בס׳׳ד begin! ings less s b it nd Let the year a Rosh Hashana 5781 | 2020 ראש השנה תשפ''א בית כנסת מרכז קחילתי ע׳׳ש גולדשטיין McDonald International Shul ORTHODOX ASHKENAZI COMMUNITY NETANYA קהילה דתית לאומית אשכנזית נתניה New Synagogue of Netanya 7 McDonald Street P. O. Box 1115 | Netanya 42262 | office 09 861-4591 | fax 09 887-0059 email: [email protected] | www.macshul.org Rabbi Raphael Katz: Office 09 887-5079 | Mobile 054 767-3421 Chairman: Jeremy Rosenstein – 09 862-8328 Vice Chairman: David Marriott – 09 832-1747 Hon. Treasurer: Colin Frankel – 053 530-5751 Hon. Secretary: Barbara Cardash – 09 861-5178 Gabbaim: Israel Shapira – 09 861-7608 | Bernie Wolff – 09 834-0333 Irgun Nashim: Chair: Betty Olswang Henry Koor Judaica Library: 09 884-0458 Open: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings from 9:30 am until noon Chair: Tsipi Wexler Magazine Team: Therese Berkowitz, Elizabeth Dorfman, Melissa Dubinsky, Jacques Korolnyk, Monique Korolnyk, Laura Shuck, Paulette Woolf Advertising Team: Edward Pearlman, Alegra Green, Anita Leigh, Jacques Korolnyk, Laura Shuck Join the honorable company of our past and present community by linking your name, or the name of a loved one with the McDonald International Shul. Memorial Boards • Sponsorships • Philanthropic Donations are all available and can be easily arranged through the shul office: 09 861 4591 • Mon-Thu, 8:30 – 11:00 am 2 |Rosh Hashana 2020 ראש השנה תשפ׳׳א Rosh Hashana 5781 | 2020 Contents 4 McDonald International shul 27 Pesach — Alone... But Not Lonely Board Members / Committees 5781 by Laura Shuck 5 Letter from the Editor 28 Malka Fink Memorial Shabbaton by Therese Berkowitz 10/11 January 2020 6 Rosh Hashana Message 5781 by David Marriott by Rabbi Raphael Katz 30 There’s Nothing Funny About Covid-19. Or is there? 8 From the Chairman by Paulette Woolf by Jeremy Rosenstein 32 Resilience 10 Chatan Torah – Michael Raz by Dr Joseph Berger 11 Chatan Bereshit – Chagai Lyst 34 G-d is With Me, I Shall Not Fear 12 One Beating Heart– by Andee Goldman תשפ׳׳א Rosh Hashana 36 Technology Comes to Our Aid by Rabbi David Woolf by Melissa Dubinsky 15 Our Synagogue Family 38 When Life Gives You Lemons, 18 The 2020 Pandemic Make Lemonade & Jewish Resilience by Tsipi Wexler by Bernie Wolff 41 Rosh Hashana Greetings 20 Israel — A Diamond 45 Judging a Book by Its Cover In My Own Backyard by Therese Berkowitz by Suzie Schwartz 23 Flare of Insight – Poem by Miriam Michaeli Feigelman 24 Music To Our Ears – A Coronavirus Concert by Elizabeth Dorfman 3 | ראש השנה תשפ׳׳א McDonald International shul Board Members and Committees 5781: McDonald International shul Board: Blank Committee: Executive: Michael Bliss Jeremy Rosenstein - Chairman Barbara Cardash David Marriott - Vice Chairman and Colin Frankel - Chair Cultural Committee Jacques Korolnyk Colin Frankel - Financial Representative David Marriott Barbara Cardash - Honorary Secretary Henry Koor Judaica Library: Laura Shuck - shul Secretary Tsipi Wexler Management: Hospitality Committee: Ivor Baum - Shammas Jacques Korolnyk Elizabeth Dorfman Al Dubinsky Good Neighbours Scheme - Shlomo Garber Volunteers who will visit Henry Hirsch housebound members Linda Hirsch Barbara Cardash Renie Hirsch Monique Korolnyk Ruth Marriott **Volunteers needed Betty Olswang - Irgun Nashim Landscaping Committee: Israel Shapira - Gabbai Susan Wolff Sharon Wilensky Bernie Wolff - Gabbai Steven Rose Therese Berkowitz Paulette Woolf Table Tennis Group (weekly): Nobby Smith Volunteers are always welcome. No one can do everything, but everyone can do something. Directory of Advertisers Katie Woolf ................................................... page 34 Pronat ..............................................................page 37 Millenium Laundry ................................. page 40 Yochanan Nalkin ....................................... page 44 Pope-Geri....................................................... page 22 Yossi Yeffet ............................. page 48 back cover We are grateful to our advertisers for their support. We encourage you to patronize these local businesses and let them know that you saw their ad in the McDonald shul magazine. 4 |Rosh Hashana 2020 Letter from the Editor Therese Berkowitz Our tradition teaches us that the ten Hashirim. The Piyut describes the days between Rosh Hashana and Yom travails that have plagued us Kippur are a time for introspection and throughout the year and implores G-d reflection, a time to look back at the to accept our prayers. Each stanza ends year that has gone by, and... I find with the prayerful refrain: Let the year myself getting stuck right there! How and its curses conclude! The final do we look back at this year? What are stanza ends with an expression of hope: we to make of this illness that has Let the year and its blessings begin! gripped the entire planet? How do we In spite of illness and loss, isolation understand the loss and devastation and fear, there have been bright and that this contagious and deadly plague beautiful moments of community, has left in its wake? learning and connection. It is no small As bewildering as it may feel, there is accomplishment that we have found reason for hope, as we are blessed with ways to cope and recover. The stories of a tradition for which this is not new. In resilience abound. fact in a few short weeks we will read We’ve received wonderfully moving exactly that in Kohelet: and touching reflections and insights of coping and recovery. We are grateful וְאֵ ין כָל־חָדָׁש תַַחַת הַשָ ֽמֶ ׁש ...there is nothing new under the sun. to all of our contributors for sharing Our cover illustration includes their stories with us. We hope that you images of the seven species that G-d will find them as uplifting and tells us will grow in this promised land. inspiring as we have. I think of these fruits thriving in this I would like to personally thank the land as truly resilient. In connecting the magazine team—Elizabeth Dorfman, image with our theme, I searched for a Melissa Dubinsky, Jacques Korolnyk, verse that would resonate with the Monique Korolnyk, Ed Pearlman, Laura challenges of this year. I did not have to Shuck, and Paulette Woolf—for their look far. In our Rosh Hashana Machzor, patience, creativity, integrity, diligence following Mincha on the first night is a and humor. Piyut called Achot Ketanah (The Little Together, we wish the entire kehilla a Sister). We, the Jewish nation, are the year absent of curses and filled with little sister. The name is taken from a blessings! A reference made lovingly by G-d in Shir 5 | ראש השנה תשפ׳׳א Rosh Hashana Message 5781 by Rabbi Raphael Katz Before I share a brief Rosh Hashana and be content that the shul was, as a home. It ,בית message, I wish to record my heartfelt implied in its name a thanks especially to our dear Chairman was and is a home to all who wanted to Jeremy who during the ENTIRE period daven in a minyan and had no other of the Covid outbreak, has made a opportunity to do so. concerted and continuous effort to We have been blessed and maintain the functioning of the shul. privileged due to the founders of the From erecting a covering for protection shul to have large swathes of spac e—­­­­a of outdoor minyanim, to supplying free large upstairs shul, the Beit Midrash masks for those who forgot, to ensuring downstairs, the hall, the sukkah area that there is always a supply of gel, to and the amphitheater. All this allows physically constructing the “capsules” and compels us to share this bounty together with Moshe, beside a host of with all who live in or who are visiting other functions that he has done our area. Not every shul has been so single-handedly without assistance blessed. May we welcome all our (banking etc.). Jeremy receives little visitors with graciousness into ‘our– of course according to) בית כנסת ’acknowledgement but large doses of their criticism. Jeremy, yashar kochacha! regulations). To Laura, Bernie, Susan, Therese, Dr Yitzchak Fineberg, Menashe, One of the ten explanations for Edoardo, Moshe Chakimi, and of course blowing the shofar is to commemorate to Rav Taub, who zoomed the ENTIRE the destruction of the Temple. period without a break – thank you so Question: Wasn’t the mitzvah to to all who have made sound the shofar given before a Temple אחרון חביב .much up the minyan and to all who really existed?! want to come but are compelled to be at Answer: The crying sound of the home. shofar is to arouse one to realize that, on the Day of Judgement, there exists We can look as far back as Purim the potential of destruction, which may 6 |Rosh Hashana 2020 Rosh Hashana Message 5781 by Rabbi Raphael Katz be realized or not. The winner, a graduate of a Last year as we recited “U-Netaneh Shakespearean acting academy, was Tokef”, could we imagine that Hashem awarded the trophy and prize money; decreed that the whole world order as he received his prize an elderly Jew would change in such an unexpected at the back of the audience cried out, way? Were we aware of the potential “Honored Judges, would you permit of calamity “Chas v’chalilah” or were me to deliver my ‘version’ of the we perhaps overconfident that things Psalm?” would basically proceed as usual? His request was granted and he Against the backdrop of the current walked up to the stage and started situation I am sure that the sense of reciting the Psalm in his Yiddish uncertainty will be felt acutely by all accent and broken English to the during our davening. sneers of a “typical English audience.” But by the time the Jew had finished, So, how do we relate to Hashem in the sounds of muffled sobs could be times of uncertainty? detected in the audience.