High Holy Day Activities around the World Union's World

The more-than 1,200 World Union-affiliated congregations around the globe were filled to capacity during the High Holy Days, with many holding double sessions and even additional services at satellite locations.

The Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism renewed a special High Holy Days PR campaign in the broadcast and print media aimed at publicizing the wide array of religious and cultural activities at its 24 congregations, all of which overflowed with worshippers. Many held study sessions as part of the services, while six city-based congregations held additional services in other neighborhoods. There were also special minyanim in locales lacking a permanent Progressive presence, such as Even Yehuda near Netanya, Kibbutz Sha'ar Hanegev near the Gaza Strip, Holon, Gedera and more. The hope is that these groups will someday become full-fledged Progressive communities.

The World Union’s European Region reports record turnouts on the continent and throughout the UK. The British Movement for Reform Judaism helped almost 300 young people take advantage of free tickets to High Holy Day services offered by movement synagogues. It also reached out to people with disabilities by bringing services to their computer screens via its Web site. In Germany, Abraham Geiger College, the country’s first post-war Progressive seminary, provided rabbinical students to congregations lacking full-time ordained rabbis, as did London’s Leo Baeck College for congregations in the UK and elsewhere in Europe.

In the FSU, the turnout at the scores of movement congregations was overwhelming. Those attending Rosh Hashana services at congregations in Minsk were rewarded with greetings from Israeli president Shimon Peres delivered personally by the first secretary of Israel’s embassy there. This elicited a special sense of pride because the first-ever Torah scroll for a Progressive congregation in Belarus was handed over in 1998 in the presence of Peres, then an opposition member of Knesset. Peres was born in Vishnevo, a city about 60 miles from Minsk that at the time was part of Poland, but today is in Belarus.

In addition, Rabbi Kenneth J. Weiss, rabbi emeritus of Temple Mount Sinai in El Paso, Texas, and now of Salem, Massachusetts, is in Minsk on a mini-sabbatical and performed Sukkot services there. Rabbi Grisha Abramovich, the World Union’s rabbi for Belarus and spiritual leader of Minsk’s Congregation Simcha, is now in Salem on a mini-sabbatical of his own.

In Australia, New Zealand and Asia, as elsewhere around the world, there was record attendance at Progressive congregations. Many rabbis sent High Holy Day sermons to the regional Web site, where they were distributed through its ProjeNews on-line newsletter, receiving highly positive feedback. For Simchat Torah, some 800 people turned out at Emanuel Synagogue in Sydney for holiday worship, as well as a celebration of 20 years of service to the congregation by Rabbi Jeffrey Kamins.

As it does each year for the High Holy Days, the World Union matched rabbis or cantors with congregations that lack them, and in many instances covered some of the costs. The following is a partial list of these shiduchim:

• Rabbi Ilana Baird – Hameln, Germany
• Rabbi Rich Kirschen – Cayman Islands
• Rabbi Moshe Yehudai – Prague
• Rabbi David Wilfond – International Jewish Center, Brussels
• Cantor Michal Schiff – Beit Warszawa, Warsaw
• Rabbi Lennard Thal – Singapore  (his 16th year)
• Rabbi Stan and Resa Davids – Jewish Religious Union, Mumbai (their 3rd year).


Rabbi Ilana Baird (center), together with two young members of the Progressive congregation in Hameln, Germany, presents worshippers with challah and honey to signify the beginning of a sweet year.



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