Jews celebrate yearlong Torah reading

By ELIZABETH CASES
Alligator Contributing Writer

While Gator fans cheered for a win against Auburn University on Saturday night, members of the Jewish community were cheering for something different.

More than 300 people observed Simchat Torah at the Lubavitch-Chabad Jewish Center to celebrate the end of the yearlong cycle of reading the Torah, the Jewish book of law.

The celebration of Simchat Torah symbolizes the continuity of the Jewish people, said UF management senior Isaac Sapoznik.

"It is great to be celebrating with so many other Jewish people," he said. "It allows people to have a good time while celebrating a good thing."

Rabbi Berl Goldman sang the Jewish song "Shalom Alehem," providing the crowd with music to sing and dance to.

Jackie Ginzburg, president of UF's Lubavitch-Chabad Student Group, said that this event is one of the most successful the group puts on throughout the year.

"This is an important event in Gainesville, because many Jewish students may feel uncomfortable going to religious services, but this service is a party," she said.

Be happy

During the festival of Sucot ('Tabernacles' for some), we are catapulted into a totally different mood and atmosphere just five days after Yom Kipur. But I am going to admit that it does strange things to me. It makes me totally aware of contradictions, mine and others.

ccording to the Talmud we must leave our permanent homes and move into temporary accommodation that needs two and a half walls and a roof made out of anything grown from the ground and is no longer attached to it. We are supposed to remember what it was like living as nomads when our ancestors wandered through the Sinai desert. Indeed we not only have to eat and spend time in our Sucot but we ought to be sleeping there too (not sure what that�ll do for family relations even if it is only a male obligation). In Israel there are some areas here where whole building facades are dotted with small balcony based Sucot and Jewish ghettos around the world have Sucot in every eatery. In Golders Green and Hendon you see them on the street practically every ten paces and that�s not counting ubiquitous Lubavitch caravan Sucas.

But here in Hendon the private Suca, usually not visible from the road, has taken on another dimension. You get an architect to design a special extension, suitably heated and air conditioned that makes a great play room or home gym during the year. You have an electronically operated movable roof under which you lay your kosher roofing material and you install special electronic censors that automatically move the permanent roof back into position the moment it rains. It is comfortably carpeted and beautifully decorated. Now that's temporary? That's something the Children of Israel in the desert will have recognized and identified with I suppose. It's legal of course. It's not only in English Law that asses put in an appearance.

On the other hand let's be fair. My daughter and son in law's Suca, the prefabricated style with canvas walls on a collapsible frame, was all but destroyed several times in the monsoon deluges of the past ten days. A quick press of a button would have saved a great deal of time, energy and pre Yom Tov nerves. Isn�t it nice how we can harness modernity when we want to, embrace science when it suits us to and still try and remain loyal to a constitution that�s three thousand years old? It's no different to building your own private Mikvah and avoiding the lines, the late night excursions in a bath towel and the prying eyes.

In Israel one can do it as commanded. The weather is different. Sleeping outside is no hardship. The problems are bugs and mosquitoes. In England it can be all but impossible as it was this year if you really follow the Talmudic blue print to spend most of your time under the stars. But then it always used to strike me as strange to start praying for rain in England until Global Warming and this year's drought. Perhaps the Almighty is trying to tell us something. So here we have contradiction number one. If we sit in centrally heated brick walled, electronically operated Sucot is this keeping the spirit as well as the law?

Then there are the Four Plants, the Lulav, Etrog, Willows and myrtles. Clearly all are symbols of the need for water to sustain nature and the link between us nature and God. But by the time the mystics finished adding their explanations that specific link was all but lost. We should be really concerned about preserving and protecting Gods natural world; ecological disasters, loss of species and the way our physical material needs are poisoning and ravaging our planet. God only promised Noah He wouldn�t destroy the world again. He never said anything about us doing it! Yet these issues are simply not part of the Orthodox agenda. I bet not one Rosh Yeshiva or Rebbe will have raised it over the festival this year.

And so we come to that amazing innovation of the prophets The Temple Well House Celebrations. This is what the Talmud says about it (Sucah 51b-53a.)

'He who has not seen the celebrations of the Well House has never ever really seen real celebration.' After the first days of the festival they started to make preparations in the Temple they made huge candelabra that lit up all the courtyards of Jerusalem. Young priests used ladders to climb up carrying barrels oil. Pious and good men used to dance with lit torches in their hands and sing songs of praise while the Levites played harps and lutes and cymbals and trumpets�Rabbi Shimon Ben Gamliel used to take eight lit torches throw them in the air and catch them without one touching the other. He would also prostrate himself by digging his thumbs into the ground and raise and lower himself, something no other man could do.

Can you imagine? The greatest rabbi of the day, a juggler and a body builder, doing full body push ups on his thumbs? They sure built them differently in those days.

Now when it comes to Simchat Torah and dancing around, the dancing is either sedate, boring and perfunctory or drink driven wild chaos masquerading as religious ecstasy. Good for inhibitions perhaps but so is coke. At religious weddings on the other hand you�ll see religious dancing that is choreographed, frum hoe downs or kosher break dancing. But somehow as soon as it gets near a synagogue it tends to lose the plot. Actually modern re enactments of the Well House celebrations are worth looking in on!

Perhaps it's a sign of age that I simply don't enjoy hopping around holding on to a sweaty man, or being squashed in a tightly pressed circle of slow moving shocklers. And I certainly don't like getting drunk. But on the other hand I can't juggle and as for press ups I need two full hands and its still a struggle. I love Torah. Not so keen on the dancing. Is there something wrong with me? Is this where my inhibiting Anglo upbringing that has somehow got in the way and overcomes my yeshiva training? Am I allowing 'English' decorum to inhibit religious fervor? Or is it simply that a lot of what passes for religious enthusiasm is fake and I see through it?

I don't really know. But I do know that all this underlines the fact that Jewish custom and tradition is so varied and variegated, it offers so many different ways of celebrating life and spirit that if one is interested in looking one can surely find something that will appeal. Just don't expect everyone else to agree with your choices!

Visit Rabbi Jeremy Rosen on the web: www.JeremyRosen.com

Conejo and West Valley shuls rate high with newcomers

For a Jew who doesn't belong to a synagogue, the West San Fernando and Conejo valleys are good places to shop around. A new report from the Jewish Outreach Institute (JOI) gives a snapshot of the community as a whole and an assessment of its ability to react to newcomers, including interfaith couples, racial minorities and sexual minorities.

The JOI presented results from "The Jewish Outreach Scan of the West Valley/Conejo Valley" during a well-attended Jewish Federation/Valley Alliance board meeting at The New JCC at Milken in West Hills on Oct. 4. The survey was funded by the United Jewish Communities' Emerging Communities Project.

Last summer, the JOI anonymously e-mailed and called 11 synagogues and four community agencies in the Conejo and West Valley, assessed the effectiveness of local Web sites and interviewed 30 Jewish communal professionals. The organization has conducted similar surveys in communities such as San Francisco, Phoenix, Atlanta, Louisville, Ottawa and Washington, D.C.

The West Valley/Conejo Valley drew a 77 percent favorable response rate, placing it second overall behind Ottawa's 86 percent.

"The biggest surprise was ... how well we did," said Carol Koransky, Valley Alliance executive director. "But it's true, as was pointed out to us, that doing 77 percent means there are 23 percent that aren't being reached."

According to the 2000-01 National Jewish Population Survey, 44 percent of Jewish adults are unaffiliated, while 28 percent are moderately affiliated. With the intermarriage rate currently hovering at about 50 percent, and with only about 30 percent of interfaith families raising their children Jewish, Rabbi Kerry M. Olitzky, JOI's executive director and former vice president of the Wexner Heritage Foundation, said it's important for synagogues to review their outreach strategies.

"Eighty-five percent of interfaith families are not affiliating with the Jewish community," Olitzky said. "Unless they engage the Jewish community, it's unlikely they'll raise Jewish children."

The scan did not compare response rates of area synagogues or agencies to one another. However, Olitzky recounted one anonymous phone call placed to a synagogue. When a receptionist told a caller to check back after the New Year regarding an "Introduction to Judaism" class for his non-Jewish spouse, the caller asked if the receptionist meant Jan. 1.

"The person on the phone said, 'Honey, when I say the New Year, I'm talking about the Jewish New Year,'" Olitzky said.

In addition, the receptionist never asked for the caller's contact information.

According to Olitzky, one of the biggest obstacles the Jewish community must overcome is its kiruv mentality, a Hebrew term that means "to bring near." He said many synagogues wait for unaffiliated Jews to come knocking. Instead, Olitzky suggested that congregations think outside the shul and engage in what JOI calls "public space Judaism."

"We spend most of our time in a secular environment," Olitzky said. "We need to create programs where people will stumble over the Jewish community."

Founded in 1988 as a vest-pocket organization for City University sociology professor Egon Mayer to conduct studies, New York-based JOI has expanded its mission over the last 10 years and now features a variety of outreach programming, including interfaith inclusion efforts and surveys of North American Jewish communities.

Prior to last Passover, a Conservative congregation in Northern California took part in a pre-holiday JOI program called Passover in the Aisles. Congregants spent time near a matzah display in a Palo Alto Albertson's, talking with unaffiliated Jews shopping for their family seders.

Olitzky suggests this kind of activity can draw in those who might not come to a synagogue on their own; other suggestions are holding readings in bookstores, setting up tables with kid-friendly activities in front of a Target or Staples during back-to-school shopping or holding menorah lightings in malls the way Chabad does. "Why not take what Chabad does well and copy it?" he suggested.

Temple Beth Haverim has been doing just that for the last 10 years, holding menorah lightings at The Promenade at Westlake.

"We've just been providing it as a service for the community," said Rabbi Gershon Johnson, who added that the Agoura Hills Conservative synagogue hadn't looked on the activity as an outreach opportunity. He said the congregation would be more proactive this year about collecting names and phone numbers from unaffiliated Jews attending the event.

Olitzky said that adopting a retail mentality can help get people in the door, especially advertising membership discounts and free specials.

Debbie Green, vice president of membership at Conservative Temple Aliyah in Woodland Hills, said her synagogue drew in 40 unaffiliated Jews with an outreach program that advertised special no-cost High Holiday tickets. But she said follow-up has been a problem for Aliyah. "One month later, we need to be telephoning them and offering free tickets to something else," she said. "We're one-time-event oriented, and we need to get beyond that."



For more information about the Jewish Outreach Institute, visit www.joi.org.

Eugene dedicates Torah

By DEBORAH MOON

About 200 people gathered at the University of Oregon's Knight Library Sept. 27 to see the completion of the first Torah reportedly written especially for the community of Eugene.

When asked, local Jewish leaders did remember the creation of a Torah previously.

Commissioned by the UO Chabad House, the community Torah was funded by numerous community members, including UO students, with a friend of Chabad House's Rabbi Asi Spiegel picking up the tab for the balance of the $36,000 scroll. Zusha Tenenbaum, a Florida businessman, dedicated the Torah to his late father Rabbi Aaron Tenenbaum, one of Spiegel's teachers who introduced him to the Chabad movement.

Rabbi Betzalel Yakont, a scribe in Israel, wrote the sefer Torah, with the final few letters completed by New York scribe Rabbi Daniel Dahan. Leaders of the Lane County Jewish federation and Eugene synagogues each were invited to dedicate one of the final letters, said Spiegel.

Dahan, who spent the next two days in Portland checking and if possible fixing parchments in mezzuzot and tefillin, said that the Torah scrolls that sofers write today are an exact replica of the scrolls written 3,500 years ago. He said writing the scrolls maintains Jewish tradition.

Following the dedication ceremony in the library, at least 300 people danced and carried the completed scroll through the streets of Eugene and the university. Spiegel said everyone along the route smiled and clapped, with many students taking out their cell phones and taking pictures of the parade.

In a telephone interview after the event, Spiegel said he applied for a permit for a parade because he wanted the city itself to be part of the event.

"By the police coming, it's like they gave honor to the Torah as well," said Spiegel.

Spiegel added he was very pleased how supportive and accommodating people were as he planned the event.

"Part of the message of this event was we should be happy to celebrate our culture," he said. "I learned everybody is very happy and accepting when Jewish people are celebrating our culture. It was a very encouraging message."

Spiegel said that one elderly resident told him that she had lived in Eugene for decades and never expected to see such an event in the city. And he said the day after the dedication a student called and said that Chabad House has offered a lot of things she had never seen before and the Torah dedication was "another first for me."

Spiegel said his goal in Eugene is to make Jewish life there as rich as it is in larger Jewish centers.

"We do it all the time, but its not always so noticeable," he said.

One of the speakers at the event was Rabbi Shlomo Schwartz, who founded the first Chabad House on a campus when he opened the University of California-Los Angeles Chabad House 37 years ago.

"He said coming to Eugene reminded him of the work he did at UCLA," said Spiegel. "He said people told him it couldn't be done. He talked about the growth of the Los Angeles Jewish community and said that coming to Eugene made him feel very optimistic."

Spiegel said having its own Torah will enable Chabad House to hold weekly Torah services on Saturday mornings.

Maimonides' parent seeks Makeover for school

By DEBORAH MOON

Whether through slow and steady fund-raising or by "winning the lottery" of getting an Extreme Makeover, Heidi Holmes is on a mission to help Chabad of Oregon rebuild their Jewish day school and to help people understand that the school is an open, welcoming place to experience Jewish traditions.

Holmes said she thinks many people in the community think of Chabad as men in black hats and women in long skirts. As a new parent at the school, she said she has learned that Maimonides Jewish Day School and the Aleph Bet Preschool cater to a very diverse group of families. THE SCHOOL'S DIVERSITY

Decidedly unorthodox in both observance and approach, Holmes, 33, said Jewish traditions rather than religion are important to her family. She attended Congregation Neveh Shalom's Foundation School and the Hillel Academy as a child. So when her son Ross started kindergarten, she wanted him to have the experience of a Jewish environment and small classes. This fall Ross began kindergarten at Maimonides.

Since both she and her husband work, Holmes said they are "looking to the teachers to give the little extra," and she has already seen that happening at Maimonides for students from families of all backgrounds.

"I show up (to drop off Ross) in my shorts and t-shirt and Devora (Wilhelm, director of the school), never says anything," said Holmes. "She tells me, 'I respect how you live your life, and you respect me.' That's the way the world should be. She said it in a nutshell."

While many Orthodox families send their children to Maimonides, Holmes said there are also many unaffiliated families or families affiliated with non-Orthodox congregations at the school. She said the school is accepting of all.

"They want people to be connected to the community," she said. "They want people to know about their traditions. … They are so about the children and the education. The students are our future."

Holmes said she is very impressed with the Wilhelm family. Rabbi Moshe and Devora Wilhelm came to Portland about 25 years ago to serve as Chabad emissaries to all Jews in Oregon. Holmes said she is amazed how many lives the Wilhelms have touched with a wide range of programs, classes and activities, including Maimonides.

"They are an amazing family; they have touched so many people," said Holmes.

So Holmes wants the family's dream of a new, bigger school to become reality.

Chabad of Oregon has plans to replace the two homes that now house the day school, preschool and some of Chabad's other programs, with a modern Northwest Campus for Jewish Life.

"My goal is to see my son in a new school building by his eighth-grade year," she said.

Holmes said she will help any way she can in the intervening years. She's already gotten a jumpstart on soliciting items for the school's annual auction, set for March 19, 2007. She said she is asking all the businesses that she and her mother have used in their gift shop, "Initially Yours," to donate something to the auction. THE MAKEOVER DREAM

But Holmes is also a dreamer and she's not content to just sit back and wait. She plans to give the school a chance at a new home much sooner than fund-raising alone could accomplish with a bid for a slot on Extreme Makeover.

"We are going for the winning lottery ticket," she said of the bid.

Holmes wants all community members whose lives have been touched by Chabad to nominate the group for a new building from "Extreme Makeover."

According to the ABC Web site, "each episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is self-contained and features a race against time on a project that would ordinarily take at least four months to achieve, involving a team of designers, contractors and several hundred workers who have just seven days to totally rebuild an entire house—every single room, plus the exterior and landscaping."

Holmes has printed one-page nomination forms from the ABC show's Web site. People can pick up and drop off the form at Initially Yours, 4818 S.W. Scholls Ferry Road. Forms are also available at the Albertson's at the corner of Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway and Shattuck Road, and Images by Floom in Multnomah Village. She said she'd like to collect a box full of nominations to submit to the show.

"They've done pastor's homes and a firehouse in New Orleans," said Holmes. "The show is about people with an incredible story and who deserve it. I think people would agree the Wilhelms fit. … How can someone not want to speak about them?"

"Don't be lazy," she urged. "Take five minutes and put some thoughts down. Spend five minutes doing a mitzvah." THE PRIZES

To encourage people to fill out nomination forms in a timely manner, Holmes has solicited a host of prizes for a drawing. Winners will be drawn from nomination forms turned in by Nov. 15.

Prizes donated for the drawing include a $200 gift certificate for the Albertson's store at Shattuck Road; a $100 gift certificate to Initially Yours; carpet cleaning for a whole house from Astor Carpet Cleaning; a $300 house cleaning anywhere in Multnomah County by Maid Brigade; a piece of fine jewelry from charriol-usa.com, whose jewelry is sold at Sax Fifth Avenue in Portland; a Britax car seat valued at $275 from Segal's Baby News; a huge gift basket of baby items from Two's Company; a $200 art gift certificate from Images by Floom; and a $300 henna tattoo party from Zeba.

Information from the forms on how Chabad programs have impacted Oregonians also may be used in future school publicity or in a follow-up article.

For more information, or for other sites to pick up a nomination form, call Holmes at 503-292-1769.

Counselors Prescribe a Dose of Religion

Dina Kraft
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

JERUSALEM
Prayerbooks and fertility pamphlets are scattered across the coffee table in the waiting room of the Puah Institute, a center that helps couples seeking to undergo fertility treatments in a way that accords with Jewish law.

Named for the Hebrew midwife Puah, who defied Pharaoh's orders to kill Jewish male newborns, the center receives about 150 calls and e-mail messages a day from childless couples.

"The goal is halachic advice and medical advice," said Rabbi Gideon Weitzman, head of Puah's English-speaking section.

Weitzman is one of 10 rabbis at the institute -- all Orthodox -- offering services not only in Hebrew and English, but also in Spanish, French and Yiddish.

"The first mitzvah in the Torah is to have children. That's always going to be at our forefront -- that we want to have Jewish families," he explained. "There's a great desire on the part of the religious establishment to feel the pain of couples. The Torah spoke of our foremothers and forefathers as being infertile. That leads to a tremendous amount of being lenient where possible."

Most couples that turn to Puah for its free counseling services are religiously observant. They often come with questions about Judaism's approach to modern fertility technology, from in-vitro fertilization -- or IVF -- to egg donation.

Many inquire about how the laws of family purity can be coordinated with treatment and how procedures can be supervised according to halachah, or Jewish law.

Many of the religious couples' concerns are no different than those of nonreligious couples, who also sometimes turn to Puah for advice, said Weitzman.

"A lot of the issues are similar, such as the feelings of hopelessness and the lack of control over one's life," according to the British-born Weitzman, who's from a family of scientists.

Like the other rabbis on Puah's staff, he has been trained extensively in the medical aspects of fertility treatment by medical experts.

Stress on the Family
Puah's counseling often addresses family tensions that can arise from infertility. The pressure to have children can be overwhelming in any society, but is especially intense in the religious community, where large families are the norm and family life is a crucial part of the community.

The rabbis also provide practical advice about the nature of available treatments, and can suggest which specialists might be the best match for a particular couple. They sometimes even serve as sex therapists.

"There is tremendous stress on the family -- and he really helped us in dealing with that stress and creating a game plan for ourselves," said one Orthodox woman, who was counseled by Weitzman and eventually gave birth to twins. She asked that her name not be used for privacy.

The woman and her husband went to Puah to make sure their fertility-treatment plans were sanctioned by halachah, but ended up getting much more.

"I feel it helped me on every level, medically, and with emotional advice and counseling," she said.

According to the institute's estimates, Puah is involved in about 1,500 births a year -- not too bad for an organization that started in the living room of its founder, Rabbi Menachem Burstein, in 1990.

Burstein had been asked by one of Israel's chief rabbis at the time to research the issue of fertility treatments and what might be possible under halachah.

Puah now has a four-story office in Jerusalem and a staff of about 70 people in Israel, the United States, France and Australia. The organization gets by on donations, mostly from contributors in Israel.

Burstein -- an outgoing man with a salt-and-pepper beard -- was born in Uruguay. His office has photos of babies whose parents used Puah's services.

He's quick to speak of some of his more challenging cases, including a bride-to-be who found out shortly before her wedding day that she did not have a womb.

Realizing that the engagement might be broken off, the rabbi called a wealthy relative of the young woman whom the family told him of and asked him to provide enough money to cover the cost of two pregnancies by a surrogate mother. The relative complied, and the recently married couple is planning to use a surrogate mother to begin their family.

"I'm happy I have been able to find a synthesis between halachah and the practical world," he said.

Aside from counseling, Puah also provides individual halachic supervision of treatments.

The main concern that some rabbis initially had about treatments such as IVF was whether a mistake might happen in the lab -- in which sperm and eggs were misplaced, or perhaps embryos were switched or tampered with. Aside from the personal ramifications, this would call into question the child's future status for marriage or inheritance.

Among the rabbis who originally opposed IVF for that reason was the late Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson.

Schneerson later changed his mind because of Puah's effectiveness in reducing error.

To prevent that from happening, Puah has trained about 50 women in Israel and others who work in overseas fertility clinics to oversee lab work. In the case of an IVF procedure, the women lock the petri dish containing the embryo into a specially constructed sterilized stainless-steel box that can be locked and then put in an incubator.

Later, if embryos are frozen, Puah has created a locked crypto-preservation vat. A sealed canister is put into the vat, which, in turn, can also be locked.

The special devices are on display in Puah's offices, along with magnified photos of conception.

Supervision costs are subsidized by the institute; they are only about $80 for IVF treatments. Supervision is also conducted in Puah's locations in the United States, France and Australia.

On the top floor of the institute, Rabbi Aryeh Noyek, who directs Puah's supervision department, is fielding calls at a desk piled high with folders.

He said doctors are pleased to have Puah supervisors in the lab because it helps put patients at ease, which can translate into better success rates for treatment.

Egg donation is not currently allowed in Israel, so patients who decide on that procedure must travel abroad, usually to Eastern Europe. Puah offers supervision there and also arranges visas, hotels, flights and kosher food for their clients, some of whom have never left Israel before.

Since egg donation isn't covered by Israeli health funds, clients must pay for the procedure out of pocket. Still, the $6,000 to $7,000 that egg donation costs in Eastern Europe is far less than the $25,000 or so it can cost in the United States.

For those who balk at the idea of rabbis delving into issues of fertility, Weitzman pointed out the Torah acknowledges infertility among both women and men.

The Talmud, he went on, even deals with semen analysis. In the tractate Tevamot, it describes how in some cases, men's ability to ejaculate was tested.

"It is very modern, light years ahead of any theology or philosophy of 2,000 years ago. The Torah is very advanced in its thinking.

Surviving a tragic history

JAMES A. JONES JR.
The Herald

A Torah scroll that survived the hatred and devastation of the Holocaust has made its way to Sarasota to become an inspiration to local Jewish children.

Saturday, it will be celebrated with a dedication by Chabad of Sarasota and the Sarasota-Manatee Jewish Federation.

"It links the past to the future. It represents the survival of the Jewish people," Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz said. "We are victorious because we can take that same Torah they tried to eradicate more than 60 years ago and the little children can benefit from it today."

The dedication of any Torah - the first five books of the Bible, also known as the Books of Moses - stirs strong emotion in any Jewish congregation, but none more so than a Holocaust Torah, Steinmetz said.

The age of the Torah to be dedicated Saturday is unknown, but could be several centuries old. It came from the town of Trest, in what was then Czechoslovakia, Steinmetz said.

It was among those rediscovered in the early 1960s when an English businessman traveled to the Eastern European country.

A Czech official, knowing that the visitor was Jewish, took him to the basement of a government building.

"As he turned on the light, he saw the greatest treasure on Earth for us: hundreds of Torahs," Steinmetz said.

How the Torahs survived a period of history when millions of Jews were being slaughtered in Europe is a mystery. Many Torahs were burned, or their parchment recycled and made into other products. But Steinmetz believes someone may have saved them for their value as historical documents.

Eventually, many of the Torahs were rescued and made their way to North America, Israel and Europe.

Although many are no longer "kosher" because of bug or water damage, they remain valuable for their historical and religious significance.

Philanthropists Sally and Sam Shapiro, who split their time between Longboat Key and Wooster, Ohio, donated the Torah to the Sarasota congregation.

Steinmetz said he had tears in his eyes when Sam Shapiro showed him the Torah for the first time.

"We study the Torah from childhood until we die. It could have been some of my grandparents who were using it," Steinmetz said.

The dedication will be celebrated Saturday with singing, dancing and food. Other congregations are invited.

Rabbi Mendy Bukiet, of Chabad of Bradenton, based at Lakewood Ranch, said Wednesday the dedication of a Holocaust Torah is a "wonderful celebration. They are rare and very precious. We wish Rabbi Steinmetz a lot of success. It should be a good year."

James A. Jones Jr., East Manatee editor, can be reached at 708-7916 or at jajones1@HeraldToday.com.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Dedication of a 150-year-old Torah that survived the Nazi holocaust.

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

WHERE: Chabad of Sarasota, 7700 Beneva Road, Sarasota

WHO: Public invited

INFORMATION: 925-0770 or rabbi@chabadofsarasota.com

Shaking the lulav downcity

By Richard C. Dujardin

Journal Religion Writer

PROVIDENCE — It is early afternoon in the city’s financial district. Two young men sporting beards stand next to a temporary hut they’ve thrown together beside the Amica Building on Weybosset Street, hoping to attract passersby.

“Are any of you Jewish?” a white-shirted Rabbi Yossi Laufer calls to pedestrians. Knowing that barely 1.5 percent of Rhode Island’s population is Jewish, Laufer, the rabbi who leads the Lubavitch movement’s Chabad CHAI Center in Warwick, and Levi Potash, a Lubavitcher from New York, know that the probable reply will be “no” — to which they reply, “Have a great day.”

There are the handful of Jews studying, working or visiting downtown who, depending on their knowledge of Judaism, might not know that this week marks the Jewish festival of Sukkot, or feast of the tabernacles, recalling the time when the Israelites lived in temporary huts or booths, sukkot, during their 40 years in the wilderness before arriving in the Promised Land.

The festival, which began at 5:59 p.m. Friday and continues until 5:48 p.m. Friday, recalls the way Jewish farmers set up temporary shelters in the fields during the harvest season. To commemorate those moments, many Jews adhere to the custom of building their own huts in empty lots and backyards.

With a hut made of string and a blue plastic tarp, Laufer and Potash were at the ready yesterday to give out Hebrew calendars and cakes and drinks for Jewish passersby. And they were armed with four of the symbols of holiday: the lulav, or palm branch, the citron, or etrog, some willows and myrtle.

For those who said they were Jewish, Laufer gave them an opportunity to shake the lulav and to partake of a prayer of blessing.

“Blessed are you, O God, sovereign of the universe, for sanctifying us with our commandments and commanding us to shake the lulav.”

Laufer, one of the sons of the Chabad House of Rhode Island’s Rabbi Yehoshua Laufer, explains that because the myrtle has a smell, the willow has no smell, the palm branch with its dates has taste, and the citron has a moth smell and taste, the four together are seen as a symbol of Jewish unity.

“These species require a lot of rain to grow, so we are telling God, ‘Please, for the coming year, give us a lot of rain.’ Today, of course, it is more symbolic of prosperity. No matter what business we are in, we’re asking God to bring us showers of blessings and abundance, from all sides of the world.”

In the five years that the Lubavitcher movement has set up a hut downtown, “this has been the best ever,” Laufer said yesterday. “Everyone has been positive. I think it’s because it’s such a beautiful day and everyone is in a good mood.”

About 50 people identifying themselves as Jewish, including Johnson & Wales University student Adrienne Kaplan, stopped by the hut yesterday and got a chance to shake the lulav. Rossi’s brother, Rabbi Mendel Laufer, was on the campus of Brown University with a similar hut, offering the same opportunity to students there.

Laufer said there is really only one purpose for the unusual outreach.

“It’s to help and encourage the Jewish people to celebrate the holiday. People’s schedules are hectic we know, so the goal of the Chabad is to try to see if we can bring Judaism to them in an easy and convenient way. Tell, me, what could be more convenient than to bring the lulav and the sukkah right here downtown?

“People have said to me, ‘we wanted to celebrate Sukkot. Now we can do it, because of you.’ ”

I Was Ambushed by The Mitzvah Police

Reposted from : http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com

Today my office was ambushed by the Mitzvah Police, well maybe not an ambush, after all there were no weapons, just a “green stick and a yellow rock.” For some reason it bothered me. I would like to know what you guys think so please leave me your opinion via the comments link below.

First let me tell ya’ll what happened. Sometime after lunch there was a ring at the front door of our corporate suite. A few minutes later the receptionist came into my office and said, “There are two Rabbis at the front door, they are carrying a green stick and a yellow rock, they wanted to know if there were any Jewish people in the office.”

This I had to see so I walked down the hall and opened the front door to reveal not Rabbis, but two Lubavitch boys, (18ish?) each holding a lulav and etrog. As soon as I opened the door one of them asked, “ Sir did you..” I cut him off, “Yes, this morning in Shul during Shachareet, good Yuntif” They responded in kind and I shut the door.

For some reason their “visit” really bugged me. They didn’t “out” me, my co-workers are very aware of my religion and level of observance. I think part of the reason was it reminded me of when I was a kid and my parents were checking up on me (that bothered me too).

Even more so it bothered me that these two boys knocking on office doors were turning Sukkot into a chore. I really enjoy the festivals, yet most non-observant Jews consider them minor holidays. For some non-practicing Jews in my building today this was their first exposure to the holiday in years, having a “green stick and yellow rock shoved in their face and being cajoled into making a brucha. So they did it this once and forgot about it. It’s like what the sages said, “give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach him to fish and he will eat for a life time.

What of instead these people were exposed to the joy of decorating a Sukkah with children, the beautiful melodies of Hallel, or even the warmth of a meal with family and friends in a Sukkah? Maybe then, they would eat for a lifetime.

So again I ask, what do you think?

Solon Chabad welcomes its new Torah scroll

BY: ALAN SMASON, Staff Reporter

With hundreds of children leading the way and musical accompaniment by Yiddishe Cup, 500 participants helped welcome a new Torah scroll to the Chabad Jewish Center of Solon on Sunday, Sept 10.

Local sofer (scribe) Elly Jacobs finished the last few letters with quill and ink in the Chabad sanctuary. Then the Torah scroll - the first one especially commissioned for the synagogue - was held aloft, dressed in a new mantle and adorned with silver crowns by Rabbi Zushe Greenberg. It was carried under a special chupah (wedding canopy) to the waiting throng.

Adults carried special braided havdalah candles to accompany the scroll on its half-mile parade route along nearby Cannon Road. Children held special “magic wand” lights and colorful balloons. A bright red antique car rode at the head of the parade, and an equipment truck electronically amplified the music of the marching band.

Back at the Chabad center, refreshments were served, including a large white cake in the shape of a Torah scroll.

Flimsy shelter, solid faith

Oct. 11, 2006. 01:00 AM

MICHELE HENRY
STAFF REPORTER

Nestled between the Bank of Montreal's trading floor and a mini-putt course, it's a wonder anyone knows about the downtown sukkah.

With only a small sign discreetly leading the way up to a rooftop terrace at First Canadian Place, the temporary wooden shelter is tough to find.

But for more than 20 years Jews in the know have been making a lunchtime pilgrimage from around the downtown core to this hidden hub during the weeklong festival of Sukkot.

Under a ceiling of bamboo sticks and evergreen leaves, they observe an age-old tradition in the heart of Toronto.

"It's great that they have it here," Mordy Bobrowsky said, inhaling an egg-salad sandwich yesterday from a bench inside the structure.

"If they didn't have it, I don't know what I'd do."

For eight days, Jews pay homage to God for sheltering the Israelites as they wandered through the desert thousands of years ago, by eating all their meals in a wobbly structure under the sky.

"We're going out of our sheltered environments," said Rabbi Aaron Grossbaum.

"We eat in a flimsy hut so we recognize the ultimate protector is God's benevolence."

But, breaking bread outdoors in the city's core can be tricky.

"I had to run here," Bobrowsky, a 29-year-old lawyer, said, explaining he left a lunch meeting with colleagues to eat quickly in this open-air hut, before the group starts talking business.

Ryan Peck pops his head inside and peers at the growing crowd of Jews, bagged lunches in hand, sitting down to feast.

The 35-year-old lawyer announces he'll be back in a little while to eat.

"I think if a society wants to truly support multiculturalism, things like this are beautiful," he said, noting he's erected a sukkah at his home, where he dines each night with his family.

Run by the Chabad Lubavitch, a sect of orthodox Jews, this sukkah has been a fixture at the foot of the courthouse for more than 20 years.

"We came downtown to try and invigorate Judaism and spirituality into the city around us," said Levi Gansburg, 23, who helped erect the Old City Hall sukkah, which usually gets more than 200 visitors a day.

Many are tourists, he said, who come to say a prayer at the station, which has the appropriate instruments of Sukkot prayer set up inside.

But many are also non-Jews who want to know what the hut and holiday are all about.

Heather Ferguson's head turns in the direction of the Queen St. sukkah as it sways in the breeze.

"What is this all about?" she asks, and one of the men inside gives her a quick rundown.

"I didn't know what a sukkah was before and I was interested," she said, looking at the activity around the makeshift shelter.

"This is one of the great things about living in Toronto."

THE LULAV

Last year at this time, I wrote this post about Sukkot. Actually, it was really about my irritation with the Lubavitch men and women who stop me on the street and say, "Are you Jewish?" I haven't seen any of them this year - today will probably be the DAY. This year, I plan to say, "Yes I am Jewish, and I don't want to touch your Lulav." Let's see how that goes.

Yesterday, I found myself irritated by the Lubavitch men on Seventh Avenue. Walking home at 6 p.m., I was asked at least five times by different groups of men: "Are you Jewish?" Each time I said "No" and they seemed to believe me. Maybe it's the blonde hair. Surprisingly, they didn't seem to flinch at all when I said: "No."

As a kid in a secular Jewish family, I loved the idea of Sukkot. I knew what it was even though my Jewish education was somewhat spotty. Building a Sukkah, a make-shift structure, out of branches, leaves, shrubs, and straw seemed so cool. Who wouldn't want to create a beautiful little playhouse in the courtyard of our apartment building or in Riverside Park.

In Park Slope, Sukkot means that there's a rather impressive Sukkah at Chai Tots on the corner of Prospect Park West and Third Street and the men from an extremely evangelical wing of hasidic Judaism, the Lubavitch sect, are out in droves in their dark suits trying to pursuade Jews to shake the lulav.

Most of the Jews I know have figured out a usable response to the question from the men on the street. One friend says: "Yes I'm Jewish but I already shook the lulav today." Another friend says: "Yeah, I'm Jewish and please leave me alone."

Lubavitch Hasidism is an international movement with headquarters in Brooklyn. They focus on transmitting to others Jews the Torah way of life and operate an extensive outreach effort to encourage a return to traditional practices. Their Mitzvah Tanks are a frequent sight in New York City.

My "Just Say No" tactic makes me very uncomfortable. I don't like to deny my heritage or hide who I am. We didn't survive the holocaust to lie to other Jews on Seventh Avenue about our identities. But it's a quick and easy way to be left alone. My irritation almost made me forget the way I used to marvel at this holiday. And it got me thinking about what the holiday is all about.

Google is a wonderful thing. When I got home, I sat down at the computer and in five seconds flat I arrived at Judaism 101 and got the answers I was looking for. (I hear there's also something called rabbi.com for just these kind of questions.) I've also got the book I bought my son for his 13th birthday: "The Jewish Book of Why," which is chock full of interesting Jewish religious facts. So here goes:

A lulav consists of fours species: a lemon, a palm branch (in Hebrew, lulav), two willow branches, and three myrtle branches.

The lulav must be waved in all six directions (east, south, west, north, up and down), symbolizing the fact that God is everywhere. This ritual is a key element of Sukkot, also known as the feast of the tabernacles, which begins on the fifth day after Yom Kippur. Unlike Yom Kippur, which is one of the most most solemn days of the year, Sukkot is a joyful holiday and sometimes referred to as the season of rejoicing.

Sukkot has historical and agricultural significance. Historically, Sukkot commemorates the forty-year period during which the Jews were wandering in the desert, living in temporary shelters. But it is also a harvest festival, a celebration of nature's bounty.

A Sukkah means literally a booth and it refers to the make-shift dwelling Jews are commanded to live in during this holiday in memory of the period of wandering. The Hebrew pronouciation of Sukkot is "Sue COAT." But the pronuciation I grew up with is the Yiddish one which rhymes with "BOOK us."

Sukkot lasts for seven days. I didn't know this, but no work is permitted on the first and second day of the holiday. That explains why I saw many orthodox Jews walking in Prospect Park yesteraday. Work is allowed on the other days of the holiday.

The key to Sukkah construction is that it must be hastily assembled like those temporary structrures the wandering Jews created in the desert. It must have at least two and half walls covered with a material that will not be blown by the wind. The roof must be covered with tree branches, or other natural materials. These materials must be left loose, not tied together or tied down.

Stars should be visible through the roof.

Even as I admire this beautiful ritual, I feel no real connection with it. It wasn't part of my family tradition nor does it answer any kind of spiritual longing on my part. But as a symbol of the Jew's plight of marginality (what Hannah Arendt would call "the Jew as pariah") throughout history: the wandering Jew, the Other, it resonates with me.

While learning about Sukkot is enormously interesting, I am very uncomfortable with the evangelical aspect of Lubavitch Hasidism. Having very strong beliefs is one thing but why must they insist on trying to persuade others to have the same beliefs? It all seems somewhat unJewish to me. What I like most about Judaism is the many ways there are to be Jew: secular, athiest, intellectual, cultural, political, reform, conservative, orthodox and hasidic, kabbalistic: there are many ways to express one's Judaism. Why is it necessary for ultra-religious Jews to try to make other kinds of Jews more religious. Why can't they just let us be.

It seems to me that this sort of evangelism has caused enough trouble. It's bullyish, highly annoying, and dangerous spiritually and politically. If I want to shake a lulav I will shake it in my own way, in my own time. I don't want to feel pressured, I don't want my Judaism questioned on the street, I don't want to have to express my Judaism the same way you do.

So there.

--Written October 2005

October 6, 2006 | Permalink
Comments

Back in the early '70s, the Lubavitchers would have their mitzvahmobile outside Hillel Gate at Brooklyn College every afternoon. Those of us walking on or off campus used to try to come up with more creative ways to deny our religious heritage when asked the "Are you..." question than just doing the thing Nancy Reagan would later advise.

Some of the responses I remember best:

"Certainly not!"

"Are you making fun of my looks?"

"G-d forbid."

Posted by: Richard | Oct 6, 2006 4:31:20 PM

My friend (who shall remain unnamed,) who is Jewish and has no love for the Lubavitchers, responds to the question "Are you Jewish?" with "Yes, I am, but you're not!"

Posted by: chandru | Oct 7, 2006 10:11:45 AM

Read a little bit about the the first Jew, Abraham , from authentic Jewish sources and you may discover why lubavitch does what it does , and Thank G-d for it!

HAPPY SUKKOT

Posted by: es | Oct 9, 2006 5:44:20 AM

Rabbi Stone's Traveling Sukkah

by Yori Yanover

Coming down East Broadway was a pickup SUV with a Sukkah in the back, with table and chair and rolled up kosher roofing. It was driven by our local Lubavitcher, Rabbi Israel Stone, who was playing pleasant Jewish music, accompanied by a taped explanation on what a Sukkah is. Most Sukkahs are temporary structures inside which Jews eat and sometimes even sleep, weather permitting, during the holiday of Sukkot. The pickup truck thing is a Lubavitch invention, in the spirit of bringing the mountain to Muhammad on those occasions when Muhammad is not ready to go to the mountain. Happy holiday!

Sukkot

The High Holy Days, also called the Ten Days of Awe, are the holy days that start with Rosh Hashanah and end with Yom Kippur. These are solemn holy days, days spent in introspection, seeking the forgiveness of G-d and our fellows, and examination of our lives and strategies for doing better next year. The Jewish New Year, unlike January 1st, is NOT a moment for celebration, partying, frivolity or excess.

However -- the High Holy Days are followed by my favorite holiday, Sukkot. Sukkot literally means 'booths' since those are what we built on our roofs or on our balconies and in our gardens.

The individual sukkah is decorated every bit as festively as the Christmas tree back in the states -- complete with decorative strings of winking lights. The sukkot here in Israel aren't as drab and plain as those we have back on the West Coast -- here the walls come imprinted with rich designs; people run electric lines out to their sukkot, and in addition to the pretty lights that string the inside walls of the sukkah, folks often have a chandelier over the table to see by. Every makolet has strings of plastic fruits or peppers to hang from the sukkot (it IS a harvest festival) and children decorate their sukkot with pictures of the "Ushpizin" or 'guests' (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph and David) who are said to visit the sukkah every night in turn. Children also make ribbons of color-paper rings to hang from the beams and pictures of fruit, of harvests, of landscapes and of rainbows to hang on the walls.



Chabad has an additional tradition of Ushpizin. Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn taught that there are "chassidic ushpizin" as well: the Baal Shem Tov, the Maggid (Rabbi DovBer of Mezeritch), and the first five rebbes of Chabad: Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, Rabbi DovBer of Lubavitch, Rabbi Menachem Mendel (the "Tzemach Tzeddek"), Rabbi Shmuel, and Rabbi Sholom DovBer. The Lubavitcher Rebbe would speak each night of Sukkot on the special characteristics of both the biblical and the chassidic ushpizin of the day and their connection to each other and their specific day of the festival.

But the key is hospitality and kindness, whether you have secular guests or Biblical guests or Chaddische guests as well. Guests are a necessity on Sukkot as well as one of the holiday's chief joys.

That's why there is a table and chairs in everyone's sukkah. Most Sukkot celebrations here and in the States involve rotating dinners at friends' homes. This is a lot easier here, when tomorrow isn't a work day and daylight saving has already ended, than in the States where you're coming home at 10pm and dreading pulling yourself, your spouse and your children out of bed early in the morning. Here, too, you see people eating in the sukkah at dinner, as well as at breakfast (the commandment is 'to eat in the sukkah' and that means everything. (Here, let me add our thanks to our generous neighbors upstairs who hardly know us, but who have installed a giant super-sukkah on the apartment building's front plaza and allowed us to eat breakfast and recite Shacharit with our lulav every morning in their sukkah.)

And sukkot themselves are everywhere. They bloom on people's balconies, they cover rooftops, they crowd the sidewalks. Last night near Mahane Yehuda, we walked ON Agrippas Street instead of on the adjoining sidewalk because the sidewalks were covered with sukkot. Walk home from a Jerusalem dinner in someone's sukkah and look up -- the balconies of apartment buildings are covered with the walls of the sukkot and people are eating dinner with their guests in each one.

You can tell that Sukkot is approaching in Jerusalem by watching the hotels. During the High Holy Days, sukkot begin to sprout from the rooftops and sides of the major hotels, followed shortly by more sukkot sprouting across the sidewalks in front of the city's restaurants.

We have that rarity in Jerusalem, a backyard. It is a large mirpesset (patio) and a generous patch of grass beyond the mirpesset. It's perfect for a sukkah. So we went sukkah-shopping. We returned empty-handed. Israeli stores DO have sukkot for sale--and at Home Center, my husband and I looked in amazement at the price tag: $550 for a sukkah? "It would be cheaper to order it from New York and pay for shipping," my husband muttered loudly.

I wanted this sukkah. It was beautiful. The price included the skach, the beams, and all the decorations (including some strings of electric lights) and delivery. But still.....$550? But...we're moving next year and there is no guarantee that a sukkah purchased for our apartment this year will fit our home next year. Mike cinched it: "For that kind of money, I'll take you out to dinner every night and you can eat out in a sukkah--it will be cheaper than buying the sukkah!" he said.

Done! A true festive week -- no cooking, no dishwashing, no shopping! THAT'S my idea of a holiday!

Taiwan

Try to observe Yom Kippur in some way over there. The Chabad Lubavitch movement probably holds a service, and they are pretty cool guys.

Boulder, CO

Crown Heights Gets a Modern-Day Watch Tower

BY BRADLEY HOPE - Staff Reporter of the Sun
October 9, 2006


In the aftermath of a series of violent assaults on members of the Jewish community in Crown Heights, the police department has deployed a piece of modern technology that is based on an age-old defense tactic: the watch tower.

The "sky tower," as police call it, stands about 25 feet high on the corner of Carroll Street and Troy Avenue. A police officer sits behind tinted windows on a swivel chair inside the compartment, where he can monitor video feed from four cameras, and even the wind speed from a meter on the roof. This is the first time the police have used the tower for crime prevention. It was acquired earlier this summer and has been used at the West Indian Day parade and for security during President Bush's visit to ground zero.

"It literally gives us the high ground from which to deter crime or to respond to crimes in progress," the police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, said.

Police have also set up command center vans at two other spots in Crown Heights.

Not half a block from the tower, a group of young men assaulted a teenage boy on the night of Yom Kippur last Sunday. The boy, who neighbors identified as Mendel Chesney, 16, was walking on Carroll Street when he was hit in the head from behind by a fist or a rock. He blacked out for a few moments and woke to a group of between five and eight young men pummeling him, witnesses said. Two neighbors down the block ran to his aid, and chased three of the attackers into the arms of the police. Mr. Chesney had a laceration to his head that required three staples, a broken nose, and cuts and bruises, police and community members said. A witness heard one of the attackers call Mr. Chesney a "Jew."

Police identified two of the boys arrested as Lensley Thomas, 16, and Jelani Thomas, 16. The boys live in two different houses on Sterling Place, about six blocks from where the attack took place. A 15-year-old boy was also arrested, but police withheld his name because of crime disclosure laws.

For many community members interviewed yesterday, the attack was indicative of a rise in crimes in the 71st precinct. Comparing the same period this year with last year, crime is down in every category except grand larcenies. Murders have increased from eight in 2001 to 14 in 2006.

"This was just one of many recent assaults in the neighborhood," the City Council member for the area, Letitia James, said. "If you look at the numbers, it's not a major spike, but it is an increase."

Ms. James said she has been lobbying Commissioner Kelly for additional police officers in her district, including designating part of Crown Heights an "impact zone," which would bring more foot patrols.

Several hundred members of the community rallied in front of Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters on Friday, calling on police to charge the three boys with hate crimes. For many in the chasidic Jewish community, which has lived for decades mixed with the West Indian community in the neighborhood, the recent attacks appear to have been disproportionately against chasidic Jews. In the last year an elderly woman was robbed, several teenagers were violently mugged, and home invasions have been more common, community members said.

A resident of Carroll Street, Yosi Henich, 41, said the tower made people in the neighborhood feel safer, but many were worried about what would happen when the Jewish High Holy Day season was over and the technological solutions were withdrawn.

"The last few days have been great," he said, referring to the tower. "But, it's just a show. They're trying to calm us down."

Jewish festival brings hut to campus

Michael Applebaum spent hours last week drilling holes and nailing down boards for Lawrence’s largest Sukkah.

Applebaum, Overland Park senior, and some of his friends built the temporary and ceremonial hut at the Chabad Jewish Center, 1203. W. 19 St., in preparation for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.

This week, Lawrence’s largest Sukkah and the University of Kansas’ first Sukkah hut will be on campus. The smaller hut on campus is sponsored by the Chabad Jewish Center and Hillel. The larger hut is located at the Chabad Center.

“Pizza in the Hut”

When: 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Where: Sukkah hut, north of the Kansas Union parking lot

What: Free kosher pizza, traditional Jewish foods, drinks and Jewish music in a Sukkah hut to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Sukkot

Sponsored by KU Hillel and the Chabad Jewish Center

Source: KU Hillel and the Chabad Jewish Center

“I’ve always celebrated with my family by building a Sukkah at home, but this is nice for those who can’t,” Applebaum said.

KU’s Sukkah hut was built on Monday north of the Kansas Union parking lot. At 5:30 p.m. today, Chabad and Hillel will host “Pizza in the Hut.” The event will feature free kosher pizza, traditional Jewish food and drink as well as Jewish music.

Matt Lehrman, Jewish student life coordinator and program director for Hillel, said the hut’s location on campus would provide opportunities for students to participate in the holiday who might have missed out on experiencing a Sukkah before because they lived in residence halls or fraternities and sororities.

Rabbi Zalman Tiechtel, director of the Chabad Jewish Center, said Sukkot is a week to celebrate the Israelites’ 40-year journey with Moses into the Sinai Desert before entering Israel centuries ago.

The Sukkah hut is used to symbolize the cloud covering that Jewish people believe kept the Israelites safe during their long journey. Today’s ceremonial hut is composed of four walls with a twig ceiling. Teichtel said the cracks between the twigs allow people to view the stars at night.

“For seven days, this hut should be your home,” Tiechtel said. “You take your meals in here. This is a time to celebrate and party and boost Jewish moral and confidence on campus.”

The Chabad Jewish Center will also use a traveling Sukkah to spread the holiday’s message and traditions. Tiechtel said the center would use a small, portable hut to serve food at various locations around Lawrence and the University, such as residence halls, fraternities, sororities and various locations on Massachusetts Street.

“If you can’t come to the Sukkah, the Sukkah will come to you,” Teichtel said.

The Sukkah hut will be on campus until Wednesday afternoon. Sukkot continues until Oct. 15. Anyone is welcome to visit the Sukkah hut and attend the event.

Kansan staff writer Courtney Hagen can be contacted at chagen@kansan.com

­ — Edited by Jacky Carter

Yeshiva bochers open up kosher deli in downtown S.F.

by joe eskenazi
staff writer

At the S.F. New York Deli, you can get a homemade knish and a pastrami sandwich with a side order of tefillin.

The walk-in lunch spot, which opened in late September at the Embarcadero Center, is one of many restaurants dotting the walkway between Justin Herman Plaza and Drumm Street — but it’s the only one with mezuzahs on the doors.

Any remaining questions about which eatery is the kosher deli are immediately cleared up when one walks through the door and spots 19-year-old counterman Menachem Freeman laying tefillin. Within a few moments store proprietor Yisroel Freeman, 23, and manager Yossi Roth, 19, would also lay tefillin in between dicing carrots, stirring matzah ball soup and serving a few kosher-conscious customers ecstatic that they no longer had to shlep a brown-bag lunch to work.

“I’ve always wanted to be my own boss,” explains Yisroel Freeman as to why he’d enter San Francisco’s restaurant business (risky) with a kosher deli (lethal).

Both the Freeman brothers are from Crown Heights, and Roth grew up in Miami Beach. So they do know the huge responsibility of self-applying the term “New York deli” to a restaurant. Even non-Jews conjure up images of sumptuous sandwiches piled with meat, meat and more meat, and delightfully bitter pickles bursting with more salt than Lot’s wife.

But only weeks into business, Freeman’s place seems to be passing the test.

“The other day two guys came in and one of them ordered a combo. And the friend saw us making the food and said ‘that sandwich looks pretty badass, I want one too,’” says the elder Freeman with a laugh.

Incidentally, the deli’s sandwiches are indeed rather large. They’re not Carnegie Deli large, but that’s kind of like saying a destroyer is smaller than an aircraft carrier.

Freeman arrived in Oakland a couple of years ago to serve as a mashgiach — a kosher overseer — at Oakland Kosher, working for the Vaad HaKashrus (who now oversee his store). And when Freeman took note of the dearth of kosher delis in San Francisco, he figured he could spin it two ways — there’s either no demand for it or it’s a vast, untapped market. Freeman is hoping for the latter.

They young restaurateurs, incidentally, don’t don kippahs and beards and lay tefillin for show. All three are deeply religious, and Yisroel Freeman and Roth are both ordained Chabad rabbis — not that they look the part. Roth may be the world’s only rabbi who wears trucker caps to work (though Freeman notes that if the idea of a rabbi dressed like Ashton Kutcher is unusual, so’s the notion of a glatt kosher joint in the Embarcadero).

So far, Freeman estimates around 60 percent of his customers are kosher-conscious and 80 percent are Jews. And while he feels that yes, you can stay in business selling virtually only to Jews, he doesn’t intend to.

“For the lunch crowd here at Embarcadero, they can get kosher or they can get pizza. For them it doesn’t make a difference,” he says.

And once they’re in the store, it’s a good bet the Freeman boys or Roth will steer them toward buying a homemade knish, fresh chicken soup and, of course, a Dr. Brown’s soda.

For Freeman, success means, naturally, staying in business. But it also means happy customers, who come back again and again and bring friends.

And, as if on cue, a customer walks in the store, eyes the menu and asks if Freeman can serve him a bowl of New England clam chowder. There’s an awkward pause, and Freeman patiently explains why he, in fact, cannot. The customer thanks him and leaves.

“Well,” says Freeman with a smile, “you can’t make everyone happy.”

CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California

Baja community begins where the land ends

by Adam Wills, Associate Editor

Waves rush over a pebbled beach as the tensions of city life melt away. The Mexican sun hangs languidly overhead, bleaching colorful kayaks stacked along the shoreline. Hovering far off in the deep blue skies, parasailors are dwarfed by the arriving Carnival cruise ship that will soon drop anchor off the rocky coast.

It's easy to understand why celebrities like John Wayne, Desi Arnaz and Bing Crosby were drawn here -- yet kept it a secret for nearly 20 years after the 1956 opening of The Palmilla, the area's first resort catering to sportfishing enthusiasts.

Located at the tip of Baja California, Cabo San Lucas is at the western end of what has become a 20-mile corridor of hotels and gated communities known collectively as Los Cabos, bookended in the east by the airport-adjacent town of San José del Cabo. The tiny fishing village has given way to beaches lined with luxury hotels and a notorious nightlife, but the laid-back seaside attitude still hangs in region's salty air.

World-class golf courses, sportfishing, scuba diving, horseback riding, hiking and desert tours are all popular draws, as Cabo enjoys 350 days of sun annually. From December to April, gray whales migrate here to calve their young, and this year's addition of the Cabo Dolphins center to the Cabo San Lucas marina adds the opportunity for visitors to swim with Pacific bottlenose dolphins (reservations are required).

Since tourism continues to boom here, drawing upward of 1 million guests each year, construction projects are part of the backdrop along the corridor, much like the Vegas Strip.

Many of the 100,000 permanent residents are retirees from north of the border, so this decidedly Mexican resort destination has an increasingly American sensibility. A plethora of U.S. retail chains and restaurants -- including Johnny Rockets and Hard Rock Cafe -- have set up shop in area malls and shopping centers, and even lox is now readily available at the local Costco.

Once the secret of Cabo was out, it seemed that there were few surprises left. But in the last year a very visible and increasingly vibrant Jewish community is taking shape where the land meets the sea.

While the exact number of Jews living here is not known, a communitywide Passover seder earlier this year at the Villa Del Palmar attracted more than 100 guests, and Shabbat services on the last weekend of each month routinely draws between 30 to 50 people to a donated third-floor space in the contemporary Puerto Paraiso shopping center.

Los Cabos is such a boomtown it has few natives. Jews attending community events hail from all over -- America, Israel, Argentina, South Africa and other Mexican states. But the diversity has led to some communication problems.

"Israelis here don't speak Spanish, and some Argentineans don't speak English. So there's no one language [that we have] in common," said Rabbi Mendel Polichenco, who has conducted religious services in Cabo San Lucas over the last year. "When I give a dvar Torah, I don't know what language to use. I do half English and half Spanish usually."

Polichenco, director of Chula Vista-based Chabad Without Borders, says U.S., Israeli and Argentinean employees at Diamonds International have been spreading word about the religious services, as well as Adriana Kenlan, an English news broadcaster on Cabo Mil Radio.

But the person he credits with being at the forefront of Jewish organizing in Los Cabos is David Greenberg of Senor Greenberg's Mexicatessen.

Greenberg, a 37-year-old L.A. native who grew up in the Conservative movement, came to Los Cabos in January 1992 to consider whether he would attend law school and never left. He knocked around in construction and restaurant management jobs and spent three years as a consular agent for the U.S. State Department. But after meeting Jim Sutter, the two became business partners and decided to open an upscale New York-style deli together in Cabo San Lucas. After getting pointers from Art Ginsburg of Art's Deli in Studio City, the pair opened the first Senor Greenberg's in the Plaza Nautica in October 1997, followed by a second location at Puerto Paraiso in September 2004.

"Next thing I know, I've got another restaurant, I'm married, I have a son," said Greenberg, whose Mazatlan-born wife, Karla, converted through the University of Judaism.

As if his life wasn't busy enough already with 11-month-old Joshua and a third Senor Greenberg's scheduled to open this month in Plaza Gali near Cabo Dolphins, Greenberg is working hard to establish a Jewish presence in Cabo.

Real estate developer José Galicot, who is based out of San Diego and Tijuana, has provided the funds for Polichenco's visits, he said. But that money was only intended as a stopgap and will dry up at the end of this year.

"It's going to be up to us to see it through to 2007," said Greenberg, who added that he expects developing a self-sufficient community here will be challenging.

Securing a permanent space at Puerto Paraiso for the Baja Jewish Community Center is the next step, he said. Hebrew classes, as well as Spanish lessons for Israelis, will be offered there, in addition to religious services. As far as future spiritual leadership, Greenberg hopes to track down a retired rabbi who would want to spend Jewish holidays in Cabo. And then there's the matter of finding a Torah that would be stored at the center.

A Torah scroll already exists in Los Cabos, at the five-star Marquis Los Cabos, some 20 minutes east of Cabo San Lucas, where Mexico City-based proprietor Jose Kalach has set up a prayer room in his hotel, complete with a small ark. But the Torah is intended primarily for the Kalach family's personal use. Hotel guests and wedding parties can use it, but a written request must be filed with the hotel at least one month prior. Since the sanctuary is attached to a conference room, scheduling conflicts can make availability less certain.

Opened in 2003, this Condé Nast gold list hotel was designed by Jewish Mexican architect Jacobo Micha, who modeled the hotel's open-air arch entrance after El Arco, or the Arch of Poseidon, a famous 200-foot natural passageway at the tip of the Baja peninsula that travelers can walk through at low tide. Statues of winged angels stand at the ready in the hotel's entrance and throughout the property (photo below).

Kalach's wife helped design the hotel's interior, which is intended to evoke Mexico at its best. "Almost everything is Mexican. The furniture, the fabrics, the paintings, the sculptures ... everything had to be from Mexico," said Frederique Naffrichoux, sales director for the Marquis Los Cabos.

Although Kalach's five-star Marquis Reforma in Mexico City offers a kosher menu, at this time there are no plans to do the same for the Marquis Los Cabos. In fact, Los Cabos has no kosher restaurants or hotels. The closest it has come was this year when Travel Center of Miami organized a weeklong Passover event at the Pueblo Bonito Pacifica, which required that the kitchen be kashered.

Greenberg said many of the supermarkets are importing more boxed and canned kosher foods, and Orthodox friends who come to visit him will simply wrap fish in aluminum foil and cook it over his grill. "People do what they need to do," he said.

Given the entrepreneurial spirit in Los Cabos, if the demand for a kosher restaurant is there, someone likely will step in to fill that need. "As the town grows, more will become available," Greenberg said.



Chabad Without Borders

http://www.chabadwithoutborders.com

Diamonds International

http://www.shopdi.com

Se?or Greenberg's Mexicatessen

http://www.allaboutcabo.com/srgreenbergs.htm

Cabo Dolphins

http://www.cabodolphins.com/

Villa Del Palmar

www.villadelpalmarloscabos.com

Marquis Los Cabos

http://www.marquisloscabos.com/

Pueblo Bonito Pacifica

http://www.pueblobonito.com/

Travel Center of Miami

http://www.travelcentermiami.com/

Joyful dwelling

Festive Jewish holiday Sukkot unites family, food in celebratory shelters

By Terry Rombeck

Saturday, October 7, 2006

Dave Berkowitz and his son, Jack, tighten the metal-pipe frame with an Allen wrench.

Then, they wrap canvas material around the frame. It’s complete with a door, window and Hebrew writings inside.

Finally, the Berkowitzes put on a bamboo roof — with slits wide enough to see the stars, as is custom.

In just a half-hour, the family’s back deck has become the site of a sukkah — a hut used to celebrate the Jewish holiday Sukkot, a joyous time that starts tonight and lasts seven days.

“It’s the most joyful week of the year,” says Rabbi Zalman Tiechtel of Kansas University’s Chabad Jewish Center. “We’re supposed to smile a lot, and to sing and dance.”

Social time

Sukkot — pronounced “sue-COAT” — commemorates the 40-year period that, according to Jewish scripture, the Jewish people wandered in the desert, living in temporary shelters.

It also is a harvest festival, centered around fall foods such as squash and apples.

Sometimes, the sukkahs are decorated with gourds, lights or other adornments.

Traditions vary, but Jews eat some or all of their meals in the sukkah during Sukkot. Often, they invite friends to visit their sukkah during the holiday.

Part of the holiday is tied to Jewish appreciation of being in the outdoors.

“We share this with friends and other people,” says Katherine Berkowitz, Dave’s wife. “It’s community-centered, like most Jewish celebrations. It’s a friend and community effort.”

Super sukkah

The construction of sukkahs varies widely.

Tiechtel says some of his neighbors in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he is from, spent thousands of dollars building elaborate sukkahs every Sukkot.

At the Chabad Center, 1203 W. 19th St., workers have been busy constructing the largest sukkah in Lawrence — a 12-by-20-foot hut in the center’s backyard.

“You definitely have to have a sukkah; it’s central to the holiday of Sukkot,” says Charles Goldberg, a KU sophomore from Chicago who was helping build the sukkah last week. “Never in my life have I seen a sukkah this big. A lot of work went into this.”

The sukkah has a wooden frame, will be wrapped in a tarp and covered with bamboo.

Goldberg says the social time is of special importance because it follows Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, and Yom Kippur, the somber Jewish holiday of atonement.

“This is the party after the serious beginning of the new year,” he says. “We have a lot of dedication to our prayers and repeating the prayers. After a week of nonstop prayer, now it’s time to party.”

The Chabad center will have a community Sukkot open house any time Monday and Tuesday. It will join with KU Hillel for a Pizza in the Hut celebration Tuesday evening in an on-campus sukkah north of the Kansas Union.

Matt Lehrman, program director for KU Hillel, says he’s hoping the on-campus sukkah raises awareness of Sukkot.

“It’s another way for people to celebrate in a visible way,” he says. “It’s another way Jewish students can make their presence known at KU. It’s for people to celebrate a holiday and share it with campus. It’s open to anyone.”

New awareness

Not all of the sukkahs are as elaborate or as large as the one at the Chabad center.

Dave Greenbaum ordered his on the Internet, at www.sukkah.com. The 4-by-6-foot tent cost $400.

“This is the first time” to have a sukkah, he says. “I’ve been to other people’s before.”

He and his partner plan to invite friends over for dinner next week.

“It’s very social and very environmental,” Greenbaum says. “It’s the idea of dining out under the stars, just like my people have been doing for thousands of years.”

Tiechtel says he’s hoping the Chabad center — as well as a portable sukkah his organization is planning to set up around town next week — can raise awareness about a Jewish holiday that isn’t as well-known as Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur.

“People don’t know about it,” Tiechtel says. “But many Jews in Lawrence, and KU students, miss it. It’s a special family holiday.”