My husband, Rabbi Allen Maller, and I had been invited by Severyn Ashkenazy the patron of the Reform Jewish Congregation in Warsaw to come to Poland for two months, to help the Beit Warshazva Congregation. Before we left Poland to return to Los Angeles, Darius gave me a kiss and handed me a large picture […]
Margosha’s Story
One sabbath, I noticed Margosha, she had come by herself to the reform synagogue in Warsaw for Friday night services. She was in her late twenties a thin, tall woman with short brown hair and glasses. Margosha’s clothes were in brown tones, a tweedy blazer, a dark chocolate brown skirt with a white shirt and […]
Are Non-Jews With Jewish Identities Welcome?
The number of people who believe they are descendants of Jews is almost equal to the number of Jews who are counted in official international censuses, according to British historian Tudor Parfitt, an expert on Judaizing movements, who was a keynote speaker at a Jerusalem conference held in early November at the Van Leer Institute, […]
Grow Or Decline
More than 20 centuries ago, the great Jewish sage Hillel stated that “Those who do not add; subtract” (Avot 1:13) Our rabbis traditionally applied this wise saying to the subject of study and learning; which they saw as an ongoing process. Hillel’s admonition is the intellectual equivalent of today’s medical advice about our physical health, […]
Beit Warszawa and its Jews
In an American or Canadian Reform Synagogue today, about 10-15% of the younger generation of members were not born or raised as Jews. Almost half of this small minority were formally converted to Judaism by a Reform or Conservative Rabbi (Geray Tsedek). Another third of these people have informally become Jewish by living Jewishly, and […]