- 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
…bbat lunch or for the High Holiday meals. (BEKI provides clients with free tickets for High Holiday services.) In the summertime, Kulanu participants may have a joint program with one of BEKI’s social action committees—they will clean up Beaver Pond Park in southern Connecticut, where congregants have held Tashlich services during Rosh Hashana. Kulanu also plans to provide a job training sight at BEKI for adults with developmental disabilities who…
…iages and couples who are both Jewish Jews of all races Jews of all gender identities or sexual orientations. BEKI believes in taking a robustly welcoming stance toward interfaith families. Coming from an interfaith and multi-racial family himself, Rabbi Woodward considers the inclusion of non-Jewish relatives in the community to be deeply important. The same goes for Jews of all income levels. Membership at BEKI is not about money. While BEKI doe…
…iages and couples who are both Jewish Jews of all races Jews of all gender identities or sexual orientations. BEKI believes in taking a robustly welcoming stance toward interfaith families. Coming from an interfaith and multi-racial family himself, Rabbi Woodward considers the inclusion of non-Jewish relatives in the community to be deeply important. The same goes for Jews of all income levels. Membership at BEKI is not about money. While BEKI doe…
…hierarchy transferred to our culture? In the photograph by former BEKI president Alan Gelbert of Louis Freidman reading the Torah we know that this is a portrait of a shamash (ritual director), not a rabbi. As viewers and members of an egalitarian synagogue, are we able to ignore the “Rabbi” title? As we dug deeper, we searched for images of women. We found a woman in a reproduction of a lithograph by the Greek-Israeli artist Rafael Avraham Shalem…
…ragons. It opened on to an extraordinarily lovely avenue sixty three feet wide and paved with red and white stones was bordered by sixty large ceramic lions. Near Nebachadnezzur’s palace was an enormous ziggurat, a temple tower dedicated to the god Marduk. In the midst of this overwhelming display of architectural and cultural splendor, the people of Judah wandered about the city, virtually powerless, gazing at its grandeur, and sometime staring d…
…all their thank yous. We’d like to thank our teacher Amy Pincus, for her guidance, patience and confidence in us. We’d like to thank Tanina Rostain, who, like Ruth, was relentless in her determination that we should go forward and that we could do this. We’d like to thank our daughters for inspiring us, either by their example in the case of Shoshana, Jessie, Liz and Johanna, or by their unspoken message to us that they are depending on us to insp…
…s to address her perspective on Judaic themes. Objects, wire, machine embroidery, photo-transfer and other complex cloth techniques conceptually allude to ideas, messages and symbols. Klein’s touring exhibition, “All That Remains: A Holocaust Exhibition in Fiber”, is a fiber arts exhibit on the theme of the Holocaust. This series has been an ongoing endeavor, a very personal body of work created since 2000. It consists of conceptual art clothing,…
…mbers also live in the downtown, East Rock, and Beaver Hills neighborhoods, as well as in numerous suburban towns. Some are rabbis and professors of Jewish studies; some are brand-new to Judaism. Opportunities abound for every BEKI member to contribute time, talents, and ideas. Many of our members are gerim, converts to Judaism (also known as Jews by choice), and many converted under the sponsorship of Rabbi Woodward. We welcome Jews in loving par…
…Gelbert, a prominent local dentist and past president of BEKI, “It is considered a good idea to have more than one brush so it can dry completely between uses, resulting in less transmission of bacteria.” Caring for one’s body is itself a religious obligation, as the Good Book says: “Only take good care of yourself, and guard your life diligently,” etc. (Deut. 4:9). To the extent that separate toothbrushes promote health, they would be required….
…ur synagogue in shape – organizationally, programmatically, and, last but not least, physically. We need to expand our commitments of time and financial resources significantly. I mean it. Let’s stop waiting for someone else to provide – let’s provide. Let us see this next decade, which we share, as our sanctuary in time. And let us use that time to rededicate this synagogue, which we share, as our collective spiritual home, our sanctuary in space…
