Blog

Jews and Social Justice: Neither synonymous nor in conflict, but up to you

December 24, 2015 by Clare Kinberg

poverty wages are not kosher AARC visiting rabbi, Alana Alpert, is spearheading a fundraising campaign to launch Detroit Jews for Justice and is asking all of us to help. “Detroit is an incredible place full of courageous and resilient people who I feel so privileged to learn from and to struggle with,” she says in a crowdfunding video. “What happens in Detroit matters not just to the people here. We are not just a symbol, but a microcosm. What we win or lose here has impacts across the country.”

Rabbi Alana is a gifted young rabbi, and a skilled community organizer. But, she says, “There was a time when I thought I had to choose between my Jewish identity and being a social justice activist. And then I realized that not only were they not in conflict, but they could make each other stronger.” Detroit Jews for Justice is carrying on the Jewish traditions of activism in the women’s, labor, and civil rights movements, and bringing them into this moment in history. Since 2014 DJJ has organized and participated in a long list of activities including support for #blacklivesmatter, protesting the Detroit water shutoffs, and supporting fast food workers and Wal-Mart employees in their struggle for fair wages and decent working conditions. Take a look here at what DJJ has already accomplished.

In a counterpoint to Rabbi Alana’s pre-rabbinical school feeling that she had to choose between her Jewish identify and social justice activism, one commenter on the crowdfunding video wrote, “There was a time when I thought Jews and social justice were synonymous.” There’s some food for good discussion. But, right now, Detroit Jews for Justice has picked up the baton to strengthen the tradition of Jewish involvement in social justice activism. With ten days left, the crowdfunding has raised two thirds of its goal of $18,000. You can become a Founding Supporter here.

Dina’s Cranberry Relish Recipe

December 17, 2015 by Clare Kinberg

latkes and relish

Cranberry Relish on latkes? Yes! Thank you Dina Kurz for this delicious addition to the Hanukkah Party.

Ingredients

2 whole seedless oranges, zested then peeled and separated into about 6 parts
1 teaspoon orange zest
12 oz fresh cranberries, preferably organic
3/4 cup (6 oz) sugar
(Optional) 2 tbsp Grand Marnier (or more to taste)

Put the orange slices in a small food processor or blender and make into puree. Place in a small pot with the orange zest and sugar. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Then add the cranberries and cook, continuing to stir occasionally, over medium heat, for about 10 minutes. The cranberries will break and pop, and eventually look like cranberry sauce. Optionally, stir in the Grand Marnier liqueur and remove from heat. Serve hot or cold.

Magical Hanukkah Lights

December 16, 2015 by Clare Kinberg

Beit Sefer G'dolim with their Hanukkah flames — G’dolim with their Hanukkah flames

Beit Sefer Yeledim with their Hanukkah flames — Yeledim with their Hanukkah flames

Paul with his traditional Jewish banjo teaching I Had a Little Dreidel

Families with Young Children Light the Lights

Deep dive into Hanukkah themes

December 9, 2015 by Clare Kinberg

Last year at this time, I wrote an article about the complex, often contradictory, Hanukkah themes in children’s books. I looked over about 200 children’s Hanukkah titles and made these very general observations: Many older Hanukkah books focus on the Maccabees as brave Jewish warriors. While physical and moral courage continues to be a common theme, others include a focus on faith, “not by might but by spirit alone;” religious freedom; and being Jewish in a Christian majority country, including authentic friendship between Christians and Jews.

And then there are the books, maybe the majority of them, which emphasize Hanukkah as the Jewish midwinter holiday, the light in the middle of winter, with warm family gatherings, and the generosity and thoughtfulness of present exchange. The point of many of these books seems to be to familiarize Jewish kids with the symbols of the holiday: the dreidel, the menorah, gelt, and of course, presents. Included in these is the Hanukkah around the world theme: Hanukkah in Alaska, Antarctica, the prairie and even under the sea! These books convey the message that Jews are like everyone else….just with a little twist. Others that do this are the ones that riff on familiar folktales to tell a Hanukkah story: the gingerbread man becomes the runaway latkes or the runaway dreidels; Scrooge becomes Scroogmacher; the Jewish sorcerer’s apprentice can’t stop the pan from frying latkes….you get the point. I concluded that perhaps it is the proliferation of “Hanukkah in Chelm” books that do the best job of conveying the spirit of Hanukkah for children. The wise fools/foolish wise ones are uniquely Jewish, timeless, faithful, and oh so brave in their foolishness.

This year, however, I’ve found myself looking with a much more sober eye at various versions, for adults, of the “true meaning” of Hanukkah. As we are daily confronted with religious zealotry in its present expressions, what do we hear in the echoes of Hanukkah? As AARC member Benji Ben Baruch writes in “The Stories of Hanukkah,” the significance of the Hanukkah story was reinterpreted many times over the generations reflecting the “particular political group at a specific point in time with conflicting visions of the present and future needs of the Jewish people.” It appears to me that we are in an era of transition from the late 20th century glorification of the Maccabee’s fight for independence into a cautionary era, focusing on recognizing the dangers of zealotry and the potential devolution of power to tyranny. In a lecture by Yehuda Kurtzer titled “On Terrorism and Nationalism, Reflections on Hanukkah in Light of the 20th Anniversary of the Rabin Assassination” (part of the 5776 Rabbinic Holiday Webinar Series from the Shalom Hartman Institute), Kurtzer repeatedly refers to Matisyahu Maccabee’s actions in the core Hanukkah story as acts of “terrorist, nationalist violence” (induced by a sense of powerlessness and combined with a conviction to Divine will), pointed language in our particular time. I cannot possibly summarize this profoundly important lecture here, but if you have an hour to devote to deep Jewish learning, I highly recommend it. Other recent, and briefer, reflections on Hanukkah for our time are here by Judith Seid and here by David Wolpe.

I asked several AARC members for their own top Hanukkah themes. Responses included:

From darkness to light/faith in the light returning
Rededicating ourselves to our beliefs
Rekindling hope
Courage to be who we are
The right/need to fight for your religious freedom
Jewish perseverance
Inspiration to fight against tyranny
Strong faith/spirit as a tool to win anything
A great leader is like the shamash candle: serve, light others fire, and caring/watching from above.

I hope these words inspire additional reflections on the meaning of Hanukkah for each of us.

WJN article about our Tu B’Shevat Shabbaton

December 3, 2015 by Margo Schlanger

Here’s the article in the new issue of the Washtenaw Jewish News about our upcoming Tu B’Shevat Shabbaton. Led by Rabbi Michael Strassfeld, and co-sponsored by the Jewish Alliance for Food, Land, & Justice. More info here. Please join us; the events are free, but RSVP required for childcare (email Clare Kinberg) and for the Seder, at http://shabbaton-foodlandjustice.eventbrite.com.

2015-12_Shabbaton1

And here’s the advertisement. Feel free to download, print and share!

2015-12-Shabbaton-ad

Refugee Thanksgiving

November 25, 2015 by Margo Schlanger

Like so many others, I have been devastated by the images and stories of Syrian refugees that are everywhere in the news. And equally devastated by the ugly absence of compassion from too many politicians. It will be to our country’s great shame if we do not do better in the weeks and months ahead. Thanksgiving is the refugee holiday; the ritual celebration of safe arrival. So I wanted to pass along to our community three readings from Jewish Reconstructionist Communities (the Recon national umbrella group) for our Thanksgiving tables — to remember our highest aspirations and inspire our capacious empathy.

I give thanks for our wonderful community.

Intro:

We pause before our set table. We are deeply grateful. Life holds no guarantees. And still: we are not huddled into a refugee camp in southeast Turkey nor jammed ten to a room in a crowded apartment in Berlin. We are not suffering the northern Mexico heat while waiting to cross, not sleeping in a field in Serbia, not waking up at a way station in Sweden. We are not on a boat, praying we’ll reach a distant shore alive. In our many ways, we have made it to the other side. We pause and take a breath. Some face extraordinary violence, and we don’t. Some go hungry, and the table before us holds an overflowing, to-some-eyes almost unimaginable bounty.

The New Colossus, by Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep ancient lands,your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips.” Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

A Thanksgiving Prayer, by Rabbi Naomi Levy

For the laughter of the children,
For my own life breath,
For the abundance of food on this table,
For the ones who prepared this sumptuous feast,
For the roof over our heads,
The clothes on our backs,
For our health,
And our wealth of blessings,
For this opportunity to celebrate with family and friends,
For the freedom to pray these words
Without fear,
In any language,
In any faith,
In this great country,
Whose landscape is as vast and beautiful as her inhabitants.
Thank You, God, for giving us all these. Amen

More information here.

Idelle Shares the Inside Story of the AARC’s Beautiful New Yad

November 24, 2015 by Emily Eisbruch

Many thanks to AARC member Idelle Hammond-Sass for creating a beautiful new Yad for our congregation. Yad, literally “hand” in Hebrew, is a pointer used by the Torah reader to keep the place while reading. Below is Q&A with Idelle about the Yad.

EE (Emily Eisbruch): Idelle, how did you come to create a new Yad for the AARC?

Idelle: My creation of a new Yad came about after Rabbi Michal had given me the existing Yad to repair; it had broken at the hand end. I tried to fix it but it came back bent and on the verge of breaking again. The problem was that it was made by electro-forming, a process that deposits thin layers of silver over wax. The wax inside prevented me from attempting to solder it. Many Israeli pieces are made this way. The chain on the new Yad is from the previous one.

EE: So when the attempts to repair the existing Yad were unsuccessful, you offered to create a new one?

Idelle: Yes, I offered to make a new Yad for the AARC and Julie Norris generously offered to cover the materials. I donated the design and labor. I hope this way we have something unique and local from the group rather than a piece that we would have picked out of a catalog or mass produced.

EE: What were your inspirations as you created the design for the new Yad?

Idelle: I did a little searching online and in books on Judaic art for examples of Yads. I also was reminded of my Bat Mitzvah Torah portion (Ki Tisa) which included the construction of the Mishkan/sacred space. I love that we have constructed our own Mishkan, both figuratively and metaphorically.

Thinking about making a Yad for the congregation I was drawn to use the leaf and branches on the Tree of Life, as in our welcoming logo, and to reflect the tree motif we are working on for the Torah Tapestry. I also had a long piece of heavy triangular sterling tubing that looked perfect and asked a few Torah readers to hold it and give me feedback on the shape. Barbara Boyk Rust, Deb Kraus and Harry Fried all agreed it was also easy to hold and handle which is important as it was to be used by small and large hands.

EE: Tell us about the process of creating the Yad.

Idelle: I sketched and kept changing the design right through the crafting of the piece. I was working hard to finish in time for the High Holidays and decided to use 14k gold to accent the sterling. Both ends were cut at an angle to allow a Star of David to be placed on one end and a pointer on the other. The star was an inherent design possibility in the triangle tubing and I cut a piece off and backed it with 14k and soldered that to one end.

EE: What was the most challenging part of creating the Yad?

Idelle: Creating the pointer was the most difficult design solution to make on this piece. I strive for asymmetrical balance and did not want a ‘literal’ hand at the end, so the branch continues and a gold leaf points the way for the reader. Each leaf is made by hand and the leaves and triangle wire that forms the branch is soldered on separately, each one added till it visually “works”.

EE: How did your previous Judaica work inform your work on this project?

Idelle: Before making this Yad, I have made numerous Mezzuzot, including one design I call “12 elements” for the 12 tribes, and a Menorah that has multiple pieces called “Sparks of Renewal” which was exhibited at an exhibit at the Janet Charach Gallery at the JCC a few years ago. (I have also made a sterling Tzedakah box for another exhibit. Both are in private collections.) I have been able to make other Torah pointers as commissioned gifts.

EE: How does making a Yad compare to making jewelry?

Idelle: A Yad is on a much larger scale than most jewelry, and it takes quite a lot of time to solder larger pieces and make them work visually and technically. Sterling silver is soldered near 900 degrees with an air/gas acetelyne torch.

EE: What are your reflections related to making the Yad?

Idelle: It was a rewarding process and one that also gives back to my spirit. While soldering on the branch, I sang Ahava Rabah. I share my gratitude for the opportunity to make this special piece for our community.

EE: We understand that your husband Dale was also involved?

Idelle: Yes, Dale made the beautiful box to hold the Yad. It is made out of cherry wood, which is the same as our Torah table

EE: Idelle, we appreciate your sharing this story of the creation of the Yad, and we thank you so much for this wonderful gift to the AARC, which has already become a treasured object and which symbolizes a beautiful and meaningful connection between our congregation and the Torah.

To learn more about Idelle’s artwork, see her website at http://www.idellehammond-sass.com

Annual Meeting 2015 Opening Prayer

November 24, 2015 by Clare Kinberg

Offered by Barbara Boyk Rust

Dear God,

Thank you for this morning, for this time and this place to meet and share our thoughts and wishes for the well being of our sacred community.

May we receive the wisdom that we need to move ahead with ease and strength.

May we listen to each other with open hearts.

May we speak with caring and respect.

May we act in balance and alignment with our needs and our resources, with our creativity, our energy, our time, and our finances.

May we be guided to create and act in accordance with the depth of our commitment to ethical values honoring all life, in support of healing and blessing for ourselves, humanity and the earth.

Thank you so much for a community that cares, respects and opens, sharing common aims for honoring self, family, community and the world.

Amayn

Human Rights Activism is a Source of Light

November 12, 2015 by Clare Kinberg

For our Shabbat morning service during Hanukkah this year, December 12, AARC will be joining hundreds of other congregations around the U.S. in a focus on human rights activism. “T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights,” an organization with a long history of Jewish ethical and social justice leadership, organizes this annual Human Rights Shabbat. Rabbi Alana Alpert, rabbi at Congregation T’Chiyah in Oak Park and community organizer with Detroit Jews for Justice–and our visiting rabbi this year–is among the 1,800 rabbis who are part of the T’ruah network. She will be leading our service on December 12 and we’ve invited members of T’Chiyah to join us in Ann Arbor.

T’ruah offers organizational and intellectual support for Jewish work on issues such as ending mass incarceration, justice for farmworkers in the U.S., and standing against Islamophobia. Rabbi Robert Dobrusin of Beth Israel Congregation in Ann Arbor is a recent past Co-chair. At its website are abundant excellent study, worship, and advocacy materials (including one study guide based on Margo Schlanger’s AARC d’var torah from Yom Kippur services a couple of years ago).

The roots of T’ruah as an organization go back to the early 1970s, when a cohort of Reform rabbinic students at Hebrew Union College (HUC) in Cincinnati brought their anti-Vietnam War and Civil Rights activism into their rabbinic training. Some, like Rabbi Myron Kinberg z”l (my brother), as undergraduates in the ‘60s, had trained with Clergy and Laity Concerned to do counseling with conscientious objectors. Others had been Freedom Riders, helping to register Black voters in the South. When they became rabbinic students in 1967 and 1968, they read the texts with those fresh experiences. The T’ruah website quotes one key text newly understood as a call for racial justice and human equality: “Beloved is all humankind for they were made b’tzelem Elohim (in the image of God). Doubly beloved are they, for they were told that they were made in the image of God. As it says: ‘In the image of God was humankind made.’” (Genesis 9:6) Mishnah, Pirkei Avot 3:14.

Upon ordination in 1972, one of this cohort of students, Rabbi David Forman z”l, made Aliyah. While leading the struggle for religious pluralism in Israel as director of the Israel office of the Union for Reform Judaism (1976-2003), he also founded Rabbis for Human Rights in 1988, in Israel. Another of the group of HUC students, Rabbi Bruce Cohen z”l, ordained in 1973, was sent to Israel to do peace work by his New Haven congregation in 1976 following the murder of five Israeli Arabs during protests in Nazareth, northern Israel. Rabbi Cohen co-founded, with Farhat Agbaria, the organization Interns for Peace, which for many years focused on bringing American Jewish college students to Israel to work on projects with Israeli Arabs and Jews. One such college student was Israeli’s Rabbis for Human Rights long time and current President, Rabbi Arik Ascherman, who worked with Interns for Peace in 1981-1983.

In 2002 Rabbis for Human Rights-North America was founded as a multi-denominational network of rabbis and Jewish communities to protect human rights in North America and Israel. Renamed T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, in 2013, it continues to continue to call on its supporters in North America and around the world to educate and advocate for an Israel embodying our highest Jewish values.

Human rights movements gain their strength from the power of the people as a whole, the soul of a movement rather than the individual bodies who take part. As individuals we might tire, our bodies might weaken, but it is the light of our collective power – which grows brighter and brighter over time – that gives us the strength to go on. Likewise, charismatic leaders come and go, and we might think it is their light that inspires us and produces change. But they, too, are bodies, which wane and dwindle. A truly wise leader nurtures the souls of the movement, builds towards a systemic victory. He or she lets their light burn with others, rather than standing aloft as the shamash.

– Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster from a Human Rights Commentary on Chanukah

Please join us on Saturday morning, December 12, as we celebrate this Human Rights Shabbat along with congregations across the country.

Barbara Boyk Rust: Spiritual Leader and Teacher

November 11, 2015 by Clare Kinberg

Barbara Boyk Rust was one of AARC’s founding members. Eighteen months ago, she was ordained as a spiritual teacher and leader by a Bet Din of four leaders. Her approach to Jewish observance centers around meditation and sacred chant. Along with member Allison Stupka, Barbara will be leading our Kabbalat Shabbat service on Friday, December 18, at 6:30. Here, Barbara shares with the community some of her thoughts about her recent ordination process:

What prompted you to undertake the process of ordination? What was the preparation like?

Before moving further into spiritual leadership I needed the review and affirmation of others whom I hold as teachers, mentors and guides. I needed them to say either “yes” or “no” to my sense of being called to teach and lead in a spiritual context.

Early rabbinic ordination, smicha or smichut l’rabanut, involved the laying on of hands from one rabbi to the next. Some of the meanings of smicha are to rely on, or to be authorized. Though I am following a unique path, it did not feel appropriate to me to take further steps authorized by myself alone. Using a template similar to the origins of Jewish rabbinic ordination I held myself accountable to those who teach me and those whom I serve for recognition, validation and affirmation of this step of my journey as a spiritual leader and teacher.

Part of what I shared with them was the story of my journey, recapped briefly here:

I have been pursuing my spiritual path consciously since my mid-teens. For more than half my life now, individuals, families and communities have asked me to serve as creator, facilitator and leader of holiday and life cycle celebrations. Long ago, Reb Zalman Schacter-Shalomi said something to the effect of, ‘if 200 people think you’re a rabbi, you’re a rabbi.’ While I met that criteria long ago, I decided not to complete rabbinic training through the Aleph Rabbinic Program though I was enrolled in it for some years while I completed an interdisciplinary doctorate at The University of Michigan in Higher Education and Clinical Psychology. [Read more…] about Barbara Boyk Rust: Spiritual Leader and Teacher