Peace Now

If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends; you talk to your enemies.

Moshe Dayan

Shabbat Shalom. Good Shabbos.

Another fervent Zionist calls out Bibi/Barak's settlement charade

After highlighting Haaretz's Monday editorial, Yes, Freeze Settlements, I want to point you to Ambassador Marc Ginsberg's thorough exposure of the "natural growth" lie, and his explanation, as a "passionate Zionist," of exactly why and how an immediate freeze on ALL settlement building is essential to Israel's security.

Read Amb. Ginsburg's "Natural Growth": Netanyahu's Road Map to a Mid East Roadblock here.

To everything a season

Austin's Congregation Kol Halev, which we attended briefly, will likely not exist in its current form past its June 21 annual general meeting. (What braniac set that meeting for Father's Day?) In 49 years of being around shuls, I've never known a 125-family congregation (what's that, 300+ people?) to collapse so suddenly.

As I process details that have dribbled out since last week, at least three things stand out:

• No one accepts or will even share responsibility for the collapse. Various phone, email, and snail mail communications, both official and unofficial, point fingers at others, and never at the writer or caller.
  
• While not priced as highly as some shprawntzier (fancier) institutions, membership was not cheap for a shul meeting in a school's general purpose room, that has no cantor, requires significant volunteering, provides no real early childhood programming, pays no movement fees, and...well you get the point. Moreover, Kol Halev maintains substantial class B+ office space and hires staff to do the work clergy does in other small congregations. Perhaps money saved on office space and employees might have paid for a modest but more permanent and welcoming sanctuary?
  
• Reading between the lines of at least one communication (sent to us as recent non-members), I sense more at play. I sense that some—including those who've now volunteered for lay leadership positions, both executive and clerical—"anticipated" Rabbi Kerry Baker's resignation and the organization's demise with a view to helping "lead a re-invented Kol Halev, if the membership so votes." So they might, let's say, rebuild in their own image.

Whatever the causes and ramifications, a 12-year old shul is dead or dying, and several hundred Jews now have to congregation shop in a city of 15,000+ Jews notable for its paucity of synagogue choice. In many ways, that's sad. In others, it creates the chance—the space—for new inspiration to take root, for new shoots to spring.

To everything a season; a time to every delight under the heavens. (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

No more settlement activity—none!

Today's editorial in Haaretz hits the nail on the head. Yes, freeze settlements argues simply that "no more settlement activity" must mean just that: NO MORE SETTLEMENT ACTIVITY.

The Living Room minyan

Finally, Havdala at someone else's home in South Austin—thanks Natalie and David. 

With several hundred Jewish families below the lake, we long suspected there must be—and have sought out—signs of traditional/Conservative Jewish life in South Austin. Well now we know it exists in the shape of the Living Room minyan. 

The minyan's families live on both sides of the lake and, it seems, are drawn largely from Congregation Agudas Achim. It is child friendly and meets at least once a month for a traditional egalitarian Shabbat service or Havdala, followed by an appropriately kosher pot luck. The people we met are welcoming, warm, and engaging, and we look forward to getting together with them soon.

For us, it's evidence of light at the end of the tunnel.