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B’Yachad: Reconstructing Judaism’s 2022 Conference!

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From Reconstructing Judaism’s Website:

“Join us from March 23 – 27, 2022 for B’Yachad: Reconstructing Judaism Together. Over these four days, both in person and virtually, we will learn from and with experts, scholars and lay leaders. We will engage in conversations, ask questions, and listen. We will pray together, sing together, dance together and celebrate all that we do every day in our communities to reconstruct Judaism. 

B’yachad will be an opportunity for you to reconnect with friends from conventions past and to form new friendships, as well as to deepen your sense of belonging to this community of communities.  If you choose to give your time, energy and resources to this gathering, we hope you will be transformed—perhaps by an encounter, a powerful teaching, or a song that touches your heart. You will leave with many takeaways — resources, some answers, and even more questions. We will know that we have been successful if you return home excited about all you experience and inspired to share what you learned here that can strengthen your own community.

Come back to this website often. Check out the schedule. Have you seen the information about Through A Reconstructionist Lens: An Adult B- / Re- Mitzvah program? It is not too late to participate – and plan to be with us in March 2022 as the program culminates and we celebrate some notable anniversaries.”

Observing Holocaust Remembrance Day

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Holocaust Memorial in Poland: attribution

On this day in 1945 the Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated. To commemorate this liberation, we observe Holocaust Remembrance Day or Yom Hashoah on the 27th of January. This day reminds us how the forces of hatred and fear can incite sectarian violence that ripples through generations. This day reminds us to honor the people affected by genocide around the world, and pledge to stop genocide whenever it arises. It is important to take a moment in our busy life and remember the violence that was inflicted on our ancestors and others effected by genocide.

If you are looking for a way to observe the holiday, the United States Holocaust Museum will be posting speeches from Holocaust survivors and stories about those who were lost. The event will be posted here on their website to be viewed at your convenience. Their website also provides a wealth of resources that one can browse to reflect on the music, culture, documents, art, etc. from the lost communities of the Holocaust.

If you are a parent looking for resources to teach your kids about the Holocaust, this essay in Parenting Magazine by Tyler Gidlin provides ample motivation to make sure we teach our children wisely about the Holocaust. According to Gidlin, “A recent survey of Americans between the ages of 18 and 39 found that 23 percent of respondents said they believed the Holocaust was a myth, or had been exaggerated. Nearly half of all respondents said they have seen Holocaust denial or distortion posts on social media or elsewhere online. And worst of all: 1 in 8 (12 percent) said they had definitely not heard or didn’t think they had heard about the Holocaust.” It is a tough topic to broach to be sure, but as we get farther removed from the generations who experienced it first hand, it becomes more important to hold onto the lessons that were learned during this terrible event in our history.

The Reconstructionist movement provides a wealth of resources to reflect on the holiday including prayers, rituals, and readings. You can find them here on Ritualwell. Here is an excerpt from the website, a poem by By B. E. (Betti) Kahn:

Ritual

By B.E. (Betti) Kahn

So many voids

the world full of them.

Unknown relatives

in mass graves.

Or did they survive?

Still lost to family here.

Their bones, in the vast

ritual of music unplayed,

like violin bows taut.

All our unstrung lives

saved by utterance.

Previously published in Poetry Super Highway, Annual Yom Hashoah Issue, 2010

May their memory be for a blessing.

Members of the Reconstructionist Movement Grapple With Tough Israel/Palestine Topics

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Last week, a handful of AARC members attended a lecture by Rabbi Rebecca Alpert titled ‘Reconstructionism without Zionism.’ The event was the beginning of a series of lectures hosted by a coalition of Rabbis and members of the Reconstructionist community that are concerned about the conflict between Israel and Palestine. The series was not hosted by the Reconstructing Judaism official body or the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. The lectures will occur bi-weekly and cover a range of topics including Decolonizing Jewish Liturgy, Rethinking Israel Education: Teaching Jewish Kids to Think Critically about Israel/Palestine, Becoming an Abolitionist: Antiracism and Antizionism and more. To learn more about the upcoming lectures, check out the coalition’s website here.

The lecture was opened with an appeal for all participants to sit with their uncomfortable feelings about Israel, be curious about what feels challenging, and remain open to hearing divergent viewpoints. Rabbi Brian Walt invited everyone to take part in a prayer to open the lecture:

Barukh atah Adonai Elo heinu melekh ha’olam asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu lirdof tzedek v’shalom l’chol yoshvei tevel. 

Blessed is the Source of Life that makes us holy through mitzvot, calling us to pursue justice and peace for all.

If you want to read Rabbi Alpert’s lecture, you can find the source info here from an article she published on Rabbi Brant Rosen’s blog. In her lecture, Rabbi Alpert argued that we need to redefine what it means to be Jews in diaspora. She maintained that how Mordechai Kaplan related to Israel in the post-WWII era needs to be subject to ‘transvaluation’ in the same way that we have transvalued (or redefined) other concepts within Judaism such as the assertion of Jews as the ‘chosen people.’ Rabbi Alpert concluded by urging the Jewish community to consider the ethical implications of war and occupation.

Upon the conclusion of her lecture, the floor was opened up for 45 minutes questions. It was clear during the Q & A that participants had a lot to say about the subject of Zionism, and Rabbi Alpert’s opinion on the subject. The level of emotion and the fact that over 280 people attended the lecture demonstrates our communities’ need to grapple with this issue. The coalition hosting the lecture provided this space for discussion in the form of a Google group after the lecture.

If last week’s lecture is an example of the level of passion on the topic, we are in for an engaging series of lectures and discussions!

To attend next week’s lecture, sign up here.

The Interesting Intersection of Tu B’Shvat and Martin Luther King Jr. Day

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Often times the long list of social justice issues that need addressing seem like an insurmountable mountain to climb. But when social justice movements converge, it provides unique opportunities for us to collaborate and scale these high peaks of injustice together. Racial justice and environmental justice are not mutually exclusive; in truth, you can not have one without the other. The intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Tu B’Shvat are full of meaning and lessons to be learned if we study them together on this double holiday!

This Tu B’Shvat Seder written by Rabbi Arthur Waskow provides a wonderful opportunity to explore this relationship. This Seder explores climate change, our communal responsibilities to each other, the battles over fossil fuel pipelines running through native communities, and more. If you are planning a Tu B’Shvat seder this year, it is worth a look! Rabbi Waskow says, “But there is a life-giving way, a sacred way, a way of love: At the same moment when we honor the rebirth of trees, the rebirth of the Tree of Life, we honor the birthday of Martin Luther King and the rebirth of the energy he symbolized.”

Hazon has made a few Tu B’Shvat Haggadahs that provide interesting insight for us this year. Here is a family Tu B’Shvat Seder. This Seder asks meaningful questions that families can discuss together and provides a shopping list for ritual objects that you will need! This Hazon Seder from 2019 would be a good one to use this year because the holiday coincided with MLK Day that year as well; it focuses on the moral imperatives of our time as a segue into the double holiday.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is often used to beautify communal spaces. It is not uncommon to find people cleaning parks or rivers on MLK Day. Combining a social justice environmental project is a great opportunity to celebrate MLK’s legacy of taking action to make our world a better place and celebrating nature and trees for Tu B’Shvat. Here are some service opportunities in our area that speak to these double meanings:

I hope that your MLK Day and Tu B’Shvat is full of meaning and purpose this year. If you take part in any of the activities shared here, please take a picture and share with us!!

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.

Other Worlds and Underworlds: A New Ta Shma Series

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By: Rabbi Ora Nitkin-Kaner

Rabbi Ora Nitkin-Kaner

Once upon a time there lived in the city of Worms a man called R. Bunem, who assisted in the burial of the dead. 

One day an old man died and, as usual, R. Bunem accompanied the body to the grave. The next morning, when R. Bunem went to the synagogue, he saw at the door a man dressed in a shroud and with a wreath round his head. R. Bunem was frightened, for he believed he was a demon and started to run away, but the man in the shroud said to him: ‘Do not be afraid, come here, do you not know me?’ 

R. Bunem replied: ‘Are you now the man I accompanied to the grave yesterday?’ Then R. Bunem said to him: ‘Why did you come here, and how are you getting along in the other world?’ 

He replied: ‘I am getting along very well, and am held in high esteem in Gan Eden…If you do not believe me, I will give you a sign which will convince you. When you put the shroud on me yesterday you tore one of my sleeves.’ 

Then R. Bunem said: ‘What does the wreath on your head mean?’ 

He said: ‘It is made of good herbs of Gan Eden and keeps the evil demons from doing me harm.’ Then he asked R. Bunem to mend his sleeve, for he said he was shamed of the other spirits, who had whole garments, while his were torn. Then the dead man disappeared.

This story comes from The Ma’Aseh Book, a Yiddish anthology of stories from Talmudic, Midrashic, and early medieval texts published in Basel, Switzerland in 1602. The Ma’Aseh Book contains a fraction of Judaism’s once well-known, now largely forgotten stories of heaven, hell, ghosts, demons, reincarnation, and resurrection. 

If you’d like to learn more about these hidden worlds, then our new Ta Shma series is for you! Starting on January 8th, join us on Second Saturdays for a taste of the fantastical with Ta Shma: Other Worlds and Underworlds:

January 8: The Soul

February 12: Resurrection, Reincarnation, and Olam Haba 

March 12: Heaven and Its Angels

April 9: Hell and Its Demons

May 14: Dybbuks, Ghosts, and Other Spirits

Some Delicious Recipe Ideas For Your Holiday Break From Our Congregation’s Fantastic Cooks!

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Will you be spending holiday break at home with family this year? Why not try a delicious recipe from some of the fantastic cooks in our congregation!

If you have a recipe you would like to share, type it in the comments below!

Veggie Barley Bake Recipe by Rena Basch:

https://aarecon.org/dish-cold-winter-evening

Rena’s Basch’s Veggie Barley Bake

Dina’s Cranberry Relish Recipe:

https://aarecon.org/dinas-cranberry-relish/

Challah Recipes from Lori Lichtman, Nancy Meadow, Fred Feinberg

https://aarecon.org/food-feature-challah/

Clare Kinberg’s Sufganyot Recipe

https://aarecon.org/sufganiyot/

Marcy Epstein’s Pear Plum Kugel

https://aarecon.org/marcys-kugel/

Nittle Nacht: A Jewish Christmas Eve Tradition

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The Hav out for Chinese food in 2014

For many years, AARC members have joined Jews across America in the unofficial tradition of Chinese and a movie on Christmas Eve. This American cultural practice has roots that originate father than you might think in Eastern Europe and a tradition called Nittle Nacht.

According to Sefaria, Nittle Nacht has been observed on Christmas Eve since the 13th century. Nittle Nacht is commonly translated as ‘birth night’ in Yiddish, though some say the word ‘nittle’ refers to a Hebrew mention of Jesus as ‘the hanged one,’ or ‘nitleh.’

The practice has its origins in Eastern Europe in the late Middle Ages, when tensions between Christians and Jews ran high. On Christmas Eve when most Christians were headed to church, the visible reminder of the ‘otherness’ of the Jews who were not participating incited antisemitism. It was feared that Jews would be attacked when headed to study Torah on Christmas; therefore, rabbis banned Torah study on that day. There are other theories for the prohibition of Torah study on Nittle Nacht, such as the belief that studying Torah on this day would lend merit to Jesus. Whatever the origin of this holiday, for centuries Nittle Nacht observances usually involved Jews hunkering down and playing cards, chess, and dreidel as an alternative to study.

Over time, relations between Jews and Christians developed into a more peaceful coexistence, and the origins of Nittle Nacht became a distant yet formative memory. Still, traditions of spending time in community for Jews on Christmas Eve continued. In the early modern age in Germany, having a Christmas tree in the home was seen as a symbol of secular inclusion. Prominent Jews in Europe such as Theodor Herzl and Gershom Scholem were said to have Christmas trees in their homes. The origins of the modern ‘matzoh ball celebration,’ where Jews throw parties on Christmas Eve, was also born during this time.

Once in America in the 20th century, Jewish observations of Christmas Eve traditions began to blend into the birth of modern Hanukkah observance as a gift-giving holiday. Modern American Jewish homes can be seen decorated with Hanukkah lights and winter-themed decor. There are aspects of the winter holidays that are shared, such as the celebration of light amongst the darkness of winter. It is an interesting history that has led us to this place. What Christmas Eve traditions does your family practice every year?

Home Hosted Hanukkah 2021 Recap

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We had big plans this year for indoor in-person events at the JCC and in people’s homes, but unfortunately the tides of the pandemic shifted and we needed to make new plans! Thankfully most of our events were able to be moved outdoors or onto Zoom, and only a few had to be cancelled. I am truly grateful for our community’s willingness to be flexible and make the best of the difficult circumstances we find ourselves in. There were many moments of joy and community to be found in this year’s celebration of lights and miracles — L’Chaim! Enjoy some photos from the week’s events below:

Marcy made adorable little care packages of tea, cookies, and Jordan almonds for her Sing Along and Tea event.
Home Hosted Hanukkah at the Speyer House! Photo Credit Nancy Meadow
Otto setting the ground rules for the Hanukkah Gelt Hunt Hosted by the Nelson Family. The kids had a blast!
Etta in her fully embodied ‘Hershel’ form for her dramatic reading of Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins.
Community Candle Lighting Menorah set up for Rabbi Ora’s Zoom Hanukkah Event