Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation

Mail Bag

MCIRR Loan Program for Immigrant Filing Fees

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Thank you for quick action, straight-forward help
MCIRR is a membership organization made up of more than forty nonprofit and faith groups committed to building capacity within Michigan’s advocacy community, supporting immigrant rights, and promoting a more positive and inclusive atmosphere for immigrants and refugees. See MCIRR.org for more details

 

The Michigan Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (MCIRR) sends its thanks, in a letter from the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center’s director, Susan Reed.  Susan writes:

When Attorney General Sessions announced the end of DACA on September 5, 2017, he gave a one month window for many with DACA to renew.  Many of our members’ first thought was: how will those eligible to renew be able to raise the $495 fee in time?  Enter our good friends (and perhaps also yours), University of Michigan Law School Professors Margo Schlanger and Sam Bagenstos.  Margo and Sam wanted to know how to support those facing this cost and we told them about the fee bank.  They made a generous gift and also shared the giving opportunity with members of the Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation, Temple Beth Emeth, and others in the University of Michigan community.  The outpouring of generosity was amazing, and in a few days, we had received more than $18,000 for our little loan fund.  Checks are still finding their way to us. This meant that we were able to assure our advocacy community that NO ONE in Michigan needed to miss the DACA renewal deadline for lack of the fee.  At the same time, some major national funds providing grants emerged.  So, ultimately, we only needed to make four loans for DACA renewal because most people in need got national grants.  In one case, an applicant had been rejected by a grant fund because she needed assistance to replace her DACA work permit rather than renew it and she didn’t meet their parameters, but she met ours and she was extremely grateful to have access to at least another year with DACA!

The fee bank used to be an occasional solution to an ever-present problem. In 2010, with a very small gift of $2,000 from the Grand Rapids Dominican Sisters and support from pro bono banking lawyers at the Honigman law firm (recruited by Michigan Community Resources) we launched our fee bank. Because the filing fee for a green card can be as much as $2070, that initial $2,000, plus a few other small gifts we were able to add, had only become about six loans.  But, every loan was repaid by our clients on time or well in advance of the repayment schedule and the loan program had been extremely helpful to those who had been able to access the funds.  (We ask borrowers to pay $10 per month until 90 days after the “work permit” arrives and $40 per month after that time.)  Each time we had enough money back in the fund, we let our members know that a new loan was potentially available and the loan was snapped up.  Blue Ox Credit Union, based in Battle Creek services the loans at no cost and there is no interest.

Now, you have made the fee bank loan program robust.  We have already been told that two applications are on the way for clients who need filing fee loans for immigration benefits other than DACA.  Because we make loans rather than grants, the transformation made by your generosity will make this resource last forever!

Thank you for your rush to generosity.  You are truly repairing our world.

May AARC Mail Call! (Wimple Edition)

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by Dave Nelson

Our 250-year-old Torah’s century-old wimple

When you find a 11-foot, 112-year old wimple in the mail!

As noted in the past, most of the postal mail the AARC receives takes the form of bills, checks, services we don’t need, scams, and benign crazy talk—but we also get some really nice or interesting notes from really nice and interesting people. May was a bit thin for mail, but the one piece of non-bill, non-check, non-request, non-scam mail we did get was a doozy: A package from Rabbi Ralph Ruebner in Skokie, IL containing our wimple!

What’s a “wimple” (apart from a nuns’ hat)?  This:

The wimple is an ornate, embroidered or painted cloth used to bind up a Torah scroll after it has been read. It is made from swaddling cloth used to bind a baby at his circumcision. Thus, almost from the moment of birth, a direct link is established between the child and the Torah.

The custom of preparing a wimple—the word means “cloth” or “veil” in old German—began about 400 years ago in Germany and spread from there to Alsace, Switzerland, France and the Low Countries. As German Jews emigrated to other lands, especially America, they brought the custom with them but it has remained confined to a limited section of Ashkenazic Jewry. (source)

This wimple, our Torah’s wimple—originally used to bind “Robert Hessel (corrected from Hefsel, after learning about the “Long s” see comment below) Hambuch” measures roughly 11 feet long, and is hand-painted with text and other decorative elements.  It has some … interesting discoloration whose precise nature—given its original ritual duty—I decline to meditate on.

Here’s a look at the full wimple (which, given its dimensions, is challenging to photograph) via video:

our wimple’s central panel

As you no doubt recall from your frequent perusal of the AARC Board Meeting Minutes (meticulously taken by your dedicated secretary), although we’ve had the same interestingly idiosyncratic Torah for several decades, its ownership was long unclear (due to leadership and administrative changes both in our little Hav and the congregation who loaned us the Torah to begin with).

Last year we had the good fortune to finally hear from the current Board of the Niles Township Jewish Congregation/ Congregation Ezra-Habonim of Skokie, IL. (Niles Township Jewish Congregation lent us our Torah ~20 years ago, shortly before they merged with Congregation Ezra-Habonim).  Soon after we officially (and emphatically) purchased our Torah.

Detail of the baby’s name inscribed on the wimple; love this rainbow gradation!

Rabbi Ralph Ruebner of Skokie was kind enough to send the wimple along to be reunited with our Torah, as well as these details about this wimple, wimples in general, and the history of the Niles Township Jewish Congregation/ Congregation Ezra-Habonim, and German Jews in middle America.

A detail from near the tail end of the wimple

 

 

 

 

April AARC Mail Call!

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by Dave Nelson

As your Board secretary, I do much, much more than just take notes at monthly Board Meetings and eventually revise these and post them where you can see. I also periodically pick up our mail at the JCC offices. Most of it is bills, checks, shady offers to re-asphalt our parking lot, legitimate offers to re-asphalt our parking lot, office supply catalogues, and brief form letters from well-meaning crackpots inviting us to consider the religious Grand Unification Theories they’ve posted online.

But we also get a few really nice letters from really nice people who really appreciate the little slice of diversity we bring to Washtenaw County. Below are two of these from April.

First up, we got a really nice thank-you note from Jewish Family Services, for our Purim donations, which help JFS “set up warm and welcoming new homes for incoming refugees.”

If we are a generation or two removed from a refugee/immigrant experience, it can easily seem like ancient history to our kids. I’m always really pleased that the Hav keeps this portion of the American experience in front of our eyes, so that “my dad’s dad came here from Ukraine at seven-years-old with a Detroit address on a note pined to his jacket” doesn’t become as distant and abstract as “because of what the Lord did to us when we were slaves in Egypt.” We can continue to support the JFS Refugee Resettlement Program by buying tickets (click on the picture) to the June 11 “Festival of Lights” concert.

The other nice letter from April came from the Chelsea Ministerial Association.  I urge you to give it a read; I doubt I can do it justice in summary:

They wrote this thinking of Micah 6:8, but when I read it I immediately was reminded of Malachi 3:18, which is something like:

“And you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve G_d and those who do not.”