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Speedy Recovery and Continued Good Health

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Speedy Recovery and Continued Good Health April 2013 Nisan-Iyar 5773 Temple Beth-El Invites you and your family to attend VOLUNTEER RECOGNITION SHABBAT & LUNCHEON Saturday, April 6, 2013 Sponsored by: Temple Beth-El Foundation and Temple Beth-El An Earth Day Community Conversation What’s On Your Plate? With Maureen Holt of Little Savannah Restaurant Shabbat Service, April 20th, 2013 Learn about the slow foods movement, eating local, and keeping quality foods on your plate with Maureen Holt, well-known restaurateur in Birmingham. Enjoy a light Kiddush Lunch with recipes from Little Savannah. Community Conversations are Shabbat presentations on topics of local or national interest. To be a co-sponsor of this Earth Day Community Conversation, supporting the Kiddush Lunch and a contribution to Alabama Possible-The Alabama Poverty Project, please contact Bob Greenberg at [email protected] or Joyce Spielberger at [email protected] by Friday, April 5th. PAGE 2 CONNECTION APRIL 2013 Religious Service Schedule Professional Staff & Board April 2013 Rabbi Michelle Goldsmith [email protected] April 1 7th Day Pesach 9:30 am Cantor Daniel Gale Maftir: Ed Fineberg [email protected] Mincha/Maariv 5:30 pm Executive Director Bob Greenberg Candle Lighting 6:48 pm [email protected] April 2 8th Day Pesach 9:30 am Executive Director Barbara Gordon TBE Foundation [email protected] Yizkor Finance Director Teresa Mason Pool Maftir: Robin Benjamin [email protected] Mincha/Maariv 5:30 pm Communications Isa Dorsky Candle Lighting 6:48 pm [email protected] April 5 Erev Shabbat 5:45 pm Events/Kitchen Debby Thomas [email protected] Candle lighting 6:52 pm Administration Emily Gregory April 6 Saturday morning 9:30 am [email protected] Parshat Shemini Education & Youth Maurine Halpern Maftir: Dalia Abrams Administrator [email protected] Shabbat Mincha 5:30 pm Youth Group Jennifer Spiegelman Coordinator [email protected] April 12 Erev Shabbat 5:45 pm Candle lighting 6:57 pm Officers April 13 Saturday morning 9:30 am President Arlene Fisher Parshat Tazria-Metzora [email protected] Maftir: Morton Stern Vice President Loraine Reznik Shabbat Mincha 5:30 pm [email protected] April 19 Erev Shabbat 5:45 pm Vice President Dan Weinrib Candle lighting 7:03 pm [email protected] April 20 Saturday morning 9:30 am Secretary Sue Lischkoff Parshat Aharey Mot-Kedoshim [email protected] Maftir: David Reznik Treasurer Bruce Downs Shabbat Mincha 5:30 pm [email protected] April 26 Erev Shabbat 5:45 pm Board of Directors: Steve Altmann, Barbara Bonfield, Candle lighting 7:08 pm Peggy Clarke, Todd Doobrow, Sallie Downs, Edwin April 27 Saturday morning 9:30 am Fineberg, Eric Goldis, Jessica Goldstein, Vikki Grodner, Allen Halpern, Jacob Halpern, Naomi Ivker, Billy Parshat Emor Lapidus, Richard Lehr, Michelle Pake, Toby Siegel, Bat Mitzvah: Haley Applebaum Natalie Sikora, Richard Smith, Tim Thornton, Danielle Shabbat Mincha 5:30 pm Weintraub, Dorothy Ziff, Melvin Zivitz Past Presidents: Karl Friedman, Joe Reznik, Howard Weekday Service Schedule Bearman, J.B. Mazer, Myron Radwin, Morton Stern, Daily Morning Minyan 7:00 am Julian Brook, Norman Berk, Maurice Shevin, Joan Sundays & Secular Holidays 8:00 am Lebow, Ron Froehlich, Ronald Shiland, Gary Gordon, Jack Schaeffer, Martin Damsky, Jimmy Krell, Steven Daily Afternoon Minyan 5:30 pm Corenblum, Barbara Solomon, Seth Wolnek, Franklin Saturday Afternoon Mincha 5:30 pm Tessler, Vikki Grodner Sisterhood: President, Janet Reagan: [email protected] Men’s Club: President, Eric Goldis: [email protected] PAGE 3 CONNECTION APRIL 2013 Message From Rabbi Goldsmith Sermon for Vayakhel-Pekudei - Delivered March 9, 2013 God’s Presence and Israel Apartheid Week In ninth grade, when asked to do a presentation on something of moral and political significance, I gave an oral presentation on apartheid in South Africa. I remember everything about the presentation. I played Stevie Wonder’s song “It’s Wrong” and shared an excerpt from Ray Bradbury’s short story “The Other Foot.” It was a powerful moment for me because I was raised in a home in which there was no tolerance for racism, and I felt that the treatment of blacks in South Africa resembled the Nurenberg laws that Jews had been forced to endure in Germany. Happily, apartheid no longer exists in South Africa. It does however exist in certain other places around the globe. Where it does NOT exist is in the state of Israel. Apartheid was the systematic oppression of blacks by the South African government. And in Israel, on February 27, 2013 Yityish “Titi” Aynaw, an Ethiopian woman who made aliyah with her family nearly a decade ago, was crowned Miss Israel. Having an Ethiopian woman chosen as your country’s most beautiful and talented woman is NOT apartheid. And this is on top of having an Ethiopia Jewish woman as ambassador to Ethiopia, another as a member of the K’nesset, and more. And yet, all around the country this past week, including right here at UAB, thousands of college students have been participating in the annual Israel hate-fest called Israel-Apartheid Week. The claim of participants is that Israel engages in illegal actions against the Palestinians in “Palestine,” that it conducts a campaign of genocide against Palestinians, and that it brutally discriminates against its own Arab citizens to boot. Never mind that there are multiple Arab parties and Arab members of the Knesset, never mind that Hadassah hospital is open to all, never mind that there are Israeli Druze ambassadors to other countries. As Rabbi Michael Simon recently wrote concerning this annual phenomenon: “These events have featured extreme anti-Israel rhetoric, including accusations of Israeli racism and apartheid; calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns against Israel and Israeli institutions; and allegations that Israel is committing war crimes and genocide against the Palestinian people. These events single out one state, its citizens and its supporters for condemnation and exclusion, and it targets institutions and individuals because of what and who they are — Israeli and Jewish. And these organizers and their methods leave Jewish and Israeli students ….afraid of expressing their opinions, for fear of intimidation and retribution …Why are college campuses the focus of this movement? Because that is where young people's minds can be molded. And guess what they [will] believe and espouse? That Israel is an apartheid state deserving of being eliminated.” Also last week at NYU there was a program in which Israel was “pinkwashed,” or condemned for its POSITIVE approach to gay rights. Instead of praising Israel, Israel was bashed as leaders of the program claimed that Israel’s approach to gay rights is “a deliberate strategy to conceal the continuing violation of Palestinians human rights behind an image of modernity signified by Israeli gay life.” To those who oppose Israel's very right to exist, nothing, Israel can ever do, is good. Or to quote Alan Dershowitz, "This absurd, obscene argument is nothing more than anti-Semitism with a pink face." It is clear that for many of those participating in these events it’s not even about the Palestinians. Bashing Israel is simply the modern way to attack Jews, and to do it while pretending to be morally superior. How do we know this? It is easy. When I was in ninth grade doing that presentation on apartheid, my wish, and the wish of most of the world was for apartheid to end. No one suggested that South Africa was a stain on humanity, that it should be wiped from the face of the planet, etc. It simply had to change its policies. Not so with many of these protesters. Their goal is simply the elimination of Israel, not its improvement. Now don’t get me wrong. I am the last one to say that Israel is perfect. It is not. I have, over the past year spoken at least twice about MAJOR internal issues just in the Jewish community, let alone across the divide of faiths. But it is quite simply not true that Israel is an apartheid state. But all is not lost. In this morning’s Torah portion Vayakhel-Pekudei we get a glimpse of an answer. In the portion we read about the Israelites and Moses’ construction of the Tabernacle, the Mishkan. In our Etz Hayim Humash we read: “At this point there are two embodiments of holiness in the Israelite camp: the Tent of Meeting (Ohel Moed) and the tabernacle (mishkan). We can think of them as representing a theology of encounter and a theology of presence. There are moments (a wedding, [a birth], an escape from danger) when God erupts into our lives with a special intensity that transforms us but that is too intense to be lived constantly. Then there are times when God is a constant presence in our lives (marriage, parenthood, & years of good health) in an equally real but less intense manner. The challenge is to recognize God’s constant presence in our lives without its becoming so ordinary that we take it for granted.” The same is true for our relationship with Israel. Each of us, if possible, should make it our business to visit Israel, to experience Israel in an intense way, and many of us fortunate enough to do so already have. The rest of the time Israel is always there, always in our thoughts. Many people though, especially my generation and younger, who have never lived in a world without Israel, simply take Israel for granted. We cannot do that, we mustn’t do that, just as the ancient Israelites couldn’t take God’s presence for granted in their midst. To do so courts disaster.
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