- 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
…ky (“A Natural History of Peace,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2006 p. 104), they live as a collection of small groups, each one an individual node. In this networked society, most of the interactions between individual nodes are local ones. The further away any two given groups are. the less frequently they interact, but they do retain the ability to communicate. This network, when properly balanced, produces highly cooperative clusters of i…
…Prior to that, the last tribute dinner anyone could recall took place about 15 years ago, honoring Mr. Friedman, alav hashalom. Well, once every 15 years isn’t often enough. This coming November, we will hold another tribute dinner. I am honor bound not to say too much tonight. The Board and the honorees know why. This year’s first-ever auction, chaired by Donna Levine, was a brilliant success and a lot of fun. We are already planning the next one…
…asha [Torah reading for Shavuot Second Day in Diaspora: Deuteronomy 14:22 – 16:17 & Numbers 28:26-31]. It begins with the commandment to tithe on a yearly basis, so as to provide for the needy among us, to take care of the Levites, to understand that our year’s bounty is not just a result of our great skill but also of God’s goodness, and to realize that our possessions are merely possessions- whose enjoyment comes from sharing them with others. T…
…lieve that the book of Isaiah was written during the Babylonian exile by a number of people in addition to Isaiah. Isaiah himself was a prophet of the nation of Judah and was one of the first to leave a written record of his prophecies, or proclamations. The book of Isaiah is one of the longest in the Bible, containing sixty chapters. The sayings of Isaiah are contained in the first 39 chapters. Most of the rest, written around 550 BCE, were poems…
…irds) of these displaced persons simply resettled elsewhere in Palestine by 1950. Israel had offered to settle an additional 100,000 Arab refugees at that time in the portion of Mandatory Palestine under its control, but the offer was declined by the Arab states. The majority of these displaced persons were tenants who suffered the tremendous trauma of dislocation, regardless of how the blame is apportioned. After Yasir Arafat and his associated o…
…inable thing, they will both surely die and their blood is upon them. (Lev. 18:20, 20:13) As we know, these texts have been used are being used, to exclude, oppress, and even kill gay men – and lesbians as well, although the text makes no mention of them. Hertz (or as we call it here at BEKI, the blue Hertz humash) comments that “with a man” indicates that the text “Disclosed the abyss of depravity from which the Torah saved the Israelite. This un…
March 1 – May 18, 2024 Suggested Donation amounts for Art Collectors The current exhibition in the lower level Gallery at BEKI is a collection of works depicting “Jews at prayer,” “Jews studying,” “Jews celebrating,” and “pious Jews.” The exhibition is drawn from artworks donated to BEKI throughout the years, some as permanent gifts, most as donations for fundraisers. Frequently entitled “Rabbi _,” the majority of these works are representation…
