Turning Dreams Into Realities Lending a Helping Hand to Israelis

Kehillah The Newsletter of the Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism’s Shirley and Jacob Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center Volume 1, Issue 2 • www.uscj.org.il Spring 2006 • 5766 RABBI BENJAMIN Z. KREITMAN Turning Dreams into Realities Losing its struggle to survive in a mostly Chasidic and African-American community, one of New York’s landmark Conservative synagogues, the Brooklyn Jewish Center in Crown Heights, closed its doors eight years ago. But before doing so, the synagogue turned to its GEMILUT HESED much-beloved former rabbi, Benjamin Z. Kreitman, and asked him to help the dwindling congregation come to terms with its closing. It also sought his advice in selling its glorious Lending a Helping dome-topped building. Hand to Israelis Amazingly, Rabbi Kreitman and Ben Moskowitz, the synagogue’s president, were able to turn the sorrowful experience into a rebirth for Conservative Judaism. Helen Wrobel and her husband, Tal Eyal, wanted to imbue Together, Rabbi Kreitman and Mr. Moskowitz convinced the synagogue’s remaining their daughter’s bat mitzvah with added meaning. So last members to contribute proceeds from the building’s sale to a Conservative institution in summer, the Great Neck, New York, family celebrated the Jerusalem that North American Conservative Jews would one day consider their home milestone occasion in Israel and, through the Fuchsberg in the Jewish homeland. Their inspired guidance led the congregation to present $600,000 Jerusalem Center, volunteered at a soup kitchen in Jerusalem. to what eventually would become the Shirley and Jacob Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center “We prepared and served lunch, and it was a very meaning- of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. The Brooklyn Jewish Center’s gift, ful experience,” says Helen, the mother of three children, which also included a donation to the Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center’s Conservative Jordan, 14, Elana, 12, and Ronni, 8. “The recipients’ Yeshiva, represented the first major gift given to the Conservative movement’s headquar- response was wonderful. They appreciated that we were ters in Jerusalem. giving up our ‘vacation’ time to help, and we were grateful “We said that a synagogue that’s closing has to make aliyah — and by giving the money to be able to lend a helping hand.” to the Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center, that’s exactly what the Brookyn Jewish Center did,” Each year, hundreds of visitors to Israel participate in says Rabbi Kreitman. the Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center’s three-year-old Gemilut Rabbi Kreitman credits the late Alan Tichnor, his close friend and a former United Hesed, a program that arranges hands-on volunteer Synagogue president, with suggesting the Center as a prime beneficiary of the opportunities for United Synagogue and Masorti members congregational gift. from throughout the globe, including families, synagogue groups, individuals, participants in the Nativ post-high school leadership program, and students at the Center’s Conservative Yeshiva. Volunteer activities are tailored to the participants’ interests and include preparing and delivering packages to soldiers, assisting developmentally and physically disabled adults, and helping children from broken homes. Depending on the participants’ availability, assignments can run anywhere from an hour to a year, although most organizations would like volunteers to be available three hours a day for an activity, which can include traveling time. “We do our best to come up with creative ideas that will make every volunteering experience worthwhile and In the 1980s, Rabbi Kreitman presented a Torah to Rabbi Kreitman and the late Alan Tichnor, productive,” says Avigail Ben Aryeh, who arranges Gemilut an Ethiopian-Jewish family in memory of their son, who suggested the congregational gift an Israeli soldier who was killed in Lebanon. to the Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center. Hesed’s community service activities. The program can connect volunteers to more than one hundred social “Alan Tichnor asked me whether I could help give life to a new institution,” says Rabbi service organizations. Kreitman. “He recognized that the future of Conservative Judaism depends on having a Gemilut Hesed also collects supplies for social service base in Israel and that the Center would demonstrate the movement’s total commitment organizations in Israel, with visitors encouraged to bring to Zionism.” The sanctuary in the Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center’s synagogue, Congregation a suitcase filled with items for the Center to distribute. Moreshet Yisrael, is dedicated to the memory of Rabbi Israel H. Leventhal, the Brooklyn If they have time, visitors can deliver the supplies personally, Jewish Center’s founding rabbi. meet with the recipients, and learn about the non-profit’s A learned, wise, and insightful man, Rabbi Kreitman is an icon in the Conservative (Continued on next page) Jewish world. He is the executive vice president emeritus of United Synagogue as well as the rabbi of the World Council of Synagogues, an organization of Conservative synagogues outside North America. In addition, he is rabbi emeritus of Flatbush Shaare Torah Jewish Center. (Continued on back page) Fuchsberg Provides Nativ’ers with a Stimulating Atmosphere What do Hillel Skolnik, a graduate of a Solomon Hillel, a 2001-2002 Nativ’er from Forest Hills, New York, “The Fuchsberg Center is a beautiful campus in Schechter day school and high school, Josh Altman, pursued the academic track, relishing the fall semester downtown Jerusalem,” says Josh, a native of a graduate of public schools, and Julie Rappoport, a he spent studying at the Conservative Yeshiva Deerfield, a Chicago suburb. “It was a place that graduate of modern Orthodox schools, have in common? fostered community. Students knew they could walk “Studying Jewish text is an experience in and of into any room and know everyone they saw.” They each credit their experiences at the Fuchsberg itself, and doing so within the framework of the Jerusalem Center with having a major, positive Conservative movement, under the direction of the As he tells it, the year in Israel was a life-defining impact on their lives. most educated and caring teachers, in Israel, no less, experience that was enhanced by the Center’s location is at a level all its own,” says Hillel, who graduated in the prime Jerusalem neighborhood of Rechavia, As participants in Nativ, United Synagogue’s post- from Brandeis University in three years and has since a 15-minute walk to the Old City. “The Center truly high-school-year-in-Israel program, Hillel, Josh, been accepted to the Jewish Theological Seminary’s added to my Nativ experience, giving me access to all and Julie considered the Center their home away rabbinical school. that Jerusalem has to offer,” says Josh. “I didn’t feel from home. It not only placed them in the heart as though I was a tourist in Israel.” of Jerusalem but also provided them with a warm, welcoming community and an intellectually stimulating As a result of his experience, Josh has reevaluated his environment for serious learning and thought-provoking plans. Although he was admitted to Tufts University, discussions, they said. he has opted to earn his undergraduate degree through the Joint Program of Columbia University As part of Nativ, students can opt for the academic or and the Jewish Theological Seminary’s List College. yeshiva track. In the former, Nativ’ers take courses in “I had been to Israel three times before Nativ, but this the fall at the Center’s Conservative Yeshiva or at the experience was entirely different,” says Josh. “It was Hebrew University of Jerusalem and spend the spring really incredible.” semester living in a kibbutz or doing community service. In the yeshiva track, students spend the entire Julie Rappoport, a native of Fairfield, Connecticut, hailed year studying at the Conservative Yeshiva. Students the Center for providing her with a “life-changing in both groups participate in leadership seminars and experience.” As a Nativ’er last year, she spent the volunteer around Jerusalem and other parts of Israel. fall semester studying at the Conservative Yeshiva. Nativ students ready for Shabbat in Jerusalem. “I found the yeshiva so inspiring because every single The yeshiva’s diverse student body also fascinated person is there because he or she wants to be — wants Hillel. “For the first time, I was not just learning to be in Jerusalem, wants to be studying Torah, and with students my age but with college graduates, wants to be in a Conservative environment,” says Julie. people taking a year off from work, as well as with Like Josh, Julie says her experience at the Center people from throughout the world,” he says. “So, Kehillah has convinced her to attend the Joint Program. She depending upon where they came from and their originally had been accepted by Boston University’s The Newsletter of the personal history, they approached the text differently, Management School. Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center which contributed to the quality of the learning experience. It was phenomenal Jewish learning.” During her recent winter break from college, Julie, The United Synagogue of who plans to major in psychology and enter the field Conservative Judaism’s Josh Altman, a 2004–2005 Nativ participant, lived at of organizational behavior, traveled to Israel and Shirley and Jacob Fuchsberg the Center while taking courses at Hebrew University. Jerusalem Center stayed at the Center. Volume 1, Issue 2 • www.uscj.org.il “I immediately felt as though I had returned home,” Spring

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