Last week the newly formed advocacy committee at Holy Blossom Temple reached out to our congregation. We asked you to make your voices heard regarding Opposition Resolution 658. As you are likely aware, Parliament passed this non-binding resolution on Monday evening. Some community partners see the passing of the resolution as an insult to the Canadian-Jewish community, a reminder that in the nationwide game of politics, we are vastly outnumbered. Other voices see the last-minute removal of the most extreme element of the resolution, the immediate and unconditional recognition of a Palestinian state, as a victory.
The answer likely lies in the middle. As Judaism teaches us again and again, these and these can both be true.
In moments like this, when our community comes together but the reach of our influence is unclear, it is more important than ever to remain steadfast. It is also vital to recognize and appreciate those who heed the call.
Then let me say, thank you! Thank you to our members who answered the charge and made their desires clear to our elected officials. Thank you for reaching out to members of parliament digitally, over the phone, and through the CIJA portal. Together with Jewish communities across the country, we generated more than 900,000 contact points with members of parliament. It made a difference, and you made a difference.
This weekend is our holiday of Purim. The Megillah has many messages, but one of the timeliest is that the decrees of government are not always just. Esther must reveal herself, take a stand, and fight for her people in the halls of power. Even when she is successful, her work is not over. In the final chapters of the Megillah, even after Haman is defeated, Esther must organize and continue to lead the Jewish people out of danger.
As it was in her day, so it is in ours. No matter how we view the outcome of Mondays vote, the work of Jewish Advocacy is not over.
In addition to our Purim celebrations, I want to highlight an important program, and a vital next step in our Advocacy work, that is happening next week. Dahlia Lithwick, Tiffany Moller, Guila Benchimol, Megan Stephens and Rabbi Yael Splansky will be leading a roundtable conversation at 7:30 pm on Wednesday, March 27th. This powerful evening will address the ongoing fight for justice and recognition regarding the sexual violence that Israelis experienced on October 7th. You can register here.
This week we need Purim, and its eternal message of hope, joy, resilience, and advocacy more than ever.
ליהודים היתה אורה ושמחה וששן ויקר (Esther 8:16)
The Jews enjoyed light and gladness, happiness, and honour.
So may it be for us as well, swiftly and in our day.
Chag Purim Sameach.
By Michael Cole
In 1943, at the height of World War Two, two people came to Holy Blossom who would hugely influence the direction the Temple would take in the post-war years, the years of greatest growth in its history.
Rabbi Feinberg gives words of wisdom to Heinz Warschauer at the latter’s retirement dinner in 1976.
Rabbi Abraham L. Feinberg and Heinz Warschauer came from very different backgrounds. Rabbi Feinberg was the son of a poor Orthodox chazzan from Lithuania. He grew up in a small coal mining town on the Ohio River. Heinz (as he was known to young and old) was the son of a physician and grew up in Berlin. They each had a checkered and colourful career before coming to Holy Blossom. And they each possessed a colourful and memorable personality.
Together, Rabbi Feinberg and Heinz Warschauer made Holy Blossom Temple, and its Religious School, into an iconic institution in Toronto and among Reform synagogues worldwide.
Rabbi Feinberg made late Friday night services the cornerstone of our worship, and he made music and a cantor central to these services. Later, he instituted daily services. He made Bar Mitzvah, along with Confirmation, an important rite of passage and introduced the Bat Mitzvah celebration to our congregation.
Heinz Warschauer, who soon became Director of Education, instituted a rigorous teacher training program into our Religious School and undertook extensive development of its curriculum. He encouraged students to attend the newly-established Reform camps in the United States.
Both Rabbi Feinberg and Heinz were passionate Zionists who believed that Israel was a central part of our Jewish identity.
Over the next several weeks, we will explore in more detail the lives of Rabbi Feinberg and Heinz Warschauer in this column and in our Atrium display cases. We look forward to remembering these two gentlemen eighty years after their arrival in Toronto.
If you have any items of archival interest that you wish to donate, please email us at [email protected].
You may wish to visit the Archives Committee displays at the far end of our atrium as well as the Living Museum display by the elevator.
By Sharoni Sibony
“We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.”
Thus wrote the African-American poet and novelist, Paul Laurence Dunbar, in 1895. I’ve been thinking of this poem a lot these past few months, as friends tell me about the moments when they’ve chosen not to disclose their Jewish identity, when they’ve taken off the Magen David necklace they’ve worn for years, when they play the role of the jester, laughing along with a colleague’s anti-Semitic language to get by. This year, some of us may be feeling more than usually the need to mask ourselves – for safety, for protection, for self-preservation, to preserve family relationships or friendships. Or some of us may be feeling a desire to boldly unmask, lay our authentic selves bare, be openly vulnerable, and/or reveal aspects of ourselves that we hide sometimes.
Dunbar was writing in response to the experience of being Black in Postbellum America, but I certainly hear the echoes of Queen Esther in his words – the studied, guarded, timed ways in which her own Jewish disclosure came to necessary, and fruitful, fruition.
Over the past few months, we’ve built up a monthly space for processing and reflecting upon our own experiences of the moment through creative acts, in a series we call ShavuART Tov: Sunday Sparks of Spiritual Creativity. This Sunday morning, we meet again to look at short texts from the Tanach about both Moses and Esther, as we explore the dynamics of hiding and revealing, closing and disclosing, masking and unmasking in our own lives, and prepare to deepen into Purim. Then we get to play with art materials as we quietly process our reflections on the texts. You do NOT have to have artistic tendencies to participate in the creative process – in fact, some of the most joyful and reflective participation comes from folks who play with simple lines or finger painting! (Of course, if you are artistically inclined, you are most welcome, too.)
In the meantime, I highly recommend watching this beautiful video from Girls In Trouble to get in the mood: https://vimeo.com/512690761
And on Monday night, I hope you’ll join us for an outward-facing take on this conversation: Talking to Our Families and Friends about Israel, with Dr. Betsy Stone – an online-only program in which we’ll be joined by visitors from various American communities for this important conversation.
1950 Bathurst Street, Toronto, ON, M5P 3K9
(416) 789-3291
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Founded in 1856, Holy Blossom Temple is Toronto’s first synagogue with a rich history of tradition and modernity in our religious and spiritual expression.