Not-so conservative roles

Fifty years ago, Barbara Goldstein – now deputy executive director of Hadassah, asked JTS in NY if she could become a rabbi.

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
Carlebach (photo credit: PR)
Carlebach
(photo credit: PR)
FIFTY YEARS ago, Barbara Goldstein – now deputy executive director of the Jerusalem-based Israel office of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America – approached the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and said she wanted to be a rabbi. The reaction was one of incredulity. She was almost laughed out of the building.
It took another 20 years before the Conservative Movement accepted the concept of women rabbis, and there are now many women rabbis and cantors.
With the transformation in attitude, the late Charlotte Jacobson, a former national president of Hadassah, urged Goldstein, who was in her early 40s, to go and study for the rabbinate. But Goldstein was so devoted to Hadassah that she said her ambitions had changed and she didn’t want to any more. Besides, she’d had an inside view of what went on in the synagogue, because her husband, Mordechai Goldstein, was the cantor at the Neve Shalom Conservative Synagogue in New Jersey for 25 years, and on the High Holy Days – when there were additional services to cater to extra congregants – she, with her comprehensive Orthodox education, used to deliver the sermon and lead part of the service.
The Goldsteins settled in Jerusalem in 1999 and continued to be active in the Masorti congregation.
Mordechai died in 2007, but his wife, who continues to be a leading figure in Hadassah and in the Masorti Movement, was recently elected to the board of directors of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, which includes the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary and is affiliated with the JTS.
The dynamic Goldstein, who was among the beacon lighters at the 2011 Independence Day celebrations, is not sure whether she was more excited by that honor, by her election to the Schechter board, or by the fact that Hadassah is celebrating its centenary this October with the largest Hadassah convention ever in Israel.
■ WORLD-ACCLAIMED physicist Gerald Schroeder, who has authored several books, the most famous being Genesis and the Big Bang, was having Shabbat lunch with a group of intellectuals who started questioning him about the recent discovery of the Higgs particle.
Schroeder, who is known for his lectures and writings about the God component in physics, backed off.
“But it’s your field,” everyone protested.
Whereupon the Orthodox Schroeder quoted the Talmud, which states quite early on: “Teach your tongue to say I do not know.”
Nonetheless, the teacher in him came to the fore, and he delivered a lesson on gravity and the workings of invisible forces.
■ WHILE DELIVERING a Shabbat sermon related to 17 Tamuz – the fast day that commemorates the breach of Jerusalem’s walls and starts the three-week period leading up to Tisha Be’av, the date that both of the temples were destroyed – Rabbi Avigdor Burstein of Hazvi Yisrael Congregation emphasized the importance of maintaining identity, but also gave an example of those who may want to lose it.
While on a visit to Germany, he was stopped by a security officer at Frankfurt Airport who had detected a suspicious object in his hand luggage.
The suspicious object happened to be his bag of tefillin, which, after going through a metal detector, was declared safe. But what amazed Burstein, who was still haunted by photographs of Nazis shooting at men draped in their prayer shawls and phylacteries, was that a German security inspector whose father, uncle or grandfather was in all likelihood one of the Nazis who had murdered or tortured Jews, was so ignorant about tefillin. Perhaps this was a case of deliberately forgetting one’s identity.
■ IT’S ALWAYS heart-warming when well-known men come out against sexual abuse of women. It is particularly so in the case of singer Aviv Geffen, whose uncle Moshe Dayan had a reputation for an over-active libido, and whose exploits in that realm have been recorded in books, magazines and newspapers. In Dayan’s day, it was merely naughty, but quite acceptable, for men to use women as playthings.
The Knesset adopted a new definition of sexual harassment when his daughter Yael Dayan served as a member of Knesset and chaired the Committee for the Advancement of the Status of Women. She fought not only for women’s rights, but also for gay rights, and she initiated revolutionary legislation for the protection of women.
Last week, Gefen and piano virtuoso Shlomi Shaban appeared in a voluntary capacity at a fund-raiser for the Jerusalem Rape Crisis Center.
Emceeing the event at the Jerusalem Theater was electronic media personality Merav Michaeli, who called on Mayor Nir Barkat to establish a proper facility in Jerusalem for victims of sexual assault, similar to the one in Tel Aviv. Gefen said that he received loads of mail from young boys and girls who confided some of the most hair-raising stories of having been sexually molested and assaulted. He advised every victim not to keep such attacks secret, but to speak out about them so the perpetrators could be caught and punished and thereby prevented from repeating their crimes. He stressed the importance of the rape crisis center as a place to which victims could turn, knowing that there was a sympathetic ear and a helping hand.. He dedicated the final song of his performance, “Sof Ha’olam” (End of the World), to all rape victims.
The Jerusalem Rape Crisis Center, which is marking its 30th anniversary this year, receives an average of 4,300 calls for help a year. Among the people in the audience were MK Zehava Gal-On, a tireless worker for women’s rights who has been particularly active in radically reducing the level of trafficking in women; and longtime rape crisis center supporters Aya and Aharon Fogel.
■ CULTURAL EXCHANGES play an important role in bilateral diplomatic relations, particularly when such relations are celebrating milestone years. Thus Korean Ambassador Kim Il Soo has been hosting a series of cultural events to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties with Israel, and yesterday, together with Korea’s Honorary Consul Ami Orkaby, hosted the opening of a contemporary Korean art exhibition at Artstation in Neveh Tzedek.
Next Tuesday, Japanese Ambassador Hideo Sato will be in Jerusalem at the Israel Museum for the opening of the exhibition “Crossplay: Male Actors in Female Roles in Kabuki Theater.” This year, Japan is celebrating the 60th anniversary of its relations with Israel.
■ IN LINE with their regular practice of having a Rosh Hodesh gathering for women to mark the new month in the Hebrew calendar, the women of Moshav Meor Modi’im, the village founded by the singing Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, will host its next meeting on Thursday. These meetings usually focus on both spiritual and physical health, and this one, on the eve of Rosh Hodesh Av, is dedicated to hearing. The day’s activities begin at 10 a.m. with a lecture by Rivkah Ben-Yehuda on aligning the cervical spine for better hearing. This will be followed by a more spiritual lecture by Leah Golomb on attuning our hearing to the whispering of God.
Bracha Din will talk about listening to the message of love, and Mira Ra’anan about listening to one’s inner voice. Following a pot luck vegetarian lunch, Emuna Witt Halevi, who is one of the key transmitters of Carlebach’s teachings worldwide, will talk about the importance of loving one’s fellow being, which is the most appropriate teaching during the three-week mourning period leading up to Tisha Be’av. Leah Rivka Sand, one of the prime organizers of the event, will talk about her father, who died 36 years ago.
To get into the mood for the day, anyone with access to YouTube can watch the video of Carlebach telling the story of the blind hazan (cantor) of Lemberg. It is an extremely touching story that teaches people not to jump to conclusions that involve disliking or hating others.