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IN
THIS ISSUE:
NEW AVI CHAI GRANT FOR CAMP COUNSELOR TRAINING IN FSU
The Avi Chai
Foundation has awarded the World Union for Progressive Judaism a
generous grant to support a year-long series of training seminars for
summer and winter camp counselors in the former Soviet Union. The
seminars, as well as the camps, are programs of Netzer Olami, the World
Union’s international Zionist youth movement.
The weekend
seminars, to be held monthly in Moscow, Kiev, Minsk and Novosibirsk, and
bi-monthly in Riga (with time off for camp in July and August), will,
for the first time, provide counselors with systematic training, as well
as enrichment in Judaism, Jewish history, Jewish literature and Israel.
Seminars will be led by the World Union’s FSU-based rabbis and
educators, and by rabbis and students from the Jerusalem campus of
Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
Avi Chai is
committed to the perpetuation of the Jewish people, Judaism and the
centrality of the State of Israel to the Jewish people. “We are proud
to receive this first grant from a foundation known internationally for
its highly selective grant-making process and its deep commitment to
Jewish peoplehood,” said Susan Milamed, the World Union’s vice president
for development and planning.
Alex Kagan,
director of the World Union’s programs in the FSU, called the grant “a
major breakthrough” in efforts by the World Union and Netzer Olami to
develop a cadre of regional youth leaders. “This grant will be
instrumental in helping us to improve the skill level and knowledge base
of our madrichim (counselors), who are entrusted with educating
the next generation of Progressive Jews in the FSU,” he said.
Netzer Olami
currently sponsors more than 60 youth clubs throughout the region, with
some 1,500 active members. The summer and winter camps are the
highlight of its annual program.
ISRAELI CONGREGATION BRINGS THE RELIGIOUS BAT
MITZVAH TO SECULAR PUPILS
Congregation Ohel Avraham
of Haifa recently held a group bat mitzvah ceremony for the girls of two
sixth grade classes at the city's Tchernichovsky Elementary School. The
ceremony followed a six-week preparatory course at the school and
included individual blessings from Rabbi Saar
Shaked, and class presentations of songs, skits and poems that focused
on Jewish identity and the tradition of the bar and bat mitzvah. The
girls’ parents affirmed their love and support, and the evening
concluded with a group recitation of the Shehechianu blessing.
In Israel, boys – even those from secular families - generally undergo a
synagogue bar mitzvah, while girls usually mark their coming of age with
no more than a party or family trip. In implementing the bat mitzvah
program, Ohel Avraham has joined a growing number of congregations that
are introducing secular Israelis to Progressive Judaism by introducing
their children to the concept of the religious bat mitzvah (see WUPJnews
#143). The Leo Baeck Education Center, home
to Ohel Avraham, is currently holding talks to establish bar/bat mitzvah
curricula at four additional neighborhood schools next year.
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PINAT
SHORASHIM BEGINS NEW SEASON OF ACTIVITIES
The Center for Pluralistic
Jewish Education – "Pinat Shorashim" – at Kibbutz Gezer in Israel
recently embarked on a new year of activities by strengthening its
decade-long relationship with the American Jewish community of Kansas
City. Pinat Shorashim offers creative and interactive education
programs for groups and families from Israel and abroad, many in
partnership with Gezer’s Congregation Birkat Shalom, an affiliate of the
Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism. Many of the programs make full
use of the center’s seven-acre campus. "Our educators," says executive
director David Leichman, "have created a learning process that brings
people outdoors so they can both literally and figuratively relate to
and touch the Land of Israel." Says chairperson Debra Pell, "In part,
the mission of Pinat Shorashim is to be a place where kids and adults
from the Diaspora can experience the words of the Torah and the values
of the Jewish people in ways that come alive. It is also our mission…to
be a place where Israelis can experience Judaism and the values of the
Jewish people in positive ways devoid of religious coercion." This
year, the center's relationship with the Jews of Kansas City has
continued with visits by eighth graders from the city's Hyman Brand
Hebrew Academy and by members of a special Kansas City leadership
mission, in addition to individual visits that included a tree-planting
ceremony and the renewal of wedding vows with Rabbi Miri Gold, spiritual
leader of Congregation Birkat Shalom. For more information on the
center and its programs, go to
http://www.pinatshorashim.org.il.
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BRITISH REFORM TARGETING THOSE ON THE MARGINS
As part
of a 15-year development plan, Britain's Movement for Reform Judaism
will soon initiate reach-out efforts toward “Jews on the sidelines.”
The efforts will begin at the movement’s biennial conference, to be held
in Leicester July 7-9, where the new policy will be reflected in the
conference theme: "Counting All of Us In." The biennial will feature
sessions aimed at various groups of Jews that have long been considered
marginalized, such as converts, mixed-faith families and gays. In the
lead-up to the conference, rabbis and synagogue leaders are being asked
to identify less-active members so they can be personally invited to the
conference, which will feature a "buddy" system to help ensure active
participation at all the sessions. On Saturday morning there will be an
"explanatory service" for those who are less familiar with Shabbat
prayers. The movement’s more active members will not be left out. "The
conference is also very much geared towards those already involved and
committed to their synagogues," says spokesperson Andrea Newman, "in
recognition of the fact that it is only through starting a dialogue
between the centre and the margins that communities will become truly
communal."
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