- 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
…evision programs around the world some months ago depicting an Israeli Telephone Company employee stuffing faxes into the Western Wall. It is in fact a custom among many of our brothers and sisters to insert small handwritten personal notes and petitions to God between the stones of the Kotel, the Western Wall of the Temple in Jerusalem. The service provided by the phone company allows people unable to visit the Wall in person to fax their petitio…
…d 1% at six months. People who study resilience point out that there are a number of factors that can predict how well someone will handle severe trauma. These come from studies of hospitalized survivors of motor vehicle accidents, combat veterans, people who lived through the Los Angeles riots, the Oklahoma City bombings and many other tragedies. While degree of exposure is the greatest predictor, other individual characteristics include a good t…
…familiar symbolic images embedded as decorative elements. “All That Remains” will next be presented at the Virginia Holocaust Museum, Richmond, VA, in October 2020. The works in this show include images from each of these series. In this retrospective of her work, a number of works in private collections are represented by photographic reproductions, thus providing context for the entirety of exhibition. for more information and for purchasing wor…
…—a beautiful site at the crest of a hill with West Rock as a backdrop. The last services at Rose Street were held on Sukkot of 1957. The downtown synagogue project stalled out—and, because plans for the Westville building showed seating with no separation between men and women, some traditionally Orthodox members sued. The lawsuit was eventually settled, and the Orthodox members got the name “B’nai Israel.” The Westville building was built at Whal…
…KI kitchen does not permit the use of any animal-derived gelatins. And the last time I looked, Yoplait had a plain “K” symbol, which is not an acceptable indication of rabbinic supervision. This product would not be accepted for use in the BEKI kitchen. Dear Rabbi, Quick question: Kids want a cat. Is kitty required to keep kosher? Signed, Kitty Query Dear Cat Kashrut Questioner, Cats can keep kosher but are not required to. Keep the cat chow out…
…udy sessions for this age group led by Rob Forbes during the High Holidays last fall. In one of our Cosmic Conversations, we read Parashat Teruma about the design of the Mishkan, or Tabernacle, the dwelling place for God’s presence among the wandering Israelites. We found ourselves discussing the question, “Where is God?” Everywhere? Inside us? Between us in our interpersonal relationships? Wherever God may dwell, we concluded, the Torah teaches u…
…ou all. Please help us again, this time by passing along our thanks to the number of congregants who are away this weekend of Thanksgiving, giving thanks of their own elsewhere. The morning of the surgery I prayed and learned another prayerbook lesson, this time explicit. At my request, Marsha had brought me a copy of our Siddur, Sim Shalom. Uncharacteristically, I admit, I started from the beginning of the Shaharit, or morning, service. There I d…
…speaks for itself. You’ll note also that today’s parasha resounds with the number seven – the seventh year is the sabbatical year- the seven days of Passover, the seven weeks until the Feast of weeks, etc. At some point during this last year I looked around the table and realized- “We are seven women — one teacher and six students.” Coincidence? Book of Ruth Let me move on to The Book of Ruth. I’d like to make some remarks about the story that res…
…h a pitgam, a Hebrew aphorism. She would post a new one every week on the classroom wall, often with a story to illustrate the message. Over the course of the school year, the kids would memorize a fair number of these. The sayings she chose reflected her particular take on Judaism, which tended to the ethical rather than the spiritual. In cleaning out her apartment last year, my sister Naomi and I came across some of these sayings, which I’ve bro…
…, a very complex distribution network. The way it operates is by a certain number of power plants producing energy, usually by burning fossil fuels, and then feeding it into the massive grid of electrical power lines. I think this is quite similar to the societal structure of the monkeys and the medieval Jewish court system, in that the majority of interactions, or in this case, power transmissions, are local, but the network is able to transmit p…
