OUR SYNAGOGUE 2011
Rabbi Marc Boone Fitzerman
Over many centuries of Jewish life, our forms of association have been in constant flux. To take an example close to my heart, my grandfather, Harry, is buried in Detroit, in a cemetery everyone calls Chesed Shel Emet. Except that the situation is slightly more complicated. Chesed Chel Emet is actually a constellation of burial grounds. One of these is the Ostrover tract. My grandfather, was probably born in Russia, although there is a long-standing association of Fitzermans and Liverpool. At some point along the way, he fell in with the Ostrovers, Polish Jews from a town near Krakow, more or less near the Slovakian border. This may have been the hometown of my grandmother’s family, although there is some dispute on this very point.
The Ostrover Burial Society was part of a larger organization, one of hundreds of landsmanschaften, guilds of immigrants who banded together in the early twentieth century to affirm their roots in a shared place of origin. They were extended families and mutual aid societies, and they lasted through the Second World War and beyond. Somewhere in the world—in many parts of the world—there are no doubt remnant groups like the Ostrovers, although their day has come and most certainly gone. The closest thing left is a Chassidic court, a new invention of the eighteenth century which has, itself, morphed into forms that would be fundamentally unrecognizable to first generation Chassidim.
Not so the Synagogue—the constant in Jewish life, at least since the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. All the forms of Jewish association—councils, self-governments, courts, and task forces—will continue to serve their important purposes. But they will be somehow limited by their fundamental simplicity, the fact that they are designed to do one particular thing. Without romanticizing the institution of the Synagogue, I would argue that the Synagogue is vastly more complex, designed to operate on many different levels, addressing cultural, intellectual, and social needs within a framework that connects it to a world of holiness, above the quotidian society in which it is set.
Not only that, but it offers multiple hierarchies. How do you become important to a synagogue? How do you ascend in the estimation of your peers? There are many routes to local prominence. Modest piety, wealth, and intellectual attainment all play a role, as does simple goodness, a love of one’s fellows. In other words, many different people can lead a synagogue and flourish within it. And the part about local is crucially important. Even if they are connected to national movements, every synagogue is radically independent, reflecting and shaping a local community. We are where people live and work and play, uniquely suited to be a vehicle of aspiration. We reflect the cranky independence of the Jews. As a cranky Jewish person, myself, I love that about the synagogues I know.
And I also love this particular synagogue. This has been a very good year at B’nai Emunah, in ways large and small, momentary and long lasting. Since we last spoke with each other in formal terms, the program of the congregation has grown and flourished, holding its own in a competitive marketplace. Our first-tier priority is investing the sacred calendar with a spirit of inventive joy and celebration. I would like to think that we accomplished that task in the way we embroider the givens of the tradition: adults who dance to the ark on Shavu’ot accompanied by the sound of communal drumming; children acting out the story of the Book of Esther, captured digitally, and projected on the night of Purim, all to the sound of the applause of their parents and their own astonished cries of surprise. We acted out the pilgrimage of the people Israel to Canaan by rising at seder and following our elders to Jerusalem. We blessed babies with Torah crowns in the Sanctuary of the Synagogue and put their happy parents beneath the canopy of a tallis. The idea in all of this is to go beyond the recited word to involve the body in joyful celebration.
The same was true of our experiment in baking. On the second day of Rosh Ha-Shanah, I held before you the braided marvels of Karen Goldberg—the challot that came from her expert hands—and promised that from the close of the holiday forward, we would be baking each Wednesday together at the Synagogue. Glory be, it actually worked. On happy occasions we have 10 people in the kitchen who have adopted challah baking as a spiritual practice, as a way of making themselves part of the world of Shabbat. More often we average four or six. Except for Pesach and the Wednesday of the ice storm, we have been consistent, productive, and happy in the kitchen. The body is alive at B’nai Emunah as a crucial category of religious experience. This year challah; next year matzah for Passover!
In the meantime, the signature programs of the Synagogue are flourishing. We are always in the news and attracting the attention of interested members of the larger community. The controversial playwright, Tony Kushner, was interviewed here by Tim Blake Nelson, who generously gave himself to the event and brought hundreds of people into the Sanctuary. We had an enormous crowd for “Rise Up Singing,” underwritten by Lori Frank and LaVonna Reed, in memory of Lori’s mother Sharna. It was, quite literally, a holding of hands with exactly the people in the general community with whom we want to align ourselves: broadminded, interesting folks who share the values of the Synagogue and want to engage in the most inclusive ways.
Those same good people turned out in force for the barn-raising experience of Sound and Spirit. Watching from the sidelines as part of Tech Crew B, I listened to the jubilance of Metropolitan Baptist Church, right after Ilu Finu and Salaam by our own new ensemble. We did ourselves proud, and we did it again a month later at Talking Heads. Ira Flatow was a feather in our cap, and we continue to position our Synagogue as a place of stimulating, healthy conversation. It is precisely this openness that makes us effective partners with BookSmart Tulsa and the estimable Jeff Martin, who uses our Sanctuary to concretize his vision of a more expansive, more deeply cosmopolitan community. Jonathan Safran Foer and Jann Martel were with us this past fall and winter, and we’re now on the schedule for Joanne Chang of the famous Flour Bakery. We have contributions to make to the cultural well-being of the city, and it is a blessing to be able to play our part.
The same is most certainly true of a project that bubbled up at a Board brainstorming session led by Dr. Leor Roubein at this time last year. Sally Donaldson and Terry Marcum came to the gathering to talk with us about the Ninety-Second Street Y and its satellite broadcasts of notable newsmakers, authors, intellectuals, and figures in the arts. One of the things I like best about the Synagogue is the very short distance between idea and execution. Stuart and Sherri Goodall responded to our proposal, and the Ninety-Second Street Y was up and running by January. Turnout has been great, the programs well-received, and we have activated another point of cultural connection at the Synagogue.
People come to us for many different reasons, including worship, study, and the pleasures of social interaction. Our job is to keep all of those circuits alive for the many different people who care about the Synagogue. I would say precisely the same thing about Gallery Emunah and the mix of artists who showed their work this year. David Lebow, Ruth Kaiser Nelson, Jonathan Johnson, Mark Weiss, Nina Butkin, Taylor Parish, Betty Lehman, and Wendeline Matson all had something interesting to say, and their work was beautifully curated by Sharon Cash.
Learning, too, was an area of high performance. Our association with the Institute of Southern Jewish Life continues to anchor the curriculum of our school, which itself has expanded into areas that afternoon Hebrew schools have been slow to explore. Ask a kid who has been on a bar and bat mitzvah camping trip what she thinks about getting a Jewish education, and you are likely to hear something different from the traditional testimony on this subject. Along the same lines, we have opened up a relationship with Ramah in the Rockies, the outward bound program that is new to Ramah. The advantage to us is that the program is great, the director, Rabbi Eliav Bock, is a star, Denver is a day away by car, and the program is flexible in length. This is very good news for young families at the Synagogue.
I am joyful to report that we have concluded another long-term contract with Eliyahu Krigel, our Director of Education, who is a thoroughgoing, credentialed Jewish educator, working at a very high level of proficiency, with an ease and grace that matches his expertise. He has beautifully partnered with Shelli Wright, our Preschool Director, who has once again led our staff to the highest levels in the field: NAEYC accreditation and a flawless, three-star designation from the Oklahoma Department of Human Services. My own work in our schools and with adults in the congregation has brought me endless satisfaction as a Jewish educator, which I think of as the central meaning of the title I hold. Imagine the scene at the Brasserie in Brookside: fourteen adults around a beautiful table, feasting on trout and the produce of early spring, celebrating the study of Tractate Sanhedrin. We set ourselves the challenging task of Chapter Six, worked it thoroughly and concluded in March. We are now deep into the opening chapters of the David cycle, and there are three other groups operating at a similar level. Talmud Torah keneged kulam: the study of Torah brings all of us to a special level of mindfulness and experience.
What’s next at the Synagogue? There is much to say. In another moment, our President, Leor Roubein, will speak about the substance of the congregation and lay out the importance of attending to our building, most especially its need for renovation. This is another way of speaking about the body of the congregation. On the programmatic side, we will continue to grow. Our work at McClure gets deeper and more complicated as we ask probing questions about our performance as partners. That is another way of modeling good behavior in the constellation of entitites involved in the Tulsa Public Schools. In the meantime, our program continues to get attention as the best of the best-practices programs in the community. Mitzvah Day at McClure was an important part of our commitment. You may have noticed the public announcement this week that the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce just awarded Congregation B’nai Emunah its “Dedicated Partnership Award,” recognizing the Synagogue’s enormous investment of time, treasure, and talent. Congratulations to Sherri Abramowitz and Elida Yeahquo for the thousands of hours of volunteer effort they have solicited from members and friends of the congregation and leveraged into boosting the McClure School family.
We will shortly take a step further into public service with a new version of our relationship with Metropolitan Baptist Church and the Mental Health Association of Tulsa. Our work with the homeless mentally ill at the Altamont Apartments has generated interest in a new effort at the Synagogue in creating an experimental commercial bakery. We will be testing new recipes in spring and early summer and gaining experience in baking side by side. That means ourselves, Metropolitan Baptist Church, and the residents of the Altamont. The Altamont Bakery, once it is up and running, will likely operate out of the kosher kitchens of the Synagogue, fulfilling manageable contracts for high-end baked goods. This is something we do very well, and I am eager to know if you’d like to participate. We’ll need people of great heart to pull this off, and I am confident that we are people of great heart.
Finally, we have begun to explore an important area of service involving elderly parents and their adult children. We’re calling it Takum, after the verse in Torah which commands that we rise in respect before our most senior members. The heart of the program will be monthly celebrations gathered around a beautiful Friday evening table. Senior Shabbat continues as before, but this new elaboration will involve parents and their children in intimate, joyful, Shabbat experiences. Many of our members—seniors and boomers—find themselves in new relationships with one another, and we want to facilitate where we can be wisely helpful. My personal thanks to David Hyman, whose insights and initiative are at the root of this important project.
Wisdom and service, themselves, come in many forms. I have already mentioned many of our staffers. Let me continue by thanking my colleagues Betty Lehman, Greg Raskin, Didi Ralph, Suzanne D’Eath, Keith Palmer, and Alicia Ferguson; and on the side of the school, Gwenn RedCorn and Kari Doyle. Betty does far more than make the trains run on time. She is superbly attentive to human need, and her taste and eye are evident in everything we do. Greg’s demeanor of welcome is an essential element in our success. He is an exceptionally skilled program director, and his ear is the necessary complement to Betty’s eye. The members of our staff are experienced, kind, and hardworking, with wisdom, insight, and a sense of continuity. To take just a single, representative example, Didi can tells us at a single keystroke the names of our vendors back to the French Revolution. And all of us are ready to plainly acknowledge our errors and re-commit to trying again.
I am deeply thankful to be involved with leaders and volunteers who put the Synagogue first in everything we do. I sometimes describe the meetings of our Board as a close Jewish equivalentof a Quaker meeting, marked by attentive listening, tact and deference, and a fundamental absence of pride or personal agenda. I would love to have someone study us for real. I think that there is a message here for the larger Jewish world about how boards manage to act like real people who genuinely care about others, their time and resources, and most of all their sense of fulfillment. We are beautifully led by Dr. Leor Roubein, who has deployed his goodness and his own commitment to transparency for the benefit of the congregation and its admiring members.
As for the rest, I am looking forward with excitement. This is the 95th year in the history of the congregation, or the 96th depending on how you count. We have begun to lay the groundwork for our centennial anniversary with the organization of our archive and some powerful early brainstorming. We have much to accomplish and much to be grateful for, and it will take us all of four or five years to get there. My hope is that we will do all of this imaginatively, addressing our challenges with wit and strength. This is a great adventure, and we have an opportunity to do lasting good. May God support us, guide us, and lead us forward, and let us all say: amayn, amayn.
