- Congregation Beth El–Keser Israel
85 Harrison Street, New Haven, CT 06515-1724 | P: 203.389.2108 | office@beki.org
85 Harrison Street, New Haven, CT 06515-1724 | P: 203.389.2108 | office@beki.org
…e New York Times reported that one senator said that President Bush’s Iraq policy was a “fraud” and on the Senate floor described “the policy as a ‘colossal failure’ unworthy of what he said was an $87 billion blank check…. [A Representative] accused [the senator] of uttering ‘hate speech’ and said he needed to apologize to the country for accusing Mr. Bush of what amounted to treason. Senate leaders said the criticism threatened the military’s mi…
…While masks are not required at BEKI, we strongly suggest that everyone wear a quality mask inside BEKI. We encourage everyone who is eligible to please get vaccinated. We thank you for your help reducing the spread of COVID….
…support the bill’s goals. Sometimes legislators compromise on a “package” of issues, or support a bill that is not optimal because it is just the best that they think is attainable. It is not fair to oversimplify the process – doing so is itself a poor way to influence public policy. I do think clergy can, and should, play a significant role in the development of public policy, and that our religious values should inform our positions on civil qu…
…t publicity usually received more severe treatment. No explicit government policy towards conscientious objectors existed, and cases have been dealt with on an ad hoc basis. Notes 1. According to the Israel Defence Forces, 18,000 Yeshiva students had received deferments between 1948 and 1987, as reported by Dan Margalit in Ha’aretz, 28 Jan. 1988 p. 1. 2. Martin Blatt, Uri Davis, and Paul Kleinbaum, ed., Dissent and Ideology in Israel — Resistance…
…ans in attempting to govern Judaea as a province. They were committed to a policy of protecting Jewish religious liberty, but on the political level they were opposed to nationalist aspirations among their subjects. The problem in Judaea was that to the Jews religion and politics were inextricably bound up together as two facets of a single way of life, and though a modus vivendi might have been established between Rome and moderate Jewish opinion…
…gants thankful for the near end of the Covid-19 pandemic. But now with the Delta Variant and a rise in new Covid cases, some synagogues are still deciding whether to hold services inside or whether to resign themselves to another Zoom Jewish New Year. Even without the Delta variant, Rabbi Eric Woodward of Beth El Keser Israel (BEKI) in New Haven had already planned “Processing Our Return to the Building: Our Hopes & Fears” — two discussion session…
…the four walls. Membership dues were low, but the shul was filled more by ticket buyers than members at holiday time. Aliyot were auctioned to the highest bidder, cantors were hired just for the High Holy Days — the more renowned the cantor, the better the ticket sales. The Rabbi did not have a contract with the Congregation. By informal arrangement, he would be available to one or more congregations to deliver sermons, but earned his living by…
…l’s credit as an extraordinary effort at peaceful coexistence. It is not a policy of expulsion or genocide against an entire people, let alone the residents of this one city. A Google search finds the vast majority of cases in which the terms “ethnic cleansing” or “transfer” are used in this context are the words of Israel’s enemies, not Israeli leaders. From time to time, right-wing voices are reported to talk about the desirability of transferri…
…s “should the RA admit openly Gay and Lesbian people?” That is a matter of policy, a political question, more than a halakhic or legal question. My answer to that is, Yes, the RA should continue its historic policy of admitting Gay and (more recently) Lesbian rabbis, acknowledging the fact that people now normally live openly Gay and Lesbian lives. All that changes is that whereas in the past we quietly overlooked what was considered a technical (…
…while ignoring the halakha. That would be a dubious way to make Synagogue policy, and one liable to create discontent and foster contempt for law and tradition as well as for the Synagogue leadership. I agree with Rabbi Avram Israel Reisner’s teshuva (responsum) “Joint Aliya” approved by the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly, the highest halakhic body in the land, on 28 October of 1992, that prohibits the practice o…
