Helping Lost Jewish Communities 165 West End Ave., 3R, NY, NY 10023 TEL: 212-877-8082 FAX: 212-724-7929 KULANU http://www.kulanu.org [email protected] “all of us” Volume 15 Number 1 Spring 2008 Rabbi Aiello Making a Kulanu Shares Difference in Italy’s South Jean Mayer Award By Karen Primack By Barbara Vinick Rabbi Barbara Aiello lives in a 400-year-old house in Serrastretta, Five years ago, Laura Wetzler, Kulanu Coordinator for Uganda, a small mountain town in Calabria, in the extreme South of Italy. She and JJ Keki, Abayudaya coffee farmer and community leader, sat at has converted the bottom floor into a synagogue (Ner Tamid del Sud) her kitchen table in western Massachusetts at the beginning of JJ’s first and a Jewish culture center in order to pursue her life’s work – to serve lecture trip to the US. There they discussed the possibility of a venture returning Bnai Anousim (descendants of victims of the Spanish Inqui- that would benefit the farmers of all faiths – Jews, Christians, and sition forced to convert to Roman Catholicism) in Calabria and Sicily. Muslims -- in JJ’s local area, where fluctuations in coffee prices, the My husband Aron and I visited Aiello during Passover, anxious to basis of the local economy, had made living conditions precarious. meet some of the mem- Little did they dream that in a few years their ideas for a coffee coop- bers of her community erative would become reality and be held up as a model of successful returning to Judaism interfaith cooperation at a major award ceremony. But that is what after a 500-year inter- happened on the evening of March 4th, when Laura, JJ, and five others ruption. received the prestigious Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award at a Aiello, an Italian- moving ceremony at Tufts University. American whose fam- Named for Dr. Jean Mayer, former president of Tufts and world- ily members were renowned nutritionist, the award (whose past recipients include Nobel among those Anousim, Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, humanitarian Dr. Paul Farmer, has been serving as a and economist John Kenneth Galbraith) honored members of three Liberal rabbi in Italy organizations -- the Mirembe Kawomera “Delicious Peace” Fair Trade for five years, first in Coffee Cooperative of Uganda, distributor Thanksgiving Coffee Com- Milan and then in pany of Ft. Bragg, California, and our own Kulanu. Sherman Calabria. She is Italy’s Teichman, Executive Director of the Institute for Global Leadership at first and only female Tufts, which sponsors the award, cited the organizations’ “wonderful, rabbi. innovative and powerful efforts on behalf of alleviating poverty, creat- Aiello, left, with friend in Timponi Aiello was de- ing accountable and sustainable trade practices, encouraging commu- lighted to be able to nity peace and promoting interfaith harmony.” buy a portion of her house in Serrastretta, for it has been in her family The presentation of the award was preceded by images of coffee for most of its 400-year history. Although she was born and raised in production and life in the Abayudaya community by photojournalist the US, she has a large family in Italy – some 70 relatives. Richard Sobol, whose 2002 book helped to bring the community to Serrastretta is near the city of Nicastro, a town with a once- public awareness. The pictures were accompanied by music of the flourishing Jewish community. In the 1920s her father would ride coffee farmers recorded by ethnomusicologist Rabbi Jeffrey Summit of down the mountain from Serrastretta in a horse-drawn wagon filled Tufts Hillel, whose CD of Abayudaya music was part of the 2002 with artichokes to study Bible and a little Hebrew with a scholar in book, and who narrated the slide show. Rabbi Summit, who for many Timpone, the Jewish quarter of Nicastro. When Aiello took her father years has supported the Abayudaya community, especially its students, back to Timpone in the 1970s, after a decades-long absence, he kissed was instrumental in bringing the coffee project to the attention of the the ground and cried. Jean Mayer award committee. Earlier in the evening, Tufts Hillel Aiello likes to bring visitors to Timpone, emphasizing that the hosted a festive dinner for the award recipients and their guests in con- place was similar to so many other areas in Southern Italy. She says, junction with their Merrin Distinguished Lecture Series “Moral “Timpone was a Jewish quarter, meaning that, unlike a ‘ghetto,’ where Voices” program. Jews were locked in from the outside, in Calabria and Sicily Jews lived Among the honorees were representatives of Thanksgiving Cof- in ‘quarters,’ which were open and offered free passage.” She pointed fee Company -- Ben Corey-Moran, Director of Strategic Partnerships, out signs pasted to walls in the quarter announcing “Ricorrenza il and Holly Moskowitz, Mirembe Kawomera Project Coordinator. tredicesimo della scomparsi di Rosario Bandiera” or “La cena doppo Laura Wetzler related that she had approached dozens of coffee dis- sette giorni per Aprile Pasquale Bagnato.” (Thirteenth anniversary of tributors throughout the US until she found a company who “got it.” the death of Rosario Bandiera; The meal after seven days for Aprile Paul Katzeff, CEO of Thanksgiving Coffee (whose motto is “not just a Pasquale Bagnato.) She cites these surnames – Bandiera, Bagnato, and cup, but a just cup”) and his wife Joan, president of the company, re- Aprile – as examples of common Jewish names and says the continua- sponded enthusiastically to Laura’s quest, committing their fair-trade tion of practices such as remembering the anniversary of a death or company to buy all of the organic coffee that the cooperative produces having a meal after the seven-day mourning period are remnants of for ten years. After the ceremony Paul spoke extemporaneously to a Jewish traditions of which few Calabrians are aware small group of supporters, remembering his desire to help a struggling There are two streams (torrenti) running through Timpone. The community without realizing how much he would benefit personally Jews, who brought the silk and leather trades there in the 12th century, from his exposure to the project and its builders. (Continued on page 13) Also honored were four coffee farmers from the area of eastern (Continued on page 14) CALL TO ACTION! Announcing a New Bar/ HOST COMMUNITIES SOUGHT Bat Mitzvah Initiative Israel Siriri to Visit U.S. By Elliot Yadin As we embark on a new bar/bat mitzvah initiative, currently enti- In the Fall tled Sharing Your Bar/Bat Mitzvah With Jews Around The World, Kulanu is currently planning a visit to the U.S. by Israel Siriri, Kulanu needs your help identifying synagogues, Jewish community chairman of the Abayudaya Congregation of Uganda, to inform organizations and professionals within your local communities that American audiences about the Abayudaya and to raise funds for the connect with Jewish teens and their families. Materials which describe community. The tour will extend from October 28 to December 2. how meaningful and simple it is to adopt Kulanu as a mitzvah project Siriri will present an updated and upbeat multi-media program are available as downloads and in hard copy. sharing the latest news of joint Abayudaya/Kulanu sustainable devel- In reaching out to these organizations our near- term goal is to opment projects to alleviate child hunger, provide health education, increase the number of bar/bat mitzvah students who choose to adopt and bring clean drinking water, electricity and sanitation to the com- Kulanu as their mitzvah project. These bar/bat mitzvah projects not munity. He will update only help raise crucial funds for Kulanu, but as important, they in- audiences on the Kulanu- crease awareness of the lives we touch and the communities around the supported primary and world positively affected by our efforts. high schools in Uganda as In the longer term, we hope to build upon these nascent relation- well as the community’s ships within each community. The bar/bat mitzvah project concept self-help efforts through can be adapted by religious schools, social action and adult education the micro-credit loan committees, and community-wide mitzvah projects. As Kulanu society, crafts, music CD, strengthens relationships within each community, we will be in a better coffee, dried fruit, and position to engage their members and involve them in Kulanu’s mis- tourism projects. sion. A construction engi- Please send an email to Kulanu’s Mitzvah Project Coordinator, neer by profession, Siriri Elliot Yadin, at [email protected] to tell us that you can has directly supervised the many public works projects the community help. Provide your contact information and the congregation/ has accomplished with Kulanu’s help, including additional water community/region in which you reside. We will be in touch. Thank catchment tanks and the first water well in the community; construc- you. tion of new classrooms, latrines, a science lab and working showers for the schools; and bringing electricity to the main village center at Na- bagoye Hill. In Loving Memory of The educational program will be age-appropriate for all and in- clude a slide presentation and recorded African Jewish music. When appropriate, a CD of Abayudaya music and hand-crafted kippot will be Sarah Horowitz sold in conjunction with the presentation. By Chaya Weinstein For this tour, we are particularly hoping to identify areas in which Sarah Horowitz, a Kulanu volunteer with the Abayudaya Com- several presentations can be scheduled over a two-, three- or four-day munity in 2005, died unexpectedly of unknown causes on March 7, period. What is required of host locations? 2008, at the age of 44. ♦ An honorarium of $1000 per event plus sharing the in- Sarah, a native of the San Frascisco Bay Area, was a cornerstone country travel expenses.