Tel Aviv and Beit Midrash

Dear Friends:

Today is a two-day post as I have been running from 7:00 a.m. until 12:00 a.m. during this conference. Thursday morning, I traveled to Tel Aviv where I met an Israeli Rabbinical Student studying at HUC-JIR in Jerusalem. She lives in Tel Aviv and therefore, commutes to Jerusalem 3 days a week. Her name is Tzippora and she will be ordained this coming November. She is also 68 years old. She was born in Poland during WWII and survived the Holocaust with her family before making Aliyah to Israel in 1949. She grew up as a Socialist Zionist, went into the Army and became a teacher. After teaching in school for many years, she had a great interest in the Shoah (Holocaust), but there was no courses available because prior to the 1970s, this was not a subject that was dealt with in Israel. She worked with the professors at Hebrew University and received her Masters of Education with a specialty in Holocaust Studies in the mid 1960s. Her thesis and materials created is the major text still used in Israeli schools today.

Her journey to the Reform movement began when she was a principal in a school and realized that the students were not getting any religious education with the study of Jewish texts. She took over as the principal for a Reform based school and found a way to do both. Hence, she is preparing for her second career!

Afterwards, we visited Beit Daniel in Tel-Aviv/Jaffa. Serving as both a community center and synagogue, Beit Daniel - The Center for Progressive Judaism in Tel Aviv-Jaffa offers the greater Tel Aviv area a wide range of cultural and educational activities and religious services. As an egalitarian community, we foster an atmosphere of inclusiveness, aiming to serve as an example of equality and pluralism. At Beit Daniel we proudly celebrate our diversity while adhering to traditional Jewish values that link us to our rich heritage. The beautiful Mishkenot Ruth Daniel is their Education Center as well as a guesthouse. It is nice knowing that the Reform presence is growing in Israel. We also had the privilege of listening to Meir Hildai (Mayor of Tel Aviv), a great supporter of the Reform movement.

I then went on a walking tour from the Opera House, where the 1st Kenesset began, and continued to the "White City," a collection of building from the 1920's and 1930's that was reflective of architecture styles of that day. We then visted the Trumpeldor Cemetery, the place where all of the figures who helped create Tel Aviv 100 years ago in 1909 are buried (Ahad Haam, Bialik, Trumpeldor, Dizengoff, and numerous others). My colleague, Rabbi Debra Robbins, found the grave of her great-great grandfather who came to Jaffa in 1888 and died during the plague in 1903. What an experience!

We then went back to Jaffa Port to the Nalaga'at Theater to watch an amazing production, "Not By Bread Alone." The theater lights dim and the audience settles into their seats - usually a cue for the actors to deliver their opening lines. Instead, the Nalaga'at troupe start pummelling and stroking each other's hands. This is not a high-minded avant garde dance piece, but a group of deaf-blind actors, who are captivating audiences in Israel by blending touch, mime, sign language and music on stage in a cabaret-style show about dreams and disability. Billed as the world's first professional deaf-blind theatre company, only three of Nalaga'at's actors can speak. One hears a little if you shout directly into her ear and a few still have some vision. But they all communicate primarily through touch. It was, excuse the pun, an eye-opening experience.

Today, Friday, I joined with Israelis around the country at the Israel Convention Center in South Jerusalem for a Beit Midrash - a giant study program. I was in a small chevruta (study group) with a colleague and two Israeli women and we studied text from the Talmud as well as Hebrew poetry as we tackled questions about Israeli-Diaspora relations. It was fascinating and exciting. Unfortunately, it had to end so we can prepare for Shabbat. Soon, I will be leaving Jerusalem to go north to Haifa as I am being hosted by a Reform congregation there for services and dinner. It is cold and raining now in Jerusalem and possibly some snow tomorrow night.

Shabbat Shalom everyone!