September 15, 2006 Archives Shabbat Nitzarim Vayelech
Issue 37
Shabbat
In this issue …
The Hebrew word for the Sabbath, “Shabbat,” comes from the root SHAV, which is “to return”, “to restore” or “to reside.” The root appears seven times in the verses 1-10 of chapter 30 of the reading. In this last speech by Moses before his death, he stressed that no matter how far people stray, there will come a time when they return (TaSHUV) to a life of justice and Mitzvot, and G-d will then also return (YaSHUV) to Israel for good, for joy and for plenty. Shabbat reminds us of our potential for this harmony. During the weeks before Rosh Hashanah we are especially reminded of the forgiveness and tranquility that abide in our harried lives.
This journal explores our congregation’s traditions for the seventh day. Throughout its history, the community has returned on Shabbat to the synagogue and joined together in prayer, study, meals and music. The ways in which we have sought to restore ourselves have varied according to our spiritual leaders. To understand the nature of the congregation at each juncture, we look at the men and women who have led our prayers and study sessions.
We begin with Brooklyn Eagle articles for a glimpse of the congregation’s first decades at the Boerum Place Synagogue. From an obscure article of 1877, “The Sexton of a Synagogue Robbed” we know that Baith Israel’s sexton lived on premises. We presume that the sexton provided the same kinds of services that Joseph Goldfarb describes in his notes on the sexton’s duties for Shabbat and Holidays. Two Eagle articles indicate that Sabbath observance was considerably more relaxed than our practices today. Starting in the 1880s there was a movement among Brooklyn Jewry to hold Sabbath services on Sunday mornings so that merchants could attend services.
The practice of eating Shabbes meals at the synagogue has certainly varied. Joseph Goldfarb remembers that Kiddush during his father’s tenure was, “all but non-existent. Shabbes and Yontif services were you came to shul, and you davinned, and at the end, you said Good Shabbes to everybody and you went home….. I’m not sure there was always a kiddush every time there was a bar mitzvah; but when there was, it was a piece of cake and a cup of wine.” At today’s Kiddush, we often find generous platters on the buffet table. This year the congregation has placed a sign-up calendar for members to be Kiddush sponsors. Because it’s prohibited to write on Shabbat, congregants are asked to attach pre-printed name stickers on the calendar to reserve their date.
Articles written by Kane Street leaders Beth Steinberg, Geraldine Gross and Sheila Rabin are moving accounts about people who have shaped the congregation’s Shabbat services. Jennifer Newfeld writes about Shabbat Club and Synaplex Shabbatot.
Shabbat programming for 2006-2007 offers adults and children a variety of opportunities at the synagogue: Friday Night Kabbalat Shabbat Services and dinners; Saturday morning services; study groups; Synaplex Shabbatot; Scholar-In- Residence Shabbatot; the Y. L .Peretz Distinguished Writers’ Series with discussions following Kiddush lunch. For a schedule, go to http://www.kanestreet.org/shabbat.html. Kane Street Synagogue will hold five Synaplex Shabbatot during the 2006-2007 year. Our first program, on Saturday, October 7, which coincides with Sukkot, features: “Learning Songs of Sukkot” with Adina Solomon, “Meditation” with Dan Klipper, “The Jewish Festival Cycle and Ecology” with Barbara Lerman-Golumb of COEJL (Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life.); children’s Minyan and Sukkot program; concert with Shira Kline for kids aged 2-6 and their parents; “The Greening of the Synagogue” with Barbara Lerman-Golumb; BBUSY program on “Israel – what’s going on and what it means to me;” Sukkah Hop visiting neighborhood Sukkot. Synaplex programs are open to the community and no registration is required. Synaplex is a project of STAR (Synagogues: Transformation and Renewal.)
Special thanks to: Rabbi Weintraub, Vivien Shelanski, Susan Rifkin, Jack Levin; Authors:Beth Steinberg, Gerry Gross, Sheila J. Rabin, Joseph Goldfarb, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online™, Brooklyn Public Library; www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/eagle;Carol Levin, Editor
historicaljournal@kanestreet.org
Brooklyn Eagle on the Jewish Sabbath:
Hebrews. The Agitation on the Question of Changing the Jewish Sabbath. May 27, 1884. Movement to hold Shabbat services on Sunday includes interviews of prominent Brooklyn Jews
The Jewish Sabbath June 8, 1884, Data on the Sabbath controversy
To the Editor June 8, 1884, Letter signed “A Jew” concludes with, “That Saturday and no other day will do for worship is a piece of narrow sentimentalism.”
The Jewish Sabbath May 3, 1890. National opinions from “The Jewish Tidings” of Rochester, NY
The Rabbi, Shames, Reader, Gabbai, Ba’al Kore
Provides an overview of the synagogue’s organization during the early twentieth-century from a conversation with Joseph Goldfarb.
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Shabbat Melodies by Beth Steinberg - Shul members since 1986, Beth Steinberg and her husband Ira Skop, have brought many melodies to our Shabbat services.
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Bob Weinstein by Geraldine K. Gross - This tribute in memory of Bob, “a willing leader and careful guardian of our traditions,” was written in 1999 for the 143rd Anniversary, a Celebration of Music, honoring his life and contributions.
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Gabbai’s Daughter by Sheila J. Rabin - Bob Rabin served as the congregation’s Gabbai from the mid-eighties until he died in 1995. In this loving tribute, Sheila describes how she came to learn to read Torah and Haftarah.
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Childrens Services by Jennifer Newfeld – This brief article discusses the Hebrew School’s policy requiring students to attend Shabbat services.
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Shabbat Club by Jennifer Newfeld – Provides notes about the Friday program where pre-schoolers explore what happens on Shabbat.
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Synaplex: A Full Range of Jewish Experience by Jennifer Newfeld – Explains the concept of Synaplex and provides a sampling of past and future programs.
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The Rabbi, Shames, Reader, Gabbai, Ba’al Kore
The following comments are from a conversation with Joseph Goldfarb, in May 2002. Joseph recalled individuals whom the synagogue hired to help with services while his father, Rabbi Israel Goldfarb, was the congregation’s Rabbi.
“During the hay day years, besides the Cantor who was the Rabbi, they had a Chasan Shaney, an Associate Cantor. That man’s job combined two functions. He conducted the ‘less important’ prayers. All prayers were important. The less important sections of the service, for example, on Shabbos you would have two services: the schacharit, the morning service and the additional service, the mussaf. So, he [the associate] would read the schacharit, and my father would do the mussaf. On other occasions, he would davin the mincha, and my father would davin the maariv.
My father never read from the Sefer Torah. We always had a hired reader, because to do it right requires so much study. And you need to prepare starting years earlier. Abraham Scholsky was here for many, many years. No one ever knew his age, but my father said that when he came here, which was in 1905, Mr. Scholsky had already been here fifteen years. … Abraham Schlosky was an expert reader. He had learned to read in Europe before he came here. He had a gorgeous voice, a bass-baritone voice, but without the tremolo that you hear in the upper ranges of a bass-baritone, sometime, a smooth, clear, firm voice. And he could do all those things. He could read, he knew all the right melodies for the prayers, the traditional melodies…and he knew how to read the Torah. He read beautifully, without any mistakes. … That was the real reason that we had hired him. Mr. Scholsky lived until 1924, but was badly injured in an automobile accident. One side of his face became paralyzed. Anyone else, I suppose, would have been dead, but he survived and came back again to the neighborhood. He wanted his job back again as a reader…. The only trouble was that after his accident, he slowed up. He read very, very slowly. That’s why we didn’t use him... They kept him on. I don’t know if he had a pension. In all, he was probably here, working in one way or another for about 60 or 65 years. He came here when he was twenty-years-old, and he stayed on into his eighties. In the mean time [after the accident] we had hired Irving Mirsky who read from the Sefer Torah. No one was about to tell Mirsky to leave.
Max Brown was at one time a shamus here. A shamus is variously translated in English. They call it a sexton; they call it a beadle; they call it a reverend; they call it different names. Max Brown was the shamus here until sometime in the early 1920s. The [duties of the] job on weekday mornings is to make sure the shul is opened; to make sure the lights are on. It’s not just a manager. It’s a mixture of different things. The sexton has to be someone who is Jewish. Other arrangements have to be made for turning on and off the lights. Most of the time I was here, there was a non-Jewish superintendent who lived in that apartment. Other times, when there was no one living here, then you’d arrange for someone to come in from time to time to do whatever they’re not permitted to do. The shamus gets the service started. He designates somebody to lead the service. He sees that this person who comes in has a siddur (prayerbook) and this person has a tallis. If it’s a weekday, somebody has to have tefillin to put on. He does all of that, and at the end [of the service], he makes sure everyone goes out and he turns the lights off. The shamus usually assigns the aliyahs. During the reading of the Torah he goes around and says, ‘Will you take the 1st honor? Will you take the 2nd honor?’ Before the ark is opened, ‘Will you go up and open the ark?’ ‘Will you please take the sefer Torah out of the Ark?’ If it’s a very informal weekday occasion, he’ll say, Will you please open the ark and take out the sefer Torah?’ Because one person can do it all, it doesn’t have to be divided up. Various people are called to the Torah. The honorees do what they have to do, say the blessings, stay by for the reading of a section, and then they’ll go down again. The shamus was a paid position. After Max Brown, they hired another shamus. There might have been one or two who stayed a week or two and were not satisfactory, and then they left.
The next one who stayed for any appreciable length of time was Max Martin. He came as a shamus. He was a European. This Max Martin was good as a shamus. He did all those things that I told you about, and he did anything of a ritual requirement that people needed. It was his job, for example, just before Succos to go out and obtain lulav and esrogim, and see that everyone who wanted one had one. If someone came into shul …and did not have them, he would bring them over, so that people would have the privilege of benching esrogim as was required. And for other holidays and special occasions when something was to be done, he was the person who had to fulfill that function. Max Martin unfortunately had a heart attack around 1929 or 30… and was not able to continue with the job.
We had a number of men who came to try out. Among those men, all of them did not work out because they had to satisfy the congregation and the board. And they had to satisfy my father, too, who had certain standards that he wanted to maintain. He felt that the shamus should be a dignified and presentable representative of the shul when they had contact with the public at large. Finally there was a candidate who won out and they agreed to take. It was Irving Mirsky. When he came here he was hired on a temporary basis. They took him on around the holidays, Rosh Hashonah. And when Yom Kippur was over, they decided they were going to keep him. … He was a very, very fine man. He was the finest there is. By the time my father was leaving, Irving Mirsky decided he was leaving. He must have been here twenty something years.
Kiddush
Kiddush was all but non-existent. Shabbos and Yontif services were you came to shul, and you davined, and at the end, you said Good Shabbos to everybody and you went home.
Shalosh Shudes
We used to have a Shalosh Shudes, a Shabbos afternoon meal. On Shabbos, a Jew is supposed to have three meals. The first is Friday night, the second is Shabbos lunch, and the third is before the Shabbos departs, before the end of Shabbos. That was very important to have the three meals. And they used to provide it in Shul. There would be challah, and there would be some kind of fish probably, and some kind of cake or some dessert, or some soda to drink. And usually everyone comes in for that. We don’t have too many people on a Shabbos afternoon, anyhow. So there might have been 30 people, 40 people in shul.
Shabbat Melodies
by Beth Steinberg
Beth and her husband Ira Skop have been an integral part of music at the synagogue since 1986, just after they were married and moved into the community. This past August they moved with their boys ((Natan - 16, Gabriel - 13, and Akiva - 9) to Israel and are happily settling into life in Jerusalem.
Many people have different traditions while on vacation. Some like to wander the streets on foot, getting the best feel for the city. Others check out the local markets for the simple foods that ordinary folk eat. While I enjoy both of these pursuits when visiting a new place, nothing is as satisfying as shul hopping. Nothing beats stepping into a shul in a new place, looking around and realizing it’s not that different from one’s shul back home. The siddur might be different, the service might be longer (impossible) and the sermon might be in a different language, but the feeling is the same. It’s a bunch of Jews in shul together, praying, singing and sharing a cookie and schnapps when it’s all over.
The best thing about being in any shul on a Friday night or Shabbat morning is listening to the twists that each synagogue puts on familiar melodies. Certain melodies remain set in stone, sung pretty much the same way worldwide, while others have been subtly altered, reflecting that community’s singing style or bimah leadership. We at Kane Street Synagogue can boast of the worldwide impact that our own Rabbi Israel Goldfarb z”l made on shul liturgy. Rabbi Goldfarb, who led the community as Rabbi for 60 years was a prolific composer and his tunes have had their impact on synagogue singing around the world. The fact that so many Jews worldwide sing on Friday nights Rabbi Goldfarb’s Shalom Aleichem and Magen Avot, attests to our visceral need for familiar tunes and to the notion of the “Wandering Jew.”
We Jews are united by prayers and melodies, which define our ancestral history and geographical experiences that predated shul life at Kane Street today. Our shul boasts congregants with antecedents as far flung as Asia, South America and South Africa. For the most part we are a community of Ashkenazi Jews, that is, Jews from Eastern Europe. Nuschaot, the cantillations that describe the different services for Shacharit, Mincha, Ma’ariv, Shabbatot and Chaggim - all have their own prescribed style of service with attendant tunes and accustomed singing modes.
We Kane Streeters ascribe a great conglomerate of tunes integral to the Nusach of Kane Street. Many of our most beloved tunes are melodies that Bob Weinstein z”l (of blessed memory) brought to us from the East Midwood Jewish Center, the synagogue in which he grew up. Melodies such as the Shabbat Morning Kedushah from the Amidah and Shiru L’Adoshem Shir Hadash from Kabbalat Shabbat/Friday Night Evening Service became totems of the Kane Street Shabbat Service. Bob was the synagogue’s most regular lay leader through much of the 1980’s and 1990’s. His knowledge of Nusach was encyclopedic and he brought a real love for prayer combined with nostalgia for the familiar, Eastern European Shabbat melodies. During this period he taught many of the B’nei Mitzvah, and it was always a pleasure to hear his students lead Shabbat Mussaf, in, what I have always thought of as “Nusach Bob W.” Bar and Bat Mitzvah students still learn these particular melodies for Mussaf Kiddushah because those are the melodies that they associate with their own years at Kane Street.
Familiar melodies generate synagogue singing. As someone who has spent some time on the Bimah leading services, I can tell you that nothing is more satisfying to a Shaliach Tzibor then to hear the congregation joining in. The past few years have brought a new melodies to the shul, courtesy of the many new leaders who have come to the Bimah since Bob’s death. They’ve enriched us with their histories, their singing experiences and their davening styles. We had Esperanza Andujar who now makes her home in Arizona as a leader of Friday night services. For two years talented students at JTS’s Cantors Institute made Friday Night Services more spiritual and musically satisfying. Cantors Sharon Benjamin-Bernstein and Joanna Dulkin both shaped our service during a period of reinvigorated attendance. Their influences helped bring our Friday Night Service to its current phase: a service marked by different melodic styles and influences; a service that is fluid in terms of melodies sung and introduced on a given week; a service where prayer is enhanced by the song, and songs enhance the feeling of the service.
Our Friday Night Services have been influenced by the work of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach z”l. Rabbi Carlebach believed wholeheartedly in prayer marked by song, spirituality and kavannah, deep focused meaning. His melodies are often easy to identify and they are easy to learn and teach – they’re not complex but what they sometimes lack in musical sophistication they make up for in creating a mood in various parts of the service. At Kane Street, the current crop of Friday Night and Saturday Morning leaders have included melodies that are easily set to the words of the prayers. To paraphrase Rabbi Sam Weintraub some melodies give d’veykasdik, a spiritual feeling, to prayers. It falls upon the leaders to choose melodies fitting the community’s awareness.
We Kane Streeters have always felt passionate about what constitutes a proper service. Over the years, the Ritual Committee has discussed the length of service, how to lead, what to sing, should we do a Repetition of the Mussaf Amidah on a regular basis and how to teach new melodies within the framework of tefillah. We care greatly about our service. We grapple with how to lead and how to facilitate the greatest response from the congregation. We remain a synagogue that has consciously chosen not to hire a cantor as our regular Ba’al T’fillah. While there is no question that a trained professional would bring many wonderful things musically to our community, there is something special about a community that relies on its Balabatim, regular folk, to lead services, read Torah, and teach classes about prayer, leadership and Jewish music. May we continue to grow and learn together musically and jewishly for many more years to come.
Bob Weinstein
by Geraldine K. Gross
This memoir was written in 1999 for the Congregation’s 143rd anniversary, a Celebration of Jewish Music, honoring the life and contributions of Robert B. Weinstein
We had not yet gotten used to the idea that Bob was seriously ill and in the hospital when we learned he was gone. The fact is difficult for our minds to grasp, even more difficult for our hearts.
That is because, to Kane Street congregants, Bob was as much a part of the synagogue as its bimah, its stained-glass window, the steady glow of the eternal light above the ark. Losing Bob has left empty spaces all about the Synagogue, as well as an aching silence. Particularly in warm weather, when the windows and doors were open, you would hear the glorious sound of Bob’s davening as you hurried down Kane Street, a little late for the start of services, which had begun without you – but never without Bob. Congregants who spend their winters in Florida or other warm climes, when describing the vocal abilities of cantors holding forth at synagogues they attend in these locations, invariably conclude with the same comment: “But he isn’t Bob Weinstein.” Although Bob was not a professional cantor, he had a beautiful voice, its tone even sweeter because of what is called kavanah, Bob’s love for the liturgy, for Jewish tradition, for the Jewish community and, most especially, the Kane Street community.
Pictures come to mind. Bob on Purim, wearing his usual train conductor outfit – striped overalls and striped cap. Bob on Simhas Torah, using popular tunes and strands from operatic arias as melodies for the prayers. And then – when we carried the Torahs out into the street and danced with them, Bob in the center of it all, singing away, filled with joy and seemingly tireless. There is also Bob at the Shabbaton, of which he was both chair and co-chair, again in the middle of everything. There is the remembered anticipatory thrill at bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs when Bob called the boy or girl to the reader’s stand – his voice ringing clear, a big smile on his face.
A few of us old-timers joined Kane Street several years before Bob did but, looking back, we cannot really recall a time when he wasn’t part of Kane Street. If you press us, we will recite the names of previous rabbis, tell you about the years when we employed only a part-time rabbi, when the Synagogue closed for the summer, when the balconies were empty even during the High Holy Days, when you were not assigned specific seats for the High Holy days but an entire specific pew. Congregation Baith Israel Anshe Emes has come a long way since that time, and Bob had a lot to do with it. What attracts people to our Synagogue is the spirit of our Synagogue – its warmth, it welcoming atmosphere. We do not sit passively in our pews, listening to and admiring the cantor’s trills. Ours is a participatory service – our Chazan was one of us, gently encouraging the hesitant called up for their first aliyah, instructing those, like myself, who do not read Hebrew and so are unsure when to open the curtains covering the ark and when to close them.
It must have pleased Bob to see the changes at Kane Street, to witness our growth. He was very involved in that growth – elected a trustee in 1981, vice president in 1983, and then president. His last position was treasurer. The plaque presented to him at Kane Street’s 129th anniversary celebration, when he was guest of honor, describes him as a “willing leader and careful guardian of our traditions.”
Gloria Blumenthal adds that he was also an “influential teacher for almost one quarter of a century, a prolific tutor of young and old in liturgical skills.”
Rabbi Debra Cantor, Kane Street’s spiritual leader for the eight years preceding the arrival of our current rabbi, Sam Weintraub, recalls some of Bob’s other qualities. “He was concerned,’ she says. “He was without guile. He never spoke badly of others.”
“All the children of the congregation were drawn to him,” she says. “They admired and loved him. When they played shul at home, they pretended to be Bob. The children recognized what we adults already knew – that Bob was a special, gentle soul.”
Bob was devoted to his family – to his parents Blanche and Herbert Weinstein, his sister Lori, and her husband and children. Rabbi Weintraub believes that, in a way, the Kane Street community was a second family for Bob, the bimah a second home. Members of his second family, our grief at his loss is personal and profound. Our memories, however, are many, and cause for joy.
We will always remember Bob – “in our song,” as Rabbi Weintraub stated, “our praise, our attention to Jewish ritual and music, in our abiding love for our families and each other, in our devotion to this synagogue and to all Israel.” Bob as Rabbi Weintraub pointed out was “one who drew people from below up to Heaven.”
Gabbai’s Daughter
by Sheila J. Rabin
Bob Rabin served as the congregation’s Gabbai from the mid-eighties until he died in 1995. In this loving tribute to her father the author describes how she came to learn to read Torah and Haftarah, and to lead services at Kane Street.
My parents Bob and Rose Rabin moved to Carroll Gardens in 1979 and immediately joined the Kane Street Synagogue. Though my father had grown up in an orthodox environment and adored his stepfather, an orthodox rabbi, he preferred to be affiliated with conservative synagogues.
My father was ten years old when he came to the United States, and soon thereafter his widowed mother remarried. He developed a special relationship with his stepfather as they studied Torah and Talmud together, and my father absorbed from his stepfather not only an easy familiarity with the texts but the belief that our great books must adapt to new situations through reinterpretation. But my grandfather discouraged him from pursuing a rabbinical degree for economic reasons. Like the great medieval rabbis, my grandfather wasn’t paid by his congregation (Bnai Israel of Linden Heights in Borough Park); he made his living as a shohet. My grandfather’s reason was to maintain his freedom. As my father told Gabe Wasserman in the 1995 Scroll reprinted in issue 16 of the journal, my grandfather always said, “If you have fifty congregants, you have fifty bosses.” When my grandfather’s business tanked during the depression, my father worked as a Hebrew school teacher to make up the shortfall, and he found his vocation. He was a natural teacher.
I was just one year old when my father decided it was time to move up in his profession, and he got a job as a Hebrew school principal in Buffalo. There began our peregrinations – two years in Buffalo, four in Fall River, four in West Hartford, four in Flint, two in Baldwin – as my father never found the right congregation for himself. Back in the neighborhood of New York he gave up and joined my mother in the New York City public schools where he happily taught elementary school until he retired.
Music was always a big part of our family life. My mother was an excellent amateur pianist. My father loved to read in the room where she practiced, and he always felt that Shabbat wasn’t Shabbat without hearing the piano. All of us children played two musical instruments. And my father had a beautiful tenor voice. He had studied with a cantor when he was a teenager. When we were in Fall River, he was the High Holiday overflow cantor. That’s where he learned many of the melodies we loved. In Flint he was cantor, and after he left the Hebrew education field, he served as High Holiday cantor in Carteret for fourteen years. He felt music brought him closer to God.
My father was always teaching; he had the need to pass on his learning. When I was very young, my brothers would take turns saying kiddush on Friday night. My father said he already knew it; his sons would learn it by doing it. One summer weekend when I was six, all my brothers were away. My father turned to me and told me it was my turn to say kiddush. From then on, I took my turn with my brothers. As principal, part of my father’s job was handling the junior congregation. He made sure all of his children were the cantors as frequently as he could. That’s how I learned most of the shaharit service. After my youngest brother graduated from junior congregation, my father engineered a real coup: I, a girl, led the Yom Kippur service.
I never asked my father why he preferred a conservative congregation because it seemed to me so obvious that he wanted to pray together with his whole family. In addition to that, he wanted his daughter to be able to do whatever his sons could do. My father taught the b’nei mitzvah wherever he was principal. I waited for him after Hebrew School and learned the haftarah trope as I listened. But egalitarianism was not yet the norm. There was a strong group in our synagogue at the time who objected to Saturday b’not mitzvah; to them, the presence of girls on the bimah desecrated the Torah. My father came home from a contentious synagogue meeting one evening and announced that he told them his daughter was going to do a haftarah like their sons for her bat mitzvah and she was going to do better than any of them. In one sense my bat mitzvah was sad for me though. It didn’t represent a beginning but an end. I was not allowed to do another haftarah or even have an aliyah during the rest of my youth – not even in my college Hillel services. I couldn’t lead services any more. In fact, when I first led shaharit in Kane Street, I hadn’t led it since I was eleven and in junior congregation.
But changes were coming. After college I joined a Reconstructionist synagogue. I also decided to go to Israel for graduate school. How did we celebrate? In synagogue, of course, and I wanted to read Torah. When I asked my father to teach me, he responded that he had been waiting years for that question. When I returned from Israel, my parents’ congregation wanted me to lead Erev Shabbat services for a sisterhood Shabbat, another time to read from the Megillah. Ironically, now that I was an adult, I had once again become my father’s pupil.
When my parents came to Kane Street, the synagogue was very small. My mother has told me that there were only about 100 memberships. I remember Shabbat services in the Belth Room because there were so few people. Ray Scheindlin worked part-time as rabbi; all other leadership was voluntary. My father liked the extent of participation by the congregation, but he insisted that especially when it came to reading Torah, the standards had to be as high for amateurs as for professionals. At first he would yell out corrections, orthodox style, when the Torah reader erred. I fought with him over it because I knew how nervous I was when reading Torah and assumed others would get flustered like me. I think the leaders decided to make him Gabbai just to shut him up. But once they did, they found the teacher in the Gabbai, and he was the gentlest of teachers (except when teaching my mother and me to drive). When my father taught, love flowed with the knowledge he imparted. And congregants responded. In the Kane Street Synagogue my father found what had eluded him most of his adult life – the congregation that was right for him. And he gave back with joy. On Shabbat he was Gabbai, and he would relate interesting tidbits about the Torah portion. He regaled people with his jokes while waiting for a minyan to start Shaharit. He taught a Talmud class and taught individuals various subjects as well. He helped some of the young people, and adults, too, prepare for bar mitzvah or polish their synagogue skills.
When my parents moved to Brooklyn, Kane Street became my synagogue as well. But I was involved with my dissertation, and less involved with synagogue. I was more than a three-times-a-year Jew, but not by much. I first came regularly to say Kaddish for my father. Then Bill and I moved here, and it seemed natural that we would join and I would continue attending regularly. I certainly couldn’t replace my father; my education had gone in a different direction. But I am grateful for the chance to continue using the skills he had taught me – reading Torah and haftarah, leading services. It is as if he still lives through my participation. Leading Yizkor using his melodies is particularly poignant. And now that I assign haftarot I can do something else that was important to my father – encourage young people to practice and, yes, show off their skills.
I get other satisfactions from performing these skills as well. Preparing to read Torah gives me a chance to study what I am reading. I smile when we read Psalm 19 on Shabbat morning because in the sixteenth century it provided justification for my Renaissance people to study astronomy. But leading Shaharit the Shabbat after September 11, 2001, brought new meaning to the service for me: I began to focus on the hope for a better, juster world expressed in our liturgy.
Childrens Services
by Jennifer Newfeld
Kane Street Synagogue’s Director of Education and Family Programming Jennifer Newfeld is a 2005 graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary where she received a Master’s Degree in Jewish Education. She also has received an M.Ed in multicultural education, has taught Jewish studies to children and adults, and has led Jewish youth groups and summer camping.
Shabbat is one of the central components of Jewish life. Achad Ha’am said, “More than the Jews have kept the Shabbat, the Shabbat has kept the Jews.” The Kane Street Hebrew School recognizes the important role Shabbat plays in our student’s Jewish education as well as their Jewish identity.
Up until two years ago, the synagogue’s Hebrew school held classes on Sunday mornings as was common practice at Hebrew schools throughout America. The synagogue was bustling with children and adults engaged in study and community events each Sunday. However, the Jewish day to gather in the synagogue for prayer, study and community is Saturday. A strong factor in moving the Hebrew School to Mondays and Wednesdays was the realization that the Synagogue should be bustling with people and activity on Shabbat rather than Sunday morning. Beginning in October 2004, Kane Street’s Prozdor reorganized as Kane Street Hebrew School with classes meeting on Mondays and Wednesdays, and adding this important Shabbat component to our children’s curriculum.
We made it a priority that all children, in all grades attend Shabbat morning services throughout the school year. Each child in Hebrew School is required to attend Shabbat services. This requirement begins with five Shabbatot over the school year in Gan (Kindergarten) and increases each year until the students are required to attend twenty-four Shabbatot in the year before one’s bar/bat mitzvah.
Each child who meets the grade requirement for Shabbat attendance is awarded a certificate. Last year, as the year went on, I noticed that many children were attending much more Shabbatot then the required number. By the end of the year we had twenty students (37% of our student body) on our Minyanair list – students who had attended twenty Shabbatot or more over the course of the school year. I overheard several students talking about how much they enjoy the children’s services on Shabbat morning. On Shabbat morning we usually have forty to sixty students in all the services
Kane Street Synagogue offers three services which are open to all children in the community. A Mini-Minyan program designed to engage two to four-year-olds and their parents meets from 11AM to noon. Junior Congregation for children K-3rd grade also meets that hour in another classroom. The KC (Kavannah and Competence) Minyan of 4th-6th graders meets in the chapel from 10:30 AM to noon.
We are delighted to report that Kane Street has become a weekly Saturday morning event for many families.
Shabbat Club
by Jennifer Newfeld
Come into the Goldman Educational building on a Friday morning and you’re in for a real treat; young children joyfully dancing and singing in celebration of Shabbat. Now entering its third year, Shabbat Club provides an excellent opportunity for two to five-year-olds and their families to spend time together each Friday learning about Shabbat.
Shabbat is a very important concept for young child. It helps them organize their week and teaches them about the Jewish concept of Kodesh (holy) and Kol (everyday.) During Shabbat Club our teacher, Moran Ben-Shaul, invites the members of the club to sing, pray, dance, and create art projects all focused around Shabbat and the Jewish holidays. The highlight of each Shabbat Club comes at the end of the class when the children gather around a beautifully decorated Shabbat table to say the blessings over the candles, grape juice and challah. It’s truly wonderful to see these children enter the Synagogue shouting Shabbat and Shabbat Shalom!
Shabbat Club is open to all Jewish children in the neighborhood, giving families a taste of the Kane Street Synagogue experience. Many Shabbat Club members have gone on to join the synagogue, attend Shabbat and holiday services, and enroll in Hebrew school or Kane Street Kids.
During 2006-2007 Shabbat Club will be offered for twenty-five weeks. Class size is limited to ten students. The fall classes meet from 10:00-11:15 AM. In the spring and summer, sessions are held at 10AM and at 1PM.
Shabbat Shalom!
Synaplex: A Full Range of Jewish Experience
Spiritual parenting? Jewish meditation? Open breakfast bar? Book swap? Workshops with titles like "Learning the Songs of the Service,” "Even Two Jews Can Be a Mixed Marriage” and “The Greening of the Synagogue?” A concert for kids? Wine and Cheese in the Sukkah? What’s going on at shul?
"The idea is to make Shabbat and the entire synagogue experience meaningful to all kinds of people," according to Rabbi Samuel Weintraub, "whether you're a regular, a single who's just moved to the neighborhood or a six-year-old who can't sit still in traditional services."
Kane Street Synagogue is entering its second year as a Synaplex synagogue. Synaplex is a project of STAR (Synagogues: Transformation and Renewal), an organization promoting Jewish renewal through Congregational Innovation, sponsored by the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, Jewish Life Network/Steinhardt Foundation, and The Samuel Bronfman Foundation. Its aim is to reinvigorate Jewish communities across the country by helping to create Shabbat events that explore the full range of Jewish experience.
Synaplex was created in 2002 out of two simple, core convictions: 1) that the synagogue is central to Jewish life, and 2) that the American Jewish community is extremely diverse. With this in mind, Kane Street offers a range of prayer, study, social, and cultural programs that will appeal both to current members and to newcomers. The goal is to create an atmosphere of excitement, exploration, creativity, and warmth in the synagogue on Shabbat, with comfortable access points for Jews of all backgrounds and interests.
In its inaugural year at Kane Street, Synaplex themes included "As Rosh Hashanah Approaches: Finding Your Place" and “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Passover.” This year, we will offer six Synaplex weekends packed with a variety of activities for all ages, specifically targeting young professionals and families with young children. Plans for the 2006-2007 year include a concert by The Afro-Semitic Experience. Alternative prayer opportunities will bring yoga and meditation to services. Workshop such as “The December Dilemma.” Families will enjoy Hanukkah Dinner and Havdallah with singing and pizza.
Kane Street begins a new Synaplex season with, “A Shabbat of Welcome,” on October 6-7, Shabbat Sukkot. The program will include Shira Kline, creator of Shirlala, “outrageously hip Jewish music” for kids aged 2-6 with their parents, a USY discussion for high school students “Israel – what’s going on and what it means to me;” “Learning Songs of Sukkot” with Adina Solomon, “Meditation” with Dan Klipper, “The Greening of the Synagogue” with Barbara Lerman-Golumb of COEJL (Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life.) a Sukkah hop through Brownstone Brooklyn and wine and cheese oneg in the synagogue’s sukkah.
An energetic Synaplex Committee guided by Leslie Wilshire has teamed with Director of Family Programming Jennifer Newfeld, to assemble a series of creative programs that will challenge old perceptions of Shabbat. Come to shul on October 6-7, December 15-16, January 19-20, February 16-17, March 16-17 and April 20-21. The programs are open to the community and no registration is required. From sundown to sundown, spirited groups are experiencing Shabbat in new ways in the Goldman Educational Center.
About the Journal ...
The Synagogue Journal, a one-year online publication designed to highlight prominent individuals and events during the Kane Street Synagogue congregation’s past 150 years
We welcome submissions of reminiscences, letters and photographs to help shape the BIAE story for Congregation Baith Israel Anshei Emes. For a list of upcoming Journal themes or to read past issues, see “Archives” located under the Journal banner