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Jewish Perspectives

Continent-Wide Hebrew Reading Campaign Begins

October 22, 2008
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IsraelNN.com) A mega Hebrew literacy campaign to "win back the hearts of North American Jews" has begun, featuring month-long Hebrew classes - at no charge.

The campaign is run by the New York-based National Jewish Outreach Program (NJOP).

The "Read Hebrew America/Canada" (RHA/C) campaign will take place in the coming weeks in synagogues and Jewish centers throughout the United States and Canada. The classes will be run over a period of five weeks, in five 90-minute weekly classes. They are designed for Jewish adults, and seek to teach the fundamentals of reading Hebrew.

The classes include Hebrew Reading Crash Courses Level I and II, as well as One Day Reviews.

Over 200,000 Jews have learned to read Hebrew in the NJOP's annual crash courses over the past several years. The NJOP says its classes are "the ideal way to learn how to follow synagogue services, to be more involved in your children's Jewish education, or simply to enhance your own ties to Judaism."

The program also allows for students to learn on their own, though it does not recommend this approach. Materials can be purchased at nominal prices via the NJOP's website.

NJOP is an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to providing a basic Jewish education for every Jew in America. It was founded in 1987 by Rabbi Ephraim Buchwald, in response to the perceived urgent need to prevent the loss of Jews to Jewish life due to assimilation and lack of Jewish knowledge. NJOP says it "reaches out to Jews by offering them positive, joyous, Jewish educational opportunities and experiences."

NJOP also currently sponsors free "Crash Courses" in Basic Judaism, Jewish History, a course entitled "Turn Friday Night Into Shabbat," Beginners Services, and more, at over 3,665 locations across North America and in 37 countries worldwide [figures provided by NJOP].

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Many nonobservant Jews in South Florida are finding religion

September 29, 2008

Circulation: 240,223

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BY ANA VECIANA-SUAREZ

Edgardo de la Vera rediscovered his Jewish roots and religion as a student at the University of Miami. He now observes the Sabbath, attends a weekly class with an Orthodox rabbi and vows to marry within his faith.

Phyllis Levy grew up in a secular home and never learned the prayers of her ancestors. But when their only son was born, she and her husband, Phil, decided ``we wanted to raise him in a way that he would understand what it was like to be Jewish.''

When Mitch Joseph was a child, his family displayed a Hanukkah bush and went caroling with friends at Christmas. But after years of studying Torah, he now keeps a kosher home, sends his children to Jewish day school and will walk, not drive, to Chabad of Plantation for High Holy Day services.

During the 10-day period bookmarked by Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year, which begins Monday at sundown, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which begins at sundown Oct. 8, many South Florida Jews will observe the High Holy Days in more traditional ways than their parents ever did. It's a trend, some say, that highlights a growing hunger for spiritual guidance, especially among the young.

''Before, when I used to go [to synagogue] for Rosh Hashana or Yom Kippur, I thought of it as my one time to be Jewish and after that I was done for the year,'' recalls de la Vera, 22. ``It was an obligation, but now it has a very special meaning for me. I feel excited, I feel renewed. This is exactly where I want to be, with God and with the Jewish people.''

No one is quite sure how extensive this trend toward religiosity is. Quantifying it is difficult because levels of observance vary widely even within denominations.

Yitzchak Rosenbaum, a spokesman for the National Jewish Outreach Program, says America's ''warm, welcoming society'' translated into assimilation and intermarriage for many Jews who emigrated here in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Since the 1950s, however, there has been ''a slow, small movement'' to reconnect with both Jewish tradition and religion.

''We know that definitely there has been a trend, but how do you define it?'' Rosenbaum says. "Are they doing one thing or two things, or are they totally religious and observant?''

A 2000 study by the Jewish Demography Project at the University of Miami found that the majority of U.S. Jews remain within the denominations of their childhood -- 81 percent stay Orthodox, 66 percent continue Conservative and 75 percent remain Reform. More than 70 percent who grew up nonreligious stay that way, too.

If there is a movement, says project director Ira Sheskin, it comes from the Conservative middle toward both the stricter Orthodox and more liberal Reform denominations. In the 2000 study, fewer than 20 percent of those who identified themselves as Orthodox had migrated from other Jewish denominations, while more than 40 percent of those who considered themselves Reform had come from other backgrounds.

`A BIFURCATION'
''Some people say there's a significant trend, but the reality is that there is a bifurcation,'' Sheskin says. ``At the same time that we see a group of people moving toward stricter observance, we also have people moving away. We have people being totally secular or just nominally religious to being totally Orthodox.''

The number of Orthodox households, Sheskin adds, has remained stable or grown only slightly, to about 10 percent of all Jewish households nationally.

Nathan Katz, a professor of religious studies at Florida International University, counters that the 2000 survey was structured in such a way that the Orthodox were underrepresented.
''While most Reform or Conservative Jews actually join a synagogue and are therefore counted in the survey, many more Orthodox Jews do not formally join any synagogue,'' Katz wrote in an e-mail, and therefore were not counted.

Most experts do agree on one thing: The movement toward orthodoxy is pronounced among the young. Citing a study from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Katz says the Orthodox community is growing at a faster clip than demographic studies show -- in large part because of a high birth rate.

Decades ago, the Orthodox were known for having the highest proportion of elderly among Jews. In 2001, they had the highest proportion of children -- 39 percent, twice as high as the two other denominations.

In Miami-Dade, 14 percent of Jews under 35 consider themselves Orthodox while only 8 percent between the ages of 50 and 64 do, according to a study Sheskin conducted in 2004.

Many rabbis cite religiosity among the young as a reason whole families become more observant. Elena Amsili is a teacher at the school at Temple Sinai, a reform synagogue in North Dade, but when her son, Jonathan, was preparing for his bar mitzvah, a rite of passage that welcomes Jewish boys into manhood at 13, he gravitated toward an Orthodox synagogue.

''I felt an attraction [to the Orthodox way of life],'' says Jonathan, now 14. ``I'm proud to be Jewish and I want to lead a Jewish life.''

The family's religious habits changed to accommodate him, including keeping kosher, lighting Shabbat candles and attending more services at the synagogue.

'Friends ask, `How did this happen -- you a teacher at a reform temple?' '' Amsili says with a chuckle. ``But I'm happy for him. I would rather he become more religious than have him go the other way.''

STRICTER OBSERVANCE
De la Vera is considered a Baal Teshuva, ''master of return'' in Hebrew: a formerly secular Jew who has become stricter in his observance.

''I'm making more of a connection to God but also to the rest of the Jewish people,'' says the UM student, whose father is Christian and mother is a nonpracticing Jew. ``Now I understand the stories my grandmother used to tell me about Jacob and Abraham and David. I can put things in context.''

Other young people, like Amy Benjamin, 30, grow up fairly observant, rebel for a while, then come back. The South Beach therapist says she was ''turned off'' when her mom joined an Orthodox synagogue.

''I was 14 and overnight we had to make all these changes,'' she recalls. ``There was a lot of resentment and I think part of it was that we didn't understand. There was no meaning behind what we did and it was just forced down our throats.''

But after living for almost two years in Israel and attending Torah study classes with her mother, Benjamin felt ''this deeper connection to a spirituality inside of me that I didn't know how to access before.'' She now considers herself ``conserva-dox.''

The increased observance, she says, has changed her life.

``It has given me a serenity and peace of mind I was trying to find in other venues.''
It's not just Orthodox Jews who are becoming more observant. The Levys, for example, are members of Havurah of South Florida, a nondenominational organization that welcomes all Jews. The family keeps kosher in their Dadeland area home, attends services every Saturday and recites blessings before meals.

''This is what works for us,'' says Phyllis Levy, who learned Hebrew prayers as an adult with other Havurah members. ``I didn't get any of that as a child, so it's been quite a change.''
Son Elliot, 15, , says his parents' decision to follow Jewish law more closely is something ``we owe to all the generations before us who didn't have the freedom to practice.''

Joseph, a one-time ''playboy partyer,'' says he had drifted away from his religion completely before an encounter with a rabbi at a Chabad house in the mid-1980s set him on a long journey back. (Chabad-Lubavitch is a large Hasidic movement within Orthodox Judaism.)

Today, the electrical contractor is a father of seven who tries to observe all of the Torah's 613 laws. Nonobservant Jews don't understand the attraction of a structured faith, he says.
``It is something you want to share because it's like going from a cold darkness to a warm light.''

With Beginners’ Service, Shul Seeks to Fill a Need

September 25, 2008
Circulation: 54,500
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Orthodox synagogue invites newcomers to New Year prayers

If that doesn’t work, maybe the flyers at the local ShopRite will.

His congregation, Ahawas Achim B’nai Jacob and David — with over 450 members, the largest Orthodox synagogue in Essex County — is looking for new people, but not necessarily new Orthodox members.

Instead, they are reaching out to unaffiliated Jews in the area, hoping to attract them with a beginners’ service on Rosh Hashana. The free service will be held late in the afternoon on the first day of the two-day holiday. It will run just an hour and a half and will include shofar blowing and plenty of explanation in English.
Such outreach is not exactly standard fare for Modern Orthodox synagogues, but Bloom said the congregation felt the need to serve people in addition to their own knowledgeable and observant members. (The Chabad-Lubavitch hasidic movement is a pioneer of such Orthodox outreach to the unaffiliated, but most often in Chabad “houses” set up specifically for that purpose.)

“We think there’s a real need for this. We know within the Jewish community right here in MetroWest there are a lot of unaffiliated Jews. It’s a matter of giving people an opportunity to come in,” said Bloom, who is spearheading the effort and reinvigorating the synagogue’s outreach committee, which has been dormant for several years.

“Even though we’re in a relatively large Jewish community, we felt many people are out there and, with so much going on the world, are looking for something more to fill their lives,” said Rabbi Eliezer Zwickler. “Call it spirituality; call it meaning. We can’t sit on the sidelines. As the largest Orthodox synagogue in Essex County, we want to do something to help people grow. We love the lives we have, and we want to share it.”

Zwickler acknowledged that outreach has not been a priority for the synagogue at least since he arrived, but that that is changing. (In 2004 he was promoted from assistant rabbi to rabbi.) AABJ&D has already held training sessions to inspire members to want to participate and teach members how to welcome new people who walk into the synagogue.

The goal is to demystify what newcomers might see as an endless array of written and unwritten rules of decorum and observance, not to mention the long and opaque service performed entirely in Hebrew.

The congregation will use the abridged beginners’ service developed four years ago by the National Jewish Outreach Program, an Orthodox organization established in 1987 with the goal of reaching assimilated Jews. The service focuses on key prayers, like the Sh’ma, Avinu Malkeinu, and the Unetaneh Tokef, providing explanation and encouraging discussion.

“It gives people the feeling they participated in something meaningful, more than just dropping in and dipping an apple in some honey,” said NJOP program director Larry Greenman. “The model is for people to have a positive, joyous experience, to tell them it’s okay to dip their toes in and take a second look. It’s an opportunity to reengage and find spiritual meaning.”

Across the United States, 67 NJOP beginners’ services will be held this year.
Planners at AABJ&D said they hope the service will attract people not just from West Orange, but from across the community. In terms of numbers, however, they are starting small. While Zwickler said he’d be happy with 10 people, Bloom suggested that reaching just one person and changing that life would constitute success.
Additional outreach activities include Sukkot open houses, a crash course in Hebrew, a buddy Shabbat system, and individual efforts like inviting newcomers for a Shabbat meal, mentoring those who wish to learn, or just joining them for a coffee.