BOARD OF DIRECTORS - period 2000 |
I feel that through the years B'nei Israel has come a long way ; we have organized ourselves and formed a working team capable of dealing with the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. The new Board of Directors that we have chosen is excellent. We have new faces as well as several of the old fighters. With the help of all our members, I am sure that we will keep on going forward and fulfilling our needs.
We are going to build our new Synagogue. On January 6, 2000, with the help of God, we will begin the work that will enable us to meet Rosh Hashanah 5761 in a new building ; one that will offer our children an adequate School building within which they can continue their learning, and a Sanctuary where we can meet and pray with more comfort.
The road that lies ahead is not an easy one. We have to move our Synagogue. Marvin Sossin, with his characteristic generosity, has offered us a large room in Torneca where we can hold our Shabbat services. The School will have to look for a place in which to hold classes. Jody Bonilla, our School's Director, is studying various options so that in February our children can continue learning. We have to take everything out of our premises, and we are still unsure as to where we will store our books, our furniture, the material treasures of our congregation. We are going to need help in the moving. Bill Fischer has volunteered, but he can't do it all by himself.
The economic aspect of the remodeling also worries me. The total cost of the first remodeling stage, the School, is $84,000. Right now we have a little over $60,000 on hand, and this amount will be increased to about $120,000 when the pledges we have received are honored. These pledges are to be redeemed in a three year term, and although we have financing possibilities, the interest we will have to pay is high. The good side is that with $120,000 we can remodel not only the School but the Sanctuary as well. No frills but a complete makeover. That is all we can afford.
But we can do a lot to help. Our Sisterhood, under the guidance of newly elected President Bonnie Fischer, is organizing a Bingo for this month, and will be calling on us all in the months ahead with activities designed to raise funds. As Carla Nagel mentioned at the General Assembly, perhaps once the works begin, people's hearts will open and we will hopefully receive donations for specific items like lights, tiles for the bathroom, paint for the walls, etc. We can also make an effort to give as much of our pledges as possible before the 3-year period. The moment of need is now. Let's do as much as we can.
We are very lucky to have among our members people who know about construction. One of our Vice-presidents, Eduardo Keibel, will be in charge of the remodeling project. Eduardo, with the help of Tomas Nagel, Max Berman, Roberto Davidovich, and many others, will look out for our best interests.
Days of turmoil await us in B'nei Israel. Maybe we will feel a bit misplaced when we don't have our usual meeting center. The economic pressures may confuse us. However, today I had an experience that, although very sad, showed me that we are not in such a bad shape. Evelyn, Flor, and Issel, three girls from the Casa de Nuestra Señora del Refugio, a place run by nuns, where they take care of girls from troubled families, came to see me to say good-bye. Evelyn is not coming back to the Refugio because her father wants her to go with him to Guatemala ; Flor is not coming back because she will be placed in another institution, although she doesn't yet know where it is located ; Issel can't come back because her grandfather is sick and she, an eleven year old girl, has to take care of him. They don't know for sure where they are going to be next month.
We have no such problems. Generally speaking, the families of our Congregation have been blessed by God. We can look at the future with plans, with dreams, with the power and the will to work for our children, to give them the best we can. I wish that all our members get their blessings increased in manifold ways. As for B'nei Israel, it is my hope that our unity and integrity can survive the challenge of being homeless for the next few months, that our Shabbats and our Chaggim continue bringing us the spiritual fulfillment we seek, and that we continue to pursue our goal of developing our full potential as a progressive Jewish community. Our children and B'nei Israel are worth the effort.
Hilda ten Brink
Creator of the Universe, by whose goodness the world is renewed day by day, You have implanted in us a spark of Your creative will. You have made us Your partners in the building of the world. You have gathered us in a community to strengthen our Jewish life, as well as our children's. You have given us so many wonderful years of Jewish communal life, and helped us strengthen our B'nei Israel, from a small group of people gathered in a house, to a vibrant and live Jewish Community.
We are excited... How wonderful to open our eyes, our life, to new vistas, to new stages on our congregational development. We give thanks for the opportunities that lie ahead, and pray for strength and skill to transform our dreams into realities. May our community be a Beit Tefillah, Beit Midrash, and Beit Knesset, a House of Prayer, a House of Study, and a House of the Community, for us and for generations to come.
As we prepare ourselves for a new General Assembly, for the opening of a new cycle in our communal life, we pray for clear vision and a wise judgment, for us and our leaders. May we walk together, in the Light of Your Presence, towards a bright future, filled with the Eternal Light of Torah and Mitzvot.
Amen
Early in September, my friend Ruth Rogat and I traveled to San Jose, Costa Rica. We had many adventures in the country, but our Shabbat worship service at Congregation B'nei Israel was very special.
Here, a group of 60 families meet in an old house in the section of San Jose known as Escazu. Gates of Unity, used for Reform worship, is an intriguing book printed in Hebrew, Spanish, and English.
Five people on our tour attended the Kabbalat Shabbat.... Each of us brought to worship a different concept of ourselves as participants. Yet the manner of worship and the several languages left everyone at ease.
Five b'nai mitzvah led the service, and each one was proficient in all three languages. Absent a rabbi or any musical accompaniment, but with one inspired teacher (morah Hilda ten Brink), the congregation prayed, sang, and listened to five young people tell a d'var Torah of their personal choosing.
As for our tour group, we were "strangers in a strange land". And then, again, we weren't. A loving group of Reform Jews took us in and made us feel at home. If you are lucky enough to visit San Jose, Costa Rica, share your Shabbat with B'nei Israel Congregation. The experience will enrich your appreciation of the wonderful faith to which we belong.
Barbara Wolpaw Drossin
We are the group which spent Shabbat with you on Sept.
3. Thank you so much for your hospitality.
Sincerely, Barbara Wolpaw Drossin,Beachwood,
Ohio
The first gathering sponsored by the Sisterhood will be the BINGO NIGHT :
Date : Saturday, December 11, 1999We've got many wonderful prizes for the evening ! And refreshments on tap. Bring your family and friends and make this a fun night for all !
Time : 7 :00 p.m.
Place : Hilda ten Brink's house
Cost : 1,500 per card (for 5 games)
The Damas Voluntarias Group has also for sale some wonderful packaged candies, great for Holiday gifts. They will be available on Nov. 30th at the Synagogue ; on Dec. 3rd at Jody's house, where we will be celebrating the first night of Hanukkah ; and on Dec. 11th at the Bingo Night.
"I want to thank once again all the Sisterhood
ladies who attended, and hope that with your help, this will be a fun and
exciting year."
Bonnie Fischer
"But," your friends protest, "nobody believes that anymore." Ah, but that is not the point. The point is that by adopting Christmas and its customs, Jews are introducing symbols and traditions into their homes and into the lives of their children that are absolutely foreign to Judaism. There is no connection between Christmas and Hanukkah except that, because of the vagaries of the calendar, they come together at the same time of year. Christmas is the celebration of the birth of a Messiah whom Jews do not believe in and Hanukkah is the celebration of the right not to assimilate - the very thing that Jews who celebrate Christmas are doing !
So, why is it so difficult to say "no" to Santa ?
Yet, certainly our children ask us for many things which we refuse, not for some capricious use of parental authority, but because we value their health, safety, and well-being. So, we occasionally say "no" to more candy, running across the street, or watching violent television shows. We say "no" when we believe we have the responsibility as parents to teach them, to guide them, to help mold their character and sense of identity.
Thus, many parents say "no" to Santa Klaus and Christmas trees because they are not part of being Jewish as we are Jewish. You, my child, are Jewish, Christmas is not our holiday.
But, "just say no" doesn't seem to be enough of an answer. And this leads us to one powerful explanation of why Hanukkah has been elevated to the status of one of the most observed Jewish holidays.
Christmas is not our holiday, "Hanukkah is our holiday," the parent will rush to add. So, the first instinct is to offer an alternative to Christmas. Many parents are thankful that there is one. Yet, even more important may be the opportunity to seize this seemingly negative episode and turn it into a lesson in Jewish identity building and child development....
Many Jewish educators will advise parents to give children who want to celebrate Christmas a very important message : Christmas is someone else's party, not ours. Just as we can appreciate someone else's birthday celebration and be happy for them, we can wonder at how beautiful Christmas is ; but it is not our party.
And then, many parents make a perfectly understandable, but incomplete, leap. "Christmas is for Christians. They have Christmas, We are Jewish. We have Hanukkah." In an attempt to substitute something for Christmas, the parent offers Hanukkah. In fact, Hanukkah is even better than Christmas. "Christmas is only for one day. Hanukkah is for eight." So, now, as incredulous as it seems, the parental anxiety leads to the teaching that our party lasts longer, offers more presents, and is just as beautiful.
Of course, the problem is that it just isn't true. Hanukkah cannot hold a candle to Christmas. It is a minor event in the Jewish holiday cycle and has never, until recently, been viewed as a central celebration for the Jewish people. Therefore, the customs and ceremonies surrounding Hanukkah pale by comparison to those of Christmas - which is one of the two major holidays of Christianity.
The answer to the child is incomplete. "We're Jewish - we have Hanukkah" is only the beginning of the response. "We're Jewish and we have - Hanukkah, Sukkot, Pesach, Shavuot, Purim, Simchat Torah, Rosh haShanah, Yom Kippur, Lag BaOmer, Yom HaAtzma'ut, Tu BiShvat - and most importantly, Shabbat every week." The child who has experienced the building of a sukkah will not feel deprived of trimming a tree. The child who has participated in a meaningful Passover Seder will not feel deprived of Christmas dinner. The child who has paraded with the Torah on Simchat Torah, planted trees at Tu BiShvat, brought fresh fruits at Shavuot, given mishloach manot at Purim, and welcomed the Shabbat weekly with candles and wine and challah, by the time he/she is three years old will understand that to be Jewish is to be enriched by a calendar brimming with joyous celebration.
Should Jews be happy with the developing commercialization of Hanukkah ? There are those for whom the elevation of Hanukkah is repugnant. It forces comparisons that are difficult to make. It encourages the embellishment of a Jewish holiday for which there is little traditional ritual. Any such attempt to compete with Christmas is futile. Let's keep Hanukkah the minor holiday it is, de-emphasizing the decorations, the presents, and the public displays. Yet, there are others who have concluded, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." Fortunately, Hanukkah comes when it does. At least we have something to celebrate, too, at a time when it feels as if the whole world is geared to family gatherings, gift exchanges, and good cheer. And besides these Hanukkah embellishes argue, have not Jewish holidays always held more or less importance and meaning for Jews depending on when and where they have lived ? Purim, a celebration of the physical survival of the Jews, was a much more popular holiday in places and times where Jews lived under the threat of bodily harm. Hanukkah, a celebration of the spiritual survival of Judaism, is the ideal foil to a Christian holiday which, in its secular formulation, represents the threat of assimilation in our own day.
Even if the non-Jewish partner converts, and the couple celebrates only Hanukkah in the home, there is one complicating factor that cannot be dismissed : the family of origin of a Jew-by-choice does not convert. This is an extremely important point and raises one of the most challenging obstacles to resolving this particular December Dilemma : What do I do about celebrating Christmas and Hanukkah with my family when my family includes both Jews and Christians ?...
After talking to many intermarried couples and surveying the current (and growing) literature on the subject, here are some of the choices available, ranging from total avoidance to reasoned compromise :
What does Christmas signify ?
It means literally a Mass for Christ, celebration of the birth of Jesus, the Christian Messiah. The Christmas story derived from the "New Testament." The Jew's non-acceptance of this testament has resulted in our persecution throughout the centuries.
Is it possible to take the Christ out of Christmas ?
When a Jew takes what has traditionally been a deeply religious experience for Christians and keeps the symbols but says that there is really nothing religious about them, that Jew is being both insensitive and disrespectful.
Do most Christians still consider these symbols to have religious content ?
Even if the majority of Christians do not take their
religious symbols seriously, that does not give Jews license to adopt them
and proclaim them secular or American symbols. How would we feel if Christians
started wearing a talit or a yarmulka and "de-judaized" them
for their own purposes ?
HILDAla, HILDAla, HILDAla-HILDAla-HILDAla,
The HILDA, the HILDA, the HILDA's on fire
Hit me HILDA one more time
Baila tu cuerpo alegría HILDArena, Ehhhhh !!! HILDArena !!!
Bachi, bochi, HILDA, yo quiero HILDAHILDAHILDAla
All you people can't you see, can't you see
how our lives revolve around HILDAlee
We want, we want HILDA, HILDA
Somebody once told me that HILDA's gonna rule me,
She is the sharpest teacher in the shed
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, everybody needs a HILDA in their lives
Every Wednesday there's a HILDA teaching us for our bat mitzvahs and
our bars too
Teach it to us HILDA, ah-uh, ah-uh !!!
It's tearing up my heart when HILDA's gone,
cuz when we are apart we miss her too !!!
And I don't want HILDA to leave me,
cuz I don't know what to do without YOU !!!
In my design classes at the Universidad Nacional, I teach a way of working that I call the Design Process. The first step is Commitment: Make a commitment with yourself to do the very best you can on the project. Get rid of any negative thoughts about the project. THERE ARE NO PROBLEMS -- ONLY CHALLENGES! This is not merely a semantical game. You canÕt really begin to undertake a project unless you make that commitment. And once you make that commitment to yourself, you are impelled to go on, to strive for success. On a production where I have only half of the equipment that I really need to design a good show, I take the challenge of accomplishing what I need to do with less; when I can't get the color media I need in Costa Rica, I experiment with new ways to use color and come up with exciting new mixtures; when I donÕt have enough rehearsal time, I just work faster. I tell my students that for me, this is more than the first stage in a theatrical design. It is a way of life. And I believe that. From the challenges that I face, I find myself more creative -- and it helps me to accomplish and develop new solutions.
We have gone through many stages in the Jennifer Sossin School for Jewish Education: from the beginning we have been searching, seeking to discover the best way we could to create within our children the love of Judaism and the knowledge they need to incorporate the values and teachings of our religion into their daily lives. To See The World Through Jewish Eyes -- thatÕs the name of our curriculum. The challenge has always been to make it work -- to reach our children. At times our challenges dealt with the lack of time -- with the lack of materials -- with the lack of space. And we have always risen to these challenges. We have striven to create a program that works within our culture in Costa Rica. Our children attend many different day schools in several different languages -- French, English, Spanish all compete with Hebrew. Dance, sports, gymnastics, music, all compete with Torah, history, holidays. In the United States and Canada, where the first after-school programs were developed, most children within one Hebrew School attend the same day school, and live within the same neighborhood. They attend Hebrew School three or four times per week. We have faced the challenges of geography, car-pool and multi-faceted interests among our students. These challenges have led us to create a program which meets our needs.
Our children begin school at three years old. That way, Hebrew School becomes an integral part of their lives, before they even realize that others donÕt attend religious school. We are able to build on their multi-lingual abilities to make Hebrew a living language in which they can communicate, in their prayers, and with each other. With a lack of adequate didactic material in Spanish, we have created a non-text book oriented curriculum -- a student oriented, hands-on approach to education. Our main text book is our Siddur. Where we have found a lack -- we have tried to fill it. Challenges accepted, due to commitments made.
And now we come to face a new challenge. For the next six months we no longer have our own location. We will be floating from place to place. We are currently working on locating a temporary home, or several temporary homes for our classes. And while we are afloat, we will also be facing the challenge of raising the necessary money to turn our new building into the educational facility of which we have always dreamed.
I ask your help. In the name of the Education Committee,
in the name of BÕnei Israel, in the name of the children. I know
it will not be easy for parents to take one child to one location, and
then another child to another location. The constant reminder to help raise
funds will become tiring to hear. The need to carry materials from place
to place will not be easy. But we have faced challenges in the past. We
can do it again. And so I ask you to bear with us these next six months.
The many challenges will bear fruit when, next August, we begin our new
semester, in our own facilities.
I want to raise your consciousness (and maybe your gorge) and explain to you the Torah-true Halakhic way in which latkes must be prepared, according to Rambam's "Sefer", so called because each chapter begins with the word "Sefer". In particular, Chapter 23 is called, "Sefer example you want latkes." Another chapter, dealing with food poisoning, is "Sefer ways to can latkes". You may not be surprised to hear that there is no mention whatsoever of Homentashen in this standard reference. They just don't rate. In fact, the only reference I could find to Homentashen in the whole Rabbinic literature, which I read through yesterday (in the Cliff notes edition), was in a chapter on spinach homentashen in the justifiably obscure responsa of Poppy, the seltzer man.
Say for example you want latkes. The potato must be healthy. Any potato unable to swim upstream with the current is considered sick, and you have to wait until it recovers before you can use it.
You have to properly slaughter the potatoes. You need a knife sharp enough, in the words of the Rambam, so that it can cut 30 bunches of krokhmal in 10 strokes. I expect that's pretty sharp.
You slaughter the potato with a quick double cut, holding the knife so the blade is facing up, attacking the potato from underneath. If there are any eyes on the potato, they must be facing up, so the potato doesn't see the knife coming. The stroke must sever at least the main artery of the potato, although according to Rambam, this is difficult with our modern potatoes, which have no arteries, and it suffices to cut at least .357 inches beneath the skin.
Any potato juice that come out within the first spurt is treyf; you must let it pour on the ground and stomp on it, quoting meanwhile from Deuteronomy, "thus be done to the manna whom the king delighteth to honor."
You then check the dead potato for health. If there is a hole between the veena and the keyba, the potato is treyf and may not be eaten, although it may be used for a paperweight. If you carve a dreydl out of it, the dreydl is kosher, but the knife may only be used as a screwdriver from then on. If there are any adhesions on the skin, the potato is glat treyf and must be discarded.
You must remove the eyes (in Yiddish, this is known as "eyebering"); as long as they are not removed, the outer part of the potato is treyf (literally, "the eyes have it".) Modern latke factories don't bother with the extremely time-consuming removal of the eyes, so they sell the outer part of the potato to non-Jews.
You must be very careful if you are making a large batch of latkes not to slaughter two potatoes from the same plant on the same day. The Bible explicitly says, "You shall not slaughter it and its plant-mate on the same day". The Talmud tells of a thief who stole two potatoes and slaughtered them on the same day.
As you know, the penalty for stealing is that you must pay back double. But if you steal a potato and slaughter it, you must pay back 5-fold. The Talmud records a discussion about whether, when the thief slaughtered the second potato, he was obligated to pay the 5-fold penalty or not, since he was by that same act guilty of the "two on the same day" rule, and was thereby sentenced to the harsher punishment of juggling 5 eggs and cleaning up the mess. Let it be a lesson to you: Buy each potato from a different store, you should never have a problem.
If you peel the potatoes, you are obligated to donate one twelfth of the potato peels to a Cohen, assuming you have peeled at least 20 potatoes and you have gotten at least ¼ cup of peels from each. The best way to do this is to put the peels in an envelope and mail it to the first Cohen or Katz you find in the phone book. It is also acceptable to stop people on the street, ask them if they are Jewish, and if so, talk them into performing this important mitzvo "putting out the peelings" themselves.
I could go on, and I will.
Remember to salt the potato and leave it to drain for at least 24 hours. We do this in memory of Lot's wife Latke, who was turned to salt. Use a lotta salt, in memory of Lot's daughter, Lotta.
You may wonder why Sephardic Jews don't eat latkes. It stems from two differences of interpretation. The Torah speaks about a "Poroh Aduma", a red potato without blemish. The Sephardim consider red potatoes too holy to eat, so they avoid latkes. On the other hand, the Ashkenazim think only Swiss cheese is too holy to eat. They liken "Poroh Aduma" with "Pereh Odom", the common person, and consider a red potato glatt kosher. Kosher airline meals made with potatoes therefore always specify "red potatoes".
The other difference of opinion is the meaning of "you shall not yoke them together". The Sephardim read this as a prohibition of mixing eggs and potatoes. he Ashkenazim say, and I quote "Love and Knishes", the authoritative cookbook, "So nu, use two eggs already. You want more, so you should use more."
Let me warn you about applesauce. Its proper preparation is just as complex as latkes themselves. It is best to consult a competent authority.
One last warning. You may remember that the Megilla
tells us that the Persians cast latkes, which they called Pur, from which
we get the name Purim. You must fry the latkes to make them kosher. Let
them burn a bit, in memory of the burnt offerings. But don't do like the
Persians. Don't cast them. If you cast them, they'll turn out Pur for you,
too.
Lauran Bonilla has had a tree planted in Israel in honor of our
Congregation.
Tamara Baum has been making monthly contributions to the Scholarship
fund.
We salute these young people, and commend their
spirit of finding a way to celebrate the Mitzvot.
BOOK OF LIFE
Remember the happy moments you, your family, and
your friends have lived, and help us at the same time. Inscribe weddings,
birthdays, graduations, anniversaries, births, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, etc.,
in our Book of Life. For information please call Sarita, tel.
232-7077
MANISCHEWITZ WINE
for only 1,700
SALE SALE SALE SALE
Buy a bottle of Manischewitz wine and help our Building
Fund !
Those interested call Gerardo Víquez, tel.
276-6986, at night.
Back to index