Writing has never been my favorite form of expression. You see, I suffer from writer’s block which often leads to procrastination. My favorite form of communication is meeting and getting to know people in person.
This column is a unilateral activity. I write weeks in advance and don’t get to hear your feedback contemporaneously. Nevertheless, I am expected to write a message. So here it is: Let’s meet and talk in person at TE!
Don’t miss the many upcoming events which fill the pages of this month’s Shofar! From challah baking to our scholar–in–residence series, TE, as always, offers something for everyone! I look forward to meeting and talking to you soon!
When I was young (many years ago), I used to wonder why many of the school holidays came around the same time. We have just gone through a very active period of holidays at Temple Emanuel – Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Simchat Torah. With the holidays bunched together, it is a very meaningful period. We as a congregation have had the opportunity to spend much time together. After our long period of being unable to spend much time together, it is wonderful to share time again together.
I like to tinker. After years of trying to change our announcements from stating that we welcome visitors, I recently changed the announcement to welcome newcomers to our community. As you may have noticed over the high holy days, I have changed it once again this time to “family.” I think that more accurately sets forth what Temple Emanuel is – we are a family. We enjoy spending time together and catching up with both old and new friends, or should I say family. And do we ever enjoy participating in the services – for that I thank you.
Many of you know, I love tradition. And I love building on the foundation our predecessors have set up for us. In the coming months we will be discussing new ways to encourage our membership, our family, to be involved with Temple Emanuel. We will also be affording people the opportunity with new ways to be involved with lay leadership at Temple Emanuel. This will involve training and discussions. This teaser will be set forth in greater detail shortly.
I love my TE family. And I know you love it as well. There is a reason why we are growing, when other religious institutions are shrinking. Let us all move to the next level. Thank you.
I am sitting at my computer, ready to write my Shofar column. It is very early April; the baseball season has just started, and it is also before Passover. By the time you get to read this, the baseball season will be well underway and Passover will be a distant memory.
There was a time when we relied on the print media for up to the date news. There are those of us who remember checking stock prices in the tables printed in the next day’s newspapers. Now, we get them instantaneously on the internet. We used to rely on newspapers for breaking news. Now we get it from the radio, TV, and the internet.
Much has changed at TE since the last Shofar. Various events have taken place, education has improved, and physical as well as security improvements have occurred. TE is a better place due to these developments. However, by the time this article gets to you, it will be old news. Jen and Ann do much to keep the Shofar topical. The Shofar has evolved to meet our needs. “Breaking News” now shows up in the emailed Shofar Blast and in the Announcements at services. The Shofar continues to be a vital part of our communication system, but now rather than being devoted to “breaking news”, it communicates future events as well as contemplative pieces. We are not forsaking our traditions, but as I stated above, we are having them evolve to meet the current and future.
I make no secret of my love of baseball and its traditions. But like at TE, those traditions have evolved to meet current demands. As I write this in very early April, I look at the baseball rule changes positively, as they have sped up the game, without detracting from it. Who knows, maybe by the time you read this, I will have changed my mind. But baseball and TE have much in common, and while both have traditions that are loved, we also need to lightly tinker with them to meet the needs of the fans, in the case of baseball, and the congregation, in the case of TE.
As I write this article for the Shofar, it is less than one week until Temple Emanuel’s 60th anniversary gala. As you read this, the gala has already occurred. While it wouldn’t be honest to discuss the gala in the past tense, I can say I am impressed by the response the gala has received. After being isolated for the past couple of years, we are all ready to socialize again. It is an exciting time. In my first Shofar column, I stated “I’m back.” In this column I will discuss that we as a congregation are back. It was very gratifying to see congregants in the sanctuary for the High Holy Days for the first time since 2019. I am not exaggerating when I point out there was definitely a buzz in the sanctuary. While modern technology kept us together during the low points of the pandemic, people, including me, were truly excited to see others in person, as opposed to in two-inch squares on a Zoom screen. Interaction with others is something I cherish, and it appears the rest of the congregation does as well. Yes, we did adapt to the restrictions imposed on us by Covid. Zoom services will continue to be available to those who are unable to attend services in person. Rabbi Farbman was able to make the Zoom experience interactive by way of chat rooms. Board meetings, classes, and other meetings were made available through technology. Nevertheless, it is great to see and speak with each other in person. Onegs have now returned as part of our Friday night experience. Though I can’t resist a piece of challah and a chocolate chip cookie, what I enjoy most about our Onegs is that we stand around talking to our friends. I consider many of you already to be great friends, and if we don’t know each other well now, we will eventually. That is in the blood of Temple Emanuel. While Shabbat under the stars was a once or twice a year occasion, we have all come to enjoy it regularly during the late spring and summer, even though we have been able to return indoors. Our beautiful grounds, thanks to the Building and Grounds Committee, are very inviting, as are our benches. The hard work of Melissa and Robin has resulted in TE getting a $69,500 security grant from the federal government. Going forward you will see many improvements as a result, including new entrance doors. All of this pleases me, but most of all I am delighted to proclaim “we are back.”
I’m back, and it’s time to get my first baseball reference out of the way – as Yogi said “It’s déjà vu all over again”. When I first was president more than a decade ago, I used to joke that I hated the job and was counting the days till my term ended. I obviously didn’t, but I just said it so I wouldn’t put a kinehura on it. Being president of Temple Emanuel is one of the most rewarding things one can do. Dealing with the Rabbi, Olga, the Board, the staff, and the congregation is extremely pleasurable.
While my predecessor, Robin Levine-Ritterman, faced many challenges- a pandemic, security issues, and an addition to our facility, I look for a return to normal. While things will never be the same as they were three years ago, Robin and Rabbi Farbman have worked hard and have made changes so that we can do what we do best – provide spirituality, tradition and offer a welcoming community.
One thing I learned through the years is that most synagogues state that they provide “a warm, diverse welcoming community”. However, while one can say that, it always isn’t accurate. Temple Emanuel however, walks the talk. That is why I love being part of this community.
I wasn’t perfect twelve years ago, and I am not perfect now. One thing I do promise is to listen. For that reason, our Board is not made up of people who just say yes to everything. Rather than be inflexible, I promise to solicit and listen to opposing views. I want to offer others the opportunity to convince me to change my position. When I am making a decision, I will try to talk to those who may see things differently. I have always found our community to talk civilly even when disagreeing, and you might notice that after services, I try to seek out those who don’t view things the same as I do. I might still disagree with someone, but I will always try to hear them out.
I am glad we have returned to the sanctuary. Soon I hope that we can return to sharing meals and conversations together. Thank you for allowing me to serve again.
Over the last two years we have missed many of the cherished moments as a community inside our building due to the pandemic. As the world begins to return to the normalcy of in person interactions, we are so excited to be gathering once again in our sanctuary.
Our return to the physical togetherness is tinged with sadness: antisemitic attacks on synagogues continue in 2022, with the recent hostage crisis in Colleyville Texas. There have been 10 shootings, stabbings, or planned bombing of US synagogues since the Tree of Life massacre 4 years ago. Temple Emanuel has responded with a vigorous plan to protect our synagogue and its families with updated security plans and protocols. A safety audit recently completed at TE recommends several capital improvements, safety personnel and safety training to keep us safe. We are following these recommendations in each of these 3 areas.
Many of us have already participated in the safety and preparedness training that Mike Shanbrom and the Jewish Federation have provided. We now are arranging for a visible safety guard to be present at all TE events when large groups of people congregate, including major religious services, large school events and community social events. The operating budget will be expanded to include the added expense of this guard.
We also need several capital investments to improve and maintain our infrastructure. These improvements and updates will protect our members and visitors, our school children and staff – – and also protect our Torahs and our synagogue possessions. To accomplish this, we estimate that we must raise between $30,000 – $50,000. A synagogue family has pledged a dollar-for-dollar match for all contributions of $500 or more toward this capital safety campaign.We need these large contributions – but also need every contribution, large or small, to achieve this. While we continue to apply for various state and federal grants, these grants are very competitive and there are multiple projects that require our attention now.
We hope that every TE member, every school family, and friends of TE will participate in this critical campaign.
Please make a pledge toward this goal, and be as generous as you can be to keep TE safe for our children, our congregants and our whole community.
Spring is here with its promise of growth and renewal. My daffodils are in peak bloom, and each day I watch my perennials grow another few inches. My garden reminds me that the passage of time is inevitable. And it is time to pass on the role of president of the TE Board of Directors.
When I started in 2019, TE was in the midst of a building campaign. We were raising money to expand our building; it was so full of activity that we didn’t have space to fit everyone. In the March-April 2020 Shofar I wrote:
“This morning Temple Emanuel was overflowing with members, ranging in age from toddlers to those in their 80’s… Every inch of our building was being used and the energy inside the building was humming with excitement.”
Life soon changed for all of us. It is hard to remember the time when we couldn’t find a meeting space for the Men’s club or an adult education program on Sunday mornings. In much of the past 2 years my role as TE president has been consumed with decisions regarding the pandemic; keeping us safe often meant keeping us apart.
While the pandemic is not over yet, our country and our community are moving ahead toward a new normal. Our congregation is as strong and as vibrant as ever. Our religious school is one of the best in the area, and we have a teen program that is growing as our students mature and become our teachers. Shabbat services, holiday celebrations and lifecycle events at TE continue to hold an important place in our members’ lives, even as membership in churches and synagogues around the nation declines. In the past decade we went from a position of financial instability to a much stronger position. And we continued to do all this during a time of COVID pandemic and increasing threats to Jews around the nation.
I believe that the Temple Emanuel community has a special type of Ruach. Ruach can be translated to mean spirit, or breath, or wind. Our spirit is one of caring – about each other and about the world. It is a spirit manifested in music, and in everyday acts of kindness. It is a spirit dedicated to learning. I see this spirit all the time at TE, as members reach out to others in need, whether it be another congregant, the homeless population in the Greater New Haven area, or those fleeing from the violence in Ukraine. I feel it during Shabbat services and concerts like Shir Magic. I see it during asephah when parents and children come together to learn and sing.
It has been an honor to serve as president of such a special congregation. Many thanks go to all those who have helped me and our congregation during these 3 years – from Ruth, Lynn and Ariette, to a wonderful, hardworking Board of Directors, to Olga and the entire religious school staff, to volunteers too numerous to name. It is our membership that truly makes us who we are, and thanks to all of you for being there. I didn’t fully understand what the concept of sacred partnership between a temple president and Rabbi meant until I experienced it. Working with Rabbi Farbman has taught me a lot and I thank him for his time and friendship and for all that he does for Temple Emanuel. And special thanks to Barb, my wife, for putting up with innumerable meetings, emails and phone calls most nights for the past 3 years, and for being a great editor.
This year Temple Emanuel is celebrating our 60th anniversary. As the pandemic ends, we will need to figure out new ways of being as a community. We will keep some of what we learned during this time – streaming services to make them more accessible to all, outdoor services on a more regular basis when weather permits. I look forward to bringing many traditions back from the past – meetings in person and onegs after services. We will be working on incorporating suggestions from the Audacious Hospitality survey and committee to make our community more welcoming. I am confident that our special spirit will bring a bright future for Temple Emanuel.
Ethics and morality play a central role in Judaism. Values of respect (kavod), fairness (tzedek) and kindness (chesed) guide our daily lives and the choices we make. For many Jews, these beliefs are more central than a belief in God. As Jews, we are not content when we see injustice in the world around us. The principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are being embraced throughout our country as principles that lead to greater justice and a more positive environment for all.Ethics and morality play a central role in Judaism. Values of respect (kavod), fairness (tzedek) and kindness (chesed) guide our daily lives and the choices we make. For many Jews, these beliefs are more central than a belief in God. As Jews, we are not content when we see injustice in the world around us. The principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are being embraced throughout our country as principles that lead to greater justice and a more positive environment for all.
The Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) has been encouraging the Reform Jewish community to embrace these values, and developed an Audacious Hospitality Community Assessment workbook to help leaders identify the steps needed to become a congregation rooted in principles of diversity, equity and inclusion. A group of TE members completed the 34-page workbook last summer to begin the process of identifying the DEI work that is happening well at TE, and where we can improve. To include more TE voices, the team developed a shorter survey and invited the entire congregation to participate. Thank you to the 79 TE members that took the time to complete this survey.
Across all surveys, Temple Emanuel members expressed a feeling of joy and warmth about our congregation. I cannot fit in all the positive comments here, but some of our strengths noted by members include: being a congregation that is visibly inclusive of mixed-faith families and LGBTQIA+* people; having non-Jewish family members involved in services; using a fair share dues structure that supports economic diversity and inclusion; having equal roles for women in leadership and prayer; providing assistive hearing devices for those in need; and religious school support for children with special needs.
The TE Audacious Hospitality group considered many identities as we looked at TE: race, ethnicity, economic class, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, immigration status or experience, physical and mental abilities, Jews by choice, and interfaith families. After analyzing the Audacious Hospitality Community Assessment workbook and the survey, the group came up with recommendations for actions to help make our community a more diverse, equitable and inclusive one.
We recommend creating six teams to gather information and support the implementation process for DEI work at Temple Emanuel. These teams would work together with TE staff, committees and leadership, and would draw on existing materials and practices from other synagogues and Jewish communities. The six teams would work on the following areas:
DEI training for staff, leaders, volunteers and the whole congregation
Administration and Communications
Services and Liturgical Materials
Religious School
Adult Learning and Groups
Building, Facilities and Safety
This article doesn’t have space for me to list the specific recommendations in each area. But to give an example, one of the most frequent comments we received was the lack of a non-gendered bathroom at TE to accommodate transgender and non-binary people. Working to correct this deficiency would be a subject for the Building, Facilities and Safety group.
Our goal is to be proactive and create a welcoming community for all. Working together, utilizing the Jewish values we cherish, we can make our congregation even more inclusive and supportive. If you are interested in getting involved in this work at TE, have an interest in one of the groups I mentioned, or want more information about the Audacious Hospitality report and recommendations, please contact me.
*LGBTQIA+ – Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning, Intersex, Asexual Plus
“It was 1962 and the world was changing! A forward-thinking group of families with a keen sense of their Jewishness and a pioneer spirit had the desire to practice their religious beliefs and educate their children in a more meaningful manner than was available at other Reform congregations. Their aim was to preserve tradition and address modern American life without compromising either… Their primary interest was to establish a religious school that would teach with a sense of joy and discovery about Judaism.”
The year 2022 marks Temple Emanuel’s 60th anniversary year. As I have been reflecting on what this means, I wanted to know more about Temple Emanuel’s past. My family joined TE in 2000 and we heard many stories about services in “the barn”, an old metal cattle shed with a corrugated steel roof that that served at TE’s first sanctuary. The quote above is from “The History of Temple Emanuel of Greater New Haven, 1962-2012”, compiled by Betty Goldberg (Orange) for our 50th anniversary. You can find this wonderful historical record on the Temple Emanuel website (https://tegnh.org/history/ and scroll down for a link to the booklet).
I did not know that the first members of Temple Emanuel wanted the religious school to be taught with no Hebrew at all. Over time that has changed; you will find Hebrew in our religious school as well as our songs and prayers. But our spirit has not changed substantially from that of our founders. The first members of TE came together to practice Judaism in a meaningful way, one that blended Jewish traditions with modern day life and brought joy to their lives. According to Joan Small z”l, an original member of Temple Emanuel “We were a strong force for ethical activism.” These sentiments mirror my reasons for joining Temple Emanuel and I believe they are true of many of our members as well.
We have much to celebrate as we begin our 60th year. We are lucky to have Rabbi Farbman, who fit right into our warm and musical congregation in 2009 and helped move us forward, strengthening our school, expanding our musical horizons, attracting new members and becoming a leader in the Greater New Haven Jewish community. I am delighted to announce that he will be starting a new 5-year contract in July. I am also excited about our religious school. Olga Markus and our teachers have done an amazing job creating a curriculum that teaches our children in a way that excites them. Our enrollment has grown over the last decade and our school has developed a very special teen program, keeping almost all our teenagers engaged at Temple Emanuel post b’nei mitzvah. Music continues to be a highlight at TE, with services and special events that feature our band, individual members who play for us and Shir Magic concerts (see below for Noah Aronson’s concert on April 2nd).
It is worth reading the history of Temple Emanuel to see the transition we have made, from no physical home at all, to renovating a barn into a sanctuary, to building a wonderful new building and expanding it, so that it now houses our sanctuary, offices, social hall, kiddush lounge, and enough room for our growing religious school. Due to the generosity of a couple of our members, Temple Emanuel owns our building outright. In fact, after many years of board meetings discussing where we would get the income to pay our bills, it is a pleasure to know that TE is currently in good financial shape.
Temple Emanuel is a strong congregation, one of a few in the area that continues to attract new members. It is our membership that makes us who we are: a warm, caring, intellectually vibrant community, ready to change with the times yet preserve our traditions, as we grow into our 60th year. Several events are being planned to help us celebrate this milestone event.
Shir Magic Concert featuring Noah Aronson and the TE band, Saturday, April 2nd
TE at 60 Family Celebration, Sunday, May 15th (last day of TE religious school)
TE 60th Gala Celebration, Saturday night, October 29th
Please stay tuned for more information about these events.
This month I have had a difficult time writing my column. COVID fatigue has set in – I am tired of writing about the pandemic and how it affects us, yet what else can I say? Then I reread some of my past columns for inspiration and was struck by this opening paragraph written in February 2020, shortly before the pandemic began:
“This morning Temple Emanuel was overflowing with members, ranging in age from toddlers to those in their 80s. It was a typical Sunday morning at TE. During asephah (Sunday morning meeting at our religious school) the sanctuary was filled with children, parents, and teachers. As the children departed for their classroom lessons the sanctuary became home to the Jewish short story program. Meanwhile, the Hebrew class for adults was going on in the social hall and the B’nei Mitzvot parents were meeting with the Rabbi in his office. Every inch of our building was being used and the energy inside the building was humming with excitement.”
Our lives have changed, yet time marches on. The TE religious school is meeting in person, and the warm autumn weather has allowed us to hold asephah with all our students and parents together outside. While I worry what such warm weather in October may mean for our planet, I have decided to see it as a blessing this year. The Delta wave seems to be waning and we are now holding hybrid Shabbat services, some of us in the sanctuary, others joining virtually. While the building isn’t humming as it was pre-pandemic, I can feel warmth and vibrancy emanating from our gatherings.
Our community has been strong and resilient, and we continue to grow. I am thrilled to say that thirteen new families joined Temple Emanuel between June and September. Keep an eye out for our caring community emails introducing our newest members, and please say hello when you meet them, either in person or on Zoom.
As I write this, I am feeling a little more ease around me – some are going to the theater and starting to travel; COVID boosters are helping many to feel less worried; a vaccine for children 5-11 appears within reach. Yet I continue to be apprehensive. What will be next, what will the colder weather bring and how do we gather as a community while keeping our members safe?
Thanks to all of you who continue to nourish our community with your work in our school, board of directors, committees and as volunteers and paid staff. I await the time when every corner of our building is overflowing with life again. Meanwhile, I enjoy seeing many of you both in person and virtually, whether it is at services, at meetings or a chance meeting in the parking lot.
