B'nei Israel Congregation - San José, Costa Rica |
Despite our somewhat small numbers, B'nei Israel has always given importance to maintaining cultural events as a fundamental part of the services we provide as a synagogue.
Therefore, our cultural events actually serve to highlight different aspects of our spiritual community, in the sense that it fuels various precise needs that develop within a community, such as:
Over the years, depending on which visiting rabbi was with us, we organized evenings to discuss topics as different and interesting as:
For next year, we are already planning a piano concert offered by Deborah Singer, professional pianist and member of B'nei Israel. Deborah wants to play music written by Jews in concentration camps as a memorial act for all those who died in the Holocaust, and also for those who survived. We are planning this concert for Yom Hashoah, next April, at the CENAC in San Jose.
We are specially proud of the longer cultural "courses" we have organized:
Some of our cultural events are offered as sisterhood-sponsored events, such as cooking with the rabbi's wife; interviewing interesting Jewish personalities in our community, especially women; learning about some of our member's specialties, such as plastic surgery, conflict resolutions, homeopathy, the importance of the hospice movement, poetry reading and the role of women in today's Jewish literature.
One of our frequent topics is about how to incorporate Judaism more profoundly in our daily lives.
In general, we try to maintain an interesting and updated assortment of cultural events, not only for our members but for the general public. Cultural events in B'nei Israel Congregation have opened a door for others to share in our activities and allowed us to be open minded and creative when choosing "our themes."
In small congregations every member counts, and every member can leave a mark in the life of the community. We were blessed with counting Roberta Haynes as one of our members. Roberta was a film producer in Hollywood before moving to Costa Rica, and she organized us to produce several beautiful programs.
Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust is a moving book, depicting the lives of gentiles that saved Jews during World War II. Roberta organized a group of us to produce a night of readings based in this book; by candlelight, we read excerpts of the book and provoked meaningful discussions on courage and humanity.
Roberta also produced for “Life in the Shtetl”, a program of poems and songs portraying the life in the towns with little wooden Synagogues in the old country, the destruction of that way of life with the pogroms, the exile to America, and the fight to survive as a Jew in a new world.
Roberta moved back to the United States, but for months she used emails to organize us for a program celebrating Jewish music, from the sacred and folkloric – Ashkenazi, Sephardim, Chassidic, and Klezmer – to the modern times of Irving Berlin and Naomi Shemer. The program ended with a phrase from Eliezer ben Yehuda:
The notes of a hora aroused us into a dance that indeed was a celebration of music and life.
We hope that in the very near future, Roberta will think of another interesting program for us.
- Jenny Rodríguez
- Hilda ten Brink
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Address:
700 meters West of Pops in the Sabana, on the old road to Escazu, corner building at your left. |