Chai Lines
International Northeast Region
Women's League
for Conservative Judaism
Networking to Engage, Enrich and Empower
Conservative Jewish Women
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May 14, 2019 Volume 3, Issue 23
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FROM THE PRESIDENT--JOAN LOWENSTEIN
Have I mentioned that Conference is upon us? It is just a couple of weeks away now and have I mentioned how excited I am? Conference is for everyone and one goal is to continually connect more members to the region and each other. There will be great sessions from Programming and Education to Israeli Dancing and Membership Sessions.
In preparing to attend please don't forget your packing lists. If you attended convention 2017, bring your T-Shirt. If you are a Sisterhood President bring your president's pin. Bring your Kippah, and if you wear them,
tallit and
tefillin. You will need to bring a tote bag for materials. Please bring questions and ideas. If your Sisterhood held a successful program, you wish to share please bring those thoughts and ideas as well. Or even something special about your Sisterhood that you wish to share with the other delegates. If you have ideas about something you would like to see in the future? Bring that as well. The sky is the limit. Looking forward to seeing you all very soon!
Wishing you all a meaningful and peaceful, Shabbat!
L'Shalom
Joan
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GOOD NEWS
Anastasia Goodman is a mystery novelist who writes about Jewish themes. Her latest book,
The Terrorist, was released in August 2018. Goodman spoke at Agudat Achim, Schenectady, NY, on May 14. The public was invited.
The book's plot: The year is 2004 and the terrorist attacks are still fresh in people's memories. Protestors against the Iraq War line the streets of major cities. Sasha Perlov is requested by the US Attorney's NY office to interrogate a potential terrorist in a CIA-run prison in Eastern Europe. Is a Muslim woman picked up by US Immigration in Long Island a terrorist? Why is she in the company of members of the infamous MS-13, experts at drug and human smuggling?
The book is available on line or via your library.
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Baruch Dayan HaEmet
It is with sadness that we advise you of the passing of Marshall Rosen, the brother of Rivy Blass, Past President of the former Canadian Seaway Branch. May his memory be a blessing.
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MORE GOOD NEWS WANTED
Toot your own horn.
Tell us what is going on in your Sisterhood.
Tell us what is successful in your Sisterhood.
Email Lois Silverman, Chai Line editor, at
and she'll share your news.
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ANNOUNCING WLCJ'S JEWELS IN THE CROWN AWARDS
The Women's League for Conservative Judaism's
Jewels in the Crown Award
was established ten years ago, in 2009, in order to recognize our sisterhoods who have demonstrated excellence in education, cultural programming, and social action, and who exhibit a strong Women's League identity. There were more than 215 total sisterhood recipients at the 2014 and 2017 Women's League Conventions. These sisterhoods offered hundreds of interesting and successful programs that reflected a wide diversity of subjects, issues, social action projects, celebrations, and personal enrichment activities. Learn more about the program at
http://wlcj.org/2014/07/jewels-in-the-crown-awards/
.
Now is the time to start collecting your programs to be submitted for Jewels in the Crown Awards for the 2020 Women's League Convention. Please appoint a sisterhood member to be responsible for completing and submitting the application to us. We will be looking at your programs from September 2017 until June 30, 2020.
Download the 2020 Jewels in the Crown application here!
Each Sisterhood must be current with their 2019 and 2020 per capita, and must participate in Torah Fund in order to be eligible to participate in Jewels in the Crown.
Become a shining jewel in the Women's League crown! Please share this letter with your current executive committee and feel free to contact us with any questions.
B'shalom,
Meryl Balaban (mbalaban@wlcj.org)
Madeleine Gimbel (maddy_gimbel@yahoo.com)
Convention 2020 Jewels in the Crown Co-Chairs
Margie Miller (mmiller@wlcj.org)
WLCJ President
Sisters Journeying Together
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FROM WOMEN'S LEAGUE FOR
CONSERVATIVE
JUDAISM
Networking to engage,
enrich and empower
Conservative Jewish Women
Shabbat Message:
"I Am Going to Be a Grandmother"
By Agnes Emert
WLCJ Vice President
In October of 1956, a spontaneous national uprising began in Hungary, protestors demanding a more democratic political system and freedom from Soviet oppression. Twelve days later, on November 4, 1956, Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest, crushing the uprising. An estimated 2,500 Hungarians died and 200,000 more fled as refugees to Austria.
The revolution saw sporadic attacks on Jews, especially in Budapest. Of the 200,000 refugees, approximately 20,000 were Jews. HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, resettled about 14,000 Jewish refugees who had fled to Vienna to the United States.
During the wintry cold of December, my parents, older sister, uncle, and his son attempted to cross the border with Austria. Soviet soldiers stopped, detained, and put them on a train back to Budapest. As the train pulled out, they jumped off, managed to hide, and later walked into Austria - Jewish refugees.
My grandparents refused to let them take such a risk with a 2-year-old, so I stayed with them. I adored my grandparents. And, I had my aunts and cousins - a family. I knew my parents only through pictures and presents they sent through the years. My parents tried to get permission for me to join them, but the Hungarian government repeatedly refused to grant an exit visa. With the assistance of the American and International Red Cross Society, I, along with about a dozen other displaced European children, arrived in New York in 1962 accompanied by my grandmother. They thought her presence would make it easier for me to bond with my parents, less traumatic to let her go. Her visa was only for six months, not nearly enough time for me to connect with strangers or to let her go.
To this day, I have no idea how I knew I was Jewish. I have no memory of attending a shul, or lighting candles, or observing any holidays. We ate whatever my grandparents could find and afford. In New York, and later in Los Angeles, we ate pork and shrimp, Shabbat did not exist for us, we celebrated Christmas - for the beauty of the trees and pleasure of the presents. My father, especially, had a strong disdain for religion and its leaders.
The first time I went inside a synagogue was for the Bar Mitzvah of a second cousin. My parents refused to attend. I was extremely uncomfortable, both ashamed and embarrassed by my ignorance. The next occasion was many years later, attending a wedding, still illiterate, but aware of a spark of need to understand. Still, I knew I was a Jew and I knew I would only marry a Jew - I don't know why.
I also did not understand why my parents were so dismissive of the 'Jewishness' of others. In bits and pieces, over many years, I learned some of their story.
My mother and her two sisters grew up in a wealthy, Orthodox home, davening daily, studying Torah with their father until 1944. Then, my mother, 13, her sister, 14, and their mother were forced into the Hungarian ghetto. Their father and oldest sister, 16, were taken, somewhere, never to be seen again.
My father, his brother, and his two sisters grew up in a very poor home, their parents from a shtetl, repairing pots and pans in the big city. In 1944, my 19-year-old father, and his 16-year-old sister were taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The rest of the family went into hiding. All miraculously survived.
I don't know any more. I only know that, when my aunt came to visit us from Hungary about fifty years later, she became physically ill when she saw my German shepherd and had to leave the house. She would not, could not talk. I will never forget the haunted, agonized look in her eyes.
My becoming a 'Jew in practice' is a story for another time. But I am happy to say that my parents attended my shul wedding, the bar and bat mitzvahs of my four children, and tolerated my kosher home.
Each of us has a story, many stories to tell. Why am I telling this one?
Because I am going to be a grandmother. There are no words that can express the depth and scope of all the emotions swirling through me. My thoughts swing back and forth from my childhood to the present - the incredibly blessed journey I have traveled. My heart remembers the love and devotion flowing between my grandmother and myself. My heart aches for the lost embraces of parents, caused by historic circumstances. Only with the passing years, do I come to understand the obstacles, trauma, and scars of my parents' life.
I am going to be a grandmother. I am going to tell my grandchild many, many things. I will talk about the delicious goose liver my grandmother cooked, about playing under my grandmother's kitchen table, about swimming in lake Balaton during the summers. I will talk about my parents' brave escape from Hungary, about going to the movies with my father, who loved cartoons as much as I, about how we loved to play Monopoly. I will talk about how blessed (s)(h)e is to be born in this country, to these parents, with these values, morals, traditions, and faith. How blessed (s)(h)e is to be a Jew. L'dor V'dor.
Women's League Reads Announces
Our Next Featured Book!
Women's League Reads is excited to announce our next featured book and author interview,
The Last Watchman of Old Cairo
, by Michael David Lukas. An exclusive, WL members-only author interview will be held on
Wednesday, July 17, at 8:30 p.m., Eastern time. Register to become a Woman's League member here.
Based on this remarkable historical n
ovel, Michael David Lukas has just received the 2019 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature by the Jewish Book Council. The book also received the 2018 National Jewish Book Award. Available in hardcover, paperback, and audio editions, it is a story about honor, love, forgiveness, and shared humanity.
The three story threads are based on the one-thousand years of Jewish presence and integration in Egyptian-Muslim society, which closed with Egyptian nationalism in the 1950s and the ensuing expulsion of native Jews along with "foreigners." When Lukas spent his junior year of college in 2000 in Cairo, he discovered the historic Ben Ezra Synagogue of Old Cairo, where Solomon Schechter had recovered the treasures of its Geniza. Serendipitously, on a plane ride, Lukas once sat next to a Muslim woman who shared that her ancestors had been "synagogue watchmen," a hereditary position of honor, wherein Jewish leaders, in cities from North Africa to India, consigned the duty to guard a synagogue's Torah scrolls and property to a local Muslim family.
The novel's protagonist, Joseph/Yusef, was the Californian son of two Egyptians, a Jewish mother and Muslim father who met in graduate school and then separated. He flew to Cairo after his father's death to unravel his mysterious past. His father had been the "last watchman" of the Ben Ezra synagogue and bequeathed to Joseph a scrap from the geniza, which had been a gift to his ancestor. Another thread relates the tale of the very first watchman, his ancestor 800 years earlier, when Jewish leaders, fearing that thieves were after the mystically powerful Ezra Torah Scroll, engaged the very first watchman. Still, another thread takes us to 1896, when Solomon Schechter improbably partnered with two quirky sisters, Scottish biblical scholars, to export the Geniza contents to Cambridge University.
The novel is beautifully written and, in just 265 pages, empathetically but realistically portrays the complex characters. It's a timeless story about a place and period we seldom study or think of. The author finds hopeful sparks in the interdependence and mutual respect that had once enabled Jewish culture to thrive alongside Islam.
Study with Scholars: Dr. Pamela Nadell
Join Women's League for the exclusive opportunity to learn from prominent Jewish scholars. These sessions will be held via Zoom online conference calls. Questions? Contact Program Coordinator
On Tuesday, May 21, at 8:30 p.m., Eastern time, join Women's League for a session with Dr. Pamela S. Nadell, author of America's Jewish Women: A History fromColonial Times to Today. The book is currently available in digital and hardcover formats.
Sign Up Now for Distance Workshops!
The next two Distance Workshops are
Wednesday, May 22, "Meeting your Sisterhood's Financial Needs (also of interest to Region Financial Teams)" and "Sisterhood 101" on Tuesday, June 18, both at 8:30 p.m., Eastern time.
WWOT - Weekly Words of Torah
Parashat Emor
To inspire, guide, engage, enrich, and empower Conservative Jewish Women
By Rabbi Ellen S. Wolintz-Fields, Executive Director, Women's League For Conservative Judaism
Our Torah reading this week, Parashat Emor, is an elaboration on the
second name of the book of Leviticus,Torat Kohanim, the Priestly Manual, for, in this Torah portion, God tells Moses to "speak," emor,
the laws of holiness to the priests. The portion begins with a detailed description of the laws of holiness as they pertain to the priests and to the offerings of sacrifices.
The priests had a higher status than the other Israelites because of their special tasks. Basically, these laws separated the priests from the rest of society in Israel. The High Priest was further set apart from the regular priests. In five respects, he was to be greater and better in stature, strength, wealth, intelligence, and appearance.
We no longer have a High Priest, and now live in an egalitarian society. In my humble opinion, all people should be treated equally, no matter their title or status in life, society, or whether they are in an organization. Some people may have pursued higher degrees of education than other people, however, that does not mean that we should treat a custodian lesser than we treat a doctor with several degrees after his name.
How does this transfer to our Sisterhoods? We can and should all be leaders. Every member of our Sisterhood community should be treated respectfully - as I am sure we already do. We can all model this behavior for the next generation, so that the children in our community treat each other that way, as well. Let us speak and act to each other, as if each person were the High Priest, doing the work of God.
Thank You for Your Contributions!
The following have donated recently to Women's League and its many initiatives. All contributions are welcome -
Donate here or send checks to Women's League made out to "Women's League for Conservative Judaism."
Please indicate the name of the program you are donating to in the memo line of the check (i.e. "Masorti").
Masorti WL Days of Study
The Forest Hills Jewish Center, Forest Hills, NY
Save the Date!
WLCJ Convention 2020
Sisters Journeying Together
Sunday, July 12 - Wednesday, July 15, 2020
Hyatt Regency Schaumburg in Schaumburg, Illinois
(Suburban Chicago)
We look forward to seeing you there!
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NEED HELP?
HELP IS AVAILABLE ON THE WLCJ WEBSITE.
Programs, membership ideas, education material, and more available at wlcj.org
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