Cantor Szterenberg’s Message – 11/1/24
October 30, 2024
Sisterhood Stretch & Balance Event – Dec 2nd
November 7, 2024
November 22 Deadlines for Temple Travel Registration: Israel and Civil Rights
Travel with Temple Shaaray Tefila promises a quality, informative, and enjoyable Jewish experience. It also offers an opportunity to spend time together as a Temple community and get to know one another even better.
The Temple Shaaray Tefila Solidarity Mission to Israel, January 18 to January 24, 2025, will provide a powerful engagement with the people and places we read and hear about. Based in Jerusalem, it will also include some new and favorite venues to provide a well-rounded and full Israel experience. With my family living in Jerusalem, including our three grandchildren, this will be my third visit to Israel since the beginning of the war. Israel has greatly changed, and it will never be the same. What's more, each time we go these days, our family, friends and everyone we meet tell us how deeply touched they are by our presence and commitment. Please contact me at RabbiRoss@TempleST.org for more information and registration materials. Recently added, a first-timer, add-on option, beginning January 14, will bring us to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Masada and the Dead Sea, for an orientation that will serve as a foundation for our time together.
The Temple Civil Rights Journey to Atlanta, Birmingham, Selma, and Montgomery, February 28 to March 2, will put a Jewish lens to the struggle to establish civil rights in the United States. I've led this trip several times and participants return with a new perspective on our nation's recent history. We will visit the stunning new history venues, tour the Rosa Parks Museum, and attend Shabbat services in Montgomery, meet a participant in the March to Montomery and walk across the Pettus Bridge in Selma, attend services at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta where Rev. King preached, and much more. For this trip as well, please email me at RabbiRoss@TempleSt.org for more information.
Temple travel provides a meaningful and memorable experience, as I witness on every trip I lead. I hope you can join us.
Please register by November 22.
A number of you have spoken to me about the recent national election. While I certainly welcome private conversations on this topic and any other topic, it is important for Temple Shaaray Tefila to maintain a public, nonpartisan position.
To be sure, we have a diversity in belief within this beloved Temple. Moreover, as I believe and I underscore when I lead the Central Conference of American Rabbis training for the Intentional Interim Rabbi, an interim year is a time to reduce conflict, not increase it. However, I can go back to some points I raised before the election, which are as timely as ever.
First, do not underestimate the importance of writing, emailing, and calling your policy makers, on all levels. I recommend finding someone you like and writing them a letter of appreciation for their leadership. Start your letter by identifying yourself as a religious person, touch on no more than one issue, thank them, and ask them to stay strong in their position on whatever issue you choose to raise. Believe me, I have seen this personally through my 20 year career as a religious advocate in Albany, each one of those letters matters.
In addition, I would urge you to find an organization you like and join them in their lobby day in Albany or Washington, DC. Yes, even in Albany! I grew up in New York City, where I thought that anything important would happen in Manhattan or Washington, DC and that Albany was irrelevant --- until I started working in Albany in 2004, and my initial impression changed immediately. I saw, first hand, how things that are beyond reach in Washington are possible in Albany. So, keep Albany in your advocacy focus for face-to-face legislative visits.
As always, please feel free to reach out to me for a conversation.
Joining you in prayer and labor to make this nation and our state the best it can be,
Rabbi Dennis Ross
