- 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
…f the three main “November Demands” put forward by the Palestinian Arabs’ “United Front” before the revolt of 1936.36 In 1948 the Israeli Government took over all British Government Lands in the area of Palestine which it controlled.37 These State Lands included mawāt, matrūk maḥmiyya, and abandoned mīrī, and represented about 70% of all Israeli-controlled Palestine.38 The mawāt lands, which accounted for over half of the State lands, had…
…of displaced Palestinian Arabs has skyrocketed. This is partly because the United Nations provides welfare benefits to anyone descended from a single displaced Palestinian Arab, creating an incentive to identify as a “refugee” no matter what one’s circumstances. Most famously, Yasir Arafat claimed he was a Palestinian refugee from Jerusalem, when in fact he was born in Egypt while Israel was under British rule. Even Palestinian Arabs driving Merce…
…o them or not. I have never heard of any synagogue being expelled from the United Synagogue for any policy violation, except failure to pay dues. Our religious heritage, as documented by the Mishna and other rabbinic texts, endorses the values of free speech, intellectual integrity and democracy. Individual sages were allowed to teach whatever they actually believed, even if it was not in keeping with the majorityʼs view. The sages could speak the…
Kadima and United Synagogue Youth (USY) are youth groups that empower Jewish middle-schoolers (Kadima: 4-8) and high-schoolers (USY: 7-12) to plan and participate in educational, religious, community service, and social events. BEKI Kadima and USY is an inclusive youth group open to all Jewish youth, regardless of synagogue affiliation. Kadima & USY events are planned at the local (New Haven area), regional (Connecticut and Western Massachusetts…
…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…
…d by the Good Book: “While the flesh was still between their teeth,” etc. (Numbers 11:33). Partly for that reason we are enjoined to wait a period of time after eating meat before eating dairy. But after some time, the “food” in your mouth (and stuck on or between your teeth) ceases to be “food.” Who would eat it? If your toothbrush is used at that point, it is not really in contact with “meat” or “dairy” and thus, strictly speaking, you would not…
…The other days of Creation are denoted, as you would expect, using ordinal numbers – second, third, and the like; but not the first day, Yom Ehad – Day One. Rashi teaches that “Day One” is to be understood as the Day of the One, the Day of God, and that God created everything in all its potential on that Day. From that day on, it follows that, as my daughter Sarah has recently begun quoting Martin Buber in the tag line to her email messages — To p…
…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…
…nsgresses a prohibition, as Scripture states, “Do not add [to the required number of lashes]” — if the Torah warns not to add blows to a guilty person, how much more does this apply to an innocent person. Even to raise one’s hand against another, even if one doesn’t actually hit him or her, is called wicked, as Scripture states, “And he said to the wicked one, Why do you hit your neighbor?”7 Rabbenu Perez, in his decree, cites a responsum of Rabbi…
