Turning Israelis From Voyeurs To Congregants

Orli Santo for The Jewish Week

Programs to lure Israeli-Americans to synagogue are popping up, but it’s a slow road to shul membership.

Is it really happening? Are Israeli-Americans, the longtime refuseniks of Jewish-American institutional life, finally coming to shul?

The answer today is yes, at least in the physical sense.

For several years now, some synagogues around New York have been independently hiring Israeli directors to develop the kind of Hebrew-centric, culturally relevant programming that would lure Israeli-Americans. Their efforts have been hugely amplified by the work of the juggernaut Israeli-American organization IAC (Israeli American Council), which for the past two years has been conducting its own programs in partnership with synagogues, with the specific aim of getting Israelis to physically walk into the building. It’s safe to say that today most Israeli-American cultural life, from kids’ activities in Hebrew to holiday parties, takes place inside synagogues. So you can lead an Israeli to shul, it seems — but can you make him drink?

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Maybe We Should Give Up On Tolerance…

By Rabbi Alana Suskin for MyJewishLearning.com    

A few years ago, an acquaintance of mine — another rabbi, who is a friend of my current havruta [Jewish study partner] — was sitting with us at lunch, and astonishedly mused, “How is it possible that you two have been havrutas for over a decade?”

He shook his head at us, since he considers me the leftist of lefties, and considers my havruta, as he often says, “to the right of Attila the Hun!”

I just laughed at him.

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The Crazy Ritual We Did to Our Newborn Son

Rabbi Ilana Garber for Kveller

It was the morning of my eldest son’s bris, on the eighth day of his life. As he is my first child, it was also my eighth day of motherhood. I was sore, exhausted, and overwhelmed. Family and friends were coming in from all over and I was expected to put on a dress, come to synagogue, and smile as my child endured a strange and ancient custom, one that I supported but still made me cringe.

I am sure that the experience was more painful for me than for him. But when I look back on his early days, that Jewish ceremony is not the strangest thing that happened to my newborn son.

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Rukhl Schaechter Leads ‘Forverts’ Into the Digital Age

By Rose Kaplan for Table

As the new editor of the 119-year-old Yiddish newspaper, Rukhl Schaechter looks to connect with a broader readership

In 1998, Rukhl Schaechter was working as a Yiddish teacher at a Jewish day school in Riverdale, in the Bronx, when she got a call from Boris Sandler, the new editor of The Yiddish Daily Forward, or Forverts. Mordechai Strigler, the editor of Forverts since 1987, had died suddenly from a brain injury after a fall and the paper wanted to hire Schaechter as a new reporter. “Boris said he was looking for frishe koykhes—fresh, young blood” said Schaecter, who comes from a family of Yiddishists.

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