Cyber Thought from the Rabbi

Conservative Judaism on Site in Israel Crisis and How You Can Help

Throughout the country we have been providing support to those in need -- both spiritual and substantive. Several of our communities in the north are among those most hard hit. Our rabbi in Kiryat Bialik, Mauricio Balter, has been relied upon by the mayor and other local authorities. He visits shelters and provides support to all, and not just to those who are members of the kehilla. He has organized distribution of toys and games for the children. He believes his greatest challenge is ahead of him because so many in this middle class community (what we here would think of as a blue collar town) are without employment and running out of money. Kiryat Bialik was visited by out RA/Masorti Mission and we brought toys for the kids. Thanks to the foresight of my wife, I brought really good scotch for Mauricio to open the first Shabbat when they can daven again at their regular location. In Haifa, our community has been seriously disrupted. The beautifully remodeled synagogue did not yet have a finished shelter and there is not one close enough by for the building to be used safely. As you no doubt know, the estimate is that more than half the population of Haifa is living elsewhere. Our communities in Kfar Veradim, Ramat Yshai, Safed, and Karmiel have also been hard hit. In Kfar Versadim, Rabbi Zvi Berger has provided counseling and support beyond just the Masorti community. Throughout the rest of the country, our kehillot have welcomed strangers into their homes (when I davened last week in Tel Aviv, the couple sitting next to me were from Kfar Veradim) and when I was in the south, in Omer, just a few days before, the talk had been of how they could provide support to people from the north. The Ramah/NOAM three week camp program provided extra scholarship money so that more young people from the north could attend. As you might have read on ravnet, Rabbis Barry Schlesinger and Paul Shrell-Fox in Jerusalem brought two bus loads of people from Kiryat Bialik to Jerusalem for a relaxing day. All of these things cost money. What is amazing to me is how deep into their own pockets our people will dig to help out others ---- and these are not communities which are so wealthy in their own right. Nonetheless, they do what is right, but they really do need our help. This will be especially true when, as Mauricio Balter has noted, we have to begin to help people who have lost employment. In addition to the above, the emergency funding we seek via the Foundation will be needed to help fill the gap and cover expenses for things like rabbis salaries because the kehillot will have lost so much of their regular funding from their own communities. (In that regard, I should point out that under normal circumstances, the Israelis provide for about half, or maybe a little more, of their own support.) I hope you and your congregants will be able to help. Contributions should be directed to the Masorti Foundation (a 501 (c) (3)) at 475 Riverside Drive, Suite 832, New York, New York 10115. We can take all major credit cards for contributions over the phone. Call us at 212-870-2216. Or go the website, www.masorti.org and contribute via the web. Also, on the website we have posted a number of letters/reports from rabbis in the affected communities. They are well worth reading.

US Conservative rabbis visit Israel

Matthew Wagner, THE JERUSALEM POST
Jul. 24, 2006

A group of lay leaders and rabbis from the Conservative movement in the US arrived Monday on a solidarity mission, made poignant by the movement's connection with three IDF victims of the violence in Gaza and Lebanon. Cpl. Gilad Shalit, the soldier kidnapped by Hamas near Gaza on June 25, and two soldiers killed in action on July 12, Sgt.-Maj. Eyal Benin from Omer and St.-Sgt. Yaniv Bar-On of Modi'in, all had ties with the Masorti (Conservative) Movement in Israel.

The high representation of soldiers with ties to the Conservative Movement "shows the extent to which the movement has made serious inroads in Israeli society. It's unfortunate that this is the way we discover how much impact we are having," said Rabbi Neil Zuckerman of Temple Israel Center in White Plains, New York, who is leading the group. The delegation - from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, Connecticut, Illinois and Michigan - will visit the Bar-On family in Modi'in on Wednesday. Asher and Carlene Bar-On, Yaniv's parents, are among the founders of the Masorti Shalhevet-Hamaccabim congregation, said David Ginsberg, a fellow congregant and friend. Eyal Benin celebrated his bar mitzva at the Magen Avraham Masorti synagogue in Omer. Rabbi Michael Graetz, who headed the congregation at the time, said, "Our bar mitzva program included activities that continued after the bar mitzva ceremony. Eyal headed the synagogue cleaning committee and took part in the high school graduation ceremony also." Shalit also celebrated his bar mitzva in a Masorti synagogue. But the Shalit family did not stay involved with the congregation, according to Rabbi Zvi Berger of Kfar Vradim, a Galilee town adjacent to Mitzpe Hila, where the Shalits live.

"The Shalits are the type of family that comes to us for answers to their spiritual needs," said Berger, who has visited the family three times since the kidnapping. The US delegation of rabbis is slated to visit both Omer and Kfar Vradim. They will also meet with Conservative rabbis in the Haifa area, including Rabbi Maurizio Banter, who has been providing spiritual and material assistance to thousands of families forced to spend long hours in bomb shelters. David Lissy, executive director of the Masorti Foundation and a member of the delegation, said that Camp Noam- Ramah, located near Givat Haviva, will expand its ranks to include children from the North, and provide scholarships to needy families. Zuckerman said that the goal of the visit is "first and foremost to strengthen our Israeli brothers and sisters. "We have a sign in front of our shul in White Plains that says: 'Wherever we stand, we stand with Israel,'" he said.

"It has a theological meaning. But it also has a very practical meaning. And that's why we are here."