that impacted her mobility and sense of safety. At the start of the pandemic, she was experiencing greater physical difficulty, and had had a couple of falls. It was also just barely a year since she had lost her beloved husband, and her loneliness and isolation was acutely felt. At the suggestion of a good friend, she contacted the Mitzvah Corps and explored what support could be offered. We created a chain of daily phone calls with a combination of AARC members and personal friends, that continues to this day. She says she is “so thankful” and that through these calls she has come to trust that “someone cares about me”.

Some needs met by the Mitzvah Corps, such as helping families host services for B’nei Mitzvah have been unnecessary during these past 2 years. Other needs have remained the same. We have organized meal chains for families bringing home a newborn and for individuals moving through significant illness or injury. We have provided rides to medical appointments and assisted with grocery shopping. We have been grateful that when a need is made known, many members of our congregation rise to the occasion to pitch in.

As it is designed now, the five Mitzvah Corps members carry the responsibility to mobilize support when and where it is called for. All requests come through the chair person and are either met by her, or assigned accordingly. We have been glad to be available during these difficult times, but at times have also felt the strain of higher demand, as when two of our members were significantly injured and another’s family was ill with Covid. 

The pandemic also thwarted initial efforts from some Corps members to start new offerings, a support group for families caring for their elders and a support group for parents of teens. Hopefully these will happen in the future.

“You don’t always think of yourself as someone who will need something, but we are all vulnerable and there are times we will need help.”

At our most recent quarterly meeting we began to address the issues of increasing membership in the Mitzvah Corps and being better able to know, and meet, what the needs of the congregation’s members truly are. As we puzzled over what we’d want others to know about our efforts, one member, Caroline Richardson, observed: “You don’t always think of yourself as someone who will need something, but we are all vulnerable and there are times we will need help.” Our board liason, Debra Gombert, observed:” the act of bringing a meal to congregation members in need was about connection, not cooking; about being in community and creating community.”

It seems that the Covid pandemic and other factors in the past few years have highlighted great need in many areas for many people. It can be overwhelming to know where you can have an impact that matters, if that is your desire. But, as it says in the Mishnah, “Anyone who saves a life, it is as if they saved an entire world.” The AARC Mitzvah Corps offers an opportunity to lighten the burden of one individual, or family, and by doing so increase your own sense of well -being and joy. 

If you would like to learn more about the Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation please visit aarecon.org, or contact Gillian Jackson at aarcgillian@gmail.com or Rabbi Ora Nitkin-Kaner at rabbi@aarecon.org.

To see this article in the December 2021 Washtenaw Jewish News, scroll to Page 19 here. https://washtenawjewishnews.org/PDFs/WJN-12-21-web.pdf

A Book Group for People of the Book

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by Greg Saltzman, written for the November 2021 edition of the Washtenaw Jewish News

Photo of monthly book club before COVID-19 Restrictions

Jews sometimes are called “people of the Book,” referring to the Torah.  Books, interpreted more broadly, are the focus of the Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation (AARC) book group.  We have met since 2014 about eight times per year, discussing a different book each time.  AARC book group meetings are open to members of the local Jewish community regardless of whether they belong to AARC.

Besides the intellectual stimulation of reading and discussing books, the AARC book group helps provide a sense of community and connection among the participants.  Before COVID forced us to meet via Zoom, our meetings began with tasty food.  (My wife, Audrey, loves feeding people.)  May the pandemic end soon and the tasty food return!

Many of the books we discussed recently won National Jewish Book Awards.  For example:

  • Max Gross, The Lost Shtetl, a novel about a hidden Jewish village in Poland that escaped the Shoah.
  • Colum McCann, Apeirogon, a novel based on a true story of an Israeli and a Palestinian who each lost a daughter to violence related to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict but nevertheless reached out to each other to build peace.
  • Yossi Klein Halevy, Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a Nation, a nonfiction account following the lives of seven Israeli soldiers from 1967 to more recent years.
  • Michael David Lukas, The Last Watchman of Old Cairo, historical fiction based on Solomon Schechter’s discovery of a treasure trove of Jewish documents in the Cairo geniza.
  • Rachel Kadish, The Weight of Ink, a novel about a Sephardic Jewish woman in 17th century England who chafes at restrictions on women’s education.
  • Helene Wecker, The Golem and the Jinni, a novel about the immigrant experience in New York around 1900, with a twist: one of the immigrants is a golem.

I’ve also loved some Jewish-themed books we’ve discussed that did NOT win National Jewish Book Awards, such as:

  • Sophie Judah, Dropped from Heaven, short stories about Jews of India.
  • Lucette Lagnado, The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: A Jewish Family’s Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World, a family memoir of the experiences of a prosperous Jewish family forced to flee Egypt after Nasser took over.

We discussed several books that did not have specifically Jewish themes:

  • J.D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy, a family memoir of the experiences of working-class Appalachian whites, which helps explains some of the political support for Trump.
  • Mohsin Hamid, Exit West, a novel about war refugees that was a finalist for the Booker Prize.
  • A special treat was a discussion led by AARC member Jonathan Cohn, a journalist, of his book The Ten Year War:  Obamacare and the Unfinished Crusade for Universal Coverage.  It’s not often that the author himself leads a discussion in a small book group.
  • AARC’s Rabbi Ora Nitkin-Kaner has led the discussion for one meeting each year of the the AARC book group.  In 2021, her session focused on Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, a nonfiction account of unfair treatment by the criminal justice system of those who are impoverished or Black.

Previews of coming attractions:

  • On Sunday, November 7, 2021 from 11:30 AM to 1 PM, we’ll have a Zoom discussion of Aaron Lansky, Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books.  This is a memoir of Lansky’s efforts (for which he later won a McArthur Award) to rescue old Yiddish books before they were discarded in dumpsters.  It also provides some insight into Yiddish culture in Canada and the U.S.
  • On a yet-to-be-determined Sunday in December 2021, from 11:30 AM to 1 PM, we’ll have a Zoom discussion of Yehuda Avner and Matt Rees, The Ambassador.  This is an alternative history novel that assumes the British government implemented the 1937 Peel Commission recommendation to partition Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab.  The novel tells the story of the Israeli ambassador to Nazi Germany who desperately tries to save as many Jews as possible from being murdered by the Nazis.

If you would like to be added to the email distribution list for AARC book group announcements and Zoom links for our meetings, please email me at gsaltzman@albion.edu.

To see this article in the November 2021 Washtenaw Jewish News, scroll to Page 10 here. https://washtenawjewishnews.org/PDFs/WJN-11-21-web.pdf

Capturing Learnings as the AARC enters the High Holiday Season

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Written by Rebecca Kanner and Emily Eisbruch for the Washtenaw Jewish News

Hybrid Shabbat, July 2021

Lots changed during the COVID 19 pandemic, including, for many of us, how we worshiped and how we socialized.  What a joy to experience the happy reconnections in the summer of 2021, as vaccines enabled the resumption of many in-person events.  Now, on the brink of the New Year 5782, the Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation (AARC) is taking stock of lessons learned during the pandemic and taking steps to capture and continue some of the positive innovations.

Aziza celebrating Tu B’Shvat

As one example, the pandemic inspired an increase in creative outdoor activities for the AARC Beit Sefer (religious school).  A Tu B’Shvat program centered on Ann Arbor’s champion trees and a bike/hike relay experience connecting Beit Sefer families are two examples.  “The healthy connection with the outdoors, and focus on Jewish environmental education is an emphasis we plan to continue,”  says Beit Sefer director Clare Kinberg. “For the upcoming school year we have plans for a monthly Beit Sefer program at The Farm on Jennings, a farm providing a diverse selection of certified naturally grown produce and flowers, owned and operated by AARC member Carole Caplan.”    

At the congregational worship level, we recently invested in state-of-the-art equipment to deliver hybrid worship experiences that are meaningful both for in-person and online participants.  According to Seth Kopald, who is a Board member and part of the AARC’s Tech Committee, “We bought quality equipment so everyone will hear and see things clearly, and hopefully it will help those on Zoom engage on a deeper level. We really want people to feel a part of the services and other events. We are together even when we are apart.”  In July, the AARC was pleased to convene an outdoor Kabbalat Shabbat service and to kick off using the new sound system, with the event streamed live on Facebook.  

In another innovation, color-coded name tags (using green, yellow or red circle stickers) were offered for those in-person at the July Kabbalat Shabbat. The colorful stickers were applied on name tags to indicate an individual’s comfort with hugs versus handshakes versus socially distanced smiles.  The stickers provide an easy mechanism for people to signal their level of readiness (or not) for friendly physical connection.   The congregation will decide whether to continue offering the stickers moving forward. 

Mishpocha groups, formed during COVID to facilitate AARC members keeping in touch, have proved highly successful.   AARC members serve as hosts for small groups that meet weekly or biweekly on Zoom, providing a cohort for check-in, support, and even sometimes for sharing music, poetry and short stories.  The friendships and new bonds continue as we emerge from the pandemic, and the Zoom check-ins may also continue.

Here’s a friendly reminder that High Holiday services are a great time to check out the Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation. Our live-streamed services are open to all.   For more details, we invite you to visit the AARC website at https://aarecon.org/ or reach out to Gillian Jackson at aarcgillian@gmail.com. 

To see this article in the September 2021 Washtenaw Jewish News, scroll to Page 8 here.
https://washtenawjewishnews.org/PDFs/WJN-09-21-web.pdf