Grapevine: Unorthodox service

Rabbi Ada Zavidov, the first woman to serve as a congregational rabbi in Jerusalem, wears a prayer shawl that has no stripes but has floral embroidery.

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
Anat Hoffman with Zandberg and Shaffir 370 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)
Anat Hoffman with Zandberg and Shaffir 370
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)
A SOLUTION to the wearing of prayer shawls by Women of the Wall is to have one that is obviously different from those worn by men. Rabbi Ada Zavidov, the spiritual leader of Jerusalem’s Har El congregation and the first woman to serve as a congregational rabbi in Jerusalem, wears a prayer shawl that has no stripes but has abstract floral embroidery. The shawl also has lapels, which a man’s prayer shawl does not. In addition, she wears a matching embroidered cap, which in no way resembles a kippa.
Zavidov is a graduate of Hebrew Union College and conducts services in a mix of Hebrew and English. What is particularly admirable about her style in leading the congregation is the manner in which she blesses each of the people called to the Torah and the fact that during the prayer for the sick, she includes victims of terror, people who have been injured in traffic accidents, sick children and people who have been sexually assaulted, as well as members of the congregation who are ill, naming each individually and then asking congregants one by one if they want to add anyone to the list. Last Saturday in her sermon, she related to the ongoing debate about whether the service should be longer or shorter. Reform services are usually much shorter than those of Conservative and Orthodox congregations. Querying whether a longer service caused worshipers to pray with more sincerity than shorter ones, Zavidov referred to the end of the week’s Torah reading in which Moses pleads to God to heal his sister Miriam of leprosy. In the Hebrew text, he used only five words, but his appeal was a cry of anguish, she noted.
For visitors who belong to other streams of Judaism, it was a little disconcerting to have cantor Evan Cohen play the guitar to accompany his beautiful singing, but congregants joined in with as much joy as is expressed in any hassidic congregation. Cohen also read the Torah portion.
After the kiddush, Werner Loval, who was one of the founders of the congregation in 1958, which was the first Reform congregation in Israel, delivered a lecture on Israel and Central America under the title “The Jews who followed Columbus.” A former ambassador to various Central and South American countries, Loval opened the first Israeli embassy in Central America, in Guatemala in 1960. Today, he serves as honorary consul of Guatemala in Israel. Some of his diplomatic colleagues came to hear him. One was Aron Eisen, who is a former ambassador of Panama to Israel and who, prior to making aliya, was honorary Israel consul in Panama. Eisen recently celebrated his 100th birthday Another colleague was Sinai Rome, who served as Israeli ambassador to Ecuador. Rome attended the synagogue service with his wife, Beverly.
■THERE ARE numerous “do good” organizations that seek to bring singles together with the aim of matchmaking. There are a lot of singles who want to find that special someone and who join these groups or subscribe to online dating services. Religious organizations are, of course, in the forefront of trying to pave the way to the bridal canopy. Among the more recent efforts in this direction is Beineinu, the Singles Division of the International Young Israel Movement, which for the past two years has run an extensive series of programs for singles but is now expanding, according to its press release, “to ensure that the maximum numbers of couples walk happily down to their huppa as they begin to build ‘batei ne’eman b’Yisrael’ and ensure the continued strength and vitality of the Jewish People in the next generation!” Beineinu recently finished building a state-of-the art database with multiple search options, in which all pertinent details of individuals will be stored and utilized, while maintaining the highest levels of confidentiality. Individuals will be able to join the database free of charge by simply filling out an online questionnaire. Beineinu director Micki Lavin-Pell has brought together several couples in the past and is excited at the prospect of helping even more people to change their status. An addition to the Beineinu team is Fagie Reves, who also has an impressive record for pairing people who have become marriage partners. So far, the database contains more than 1,000 names, and the target is to have 3,000 names by September 1 of Jewish men and women aged 25 to 45 who live in Israel. The online questionnaire can be accessed at http://iyim.org.il/singles/signup.asp.