- 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 Tova Benson-Tilsen Fund for Animal Welfare at Congregation Beth El-Keser Israel and in Israel The Tova Benson-Tilsen Fund for Animal Welfare at Congregation Beth El-Keser Israel and in Israel was established in 2009 by Tova Benson-Tilsen and her family and friends at the time of her bat mitzva celebration. Proceeds are intended to promote awareness and observance of the mitzva of tsa`ar ba`alei hayim (the prohibition against animal cruelty) and…
…”) formed from the merger of Congregation Beth El (founded in 1892 as Bnai Israel) and Temple Keser Israel (founded in 1909). Both predecessor congregations were in the City of New Haven. With its recent growth in membership, it is quite probable that most of the newer members, including some of the most active leadership, are not aware of the varied history of what is now Congregation Beth El-Keser Israel. In June 1985, the Congregation celebrate…
…One practice that is up for reconsideration is the support of the State of Israel through Israel Bonds. It can certainly be said that Israel Bonds has served a critical role in the survival and economic success of the Jewish State. For many decades, dedicated Zionists – including leaders of our Congregation such as Sara-Ann & Hillel Auerbach and Violet & Charles Ludwig – have purchased Israel Bonds and have worked diligently to urge others to do s…
…lls out dough for wheat matzo in the kitchen of Congregation Beth El-Keser Israel in New Haven on April 19, 2019. Let My Matzah Go: Stop & Shop Purchases Deemed Not Kosher For Passover, www.newhavenindependent.org, April 15, 2019 In one hand he had his cell phone, with mom on the line for shopping advice. In the other hand was a handout with a Westville rabbi’s admonition against crossing a picket line to buy food for the Feast of Freedom. His bas…
…the other (witness fewer than 350 conversions in 1996). A few years ago, a number of Russian Jewish families approached the Conservative movement in Israel out of desperation to convert their adopted non-Jewish children, which was duly done. Despite the parents’ fervent wish to create a Jewish household, no official rabbinic court would lift a finger without extracting a promise that these families become strictly Orthodox. The supreme irony of Zi…
…30s Havura, thanks to the initiative of Miriam Benson and the support of a number of program participants such as Eva Landau. It’s a nice way to bring people together and to help people locate their cohorts in the sea of members. The number of formal members does not tell the whole story. There are many families or individuals who identify BEKI as “their” synagogue, even though they are not formally members. For at least some purposes, we should t…
…ve thought they were describing different demonstrations. For example, the number of demonstrators was 1,500, or 2,000, or 3,000, or 5,000, depending on which report was being broadcast. The surprising element of the story is that all four reports were consecutive broadcasts of the same radio station, Qol Yisrael, in Hebrew, English, Arabic and French. Similarly, compare the portrayal of the Indian Salt Strike in the film Gandhi with actual foot…
…ted to talk about the desirability of transferring Arab populations out of Israel or Israeli-controlled territory. Rehavam Ze’evi (assassinated in 2001 by the PFLP) and his Moledet party advocated transfer the Arab population from the West Bank and Gaza “by agreement” or during war to neighboring countries. The fact that a major highway (No. 90) through the Jordan Valley is named “Gandhi’s Road” in his honor is taken as menacing by Palestinian and…
…id that the incidence of identifiable conscientious objection among Jewish Israelis was for the most part limited to a small number of “pacifist” individuals until the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and the invasion of Lebanon brought about a gradual growth of organized selective conscientious objection based on individual conscience as well as political motivation. Those who sought or were willing to accept a quiet arrangement with the auth…
…uld not afford a chicken, they ate a shtekele fish. But today chicken is cheap, meat is mundane. Unless you really like chicken, to fulfill the mitzva of making a Shabbat meal special in our day, you might have to eat Kosher Chinese. To take a historical, but only slightly less trivial, example, we note that at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Conservative rabbinate was condemned for the radical innovation of presenting sermons in Eng…
