Offering a toast to the kosher life

Scotland's Jewish population is small and in decline, but within the community are some dynamic ventures encouraging lapsed individuals to give their religion a re-think. Emma Cowing meets a Glasgow Rabbi doing everything he can to keep the faith alive.

IT'S A busy Tuesday evening at L'Chaims restaurant on the south side of Glasgow. A young waitress rushes between the tables, candles flicker invitingly, and a low hum of conversation accompanies the steady stream of plates arriving from the kitchen. Look closer, though, and all is not quite as you might expect in this popular eatery. All the male customers are wearing the traditional Jewish skull cap, the Kippah, every last item on the menu from the butter to the wine is Kosher, and the man presenting the credit-card machine is not a maître d' but a rabbi.
L'Chaims is Scotland's only Jewish Kosher restaurant, named after both its owner and a traditional Hebrew toast: "To life". Situated within the heart of Glasgow's Jewish area and run by local rabbi, Chaim Jacobs, and his wife Sora, it has become a potent symbol of rebirth in a community that is battling a slow yet steady decline.
Across the country Britain's Jewish population is falling. At the 2001 census there were 270,000 Jews in Britain, almost a quarter of whom were over the age of 65. The Board of Deputies believes this number has since dropped, and just 11 years before, in 1990, there were estimated to be about 340,000 British Jews. In Scotland there are around 6,400, compared to more than 8,000 in 1905. It is a subject that will be explored tonight in Vanessa Engle's BBC4 documentary Jews, which follows the efforts of one man – the millionaire Jonathan Faith, former owner of Faith shoes – to resuscitate interest in this ancient and often misunderstood religion.
Engle, herself a secular Jew, believes there are a number of reasons behind the decline. "People are marrying out of the faith, they're having fewer children, daring to be gay, living an alternative lifestyle. But society is
also becoming increasingly secular," she says.
It is still, she says, a misunderstood community. "When I started to research the subject I discovered there are many aspects of Jewish life that are still invisible. People have a lot of assumptions about Jews and Jewishness and what I found for myself is that people actually know very little about it."
Engle set out to document Faith – who was a secular Jew until the birth of his first child, 20 years ago, when he became what he describes as a "modern Orthodox Jew" – and his attempts to reignite interest in Judaism.
This he does primarily via the Jewish charity Aish, which takes non-religious Jews, many of them young men and women, on holidays to Israel in an attempt to reconnect them with their heritage.
Faith confronts his mission with the same techniques that made him a success. "Judaism is a product: I look at it as a product like anything else," he says. "For somebody to buy an idea, they've got to be shown the product in its best way possible. No-one likes the idea of Judaism being thought of as a product, but
sometimes you really need to look at it from a commercial point of view."
His plans are met with mixed levels of success. Some of the children who go on Aish's holidays seem more intent on drinking than attending Shul, and his own eight-week course on teaching the faith is not an instant success. By the end of the documentary he seems almost despondent about the future.
Those involved in the process admit it's not easy. As Glasgow-born Rabbi Malcolm Herman, director of another London-based Jewish educational initiative called Seed, points out in the documentary: "We're talking about applying ancient wisdom to contemporary living."
In Glasgow this same philosophy is being applied, not just at L'Chaims, but throughout the community. I meet Rabbi Jacobs, who as well as owning L'Chaims is a community rabbi in Giffnock and runs the Scottish arm of a Jewish educational organisation called Lubavitch, at his Giffnock home. In accordance with Jewish law
he does not shake my hand, but the warm welcome from both him and his wife Sora is genuine.
Rabbi Jacobs is on a mission to bring lapsed Scottish Jews back to their roots. Via Lubavitch, the New York-based Jewish educational initiative that is the world's biggest Jewish outreach organisation, he hopes to offer secular Jews who have abandoned their faith a reason to return.
"Formal practice of religion is on the decline, but there is still an interest in spirituality and Judaism within our community," says Rabbi Jacobs. "What we're offering is spirituality and we're offering it to people who no longer just want to go to the synagogue and read the prayers. They want to get some buzz out of it, and
spirituality that has some depth."
Was that, I ask, as they settle me in their cosy living room, while from the kitchen wafts the irresistibly comforting smell of chicken soup, why they decided to open a Jewish restaurant?
"There isn't really a Jewish community centre like there used to be," Rabbi Jacobs replies. "Because there are so many other things available, it's not a big attraction any more. So therefore, outwith the synagogue, the restaurant is probably the most active focal point where people can gravitate to and socialise within the
Jewish community."
There are around 5,500 Jews left in Glasgow's community, by far the biggest in Scotland. Walk through Giffnock today and you will see traditionally dressed Hasidic Jews, Kosher delis, a synagogue, a Jewish primary school and two Jewish care homes for the elderly. As a community it may be small but it is close-knit and, in its own way, still thriving. Rabbi Jacobs and his wife have lived in the area for 40 years
and say they've seen many changes over that period.
"It's swings and roundabouts," says Sora. "Forty years ago there were three or four Kosher butchers in the area. Now there's none. But, at the same time, I can go to Sainsbury's at 9:30pm and pick up a Kosher chicken."
The eminent Jewish-Scottish scholar David Daiches wrote in his autobiographical Two Worlds: An Edinburgh Jewish Childhood, that there are grounds for believing that Scotland is the only European country which has no history of state persecution of Jews. And indeed, the Jacobs family say they have been unconditionally accepted here since they moved from Manchester, four decades ago, to raise their children.
"We've never felt anything but warmth and friendliness here," says Jacobs. "Wherever we've gone, people couldn't do enough to accommodate us, whether it was with Kosher food or to generally make things easier for us."
I ask what sort of response a non-Jew interested in the faith would receive. "We don't seek non- Jewish people but we welcome them," Jacobs says. "If somebody comes and they want to convert, there are various laws to try and persuade them not to get involved, but if they are obstinate, so to speak, and they want to pursue being Jewish, of course we will welcome them."
Meanwhile, Lubavitch in Scotland grows from strength to strength. This year they held a Jewish Burns supper, complete with Kosher haggis, at L'Chaims, and there are regular 'Shul in the Park' services for younger members. There have been Kosher wine tastings on the calendar, and a children's birthday party with Kosher McDonald's-style food. Jacobs' son Mendel, also a rabbi, even launched a Jewish tartan in the Spring – made with Kosher non-wool linen of course.
"The way to get hold of people is to try and reach them at their level and then bring them to ours," says Jacobs. We can do that through food, hospitality – invite them to a Shabbos dinner and show them the beauty of the candle-lighting and the family atmosphere at that meal."
Apart from the obvious attractions of mealtimes, the food and the social life, though, I'm interested in why Jacobs feels people would want to return to a religion they have abandoned.
"People are looking for something," he says. "They've done everything in life. They've tried drugs, they've been around the block a few times and it's not given them any more happiness. Suddenly they look around and say, 'Where is happiness?'
"And that's when they give us a try."

• Jews: Keeping the Faith, BBC4 9pm

• L'Chaims Restaurant, 222 Fenwick Rd, Giffnock, Glasgow is open on Tuesdays and Thursdays. For more information call 0141-638 6116

Rabbi seeks Jews who have fallen away

Mission is to show them the road back

By BOB SMIETANA
Staff Writer

For a man who is constantly busy, Rabbi Yitzchok Tiechtel doesn't seem in much of a hurry.

Sitting at a table near the ark that houses the Torah scrolls in the Beit Tefilah synagogue on a recent Friday, Tiechtel holds a yad, or Torah pointer, in one hand as he talks. In the other hand, his BlackBerry chimes almost constantly.

In the background, Lee Becker, a volunteer, carries in brownies and helps set up for a dinner and Shabbat service. Once the setup is complete and his morning meetings are done, Tiechtel will leave the Bellevue office complex that's home to the synagogue and head downtown. An acquaintance has asked him to hang mezuzah, small bits of parchment with Torah verses inscribed on them, on the doorpost of the office.

It's all in a day's work for Tiechtel, a foot soldier in the Rebbe's Army.

He's one of more than 3,000 sluchim, or emissaries, sent out by Chabad (www.chabad.org), a worldwide Jewish group with headquarts in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y. Followers of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneersohn, the fellow sluchim are an unusual kind of missionaries. Unlike Christian missionaries, who seek new converts, Chabad sluchim hope to persuade secular Jews to return to the fold.

There's been a Chabad presence in Nashville since the 1950s, when Rabbi Zalman Posner and his wife, Risya, arrived from Crown Heights as emissaries. The Posners became pillars of the Jewish community. They started the Akiva Academy Hebrew Day School, and Posner, a scholar and author, led Congregation Sherith Israel until retiring in 2002.

Tiechtel arrived nine years ago to become headmaster of the Akiva School. Not long after arriving, he left Akiva to start the Chabad Center for Jewish Awareness (www.nashvillejewish.org). The center runs classes and a summer camp, puts out an annual calendar and lights menorahs in public spaces during Hanukkah.

The group is also raising funds to build a permanent home in Bellevue, which will include a kosher Internet cafe, a synagogue and a mikvah, or ritual bath.

Being an emissary runs in Tiechtel's family. The oldest of 10 children has six siblings who serve as sluchim in Berlin, Germany; Illinois; and Arizona.

All were inspired by their grandmother, an immigrant from Russia whose father was arrested and killed by the Soviet government for running a cheder, or Hebrew school, in Leningrad.

"I'm just carrying on the work my great-grandfather started," he said.

Tiechtel compares his mission to that of a lamplighter. "There's a light in every person that comes from God," he said, "but someone has to light the wick for that light to shine."

Missions are different

Rabbi Mark Shiftan of the Temple said that the local Chabad Center has a very different focus than synagogues. The Temple, like other congregations, serves those in the mainstream of Jewish life. Chabad, on the other hand, exists to reach those who have fallen off the radar screen.

"Most synagogues are engaging in outreach to try and find new and innovative ways to reach out to Jews who are on the outskirts of Jewish life," Shiftan said.

"They (Chabad) do have a long track record of very actively reaching out to Jews who no longer even know the road back into the community."

Becker, who relocated to Nashville about 10 years, ago, says she grew up in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in New York City.

When their children were young, Becker said, she and her husband took them to their synagogue.

Once the kids were grown, however, the Beckers dropped out of synagogue life.

They come to services at Beit Tefilah weekly, and say they enjoy Tiecthel's down-to-earth sermons.

"He really explains the Torah reading," she said. "It's like a family. We just enjoy coming. Our Jewish heritage has become more important to us now than it was in New York."

Joe Freedman, a Nashville businessman, also says he has reconnected with his faith after meeting Tiechtel. Freedman grew up as a Reform Jew in New Orleans, where he played baseball for a Catholic high school, and says he never considered himself religious.

"I am one of the most assimilated people you will ever find," he said.

For the past six years, Freedman said, he has met monthly with Tiechtel to study the Torah. The two also pray together.

The Jewish outreach absurdity

Instead of competing against each other, Jewish outreach groups should join forces to battle assimilation

Rabbi Levi Brackman

There has been a real transformation of the Orthodox Jewish landscape recently, but until now I have been only vaguely aware of it. Of course I knew that there are many different outreach organizations, all trying to reach and inspire the ever-elusive assimilated Jew. However, the extent of this movement within the Orthodox world—outside of Chabad—was not known to me.


Last week, for the first time, I went to a Jewish outreach convention in Baltimore, Maryland, which was hosted by The Association for Jewish Outreach Programs (AJOP). This convention was attended by over 550 Orthodox outreach professionals with representation from over 20 orthodox outreach organizations including Aish, Ner L’Elef, The Orthodox Union, NCSY, Torah Umesorah and Ohr Samayach. This was an opportunity for me to get a broad view of Jewish outreach and what makes it tick.


Clearly the sometimes insular Orthodox world has woken up and they have begun to organize in a serious way to combat assimilation. In fact it was inspiring to meet at the convention Yeshiva students from the local Ner Yisroel Yeshiva in Baltimore who had already decided to dedicate their lives to Jewish outreach. The ideal within the mainstream Orthodox Yeshiva world to leave the enclave and do outreach is still in its infancy there is no doubt however that the movement will grow both in strength and in numbers in the years to come. With the stunning statistics of assimilation and intermarriage throughout the Western world the awakening to do Jewish outreach has not come a minute too soon.



It seems, however, that there is still a rift between what is now known as the “kiruv world,” or the world of Orthodox outreach professionals, and the community of Chabad emissaries which do similar work. When, for example, one of the convention organizers presented statistics on outreach across the world the Chabad contribution to Jewish outreach was not included.



Considering the impact Chabad emissaries and Chabad organizations have had and continue to have on the Jewish world, the omission was absurd.


Same ultimate aim
Nonetheless, in conversation with some of the pioneers of the kiruv world, I found a dichotomy. When these pioneers got involved with outreach in the 1960s and 1970s, they told me that they took their inspiration from the work of the Lubavitcher Rebbe of Blessed Memory and from Chabad. One such pioneer actually explained to me that the only way they were able to get the rest of Orthodoxy involved in doing outreach was by making as if Chabad did not exist and then doing it independently of Chabad. “Chabad has to be ignored if we are to get the the ultra-Orthodox Yeshiva world to do outreach,” this individual explained.


From my experience Chabad also seems to ignore the good work done by other outreach programs, so this problem goes both ways. But my intention here is to encourage rather than to criticize. Clearly, all groups involved in Jewish outreach are doing important work and have the same ultimate aim, which is to stem the tide of assimilation and to encourage Jews to get more deeply involved with their Judaism. The methods and strategies used may vary slightly, but the resources displayed at both the AJOP and the Chabad conventions show that they are essentially the same. The question then demands to be posed: Why are they ignoring each other?



The notion that the outreach organizations are in competition with one another is ridiculous. With the high rate of assimilation and intermarriage in the West, I cannot imagine that there could be too many outreach workers in the field. The day that happens will be a blessed one. The battle against assimilation is far too important for its warriors to get embroiled in politics of this sort. Undoubtedly, all the outreach organizations, Chabad included, should put their differences aside and pool together all their resources and ideas to create an even brighter Jewish tomorrow.



Rabbi Levi Brackman (www.levibrackman.com) is executive director of Judaism in the Foothills (www.jitf.org). His upcoming book, about Jewish Business Success, is set to be published in late 2008.