Social Action – January 2023

Donate to the Diane Kaplan Social Action Fund Each month we plan to highlight each of our agencies so you may know more about what they do. Please continue to give generously to the fund. It allows us to support these agencies in the greater New Haven area. This month we will focus on two programs that have been helping many in our community; our Knitting Group, and Pop Tabs for Ronald McDonald House. Ongoing Programs: Knitting Project: Helene Meltzer and a dedicated group of knitters have produced approximately 500 knitted items this year. The hats and scarves were donated to IRIS, New Reach and the Keefe Center. The knitting group has received heartfelt letters of thanks including one from BH Cares, an abuse center in Greater New Haven. New knitters are always needed. Ronald McDonald House: Gerry Ganezer has been collecting and bringing pop tabs to the Ronald McDonald…

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Hanukkah

I’ve been asked many times, “What does Judaism say about miracles?” Traditionally, miracles are understood to be a theophany, when G-d shows up and intervenes in our lives to change destiny. Whether it’s cracking open the sky to flood the world, or bringing forth manna like dew upon the field, miracles, it has been thought, are G-d’s works in a human world. The Exodus is full of miracles, in its demonstrations of G-d’s power through the plagues, or G-d’s redemptive force by splitting the sea. (more…)

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January 2023: President’s Message

With six months into my first year as President, I am starting this month’s article with
“Confessions of a Temple President: Part I”:
1. I am a procrastinator when it comes to the bulletin. Even though I get a reminder email about the bulletin deadline, I always wait until the last minute to write a message (just like this one!). (more…)

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Israel Matters! – January 2023

Israel – One of the Safest Places to Visit in the World!

This month we revisit a stubborn topic that always seems to surface whenever one talks about visiting Israel: how safe is it to go there? Many friends, family, and colleagues remain under the impression that Israel is just a dangerous place due to the constant risk of terrorism. So we are pleased to present a just-published comparative study of the risks posed to visitors across many popular travel destinations. The analysis was conducted by The Swiftest, a San Francisco-based start-up created by experts from the insurance and travel industry to better compare and purchase insurance. These folks focus their data analytics expertise on important societal and environmental issues, and have developed proprietary risk analysis tools to better understand the messages in the data they study. (more…)

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Thanksgiving

Imagine the year 1621, the year of the first Thanksgiving. Imagine being one of those pilgrims who first set sail for America. Despite warning of the hazards, they sailed through rough waters, accidentally ending up in Massachusetts instead of the intended destination of Virginia. Arriving in winter, these pilgrims endured cold weather, limited food, insufficient shelter -all leading to illness and despair for many. Within a short time, many had died. As spring approached, those remaining planted wheat and corn. Neither was successful, and other attempts to replenish their supplies were equally unsuccessful. Imagine being one of those pilgrims. Would there have been much for which to feel grateful? (more…)

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December 2022: President’s Message

High Holiday Message 2022 – How Can I Help? October 4, 2022

I have a confession to make…I watch way too much television. Between attending meetings and events, and,of course, reading books for the monthly book club, you can always find me at home watching gameshows, any Marvel Series, all of the home renovation shows, and every…single… Hallmark movie. (more…)

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“The Israel We Knew” is not gone …

From Daniel Gordis from Israel from the Inside with Daniel Gordis

So it is with some hesitation that I respond, however indirectly, to Friedman’s recent Op-Ed in the NYT, in which he argued, post Israel’s elections, that “the Israel we knew is gone.” I’ve got no interest in joining the “jump on Tom Friedman fray.” That said, I don’t think it’s gone at all.
Neither, apparently, does Dennis Ross:

Dennis Ross@AmbDennisRoss
Not sure Israel has changed. The Bibi-led bloc won fewer votes.Just as the Democrats can win the popular vote and lose in the electoral college,in Israel a party must win 3.25 percent of the vote to be in the Knesset. Fall just short, as 2 left parties did, lose all those votes.
Nov 5, 2022 (more…)

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Israel Matters! – December 2022

The Israeli Election: Aftermath

Well, the Israeli election of 2022 is in the books, and here we are at Israel Matters to address the aftermath. It is fair to say that among many American (and European and everywhere-elsean and even some Israeli) commentators, the results have been reported as a seismic shift of Israeli voters to the right with the return of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Likud, his ultra-orthodox supporters, and the extreme right-wing parties Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) with their former Kahanist leader Itamar Ben Gvir and the Religious Zionism party led by Bezalel Smotrich. There is no question that many of the policy positions taken by these latter parties, ranging from bringing the judicial system under Knesset control to anti-LGBT measures to anti-Reform Judaism measures all the way to annexation of the West Bank and possible deportation of Arab citizens deemed anti-Israel, fly in the face of what one should expect from a liberal democracy. BUT, hold on. (more…)

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