June | July 2018 • Sivan | Tamuz | Av 5778 31-37 Harp Rd Kew East 3102 PROFILETHE LEO BAECK CENTRE FOR PROGRESSIVE JUDAISM www.lbc.org.au INSIDE: COMMUNITY HAPPENINGS & NEWS • Photos PROFILING JEANNE ISAACS-ARMITAGE • YOUTH PAGE •ARZA uPdAte• ARts• & MORE Presidential Musings s we were approaching Office would be pleased to hear from you if you would Shavuot and preparing like to receive an invitation to someone’s home. to celebrate the giving of Part of the duty of a Board is to maintain an overview TorahA with all night study, candle of the operations and finances. A preliminary analysis lighting, the reading of the 10 conducted by our Co-Treasurers indicates that revenue commandments followed by stacks is not keeping pace with expenditure. The situation is of blintzes and other dairy foods, we not immediately critical since we have some reserves. also reflected on the bitter sweet nature Though ultimately the Board will need to consider of the period between Pesach and Shavuot. Over the a range of measures including belt tightening, fund seven weeks we remembered the Holocaust, honoured raising initiatives and increasing member contributions. the brave men and women who lost their lives in the Our next step is to quantify the size of the deficit and struggle for Israel and we rejoiced with all Jews in tighten expenditure controls. marking the 70 years since the State of Israel was established. In closing, Bronia and I would like to make mention of the great kindness and understanding shown to Some personal achievements also deserve note. The our family on the passing of our daughter Sally. Rabbi first of these was Rabbi Jonathan’s 60th birthday Jonathan and members of the Care Committee have which he and family celebrated with the congregation shown deep compassion. Our Vice-Presidents and at a special kiddush. The other notable event was Immediate Past-President have responded marvellously the completion by Hannah Ogawa of the LBC six-star to ensure we have had the precious time to sit Shiva. program. When handing Hannah her certificate of Members of LBC and sister congregations at TBI, achievement, Immediate Past President Mannie Gross Kedem and Etz Chayim have joined with our family to commended Hannah on her efforts and encouraged honour Sally’s life and help us recite Kaddish. To all who others who had recently completed their B’nei Mitzvah have supported us in this sad time we say thank you. studies to persist with the 6-star program. Finally, to the first responders, medical teams, police Looking further ahead, I would like to draw attention to and others who attended Sally in her last moments we the LBC Annual Brunch which is being held on Sunday have been deeply moved by their efforts and the care 24th June. This important event on our calendar is a they have shown to our daughter. chance to meet other congregants on a social basis, extend friendship and generally build the goodwill and Jim Beck connections needed to progress our community. The THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 15 - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2018 AT NOVOTEL ST KILDA, 16 THE ESPLANADE, ST KILDA, VICTORIA The 2018 Biennial is all about focussing on the ’progress’ in Progressive Judaism. This year’s Scholar in residence is one of the most dynamic and insightful Jewish scholars of our age, a world- renowned figure, Rabbi Dr Lawrence A. Hoffman from the Hebrew Union College in New York. Alongside our Conference keynote talks, workshops and panels, we’ll be holding the fun activities that the UPJ Biennials are famous for. Registrations are now open. For more information and to register, go to www.upj.org.au 2 Profile | June-July 2018 Rabbinic Reflection he time between Shavuot or gassed day in and day out through the years of the and the High Holy Days could Shoah. Given our long history with much more than its potentially be a quieter time fair share of persecution, I think it is a very wise idea to Tfor Rabbis and congregations, since have one day of mourning each year to focus our minds there are no significant festivals – and to let us live life on the other days! after the busy Pesach/Omer/ Which takes me to the other event, a minor celebration Shavuot period. (not really even a festival, though it too has a lengthy For me, that has never happened – this year, for history), which falls just 6 days after the 9th of Av. Like example, I am catching up with my backlog of tasks Tisha B’Av, it is named for its date – Tu B’Av – the 15th after spending the first half of the year getting the of Av (starting this year on Thursday evening 26th new Machzor (due in 2019) ready to go off to the July). In the second Temple period, it was a day for girls publishers. So as well as meticulously checking the and unmarried women to find husbands. According to three rounds of proofs as they appear over the second Mishna Ta’anit: ‘on these days the daughters of Israel half of the year, I’ll be pretty busy trying to get back on and Jerusalem go out dressed in white and dance in the an even keel by Rosh Hashanah! vineyards. What were they saying? Young man, consider Although there are no major festivals coming until then, whom you choose (to be your wife)’ (Chapter 4). It is there is a significant fast day, Tisha B’Av, the ninth worth noting that it is another festival which falls at full day of Av. This year the fast day is actually marked on moon in our lunar calendar. Linking the night of a full Saturday night 21st and on to Sunday 22nd July, which moon with romance, love, and fertility is not uncommon is technically 10th Av, because we do not mark a fast in ancient cultures. In modern Israel it has been re- on Shabbat unless it is THE fast – and ‘the Sabbath of established as a sort of Jewish Valentine’s Day. Given Sabbaths’, Shabbat Shabbaton - Yom Kippur! how hard it is today for many people to find a partner, perhaps we should be doing more to emphasise it?! Tisha B’Av, as I often remind us, is not just about the destruction of the Temples. Even in the Mishna, the Anyway, I find it interesting that two events with such Rabbis already identified four tragedies that befell different meanings and messages fall so close together our people, the first one being that we had a failure of – interesting and rather appropriate, as in a sense they confidence and trust in God when we listened to the mitigate each other. It reminds us that life is bitter- ten spies who said we couldn’t conquer Canaan, rather sweet – or, in Jewish terms, ‘Almonds and Raisins’ than the two, Joshua and Caleb, who said we could. The (Rozhinkes mit Mandlen in Yiddish). (self-inflicted) result of that was 40 years of wandering Rabbi Jonathan Keren-Black in the desert. Then came the destructions of both Solomon’s Temple by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and of Herod’s rebuilt and enlarged Temple by the Romans in 70 CE, neither of which happened exactly on the 9th of Av, but close to it. The fourth tragedy identified TIM COSTELLO in the Mishna is the end of the Bar Kochba rebellion 2018 RENATE KAMENER ORATION against Rome in 135 CE. So even then, Tisha B’Av marked the various tragedies that had befallen us over IN THIS WORLD OF MILLIONS OF REFUGEES, the generations. Later tragedies were added to the list: GROWING NATIONALISTIC MOVEMENTS AND some say the signing of the (‘Alhambra’) decree for the XENOPHOBIA, Spanish expulsion in 1492 – or was it the last shipload TIM COSTELLO EXPLORES THE QUESTION, of exiles? Since the decree was signed on 31st March, HOW CAN WE LIVE TOGETHER? clearly it was not Tisha B’Av, but the Jews had to have left by four months later, which was closer, on 31st July! SUNDAY 26 AUGUst Actually, if you take account of the 10 days adjustment for the Gregorian calendar reformation, Tisha B’Av may ORMOND COLLEGE even have been on 31st July. If so, it seems likely that CARLTON Ferdinand and Isabella’s advisors would have been $20 AT THE DOOR aware of this and perhaps set that date intentionally? I suspect the same applies to the expulsion of Jews from 0412368560 England, which was on July 18, 1290 (Av 9, 5050), and various other tragedies. However, clearly tragic things www.renatekamener.org happened on other days – for example Jews were shot June-July 2018 | Profile 3 LBC PEOPLE Jeanne Isaacs-Armitage ‘It was that small In 1936, when Jeanne was 3 weeks old, the family moved to Ballarat Jewish voice which and lived behind a shop while her has guided me all father cut firewood for 12 months prior to working at the gas works. my life, even before I Because of a past history of typhoid, knew my ancestry’. John was not permitted to do active service during the war so joined eanne’s childhood was devoid the army home defence and air of religion in the home but she league. After the war he became Jwas free to attend a church if a painter and decorator. During desired. Christian philosophy as the depression and prior to her taught in the school, or preached marriage, Edna worked in a knitting in the church, did not appeal. Then, factory in St Kilda and told of the aged 30, on Fremantle pier en kindness of the Jewish owner.