Every Friday, prior to lighting the Shabbat candles, we say this prayer : "The week has ended. Shabbat has arrived. We welcome it. Shabbat comes to us bringing that much sought after peace. We pause in our weekly schedule to allow the spirit of Shabbat to penetrate our existence and enlighten it...." It is indeed this peace, the breaking off of the daily routine, the immersing ourselves in the singing and praying of ancestral melodies and verses, what makes going to Synagogue on Friday night a priority for many of us. Many times I have gone to the Synagogue wrapped up in problems, uneasy at the way my life has been going, thinking of all the things I haven't done that will be pending for the coming days. Invariably, I leave the Synagogue rested, at ease, happy to have been there and to have shared with others the joy of Shabbat. True, the problems really don't go away, but at least, for a night, I was able to set them aside and bask in the feeling of giving thanks to Adonai for all I have, and for being part of the large family that is my Congregation.
I remember when we didn't even know the prayers and much less the songs. All the Rabbis that have visited us, as well as David Losk, Moshe Benzaquen, and Miriam Hirsch, taught us the melodies that today makes us a group that enjoys singing together. At the beginning, the Services were in English only, with interpreters saying some of the prayers in Spanish. After many trials, it took Jody Bonilla's determination and hard work to get together a group of people to translate The Gates of Prayer and produce our trilingual Siddur. Now, all who attend Shabbat can follow the Service. We still have a lot to learn about our religion, but we have become a Congregation that knows well the Shabbat service.
We have a group of about twelve men and women that, week after week, become Shabbat Service Leaders, taking in the challenge of guiding us through the songs and prayers and explaining the weekly parsha. Marty Feigen, as head of the Ritual Committee, contacts the members of this group and asks them to lead a particular Shabbat. I love the variety of expressions that they give to our service. A few weeks ago, right after Pesach, I was surprised that on a holiday weekend we had so many people for a service, and was very happy to see that Pilar Elkin, as sweet and well-prepared as usual, was conducting it. Last Shabbat, Roberto Davidovich and Gonzalo Vega, who always gives us the gift of his voice and joy of life, led a service that filled us all with true Shabbat peace. The children of our Hebrew School are sometimes called on to help in the service ; seeing them in the bimah I feel our future is secure. They will be the leaders of tomorrow. We dream that one day we may afford a full-time Rabbi. We will then become a big Congregation, but the personal touch that every one of the Service Leaders has brought to our Shabbats will always mark our celebrations with a special warmth.
At the end of the service, we welcome the visitors among us. We are curious to know where they come from ; many from abroad, some from Costa Rica. Most of them say that they have felt very good sharing with us. It is sign of the warmth of our Congregation that we always open our doors to those who want to pray with us. Through this policy we have met some very good people. Claire Jacobs, who visited Costa Rica for some months a few years ago, has become a long time friend. Claire celebrated her adult Bat Mitzvah last month and in her service recalled, in very nice words, her memories about participating with us.
For years, Alicia Familier and our Sisterhood have been organizing the Oneg Shabbat. Each and every Friday, one family brings something to offer. The Onegs have become a time for talking to friends, meeting visitors, and relaxing around the table with good food and good company.
Years ago it took me a long time to get ready to go to the Synagogue on Shabbat. The family had dinner together before going to the services, and my three children were young and needed help in dressing up. Rachel and Joshua don't live here anymore, and David is going through a rebellious stage. Now, unless Roberta is in town, I go alone. I know that my friends Jody and Anita have also seen their children go on in life, and I am sure they remember with nostalgia the days when they used to go together to Shabbat Services. I imagine other members have felt the same. But we have a new crowd of children ; these days I enjoy seeing the Podcaminsky girls, Motti and Daniela, Matias and Micaela, and the little ones that sometimes run around the synagogue during services. Their noise sometimes distracts me, but it also reminds me of the noise my own children used to make. And every Friday I look forward to seeing Marvin and Rosario, Sarita and Enrique, Alicia and Ernesto, Anabel and Roberto, Zulema and Mario, Yuri, Rafael, Jorge and Emilce, and all the friends that regularly attend services. And I greet with happiness those that come from time to time, for it gives me the pleasure of spending a few minutes in their company.
For the peace and relaxation the Shabbat service brings, and for the joy and company that being with those who have actually become like a family to me, I love Friday nights in our Synagogue. At the Kol Shearith Synagogue in Panama there is a sign whose exact words I don't recall, but which says something like, "More than the Jews keeping the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept the Jews." These words are true for B'nei Israel. Shabbat Services have been an expression of our religiosity and have kept us together. May we have the strength as a Congregation to support and enjoy our Shabbat services for generations to come, and may the spirit of love and camaraderie the services give us always prevail.
Shabbat Shalom to all my B'nei Israel family!
Hilda ten Brink
President
Felicidades por la web page. Buenos recuerdos,
Susan Percal, desde California
Felicitaciones. Me dio gusto saber que tienen un nuevo sitio en Internet.
Sinceramente,
Aaron Liverant, México
Mazel Tov ! Congratulations on a superb job. The B'nei Israel
Web Site is a miracle and a mitzvot and is the first time ever that my
wife's name is available to all the world on the web!
Thank you and best wishes,
Bill Fischer
The web page es extraordinaria. Felicidades y Mazel Tov. Also WOW! Has
hecho un trabajo absolutamente fenomenal. Much love. Abrazotes y besotes.
Saludos a todos,
Madeleine Dale
Sam and I are tremendously impressed with your newsletter and web page.
Plus it's fun reading of all the interesting things your congregation is
doing. Mazel tov on your energy and the many skills among you. Best
regards,
Ina R. Friedman
(author of "Escape or Die - True Stories of Young
People who survived the Holocaust",
translated to Spanish by Inés Baum and other
translators from La Javurá)
Shalom! The web page is AMAZING!!!!!!! I LOVE IT! I will be checking
it often.
Please send my love to B'nei Israel!
Marcus L. Burstein
Feliz entrada en la Web! Espero y deseo de todo corazón
que vuestra página Web sea "luz para el camino". Saludos desde
Tenerife, Islas Canarias, España.
Paco Osorio
(amigo cibernético de B'nei
Israel)
Iesher Coaj por el web page! Mazal Tov! Me pareció muy
bonito y no deja de despertarme cierta sana envidia. Ojalá que nosotros
algún día podamos tener algo así.
Rabino Gustavo Kraselnik
San Salvador, El Salvador
Congregation B'nei Israel extends a heartfelt Mazel
Tov to Marcus L. Burstein, who will be ordained as a Rabbi
on May 16, 1999. Also, we wish him the best in his
new post as Assistant Rabbi in Temple Rodef Shalom, in Falls Church,
VA . We hope he succeeds with his new Congregation, as he
did in Congregation B'nei Israel during the 10 months he spent with us.
Mazel Tov, Rabbi Marcus ! And thank you !
Marcus Lance Burstein |
Hi, this is Rosie. I hope you remember my family and I, we used to live
in Costa Rica and then moved to Toronto, Canada. My mom is Becky Benzaquen
and my brother is Maurice. We received the monthly bulletin in the mail
(which we would like to keep receiving, my mom isn't into the net!) and
I saw that there's a webpage now, so I decided to check it out. I'm really
glad everything is going well there, I hope to see everybody whenever I
visit. By the way, how come there weren't any links to the Youth Group?
I would love to get e-mail addresses of Youth Groupers (preferably the
older ones, with whom I associated) in order to keep in touch. I hope all
of you carry all your plans through successfully. B'nei Israel is still
my synagogue even though I'm far away. I still wish I could be there whenever
a Jewish festivity comes around, or even for some Shabbat services. My
family and I agree it's not the same.
Saludos para todos.
Shalom,
Rosie Wager
<rosie_wager@hotmail.com>
She then met Uri, who is now her husband. He had marked his bar mitzvah at Har El Synagogue, a Reform Congregation in Jerusalem. She began to study with the rabbi at Har El and a year later converted with a Reform Bet Din (Religious Court) in Tel Aviv. However, according to the State of Israel, she is not Jewish. Her nationality and her identity card is listed as Romanian. As a member of Har El, she decided to join the court case seeking to have liberal converts registered as Jews by the State of Israel. The case has still not been resolved, but she and Uri hope that their children will not have to go through what she has gone through.
ARZA/WORLD UNION, North America helps support the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC) which fights for the religious rights of Reform Jews, new immigrants and all Israelis through the law, policy making, education and the media. For more information on what you can do call your ARZA/WORLD UNION, North America chapter chairperson, your synagogue or our main office at (212) 650-4280.
For more information contact your ARZA/WORLD UNION, North America chapter chairperson, your synagogue or our main office at (212) 650-4280.
ARZA/WORLD UNION, North America needs your help ! There are so many worship groups in the former Soviet Union who cannot afford to rent space to hold Shabbat services. There are many others who can not even afford to buy prayer books or Torah scrolls. Through your membership, Reform Judaism spreads throughout the world and brings joy to millions. For more information on how you can help call your ARZA/WORLD UNION, North America chapter chairperson, your synagogue, or our main office at (212) 650-4280.
Israelis are responding to their declaration ! Thousands of Israelis are calling the offices of the Reform and Conservative movements in Israel and asking to join as "friends of the movement".
Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, executive director of ARZA/WORLD UNION, North America said, "there has been a virtual explosion of our popularity." The Reform movement has an ever-expanding network of pre-schools and higher educational facilities. Despite the fact that our marriages are not yet officially recognized, Reform rabbis are performing hundreds of ceremonies a year. Israelis now look to Progressive congregations first for life-cycle events such as b'nei mitzvah celebrations. Elite Israeli high schools are urging us to provide more resources so that they can teach their students about Judaism from a modern perspective.
Now is the time for us to act. We need to build more synagogues. We need to build more schools. We need to train more teachers. We need to educate an entire generation of Israelis.
Join ARZA/WORLD UNION, North America. Contact your
ARZA/WORLD UNION, North America chapter
chairperson, your synagogue, or our main offices in
New York at (212) 650-4280 for more information.
The next meeting of the Sisterhood will be held on Wednesday,
May 5, at 10 a.m., at the home of Simona Lancry. All
the Damas are invited to join us, and Simona will treat us to delicious
Venezuelan arepas. Don't miss it !
Address : Trejos Montealegre, from Viveros Exotica 400
ms. North 75 ms. West, on your left side, Condominio Callao N°4. Tel.
228-6768.
Do you know something about holistic medicine ?
If you don't, be sure to join us on Tuesday, May 11,
at 3 :30 p.m., at the home of Sarita Waltersdorfer. The Sisterhood
will have a very special meeting with Dr. Ruth Lopez de Kruck, member
of the Acupuncture Society of Shanghai, who will offer us an interesting
lecture about Acupuncture and Holistic Medicine.
All the Damas are welcome, and so are their friends. We're asking for
a contribution of C1,000 and a sweet or salad treat, to share
after the lecture. The money raised will be for the Building Fund.
Don't miss this opportunity to learn some interesting things about natural
medicine !
Here is a "pre-view" of the subject :
As hard as it may be for us to believe, there was artistic productivity during the cruel years of the Nazi age. Furthermore, music played an essential role in the daily routine of concentration camps. On one hand, it constituted a mean to survival and safekeeping of the own identity; on the other hand, it became a resource to deify the commanders and the Kapos. It was even utilized as the mandatory accompaniment while the condemned were driven to the gas chambers.
Let us analyze such multifaceted role, one step at a time. How could it have helped them to survive?
The nazi machinery murdered so many millions of human beings, so many human beings who died anonymously. He who did not succeed in getting some 'preeminence' or organizing position, was catalogued as unable, susceptible to be selected to die. Therefore, from this point of view, musicians had the possibility to transform themselves in 'privileged ones', thus obtaining a few more months of life. Even though, it was but a delay of the sentence, since eventually all would end in the gas chambers and crematoria. Those musicians who left their work on the writing, step out of the anonymity, and allow us to listen to that song of hope they shaped in their compositions. This way, the figure of composers such as Pavel Haas, Hans Krása, Gideon Klein, and Viktor Ullman, among others, emerge. However, how could there be artistic creation amongst that context, filled with horror and misery? It is hard to imagine. Nevertheless, music offered relief from the soul pain for a few hours. It meant a tie with your fellow in misfortune, a song of rebellion against authority. How many forbidden melodies were sung within the barracks, defying the threats of the tormentors ? Even works by the forbidden Felix Mendelssohn were played, notwithstanding the impending risk involved in doing so. Music was a way out. Music allowed the spirit to fly out; to reach heights no executioner would ever be able to reach.
Fania Fénelon, survivor of the women orchestra in Auschwitz, recalls: "We never played so much and so often. We had three concerts every Sunday. Everyday, during the evening also, SS officers come to our barracks and demand us music. More and more music. At Birkenau, music is the best and the worse. The best: it swallows time and treats forgiveness, like a drug, after which one is anaesthetized and shattered. The worse: our audience. On the one hand, the murderers, and on the other hand, the victims. And us, transformed in executioners between the fingers of the killers."
So many years gone by, and yet so few! The Holocaust is part of our lives and we face it again and again. If we could only build a bridge, linking that hellish past with a tolerance-oriented future. Then we would be able to triumph over any fascist and totalitarian doctrine, and a genocide like that of the Nazi Germany will never, never happen again.
(The Second Part of this article will appear in next
month's bulletin)
Inscription found in the wall of a cellar in Cologne, where Jews hid from the Nazis. Contribution from Aaron Liverant
For security reasons, we reserve the right of the children's names."I think that it really wasn't fair for people to be traitors to the Jews. And also why they had to kill infinite people for nothing. I mean, you never know if a baby who Hitler killed could have been a president or a person who discovered a new island, , or a person who could have invented something or who knows. And no one else in the world cared, they just thought "O who cares ? That's in Germany and that happened to the Jews, not to ud. There's nothing for us to worry about, we're in a different country. '" (Girl, 10 years old)
"I think the Holocaust is something very stupid. Hitler was a
beep beep beep........"
(Text and drawing - boy, 10 years old)
Drawing (boy, 9 years old)
"I feel very strongly about the Holocaust and think everyone should. As a Jew, I think we are all very related to every one sho suffered in the camps. We could have been the unlucky ones who died there.... Life isn't fair all the time, but for the Jews life must have been unbearable. Their lives were full of hunger, pain, and horrors. I don't know how they survived it. Nobody has suffered like the Jews have suffered." (Girl, 10 years old)
Drawing (boy, 11 years old)
"I think it is important to remember the Holocaust because that could have happened to us, and we must be thankful. I think Hitler was a cold-blooded killer, and he was ABSOLUTELY crazy. I think it was partly the Germans' fault, because they let themselves be tricked by Hitler. Also, the world didn't react, and that's why so many people were killed." (Boy, 11 years old)
Jews in the gas chamber.
Drawing (boy, 8 years old)
The turn of this century has exposed the fact that radical ideologies, extreme positions, and exclusion phenomena are back. Racism and intolerance are fed by prejudice and stereotypes, ancient hatred and rejection to a collective life, based on pluralism and mutually binding coexistence. With the growing globalization, migration movements, and technological advances, tendencies cross borders and expand in such a way that the most diverse social sectors are becoming vulnerable to its impact.
Intolerance has not been particular to any given culture or age. It is a phenomenon always present along human history, causing wars, religious persecution, and violent ideological clashes. Every culture tends to protect the forming elements of its identity, and reacts to others with suspicion or hostility.
In spite of that, it is a paradox that in this time, when democracy has become a worldwide paradigm, we are witnessing the rebirth of discriminatory and violent behaviors, which threatens harmonic coexistence.
Post-modern nations are not homogeneous, even more, they are singled out by its diversity in interests, values and conducts. A plural society not only must tolerate antagonistic life styles, but must consider their very existence as an important value.
If we pretend to build multi-cultural societies, within which the presence of diverse minorities is legitimated, we must promote a culture of tolerance that legitimates the right to be different, that triggers the dialogue and promotes mutual knowledge. . . .
The main interests of the Prophets of Israel were the moral conduct of their people and overall society, in social justice, brotherhood and peace. "Observe what is right and do what is fair" (Isaiah 56:1). They condemned indifference facing suffering and exhorted their people to fulfill principles of rectitude, respect and justice
Later, rabbinical sages celebrated the differences between human beings as one of the miracles of creation, affirming that through loving and respecting others, we learn to recognize and accept the uniqueness of every individual. In the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Berachot, it is written: "I am a G-d's creature, and my neighbor is also a G-d's creature. I work in a city and he works in a city, also. I wake up early to go to work and he wakes up early to go to work, also. He can not surpass me in my job and I can not surpass him in his. Could you say I have big accomplishments, and he, small ones?"
Judaism recognizes differences between individuals and nations. Men-it is asserted- differ in their physical and mental characteristics, but not in its essential humanity. It is a given fact that its antecedents, aptitudes and opportunities, distinguish people. However, this distinction does not imply ranking of societies.
Jewish tradition does not visualize a shapeless amalgam between peoples. In spite of its acceptance of national differences, it emphasizes its common origin, its mutual dependence and the hope to get reconciliation in peace and brotherhood. It concedes, likewise, a big importance to human relationships as an essential element to obtain a better society. Therefore, according to Torah, every individual has the big responsibility of loving, protecting and helping the 'other' (Leviticus 19:34 , Deuteronomy 10:19).
Jewish philosophy considers tolerance a virtue, a value. It is described as the experience through which the 'other' is received, stressing the need of listening to the voice of diversity as an imperative of prudence and a statement of wisdom. Different trends underline the need of keeping friendly and warm relations with those who are fundamentally different. Kindness and goodwill do not mean to annul differences, but understanding them.
Avishai Margalit, modern Jewish philosopher, states that respecting all human beings, whatever group they belong to, is the attitude that better adjusts to a moral ethics. A racist attitude, which limits human dignity to a subgroup of human beings, is incoherent with the rest of the moral judgements.
Tolerance implies respecting, appreciating and accepting others. He who has conscience of his own identity may accept as legitimate what is foreign and different. Even more, will have the possibility of enriching himself by knowing and understanding cultural diversity.
Nevertheless, liberty of thoughts and of beliefs is not enough if the citizen is not permitted to express and discuss his/her ideas. A State of rights is necessary, a legal and normative framework which prohibits and penalizes the crimes provoked by hate and discrimination ; a legislation which prevents the despoil of the minorities' rights through the decisions adopted by the majorities in democratic societies.
The application of these legal instruments must be accompanied by educational methods which systematically enter upon cultural, social, economic, political, and religious motives, which dismantle prejudices, myths, and stereotypes ; i.e., the essential roots of violence and exclusion. Only in this way can it contribute with the development of understanding, solidarity and tolerance among individuals ; among ethnic, social, cultural, religious, and linguistic groups, and also among the nations.
There was a little boy with a very bad temper. His father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, to hammer a nail in the back fence. The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Then it gradually dwindled down. He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence.
Finally the day came when the boy didn't lose his temper at all. He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper. The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone. The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. He said, "You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scare just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won't matter how many times you say I'm sorry, the wound is still there."
A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one. Friends are a very rare jewel, indeed. They make you smile and encourage you to succeed. They lend an ear, they share a word of praise, and they always want to open their hearts to us.
Show your friends how much you care. Send this to everyone you consider a FRIEND even if it means sending it back to the person who sent it to you.
Bulletin B'nei Israel Congregation
Editor: Inés Baum
May 1999