Category: Interfaith

How do you read a survey about the Jews? Re-framing Pew

October 16, 2013 / gurevitzr

This piece is based on a sermon given at Congregation B’nai Shalom last Shabbat.

Last week the Pew Research Center on Religion and Public Life released their study on Jewish American life. In the days since its release, I have read dozens of articles and blog pieces commenting on their results. I’ve even written one myself that got a lot of attention at myjewishlearning.com which I shared on our facebook page over the weekend.

Jewish professionals are poring over the details and offering their own spins on the data. But the rest of us are just getting on with living our lives; lives that incorporate and reflect our Jewish identities and values, and many other facets of our identities all at the same time. Many Jewish professionals are hand-wringing and angst-dwelling. Most Jews are just doing what they were doing last week and the week before – living their lives.

So, perhaps it is useful to share some of the statistics that, while probably not surprising, are worth presenting, just so you know what all the fuss is all about. Here are just a few of the stats that have been quoted in many reviews of the report – selectively citing these kinds of figures, without deeper analysis or framing, is why we are hearing a lot of angst this week about the results.

For example, 88% of those surveyed identified themselves as Jewish both in terms of religious and cultural identity. But 22% identified themselves as culturally or ethnically Jewish, but not religiously identified that way. And when you break down the numbers by age, 32% of those born after 1980 identify as Jewish but with no religion. Whereas 90% of those who identify their religion as Jewish are raising their children as Jews, 2/3rds of those who identify as Jews of no religion are notraising their children with any kind of Jewish identity, religious or cultural. The rate of intermarriage has risen, and this is more prevalent (considerably more so) among Jews of no religion.

In terms of Jewish denomination, we do see Reform being the largest group in the US, but the Reform numbers reported in the survey are enlarged by those who don’t belong to any kind of community but use the label ‘Reform’ to identify themselves. Looking at those who have switched denomination during their lifetimes, the Reform movement has also been the largest recipient of those who grew up Conservative and even Orthodox. However, we also see many figures that demonstrate that Reform Jews are less Jewishly engaged than those who identify as Conservative or Orthodox on a wide range of measures. At this point in time, only about 1/3^rd of Jews who identify as Reform belong to Reform synagogues (stats from other studies in the recent past suggest that, over their lifetime, as many as 70 or 80% might below to a synagogue for a while). Reform Jews are more likely to have non-Jewish friends and spend less time in Jewish communal activities.

There are a ton more detailed stats available in this extensive report, and I highly recommend going to the Pew Forum website to review the information for yourself. Tonight I don’t want to overload you with figures. Instead I want to suggest a framing for the data that we can all read if we choose to.

In my earlier blog article I highlighted two key ideas that must be held in mind whenever we look at statistics. For those who don’t know, my PhD was in sociology with a specialist focus in research methods, so I know one or two things about this subject. The first is that correlation and causation are not the same thing. I had a phone call from a gentleman in Worcester the day that the survey came out. I thought it might be a journalist looking for a rabbi’s response, but it turned out to be a concerned citizen who wanted to express his concern for the damage that interfaith marriage was doing to the Jewish community. Here’s the thing. It is one thing to note that individuals who hold certain kinds of views, and who believe certain kinds of things are more likely to marry a non-Jew. That’s a correlation and the stats bear that out. But it is quite another thing to state that interfaith marriage causes someone to be less engaged with the Jewish community. Ask about 35% of our congregation if that is true. Their own lives, choices, and families who we are blessed to count among our active, dedicated Jewish community will tell a different story. What is absolutely wonderful is how many interfaith couples are choosing to raise Jewish children – many more than earlier surveys and assumptions would have predicted. We change the reality every day by the choices we make and the way we, as a community, respond.

Likewise, it is not choosing to identify as Reform that makes one less involved in Jewish learning, activity, and community. There are many of us – many of you here – who believe in and care about Jewish community and Jewish traditions, and they enrich your lives and you enrich your Jewish community. But there are also many Jews who claim the label ‘Reform’ as code for their relative lack of engagement in Jewish life and practice. How should we regard this information? We could moan about the challenge of creating an intensely connected community when a substantial group who choose to travel with us for some period of time seem to be comfortable remaining on the periphery. Or we could recognize the incredible blessing of the open tent, inclusive nature of a Reform congregation that makes it easier for more people to step through the door, feel welcomed, and the opportunity we have each time one more family does so to share what is beautiful and meaningful about Jewish spiritual life with them. We might celebrate the fact that we have a ‘brand’ that is appealing and inclusive enough that so many people feel comfortable claiming it as part of their identity! Of course we don’t find those Jews in Orthodox communities – they’ve already been excluded, or assumed they would be excluded and, often, written off.

The other thing that I highlighted in my earlier blog piece was the information shared by the Pew researchers that noted that the patterns of religious and non-religious identity, affiliation and non-affiliation, very closely aligned with research conducted last year about American society in general. In other words, the younger generation in the USA are likely to answer ‘none’ to the question of what religion they identify with in about the same proportions as Jews of the same age are likely to identify as being of no religion. And what that phrase actually means is incredibly complex and multi-faceted – the statistics won’t enlighten us as to that meaning – that requires a different kind of inquiry and conversation.

So what are we to make of all of these statistics? Are we to be concerned that, based on these figures and projected trajectories, we are likely to be a less religiously identified and organizationally participating Jewish community in the coming years (thinking here only about current manifestations of Jewish organization; who knows what new entities will be created in coming years)? Well, there may be a reality to that which will see change in the number and nature of the Jewish institutions our community supports. But, whether that is true or not, what do these results really mean, and what should we, if anything, be doing, in response to them?

Here’s where the frame comes in. First of all, the report concluded that there were a much larger number of Jewish in the USA than previous studies. Perhaps 1 million or more extra. One of the reasons for this is because the study allowed people answering the survey to self-define andself-identify their Jewishness. What this means is that a large number of those who called themselves Jews of no religion would most likely, in previous decades, not have been counted at all. Our own children, if you ask them, will tell you that they have school friends who identify as ‘half Jewish’ because they have one Jewish parent. Perhaps they go to family for a Passover meal. Maybe they light a menorah. Maybe they do absolutely nothing of a religious nature at all. Yet they are aware of their family background and choose to claim the part that is Jewish as their own. Think back to your childhoods – who would have, if they didn’t have to, choose to identify themselves with the Jewish people? It wasn’t cool to be Jewish. Now it is. That’s as clear a sign as any that we’ve made it in American society. Yes, assimilation is also a fact of life when we’ve been so entirely absorbed and integrated into a host society (in a matter of 3 or 4 generations). But Jewish is now something that doesn’t only live in the private home or the synagogue – it lives everywhere. That is wonderful, and there is incredible opportunity in this if we take the time to understand what it means and respond to it.

So yes, that makes life for institutions like synagogues a bit more complicated. While there are still plenty of people who understand the way a congregation can provide a structure and vessel for their Jewish expression and experience, for those who don’t identify as of the Jewish religion, the synagogue, as usually conceived, doesn’t appear to have much to offer them as a vehicle for their Jewishness. So they go to film festivals, watch Jon Stewart, and take note of Jewish stories that come across their face book feed, but we don’t reach these Jews because we’re not hanging out in the same part of the cultural landscape that they are. There’s a lot of debate as to whether synagogues need to reinvent themselves or stretch themselves to start showing up in different kinds of places and in different kinds of ways. Or whether we accept that a smaller % of Jews in America will continue to connect with synagogues, and we should let other projects and organizations specialize in working in those other spaces.

As you probably know, I’m more of a hybrid kind of gal. I believe in the mission and purpose of synagogue life, but I also believe in porous borders, in being a hub but providing enriching Jewish opportunities in the greater community, and shifting the overall balance and emphasis of what we do together as a congregational community so as to speak to the full diversity of Jewish families in our midst. We’re only just beginning, but we’re already making changes in this direction at Congregation B’nai Shalom.

There is so much more to be said about the rich data available from the Pew research. But a sermon slot doesn’t permit that kind of depth in one, short presentation. But I want to come back to the framing of the information we are absorbing. Just as we can understand the expansion of those who choose ‘Jewish’ as any part of their identification label as positive, even while it is challenging us, so we can choose how we label the shifting patterns of Jewish life that we see unfolding in the data. If we label some of the findings as ‘problems’ there is a suggestion that these are things to be solved. I don’t know about you, but I personally am inclined to tune out if someone labels me just living my life as ‘a problem.’ When ‘official’ voices of the Jewish community say this about others who proudly identity as Jews, whatever that means to them, they risk simply making the organizations that they represent irrelevant to the very people that they seek to change.

I also don’t believe that we Jews, and our structures, organizations, and synagogues, that engage about 1/3^rd of the 2% of the US population that is Jewish, have the power to change the tide of cultural shifts that shape 100% of American society, of which we are such a tiny component. I believe our job is to know what those changing tides are, to do our best to understand them, to ask ourselves whether we have the ability to respond to them by changing what we do or how we do it. Sometimes the answer will be ‘yes’. Sometimes the answer will be ‘no’ and new organizations and ideas will surface from new places that meet needs that older institutions are unable to meet. That’s just the way it is.

What we can do, if we believe in the purpose and meaning of a rich and full congregational life, is do all we can to sustain and enliven it with our own selves. Through our investment of time and resources, through our commitment to creating an environment where we passionately share our love of Jewish life with our children, where we teach them how to make space for Jewish living in a world with so many competing demands, where we recognize that weare the carriers of ancient culture ever evolving in which we seek and find meaning, spirituality, social justice, and love for one another… These and more are the ways that we, if we care about these facts and figures, and want to do our part to make Jewish life in America vibrant, will continue to make it so by our own choices and our own deeds. It’s not about the Rabbis. It’s not about the synagogues. It’s not about the Federations. It’s not about the Jewish film festivals. These are the vessels – the places and the networks. But it’s about you, and you, and you, and me. Each of us doing Jewish and being Jewish in all of its multifaceted forms. Doing and being together. And it is rich, it is varied, and it is exciting. So lets stop angsting and just get doing.

#BlogElul: Transforming the ordinary #takeaseatmakeafriend

August 15, 2013 / gurevitzr

One of our congregants posted this charming quote and image on their Facebook wall and, in this month of posting relationship and connection-related thoughts, ideas, and videos as our congregational theme leading up to the High Holydays, this one fit right in.

Here’s a few examples I can think of in response:

I remember the interfaith Spring cleanup that we did in a park in Bridgeport, CT, where Muslims, Jews, and Christians hauled trash out of the woods together.
Unloading a huge load of watermelon from a truck. The watermelon was donated by the farmer to the church hall being used to feed people and provide a base for volunteers helping to rebuild a town in Alabama after two tornados had uprooted a community.
Sitting silently in a room. The room was our sanctuary, hosting the local Hindu community for a meditation teaching led by their Guru from India.
Greeting a stranger. Something that happens any week that someone new walks into our building. Each and every one brings with them a different story, experience, hope and desire.

What ordinary moments are not so ordinary when you stop and think who you have shared them with?

How do communities of faith respond to gun violence?

August 14, 2012 / gurevitzr

Images from Oak Creek, Wisconsin

This sermon was delivered at Congregation B’nai Shalom, Westborough, MA on Friday August 10th.

What happens when the 24 hour news cycle brings our attention to two mass murders involving guns in the space of two weeks?

And what role does a synagogue community have in responding to these horrific events?

Depending on what Cable channels you are in the habit of tuning into, you may find yourself witness to a response that goes on the offensive – either for or against gun control. ‘Why is it legal for ordinary citizens to own guns that can fire off multiple rounds in a matter of seconds?’ sums up one side of the argument. ‘If someone else in the room had been carrying a gun, the crazy guy could have been taken out before he killed more people,’ sums up the other side of the argument. And there we find ourselves; choose one side or the other, and then shout down whichever perspective isn’t yours.

As to the second question, communities of faith can respond in many ways:

– We can first reaffirm our commitment to deeply care about the welfare of others. We can pray for all those who are hurting and mourning. If something happens close to home, we can show up because that’s how we express love for our neighbor. If we hear of other concrete requests that enable to reach out to communities suffering from these traumas, we can respond. To that end, during the oneg you will find a card on a table in the Oneg room tonight. I invite you to write a message on the card, or on the sheets of paper next to the card that will be included inside, which we will mail to the Oak Creek Sikh community in Wisconsin to express our condolences, prayers, and support.

– We can join together as a community for a moment of reflection and prayer – jointly expressing our emotions when we hear of these terrible acts. This we will do in a few minutes, with a prayer written by Rabbi Naomi Levy in response to the terror shooting at the Sikh Temple.

– Events like this always give us pause for thought as a minority faith community. We remember too well a time when synagogues were the targets for these hate crimes. We remain alert because we know that these times are not completely behind us. Additionally, Jewish organizations with expertise around issues of security and awareness have been offering their assistance to Muslim and Sikh communities.

– We can rededicate ourselves to building bridges with our brothers and sisters of faith. We will look for and create opportunities in this coming year and beyond to bring together our community with Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, and others because, when we overcome ignorance, indifference, and unfamiliarity, we build understanding, respect, and strengthen all of our faith communities in the process. Our 7th and 8th graders will be invited later in the year to participate in the STOP program – an incredible opportunity that has been running for a few years now to visit many different places of worship and meet other young people of faith. If you have a child in those grades I hope you will encourage them to take this opportunity when it comes. Our Brotherhood received a small community grant to create a collaborative interfaith program, and I look forward to working with them to make it a reality. And our Social Action team are dedicated to finding interfaith opportunities to work together in the local community. If you are already involved in an activity that might fit the bill, please tell me or our Social Action chair, Jeff Govendo, about it so that we can help spread the word and find others in the congregation who may wish to join you in your efforts. For my part, I look forward to attending and meeting the clergy in the local Interfaith clergy association when they re-gather in the Fall.

– And what about the public debate? Is it possible to talk with each other in the context of a faith-based approach to the principles and values at stake in a way that doesn’t simply echo the narratives heard on MSNBC or Fox news? I’d like to think there is. One of things that I believe strongly is that, while we can always find Jewish ethical values to inform our conversation, it’s much harder to translate some of those values into specific policy in contemporary America. It is possible, but we have to recognize and admit that it is seldom black and white.

So, for example, one of the absolute highest values in Judaism is the value of ‘to save a life is to save a world.’ Any action we can take that may lead to the preservation of life trumps almost any other action. And so, for example, an observant Jew can break the laws of Shabbat to rush someone to the hospital. Organ transplants are now halachically permitted by most authorities because they save lives. But, there are exceptions. If you are held at gunpoint and told that you can save 6 people by picking up a gun and killing 1 person randomly from the group, you may not do so. You may not murder. This may defy your sense of what you might think was the better choice, but you are not permitted to make one life less valuable than any other. So even the value of ‘to save a life is to save the world’ isn’t entirely black and white.

How might this value be applied to the conversation about gun control? One could argue that if more people carried guns, they would be able to potentially save many lives by killing someone who opens fire on a crowded room. That is the argument that proponents of gun rights make. I see it a little differently. I am concerned that a whole load of people carrying guns, with varying levels of skill and training, may inadvertently cause a lot more physical harm, including deaths, in such a scenario. It would also seem to me that if we applied ‘to save a life is to save a world’ to the current debate at hand, we should be investigating some restrictions on guns that were designed to fire off a large number of rounds between reloads. It would seem to me that keeping these kinds of guns out of the hands of ordinary civilians would be in keeping with this highest of Jewish values. We can have the debate about how that conforms with American constitutional rights, but that is not the same thing as looking at the Jewish ethical perspective.

This has been how the Reform movement has historically understood this value to apply to the contemporary scene, and its one of the main reasons that the Religious Action Center has advocated strongly for stricter controls over the most dangerous kinds of guns.

There may be some in the room who draw different conclusions. It is not my job as your Rabbi to tell you what US laws are right or wrong, good or bad. But it is my job to raise up and present Jewish values that have informed our faith tradition as I understand them. And this is how I understand the rabbinic statement, ‘to save a life is to save the world.’

But let me conclude by returning to the reaching out we can and must do to those who have lost and suffered. I end with this prayer:

This prayer was written to recite for the victims and survivors of the Aug. 5 shooting at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin. Rabbi Naomi Levy, spiritual leader of Nashuva, wrote the prayer on behalf of the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, which distributed it to congregations around the world.

Let Us Stand Up Together (נעמדה יחד)
–From our Haftarah this Shabbat, the second Haftarah of comfort (Isaiah 50:8), by Rabbi Naomi Levy

We stand together in grief
For the innocent victims
Of the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin
Who perished in their house of prayer.
May their memories be a blessing,
May their lights shine brightly on us.

We stand together in mourning
For broken hearts,
The senseless loss, the shock, the emptiness.

We stand together in outrage,
Weary of this war-torn hate-filled world.
And together we pray:

Send comfort, God, to grieving families,
Hear their cries.
Fill them with the courage
To carry on in the face of this tragic loss.
Send healing to the wounded,
Lift them up, ease their pain,
Restore them to strength, to hope, to life.
Gather the sacred souls of the slaughtered
Into Your eternal shelter,
Let them find peace in Your presence, God.

Work through us, God,
Show us how to help.
Open our hearts so we can comfort the mourning,
Open our arms so we can extend our hands,
Transform our helplessness into action,
Turn the prayers of our souls into acts of kindness and compassion.

Let us stand up together
Our young and our old,
All races and faiths,
All people and nations.
Rise up above hatred
And cruelty and indifference.
Let us live up to our goodness
Let us learn from this tragedy
Let us walk together
Filled with hope
On a path of peace, Amen.

Blessings beyond Borders – an interfaith tale

June 13, 2012 / gurevitzr

Last Saturday evening I was given an opportunity to be part of a truly wonderful celebration – the Sweet 16 party of a very special young woman. As I explained to the guests gathered there that evening, this was an evening of firsts for me. We don’t really make much of the 16th birthday in the UK, probably because 18 is not so far away. In the UK, 18 takes on greater significance as it is the legal drinking age. So last Saturday was my first ever Sweet Sixteen party. Another new and special part of the experience for me was that this Sweet 16 was celebrated Puerto Rican style. As I learned in preparing for the event, there are variations on the rituals that have become associated with this celebration – Brazilians, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and other Latin American countries all utilize slightly different symbolic acts and objects to represent the transition into womanhood. Traditionally, these events took place at the age of 15, and so the celebration would be called a Quinceanera. In North America, the celebration has often shifted to the age of 16, influenced by North American Sweet Sixteen celebrations. At the celebration I attended, two key ritual moments involved replacing a ribbon in the young woman’s hair with a tiara, and a pair of flat shoes with high heels. Another part of the tradition is for a priest to offer a blessing, often presenting a bible and a crucifix necklace. And this is where I came in.

The young woman in question is Muslim. Desiring to celebrate her Puerto Rican cultural roots, but minus the religious traditions of Catholicism, it might have been challenging to involve either a Priest or an Imam. Much of the family was practicing Catholic, and many of the women from the Islamic community were present for the celebration too. It was a wonderful interfaith and intercultural gathering in and of itself. But why add a Rabbi to the mix?

I was invited to offer a blessing at this particular Sweet 16 after getting to know this young woman these past two years through our Tent of Abraham interfaith activities. We had met on several occasions – adult and teen discussion programs, Rosh Hodesh group and Muslim women’s study and celebration gatherings, and Iftar (evening break fast) during Ramadan. And so it was that, in the week leading up to the celebration we spoke on the phone. In preparing some words of blessing, I asked her to reflect on significant moments in her life up until now that seemed to her to have shaped her life and her faith. She spoke of her father’s death at an early age, and later reflecting more deeply on taking responsibility in the world during a time that her mother was unwell. She spoke of the values that were most important to her – trust, loyalty, compassion, friendship. She spoke of her belief in one God, who could be addressed and experienced directly by every person. These words and more were the sentiments that I reflected back to her. In the mix, as per a request from her and her mother, I explained how the rituals and the celebration compared with Jewish coming-of-age ceremonies. Just as the evening was filled with many firsts for me (I even began with a few sentences of Spanish – a language I have never studied or spoken before – thanks to the assistance of one of our Puerto Rican staff at the synagogue!), I explained that I was sure that the presence of a Rabbi to offer the blessing was a first for everyone there. It became an opportunity to learn from and about each other.

In the mix was the Priestly Blessing, an English interpretative rendition by Debbie Friedman, a Rashi interpretation on the blessing, and a blessing over the food sung in Aramaic and English. In just 5 minutes I had the opportunity to share some rich Jewish traditions and prayers with many who may never or rarely had any direct experience of Judaism before. This was taking Jewish wisdom public in a whole new context. These were blessings beyond borders. It certainly was a blessing for me to attend and participate in this wonderful young woman’s special evening.
Rabbi Rachel Gurevitz

Blogging Elul 5771: On the 10th Remembrance of 9/11

September 9, 2011 / gurevitzr

9/11 Memorial, World Trade Center Site, NYC

As the attention of millions is brought back to events of 9/11 ten years ago, there are countless voices offering their commentaries, their explanations, and their analysis. Our world is turned upside down by acts of hatred and violence, whether the scale be as large as the events of 9/11, or it is the experience of one individual family whose lives are forever changed when a loved one is violently taken from them.

We find ourselves torn from the ordinary, everyday, where we have an unconscious expectation that one day will proceed much like the one before. The sense of certainty and security we have about the existence of the next moment of our lives is shaken.

There is certainly a time and a place for conversations and actions designed to restore our sense of safety and security again. It is not psychologically healthy to live in a state of anxiety about what might be around the next corner. But we might also be reminded that, living in a state of humility, we must accept that the only moment we can ever really know is this one, right now.

There is a time and a place for analysis of what took place on 9/11, and the responses that followed – at an individual, national, and international scale. But there is also a time for silence. A time to stand with individuals and a country remembering those who died. A time to remember the acts of giving and bravery by so many in what turned out to be their last moments. A time to face the monster that is a face of humanity too – our ability to commit great acts of violence against each other.

In this moment I do not seek meaning or explanation. But I am spurred to respond. I am reminded, as I so often need reminding, to live each day fully, to love as fully as I can, to never leave the words that I could say today until tomorrow. I forget this all the time. We all do. We don’t need acts of terror or national tragedies to remind us; this month of Elul leading up to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur – two days that symbolize birth and death respectively, with only 10 days between them – these are part of the rhythm of the Jewish year so that we can pause and consider what we are doing with this gift of existence that we have been given without needing trauma to help us remember.

May the memories of all who died on 9/11 be a blessing in the hearts of all who mourn.

Join us at Congregation B’nai Israel on Sunday morning, 9:45 am, for a morning service of prayer, remembrance and reflection.
We will then join with many other communities of faith, including local Christian and Muslim communities, for an Interfaith outdoor service at The Fairfield Museum, 370 Beach Road, at 3pm. The names of all those who died on 9/11 from Connecticut will be read as part of this ritual that will include readings and music. All are then invited to join Sacred Listening Circles inside the museum to share memories, reflections, and hopes with other local residents in facilitated small groups. The museum also has a photo exhibit on display in remembrance of 9/11.

Why is this Women’s Seder different from all others?

March 24, 2011 / gurevitzr

If Purim is over then it must be the season for the Women’s Seder! The pre-Passover timing allows for women who have, traditionally, had their hands rather busy doing a lot of the behind-the-scenes work at the family Passover Seder, to enjoy creating and leading the ritual aspects of the Seder. A pre-Passover Seder has also enabled some of the wonderful creativity – prayers, writings, stories, and music – that have emerged from the Women’s Seder ritual over the decades to make their way into family and other communal Seders.

The first Women’s Seder took place in Haifa, Israel and Manhattan, NY in the USA in 1975. The story of the early years and the text of the first haggadah written for the Women’s Seder can be found in ‘The Telling’, by E.M. Broner. These early Seder gatherings represented the coming together of second wave feminism with Judaism as women who had previously felt excluded from a Judaism that was perceived to be patriarchal and exclusionary began to reclaim their heritage and Jewish women’s spirituality. Sally Priesand had been the first US woman to be ordained as a rabbi in 1972, and Jackie Tabick was the first to be ordained in the UK in 1975. The times they were a’changin’.

Since those early years, the tradition of a Women’s Seder has spread far and wide and has evolved considerably. Many local communities have created their own haggadah, weaving together borrowed poems, stories, and songs with their own new liturgical writing and composing. One organization based in New York City, Ma’yan, was instrumental in the spread of the Women’s Seder internationally, with the music of the greatly missed Debbie Friedman, z’l, creating a phenomenon where, for a number of years, over 500 women a night would fill a room for 2-3 nights in a row for the Ma’yan Seder.

While a traditional haggadah makes no mention of the women who were so important to the unfolding of our people’s story of the journey from slavery to freedom, a Women’s Seder haggadah tells of the midwives, Shifra and Puah, Yocheved and Miriam. While a traditional haggadah only retells the discussions and interpretations offered by male rabbis and scholars through the centuries, a Women’s Seder haggadah weaves together the words of women, and returns our voice to our people’s history and heritage. Women have always passed on their wisdom and Jewish practices from generation to generation, and the Women’s Seder at Congregation B’nai Israel always includes structured sharing of stories, questions and answers, where our bat mitzvah students share their stories with older generations and vice versa; its a multi-generational gathering.

This year’s Seder is different from all of our previous Women’s Seders at Congregation B’nai Israel; this year we welcome our Christian and Muslim sisters in faith to join us for a Seder ritual that celebrates the themes of Freedom and Peace, weaving together the inspirational sources from our three faith traditions. This Seder is inspired by the pioneering work of Rabbi Arthur Waskow and The Shalom Center who formulated the first Seder for the Children of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar in 1999. Our Rosh Hodesh group has spent the year in a series of interfaith interactions with women from local churches and Muslim communities, and we look forward to welcoming them all to our Passover Seder. The goal is not to provide a ‘model Seder’ for the benefit of our sisters-in-faith, but to use the Passover Seder model and message to weave together lessons, songs and inspiration from all three faiths to inspire us to think and engage more deeply with the Passover message.

The Seder takes place at Congregation B’nai Israel, Bridgeport, Thursday, March 31st, 7:30 p.m. It is free and open to all women from the local community. RSVP to reserve a seat with lynn@congregationbnaiisrael.org

I hope to see you there!
Rabbi Rachel Gurevitz

Hanukkah: Shining a Light on Freedom of Religion

December 3, 2010 / gurevitzr

Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, falls on December 1^st this year. The Festival of Lights, originating in the celebration of the victory of the Maccabees over the Syrian Greek Empire and the restoration of the Temple in Jerusalem in 165 BCE, has come to symbolize many eternal and universal themes over the centuries, particularly themes of hope and creating light in dark times. In American life today, it is not unusual for these eternal and universal messages to be blended with contemporary concerns.

So, for example, a Jewish environmental group (www.coejl.org) launched a CFL light bulb campaign a few years ago, re-reading the ancient story of the miracle of the little jar of oil found in the desecrated Temple by the Maccabees that lasted for eight nights instead of the expected one.

The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism draws lines of connection between the themes of Hanukkah and many contemporary social issues, urging us to use some of our time and resources to go beyond the donut-, latke-eating, and present-giving norms, and see the festival as inspiration to make a difference on issues of economic justice, and children’s issues, among others (http://rac.org/pubs/holidayguides/).

This year, a press release about another connection between the Festival and contemporary issues caught my attention. In the time of the Maccabees, there had been many years of cultural assimilation, with Jews in the land of Israel absorbing and incorporating aspects of Syrian-Greek culture. The rebellion came when there was a shift in Syrian-Greek perspective, and traditional Jewish practices and rituals became forbidden. The Maccabees were fighting to restore their freedom to practice their religion. While the story is more complicated than that, the theme remains all too relevant today.

This November, former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, launched a global education program ‘Face to Faith.’ In a press release from his Faith Foundation, he explained: “Face to Faith connects students aged 11-16 from different schools in 15 countries across the world via video-conferencing and a secure website. The program aims to break down stereotypes and broaden horizons by engaging students of different cultures, religions and beliefs in discussing global issues from different perspectives.” A number of schools across the

USA

are already involved. But I was also encouraged and moved to learn that Mr. Blair is launching the program in Israel on the first night of Hanukkah at an event at the Leo Baeck Education Center in Haifa, along with their Muslim counterparts from the El Gazali School in Um el Fahm.

What an inspiring message for us all this year at Hanukkah! The respect for religious freedom necessitates our interacting with each other and learning about each other. Every Spring for the past three years, I’ve been involved in a program that brings Jewish, Christian and Muslim teens together to learn more about each other. This coming year, on April 3^rd, the Council of Churches Bridge Building Ministry will be running their Annual Youth Conference (contact info@ccgb.org to learn more).

As we light the candles each night of Hanukkah this year, think of another faith group that you wish to know more about. Commit to reading something online (www.beliefnet.com is a wonderful resource), find a local class, visit another place of worship, invite a faith speaker into your community, or organize an interfaith dialogue program between members of your community and that of another faith.

May the light of your faith shine brightly and contribute to a more tolerant, compassionate, and loving world.

Happy Hanukkah!

This article was published this week in several local town newspapers in Fairfield County by the Hersam Acorn consortium.

Speaking out & standing up for Religious Freedom

September 14, 2010 / gurevitzr

In the days leading up to Rosh Hashanah, and over this past weekend, amidst the noisy and negative voices whipping up fear, anger and hate in our country, there have been many beacons of light emerging from voices of faith, speaking up for Religious Freedom, pluralism, tolerance, and compassion.

Here are just a couple of examples that have been brought to my attention. First, organized by 5th year rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College, New York (and son of our Senior Rabbi, Jim Prosnit), Jonathan Prosnit organized a group of some 40 students and faculty, including the Dean, Rabbi Shirley Idelson, to peacefully march from Hebrew Union College to Park 51 last week, in support of the proposed Muslim community center. He writes a report of the event, originally posted at the blog of the Religious Action Center:

Over 40 Hebrew Union College (HUC) students, faculty and administrators turned out in a rally to support Park 51 (aka-“The Ground Zero Mosque”) on Tuesday. Despite vicious New York City heat, the HUC representatives walked the 1.5 miles from Hebrew Union College to the future site of Park 51 in Lower Manhattan. As the closest seminary (of any religion) to Ground Zero and to Park 51, the HUC participants gathered in support of religious freedom, of interfaith dialogue and to welcome Park 51 into the unique religious landscape that is New York City.

Carrying signs, wearing tallitot and blowing shofarot, the group sang throughout the entire walk. Fittingly the march took place during the holy months of Ramadan and Elul. Elul, in the Jewish calendar, is the month prior to the Jewish High Holidays where Jews prepare themselves for the days of awe. Prayer during Elul is marked by the call of the shofar and the rally began and culminated in the blast of the shofar. The shofar, for those who marched, served as a call to action, a call of awakening and a call to justice.

For the HUC representatives the walk was an opportunity to affirm America as a beacon of Freedom of Religion. Upon reaching Park 51 the group was invited into the building and warmly greeted in the temporary prayer room at Park 51. Employees of Park 51 greeted each of the HUC participants individually and said that rally and the presence of so many, helped lift the spirits of those associated with Park 51.

Seminarians echoed the words of the great social justice warrior Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and said that by rallying in support of tolerance and peace they were “praying with our feet.”

Secondly, the Religious Action Center – the social action, Washington-based arm of the Union for Reform Judaism, participated in several interfaith statements on the central American value of Religious Freedom, and a press conference with the Islamic Society of North America. Links to the conference, televised on CSPAN, and the statements that were released, are found below:

the RAC helped convene an important summit of American religious leaders to focus on religious freedom and the recent wave of Islamophobic activity in the United States. The joint statement we issued is available here, and you can watch a video of the press conference here. Also, the New York Times had a good report on the meeting, which you can read here.

We also participated in a meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder on this issue yesterday. You can read the joint press release about that meeting here.

Finally, there was a Liberty March held in NYC on September 12th, bringing together people of all faiths, walking peacefully in the name of Religious Freedom. Erica Bower, who graduated High School last Summer and is now a Freshman at Columbia University, participated in the March, and sent me a brief description of the event. Erica participated in two semesters of our Interfaith Interaction class with Merkaz, our Jewish High School Program, while she was in High School, engaging in dialog with Christian and Muslim teens.

I was able to attend the Liberty Walk yesterday. It started off at 3 pm with a series of speakers in a Church nearby the world trade center and location of Park51. The speakers consisted of a variety of religious leaders (Jewish, Muslim and Christian) and the husband of a 9/11 victim who all spoke passionately about the importance of religious freedom across cultures and the symbolic necessity of this Muslim cultural center near the site of the twin towers. Following the speeches, we all gathered outside the church and marched along the streets singing songs such as Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore, This land is your land, and God Bless America at the termination of the route. It was an incredibly powerful experience to see so many people (I believe the final count was about 1000) of all ages, religions, and motives walking together for a unifying cause, particularly because it was raining fairly hard. I was inspired to go because this is an issue I feel passionate about and I am interested in getting involved with the Columbia Democrats who were sending a delegation down. Overall, it was a pretty inspiring experience and I really hope this issue starts recieving positive media attention and can be resolved.

What We Can Learn from Chelsea and Mark’s Interfaith Wedding

August 4, 2010 / gurevitzr

Since the ‘big wedding’ of the year, last weekend, I’ve had a number of people email me or facebook me and ask, ‘Rabbi, what do you think?’ I often think that one of the questions behind questions like this is ‘Is it good for the Jews?’ But I’m not sure if that’s the right question.

There is no question that such a celebrity, high-profile wedding that sees a Methodist Minister and a Reform Rabbi co-officiating together on a Saturday evening before sundown pushes a lot of buttons. Reading many of the comments to blog pieces by Rabbis who have shown acceptance and have chosen to highlight the blessing that Jewish tradition and ritual was a part of a Clinton wedding, a lot of the buttons pushed have been those of Jews who see a wedding like this as an undermining of Judaism. The Rabbi, James Ponet, who officiated is showered with insults (we often see him referred to as ‘rabbi’ by those who vehemently disagree with his decision to participate).

On the other hand, there are those whose buttons are pushed in a different direction – some are bloggers who are part of an interfaith relationship, or others who leave comments sharing how wonderful it was for them to be able to honor both of their faith traditions at this important life-cycle moment, or how painful it was to be unable to find someone who would do such a thing when they themselves had sought out someone.

Rabbi Irwin Kula, Co-President of CLAL, has both written on this topic and appeared yesterday on the Today Show to speak about interfaith marriage. He used an image that I think conveys a reality that we see among some of the Chelsea/Mark generation rather well. He said that some people today are choosing ‘the bazaar’ over ‘the cathedral’, by which he means that we see a growing trend toward picking and choosing rituals and spiritual wisdom from different places and not necessarily feeling a need or a pressure to 100% embrace one modality only. And so, while we can certainly discuss whether or not we think this is ‘good’ (see, for example, the Editorial in this week’s Jewish Forward), the reality is that this is, and this is the American spiritual ‘marketplace’ that we are increasingly finding ourselves in.

‘So, Rabbi’, I am asked, ‘What do you think?’

Well, I think lots of things. And I’m going to continue to be more descriptive than prescriptive in my thoughts. Here are some things to bear in mind, which I hope will provide a useful framework for judging one’s own reaction to the news of Chelsea and Mark’s wedding and the co-officiation that took place:

1) Jewish law and tradition about marriage evolved out of an ancient biblical tradition. What is now understood as a halachic Jewish wedding has it roots in practices that we find in the Torah, but is distinctly different from those practices. As circumstances and the culture of the society around us has changed, so has Jewish practice. We don’t, for example, continue to practice Levirate marriage (the practice of a brother of a deceased husband taking the widow as his wife). The practice of having more than one wife was effectively banned within the European Ashkenazi tradition in the 11th century. It continued in parts of the Sephardic world leading to a situation when families where a husband had multiple wives arrived from Yemen to the State of Israel in the 1950s, creating a conundrum for the fledgling state (they allowed these men to keep the wives they had, but could not marry more, and the law of the land became one wife only from then on). We also know that marrying non-Jewish wives was commonplace in the Biblical state of Israel, although distinctly disapproved of by the spiritual leaders of the time (Ezra, for example, upon seeing the extent of intermarriage when he returned from the Babylonian exile after the destruction of the 1st temple, ruled that Jewish men should divorce their non-Jewish wives).

2) Even within rabbinic law, we can trace a debate among the early generations of Rabbis regarding intermarriage. While it is clear that none approved, a majority recognized the outright prohibition as a rabbinic innovation, whereas the Biblical law only specified not marrying with the 7 Canaanite nations when the Children of Israel entered Canaan. This is clearly about maintaining the identity and tribal integrity of this fledgling people, and maintaining a specific cultic code of practice that was distinct from the rituals, gods, and beliefs of the surrounding nations.

3) We sometimes hark back to a time when no-one would think of ‘marrying out’; the consequences were too severe – one would be cut off from one’s community and we remember a time when a parent would tear their clothes and mourn their child as if dead. While there are some who wish our Jewish tradition and community held more influence over the cultural, spiritual and ethical lives of our young people today, most are grateful that most parents no longer act as if a child has died if they marry a non-Jew. The truth is, the times we are harking back to are times before Napoleon provided the innovation of civil marriage. While the change did not happen overnight, for centuries if a Jew married a non-Jew, the almost inevitable outcome was the conversion of the Jew to Christianity. One could only get married in a Church or a Synagogue (or, in Muslim lands, in a Mosque). Therefore, there was a stark reality to a Jew ‘marrying out’ truly being cut off from the Jewish community if they did this. And this was an enormous loss to a parent, equivalent to the death of their child.

4) Now we live in a time when the stark and dramatic consequences of a Jew marrying a non-Jew is no longer so apparent. For those concerned about the vibrancy and continuation of the Jewish community, these are real concerns. Many Jews who marry non-Jews are lost from Jewish communal life, and their children are not raised with a Jewish identity (more often the case if a mother is not Jewish). But we know that there are thousands of Jewish families in the USA where one parent is not Jewish. Many are raising children who are actively engaged with the Jewish faith and community. Speaking only of Congregation B’nai Israel, I have heard many passionate Confirmation speeches of youth of interfaith parents who are distinctly aware and proud of their decision to embrace Judaism and continue their learning to the end of High School. I have friends and colleagues who grew up in an interfaith household who have gone on to become Rabbis and Jewish Educators. We certainly cannot take the continuity of Jewish peoplehood and community for granted, but neither can we write off the families of interfaith couples. They enrich our communities and strengthen us when they choose to make Jewish community their spiritual home, and that is something to celebrate.

5) The decision of a Rabbi to officiate at the wedding of a Jew and a non-Jew is very complex and personal.
a) For many, it is black and white. Halachah, as it has evolved over the centuries, does not recognize such a marriage as a Jewish marriage and, therefore, a Rabbi who is wedded to traditional halachah will not view their participation in such a wedding as a possibility.
b) There are those who will officiate if they believe what they are doing is part of welcoming a couple into the Jewish community. Some make specific stipulations about expectations, or require the couple to attend an Introduction to Judaism class together, or provide them with a year’s free membership of the synagogue to help encourage their participation in communal Jewish life. Others simply ensure that the conversation about faith in the home and hopes regarding the upbringing of children are discussed as part of pre-marriage counseling, and emphasize the importance of maintaining a commitment to their pre-marriage understandings.
c) There are still some others who will contemplate co-officiating with clergy of another faith because, while they recognize that this blending and mixing of traditions is a less likely route to an identified and engaged Jewish family unit, they feel that to deny the Jewish person who is authentically wanting to honor their faith and heritage, who clearly feels identified with it, is to counter-productively push them away. There are times when it becomes clear that a young person has little personal investment, but is being pressured by parents to do ‘something Jewish’ – that is a more complex situation that requires pastoral guidance and counseling. Many Rabbis would not contemplate officiating at a ceremony under these circumstances, while others see doing so as the means for them to gain access to the couple to engage in the kind of pastoral counseling that they need.

6) A consideration of alternatives? While I truly believe that each Rabbi has to come to terms with their own practices on the matter of officiating an interfaith marriage, and that a plurality of responses is ok because Jewish community is strengthened by being an open-sided tent with many entry points and many places within a spectrum to enable Jews (and their non-Jewish spouses) to find their place, I find it unhelpful to denigrate Rabbis who either do or don’t officiate. Such knee-jerk reactions deny the complexity of the context in which clergy work in the USA today – ‘the bazaar’ that Rabbi Irwin Kula described – and the tensions between tradition and change that all Rabbis are constantly responding to (even Orthodox Rabbis – just see the recent statement about homosexuality from the Orthodox rabbinate recently released). Rabbis who officiate are not facilitating the growth in interfaith marriage. When a couple come to a Rabbi about a wedding, we do not have any influence on whether the marriage takes place or not. There are Unitarian ministers, Interfaith ministers, Justice of the Peace, and ‘friends who have become Universal Life Ministers for the purpose of officiating at a marriage’, among the choices available in the spiritual and religious marketplace of North America today. That is not necessarily a reason to acquiesce to the request – as I said, it is complex – but this is a reality. This is not the world of the shtetl, or even of Twentieth century USA, where Jews were barred from some Universities, golf clubs, country clubs, residential areas etc. To deny the relevance of any of this larger cultural context when considering questions of interfaith marriage is to leave out the landscape in which Jewish adults are living their lives today.

And so, I’ve attempted to describe the landscape. I hope it provides useful food for thought for those who are considering their own perspectives on these issues, whether Rabbis or lay people. And I invite your comments, additional perspectives, and thoughts to be posted here.
Rabbi Rachel Gurevitz