February President's Message by Helaine Norman

A workshop was held at our temple on Sunday, January 18. Completely free of charge, the Union for Reform Judaism assisted by working with our Board and several other attendees and sending a facilitator from New York. Some of the objectives were overcoming burnout of those who have for many years worked tirelessly for this temple, creating new and energizing both old and new leadership, fortifying our foundation, providing perspective and incentive and setting and prioritizing goals for the future. It is exciting to see the new and younger members who have a vested interest in becoming active members, especially those with children. With their interest in mind, the fact that we are a small Jewish community and the need for the continuity of Judaism here make it essential that new generations be active! Thank you to Marilyn Fenimore for taking excellent notes at the meeting.

Marilyn Fenimore and Georgie Hartzog have been gracious enough to take on the responsibilities of onegs. This is very appreciated by me since I've been doing it now for a year and a half. They cannot do it alone, however, so please look forward to them contacting you for your help when needed.

Our membership has dwindled some this year. Some of this is due to attrition (death, relocation, economy, etc.) Some of you have perhaps just not gotten around to sending in your applications and dues. Always know that no one is ever turned down due to financial reasons. We cannot count you as a member without your completion of an application. Do not be too proud to discuss this with Nathan Miller, Treasurer, or I and rest assured that information is confidential. Some of you have not been with us since the beginning of the fiscal year (July 1). Your membership will be prorated.

With current economic conditions I see our temple as a source of sanctuary for us. It is even more of a reason to observe Shabbat and other traditions! Even without a rabbi emotional needs can be met when we gather and pray together and get together as a family at onegs and other occasions.

Mark your calendars and be looking for information about a new members dinner, the Purim carnival and our congregational Passover seder.

Some of you have called me to ask when services will be held. Your calls are welcome any time. I always welcome and enjoy the chance to talk with you. But, let me remind you that the calendar is always located on the right side of this blog just below the article by our Caring Committee Chair, Georgie Hartzog. Just scroll down to it. You will also find all current Joys and Remembrances and archives of blog information for past months. How cool is that!

January President's Message by Helaine Norman

January President’s Message

My message this month is late due to the loss of my beloved husband, may he rest in peace, but knowing him as I did, he would have wanted life for me and our congregation to go on as usual. He always knew how important it was to me and the Jewish community here for us to keep it going and growing.

As of this date, January 14, our board is preparing to meet as usual tonight with a multi-item agenda that includes our upcoming board workshop of Sunday, January 18, to be led by a URJ-provided facilitator, where we will focus on setting priorities for the future and ways of achieving them. We will also discuss our upcoming semi-annual meeting of January 21 at 7PM, and some social and fundraising ideas. Please save that date! Speaking of saving dates let me tell you of some others which you will hear more about in the coming weeks. Our Purim party is scheduled for March 15 at this time, and our annual community Passover Seder will be April 8.

I and Lee Lapensohn recently listened in on some conference calls about congregational security preparedness and the latest updates on the situation in Israel with Israeli officials and leaders of our Reform movement, and Homeland Security. We can never be too prepared and are taking precautionary steps to protect our building, community and especially our children in light of the recent events not only in Gaza but in areas of the U.S., including some of our Jewish congregations and worldwide.

Let us pray for the peace and safety of Israel, our people and the soldiers who are now suffering pain and violence. May they and we all live in harmony with one another and our neighbors. We can show them our support and solidarity by writng to an IDF soldier or citizen in the line of the conflict and attacks at http://www.chabad.org/special/gazawar/letter.htm. I did and received a lovely response about how much it was appreciated. They need to know they have the concern of others.

Once again, my sincere thanks to all who have given comfort to me and my family during our loss. It’s one of the reasons our community exists – for the love and care of one another.

Nothing But Nets by Helaine Norman

I received a donation, in memory of my husband, to Nothing But Nets.

Nothing But Nets is a global, grassroots campaign to save lives by preventing malaria, a leading killer of children in Africa. The Union for Reform Judaism joined this initiative in 2007 with the hope of providing 50,000 nets to save lives. It only costs $10 for a bed net to cover an entire family and save them from this terrible disease. What a nice way to do a mitzvah for so little money! I encourage you to make such a donation when you are looking for a donation to make. You can find out more about this by checking it out at http://urj.org/relief/nets/programs/ or donate by going to http://urj.org/relief/nets/.

Caution is called for

January 4, 2009

8 Tevet 5769

Over the past week, both the Reform and the Conservative synagogues in Knoxville, TN, were vandalized. At Temple Beth El, rocks were thrown and broke four of the six stained-glass windows. This violence follows last week’s incidents at Temple Sholom of Chicago, where a Molotov cocktail was thrown against the building, and in Irvine, CA, where anti-Israel signs were posted at a synagogue.

While there is no evidence that these acts are in any way connected, they do serve as a reminder to us that we need to be vigilant. As the war in Gaza escalates, there could be an increase in tension that might lead to further incidents.

We have therefore gathered resources online, and we urge you to review them.

Most importantly, these acts remind us that we, as a community, must stand united in the face of violence and hatred. Each of us, in every corner of the Union, feels violated when Jewish institutions are threatened. And we are also reminded that, together, we are stronger than any congregation can be on its own.

Stephen Eisen, president of Temple Beth El in Knoxville, posted this note to his fellow presidents following Shabbat worship this weekend.

It's hard to explain what I am feeling. As President, it is my responsibility to show strength and to make sure we move in the right direction. From the bimah I watched the congregants (a full house) stare at the holes in the windows throughout the service. Many cried and my neighbor, a dear friend who I take to services every Friday night, told me she felt like she was back in Germany in the 1930's. She hopes this is not the beginning to more acts of violence.

Quite honestly, I am overwhelmed by the act, the sadness of my congregation and the warmth displayed by you, my fellow Presidents. I've lived my entire life with a fear of something like this happening but never really thought it would. It's always someone else, right?

We will move on. We have insurance, the windows will be repaired. We will find the money to better protect them in the future. The local media is covering the story and there will be a unified outcry from the local religious community.

My question is when will this nonsense end? When will we, as Jews, ever really feel safe? When will religious freedom truly be enjoyed in this great country?

Thank you for your support and prayers. Thank you for sharing this story with your congregations. As the Rabbi from the Knoxville Conservative congregation said to me this evening "when someone hurts one of us they hurt all of us".

Our strength is in our unity.

We pray that there are no further incidents, but, should something occur in your community, please let the Union for Reform Judaism know by contacting either your regional director or Emily Grotta, Director of Marketing & Communications, at ESGrotta@urj.org, 212.650.4227.

Peter Weidhorn, Chairman Board of Trustees

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President

Informal Adult Study Session Offered by the Student Rabbi

I would like to offer an informal adult study session on Saturdays and thought I should advertise this on the blog. I think it should be held in the late morning (around 10:30 ideally?). If there are specific topics that people are interested in learning about I would love to hear them, and I can work on researching some information. If not, then the sessions will probably focus on the Torah portion of the week. My hope is that this will give me a way to interact more with some of the congregants as well, of course, as just providing an opportunity to learn some more Torah!

I would like to emphasize that it will be informal, and just an opportunity to discuss some more Torah and Judaism for about an hour and a half or so. I do need to know if there is enough solid interest for me to work on putting together lesson materials.

Please respond to me at luvbullbreeds@gmail.com or call the temple and leave a message if you are interested.

The Jews Face a Double Standard By Marvin Hier

The Jews Face a Double Standard

Why doesn't Israel have the same right to self-defense as other nations?

By Marvin Hier

The world-wide protests against Israel's ground incursion into Gaza are so full of hatred that they leave me with the terrible feeling that these protests have little to do with the so-called disproportionality of the Israeli response to Hamas rockets, or the resulting civilian casualties.

My fear is that the rage we see in the protesters marching in the streets is far more profound and dangerous than we would like to believe. There are a great many people in the world who, even after Auschwitz, just can't bear the Jewish state having the same rights they so readily grant to other nations. These voices insist Israel must take risks they would never dare ask of any other nation-state -- risks that threaten its very survival -- because they don't believe Israel should exist in the first place.

Just look at the spate of attacks this week on Jews and Jewish institutions around the world: a car ramming into a synagogue in France; a Chabad menorah and Jewish-owned shops sprayed with swastikas in Belgium; a banner at an Australian rally demanding "clean the earth from dirty Zionists!"; demonstrators in the Netherlands chanting "Gas the Jews"; and in Florida, protestors demanding Jews "Go back to the ovens!"

How else can we explain the double-standard that is applied to the Gaza conflict, if not for a more insidious bias against the Jewish state?

At the U.N., no surprise, this double-standard is in full force. In response to Israel's attack on Hamas, the Security Council immediately pulled an all-night emergency meeting to consider yet another resolution condemning Israel. Have there been any all-night Security Council sessions held during the seven months when Hamas fired 3,000 rockets at half a million innocent civilians in southern Israel? You can be certain that during those seven months, no midnight oil was burning at the U.N. headquarters over resolutions condemning terrorist organizations like Hamas. But put condemnation of Israel on the agenda and, rain or shine, it's sure to be a full house.

Red Cross officials are all over the Gaza crisis, describing it as a full-blown humanitarian nightmare. Where were they during the seven months when tens of thousands of Israeli families could not sleep for fear of a rocket attack? Where were their trauma experts to decry that humanitarian crisis?

There have been hundreds of articles and reports written from the Erez border crossing falsely accusing Israel of blocking humanitarian supplies from reaching beleaguered Palestinians in Gaza. (In fact, over 520 truck loads of humanitarian aid have been delivered through Israeli crossings since the beginning of the Israeli counterattack.) But how many news articles, NGO reports and special U.N. commissions have investigated Hamas's policy of deliberately placing rocket launchers near schools, mosques and homes in order to use innocent Palestinians as human shields?

Many people ask why there are so few Israeli casualties in comparison with the Palestinian death toll. It's because Israel's first priority is the safety of its citizens, which is why there are shelters and warning systems in Israeli towns. If Hamas can dig tunnels, it can certainly build shelters. Instead, it prefers to use women and children as human shields while its leaders rush into hiding.

And then there are the clarion calls for a cease-fire. These words, which come so easily, have proven to be a recipe for disaster. Hamas uses the cease-fire as a time-out to rearm and smuggle even more deadly weapons so the next time, instead of hitting Sderot and Ashkelon, they can target Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

The pattern is always the same. Following a cease-fire brought on by international pressure, there will be a call for a massive infusion of funds to help Palestinians recover from the devastation of the Israeli attack. The world will respond eagerly, handing over hundreds of millions of dollars. To whom does this money go? To Hamas, the same terrorist group that brought disaster to the Palestinians in the first place.

The world seems to have forgotten that at the end of World War II, President Harry Truman initiated the Marshall Plan, investing vast sums to rebuild Germany. But he did so only with the clear understanding that the money would build a new kind of Germany -- not a Fourth Reich that would continue the policies of Adolf Hitler. Yet that is precisely what the world will be doing if we once again entrust funds to Hamas terrorists and their Iranian puppet masters.

In less than two weeks, Barack Obama will be sworn in as president of the United States. But there is no "change we can believe in" in the Middle East -- not where Israel is concerned. The double-standard continuously applied to the Jewish state proves that, for much of the world, the real lessons of World War II have yet to be learned.

Mr. Hier, a rabbi, is the founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and its Museum of Tolerance.

Click here to read this article on the Wall Street Journal website...